The Nightmare World of Tolkien

[Lalwendë]

Boo!

Are you scared? Open Lord of the Rings and you will be. There are Orcs hungry to kill. Fell Beasts swooping from the skies with blood-curdling screams. Ringwraiths, faceless, cloaked, and who will relentlessly hunt you down. Giant spiders who will inject you with poison and slowly consume you alive. Wizards with dark intent. Trees that walk. Demons of shadow and fire.

Open this book and you will find horrors beyond your worst nightmares. Constant peril. And you will lap it up.

Tolkien's books have spawned a whole industry for readers truly enchanted by what they have read about. Dungeons and Dragons games where you can act the hero. Or the Dark Lord. Act out your darkest fantasies. Orcs stalk our imaginations; they are the Goblins, the pixies of the modern age and some of us want to understand them. Everyone dreams of being a Wizard, all-powerful with a magical staff. We buy swords and think they're cool. People ask about Dark Elves, hoping they are something more than just an Elf who has not seen the Light.

Whatever Tolkien's intent, he stirred rabid imaginations and dark dreams up in readers. Even the good guys inspire us to take up a sword and Hack! Slash! Kill! Do we want to be a diplomatic Aragorn seeking understanding and a peace treaty with the Orcs? No, we want to cut their nasty little heads off. The story of this really bad Wizard, Saruman, is built up and up until we're dying to meet him, and we do, and he's fascinating. What was he up to with his experiments? What are the five staffs? What magics can they do?

I picked up LotR and something stirred in me. I was swept away with this world of magic, of shadows, of peril and Dragons. Wow, I said in hushed tones. Every tree I saw was filled with chaotic intent. Would it try to eat me? And what about Gollum? Ergh! He's creepy! But cool, too. He sneaks around, just like I wanted to do. And Rings that make you invisible? What an amazing thing that would be. I'd use it for far more than to hide from the neighbours! For sneaking, in fact.

This world Tolkien created is incredibly seductive. We like peril and we like monsters. Why? What do you like?

Tolkien had a real taste for the Gothic, and he knew how to write Gothic too. When you read his most horrific passages they are written with a real relish, as though he can see and feel those horrors. Why did he love it so much?

Is LotR one of the greatest Gothic novels written? As for something else Gothic, I've never yet met a Goth who hasn't read Tolkien. And as for weird rock stars, who hasn't heard Jimmy Page's songs? Even Peter Jackson recruited the greatest star of Gothic Horror, Christopher Lee, to play Saruman with delicious glee.

Finally, here are a few passages to whet your appetite.

Torture

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

Blood Lust

These staves he spoke, yet he laughed as he said them. For once more lust of battle was on him; and he was still unscathed, and he was young, and he was king: the lord of a fell people. And lo! even as he laughed at despair he looked out again on the black ships, and he lifted up his sword to defy them.

Thing

He heard behind his head a creaking and scraping sound. Raising himself on one arm he looked, and saw now in the pale light that they were in a kind of passage which behind them turned a corner. Round the corner a long arm was groping, walking on its fingers towards Sam, who was lying nearest, and towards the hilt of the sword that lay upon him.

Werewolves and Vampires

By the counsel of Huan and the arts of Luthien he was arrayed now in the name of Draugluin, and she in the winged fell of Thuringwethil. Beren became in all things like a werewolf to look upon, save that in his eyes there shone a spirit grim indeed but clean; and horror was in his glance as he saw upon his flank a bat-like creature clinging with creased wings. Then howling under the moon he leaped down the hill, and the bat wheeled and flittered above him.

Devil Worship

The Men of Darkness built temples, some of great size, usually surrounded by dark trees, often in caverns (natural or delved) in secret valleys of mountain-regions; such as the dreadful halls and passages under the Haunted Mountain beyond the Dark Door (Gate of the Dead) in Dunharrow. The special horror of the closed door before which the skeleton of Baldor was found was probably due to the fact that the door was the entrance to an evil temple hall to which Baldor had come, probably without opposition up to that point. But the door was shut in his face, and enemies that had followed him silently came up and broke his legs and left him to die in the darkness, unable to find any way out.

Eight Legged Freaks

she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness. Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, from the Ephel Duath to the eastern hills, to Dol Guldur and the fastnesses of Mirkwood. But none could rival her, Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world.