Scariest Thing In All Of Tolkien's Creation...Ever

[Durelin]

Originally Posted by Folwren

I think the Nazgul are the scariest thing in all Tolkien's creation ever in my opinion. They're the only thing that kept me up at night while I was reading the book.

Definitely have to agree. I remember being quite terrified, reading about the first Nazgul encounter late at night... I remember it described as if they crawled, which really freaked me out, perhaps because of a connection with creepy-crawly things like bugs...but I think the last time I went back to try and find such a description I couldn't find it, so I might have created the image myself.

I also agree that spiders are just horrifying. I hate, hate, hate them. Hate.

For example, this:

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

There was one in our house last week, sitting above the cot. I'm not scared of spiders, in fact I think they're quite cool, but it was so big I had to go and fetch a jug to catch it in and it just fell off the wall and nonchalantly scuttled away under the bed, where it remains. I swear it was like a shaved tarantula....

would make me want to burn down my house (after I run screaming from it). That room would at least be quarantined for a good while, all cracks around the door taped over...even after I sent in one of my many personal spider-killers.

Also the Silent Watchers, as Lommy mentioned. How they and the effect they had on Frodo were described was extremely freaky...

Of course I say all of this noting that I have not read The Lord of the Rings in quite a while...

[Folwren]

Originally Posted by Durelin

I also agree that spiders are just horrifying. I hate, hate, hate them. Hate.

We must be much alike, Durelin. I, too, hate spiders. Today, I was clambering up a ledge by the river to jump in to the water, and I almost put my hand on a gigantic spider...it was all brownish-grey, so it blended in with the rock, and when I saw it, I jerked back my hand and screamed... it was HUGE! Probably a lot like Lal's spider.

[Morthoron]

Other than envisioning naked Hobbits cavorting about the Barrow Downs, the most indelible images of horror I can recall are...

1) The Nazgul in the Prancing Pony stabbing the beds of the Hobbits.

2) The Nazgul at the Ford crying “Come back! Come back! To Mordor we will take you!” As Frodo weakly fought them alone. It is a chilling scene, and one of the most irritating omissions of the movie.

3) The bloated faces in the Dead Marshes (scared the begeezes out of me as a kid).

4) The thought of Helm Hammerhand frozen to death where he stood in the snow (the same creepy feeling as seeing Jack Nicholson frozen to death at the end of The Shining).

5) As Lalwende said, the death of Baldor in the Paths of the Dead (the sheer madness brought on by the apparitions before the actual death is what is gruesome).

[Dimturiel]

1 Grond. I always get shivers down my spine when I read how it advaces towards Minas Tirith. I remember I first read The Siege of Gondor at night and then I had to sleep with my light on

2. The trees of the Old Forest attacking the Hedge. Actually make that the trees of the Old Forest in general.

3. The "dark things" that "creep from sunless woods" and "houseless hills" Aragorn talks of at the council of Elrond. I know they're probably only orcs or trolls, but the way he speaks about them scares me.

4. The man found in the Paths of the Dead lying beside a closed door, with his fingerbones still clawing at the cracks. That's really a terrifying image.

That's about all I can think of for now that has not been said before...

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Dimturiel

4. The man found in the Paths of the Dead lying beside a closed door, with his fingerbones still clawing at the cracks. That's really a terrifying image.

That's about all I can think of for now that has not been said before...

Yeah, that's poor Baldor. It's one of the nastiest things I've ever read (I don't know why it resonates so much, but it does). Breaking a man's legs and then leaving him there. He must have died trying to claw his way out. Maybe it's a bit like being buried alive? Ugh.

[Eönwë]

Ok, I'll give a list:

18.Shelob (and Ungoliant)- Huge, dangerous spiders, ok? One managed to suck the light out of a Vala's greatest work. You get the picture...
7.Tol-in-Gaurhoth + Vampires-Horrible- trapping spirits and putting them in animals.
6.Silent Watchers- The reason is in the name, and also in the effect they have on others
5.Sauron- Not in LOTR, but everywhere else he is quite terrifying.
4.Baldor's death and the rest of the paths of the dead- I happen to find that sort of thing scary. I almost put this much higher.
3.Barrow-Downs (and wights).- When I first read the book, I really liked Tom Bombadil, but didn't really want to reread this chapter. All that darkness, and cold stone, and cold metal. Even the fungus is probably afraid to go there (or has died too. And the wight (I mean white!*) clothes.
2.Nazgul- All that following and distant shadows really scared me. After the attack they are slightly less scary, but still higher than the stuff behind them.
1. The things like Ungoliant and Tom Bombadil that aren't named. Put Nameless Things in that category too. I don't know if they are the same- Could be anything.


*You know I actually did write wight instead of white.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

I must be weird or something, but I think that Lothlorien is scary, but amazing at the same time. Just the timelessness of it and how time does not move forward. It would drive me bonkers, I'd probably commit suicide if I had to live there. Plus Galadriel, at her mirror. That was just freaky.

The Nazgul just don't do the whole scary thing for me, it might be because I saw the movies first and Peter Jackson just doesn't make them scary enough.

Sauron just isn't scary, a giant eyeball? Come on... there are scarier things.

Ungoliant is just freaky, giant spider=more creepy than regular spider, regular sized spiders=nasty...

The Barrow-Downs, as much as I've come to love it here, is just horrible. I have to agree that having the Barrow-wight taking the hobbits' clothes off is pretty perverted... and having them run around naked afterwards... that's just weird. (this of course being more perverted in the teenage mind)

Plus Caradhras is pretty scary, it's a mountain that has feelings and makes avalanches and snow storms and the like to kill whoever is on it, now that's pretty scary right there.

Plus the Paths of the Dead is pretty creepy... A bunch of dead guys that are trying to kill you... Death itself doesn't scare me, because if I'm lucky and haven't been too sinful, I will go to heaven, but having a bunch of dead dudes chase me because I have gone into their lair, just doesn't do it for me.

I probably can think of more scary things later, but I'm done with this post for now.

[A Little Green]

Indeed I must agree that probably the scariest things are those nameless ones in the darkness. Other than that...

Nazgûl in the Shire. I don't think they are scary when they are many and in a dark evil place and flying and leading armies and stuff - but they definitely freak me out in the Shire, in contrast to the peacefulness and seeming safety of the surroundings, and when the hobbits don't yet know what they are. "There were words in that cry..." *shudders*

Places like the Barrow Downs or Moria or Shelob's lair, where there is the atmosphere of a brooding evil somewhere but it's not yet known precisely what or where it is. They cease to be scary when the concrete evil or the "monster" of the place appears and becomes known.

Proud, ambitious, brilliant minds that fall into madness. It's a theme that repeats itself quite a lot in Tolkien's work, and also a theme I find really really scary.

And, finally, the white wolves that come over the Brandywine. Brrrr...