{{Robert}}: This certainly isn't complete, but it's a start. I'll add more later, unless someone else volunteers. I've put it at TheLordofTheRings, because that's the actual name of the book. LordOfTheRings can be a redirect.

{{Pepinson}}: How are Frodo and Legolas designated heroes, and where's the prophecy twist?

{{Robert}}: Legolas achieves practically nothing, as Tolkien himself said. Frodo is explained on the DesignatedHero page. The prophecy twist is the death of the witch king, who no man could kill.

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{{Tanto}}: I liked the films a great deal, and I acknowledge the great debt most modern fantasy owes to Tolkien, but for the life of me I've never been able to enjoy the original books. This evidently makes me a heretic among fantasy fans, but I had to get it off my chest!

...So, anyway, I kind of take issue with the argument (not here, just in general) that subsequent fantasy is somehow lessened because it derives so much from Tolkien. Who cares? Chaucer was derivative. So was {{Shakespeare}}. The value of any story lies in its presentation...

FastEddie: See, Tanto, if you go slinging truth around like that ... the outcome could be messy. :-) I'm in your camp, I think. I read the books as a teen, and I remember using them as an example of "writer indulgence" in an essay for a class. Scored rather well, that paper. Tolkien was ''so'' absorbed by his notes. All that detail has absorbed a lot people, since then, though. Maybe in 400 more years we will all be remembering only {{Shakespeare}}, for the leaps of thought, and ''TheSimpsons'', for the detail.

{{Robert}}: Scoring well on essays has only the flimsiest of links with being right, even when there is an objective truth, which there wouldn't seem to be here. It's got rather more to do with rhetorical skill. I won't deny that there are some parts of [=LotR=] that could have been cut (though there are many who would dispute even that), but the sheer number of people who yearn for more about Middle Earth strongly suggests that Tolkien didn't indulge himself enough.

Of course, while describing something as indulgent is a nicely subtle way of smearing it as a wasteful pleasure, indulgence can actually be a good thing. A life without any indulgences is little better than complete sensory deprivation -- the plainest, cheapest foods (rather than indulging the taste buds), life in a plain white cell (rather than needlessly indulging the aesthetic sense), no recreational use of a computer (the purest indulgence) -- and such a life is not for many. Thus, I would not be impressed by attempts to dismiss Tolkien as an example of 'writer indulgence' without addressing the awkward fact of his great popularity (not that popularity implies greatness; that's a different debate.)

Tolkien had his roots too, mostly in genres a thousand years dead, so criticising his successors for copying him would be hypocritical, but Tolkien made original use of his sources, which not all of his successors have done. Those who do nothing but copy Tolkien without understanding are lesser writers; those (and there are many) who add something original are not.

However, we could spend ten years debating these points and get nowhere -- not one of my preferred indulgences. I'll try and restrain myself to Tolkien's tropes.

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{{Ununnilium}}: Argh! Why, why do we need another series name beginning with "The"? @.x

{{Robert}}: It's the name of the book. Blame Tolkien. :) Anyway, I think its seldom used in contexts where the 'the' must be omitted, unlike trope names. We may often want to talk about X being an Aragorn, making TheAragorn an awkward name; we do this with series and book titles somewhat less.

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Tamfang: I updated "Christopher Tolkien has published ten volumes" to "fifteen", counting ''The Silmarillion'', ''Unfinished Tales'', the 12 volumes of ''History of Middle Earth'', and ''The Children of Húrin'' (which appeared very recently).

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{{ccoa}}: Tolkien did ''not'' single-handedly create the HighFantasy genre. GeorgeMacDonald began the high fantasy genre with his novel ''Phantastes'' in 1858 and his remake of it as ''Lillith'' in 1895. Tolkein's works were noticably influenced by [[GeorgeMacDonald MacDonald's]] novels. As such, I have changed that line to something a little more accurate.

{{Max}}: ...Sorry, who?

{{ccoa}}: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_MacDonald George MacDonald]]. I swear, no one reads anything older than 50 years unless it's required for a class.
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SatanicHamster: I find this a bit questionable:
*KissingCousins (Aragorn and Arwen) Albeit so many generations removed that it hardly matters: Arwen is the daughter of Elrond, and Aragorn is the great-great-etc.-grandson of Elros, Elrond's brother.

Isn't this more like having crush on a great, great, etc. grand aunt or something?

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{{Narvi}}: For the UT who got his FridgeLogic about dragonfire destroying Rings of Power; it ''doesn't apply for the One Ring''. They tell you that ''in the same scene''. ''Learn to read''. Teehee.

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{{McJeff}}: There are an immense amount of tropes on this entry that have no explanation of any sort. They need to be explained or removed. I haven't edited on this entry yet, so I'll give it a week or so before I start cleanups.

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berr: Removed the VegetaAndKakarot reference from the "Characters" page and replaced with RedOniBlueOni. (consolidated trope)

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I don't want to start a whole ''thing'' so I thought I'd bring this up here first. The Army of the Dead (at least as it's portrayed in the film version of the Return of the King, seems to this troper to be one big, stonking Deus Ex Machina.

Oh no! We don't have enough troops to fight the big bad's army of ultimate badasses! What are we going to do? Well, you could go talk to that big, even badass-ier army that we've never mentioned before (like, say, at Helm's Deep) and just happens to be right next to our camp, and happens to be bound by a curse that only you can break, Aragorn. Convenient, huh?

Or is it just me.

BattleHamster: It's not just you, if you're talking about the movies.

In the book, of course, they are gray shades who drive the Corsairs into a "madness of terror", like a much individually weaker but way more numerous version of the Nazgul, making them jump overboard. (They had the same affect on Gondorians, who fled their homes.) Then Aragorn releases them, because (1) an army that does that to everyone isn't much good in a normal battle and (2) they fulfilled their oaths. But the Gondorian captives were chained to their oars, so they couldn't jump. After they get over the horror, they come along with Aragorn and the Rangers (who were menioned way back at the Council of Elrond and have been around for a while) to Minas Tirith on the Corsairs' ships. Plus the (previously mentioned, as in "Oh God, why haven't more of them arrived to defend Minas Tirith yet? We're running out of time here!") people from the coasts of Gondor join up with them. And it's still a long and hard fight after that, in which many people die, as mentioned in a (this is JRRT) song at the end of the chapter.

In the movie, bunch of glowing, green ghosts sweep the ground before Minas Tirith clean of the enemy. Man, too bad Theoden and the Rohirrim bothered to show up. All they really needed to win were a bunch of magic ghosts.

Sorry, but that was always kind of a BerserkButton for me.

Alright, well I put a Deus Ex Machina tag and specify it's for the films.