The Nightmare World of Tolkien

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Great topic, Lal! You've brought up a fascinating aspect we haven't discussed at length yet.

Interestingly, though I am not a fan of Gothic novels or other blood-curdling stories, and though battle depictions and and descriptions of violence, torture, etc. usually make me turn the pages of a book faster to get over them (or hold my hands in front of my eyes in a movie - yes, I really do), I don't avoid them in LotR. Whether in the book or in the movie*, I can handle aspects that I normally do not enjoy, just because they are embedded in this fantastic tale.

I wonder what it is about the context that keeps me from cringing when someone is killed or scary creatures are described? Is it the Hobbit viewpoint, having the Shire in the background as an island of security, or the strong good characters such as Gandalf and Aragorn who give me the feeling of safety as I travel with them?

Or have I simply read the book so often that I have lost the fear I felt upon reading it the first time?


*Admittedly, it helped that a lot of the blood shed there was orcish, which is black - somehow it doesn't scream out at one like red blood does!

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

I wonder what it is about the context that keeps me from cringing when someone is killed or scary creatures are described? Is it the Hobbit viewpoint, having the Shire in the background as an island of security, or the strong good characters such as Gandalf and Aragorn who give me the feeling of safety as I travel with them?

I have a sense similar to Estelyn's, and given what SaucepanMan suggested on the Lord of the Bible thread thread, I would suspect that he also finds the horror muted in LotR as well. In part, we are given more the effect of evil on the characters rather than having evil depicted directly but I like your idea that the comforting beginning with The Shire acts as a prophylactic context.

Of course, reading is entirely a personal matter so one person's goosebumps are as good as another's shivers.

Farmer Maggot's dogs were scary. Come to think of it, Farmer Maggot himself put a bit of fear into Frodo, didn't he?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bethberry

In part, we are given more the effect of evil on the characters rather than having evil depicted directly but I like your idea that the comforting beginning with The Shire acts as a prophylactic context

.

I think we see both. There are so many examples where Tolkien seems to relish describing a monster or the effects of evil on the mind of another character. Yes, he does not often actually describe blood and gore in the sense that he does not write things like: "the Orc was writhing on the ground, his entrails oozed from his torn apart abdomen and the vultures licked their lips with the prospect of a still warm, breathing meal." But he does not shirk from showing us horror.

Tolkien's horror is the sophisticated and slightly unsettling high Gothic of the Wicker Man (original, not unpleasant remake ) as opposed to the video nasty of The Evil Dead or The Hills Have Eyes. Things left partly said, hinted at and undescribed can be as horrific as anything graphic.

Although the Witch King's words to Eowyn are pretty graphic to anyone with a vivid imagination, and it takes a vivid imagination to enjoy Tolkien.

He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye

I can really picture this in my mind. The dark, dank fortress of the Houses of Lamentation, the dungeons like something out of Edgar Allen Poe, prisoners screaming. And the torture, the pain. Ugh. Just hovering over those lines makes me feel chilled, and yet the first time I read the book I probably skimmed over them; its only on subsequent readings when you're slowly savouring the language that moments like that jump out and say Boo!

[Boromir88]

What about when the Witch-King 'sees' Frodo? I'll leave you with this to savour

And I never really noticed that quote before, so that makes us even.

I think what makes it so effective is the description and using comparisons we as readers are aware of:

1. Frodo waited, like a bird at the approach of a snake, unable to move....what a great simile here, and it's effective because it's something we all can experience and connect with. Which makes it all the more terrifying.

2. A careful use of words...'sweeping the shadows' and 'dead silence.' Those can also unnerve you. It's not in the sense that gets to jump out of your seat. But it's more sublte, which makes it an unsettling type of fear.

3. the dark head helmed and crowned with fear...that says it all right there, I mean a helm crowned with fear, just picture that one.

Nice example Lal, didn't notice that before.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

And I never really noticed that quote before, so that makes us even.

I think what makes it so effective is the description and using comparisons we as readers are aware of:

1. Frodo waited, like a bird at the approach of a snake, unable to move....what a great simile here, and it's effective because it's something we all can experience and connect with. Which makes it all the more terrifying.

2. A careful use of words...'sweeping the shadows' and 'dead silence.' Those can also unnerve you. It's not in the sense that gets to jump out of your seat. But it's more sublte, which makes it an unsettling type of fear.

3. the dark head helmed and crowned with fear...that says it all right there, I mean a helm crowned with fear, just picture that one.

Nice example Lal, didn't notice that before.

The bird/snake thing is a good image I'd not thought about. That reminds me of The Jungle Book, where Mowgli is held hypnotized by Kaa the Python before he strikes (I'm sure that film is why so many kids grow up afraid of snakes!); and reminiscent of those nightmares where a madman is coming at you with an axe but you just can't run away!

And those unseen eyes, seeing everything.

Also, the fact that a whole army can halt and be utterly silent, and that this happens in what's called his valley, and he is troubled. Surely the word troubled should apply to Frodo here? But no, the Witch King, like a sinewy old cat, has sensed someone or something in his territory.

[drigel]

The essential characteristics of the scary things seem out of context to the modern world. But, in the context of the ME primordial world, they are all nature (or nature corrupted) oriented, primary things that are stripped of most (post middle ages that is) societal cues or references.

we are given more the effect of evil on the characters rather than having evil depicted directly

well put. The scary things arent the focus of the story, but the fundamental element of evil is.

It's sort of essential to the realism (if fantasy can seem real to a certain extent*) that violence and blood stuff be included.

I always imagine that the flesh eating and blood stuff to be more of a fact of life to the players, than it is scary for the reader. The reality of a time or an age like that IMO would in fact be quite a bit more dirty, gritty and gruesome than the author revealed or expanded upon.

I have had a couple of dreams about ME, none of them scary. As to the works, for me, it's the implied scary that has the most impact. Not "dont turn off the nightlight!" scary, but a scary that provokes the imagination. I would have to turn to the Silm to find my scariest:

Sheer were the precipices of Ered Gorgoroth, and beneath their feet were shadows that were laid before the rising of the Moon. Beyond lay the wilderness of Dungortheb, where the sorcery of Sauron and the power of Melian came together, and horror and madness walked. There spiders of the fell race of Ungoliant abode, spuming their unseen webs in which all living things were snared; and monsters wandered there that were born in the long dark before the Sun, hunting silently with many eyes. No food for Elves or Men was there in that haunted land, but death only.

Mountains of Terror, Valley of Dreadfull Death. The stuff of (real) nightmares for, not only a Beleriand inhabitant, but all living things. Blood, guts and insanity indeed.

[Anguirel]

My personal favourite-

"A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, fingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil. And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats, until it grew beyond the measure of all other things that fly; and he gave it to his servant to be his steed."

The nameless things gnawing at the mountains and the Nan Dungortheb creepies mentioned above get honourably commended.

For me, the frighteningness of Tolkien's nasties usually is most pronounced when they are in some way sketchy, unarticulated and unarticulatable. "A creature of an older world maybe it was." I think it's because Tolkien is such a meticulous namer and describer that what really chills the bone-marrow is when his description blurs, not when it sharpens. The Balrog loses much of its terrifying nature after we find out what it is from the Silmarillion, for me at least. If something evil is named, then you resist it; simple enough. But how do you fight against nameless things? Things like the creatures of an older world, like Sauron himself, like the malaise that overcomes Frodo and blights his life...

[ninja91]

Good point. Fighting a Balrog is no doubt an awesome spectacle. But the eerieness and fear is much greater when you fight an unknown being. A "being of an older world" just makes it sound more ancient and powerful: definitely something that you would not want to mess around with!

[Lalwendë]

I always think the fell beats sounds quite an attractive creature myself - not in the cute and cuddly way, but in the creepy, fascinating way, like a big stinking Komodo Dragon (they really do smell of rotten meat) or maybe those fantastic Pterosaurs that they had in the 70s cartoon Valley of the Dinosaurs. With this one, its the language that gets to me - forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon - wow, sounds like something out of the later chapters of Frankenstein.

Although having said that there is this little fear factor:

nursed it with fell meats

I really don't want to know what fell meats are. I feel sure they are not merely mystery meats (much as you get at a kebab van!), but the fact that they were nursed with these meats suggests that they are special, and I just don't want to know what meat this is!

I think Tolkien was well aware of where an unsaid word would mean much, much more than a spoken one. The suggestion of the boggart behind the door is more scary tahn seeing him.

Though to make myself laugh about it, I like to think Fell Meats could be Special Stuff from Hilary Briss's Butchers shop in Royston Vesey, or maybe processed sandwich fillings manufactured in an horrific back street enterprise somewhere in Hull.

[ninja91]

They sound kind of like fell dragons. Like more evil and twisted than Smaug. Or Necro-dragons. That sounds kind of cool...

[Child of the 7th Age]

Great topic Lalwende and many interesting points. Anguiriel - I think you're onto something. That which is nameless and unarticulated terrifies us the most.

Bear with me for a minute as I am coming into this question through another back door.

Many people complain about the lack of characterization in Tolkien's book, saying that we don't get inside the characters' heads the way a reader would in much modern fiction. This point can be debated endlessly, of course, but too often we fail to see things Tolkien puts inside his characters just because the author uses techniques and images that many other authors would not. I'm speaking particularly of Tolkien's handling of the horrific and how he links horror to what is going on inside the heart of a particular character.

How many books/movies have we digested where horror is depicted as a string of individual images accosting our sense from the outside, something foreign to us that pops up periodically on our viewing screen? A brief shock value but nothing more.

Tolkien did not do this. What is horrible in Tolkien is not just what is happening on the outside but on the inside as well. The outside image of the horrible thing (whatever it is) is not as dreadful as what happens to that image when transferred to the human, hobbitish, Elvish, or perhaps even Orcish heart. This is certainly true of characters who have "gone bad"---to me, one of the most horrific aspects of the story is to see characters like Gollum and Wormtongue who have obviously been perverted by images of the hideous. These individuals have been so twisted that they themselves have become mirror images of the horrific things they have seen and experienced.

But it isn't only the bad guys. It's even true of relatively "innocent" characters like the hobbits. The torments of Frodo are certainly a case in point, but he is not the only one of the Shirelings to stare evil in the face. Even a carefree Took could be affected. Here is a quote from a scene involving Pippin when the hobbit and Beregond hear the Black Riders and see them swoop down on Faramir during the Siege of Gondor:

Suddenly as they talked they were stricken dumb, frozen as it were to listening stones. Pippin cowered down with his hands pressed to his ears; but Beregond…remained there, stiffened, staring out with starting eyes. Pippin knew the shuddering cry that he had heard: it was the same that he had heard long ago in the Marish of the Shire, but now it was grown in power and hatred, piercing the heart with a poisonous despair.

What would be more powerful---to describe the physical nastiness of the Black Riders or to depict the effect that horror has a simple beholder like Pippin? Often, Tolkien opts for the latter. It's not coincidence that the wraiths' main weapons are not physical ones, but overwhelm their victims with fear and despair. What's especially scary is that the reader encounters instances in the story when good guys like Bilbo and Frodo actually begin to take on some of the characteristics of the horrific characters they've already faced, e.g., Frodo's transparency that can be interpreted in several different ways, or Bilbo's adoption of a term like "my preciousss".

The other point that must be born in mind in any discussion of the horrific is the author's insistence on the presence of evil that lies within the very fabric of Arda. A ringwraith on his own really isn't that horrifying. It's the fact that the ringwraith is part of a much larger shadow, something so powerful that it's virtually impossible for any living being to resist. Tolkien's evil isn't smart or polished or funny or even attractive as happens in so many stories -- it's just plain despicable.

Again one of the most "horrifying" words to me in all of Middle-earth is "Shadow". It's something that's there/not there, neither living nor dead, and it seems to sum up what's wrong at the heart of the universe. Those creepy creatures and images aren't just isolated events. They are part of a total picture of the world which is frankly very scary. Tolkien's evil is like a steam roller bearing down on us. No matter how we resist, no matter how many small victories we win, it is going to get us in the end, and there is nothing we can really do about in this world.

[Bêthberry]

A nicely developed post, Child. All this 'unsaid' thing reminds me of aesthetic theories of the strip tease--it's the gap and the implication that excites the imagination, not the actual display.

Yet I think Anquirel's favourite suggests something else too about Tolkien's brand of horror.

Originally Posted by Anquirel

My personal favourite-

Quote:
"A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, fingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil. And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats, until it grew beyond the measure of all other things that fly; and he gave it to his servant to be his steed."

Read this passage aloud. It's beat, rhythm, alliteration--why, it is the sound of things that also creates a brooding sense of horror. Poetry tingles the spine so much more!

[The Saucepan Man]

Let me add my name to the list of those noting their appreciation of this topic.

Unfortunately, I only have time for a brief comment or two.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I have a sense similar to Estelyn's, and given what SaucepanMan suggested on the Lord of the Bible thread thread, I would suspect that he also finds the horror muted in LotR as well.

Bb, my comment on that thread was directed more to my feeling that Tolkien had morally cleansed Faerie - "the high purged of the gross". The principal characters of Tolkien's Faerie are not the mischievous and sometimes amoral characters of traditional Faerie. But the "horrors" of the perilous realm are certainly there, as the collection of quotes that have accumulated on this thread clearly show. Gothic horror is obviously not what Tolkien is "known for", as it is not the sole constituent of his tales. But he does use the technique infrequently, where appropriate to the story.

I do not count the ever-pervasive presence of the Shadow in the East nor the seductive malice of the Ring as truly gothic elements. They are, to my mind, more essential elements of the "evil force" generally present in (and characteristic of) fantasy literature. But specific manifestations of the shadow clearly are often presented in gothic terms, as these quotes indicate.

I also agree with Anguirel and others that it is often that which is less well defined which provokes the greater horror. The description of the fell beasts is a good example of this and, reading it again, it puts me very much in mind of HP Lovecraft's tales of unimaginable horrors. One of Lovecraft's hallmarks is the manner in which he gives only glimpses of the unnameable Elder Gods that lurk in the background of his stories and he provides only patchy detail even when describing those creatures which feature prominently in them. The suggestion (and indeed the basis for much of what he wrote) is that anything more would do untold damage to our sanity.

As I said, the description of the fell beasts and some of the other quoted passages put me in mind of Lovecraft, who was primarily writing in the 1920s. I am sure that Tolkien would have been aware of him but, given the similarity of style in these passages, I wonder to what extent he may have been familiar with his work.