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Rise and shine, Elves, you've got a long journey ahead.

The tales of the First Age when Morgoth dwelt in Middle-earth and the Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, to which are appended the downfall of Númenórë and the history of the Rings of Power and the Third Age in which these tales come to their end.
The Silmarillion, title page inscription

The Silmarillion is J. R. R. Tolkien's book of the history of Middle-earth, from the creation of the universe to the end of the Third Age. Tolkien had been working on it for most of his life until his death in 1973. His first book The Hobbit was not originally planned to share the same setting, but ended up that way, and its sequel The Lord of the Rings continued and concluded the narrative of the setting. It was posthumously edited by his son and literary executor Christopher (with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, later a fantasy author himself) and finally published in 1977.

Originally, The Silmarillion was Tolkien's attempt to make a purely "English" mythology based on Welsh, Saxon, Finnish, and Norse sources. What it eventually became was a "Pan-European" constructed world, growing ever more intricate and detailed through the decades Tolkien worked on it.

The book is subdivided into:

  • Ainulindalë (the Music of the Ainur): Eru Ilúvatar, the omnipotent and omniscient (i.e. biblical) Godnote , inspires and directs the Ainur (angels) to sing a "Great Music", through which the universe is created, and history itself playing out as a manifestation of its meanings.
  • Valaquenta (the Account of the Valar): a description of each of the Valar (Ainur who have chosen to enter the physical universe and serve as Eru's regents therein) and some of the Maiar, their servants.
  • Quenta Silmarillion (the History of the Silmarilli): recounts the creation of Middle-earth by the Valar; the creation of the Elves, Dwarves, and Men; the first war between the Valar and Melkor; and the six-hundred-year-long war between the Elves and Melkor (with Men and Dwarves caught squarely in the middle) over the eponymous Silmarils.
  • Akallabêth (The Downfall of Númenor): The isle of Númenor is given to Men who fought in the war against Melkor as a reward by the Valar. Over the centuries, the Númenóreans grow proud. All culminates in the reign of Ar-Pharazôn, who, driven by his fear of death and the lies of Sauron, dares to invade the land of the Valar. As a punishment, Númenor is destroyed and sinks into the Sea, and Arda is made round, with Valinor removed from its surface, so Men may no longer assault the Undying Lands.
    • A new book called The Fall of Númenor was published in 2022, collecting almost all Tolkien's writings relating to the Second Age into a single narrative.
  • Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age: Details the backstory to The Lord of the Rings; fleshes out the Gambit Pile Up of Sauron and Gandalf. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is named after this chapter, but adapts the events from The Return of The King's Appendices.

Note: The terms "Quenta Silmarillion" or just "Silmarillion" are used (in-story and in the real world) for the whole body of stories from the First Age, regardless of their inclusion in the 1977 book The Silmarillion.

Earlier and later forms of the stories used in The Silmarillion, insights into their evolution over a period of more than 50 years, and additional texts and material can be found in The History of Middle-earth and Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth.

Has a Character Sheet split into several sections; since the narrative spans several thousand years, this book has a truly massive cast. You may wish to take notes.


The Silmarillion provides examples of:

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    A-C 
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Angrist, a knife that cuts iron like cheese. Telchar of Nogrod, the Dwarven smith who forged it, also created the sword Narsil, which found its way into Elendil's possession, and was eventually reforged into Andúril in The Lord of the Rings.
  • Action Girl
    • Haleth. Holding out against a massive onslaught of Orcs, her father, the leader of their band of Men is killed and her twin brother dies trying to retrieve that body, so with a combination of physical prowess and pure willpower manages to keep a fair amount of her people alive until help arrives at the last minute.
    • Lúthien counts, considering the lengths she went to helping Beren in his quest. While she never personally engaged in battle, she did contest with the will of Sauron, and was instrumental in sneaking into Angband. There's also the little bit about putting Morgoth under her spell...
  • A God I Am Not: When the Elven Prince Finrod met the Race of Men, they mistook him for one of the Valar (they had met elves earlier, but they were not like the Light Elves). Finrod disillusioned them as soon as he was able to, explaining that he was not a Vala but an elf. The Valar lived beyond the Western Ocean, and the only (ex)-Vala in the vicinity was trouble.
  • The Ageless: The Elves, Ents and Ainur live forever, within the lifespan of the world Arda, and never age in any way that mortals can perceive. They can perceive themselves getting "old," but even the Elves only start fading if they spend tens of thousands of years in Middle-earth, so that doesn't seem to be anything inherent to their kind so much as a downside of Middle-earth.
  • Aggressive Negotiations: After Fëanor's death, his son Maedhros receives envoys from Morgoth offering a truce and the return of a Silmaril. Both sides try to use this trope: Maedhros brings a large party to the appointed place, but "Morgoth sent the more and there were Balrogs" and so overpowered him.
  • All Animals Are Dogs: Draugluin comes to die lying by the feet of Sauron, his master. The dog similarities are more or less justified by the fact that he is a wolf, or at least a werewolf.
  • The Alliance: Maedhros seeks to create this after the Dagor Bragollach, combining the forces of the Noldor, the Edain, the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost, and Easterlings, into what is called the Union of Maedhros. He plans to bring all of their forces together to besiege Angband and destroy it. Unfortunately, he isn't careful enough about hiding his plans from Morgoth. Then the people of the Easterling chieftain Ulfang bring the plan crashing down when they betray the others during the joint assault against Morgoth's armies, resulting in the battle called Nírnaeth Arnoediad ("Tears Unnumbered").
  • All There in the Manual:
    • Tolkien's The History of Middle-earth. Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-Earth can be helpful for names and places as well, with regard to the major battles, though it has several inaccuracies so watch out.
    • This book itself is The Manual for The Lord of The Rings. Readers who finish this book and then re-read Rings will add tons of context for all those random name drops, songs and allusions to historical events found in the trilogy.
  • All for Nothing: A core topic of Tolkien's works is the futility of evil, and how evil leads nowhere. All those who choose evil never get what they want, and end up a shell of their former selves. At the very best, they will get a mockery or a twisted corruption of their original desire, while still being miserable. The only thing evil manages to do is to make everything worse for everyone.
    • Melkor wanted to create, but in his pride he tried to take over the matter, and end up losing his power, might, intelligence, sanity and light. And he only manages to corrupt the matter, but never to take over it, or create, his true goal.
    • Sauron tried to bring order to the world, and only managed to make everything worse, and ended up like his master.
    • Feanor and his sons slaughtered countless innocents in their quest to retake the Silmarils, only to find out once they've finally reclaimed them after hundreds of years of war and suffering that the jewels will not suffer their hands dirtied by their numerous crimes.
  • The Aloner: Maglor. Oh, poor Maglor, never allowed to return back to Undying Lands, in constant pain from his Silmaril-burned hand, forever lamenting his and his brothers' violent stupidity.
  • And Man Grew Proud: Ar-Pharazôn grew very proud, and Númenor was erased from the Earth in turn.
  • Angry Guard Dog: Carcharoth the venomous werewolf, guarding the Gates of Angband, who was fed on the people-flesh from his puppy years; and Huan the good wolfhound of Valinor, who occasionally talks. They kill each other.
  • Anyone Can Die: And they do. Oh, do they ever die. Occasionally even twice.
  • Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Mostly played straight with Elves, except when Fëanor and his sons are around. They aren't called Kinslayers for nothing! Fëanor threatens his half-brother with murder in cold blood, then starts the first Elf-on-Elf war and slaughters the people of Alqualondë. His sons and their followers go on to slaughter the people of Doriath and the Havens of Sirion.
  • Artifact of Hope: The titular Silmarils are a matching set of Power Crystals forged by an Elf that contains that last pure light in the world after the Two Trees are felled. Their touch burns the evil and unworthy, and they still inspire hope three ages of Middle-earth later in The Lord of the Rings. The Silmaril that ends up in the sky is even called "Gil-Estel, the Star of High Hope" when it first appears there.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The implied fate of the souls of Men, even though Tolkien never goes into the specifics of what Eru plans for them.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Mainly most of the dragons of Morgoth, but one stands out the most: Ancalagon, the mightiest dragon of them all. If these passages are any indication and are taken literally then almost no Kaiju, not even the King of Monsters, is anywhere near his size.
    ...he beheld far off the peaks of Thangorodrim, mightiest of the towers of Middle-earth... no power of the Noldor would ever overthrow them.

    Before the rising of the sun Eärendil slew Ancalagon the Black, the mightiest of the dragon-host, and cast him from the sky; and he fell upon the towers of Thangorodrim, and they were broken in his ruin.

    In his fall the Towers of Thangorodrim were thrown down.

    In the Great Battle and the tumults of the fall of Thangorodrim there were mighty convulsions in the earth, and Beleriand was broken and laid waste... many lands sank beneath the waters of the Great Sea.
  • The Atoner: Maedhros repents for abandoning Eluréd and Elurín in the forest but never finds them. He and Maglor possibly raise Elros and Elrond to atone for this after driving their mother Elwing, Eluréd and Elurín's sister, over the sea.
  • Atlantis: The island empire of Númenor. It's a direct homage to the Atlantis myth, which fascinated Tolkien. The link is reinforced somewhat blatantly in-story: the Elves refer to the downfall of Númenor using the Quenya term: Atalantë. Although according to Word of God the title was a shocking coincidence when he worked out what the Quenya word for "Downfall" would be. This is supported by the fact that much earlier writings contain the verb root talat- for fall.
  • Author Avatar: Beren (Tolkien) and Lúthien (his wife Edith). These names are even on their tombstones.
  • Axis Mundi: Meneltarma, the holy mountain in the center of Númenor, and the highest peak on the island. The Númenóreans viewed it as the most sacred site to Eru Ilúvatar and required absolute silence on it for all except the king during specific holy days. Animals did not approach it either, save for the Great Eagles that circled it as guards.
  • Backstory: Sometimes confused to be this to The Lord of the Rings, but are actually the original main stories and written much earlier. The author just never finished or published them, and so they are often viewed as supplementary to LotR, rather than equal tales that just happen to predate (both in in-universe and real-world chronology) the book that got the hype started.
  • Badass Army: The forces of Númenor. How badass were they? When Ar-Pharazôn the Golden showed up on Sauron's doorstep with them, Sauron surrendered immediately. And this was after he'd forged the One Ring. Granted, it was an I Surrender, Suckers gambit on his part, but he only resorted to that because he knew straight away that he didn't have a chance of defeating them on the battlefield; his own armies had checked out when they saw the Númenoreans coming.
  • Badass Boast: Túrin chooses the title "Turambar," which means "the Conqueror of Fate." Alas, Fate conquers him
    Níniel(Niënor): Master of Doom, by Doom mastered!
  • The Bad Guy Wins:
    • The ending of Akallabêth. Númenor is destroyed, Dúnedain are exterminated, their kingdom is finished, and only a handful of stranded exiles survive. Sauron's physical form is killed, but he reincarnates quickly and re-establishes his kingdom. The only good thing is that his days as the manipulative Deceiver are over, because he can never assume an attractive form again.
    • The tale of Túrin. Yes, Túrin managed to kill Glaurung, but so what. His life was still a tragedy that ended with his suicide, and the point of the curse was just to make Húrin watch as his family suffered. And then Húrin winds up leading Morgoth's forces to Gondolin anyway.
    • The Silmarillion as a whole: after six centuries of war, the Noldor and their Sindarin and Mannish allies have been utterly defeated, their cities and strongholds laid waste, and only a wretched handful of survivors are left hiding in seaside marshes. Good thing Eärendil succeeded in bringing down the Wrath of the Gods— which nonetheless obliterated the entire land of Beleriand, and the Silmarils were still lost.
  • Bash Brothers: Túrin fights with a sword and has a cool dragon-topped helmet, and Beleg is pretty badass with bow and arrow, hence his title "Cúthalion", meaning "Strongbow". Together they gain renown as the Two Captains and the land they hold becomes known as Dor-Cúarthol, meaning the Land of Helm and Bow.
  • Battle Amongst the Flames: Dagor Bragollach, "Battle of Sudden Flame", when Morgoth cast fire over Ard-galen.
  • Battle Couple: Beren and Lúthien.
  • Battle Cry: Usually given in Quenya.
    • During his Last Stand, Húrin's is Aurë Entuluva! ("Day shall come again!"). note 
    • An Ironic Echo of the Elves' battlecry at the opening of the battle: Utulie'n aurë! ("The day has come!)"
  • Barred from the Afterlife:
    • Túrin essentially barred himself from the passing on from the Halls of Mandos unto Eru, which is extraordinary since Men by their design are meant to depart Arda. Due to his failures Túrin is unable to rest in peace. Can anyone blame him? Morgoth ensured he had a fairly lousy existence. It's poetic then that he is prophesied to deal the killing blow unto Morgoth and destroy his evil influence.
    • The Númenorean king Ar-Pharazon the Golden and his army remain interned in the Cave of the Forgotten in Valinor. Do not open till Dagor Dagorath!
    • Subverted by Maglor, while an elf and thus immortal, who is forbidden ever return to Elvenhome. Which means he is still here amongst us.
  • Beauty Equals Goodness:
    • You might think so, what with the Orcs, Dragons, Trolls, Morgoth, and Ungoliant being hideously ugly bastards. With the Easterlings, it's even stated that the "uglier" ones were those who sided with Morgoth. But some ugly dudes (namely the Drúedain, or even the good old Dwarves) are among the most incorruptible good guys. And as for the beautiful people, well... keep in mind that all elves are superhumanly beautiful, regardless of their behavior. And try not to forget that most fallen Ainur can appear in whatever beautiful, pleasing form they like, the better to deceive you...
    • It's explicitly stated that evil is an inherently corrupting force, thus any being who remains evil long enough will eventually become ugly because evil can only damage things. Both Morgoth and Sauron were explicitly stated to be incredibly beautiful at first, until their own evil deeds rendered them incapable of ever taking a fair form again.
  • Being Evil Sucks: By the end of the First Age, the surviving sons of Feanor have realized that their oath has brought nothing but pain and suffering to the world. They still feel compelled to try stealing the Silmarils, and they're completely miserable about it.
    • For all the evil creature too. Melkor started as the mightiest of the Valar, and ended up the weakest, hateful and miserable of everything and everyone, but incapable of ever fulfilling his desire of destroying the world, and barred to the void until the end of the world (when he will die). Sauron ended up as a disembodied powerless spirit.
    • Feanor is bounded to remain in Mandos until the end of days as penance for his crimes. All his sons end up dead too.
    • The orcs are utterly miserable beings that hate themselves and everyone else.
  • Beleaguered Childhood Friend: Beleg finds that Túrin, his wayward friend, has become the leader of some rather unscrupulous outlaws. He proceeds to both help them and (try to) bang some morals into them.
  • Benevolent Dictator: Downplayed. The people of Brethil actually prefer Turin's way of leadership to their former king, but he accidentally took over the land.
  • Big Bad: Morgoth is the biggest bad of all. Once he's out of the picture, Sauron takes over the role.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate: Morgoth and Sauron for the entire Silmarillion. While Morgoth is the chief one, Sauron has too much influence in the story to be brushed aside.
    • Melkor and Ungoliant, at least during the Darkening of Valinor. This lasts just as long as you can expect an alliance between two evil, utterly selfish, Omnicidal Maniacs to last. While she is subservient to Melkor at the beginning, she rebels when she wins enough power and noticed Morgoth won't fulfill his part of the deal.
  • Big Bad Ensemble:
    • Morgoth may be the central villain but the house of Fëanor are responsible for a pretty large percentage of large scale and minor threats the protagonists encounter.
    • Morgoth's closest servants are also presented as individual Big Bads during key parts of the overall story. These include Ungoliant (who even shares a Duumvirate with Morgoth himself at this particular point) during The Darkening of Valinor, Sauron during the tales of Beren and Lúthien and the Akallabêth, Glaurung in The Children of Húrin, and Gothmog during The Fall of Gondolin.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Barahir, a Man and chief of the House of Bëor, rescuing Finrod Felagund in the Pass of Sirion during the Dagor Bragollach. Felagund swears an oath to come to the aid of Barahir or any of his descendants in their hour of need just as Barahir did for him.
  • Big Badass Battle Sequence: The War of Wrath. The entire host of Morgoth and the entire host of Valinor duke it out for nearly 60 years non-stop, destroying an entire continent in the process.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Half the endings in the book. The other half are plain depressing. The "Quenta Silmarillion" overall has a bittersweet ending, with Morgoth overthrown but nearly every main character dead.
  • Black-and-Grey Morality: This trope applies when Fëanor and his sons, who are villainous (or anti-villainous) to varying degrees, are engaged in battle against Morgoth. Develops into Morality Kitchen Sink when the former are joined by more honourable Elves and Men (such as those from the House of Fingolfin).
  • Blessed with Suck
    • Thanks to Morgoth's meddling, what Men as a whole view their mortality as. They actively resist it where possible, and see themselves as "flawed" in some way. It wasn't always so, as it's actually a Gift, not a curse from Eru (God), intrinsic to their design. Those who understand the gift best know it's meant to sunder their fates from Elves for bigger and better things beyond imagination.
    • The Elves in their turn consider their immortality a Blessing With Suck, because they cannot leave the world even if they want to, but the audience is not likely to agree with them. The Elves' particular version of immortality consists of "fading," or in other words of their spirits gradually burning away their flesh: they become something resembling ghosts if they stay in Middle-earth. (This is why they're leaving for the West at the time of The Lord of the Rings.) Even staying in Valinor won't help in the long run as they will eventually grow weary of the same old world they can't leave, while Men get to experience the wondrous new things Eru has planned for them after their death.
  • Blood Knight: Fëanor and his seven sons.
  • Boisterous Bruiser
    • Tulkas Astaldo, who "laughs ever, in sport or war", is essentially a Boisterous Bruiser god.
    • It's worth noting that two Valar that were eventually removed from the story — Makar and Measse — were this taken to an even more bloodthirsty degree, as in Norse mythology.
  • Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Thingol, who not only sends away Lúthien's suitor Beren on an impossible quest with the intention of getting around his promise not to kill him (which he only made, reluctantly, at his daughter's insistence), but also imprisons her in a treehouse when she tries to go after Beren to help him. Possibly somewhat justified, considering what happened when stuff started working out in his despite.
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Fingolfin manages to inflict several wounds to Morgoth, but is eventually slain.
  • Brother–Sister Incest: Túrin Turambar and Niënor Níniel. To their credit, unfamiliarity and amnesia were involved.
  • Burning the Ships: After Fëanor and his faction of the Noldor have crossed over from Aman to Middle-earth on the ships they stole from the Teleri, Fëanor orders to burn all the ships. His motive is two-fold: He wants to prevent any of his followers from returning to Aman, but also make sure they cannot ferry the rest of the Noldor under the leadership of Fëanor's brother Fingolfin over to Middle-earth.
  • Butt-Monkey
    • Túrin, yet again. Yeah, his life sucked that bad. There's a reason for it, too. First, the Doom of the Noldor hit his bloodline pretty hard for various reasons. And then Morgoth just went ahead and added his own curse on top of that. There was pretty much no way it was going to end well, not that Túrin knew it at the time.
    • Fëanor's sons, too. The whole quest for the Silmarilli just puts them (and hell, the rest of the Noldor) through increasingly worse disasters and failures. Of course, it is entirely their own fault.
  • Cain and Abel: Half-brothers Fëanor and Fingolfin. Fëanor doesn't kill Fingolfin, but he comes pretty close, twice.
  • Cain and Abel and Seth: Add the third brother Finarfin, who is said to be "the fairest and wisest of all Noldor". He eventually becomes the High King of Noldor at Undying Lands and presumably still rules at Túna.
  • Call-Forward: as a prequel, it's loaded with them, but the most interesting is the business of Galadriel's hair. Apparently it was the shade of the combined colours of the silver and golden trees, and Fëanor greatly craved it - he creates the Silmarils in an attempt to match it after Galadriel refuses to give him a lock of her hair. Now think about what Gimli asked of her in The Lord of the Rings.
  • Celestial Paragons and Archangels: The Valar, the most powerful beings in existence below Eru. Morgoth happened to be the most powerful of them, and rebelled against his maker.
  • Cessation of Existence: Almaren, a large island in the Great Lake and the original home of the Valar, was destroyed by Melkor in the year 3450. Although it is stated the island was sank, it is also stated that both Almaren and the entire Great Lake itself disappeared from existence afterward, no trace of either ever seen again.
  • Changed My Mind, Kid: The Haladin, a tribe of Men, are just about crumbling after a week holed up in a fortress resisting an Orc rout with their leader and his son dead when Caranthir, one of Fëanor's sons on whose land they've grudgingly been tolerated enough to live on, finally shows up with his followers. Haleth, who helped them pull through that long against incredible odds is grateful but not grateful enough to accept Caranthir's offer of more official residence and alliance.
  • Characters Dropping Like Flies: Yeah, about that massive cast mentioned at the top of the page? The vast majority of them meet their doom at various points during the First Age. note  There's also the destruction of Númenórë at the end of the Second Age.
  • Chariot Pulled by Cats: When the Teleri (Sea Elves) of the Lonely Isle Eressea wanted to emigrate to Valinor, they travelled in ships pulled by large swans.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Eöl the Dark Elf, who forged two Infinity Plus One Swords, one of which became famous and even, according to the Book of Lost Tales, will become significant to the future Apocalypse of the world.
  • Co-Dragons: Gothmog and Sauron, and later Glaurung, were all Dragons to Morgoth (literally, in one case).
  • Cold-Blooded Torture
    • Morgoth is very fond of this. He hates everybody, especially God and anything or anyone created by God (which means everything and everyone), and wants to break them. Also, he's exceedingly sadistic and just loves causing pain.
    • Sauron is quite skilled at this, too, though he tends to use minions to accomplish the actual torture while he plays mind-games with the victim on the side.
  • Combat Pragmatist: The Elves of Nargothrond. They employed guerilla tactics against the forces of Morgoth and preferred to use stealth and cunning over outright force. The main reason for this was that if Morgoth found out where the city was located, he would bring all his forces to bear and the city would surely be destroyed. And when Túrin Turambar convinced them to face Morgoth's armies in the open (against a god's advice, no less), that's exactly what happened. Well, it's not like anyone else (*cough*Turgon*cough*) ever listens to Ulmo's advice.
  • Conlang: Tolkien simply isn't Tolkien without Con Langs. The languages came before the stories — he wrote all these tales to give the languages context and history.
  • Continuity Porn: The fact that one can read from before time to the end of the Third Age of the Sun is very impressive.
  • Continuity Snarl: J. R. R. Tolkien got tangled in one of these all on his own, which is why the book had to be published posthumously. Like real-world mythologies, consistency should not be expected between different versions of the tales if one chooses to read beyond the 1977 Silmarillion.
  • Cool Airship: Eärendil's ship Vingilot. It carries a holy Silmaril jewel and appears as the brightest star in the sky (a.k.a. Venus).
  • Cool Sword: Several examples. The black swords Gurthang and Anguirel are especially cool, being made of meteoric metal.
  • The Corruption: Eru's plans for the world are perfect until Morgoth begins to ruin it. Except that it is entirely possible that Eru always intended for things to happen that way. He explains after the Music of the Ainur, which Melkor attempted to corrupt, that noone can play anything that does not come from him. The various references strongly suggest that Men, and possibly Dwarves, have true free will, and the ability to create truly new things of their own, but the Ainur and the Elves do not.
  • Creation Myth: Arda was planned by Eru through the Great Music, sung by the angelic choirs of the Ainur, corrupted by Melkor-Morgoth, and finally brought into physical existence as a "blank slate" for the Valar and Maiar to shape in accordance with the Music.
  • Creative Sterility: This is a recurring theme in Arda — in Tolkien's Christian theology, only God can truly create anything. Those who serve God can "subcreate" within the universe if they recognize their limits as created beings, but evil is a fundamentally destructive, degenerative force and can't even subcreate anything new.
    • Morgoth, the originator of evil, cannot make, only mock.
    • As Aulë finds out with the Dwarves, even the good Valar cannot create sentient life with free will or souls, because that requires the Secret Fire that only Ilúvatar can grant. Because Aulë's intentions with the Dwarves were good, if perhaps a bit misguided, Ilúvatar intervenes and grants the Dwarves sentience and souls.
    • Aside from the ability to spin webs, Ungoliant. She seeks only to destroy.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Morgoth and Sauron like causing these. Special mentions go to Gorlim the Unhappy and Gelmir son of Guilin.
  • Cue the Sun
    • The first Sunrise signals the awakening of the race of Men, in a suitably dramatic passage.
    • The Moon first appeared at the same time the Noldor reached the end of the Grinding Ice.
    "and Fingolfin unfurled his blue and silver banners, and blew his horns, and flowers sprang beneath his marching feet, and the ages of the stars were ended."
  • Curb-Stomp Battle
    • For all his strength, both times Morgoth fought with Tulkas resulted in Morgoth taking a dirt nap; the fact that Tulkas was tough enough to subdue Morgoth one-on-one was the reason he came to Arda.
    • Ilúvatar versus Númenor, guess who wins?
    • The Battle of Unnumbered Tears (the fifth battle of Beleriand in chronology) is depicted as a noble effort by the Elves, Men and Dwarves to finish off Morgoth once and for all, but turns into a catastrophic defeat for them.
    • The duel between Morgoth and Fingolfin. Though Fingolfin wounded Morgoth several times, it was ultimately a battle of a mortal Elf against the equivalent of Satan.
    • The Siege of Gondolin also ends in utter ruin for the Noldor.
    • Sauron and Finrod's duel. Sauron's magical abilities were unmatchable for a reason.
    • Sauron and Huan. Sauron's abilities against a Valinor warhound weren't as unmatchable.
    • The second war between Sauron and Númenor, in which Sauron's entire army runs from them without a fight. As it was planned.
  • Curb Stomp Cushion:
    • The Elves actually did win some battles against Morgoth in the beginnings of the war.
    • Fingolfin manages to hurt Morgoth several times before being crushed.
  • Cynicism Catalyst: Túrin's younger sister Lalaith dies of a plague that Morgoth sent, when she's three and he's six, instigating his dark and angsty worldview and leading to his descent into total berserk self-destruction, which ironically ended by suicide, just after the death of his other little sister.

    D-F 
  • Dark Is Evil: A frequent visual motif in the legendarium is darkness and shadow as a metaphor and literal tool of evil. However, it isn't without exceptions, for nothing was evil in its beginning, including the concept of darkness. Darkness as an evil motif:
    • Morgoth uses and abuses darkness, turning it from a harmless cozy nighttime thing into a terror and a weapon. He works in darkness, his servants (such as Orcs) fear and hate the Sun and Moon, he destroys light wherever he can (except the Silmarils, which he can't destroy and keeps as spoils).
    • Ungoliant, the horrific spider-shaped thing that crawled from the Void, devours all light and belches out webs of shadow darker-than-dark, shadows that are more than mere absence of light. With Morgoth, she destroys the holy Trees of Valinor.
    • Eöl, called "the Dark Elf," is the only individual Dark Elf to always be associated with literal darkness. He lives in the dark, hates and shuns sunlight, and is pretty evil at the end of the day. He's got fewer redeeming features than Fëanor.
    • Caranthir the Dark, Fëanor's fifth son. On one hand, he is supposed to be called "the Dark" because of his hair color (contrasted with his brother Celegorm the Fair note ) and is on the Noldor's side. On the other hand, he is a Jerkass who participates in the massacres of Elf by Elf, and who thinks the Sindar are inferior, and is a loud-mouthed bully even by Fëanorian standards. He does get a Pet the Dog moment when he and his troops rescue the people of Haleth from Orcs, though even that is suspect. He conveniently shows up just after their leaders have been killed, and offers to basically let them be a buffer between his people and Morgoth, only he phrases it better. That Haleth immediately led her people away from him and to Thingol of all Elves makes you wonder.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Darkness not as a sign of evil.
    • Túrin Turambar, a badass Anti-Hero Doom Magnet who was armed with a black sword and armor. He also had black hair and pale skin.
    • Dark Elves, or Moriquendi. They don't have jet black skin or live in the thrall of a Religion of Evil like the Dungeons & Dragons Dark Elves, they just never saw the light of the Two Trees and are thus "of darkness" and comparatively uneducated. As a whole, they have just as much potential to be evil or good as other Elves.
    • Mandos is essentially Tolkien's Hades. He's closely associated with death, but only as the caretaker and judge of dead souls. He's stern and unyielding, but just and entirely on the good side of things.
    • The elves are often mentioned to cherish nighttime, when the stars come out.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Aulë and Yavanna are the only Valar to get a chapter all to themselves. Well, Eru and Manwë show up for a bit, but since the chapter is literally called 'Of Aulë and Yavanna', the trope stands.
  • Decisive Battle: Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of the Sudden Flame. For 400 years, the Noldor had confined Morgoth and his forces in a prolonged siege of Angband, though they lacked the strength to finish the war. Morgoth spent this time building up his forces including breeding his newest superweapon, the first dragon Glaurung, then unleashed them onto the Noldor in a surprise attack accompanied by rivers of fire. The siege was broken with the Noldor's defeat and while they managed to live to fight another day, they spent the rest of the war losing ground to Morgoth, ending with their complete defeat in the Nírnaeth Arnoediad.
  • The Determinator: Fëanor and his sons in their quest to recover the Silmarils. Unfortunately for them (and Middle-earth) though, it leads to their downfall and a lot of massacres.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: Ungoliant (literally, in an earlier version) appeared out of the Void and into the story to kill the Two Trees and attempt to eat Morgoth before disappearing into the South. Her origins are never clearly stated and only in later versions is she said to be a Maia.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Did Fëanor just slam the door in the face of the most powerful being in Arda?
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?
    • Did Fingolfin just stab Morgoth?
    • Did Túrin Turambar just kill Glaurung? Is he prophesied to kill Morgoth?
    • Did Eärendil just slay Ancalagon the Black? Did he slay Ungoliant, who almost ate Morgoth?
  • Divine Conflict: The good Valar fight against the evil Vala Morgoth.
  • Divine Delegation: Tolkien, being a devout Catholic, did not want to create a cosmology that directly contradicted his religion, but he really loved Norse mythology, so this was a compromise between those two views. Eru (the biblical monotheistic God) creates the template of the Universe and its history via the "Great Music", while the Valar and Maiar (correspondent of Norse gods or Christian angels) effect the physical act of creation.
  • Divine Parentage: Lúthien the half-Maia, leading to very Royal Blood in her great-grandchildren Elros and Elrond and their progeny (and eventually Aragorn and Arwen).
  • Doomed Moral Victor
    • All of the Noldor who didn't partake in the Kinslaying.
    • Húrin and his utter refusal to give in to Morgoth.
  • Doomy Dooms of Doom: Mandos, the judge of the dead, pronounces a doom against the Noldor. (This is using "doom" in its older sense, meaning destiny or fate, but they're all doomed, anyway.)
  • Door Stopper: Believe it or not, averted. Despite chronicling literally thousands of years of mythology, and consisting of not one but five separate books — plus an appendix — some editions of The Silmarillion weigh in at fewer than 370 pages. This is mostly because the book is meant to be a summary of Arda's stories; some of the stories, when written in full, take up full novels on their own. Reading through the first section of Unfinished Tales will make this clear — Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin and Narn i-Chîn Húrin would take up a sizable chunk of The Silmarillion on their own, were they written in full (Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin alone takes up more than 50 pages; whereas The Silmarillion summarizes its events in about two).
  • The Dragon: Morgoth has several beings that occupy high command positions. Sauron is the greatest and most trusted of his servants, Gothmog Lord of Balrogs is the general of his armies, and Glaurung the Father of Dragons serves as both strategist, manipulator and enforcer, particularly after Sauron's humiliation at Luthien and Huan's hands. All of whom serve as The Heavy for one of Tolkien's Great Tales: Sauron in Beren and Luthien, Glaurung for The Children of Húrin, and Gothmog for The Fall of Gondolin.
  • Dragon Hoard: After Glaurung has destroyed Nargothrond, he sweeps all the gold together into a heap and lies down on it to rest for a while.
  • Dressing as the Enemy
    • Beren, Finrod, and his soldiers as orcs. It doesn't turn out well.
    • Later Beren dresses in the wolf-hame of Draugluin, a werewolf, and Lúthien dresses in the form of Thuringwethil, a "vampire" — some female blood-dripping flying evil creature. This time it does work.
  • Driven to Suicide: Húrin, Túrin Turambar, Niënor Níniel, Maedhros.
  • Drunk on the Dark Side: One elf who heard Fëanor's speech said it felt like being "besotted as with wine."
  • Duel to the Death: Specifically Combat by Champion. (Between the High King and the God of Evil.)
  • Dying Curse: As Fëanor dies of the wounds he sustained in battle with Morgoth's Balrogs, he curses "the name of Morgoth" three times before succumbing to his injuries.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Several times.
    • Fingolfin, High-King of the Noldor, duels Morgoth and strikes seven wounds against the mightiest and most evil being in all of Middle Earth, even permanently maiming his foot, through sheer skill and Deadly Dodging. Though he was eventually caught and killed, his valiant battle is still remembered among the Noldor as one of the finest moments of elven history.
    • Azaghâl the Dwarf-King is literally crushed under the weight of Glaurung, the Father of Dragons, but with his last breath he drives a dagger into the wyrm's belly and gravely wounds it enough to drive it away, saving his kin in the process.
    • Fëanor, High King of the Noldor, stated in canon to be the most clever and most skilled elf in history, singlehandedly routs an army of orcs and chases them into a trap against seven Balrogs. Even though he is wounded and on fire, he fights against the demonic creatures for hours until Morgoth sends out a Balrog as powerful as Sauron to kill him... and Fëanor still refuses to go down until his sons and their armies arrive to rescue him. He dies of full body burns and severe wounds a few hours later and the sheer anger and refusal of Fëanor to die causes his body to disintegrate into burning ash. Very in-character for him.
    • Finrod Felagund, Galadriel's brother and the King of Nargothrond, saves his friend Beren from a werewolf by breaking free of his bonds and killing it with his bare hands and teeth, and the two kill each other. This act of nobility allowed him to be reincarnated in Valinor, the first elf to do so before the First Age.
    • Even relatively "ordinary" Noldor get in on this. Glorfindel fought a Balrog on the bridge of Cirith Thoronath in a mirror of how Gandalf would fight the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings, stabbing the Balrog in the belly and throwing it (and himself) off the bridge to their mutual deaths. So impressed were the Valar that they permitted him to return to life in Middle Earth in the Second Age.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: A few characters; Beren certainly comes to mind.
  • Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Túrin Turimbar, a black-haired, pale-skinned anti-hero who broods a lot and brings destruction on himself and the people he cares about.
  • Elaborate Underground Base
    • Everybody with means to do so delves one: Morgoth had Utumno and Angband, Thingol and Melian had Menegroth, Finrod had Nargothrond, the dwarves had Belegost and Nogrod, and even the Petty-Dwarves had Amon Rûdh. Only Men and wood-elves had the misfortune of lacking massive underground fortifications in which to hide when the enemy came calling.
    • Gondolin is a subversion: a shining city on a hill, but hidden away behind almost impenetrable mountains (possibly a big crater or caldera), so effectively underground as far as concealment and defense are concerned.
  • Eldritch Abomination
    • Ungoliant becomes this and almost eats Morgoth. He needs a bunch of Balrogs to chase her away. You get the idea. Ungoliant also eats light, making herself huge, swollen, and more powerful, and emitting an "Unlight", which is not just darkness but a void that actively consumes light. Worse yet, nobody knows where she came from or what happened to her. She is said "to have descended from the Outer Darkness, maybe, that lies in Eä beyond the walls of the World." After breeding with lesser spiders, she just... wandered off.
    Some have said that she ended long ago, when in her uttermost famine she devoured herself at last.
    • Morgoth himself used to be this. He is described as "a dark creature greater than a mountain with its head above the clouds, crowned with smoke and fire, and the light of his eyes drove the lesser Ainur to madness". Not to mention, he was originally more powerful than all the other Valar combined.
  • Eldritch Location: The mountains of Ered Gorgoroth and Nan Dungortheb, the valley (of Dreadful Death) below them. Not only do the descendants of Ungoliant make this their home, but Sauron's evil magic and Melian's protective, maze-like magic get caught up in each other and combine horrifically. Beren is the only one to have gotten through both alive, and (despite all the other stuff he goes through) doing so is the one thing he can't talk about, lest it all come back.
  • Elves vs. Dwarves: Naturally. But not without reason: The Elves and Dwarves near the west coast of Middle-earth are originally allies and trade partners. The problem doesn't start until the Dwarves of Nogrod fall in love with a necklace that they'd customized for King Thingol to hold the Silmaril, refuse to give it up, and murder the Elf-king. The Elves kill all the Dwarves, but then the army of Nogrod retaliates by sacking the Elven kingdom. And Beren and some woodland Elves finish them off, then leave with said necklace.

    The Silmarillion shows that the conflict between Elves and Dwarves is actually anything but natural: They do have things in common (a love of craftsmanship for instance) and, though not particularly friendly to each other, are willing to work and fight together at the beginning; it's only because of historical events that they become enemies, and the feud only affects the Eldar (western Elves) and the Dwarves of the western mansions. According to The War of the Jewels, the Avarin Dark Elves were actually frequently friends and allies of the Dwarves out east. And in the Second Age the Noldor of Eregion got along pretty well with Dwarves of Khazad-dûm.

    In a meta sense, the account of Thingol's death is also notable for being an invention by Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay, going beyond simply editing and patching texts together. Christopher admitted in The History of Middle-earth series that they decided to basically write it from scratch since his father never actually wrote it in detail besides a long-outdated version when his universe was in its first stages and full of Early-Installment Weirdness (published as The Book of Lost Tales).
  • Empathic Weapon: Anglachel, later renamed Gurthang (Iron of Death) by Túrin. It blunts and "mourns" the death of its former wielder, Beleg and eventually answers Túrin's request for death by saying that it will "drink [his] blood gladly".
  • The Empire:
    • Morgoth's realm, centered around Angband. It runs on the backs of slaves, the army is Always Chaotic Evil, the main entertainment is Cold-Blooded Torture, and the whole goal is to conquer and kill everybody on Earth.
    • Númenórë becomes one during its last days. They colonize large swaths of Middle-earth, and control all the oceans. They also cut down all the old forests on the northwest continent to build fleets, and enslave entire native populations. And it gets worse during the reign of Ar-Pharazôn, who is described as the greatest tyrant in the world since Morgoth himself. They come "no more as the benevolent kings of old, not even as harsh rulers, but as fierce men of war" who sacrifice scores of people on the altars of Morgoth every day, using the Middle-earth natives, and take many others to slavery. This is more or less the reason why the Gondorians, descendants of the Númenórëans, are so hated by the Dunlendings, and probably some of the Haradrim and Easterlings, too.
  • Endless Daytime: Middle-earth is originally lit by the Two Lamps, Illuin and Ormal, which never go out. After Melkor throws them down, Yavanna lights Valinor in Endless Daytime with the Two Trees of Light. Perpetual day is the original blessed state of the world, along with the theme of light as the symbol of holiness.
  • Endless Winter: Utumno, and generally any other northern domain of Morgoth or his servants.
  • End of an Age: Several. The ruin of Almaren, the destruction of the Two Trees, the sinking of Númenórë...
  • The End of the World as We Know It: Dagor Dagorath, the "Battle of Battles" prophesied for the end of time.
  • Engagement Challenge: Thingol to Beren (because he promised his daugher he wouldn't just execute the guy or throw him in chains). Downplayed, since Lúthien tries to dissuade Beren from going through with it, and when he is unable to complete it alone, she proves to be more important to the Quest than him.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas:
    • Túrin in regard to his mother Morwen. Mentioning that she (or his sister) may be suffering due to his choices can easily send him over the edge. And insulting the women of Dor-lómin, and by extension his mother and sister, is Túrin's Berserk Button.
    • Fëanor really genuinely loved his father a great deal, as both mother and father (since his mother died in his childhood). And he took his great regard for his mother to absurd lengths when he made a big political stink over dialectal differences in pronouncing her name and assumed the change was a giant conspiracy to besmirch her. Lampshaded when Fëanor learns of his father's death: "For his father was dearer to him than the Light of Valinor or the peerless works of his hands; and who among sons, of Elves or of Men, have held their fathers of greater worth?"
  • Everyone Is Related: Most of the protagonists are from the various noble houses, whose lines are followed over several generations. Heck, Túrin and Niënor even have an incestuous relationship to take it a bit further.
  • Everything Fades: Elves.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good
    • Played straight with Morgoth, when one of his plans is messed up by pity. Since he himself has none, he couldn't expect anyone else to show mercy to an enemy.
    • Subverted when Glaurung spares Túrin's life and he stares back at him, "being yet bemused by the eyes of the dragon, as were he treating with a foe that could know pity."
  • Evil Chancellor: Sauron to Celebrimbor, and later to Ar-Pharazôn; to an extent Maeglin to Turgon. Melkor was one to Manwë for a time, but his goals then were less to try and usurp Valinor and more to convince everyone he was reformed so he could have free rein to subtly corrupt the Elves.
  • Evil Makes You Ugly: It isn't a surefire thing, so don't assume Beauty Equals Goodness or you might end up like Celebrimbor. But evil does tend to turn formerly handsome beings into freakish monsters. The orcs, bred from elves and/or Men, are apparently among the most hideous things alive (Morgoth probably made them deliberately ugly, to mock Eru). Dragons are even more repulsive, and smell gut-wrenchingly vile. Even Morgoth and Sauron, originally able to assume any shape they pleased, eventually suffered Shapeshifter Mode Lock as a result of their moral falls, and became stuck in shapes as outwardly horrible as their evil souls.
  • Evil Is Sterile: Basically Morgoth's schtick. Technically only Eru can create new things; the Valar can only modify what exists toward their own inclinations. All the misfortune stems from Melkor's vain attempts to subvert the inherent nature of the world toward his own way of thinking.
  • Evil Overlord
    • Morgoth, of course.
    • Later Sauron and Ar-Pharazôn both take over this role.
  • Evil Versus Oblivion: Morgoth and Ungoliant's alliance falls apart partly because Morgoth wants to rule the world, whereas Ungoliant wants to devour everything. Needless to say, their mutually exclusive goals start a fight, one which Ungoliant nearly wins until the balrogs come to save Morgoth.
  • Exact Words:
    • When Thingol was trying to get Lúthien to reveal the name of her lover, he promised that if she told him, her lover would be neither killed nor imprisoned, or as Thingol put it, "Neither blade nor chain his flesh shall mar." When he finds out that her lover is the mortal Beren, he tries to weasle out of that oath, first by threatening to imprison Beren in a labyrinth where he technically wouldn't be chained, then by sending Beren to fetch one of the Silmarils.
    • Beren promises Thingol that when they meet again his hand will hold a Silmaril. He doesn't specify whether the hand will still be attached to his arm.
    • What makes the Oath of Feanor such a problem for the Noldor, especially once Beren and Luthien manage to recover one. The oath explicitly stated that Feanor and his sons swore that anybody who took a Silmaril would be pursued, and while at the time this clearly meant Morgoth, it very rapidly applies to fellow Elves once one of the Silmarils gets out. As a result, the Nirnaeth Arnoediad occurs because the Oath costs the Noldor up to 65000 soldiers, and it directly results in two more Kinslayings.
  • Eye Scream: Late in the House of Hador's Last Stand at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Huor is killed with a poisoned arrow to the eye.
  • Face Death with Dignity: The first time the Noldor witnessed the Gift of Men firsthand was the passing of Bëor the Old, who died at the age of 93, after 44 years as the vassal and friend of Finrod Felagund. That he died willingly and peacefully, without wound or sickness, seemed a strange fate indeed to the Elves.
  • Face–Heel Turn
    • Maeglin is remembered as the only Elf who, (admittedly after torture), actually turned traitor and served Morgoth.
    • Fëanor begins as the greatest of the Eldar, but Morgoth (whom he hates) manipulates him until he becomes paranoid, jealous, cruel, and eventually rebels against the Valar and starts killing other Elves.
    • And Sauron becomes the second Dark Lord because he believes he could help reconstruct Middle-earth, Morgoth becomes the first because he believed he could improve the original plan for the world, and so on. Tolkien deconstructed Utopia Justifies the Means pretty thoroughly.
    • Fëanor's sons all turn against good, and commit some of the worst systematic slaughters against groups of Elves who opposed them. This leads to all their deaths except for Maglor. While no less guilty than the others, only Maglor eventually relents, and only after he realizes the futility of their cause. But after something like that, You Can't Go Home Again.
    • Happens to Númenor as a country in Akallabêth. The resentment of most of the population against the immortality of the Elves and the Ban of the Valar preventing them from visiting the Blessed Realm causes them to gradually fall from friends and helpers of the Men of Middle-earth against the depredations of Sauron, to harsh rulers demanding tribute and resources, to finally slavers and warmongers worshipping darkness via human sacrifices. Those among the Númenoreans who still tried to follow the commands of the Valar and keep friendship with the Elves were outnumbered and essentially powerless to stop any of it, and near the end many of them were burning on the altars beside the slaves.
  • Failure Is the Only Option:
    • Fëanor in his Rage Against the Heavens.
    • Túrin with his attempt to fight fate and beat Morgoth's curse.
    • The entire Noldorin enterprise of waging war against Morgoth. Námo Mandos points out to them at the very beginning of the rebellion that they can't actually defeat Morgoth, but they spend 590 years trying anyway. As in The Lord of the Rings, force of arms proves largely useless in the face of evil.
    • The Númenórean expedition to conquer the Undying Lands. They're no match against God himself.
    • Morgoth's entire existence. His ultimate goal, to destroy everyone and everything that wasn't created by himself, was "nihilistic madness" as Tolkien put it; even if he had succeeded in reducing everything to primordial chaos he would have gone on raging, because even the chaos was created by Eru.
  • Fantastic Firearms: Numenorians are said to have arrows that can be loosed from several miles away from an enemy, and strike unerringly. This sounds an awful lot like a sniper rifle to modern ears; maybe even with target-seeking ammo. They also have "eagles who carried lightning beneath their wings," a clear analogy to a fighter/bomber aircraft. "Magic" in Tolkien's Legendarium is said to be more akin to sufficiently-advanced science learned straight from God Himself (elves, and presumably Numenorians, can/could just run the equations mentally, making it *look* like they do magic), so wether they're literally magicked bows-and-arrows and literal thunderbolt-dropping eagles or hypertech weaponry seen from the point of view of their primitive descendants is unknown.
  • Fantasy Pantheon: Eru Ilúvatar, and his personified thoughts, the Valar and Maiar. However, Eru is the only true God, consistent with Tolkien's Catholicism. The Ainur are the equivalent of Christian angels, though they take the place of a polytheistic pantheon in the story.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Ar-Pharazôn, the last king of Númenórë, and his army are ghosts buried forever under a landslide just outside Valinor, unable to rest in peace or leave the world, though Men's souls are designed to leave and remaining forever eventually becomes unbearable torment. One wonders if he'll have learned his lesson about immortality by the time the world ends.
  • Fiery Redhead: Three of the Sons of Fëanor — Maedhros, Amrod, and Amras — are fiery redheads. All seven Sons of Fëanor are fierce, rash, and violent, of course. But not their mother Nerdanel, who is much more cool-headed. Maedhros is possibly the fiercest of the Seven, though not the nastiest, but the twins don't get much characterization.note 
  • Fighting for a Homeland: The Edain.
  • First Time in the Sun: The Elves are born under the new stars, and Men when the Sun is made, so that these things are the first that they see.
  • Flat World: Arda is one until the Change of the World, when the world is made round, new lands (the Americas, by allegory) are added to fill the new hemisphere, and Valinor (and the Lands of the Sun) are removed from the circles of the world.
  • Flying Dutchman: In the published version, Maglor, one of the sons of Feanor, throws the Silmaril he's stolen into the sea and wanders the Earth singing, possibly to this day. In Tolkien's latest version, Maglor jumps into the sea together with the Silmaril.
  • Foil: Túrin is this for his cousin Tuor:
    • The two are sons of two warrior brothers, Húrin and Huor.
    • They each earn a name for themselves in a hidden Noldor city which later falls (Nargothrond/Gondolin), while earning the love of a local Elven princess (Finduilas/Idril).
    • In the troubles of both, there is an incestuous motif — Túrin unwittingly falls in love with and weds his long-lost sister, while Tuor's wife is desired by her cousin who out of jealousy betrays Gondolin and causes its fall.
    • During the sackings of Nargothrond and Gondolin, respectively, both Túrin and Tuor confront a great dragon — Glaurung and the Beast of Gondolin.
    • The differences between them make them Foil to each other, with Tuor being The Hero and Túrin being a Tragic Hero:
      • Túrin is Tall, Dark, and Snarky as well as Dark Is Not Evil, while Tuor could be described with Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold and Light Is Good.
      • Túrin is directed by the curse of Morgoth; Tuor is directed by the commands of Ulmo, Vala of the seas.
      • Túrin has two tragic love interests: Finduilas the princess of Nargothrond, who Cannot Spit It Out to him and ends up enslaved and killed while he is paralyzed by Glaurung, and later his own lost sister Niniel, whom he finds amnesiac on Finduilas' grave. Tuor, meanwhile, is Happily Married to Idril.
      • Túrin, due to his Dark and Troubled Past, is seen as dangerous, if a powerful ally, in Nargothrond. Finduilas' ex-lover Gwindor tells her that Túrin is "not Beren". Tuor, on the other hand, is accepted by the people of Gondolin as one of them and King Turgon is happy to have him married to his daughter, explicitly referencing Beren and Lúthien's union as a reason to do so.
      • Túrin's weapon is a sword of Thunderbolt Iron, but it is an Evil Weapon and its most notorious killings are those of Beleg, Túrin's friend, Brandir, a jealous but true-speaking suitor of Niniel and Túrin himself; Tuor wields a great axe.
      • Both of them kill someone who was in love with their wife. However Brandir is a decent man (if bitter and distraught by that point in the story) whom Túrin murders in a rage, which the very sword he uses points out is unjust. Maeglin is similarly bitter, but allows it to turn him evil, and Tuor justly kills him in battle.
      • The one time the two cousins cross paths, Túrin is going north to Dor Lomin which is devastated by Hordes from the East, and Tuor is marching south to Vinyamar, an abandoned Elven fortress. They never say a word to each other.
      • Their eventual fates, even if it is unclear whether they should still be taken as canon. Tuor goes to Valinor and may have become immortal. Túrin in all versions of his story kills himself. However some have him coming back to life.
  • Forest Ranger: Ents are explicitly created to fill this role.
  • Framing Device: The Red Book of Westmarch, Ælfwine of England. They didn't make it into The Silmarillion as published, but were part of Tolkien's initial plan.
  • A Friend in Need: Fingon's rescue of Maedhros on Thangorodrim, after all that's come between them — and when he sets out to do it Fingon thinks, with good reason, that Maedhros has pulled an Et Tu, Brute? on him (which is subverted:Maedhros is in fact the only one of the Fëanorians who stands aside at the betrayal of the Fingolfinian camp at Losgar). Unfortunately even after that heroic rescue, Maedhros' Conflicting Loyalty issues mean that the Oath, as before, must always come before everything.
  • Fur Against Fang: Both vampires and werewolves work for Morgoth and Sauron, but they can not stand each other. Werewolves despise vampires, considering them "rats with wings," and vampires regard wolves like big bullies. It is more evident in the Lay of Beren and Luthien, where the meeting with Carcharoth makes clear that Carcharoth is shocked at seeing a vampire and a wolf together.

    G-I 
  • Gender-Blender Name: Annatar, Lord of Gifts. Anna is a Finnish female name that may or may not come from the word "antaa" (to give, or "Anna!" for an imperative). The suffix "-tar" is the androgynous "Lord/Lady of-". And as a bonus it's Sauron masquerading as a beautiful man.
  • Giant Wall of Watery Doom: The end of Númenor.
  • God: Eru Ilúvatar. It should be noted that despite being based on the Christian God, Eru is different in some ways — he mediates the creation of the Universe through demiurges/angels (the Ainur), creates two sentient races (Elves and Men), and intends for Men to be mortal (rather than giving them mortality as punishment for the Fall). This is called the Gift of Ilúvatar. Also, he generally avoids intervening in the Universe directly, allowing the Valar to run things.
  • Godhood Seeker: In the Second and Third Ages, it is Sauron's goal to become god-king of Middle-earth. He succeeds partially, as the populations of the East and South worship him as a god of fire. Though in a downplay, he's already an angelic spirit (Maia), while his former master Morgoth was a godlike archangel (Vala) with a lower-case g. He (and Morgoth before him) just wants to graduate to big-G God. For obvious reasons, the guy who already has that job isn't very happy about that.note 
  • God of Evil: Morgoth. Sauron and the Balrogs are demigods of evil.
  • The Gods Must Be Lazy: This appears to be the case — the Valar let the Noldor go to Middle-earth to fight Morgoth while they sit back at Valinor. But the combined might of the Valar can destroy whole landmasses and kill untold numbers of people in the attempt to save anyone. Meanwhile, the Noldor rebel and leave paradise of their own free will, and forfeit all right to help. Nonetheless, Manwë sends his Eagles to provide help in extreme circumstances, and Ulmo takes an almost-direct hand in helping the Noldor — it's just that Ulmo's attempts are almost entirely ruined by the foolishness of Elves and Men. And sure, the Valar are very powerful — but for a long time, Morgoth is a match for all of them put together. Even when the Valar finally do strike, at a carefully selected time when Morgoth has been greatly weakened and they can defeat him, the cataclysmic battle still destroys a subcontinent.
  • Good Cannot Comprehend Evil:
    • It is said that the Valar don't understand Morgoth's evil, and explicitly don't understand it's incurable.
    For Manwë was free from evil and could not comprehend it, and he knew that in the beginning, in the thought of Ilúvatar, Melkor had been even as he; and he saw not the depths of Melkor's heart, and did not perceive that all love had departed from him forever.
    • In the Akallabêth, Manwë learns the hard way that Edain often take benefits for granted and feel entitled to more.
  • Good Is Not Nice: A recurrent theme of the stories, and particularly prevalent among the Noldor and their allies. Even the Valar have these moments.
  • Great Offscreen War: The two direct conflicts between Melkor and the Valar are intentionally left vague by the author as they're the only ones that the Elves weren't present for.
    • The very first war happened during the physical creation of Arda. All we're told is that Melkor assumed a great and terrible shape, described as "a mountain that wades in the sea and has its head above the clouds and is clad in ice and crowned with smoke and fire; and the light of the eyes of Melkor was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold." He and the Valar clashed over and over again as he sabotaged the world; they built mountains and Melkor threw them down, they dug valleys and he filled them up, they filled oceans and he spilled them over. Back in those days, Melkor was the strongest thing in the universe save Ilúvatar himself so none of the Valar could stop him. This stalemate continued until Tulkas came down and finally managed to defeat him, forcing Melkor to flee and allowing Arda to be finished.
    • The second war is known as "The Battle of the Powers" and it was done for the sake of the Elves so they could make the journey to Aman unmolested by Melkor's growing forces. Once the Elves awoke they were protected by a group of Maiar and kept far away from the fighting. All the Elves knew of the war was that it shook the ground and Melkor's distant fortress of Untumno could be seen by the huge fires around the area. This war ended with Melkor's forces nearly annihlated and the big man himself being chained and dragged back to Aman. The survivors leftover will be the cause of the woes experienced by the Elves and Dwarves left behind after the fact.
  • Grim Up North: Morgoth's fortresses, Utumno and Angband, lie in the extreme north of Arda. Morgoth is the reason the extreme north is a frozen wasteland.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Golden hair, instead of the usual black or brown, is typically a sign of a wiser-than-usual Elf, or an especially nice or heroic one:
    • The Vanyar, who usually have golden hair, are the holiest Elves, living closest to the Valar. None of them stay in Middle-earth during the Great March, hardly any join the rebellion, and their king Ingwë is the High King of all Eldar.
    • The House of Finarfin, the third of the Noldorin royal houses, inherits the golden hair of the Vanyar from Indis. They are also generally the wisest of the Noldorin princes (excepting Orodreth), the least rash, and the greatest friends to mortals. In his latest writings Tolkien also moved Galadriel far over on the innocent side of the trope, by extricating her from all involvement in the Noldorin rebellion, to the point of having her leave Valinor for Middle-earth by a different route and for a different reason. Finarfin is the most innocent: he quits the rebellion early and goes back to Valinor.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Fëanor and his seven sons, with the possible exception of Maglor.
  • Half-Human Hybrid/Heinz Hybrid: Eärendil is exactly half-mortal and half-Elven. Lúthien marries a mortal and is herself half-Elf and half-Maia; thus all her descendants are combinations of Maia, mortal, and Elf: Dior, his daughter Elwing, her brothers Eluréd and Elurín, and her sons Elros and Elrond.
  • Handicapped Badass:
    • Having been captured by Morgoth, Maedhros, the eldest son of Fëanor, is rescued from his torment on Thangorodrim by having his right hand cut off. Once he gets healed up, he becomes an even more badass swordfighter with his left hand, such that when Orcs had to face him in battle they would flee in terror (of course, this probably had to do with the fact that Maedhros was a Badass who had made it Out of the Inferno).
    • Beren (Erchamion, meaning "one-hand"), also loses a hand; it's bitten off by the greatest (were)-wolf in the history of the world. He does some stuff afterwards, but admittedly most of his physical achievements are done before that happens, or after he literally comes Back from the Dead (presumably with two hands).
    • Morgoth himself receives a limp in his foot, permanent scars across his face, and permanent burns to his hands, on top of his overall weakening. On the other hand, he grows more and more into his Orcus on His Throne status as he accumulates injuries.
  • Hannibal Lecture:
    • Morgoth to Húrin. Húrin responds with a Shut Up, Hannibal!.
    • Glaurung to Túrin on their first encounter about what a nasty person he has been — cleverly using a paralysing hypnotic beam from his eyes beforehand so the man can't even attempt a Shut Up, Hannibal! on him.
  • Hate at First Sight:
    • Idril dislikes and distrusts her cousin Maeglin, without really knowing why, almost as soon as she meets him, though she doesn't hate him. He falls in love with her and being unable to woo her, becomes so embittered he eventually betrays their whole city and got it sacked.
    • Fëanor despises and hates his half-siblings before they're even born, and continues to hate them until he dies. And with the "friendly advice" of the Big Bad Morgoth he becomes paranoid, thinks they're out to get him, threatens to kill Fingolfin in cold blood, and then betrays his siblings and their families during the Noldorin rebellion. Fingolfin and Finarfin, having done nothing to actually harm Fëanor, try to make peace with him up to that point.
  • Hate Sink:
    • Ar-Pharazon from the Akallabeth is the nephew of the King of Numenor, Tar-Palantir. When the king dies, Ar-Pharazon forces the king's daughter to marry him, considered an act of great evil, and usurps the throne of Numenor. When Sauron declares himself King of Men, Ar-Pharazon takes it as a challenge to his ego and resolves to make Sauron serve him, which backfires when Sauron charms his way into Ar-Pharazon's council, persuading Ar-Pharazon to worship Morgoth and instituting a Religion of Evil which practices Human Sacrifice. Sauron eventually persuades Ar-Pharazon to take Valinor, the land of the Gods, by force, and Ar-Pharazon's choice to lay claim to Valinor dooms Numenor when Eru separates Valinor from the rest of the world and causes Numenor to be lost beneath the waves. While the rest of Numenor is mourned for its loss of a golden age, Ar-Pharazon is not, and he is condemned to linger in the world until the end of time.
    • Saeros is a racist Elf in King Thingol's court who resents the presence of Turin as a ward of Thingol. One evening Saeros makes insulting remarks about Turin's people, causing Turin to throw a mug in Saeros' face and injure him. The next morning, Saeros attempts to murder Turin over the previous night's events, provoking Turin into stripping him and accidentally killing him by running him off a cliff. When Thingol hears of what Saeros had done, he pardons Turin, while it's stated that Saeros would be held in Mandos, the land of the dead, for a long time due to his misdeeds.
  • Healing Herb: Lúthien uses one on Beren.
  • Hell Invades Heaven: At the outset of Morgoth's war against the Valar, when he and his army invade and destroy Almaren.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Sauron, very briefly. At the end of the First Age, he considers supplicating himself in repentance to the Valar, but out of fear for the punishment he rightly deserves, he ultimately turns away from the light for good. It's not clear, however, if he would have become permanently good had he accepted their justice, or just good enough to be accepted and make his next evil move like Melkor had done before.
    • Celebrimbor turns against his house, disgusted by his kin's Kinslaying.
  • Heir Club for Men:
    • Númenórë, until Queen Ancalimë.
    • Implied amongst the Elves as well. Turgon was noted for a "lack of an heir" by Maeglin, despite the existence of Idril, Turgon's daughter.
  • Heroes Love Dogs: And talking dogs love Beren and Lúthien. Meanwhile, after Huan abandoned Celegorm for good, no dog of any kind would obey him ever again.
  • Heroic BSoD:
    • Túrin after he accidentally kills his mentor and best friend Beleg and again after learning that Finduilas has been killed.
    • Fingolfin after hearing that all of the North is in ruin from the Battle of Sudden Flame, after which he rides alone to challenge Morgoth.
    • Húrin is a ruined shell of his former self after decades of Cold-Blooded Torture and Mind Rape.
  • Heroic Dog: Huan. The fact that he's sapient and the size of a small horse just helps.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • King Finrod Felagund following Beren on his suicidal quest knowing it will kill him, and finally saving him from a werewolf.
    • Glorfindel dying to save the refugees of Gondolin from a Balrog.
  • Hero Killer: Though Tolkien writes plenty of badass Heroes, a common theme throughout his literature is facing impossible odds, and often dying in the process. As such, there are Hero Killers a-plenty in The Silmarillion.
    • Morgoth. Responsible for the rest of the villainous Hero Killers, as well as responsible for the deaths of millions of soldiers of good. Personally, he slew several of the strongest warriors of his era, although often received permanent wounds in the process. Of all the Valar, only Tulkas was capable of beating him in a one-on-one fight.
    • Sauron. The only hero to ever fight him man-to-man and succeed was Huan, a Valarian hound. Elendil, the King of Gondor and Arnor, and Gil-Galad, High King of the Noldor, managed to kill him in combat as well, however they did not survive the battle either.
    • Gothmog. Morgoth's toughest Balrog and the overall commander of his armies. Gothmog never missed the chance to fight even the boldest and strongest of Heroes, and even when he died at the hands of Ecthelion of the Fountain, Ecthelion didn't survive to tell the tale.
    • Ungoliant. Another one of the Baddies, there are no specific heroes she's killed, but it is noted that many have tried to hunt her down and slay her, and none ever returned.
    • Glaurung. The Granddaddy of Dragons. Not only did he enjoy playing with the psyches of his enemies, he also bled highly acidic blood, and when he finally was slain by Túrin, he was so badly injured in the fight that he fell into despair.
    • Ancalagon the Black. The largest Dragon in the history of Arda. Like Ungoliant, he never slew any specifically-named Heroes, but during the War of Wrath, he burnt, ate, or crushed thousands of Valarian warriors and their allies.
    • Carcharoth. A wolf bred by Morgoth specifically to counter Huan, Carcharoth directly killed both Beren and Huan, and indirectly caused Lúthien's death shortly thereafter.
    • Fëanor. Though not as evil as the other Villains listed, he still had a hand to play in brutality. Paranoid and egocentric, he nearly attempted to murder his brother and famed Hero Fingolfin, and had his forces slaughter the Teleri in order to seize their ships. He later left many of his Noldori to die for not being loyal enough, and even killed his own son, though it was accidental.
  • Hero of Another Story: Tuor briefly crosses paths with his cousin Túrin. Neither knows who the other is, as they've never met before.
  • He Who Fights Monsters:
    • Fëanor. Good Eru, Fëanor. Here, have a trampoline.
    • Húrin is also this after he is released from Angband. Morgoth's Mind Rape left him convinced that Doriath and Brethil were partly responsible for his family's suffering, and that they needed to be, uh, punished.
    • Averted with Tulkas, who's wise enough to know that it would be foolish and wrong to fight Melkor's rebellion with rebellion of his own.
  • Hidden Elf Village: Gondolin, and to a lesser extent Doriath and Nargothrond (all three are hidden by the power of the Maia Melian or the Vala Ulmo, and virtually no outsiders are allowed into Nargothrond or especially Gondolin).
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The first sign that Feanor's oath for the Silmarils is going to go terribly wrong? The Silmarils can only be touched safely by those with Incorruptible Pure Pureness, yet part of the oath itself is that anyone who isn't one of Feanor's bloodline calls down their wrath and bloodshed. Yeah... safe to say going into a frenzied bloodlust over anyone who isn't family holding on to one of them isn't going to keep you on the Incorruptible Pure Pureness side for long. Hence why Maehdros and Maglor can't hold them even when they repent.
  • Holy Is Not Safe: The Silmarils themselves, which burn away anyone insufficiently pure who tries to touch them.
  • Honor Before Reason: Middle-Earth having its fair share of Proud Warrior Race Guys, honor is a big deal, and it often comes with a tragic price. This is enforced in the case of the Sons of Fëanor. They get themselves killed off one by one and alienate or kill every potential ally and friend trying to honor their pointless oath to reclaim the Silmarils.
  • Hopeless War: The Noldor leaving Aman to seek vengeance on Morgoth don't fully realize it at the beginning despite the dire warning of the Doom of Mandos, but they could never have defeated Morgoth on their own. On the other side of the coin, when the Valar answer Eärendil's prayer and go to Beleriand to stop Morgoth, they war for decades, but the Valar's triumph is inevitable.
  • Hope Spot: A couple of elongated ones.
    • After Ungoliant kills the Two Trees, Yavanna says that she might be able to use the light trapped in the Silmarils to revive them before the last life in their roots fails. But Feanor refuses to allow his greatest work to be destroyed even to restore the Trees and it turns out that Morgoth has stolen the Silmarils anyway.
    • During the First Age, the Elves score a glorious victory over Morgoth's forces in the Dagor Aglareb and set up the Siege of Angband, and for a time it seems that they might be able to keep him at bay indefinitely. Sadly, a few hundred years later, the next two battles (Dagor Bragollach and Nírnaeth Arnoediad) result in the Siege being broken, the tables being turned, and the Elven kingdoms falling one by one, ensuring that Morgoth's conquest of Beleriand could not be stopped except by the belated intervention of the Valar and their forces in the costly War of Wrath (in which Beleriand itself was destroyed).
    • King Tar-Palantir represents one for Númenor. He tries to atone for the evils committed by his predecessors, rekindle ties with the elves and offer repentance to the Valar, and divert Númenor from its path to catastrophe, and his daughter and rightful successor Tar-Míriel looks set to continue in her father's ways. Sadly, the Valar do not hear him, he fails to win over the people during his reign, and after his death, his evil nephew seizes the sceptre by forcing Tar-Míriel into marriage, ensuring the inevitability of Númenor's destruction.
  • Hot-Blooded:
    • Fëanor, to the point that when he dies his corpse spontaneously combusts from the fire of his spirit.
    • Most of his sons as well, to Knight Templar levels. Maglor and Maedhros are the only ones who repent, but only too late.
  • Hufflepuff House: the third Eldar clan, the Teleri, play this part in the Elder Days: the Vanyar were basically the Valar's teacher's pet and are the ones who eventually come to the rescue and mop up Morgoth's armies in the War of Wrath; the Noldor are the movers & shakers and the main protagonists in The Silmarillion, but the Teleri are the clan who tarried the longest time in the journey to Valinor; once arrived they accomplished nothing notable and end up being essentially known for being the ones on the wrong end of the Noldorin stick. On the other hand, one of their subbranches, the Sindar or Grey Elves, accomplished much more in Beleriand, where the Nandor or Green Elves were this trope to the Sindar.
  • Human Sacrifice: A major feature of the Religion of Evil that Sauron founds in Númenórë. The victims consist of slaves captured from Middle-earth and any Númenóreans who prove disloyal to the king or who still secretly use the Elvish languages.
  • Humans Are Special: In the first parts. Not only are they mortal, but they also have that special form of inherent discontent with the World-as-Is, which forces them to strive for Excellence. Elves are more concerned with preserving natural beauty. Mortals are also apparently the only species to have some freedom from the decrees of the Great Music, "which is as fate to all things else."
  • Humans Are Warriors: An almost straight version of this trope. When Elves first meet Men, they are refugees from Morgoth's land where they had to fight to survive against everything in the region. Elves, on noticing how tough Men are and how quickly they breed, are glad to have them as allies, and give them land in a treaty. Though a variation is that Elves do not consider Men better warriors than Elves or Dwarves for that matter. They just consider Men tough enough and better breeders, thus increasing the depleted supply of reserves. It is possible for Men to be physically stronger than Elves, though. Túrin, when he is ambushed by Saeros, is described as "stronger than any Elf." Elves usually have the advantages of experience, endurance, and occasionally magic (in the case of Elves like Finrod Felagund or Lúthien), rather than pure strength.
  • Humiliation Conga: Happens to Morgoth more often than you'd expect, especially in the Lighter and Softer original stories (The Book of Lost Tales).
  • Hybrid Power: The choice of the line of Beren (a Man) and Lúthien (an Elf with Maia heredity), who alone can decide which race's fate will befall them.
  • Hypnotic Eyes: At the sack of Nargothrond, the hero Turin is hypnotized by the dragon Glaurung just as he is going to attack Glaurung and unwisely looks into the latter's "lidless eyes". As Glaurung holds him under a spell, Turin stands passive as the captives of Nargothrond are driven away, and only regains (part of) his senses when the dragon withdraws his gaze. Later Turin's sister Nienor is found by Glaurung and by "constrain[ing] her to gaze into his eyes" makes her forget her past and identity. She only regains her memory many years later at the death of Glaurung.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Werewolves eat people. Melkor hand-feeds Carcharoth with Elvish and Man flesh, yet the most chilling example has to be the werewolf that comes back again and again to drag away and eat Beren's companions, one by one, until only he and Finrod are left.
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: Maedhros, when he thinks that Fingon will be unable to rescue him. He does, however, manage it later on.
  • I Don't Like the Sound of That Place:
    • The Mountains of Terror, the Valley of Dreadful Death, the Gasping Dust. Got a real estate brochure?
    • Angband, The Hell of Iron. Sounds cozy!
    • Thangorodrim, the Mountains of Oppression. I want to live there!
  • I Gave My Word
    • Finrod, the freaking king of one of the most powerful of the Elven kingdoms, abandons his throne to help Beren on his suicidal quest simply because he promised Beren's father that he would do his utmost to aid him and his descendants. Finrod dies saving Beren's life.
    • Also the sons of Fëanor. They spend nearly 600 years chasing the Silmarils... to no avail.
  • Important Haircut: Lúthien gives herself one when she needs to escape from the treehouse her father's locked her up in: She magically lets her dark hair grow impossibly long, cuts it, and makes a rope to escape the treehouse and a cloak of super-camouflage.
  • Incest-ant Admirer: Maeglin lusted after his first cousin, Idril. Idril, however, is squicked by this (Eldar normally don't marry kin so close), and her rejection leaves him bitter; this becomes the seed of Gondolin's downfall.
  • Intergenerational Friendship
    • Amandil and Ar-Pharazôn, who befriended each other when Ar-Pharazôn was a boy. Also, any friendship between an Elf and a Man (such as Beleg and Túrin, and Tuor and Voronwë) technically counts, as the Elf is nearly always decades or centuries older.
    • Finrod Felagund's friendships with Bëor and Barahir carry over to Beren, their descendant. He was also close friends with Andreth of the House of Bëor.
    • Túrin and Sador, a former soldier who was crippled in an accident.
    • Many friendships among elves count, due to their immortality. Look at Galadriel and Elrond, who are kind of buddies in the Third Age: Galadriel is Finwë's granddaughter, whereas Elrond is his great-great-great-grandson. She is also his mother-in-law: Elrond married her daughter, Celebrían.
  • Ironic Echo: "O, Túrin Turambar! Master of doom by doom mastered!"
  • Iron Lady
    • Haleth was a chieftainess of a Mannish tribe and a very fearsome one.
    • Emeldir, Barahir's wife and the mother of Beren, was called "Man-Hearted", because she preferred to fight alongside her husband and son when Orcs came raiding. After the Dagor Bragollach, the land was being overrun by the enemy so she gathered together all the women and children that still remained and led them out of Dorthonion to Brethil. Beren, Barahir, and their ten companions stayed behind because they refused to abandon the land to Morgoth.
    • Morwen, who is generally depicted as proud, somewhat cold and iron-willed, especially after her husband Húrin is taken captive by Morgoth and their land is conquered by Easterlings. Later, she also disregards the advice of Thingol and Melian.
  • It's Personal: In the Akallabêth, Sauron makes it very personal for the survivors of Númenor.
  • It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Eärendil is never allowed to return to Middle-earth. Instead, he becomes a planet.

    J-L 
  • Jacob and Esau: Inziladûn and Gimilkhâd (two of the princes of Númenor).
  • Jerkass:
    • Fëanor and sons. Let's count all the innocent people who die because of their utterly shameless, unrepented brutality: umpteen slain at Alqualondë, umpteen more who die in the Grinding Ice, Finrod Felagund and ten other elves in Sauron's dungeon, umpteen people in Doriath including Dior and his 6-year-old sons, and umpteen more people at the Havens of Sirion. Only two sons of Fëanor (Maedhros and Maglor) show any remorse about these acts or attempt to break the Oath to continue them. And Maedhros dies.
    • The last Númenórean king, Ar-Pharazôn, who forces his cousin to marry him so he can usurp her throne, happily embraces Morgoth-worship and Human Sacrifice, persecutes the last "faithful" Númenóreans and the natives of Middle-earth to supply said sacrifices, and finally decides to invade Valinor.
    • Thingol certainly counts as a Jerkass as well, sending Beren off on an impossible quest to get him killed and trying to get Morgoth to do his dirty work. Not to mention that if Morgoth didn't do the job, he would've had Beren killed himself! At least he would have at first, if Lúthien hadn't made him promise not to. When Morgoth didn't do the job and Beren returned, Thingol was actually so moved by his determination and love for Lúthien that he promptly did a Heel–Face Turn. Thingol later pulled another jerkass move when he refused to pay some dwarves for setting the Silmaril in some jewellery. (Maybe. That's what the dwarves claimed; the elves said the dwarves tried to take the Silmaril-set jewellery itself as their "payment" and Thingol naturally refused to give it.) This got him killed and ultimately led to Doriath being sacked by the sons of Feanor.
    • Turin Turambar. Yes, he has the curse of Morgoth on him, but if he'd stopped wangsting for just five minutes and actually thought about what he was doing he wouldn't have become the Person of Mass Destruction who managed to kill just about everybody who ever cared about him - not to mention a whole Elven kingdom.
    • Maeglin. He was very antagonistic to all mortal men he knew (Húrin, Huor, Tuor). And is in love with his cousin so much that he is happy to betray Gondolin for her. He could have warned Turgon that his city was about to be destroyed, but did he? No. He also didn't seem to care when his father was executed (though in his defense, his father had just killed his mother, who happened to be the only person he actually cared for).
  • "Just So" Story: There's a lot of this inserted here and there. In particular, a whole section of the text explains, gradually, how the sun and moon came to be, and a lot of other natural features in the process.
  • Kaiju: Most dragons but Ancalagon is an absolute terror of this size.
  • Kill and Replace:
    • As Beren, Finrod, and their companions journey to Angband with the intent to retrieve a Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth, they come upon a camp of Orcs which they attack, killing all the Orcs. They then take the Orcs' weapons, and Finrod casts a spell that makes them assume the appearance of the Orcs they killed. In this disguise they travel far into Morgoth's territory, but arouse the suspicion of Sauron when they pass by the watchtower of Tol-in-Gaurhoth without reporting back to him.
    • As Luthien and Huan follow Beren who is once again trying to get into Angband, Huan stops at the ruins of Sauron's watchtower to pick up the skins of the werewolf Draugluin (whom Huan had killed earlier) and the vampire bat Thuringwethil (who was presumably killed when Luthien made the tower collapse). On the advice of Huan and with Luthien's magic, Beren and Luthien use the skins to disguise themselves as Draugluin and Thuringwethil, and thus reach the Gate of Angband.
  • Kill It with Fire: Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of Sudden Flame, begins with Morgoth setting the entire North ablaze.
  • King in the Mountain: Turgon is considered this by non-Gondolinian elves; Finwë is a literal example after his death.
  • The Kingslayer: The dwarven jewelsmiths who killed the great elven king Thingol. It started the whole Elves Versus Dwarves shtick in the whole of Middle-earth (and, after that, in many other fantasy universes that ripped the Elves Versus Dwarves shtick from Professor Tolkien). Now that is a regicide with repercussions!
  • Kissing Cousins: There are four cases of marriage between cousins of varying degrees in the family tree of the elven and half-elven royalty. This could be a feature of Teleri marriage customs, as all the involved are at least partly of Teleri descent.
    • Galadriel is the daughter of Eärwen, and granddaughter Olwë, king of the Teleri. Her husband Celeborn is the grandson of Elmo (or his son, or Olwë's grandson), Olwë's brother. This makes them second cousins (or Galadriel Celeborn's first cousin once removed).
    • Nimloth, Elmo's granddaughter (daughter Celeborn's brother Galathil if he was Elmo's grandson) marries Dior, grandson of Elwë, king of Doriath and Olwë and Elmo's brother. This means Nimloth is Dior's second cousin once removed.
    • Celeborn and Galadriel's daughter Celebrian marries Dior and Nimloth's grandson Elrond. Their relations can be named in several different ways. Elrond is also Celebrian's paternal second cousin twice removed. Celebrian is the granddaughter of Finarfin and Elrond is the great-great-grandson of his brother Fingolfin.
    • Finally, 3000 years later, Arwen marries Aragorn, her first cousin 64 times removed (descended from Elros, Elrond's twin brother).
    • However it is mentioned that Maeglin can't marry his first cousin Idril because the Elves don't marry that close. His desire for her turns to hatred and he ends up helping Morgoth partially because they offer Idril to him.
  • Knight Templar: Fëanor and his sons ultimately turn into this.
  • Land, Sea, Sky: The fates of the Silmarils at the end of the First Age align with this theme; one is entombed in the depths of Arda, one falls to the bottom of the ocean, and one is aloft in the heavens on Eärendil's ship.
  • Last Stand:
    • Acting as the rearguard for Turgon and the companies of Gondolin who are trying to escape the Nírnaeth Arnoediad both safely and secretly, Húrin and his people hold the Fens of Serech again a monstrous onslaught of enemies for days on end, killing so many that eventually the Orcs bridge the river with their own dead. The group, consisting of almost the entirety of the menfolk of the House of Hador do this knowing full well that they cannot survive but defying the heck out of Morgoth because that's just how badass they are.
    • The entirety of The War of Wrath is basically a decades last stand for Morgoth himself. An absolutely colossal force made up of just about every elf, human, dwarf and Maia available (and maybe even all of the Valar) came to finally strike down Morgoth, but he put an equally horrifying fight by pulling every monster and trick he had in the book, even a dragon big enough to bloat out the sun. The War is stated to have been close during the last stages when Morgoth started using more and more terrifying monstrosities, but in the end it was his last-ditch attempt to prevent his capture, which was unsuccessful.
  • The Legions of Hell: Consisting of Orcs, Trolls, Werewolves, Balrogs, and Dragons.
  • Life-or-Limb Decision: Maedhros when Fingon rescued him from Thangorodrim. Specifically, Maedhros preferred to die; Fingon is the one who decided to cut off his hand instead.
  • The Lifestream: The Halls of Mandos.
  • Light Is Good: Usually light is a metaphor and literal, physical tool of the forces of goodness in the world, especially the Valar, and evil creatures such as orcs cannot endure sunlight.
  • Light Is Not Good: Occasionally looks can deceive; during the Second Age, Sauron's preferred form is that of a beautiful angelic being (Annatar, the "Lord of Gifts"); it is in this form that he deceives the Elves into forging the Rings of Power and later subverts Númenórë. Melkor's eyes also originally "pierced with a deadly light."
  • Like Brother and Sister: Despite Finduilas' romantic feelings towards him, Túrin looks at her in a more sisterly light. The same could be said for his sister Niënor; Brandir likes her romantically, but she loves him only platonically. Ironically both Túrin and Niënor manage to hook up with people whom they feel romantically attracted to but happen to actually be their siblings. That is, each other.
  • Lineage Comes from the Father: Galadriel is counted among the Noldor, even though proportionally she has more Vanyarin and Telerin blood.
  • Losing the Team Spirit
    • The loss of the Silmarils and the Darkening of Valinor has this quite understandable effect on the Valar, Maiar, and High Elves. It has the opposite effect on the Noldor though, causing them to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
    • After their king is killed in the Fifth Battle, the Dwarves just walk off the battlefield carrying his corpse. Nobody dares get in their way.
  • Lost Technology:
    • The Númenórean fleet that attacks Valinor was armed with "darts that could travel across an ocean." Being Middle-earth, of course, it's hard to say where the line can be drawn between magic and technology.
    • The Noldor have the means to create synthetic gemstones superior in quality to natural ones.
    • At some points it's mentioned that the Noldor use crystals filled with light as energy-efficient light bulbs when going into dark places, a (magi)tech Men haven't quite mastered. Indeed, their inventor Fëanor didn't share the secret formula with anyone before his death.
  • Love at First Sight
    • Beren and Lúthien, Because Destiny Says So.
    • Lúthien's parents Elu Thingol and Melian the Maia, such that they spend years locked in each other's gaze as the trees grow taller around them.
  • Love Makes You Evil:
    • Maeglin's heartbreak over Idril helps motivate him to betray Gondolin, so he can murder her husband and seven-year-old son and have a chance to rape her.
    • Daeron's love for Lúthien leads him to betray Beren to Thingol, who most definitely intended to kill the guy, and later to get Lúthien in trouble for trying to follow Beren. But unlike Maeglin, he's genuinely concerned for Lúthien, and apologizes when he sees Thingol's reaction.
  • Luke Nounverber: Finrod Felagund (Cave-Hewer)

    M-O 
  • Magic Music: The Ainur (and Lúthien, who is the daughter of an Ainu) use song in their "magic." Finrod Felagund also uses "music" to create "supernatural" effects, even in a duel against Sauron. This is Fridge Brilliance when you remember that this is also how the Ainur (sub)-created the universe.
    • Lúthien's song after Beren's death is so beautifully melancholic that it moves the Vala Mandos — Tolkien's Hades — to pity for the first and only time ever.
  • Magnum Opus: Discussed In-Universe via the idea of there being one great work that one is destined to create in life, never to be surpassed or recreated, the prime examples being the creation of Telperion and Laurelin, the Two Trees of Valinor by Yavanna, and the crafting of the Silmarils by Fëanor.
  • Manchild: The Men see Elves as eternal children. Given to their actions, this seems pretty much justified.
  • The Man Behind the Man: Towards the end of Numenor, Ar-Pharazon was the mightiest tyrant that the world had seen since the reign of Morgoth, but secretly Sauron ruled all from behind the throne.
  • The Man in the Moon: The sun and the moon are the last fruit and flower, respectively, from the Two Trees of Valinor, and act as lanterns in the sky; Arien, a female Maia, carries the sun. Tilion, a male Maia, carries the moon, in ships constructed by Aulë. Tilion is in love with the aloof Arien and chases her across the firmament. When he catches up to her, an eclipse is produced; however, he can never stay long as her glory burns him.
  • Mayfly–December Romance: Averted with Beren and Lúthien (and they worked hard to avert it.) Somewhat subverted with Aegnor (an elf) and Andreth (a Mannish woman): he fears that she will grow old while he doesn't, or (quite rightly) that he will die in battle before she does. They never marry.
  • May It Never Happen Again: Subverted. The War of Wrath between the Valar and the fallen Valar turned Destroyer Deity Morgoth is immensely destructive with countless dead, including sinking the continent of Beleriand beneath the sea. As a result, the Valar decide to no longer use their power to directly intervene in the war against evil to prevent such destruction in the future. Subverted in that, unfortunately, this makes things all the more difficult when one of Morgoth's lieutenants creates problems down the line.
  • Meaningful Name: This is Tolkien, so naturally almost every character and place name has a valid etymology in one (or more!) ConLangs. For example:
    • Fëanor (spirit of fire)
    • Melkor (mighty arising)
    • Morgoth (dark enemy), though this is because that's what he was. His real name was Melkor, but he was known only as Morgoth after his evil nature was revealed.
    • Maeglin (sharp glance)
    • Eärendil (lover/friend of the sea)
    • Maedhros roughly translates to "sexy ginger." note 
  • Meaningful Rename:
    • Feanor is the one who changes Melkor's title to Morgoth. It's pretty clear by then what he's become and how he's seen that he fully deserves the new name compared to the old one (see Meaningful Name for specifics).
    • Túrin gave himself many aliases to hide his identity, usually obliquely referring to whatever horrible thing had last happened to him: i.e. Neithan (the Wronged), Agarwaen (the Blood-Stained), Turambar (Master of Doom). By doom mastered
    • Galadriel was originally called Artanis ("Noblewoman" in Quenya), she was given the name Galadriel ("Maiden crowned with a radiant garland" in Sindarin) by her husband Celeborn.
  • Meaningless Villain Victory: In the end, Maedhros and Maglor are finally able to succeed at getting the Silmarils. The only problem is that they've done so many terrible things along the way that the Silmarils burn them at the touch, which leads to Maedhros throwing one Silmaril, and himself, into a volcano and Maglor to throw the other Silmaril into the ocean.
  • Medieval Stasis: From the beginning of First Age to the end of the Third, there's next to nothing in the way of technological advancement.
  • Messianic Archetype: Played straight with Eärendil and subverted with Fëanor.
  • Metaphorically True: The final chapter says, regarding the One Ring, that Frodo took it to Mt. Doom and destroyed it. This appears to be what the rest of Middle-earth believes happened, though the readers know it's not exactly the truth.
  • Mind Rape
    • Glaurung to Túrin and Niënor. Twice at least.
    • Morgoth to Húrin, nonstop, during his long imprisonment on Thangorodrim, forcing him to experience every (already horrific) second of his family's slow destruction, with the horror distorted all out of proportion to reality.
  • Mineral MacGuffin: The eponymous Silmarils.
  • Misery Builds Character: Mostly averted, the constant misery and suffering the characters suffer just pisses them off and leads them to despair, which leads to more misery. Played straight twice however:
    • After being abandoned by Fëanor, Fingolfin and his people are forced to take the long and hard way to Middle-earth "but their valor and endurance grew with hardship; for they were a mighty people."
    • Tuor is the only character to emerge from his Trauma Conga Line a better person.
  • The Mole:
    • Ulfang and his sons. He was an Easterling chieftain who secretly allied himself with Morgoth while serving under Caranthir, and it was his people's treachery that allowed Morgoth to learn all the secret plans for the Union of Maedhros and crush the alliance in the Nírnaeth Arnoediad.
    • Having agreed to betray Gondolin to Morgoth, Maeglin went back to the city and pretended everything was just fine, waiting for the invasion to start. He never once warned anybody. In The Book of Lost Tales his house's symbol is even a mole.
  • Momma's Boy: Fëanor. He loved his mother (although most versions of the story agree that he never knew her), and clung to her memory, rejecting his stepmother Indis and her children, and eventually created a Shibboleth as political litmus test around a sound change that happened to impact her name (Þerindë vs. the later Serindë). Mispronouncing her name was Serious Business! To Míriel's credit, she later stated she should have been present to help raise her son, but valued Indis for taking care of her family while she was in the halls of Mandos.
  • Monster Progenitor:
    • Ungoliant spawns numerous hideous spider-like things, such as Shelob.
    • To a similar extent, Glaurung is referred to as the "Father of Dragons."
  • Morality Kitchen Sink: On the heroic side of things you have most of the more noble characters like Frodo, Eärendil and Beren (though, even they aren't immune from making mistakes and moral lapses) and most of the Valar who always mean well but often make misguided choices. All the free peoples vary greatly, with morally ambigous characters like Thingol, Maglor, Túrin, Mîm, Fëanor, Gollum, and Thorin hovering in the middle and with Morgoth and his directly corrupted minons at the evil extreme. However, the moral compass of the series varies between each story, with The Lord of the Rings mostly (though not completely) revolving around Black-and-White Morality while Black And Gray dominates The Children of Húrin and The Hobbit (with shades of Grey-and-Gray Morality in both).
  • Moses in the Bulrushes:
    • Averted. The young half-elven princes Eluréd and Elurín (the sons of Dior and the brothers of Elwing) are abandoned in the wilderness in the middle of winter... and never seen again.
    • Played straighter in one (seemingly rejected) story with Elwing's sons, who are taken into the wild after the attack on the Havens of Sirion, then found in a cave behind a waterfall, and around the waterfall respectively. Hence, their names: Elrond (Elf of the Cave), and Elros (Elf of the Foam).
  • Mook Chivalry: Sauron's werewolves attack Huan one at a time.
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
    • Túrin after he accidentally stabs and kills Beleg, mistaking him for an Orc.
    • Maedhros and Maglor when they steal the Silmarils after the Final Battle; Maedhros is Driven to Suicide, while Maglor spends the rest of his life Walking the Earth in regret.
  • Mystical Plague: J. R. R. Tolkien seems to have liked this trope:
    • The Silmarillion mentions a plague apparently sent by Sauron to weaken Gondor so he could regain control of Mordor.
    And in the days of Telemnar, the third and twentieth of the line of Meneldil, a plague came upon dark winds out of the east, and it smote the King and his children, and many of the people of Gondor perished. Then the forts on the borders of Mordor were deserted, and Minas Ithil was emptied of its people; and evil entered again into the Black Land secretly, and the ashes of Gorgoroth were stirred as by a cold wind, for dark shapes gathered there.
    • A mystical plague sent by Morgoth before the Fifth Battle is what killed Túrin Turambar's younger sister Lalaith.
  • Named Weapons: Both Túrin and Beleg have them, and many others.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Morgoth (Dark Enemy), Angband (Hell of Iron), The Valley of Dreadful Death. See Meaningful Name.
  • Nice Mean And In Between:
    • The three sons of Finwë. Finarfin (nice) is the "fairest and wisest" son who attempts to dissuade the Noldor from rebelling against the Valar, Fëanor (mean) is consumed by pride and revenge and causes a huge amount of suffering in his and his sons' pursuit of it, and Fingolfin (in-between) is prideful to a lesser extent than Fëanor and with nobler intentions.
    • The seven sons of Fëanor also fall into these three categories. The M-brothers (Maedhros and Maglor) are the nice ones, being the closest to repenting of their evil, and the most heroic when not being compelled by the evil Oath of their father. The C-brothers (Celegorm, Caranthir and Curufin) are the mean ones, being hot-blooded Jerkasses who, in addition to following the Oath, became outright antagonists to the more heroic characters, although Caranthir attains some measure of redemption later on. The A-twins (Amrod and Amras) are in-between, with less of their character-defining traits spelled out other than that they are close to each other and follow the Oath along with their brothers.
  • The Night That Never Ends: Middle-earth falls into utter darkness after Morgoth destroys the Two Trees, and remains lit only by the stars until the Valar create the Moon and Sun ages later.
  • Noble Tongue: Quenya (High Elven) sometimes functions this way for the elves of Middle-earth, who otherwise would speak in Sindarin. Similarly, Sindarin acts this way for the nobility of Gondor, who otherwise speak Westron.
  • Noble Savage: Edain come off as this when compared to Elves and Dwarves. They have a less sophisticated society but an admirable one.
  • No Body Left Behind: Fëanor's body spontaneously combusts upon death.
  • No Man of Woman Born: Huan the wolfhound can only be killed by the mightiest werewolf to ever live. Sauron tries to kill him by shapeshifting into the most powerful werewolf alive, but this fails because the most powerful werewolf to ever live is Carcharoth, who hadn't come into his full power yet.
  • Non-Action Guy: Brandir, called "the Lame," because of a crippling childhood injury. He is shown in stark contrast to the martial and Hot-Blooded Túrin.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: The particular difficulty of creating the Two Trees meant that Yavanna was incapable of recreating them after they were killed by Ungoliant. The only recourse would have been to take the last remnant of their Light from the Silmarils (thus destroying them) to revive them. Likewise, the creation of the Silmarils was a task so physically and spiritually demanding of Fëanor that recreating them would have been impossible, which is why he refused to let them be destroyed even if meant the restoration of the two trees.
  • Offing the Offspring: Failed with Eöl and Maeglin; accidental with Fëanor and Amrod note .
  • Omnicidal Maniac: "Morgoth" means "The Dark Enemy of the World." He started out "merely" wanting to replace God as the ruler of the universe. Since that turned out to be impossible (like, duh) he decided to just enslave everybody and force them to worship him. Eventually, he became so enraged that anything at all dared to exist without being his exclusive creation, that he just wanted to destroy the universe, utterly, forever. Torturing people to death along the way helped pass the time, though.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Fëanor is a genius jeweler, smith, metallurgist, linguist, orator, and more.
  • One-Winged Angel: Sauron on Tol Sirion. Starting off in a fair form, he attempts to defeat Huan by switching to huge scary werewolf mode, then realizes he's in trouble and does a lot of rapid shapeshifting to no avail. When he strikes a bargain with Lúthien, giving her mastery over the island in return for freedom, he shifts into a vampire/bat-thing shape to escape.
  • Only the Pure of Heart: If someone who has become tainted by evil touches the Silmarils, they get burned. It happens to Morgoth when he steals them, and to Carcharoth when he bites off Beren's hand when Beren was holding a Silmaril, and to Maedhros and Maglor after the War of Wrath. When they finally recover the gems, they will no longer suffer their touch because of all the evil deeds they've committed to fulfill their oath to get them back. The third ends up with Eärendil, who ends up sailing the skies as a star.note 
  • Orcus on His Throne: Enforced by Morgoth's injuries and resulting Shapeshifter Mode Lock, setting things up for the Watchful Peace. This is especially notable during the periods between the third and fourth battles. There's also the fact that he has weakened himself from spreading his power out into all his Orcs and other servants, who are motivated by his will. The History of Middle-earth goes into more detail and explains that the Ainur were shocked to find Morgoth a weak shadow of his former self once they had defeated his armies.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: The origins of dragons in Middle-earth is revealed as reptile-like servants of Morgoth, possibly demonic spirits (Maia or not) incarnated in physical bodies. There are cold-drakes (probably with no wings or fire breath); Urulóki, fire-drakes, wingless dragons with fiery breath like Glaurung the Golden, also one of Morgoth's Dragons in the trope sense; and finally, during the final battle at Angband, winged fire-drakes surprise the Valar's host and almost overcome them until Eärendil has his Big Damn Heroes moment in his Cool Flying Ship. Two aspects of Tolkien's dragons that don't show up much in other works are their poisonous blood, and that they stink terribly.
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: This holds true in all cases save for the Petty Dwarves.
  • Our Elves Are Different: The Silmarillion shows Elves at their worst - there are only three cases of Elves having battles against each other in their entire history, and all of them happen in this 600-year time span - but even at their worst, they are still fighting against the Big Bad, and spend 400 years keeping Beleriand (relatively) safe from the forces of evil. There is a grand total of one Elf, in their entire history, who willingly served an Evil power. The Edain (Men) in The Silmarillion are often more admirable than the Elves. However, the story of the Downfall of Númenor illustrates just how much worse Men can be (basically: human sacrifices to the God of Evil in an attempt to invade and militarily conquer paradise).
    • Elves are in many ways more powerful, "magical" and skilled than Men (they better be as they got long enough to practice), but they can screw up monumentally. Possibly more than Men in fact, as their greater power lets them screw up more dramatically and cause more damage. Elves have more control over their bodies than Men, and thus are less inclined toward mundane sins like Lust and Gluttony and Sloth, but can fall to Wrath or Pride just as Men can. In other words, when an elf becomes evil it is not because he lacks willpower; it is because he actually intends to do so. Elves are more "in-tune" with the physical world than Mortal Men, since they are a permanent part of it. As such, they seem to feel things more intensely than Mortals, and as a consequence their errors in judgment can be far more damaging. Their peaks and valleys are more like mountains and canyons. An angry Elf is a Person of Mass Destruction. A sad Elf can literally die of a broken heart.
  • Our Gods Are Different:
    • Eru Iluvatar is God in the Abrahamic sense; an all-powerful creator who exists outside of time and permeates everything. The Valar and Maiar should be thought of more like gods in the Classical sense, or, since they're subordinate to Eru, like angels. Tolkien might have been inspired by writers like Milton or Dante, who were very much Christian but still wanted to put pagan deities in their created worlds; there's a fair bit of justification for why the Valar don't violate the First Commandment by their very existence.
    • As a side note, nobody in Arda seems to practice any form of organized worship of any of the above. The only exception we've seen is the fallen men of Numenor, and for them it's treated like a very bad thing and a sign that Sauron had corrupted them.
  • Our Humans Are Different: Humans and elves are very similar races, created by Illuvatar and referred to as His children. In the beginning, humans were like elves in strength and stature, but this changed later as the world aged. The most crucial difference between elves and men is that men are mortal, and elves are immortal, as well as the destinations of their souls — elves linger in the physical world as spirits if killed, while human souls depart it entirely for Illuvatar's Halls.
  • Our Souls Are Different: And how. This is a pretty complex issue — the nature and fate of the soul depends on race.
    • Ainur (Valar and Maiar) are primordial spirits that existed before the beginning of the world; they can take physical form, but for them this is more like wearing clothes than having a body. When they "die" they usually just make a new one, though fallen Ainur can become so messed up that they lose this ability. In their purest form, Ainur were the offspring of Eru's thoughts himself and each was given understanding only of that part of the mind of Illuvatar from which he or she came. The exception to this was Melkor.
    • Whereas the Incarnates (Elves, Men/Hobbits, and Dwarves) are only "complete" when they are embodied. They all have a spirit or soul (fëa) which comes from the Flame Imperishable of Ilúvatar. It is indestructible and grants the individual consciousness and free-will, but unlike the Ainur it is utterly powerless without a body made of the physical matter of Arda. The Valar, Maiar, and Elves must remain in the world until it ends, and cannot leave it: Elves whose bodies are killed can remain as shades (though this choice implies they are tainted), or go to the Halls of Mandos and hope to get a new body after a time of waiting. Which Elves get reincarnated seems to depend mostly on whether they can repent of whatever mistakes or misdeeds they've made, but the details are murky at best.
    • The souls of Men and Hobbits are designed to leave the universe after a relatively short lifespan; trying to avoid this fate leads to serious problems (Gollum and the Nazgûl are examples).
    • The fate of Dwarves is even more obscure; Elves seem to think they have no afterlife at all, but Dwarves believe that their maker Aulë will take care of them in the Halls of Mandos.
    • A still more obscure question is, what happens to dead Orcs? The Silmarillion suggests (without confirming) that Orcs were bred from Elves who were tortured and corrupted, and a throwaway line in The Lord of the Rings suggests that two of the Orc characters might remember the First Age, which at that point was a good six thousand years ago: the Orcs may be as long-lived as the Elves, though Tolkien elsewhere contradicted that. Maybe their souls go to the same place as those of Elves (where presumably they wait for the end of the world). Tolkien never quite figured out the question of Orc souls: everything in the legendarium suggests that Orcs are creatures of pure evil but he was never happy with what that might imply.
    • And then there are Ents, giant Eagles, Hounds of Oromë, and other more obscure creatures; Tolkien couldn't even decide whether the talking animals have souls at all, let alone what kind of afterlife they'd have. Meanwhile, Ents seem to be Incarnates and as immortal-within-the-world as Elves, but the fate of slain Ents is never mentioned.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: They appear to be not undead, but rather a specific class of Maia, or perhaps mutated animals. Only one is named, Thuringwethil, Sauron's messenger, and it's only mentioned that she can take the form of a bat.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: Like dragons, they are demonic spirits in animal bodies/shapes, not "infected" Men. They apparently are not shapeshifters, always resembling huge talking wolves, but the text never clarifies. Sauron was their lord in the First Age.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: Noldorin High King Finarfin, in spades. His whole family (sans his daughter Galadriel) gets killed, and Finarfin (who presumably still rules the Noldor in Aman) outlives both his brothers (Fëanor and Fingolfin), their children and their grandchildren. He also has outlived his great-granddaughter Arwen, who chose the part of a mortal woman.
    • Húrin and Morwen outlive their children Túrin and Niënor, as Túrin and Niënor kill themselves after realizing that they accidentally committed incest.

    P-R 
  • The Paragon Always Rebels: First Melkor and Sauron, then Fëanor, then the Númenóreans and, finally, Saruman. Each was the greatest created member of their species in power and potential, but it went to their heads in bad ways.
  • Parental Marriage Veto: Thingol to Beren and Lúthien, leading to an Engagement Challenge.
  • Parental Substitute: Thingol to Túrin, Annael to Tuor. The strangest, if strangely heartwarming, case is of course Maglor's fostering of Elros and Elrond.
  • Physical God: The Valar are the equivalent of Christian archangels, but their narrative place in the story is more like that of deities.
  • Physical Heaven: Valinor, the Western Blessed Realm of the Valar and Maiar. While no part of Arda can be wholly free of the corruption Morgoth forced into it, the Blessed Realm comes closest to what Eru intended Arda to be. There is no disease, no decay, no corruption or poison. Animals and plants there never age. Everything is vastly more beautiful and lively than anything in Middle-earth. Elves there can experience a world where everything they love doesn't age and die in a minuscule fraction of their lifespan. Word of God is that mortal Men would eventually find it unpleasant, however, and living there would not end well. Thus Men are banned from Valinor itself, by orders of Eru.
  • Playing with Fire: The Balrogs were primordial fire Maiar who allied themselves with Morgoth when he first rebelled. Arien, the Maia who pilots the Sun, is essentially a non-evil Balrog, and when she leaves Valinor to perform her new task she takes the form of a pure, naked flame, too bright for mortal eyes to look at directly. (And the Maia in the Moon follows her around because he's in love with her.)
  • The Power of Love:
    • In Tolkien's universe, war, ambition and violence seldom render good results, let alone positive long-term changes, because the Dark Lords are simply better than everybody else at using power and strength to achieving their goals. On the another hand, love, mercy, kindness...are forces that few people take seriously, even though more often than not they save the world.
    • When Morgoth steals the Silmarils, the Noldor swear to go back to the Middle-Earth and make war upon him until getting their jewels back. Several centuries later, their armies are being crushed and all their power has not availed them to even see from afar the shining of one Silmaril. Enter Beren, who does not care for shiny jewels but is given the impossible task to bring one Silmaril to Thingol in exchange for his daughter's hand, and Lúthien, who has no use for Silmarils either, but will not leave Beren alone...and they achieve out of love for each other what whole armies driven by pride, ambition, greed and revenge failed to do. Their love also proves to be stronger than the laws of metaphysics when Beren dies and his soul lingers in the Halls of Mandos instead of abandoning the world forever -as Humans are meant to-, because his wife asked him to wait for her.
  • Progressive Instrumentation: A rare literary example, the Song of Iluvatar is described as this. Each of the Valar adds their voice to the rest, one by one, and Iluvatar adapts the song to fit each new voice, including Melkor when he attempts to turn it into a dirge...
  • Proud Warrior Race: Edain, prominently. The Noldor less so than the Edain but more than the other Elves.
  • Psycho for Hire: Ungoliant helps Morgoth destroy the Two Trees of Valinor, despite her fear, because he offers to pay her "with both hands" in edible Light, and she's starving. Their alliance lasts maybe an hour after they escape Valinor.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: Fëanor and his seven sons, but especially the three C-brothers, Curufin, Caranthir and Celegorm.
  • The Quisling: Maeglin, son of Eöl and Aredhel, sister of Turgon, the king of Gondolin. He is captured by orcs and dragged to Angband, and Morgoth tortures him to try and extract the location of Gondolin from him. Maeglin gives in when Morgoth offers or agrees to make him ruler of the city after its conquest, and also to deliver his cousin Idril (who's already married) into his hands. Maeglin agreed to kill her husband and seven-year-old son, and he couldn't have expected her to marry him willingly after that...
  • Raised by Rival: The twin children Elrond and Elros are taken in by Maedhros and Maglor. During the bloodshed in their refugee settlement, their mother Elwing is driven into the sea and only saved by Divine Intervention; she had already once fled the brothers in her youth, when they attacked the Kingdom of Doriath and killed her parents. Tolkien doesn't give many details on the twins' upbringing, save that it was apparently a happy one.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: Fëanor and his followers who leave Valinor with him.
  • Rage Helm: The Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost were known for wearing hideous and frightening masks in combat. The Dragon Helm of Dor-lómin was originally a dwarven helmet worn by Azaghâl, Lord of Belegost. He gave it to Maedhros as a gift when they became allies, and Maedhros passed it on to his friend Fingon. However, the helm was simply too damn heavy for any elf to wear it comfortably. Eventually, Fingon gave it to the Mannish chieftain Hador, when Hador became Lord of Dor-lómin, and it became an heirloom of his house.
  • Rampage from a Nail: Carcharoth eats Beren's Silmaril-holding hand and goes on a mad rampage through Doriath while it burns him from the inside out.
  • Rash Equilibrium: Maedhros and Morgoth, immediately following the death of Fëanor. They agree to have a "parley" but neither trusts the other or intends to keep the peace, and both bring more soldiers than they agreed. This ends very badly.
  • Rash Promise: We have the Oath of Fëanor, where he swears with his sons that they will retrieve the Silmarils, no matter what. After three Kinslayings, hundreds of years of war and ruin, sacking of other Elven kingdoms because they held a Silmaril, and the Valar themselves declaring the oath void, the last two sons of Fëanor—Maedhros and Maglor—still sieze the last two Silmarils left on Middle-earth. They discover the hard way that their claim is indeed void when the holy Jewels torment them, driving Maedhros to suicide and Maglor to chuck his into the sea.
  • Raven Hair, Ivory Skin:
    • Tolkien's wife Edith was a fair-skinned brunette, and apparently his own aesthetic preferences combined with what seem to be ancient Celtic standards of beauty to make this combination the most common for the really beautiful people. Elves, of course, are the most beautiful incarnates, very tall and always superhumanly healthy and physically perfect (unless they're maimed or something). And the great majority of elves have pale skin and black or dark brown hair. Some of them are especially emphasized for their dark-haired-pale-skinned beauty: Lúthien, the daughter of Melian the Maia and most beautiful woman in the world (and sort-of-avatar for Edith Tolkien), and her descendant Arwen in The Lord of the Rings.
    • A male example would be Túrin Turambar, a brooding anti-hero with black hair and pale skin who's described as being more handsome than any other mortal man.
  • Reasoning with God: Following the Noldor's defeat in the Nírnaeth Arnoediad, things get so bad in Beleriand with Morgoth now ruling it uncontested that the only thing the people of Middle Earth can do is plead the Valar for salvation. Fortunately, the Valar are moved with compassion when Eärendil arrives in Valinor and makes his plea on behalf of those still in Middle Earth, sparking the War of Wrath and Morgoth's second, final defeat.
  • Rebellious Princess: Galadriel is a princess of both the Noldor (through her father) and the Teleri (through her mother) and she rebelled against the Valar themselves by joining the Noldorin rebellion and leaving Valinor for Middle-earth without their permission. note  She remained under the Doom of Mandos and was banished from Valinor for thousands of years until she refused the temptation of One Ring and her long banishment was finally lifted.
  • Recycled IN SPACE!:
    • Dagor Dagorath is Armageddon/Ragnarök IN MIDDLE-EARTH!
    • The fall of Númenor, also known as Akallabêth or Atalantë, is Atlantis's destruction IN MIDDLE-EARTH!
  • Religion of Evil: Sauron instituted the worship of Melkor-Morgoth (Satan!) in Númenórë, complete with Human Sacrifice.
  • Renegade Splinter Faction: Fëanor and his sons and followers to the High Elves.
  • La Résistance:
    • Barahir's outlaws, still fighting against Morgoth after Dorthonion is conquered in the Dagor Bragollach.
    • Aerin, a kinswoman of Túrin's who married an Easterling, is also implied to have done some good in secret while Dor-Lòmin was being occupied by Easterlings.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves:
    • After capturing Gorlim, one of Barahir's resistant outlaws, Sauron offers to reunite him with his captive wife, Eilinel, if Gorlim betrays the whereabouts of Barahir and his men. Once Sauron obtains the information, he informs Gorlim that Eilinel is dead and he had only seen a phantom, and promptly kills him.
    • When the people of Ulfang betray the Union of Maedhros, Morgoth "rewards" them by relocating them to Hithlum and barring the exit.
  • Rewrite: Galadriel's backstory. Tolkien could never really make up his mind about what she was doing before The Lord of the Rings. Therefore, several alternative histories exist for her:
    • What is implied in The Lord of the Rings: that she came into Lórien from Beleriand before its destruction in the War of Wrath, and met and married there Celeborn, a local wood-elf.
    • What is written in the 1977 Silmarillion: that she was there the night Fëanor gave his infamous speech in Tirion, joined the exile out of Valinor, crossed Helcaraxë by foot, lived with Melian in Doriath and met and married there Celeborn, a local Sindar Elf.
    • What is written in much later texts: that she met and loved Celeborn, a Teleri Elf of Alqualondë, already in Valinor, that she joined the Noldorin rebellion but fought on the side of the Teleri in Alqualondë, and came to Middle-earth across the Grinding Ice with her brothers.
    • What is written in the last document on the subject: that she met and married Celeborn in Valinor, and took no part whatsoever in Fëanor's rebellion, but sailed into Middle-earth independently on a Telerin ship.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Fëanor, and later Fingolfin, both vs. Morgoth. Fingolfin has more success, but it gets them both killed.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Practically every ruler of Elves and Men in Beleriand, and at least one Dwarf lord (Azaghâl), fought on the front lines against Morgoth at one point or another.

    S-U 
  • Satanic Archetype: Morgoth is quite intentionally Tolkien's version of the Christian Devil.
  • Savage Wolves: The werewolves (Gaurhoth) in general embody and represent this classic European trope in The Silmarillion. They're the giant, evil, corrupted, probably demonic/demon-possessed wolves bred by Morgoth.
  • Scaled Up: Sauron, in his battle against Lúthien and Huan, at one point takes a giant serpent (dragon?) shape.
  • Screw Destiny: Túrin attempts to overpower the curse laid against him by Morgoth through sheer willpower, even going so far as to give himself the name Turambar, "Master of Fate." Unfortunately, it really doesn't work out that well for him.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
    • When Men arrive in Beleriand and discover the Elves' war with Morgoth, a fair few of them turn around and head right back over the Blue Mountains so they won't have to deal with it. Morgoth, of course, tries to encourage this as much as he can.
    • When Númenor's decline began, a significant number of the Faithful began to depart from the island to havens in Middle-earth, such as Lond Daer in southern Eriador and Pelargir in what would later become Gondor.
  • Screw You, Elves!: The Númenórëans felt this way as they became more powerful and envious of the Elves' immortality.
  • Self-Guarding Phlebotinum: The eponymous Silmarils burned any evil or tainted creature touching them, such as Morgoth and Carcharoth, while sparing the good-aligned heroes such as Beren and Eärendil. Becomes a plot point late in the book, when two remaining sons of Fëanor (the Silmarils' creator) finally get their hands on their "heirlooms" — only to find that the Silmarils reject and burn them, after all they have done to get them back.
  • Settling the Frontier:
    • The three tribes of the Edain flee from Eriador, where most of Men have been corrupted into wickedness by Morgoth, cross the western Blue Mountains and arrive in Beleriand. The Bëorians settle in the forested northern mountains of Dorthonion and become of lords of Ladros, the folk of Marach emigrate the mountains of Hitlum after swearing fealty to the High-Elven House of Fingolfin, and the House of Haleth end settling in the Forest of Brethil after a very long and turbulent migration.
    • After the War of the Wrath, the Edain (Men of West) set sail towards the country-sized, star-shaped, virgin island of Elenna, created for them by the Valar, who wanted to reward them for fighting Morgoth alongside them. There, the Edain build their first cities and found Númenor, the greatest Mannish civilization.
      Then the Edain set sail upon the deep waters, following the Star and the Valar laid a peace upon the sea for many days, and sent sunlight and a sailing wind, so that the waters glittered before the eyes of the Edain like rippling glass, and the foam flew like snow before the stems of their ships. But so bright was Rothinzil that even at morning Men could see it glimmering in the West, and in the cloudless night it shone alone, for no other star could stand beside it. And setting their course towards it the Edain came at last over leagues of sea and saw afar the land that was prepared for them, Andor, the Land of Gift, shimmering in a golden haze. Then they went up out of the sea and found a country fair and fruitful, and they were glad. And they called that land Elenna, which is Starwards; but also Anadûnê, which is Westernesse, Númenórë in the High Eldarin tongue.
  • Seven Deadly Sins: Split between Morgoth and Ungoliant. Morgoth represents Pride, Wrath, Envy, and Lust(for power). Ungoliant embodies Gluttony, Sloth, and Greed.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: The Silmarillion is pretty close to this, or maybe even a Shoot the Shaggy Dog. At least the protagonists were forewarned by the Valar (gods) about this fact. The Children of Húrin is even more Shoot the Shaggy Dog.
  • Shapeshifter: Someone (likely Sauron) impersonates Amlach at the first Council of Men, and convinces some of them to ditch the elvish lands and head south. The deception is only noticed days later when the real Amlach denies ever attending the council, and the men that the false Amlach took south are never heard from again.
  • Shapeshifter Mode Lock
    • Morgoth uses his hideous form as the Dark Lord so often that he ultimately becomes trapped in it.
    • The same thing happens to Sauron after his body is destroyed by the Downfall of Númenórë, perhaps from the trauma involved (before that, Sauron seems to have been just about the most adept shapeshifter of all the named Ainur).
  • Shocking Defeat Legacy:
    • The Battle Of Unnumbered Tears. It begins as a noble effort of the Elves, Men, and Dwarves to finish Morgoth once and for all. It's the first coalition of all the races together to fight Morgoth, and the greatest army seen so far in the world outside of the gods. It gets crushed so badly and so many people die that Morgoth literally makes a hill out of the corpses. The worst part is that they probably never had a chance. And things get so much worse from there.
    • From the other side, Beren and Lúthien defeating Sauron and actually reclaiming a Silmaril is one for Morgoth. He loses his top man and one of the jewels. Their actions also give hope to the people of Middle-earth that Morgoth could be defeated, which is particularly needed after the utter ruin of the Battle of the Sudden Flame. Unfortunately, this hope was one of the things that led to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears...
  • Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle: While typically referred to by the title of its longest segment, the book's full title describes its complete contents: Quenta Silmarillion (The History of the Silmarils), together with Ainulindalë (The Music of the Ainur) and Valaquenta (Account of the Valar), To which is appended Akallabêth (The Downfall of Númenor) and Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!:
    • Húrin to Morgoth.
    • There's an attempted but failed one from Túrin to Glaurung when they first meet. Glaurung releases Túrin from his spell, having given him a Hannibal Lecture with him stuck to the spot by hypnosis and then gives him another when the spell is lifted. Túrin comes forward to try to stab his eyes out with his sword, but Glaurung "towers above him", puts him back under his spell and resumes the lecture.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Inziladûn and Gimilkhâd.
  • Single-Minded Twins: Amrod and Amras, who are so much alike that their mother gave them the same name (Ambarussa).
  • Smug Snake: Curufin. When your evil scheme gets derailed by your brother's talking dog before it even gets off the ground, you're probably not as awesome as you think you are.
  • Soiled City on a Hill: Númenor.
  • Spring Is Late: Happens during the tale of Túrin Turambar in the form of the Fell Winter, helping make everyone in the story even more depressed.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: Túrin and Finduilas (one-sided); Túrin and Niënor (unknowingly siblings). Because Túrin is just that doomed.
  • Start of Darkness
    • How Melkor became the original Dark Lord, and how Sauron followed him.
    • How both Fëanor, Maeglin, and the sons of Fëanor were corrupted.
    • Really the Start of Darkness for all the Elves, and Arda, too.
  • Storming the Castle: The Valarian siege of Utumno. They won, but at a very high cost. (What the cost was is not known, since there were no people present who couldn't simply reincarnate back in Mandos' halls.)
  • Surprise Incest: Happens to Túrin with his sister, although the reader knows all along.
  • Swan Boats: When the Teleri (Sea Elves) of the Lonely Isle Eressëa wanted to emigrate to Valinor, they travelled in ships pulled by large swans. They named their new city Alqualondë (Swanhaven) and built their later ships in the shape of swans, with feathers made of pearls.
  • Synthetic Plague: A plague from Angband, almost certainly engineered by Morgoth, strikes Hithlum at one point killing many, including Túrin Turambar's younger sister, Lalaith.
  • Take Our Word for It: Beren's journey through the Mountains of Terror, where no man had passed and lived to tell the tale. Out of all the awful things he endured in his life, that was the one he refused to talk about.
  • Take That!: In-Universe, posthumously. Fëanor famously asked Galadriel three times for a strand of her hair, and she denied him every time. Come Lord of the Rings, and Gimli makes the same request. She proceeds to give him three strands.
  • Take Up My Sword: Túrin accidentally kills Beleg and takes up Beleg's Empathic Weapon, eventually becoming known as the Mormegil, meaning Black Sword for his achievements therewith.
  • Taking You with Me: Numerous examples between the Elves and their enemies, but especially when Glorfindel and Ecthelion fight Balrogs during the Siege of Gondolin. They actually manage to take them down, but die themselves.
  • Talking Animal
    • Huan, the Hound of Valinor. He only actually speaks three times, and Tolkien never really states if he's a Maia in animal form, or just a really big dog that the Valar gifted with the ability of speech.
    • The Eagles speak, and without them there would be no way for news to get around Beleriand at all. Then again, Thorondor at least seems to be more than an animal.
    • It's implied Werewolves can talk, as Draugluin says to Sauron "Huan is there!", and Carcharoth has no trouble talking to Beren and Lúthien (though, granted, they were shapeshifted at the time in wolf and vampire forms, respectively).
  • Talking Weapon: Gurthang, once, before Túrin's suicide. Unless he was hallucinating, of course.
  • Team Dad: Maedhros, the eldest son of Fëanor, filled this role among his more violent brothers — at least at first. He eventually turned to evil, though not as badly as Celegorm and Curufin. When Beren's grandchildren were left to die, Maedhros did at least try to find them. Also, he was willing to swallow his pride and work with the other peoples to take Morgoth down. Not an innocent by any means, but Maedhros did have a conscience. He finally repented after seeing the damage the Oath had done.
  • Tender Tears: Nienna. Though with Morgoth tearing around Arda and destroying the Valar's handiwork, she's got a legitimate reason to cry (plus her tears essentially work like divine Healing Potions).
  • Terrain Sculpting: In the beginning of the world, the Valar tried to shape it according to divine plan, while Melkor came along and undid their work. The end result was that the world was very gradually formed.
  • Theme Twin Naming: Eluréd and Elurín, Elrond and Elros. Amrod and Amras (both named Ambarussa in Quenya.)
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: Túrin, who finally manages to get a pretty wife and a happy life for himself. Of course, being Túrin, he chokes on said bone not too long after.
  • Thunderbolt Iron: Anglachel and Anguirel.
  • Throw It In!: As it turns out, the Dwarves were never part of Ilúvatar's original plan for creation like the Elves and Men were. Aulë, one of the Valar, jumped the gun a bit and created the Dwarves out of a desire for pupils to teach his skills to, and to help oppose Morgoth's dark influences. When Ilúvatar got wind of what Aulë had done, He at first scolded Aulë but ultimately He accepted the value of the new race and gave them free will and a place in creation.
  • Together in Death:
    • Tragic lovers Beren and Lúthien are separated and reunited in death, twice! Special because, being a Man and an elf, they would not have had the same fate after death (elves are bound to the world for as long as it lasts whereas Men are fated to leave it forever after a short while), but, through divine intervention, got the one exception. After their first death they were sent back for a short time to live a happy life together, and after their second death Lúthien's spirit was allowed to follow Beren's out of this world, as Man souls do.
    • Aegnor and Andreth are a variant. Andreth died and left the world forever. When Aegnor died, he could not follow her because being an elf, his life is tied to the world's. So he refused reincarnation and decided to remain in the Halls of Mandos forever because being permanently dead was the closest that he could get to being together in death with Andreth.
  • Tragic Hero: Several, though Fëanor and Túrin are perhaps the most notable.
  • Tragic Villain:
    • Fëanor isn't the most sympathetic character, anyway. His two oldest sons, Maedhros and Maglor, are more sympathetic and probably more tragic, given that one is Driven to Suicide twice and the other spends the rest of his (immortal) life wandering along the seashore in constant pain, singing laments. Especially because by the end of six hundred years of warfare, destroying three elven societies, and the deaths of their four younger brothers in attempts to fulfill their Oath, they sincerely wanted to stop killing people and were largely just going through with the Oath because they thought they had no choice to break it.
    • Ar-Pharazôn is a subversion — his storyline is certainly that of classic tragedy, but the reader has no sympathy at all for him, seeing as the guy was an incestuous, megalomanic Jerkass even before he met Sauron.
  • Trauma Conga Line: Húrin and his whole unfortunate family. Túrin probably got hit the hardest. The trauma makes up an entire novel, The Children of Húrin.
  • Treacherous Spirit Chase: Gorlim refuses to believe that his wife Eilinel, who went missing during Gorlim's absence in the war against Morgoth, is dead. Sauron uses this belief against Gorlim by creating a vision of Eilinel as bait inside Gorlim's house. Gorlim enters and is immediately captured by Sauron's orcs, and eventually tortured into revealing the location of Barahir.
  • True Companions: When the nearly whole population of Nargothrond turned on Finrod, ten elves refused to abandon him. They accompanied him and Beren in the Quest of Silmaril, even though it was a suicidal mission. Eventually they got captured, jailed and tortured by Sauron but they would not turn on Finrod. When Sauron threatened each one of them with being fed to a wolf, all of them chose becoming wolf's morsel rather betraying their king.
  • Twisting the Prophecy: From the "Tale of Beren and Luthien" has an example that overlaps this and Prophecy Twist. When trying to free Beren from a prison run by Sauron, Luthien is aided by Huan, a wolfhound with semi-divine powers, about whom there is a prophecy that he will not be killed except by "the mightiest wolf that would ever walk the world". After Huan has killed all of Sauron's werewolves, it occurs to Sauron (who is aware of the prophecy) to transform himself into a giant werewolf larger than any other werewolf before him and fight Huan in this shape. Sauron is shamefully defeated; when Sauron's superior Morgoth hears about this, he correctly deduces that the "mightiest wolf that would ever walk the world" is yet to come and raises another wolf whom he causes to grow to an even greater size than the transformed Sauron. It is this wolf, Carcharoth, who eventually kills Huan.
  • Ultimate Blacksmith: Aulë (essentially a god of blacksmiths), Fëanor (created the silmarils along with numerous weapons and gems), Eöl (forged Anguirel and Anglachel from Thunderbolt Iron, and created the black metal galvorn that was as strong as Dwarven steel but much easier to shape), Telchar of Nogrod (created Angrist and Narsil).
  • Unbuilt Trope: While most contemporary Dark Fantasy has arisen from the Hype Backlash against Tolkien's work and critics are quick to blame him for High Fantasy's typical Black-and-White Morality, The Silmarillion shows his world in a very different light. Violent, morally ambiguous antiheroes? Check. Black and Grey (though still a little bit of white) morality? Check. Hypocritical, brutal, imperialist elves who'd give the Lannisters nightmares? Check. Sexual themes like rape and incest? Check. Dead kids? Check. Downer Ending? Oh boy, yes.
  • Underground City: The Dwarven cities.
  • Unholy Holy Sword: Gurthang.
  • Uriah Gambit: Thingol sending Beren to fetch the Silmaril as a bride-price to marry Lúthien.

    V-Y 
  • Vampiric Werewolf: Sauron, despite officially being a Maia, is a shapeshifter who takes the form of both a vampire and a werewolf- which, in the world of Middle-Earth, are evil spirits who just take the forms of really big bats and wolves- at separate points in the story.
  • Villainous Legacy: Even after the Big Bad Melkor/Morgoth was thrust by the Valar through the Door of Night beyond the Walls of the World into the Timeless Void, he was the ultimate cause of much of the evil in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
    • He is said to have created the orcs by cruelly torturing and corrupting captured elves.
    • Sauron (the Big Bad of The Lord of the Rings) was one of the Maiar that Melkor corrupted and turned to the path of evil.
    • The Balrogs were other Maiar that Melkor corrupted. The Fellowship encountered a Balrog in Moria.
    • This was specifically stated in The Silmarillion.
    ...the lies that Melkor, the mighty and accursed, Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days.
    • The tenth volume of The History of Middle-earth was entitled Morgoth's Ring, referencing a quote stating that just as the One Ring was Sauron's Soul Jar, since Morgoth was involved in the creation of the world itself, his influence cannot be expelled from it even after he himself has been physically removed.
  • Villainous Vow: Feanor and his sons swear to regain the Silmarils at any cost, and to destroy anyone who impedes their goal. The supplementary work "The History of Middle-earth" gives the full oath as follows:
    "Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean
    Brood of Morgoth or bright Vala,
    Elda or Maia or Aftercomer,
    Man yet unborn upon Middle-earth,
    Neither law, nor love, nor league of swords,
    Dread nor danger, not Doom itself
    Shall defend him from Feanor, and Feanor's kin,
    Whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh,
    Finding keepeth or afar casteth
    A Silmaril. This swear we all!
    Death we will deal him ere Day's ending,
    Woe unto world's end! Our word hear thou,
    Eru Allfather! To the everlasting
    Darkness doom us if our deed faileth!
    On the holy mountain hear in witness
    and our vow remember,
    Manwe and Varda!"
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Valar and Maiar are incorporeal spirits, but can create and "wear" any form they desire. Sauron in particular uses it as his trademark and a great tool for deception — or did, anyway, until he got caught in the Fall of Númenórë. That locked him into his "evil overlord" form, just like what happened to his boss Morgoth earlier. Even then, he may have still retained some of the ability — he just couldn't conceal his true nature any longer, ruining its usefulness as a disguise and reducing him from Magnificent Bastard and Mobile Menace to behind-the-scenes Chessmaster.
  • Walking the Earth: Maglor, after murdering yet more people, then stealing the last Silmaril and throwing it away, is wracked by guilt and spends the rest of time wandering around the shores of Middle-earth in regret and pain.
  • Warrior Poet: Many Elves, including Finrod Felagund.
  • Warrior Prince: Most of the Noldorin leaders.
  • Was Once a Man: Orcs. The origin that made it into the book is that they were once Elves, twisted and corrupted by Morgoth. This is only one possibility, though, and it kept changing right up until Tolkien's death — he didn't like the implications that Always Chaotic Evil had for their eternal souls, even though he did not want evil to be capable of independent creation, which would have conflicted with his Christianity.
  • We Are as Mayflies: The longest-lived Men get a couple hundred years. Elves can go on until the end of the world, though they become increasingly "faded"/ghostlike with the passage of time, if they remain outside the Undying Realms. No mortal ever enters the Undying Realms; a few are granted a refuge on the Lonely Isle right outside it, but even those mortals who arrive by invitation (like Frodo) remain mortal and eventually die. Eärendil's father Tuor is the only pure Man implied to become immortal without suffering undeath or a Fate Worse than Death, and that could be Fan Wanked as an odd sort of Balancing Death's Books from Eru, who'd just fairly recently made an immortal elf (Lúthien) into a mortal.

    One of Tolkien's letters stated that it was impossible for the Valar to make any Man truly immortal. If one ever entered the Undying Lands, they would exist and seemingly not age long past when they should have died, but their life would gradually become unbearable, since it would just be their natural lifespan spread out continuously (similar to what happened to Gollum and Bilbo with the One Ring). Also, it is said in the book that death is Eru's gift to mortals and the Valar don't have the right or ability to take it from them — only Eru can, and Tuor was likely the only such exception.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: It isn't entirely clear what happens to Maglor, the only one of Feanor's sons to survive. He is kept by his oath and the judgement of the Valar from returning to Valinor. Needless to say, he is a very popular character in Fan Fiction, adventuring through the world history.
    • In-Universe example with Eluréd and Elurín, the grandchildren of Beren and Lúthien, who are seized during the assault on Doriath by the servants of the Sons of Fëanor and left to starve in the forest: "of this Maedhros indeed repented, and sought for them long in the woods of Doriath; but his search was unavailing, and of the fate of Eluréd and Elurín no tale tells."
  • White Magician Girl: Lúthien is an early example.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Elves are truly immortal and will know the greatest wonders of creation, experiencing life to its very fullest on Arda. They initially regarded the short-lived Men as the "sickly" and "doomed" to die. As the ages pass though, gradually they, and even the god-like Valar, will become intensely jealous of Eru's Gift of Men, for death is liberation of the physical world and the inevitable sorrows of loss.
  • Wicked Stepmother: Inverted with Indis and Fëanor. After death of his first wife Miriel, Finwë marries Indis. Indis attempts to be as good stepmother to Miriel's son Fëanor as she can, but Fëanor cannot accept her, and he hates the sons of Indis, Fingolfin and Finarfin.
  • The Wise Prince: Finrod Felagund, and his father Finarfin. Finarfin is the one prince of Tirion wise enough not to stick with the rebellion. He thus becomes king of Tirion, and leads the non-rebellious Noldor in battle against Morgoth when the Valar finally come to save Beleriand.
  • World of Badass: We have Eru, The Valar with their Maiar, lots and lots of elves, men, and dwarves and even eagles are in it too!
    • Fingolfin: Fought Morgoth — the story's version of Satan — in personal combat, and actually managed to hurt him.
    • Fëanor: Slammed the door of his house in Morgoth's face. Killed fighting seven Balrogs at once while on fire. His body incinerated itself from the sheer passion of his spirit.
    • Finrod Fegalund: Fought a werewolf with his bare hands and teeth to save his friend. Especially badass as elves aren't usually known for physical prowess.
    • Ecthelion of the Fountain: Killed the Captain of the Balrogs with the crest on his helmet!
    • Beren: Given an Impossible Task by his father-in-law and reacts with "You want me to go to Hell and steal a jewel from Morgoth's crown? Is that really all you want for your daughter's hand? Pfft." Proceeds to go do what is basically the Nintendo Hard version of Frodo's quest and succeeds.
    • Luthien: Rebellious Princess who saunters into Morgoth's lair, dances for him and puts him and his entire army to sleep with magic, then walks out with a Silmaril.
    • Hurin: Watched his people be massacred in a horrific battle, committed himself to a Last Stand where he killed hundreds of monsters with an axe and shouted "Day shall come again!" every time he killed. He only got captured because his axe melted.
    • Earendil: Half-Elf astronaut mariner. Uses his magic flying ship to shoot down Ancalagon, a dragon so ridiculously massive that he makes Drogon look like a newt and crushes a mountain range under his body where he falls.
  • World Shapes: An early unpublished version of Arda (the world) was shaped like a boat sailing through the blackness of outer space. The later version of Arda that most readers know start out as a rock with a flat side where Middle-earth is. Eventually a divine cataclysm messes it up and makes it a familiar, boring, round shape.
  • World's Most Beautiful Woman: Lúthien, canonically. Her face actually shines, and she's so pretty she manages to enchant Morgoth. She is the daughter of a Maia though.
  • World Sundering: This happens three times — once when Morgoth sinks Almaren, once when the Valar's war tears apart Beleriand, and once when Númenórë is flooded by the Sea and Eru bends the whole world around from a flat pan to a round sphere.
  • World Tree: The Two Trees of Light created by Yavanna, Laurelin and Telperion, are the vast and holy trees that light the entire Blessed Realm. The repeated themes of trees and light as symbols of goodness come together in them. Their light is preserved by Fëanor in the Silmarils, even after the Trees themselves are destroyed. The Moon and Sun grow from their branches before they die, and the last Silmaril becomes what we call Venus, the Evening Star.
  • Xanatos Gambit: It's a long plan and so it involves a lot of different plans.
    • First the I Surrender, Suckers: When the armies of Ar-Pharazôn lay siege to Mordor, Sauron surrenders and allows the Númenórëans to take him home as a hostage. While in Númenórë, he slowly corrupts the minds of its people, persuading them to release him (although this takes a few years).
    • Here comes the Batman Gambit: He then becomes Ar-Pharazôn's advisor, encouraging his hatred for the Valar. Finally, he convinces the Númenórëans to worship Morgoth with human sacrifices — in exchange for eternal life — and becomes High Priest of this new religion. After several decades of this, Ar-Pharazôn is growing old, so Sauron gives him the idea of invading Valinor and taking immortality from the Valar.
    • Now for the Xanatos Gambit: The whole time, Sauron's ultimate goal was to destroy Númenórë by pitting Ar-Pharazôn against the Valar — whichever one comes out on top, he's down one dangerous enemy and severely weakened the other. Everything had a purpose — the human sacrifices removed all Númenórëans faithful to the Valar, and even the huge Temple was built as a "shelter" in case the Valar attacked. It almost works perfectly, and the "almost" is only there because Sauron had no way of forseeing that God would step in and get involved.
    • Gambit Roulette comes in because the plan spanned decades and had numerous fault points. He could have been killed before surrendering, killed after surrendering, failure to corrupt, failure to persuade, or the war ending in a truce and an alliance, though those last three would be highly unlikely because Númenórë was already pretty much evil by the time they invade Mordor.
  • You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Even the Valar are dismayed and disoriented by the Unlight of Ungoliant.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Túrin's attempts to fight the curse of Morgoth only lead to failure and more misery — for him and everyone who comes within 10 miles.
  • You Shall Not Pass!:
    • The rear-guard action after the Nírnaeth, courtesy of Húrin Thalion and the other Men of Dor-lómin.
    • On the eastern front, the Dwarves of Belegost were the last to retreat and probably would have fought to the last dwarf, if Glaurung hadn't slain their king. Afterwards, they made a slow, dignified withdrawal while singing a funeral dirge, and none of Morgoth's forces dared to approach.

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