Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing

Tools

Toys

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

Custom Search
0 reviews
The Lord Of The Rings
alt title(s): Lord Of The Rings
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the Darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

With those words, Sauron forged the One Ring, the vessel of his power and the pivot on which the fate of Middle-earth would turn for five thousand years — until the most unlikely of heroes did the one thing Sauron could never have imagined, and brought his dark tower tumbling down.

The story was originally intended as a shorter sequel to The Hobbit, but as its author famously remarked, "the tale grew in the telling." The Lord of the Rings is too well-known, and too complex, to be summarised in full, but in brief, Frodo Baggins, one of the hobbit gentry, learns that the magical trinket he inherited from his uncle Bilbo is actually the One Ring, Sauron's masterpiece. While it exists, Sauron cannot truly be destroyed; should Sauron ever regain it, ultimate victory will be his.

Frodo, his cousins Merry and Pippin, and his gardener Sam take the Ring to the Elves of Rivendell, where Elrond fills in the rest of the Back Story. There it was decided that the Ring cannot be kept there since Sauron would stop at nothing to reclaim it and its malignant influence would threaten to corrupt all who would attempt to guard it and especially those foolish enough to think they could wield it. However, it was decided that one thing Sauron would not expect would be for his enemies to destroy it, a feat only possible in the fiery bowels of Mount Doom in the Land of Mordor, the Dark Lord's province. To that end, the hobbits are joined by five more characters, selected by Elrond to represent all the races of Middle-earth: Legolas, an elven archer; Gimli son of Gloin, a dwarf; Aragorn, rightful heir to the throne of the human kingdom of Gondor; Boromir, heir to the Steward (the current ruler) of Gondor; and the wizard, Gandalf the Grey.

Before long, Gandalf is lost in combat against an ancient evil, leaving the fellowship following Aragorn. When Boromir succumbs to the lure of the Ring, Frodo decides to complete the quest singlehandedly. Sam manages to catch up with him, but the others are unable to, due to being embroiled in a battle with the minions of Saruman, the first among wizards — and traitor to the forces of good. Boromir dies a Karmic Death.

Guided by Gollum, a previous victim of the Ring, Frodo and Sam sneak into Mordor, Sauron's realm, making their way towards the only place where the Ring can be destroyed: the volcanic fire in which it was originally created. Meanwhile, Gandalf has returned from the dead as Gandalf the White and leads Aragorn and the Fellowship in a series of epic battles which keep Sauron distracted from the real threat until it's too late.

When the hobbits return home, they find that Saruman has taken over their homeland, but after they defeat his minions, Saruman is killed by his Renfield, Gríma.

The book was recently adapted into three films (directed by Peter Jackson) with great commercial and critical success. The films were faithful in many respects, though they omitted several subplots due to time constraints, most notably completely changing the events leading to Saruman's death. The debate as to whether the films are Pragmatic Adaptation, Adaptation Distillation or Adaptation Decay still rages on the Internet. Among the contested issues are the depictions of Faramir, Arwen, Denethor, and other characters. Overall though, they are still widely considered to be among the very best movies ever made.

There have been at least two Animated Adaptations as well, neither nearly as well-done. There has also been a BBC radio adaptation, two Tabletop RPGs set in Middle-earth, and several video games, from early text adventures to the latest Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

There was an aborted attempt by John Boorman to adapt the books in the 70's. It would've been live action and the notes from it might have suggested that adaptation might have looked like Zardoz.

The majority of tropes used in LotR are well-explained, unlike in the majority of its imitators. Mordor, for example, has large fertile areas, and the Artifact Of Doom Ring is more than just a convenient MacGuffin — its effects matter too much for that. This is largely due to the immensely elaborated Back Story.

There were, though, some tropes JRR Tolkien couldn't justify to his satisfaction. He spent years trying to decide how orcs could be Always Chaotic Evil without being born evil or soulless (options he didn't think Morgoth, their corruptor, had the power to achieve), but never found any answer he liked. It was philosophical niggles like this that stopped him publishing the The Silmarillion in his lifetime. His son Christopher did it anyway.

NOTE: Trope examples are split into sections for the original and the different adaptations.

This book includes examples of, or the sources for (adaptation tropes have their own sections further down):

Adaptations of The Lord of the Rings:

    open/close all folders 

    Ralph Bakshi's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings 
    Rankin Bass' adaptation of The Return of the King 

    Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films 
Lord Of The Flies
« Literature »
The Lords Of Creation
Code Geass
« Trope Overdosed »
Mega Man
new edits
forum
page history
edit page
view source
discuss
Creative Commons License
This wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.