The Lord of the Rings/Tropes A-C

Tropes from The Lord of the Rings (the book)

Tropes D-F — Tropes G-I — Tropes J-L — Tropes M-O — Tropes P-R — Tropes S-U — Tropes V-Z

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Tropes A-C

• Abandoned Mine: The dwarven mines of Moria.
• Achey Scars: Frodo Baggins' wounds received from the Morgul blade and Shelob often pain him afterwards and make him ill, especially on their anniversaries. He actually sails to the True West with the elves because of this, in the hope of finding a way of reducing this physical pain and the emotional scars from bearing the Ring.
• Action Girl: Éowyn
• Actual Pacifist: Frodo towards the end of the story.
• Adventure
• Advice Backfire: Discussed.

Gildor: Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill. Frodo: Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.

• The Ageless: The elven race.
• The Alliance: The Free Peoples
• All There In The Appendices, including the love story. Tolkien's way of implying that the story of LotR, despite being one of the most important things to happen in Middle-earth, was not the only thing happening.
  • Arguably, from Aragorn's point of view, the whole War of the Ring is merely an Engagement Challenge.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: In the book when Saruman has turned the Shire upside-down by the time the heroes get back from defeating the Big Bad
• All That Glitters: The phrasing is reversed -"all that is gold does not glitter"- but it fits the trope description. However it is a complete reversal of the well known phrase "not everything that glitters is gold".
• All Trolls Are Different - They're 12 feet tall, turn to stone permanently when exposed to daylight, and are implied to be the result of Morgoth corrupting Ents.
• All Up to You: Quite a few times, but most notably with Sam when Frodo is captured.
• All Webbed Up: Happens to Frodo after he escapes from Shelob's lair.
• All Your Colors Combined: Saruman of Many Colors.
• Alliterative Family: Happens a lot in hobbit families. The most notable example would probably be Peregrin (Pippin), son of Paladin, brother of Pearl, Pimpernel, and Pervinca.
• Alternative Calendar: The different peoples have their own calendars, with varying degrees of difference between them. The books generally use the Shire (Hobbit) calendar.
• Alternative Number System: According to the appendices, elves habitually count in base 12.
• Always Chaotic Evil: In one possible Backstory, orcs were magically corrupted from elf stock to be Morgoth's minions. Tolkien's own thoughts on this suggest that this may not entirely be the case, though.
• Ambadassador: Gandalf, ambassador from the Valar; most of the Fellowship were originally ambassadors to Rivendell. Their collected appearance prompted the Council of Elrond.
• Ambition Is Evil: The One Ring corrupts by tempting the user with the power to fulfill their ambitions, even if those ambitions are noble. Sam's only ambition is to raise a family and live quietly, so he is little affected by it, while Tom Bombadil, who is completely devoid of ambition, is completely immune to its power. Conversely Boromir, who had the noble ambition of saving Gondor from Mordor, was easily manipulated. Faramir wanted only to please and be loved by his father, so while it affected him, it wasn't as severe as it was for Boromir. Gandalf explains it well in the text, how the Ring constantly makes you rationalize everything until nothing is beyond the limit.
• Amplifier Artifact: All of the rings, especially the One.
• Ancient Tomb: The Barrow-downs of the Northern Kingdom. The barrows of the Kings of Rohan and the tombs in Minas Tirith are also Ancient Tombs, but not haunted by anything. Also the haunted mountain (the Dwimorberg).
• Ancestral Weapon: The shards of Narsil.
• And I Must Scream: What becomes of Sauron after the Ring is destroyed. According to Gandalf, he lives on as a "mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself in the shadows, but cannot again grow or take shape." Makes you almost feel sorry for him...
• Annoying Arrows: Subverted; Boromir does get shot by several arrows, and does pull at least one out, but is still weakened and wounded to death and definitely cannot continue fighting.
• Another Mans Terror : "We cannot get out. The end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep. I wonder what that means"
• Antagonist Title - The Lord of the Rings is Sauron.
• Anthropic Principle: It is ornithologically ontologically impossible for the heroes to fly into Mordor, because there would be No Story otherwise. A lot of people seem to skip over this point (for a lengthy discussion on the eagles see It Just Bugs Me).
• Anti-Villain: Gollum (to the extent that he isn't "the real hero"; also doubles as The Woobie)
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Hobbits. Used in a heroic example during the Scouring of the Shire.
• Apocalyptic Log: The Book of Mazarbul, chronicling Balin's failed attempt to retake Moria up until their last stand. It trails off at the end:

"[...] we rescued Balin's body [...] we have barred the gates but doubt if [...] can hold them long. If there is [...] no escape it will be a horrible fate to suffer [...] We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the bridge and Second Hall... fell there bravely while the rest retr [...] Mazarbul. We still ho[...]g ... but hope u[...]n[...]Óin's party went five days ago but today only four returned. The pool is up to the wall at West-gate... we cannot get out. The end comes soon. We hear drums, drums in the deep." The last line is a trailing scrawl of elf-letters: "They are coming."

• Arcadia: The Shire.
• Arcadian Interlude: The time spent with Tom Bombadil. The episode serves as character development for all the hobbits (especially Frodo), and to provide the hobbits with their swords, one of which becomes vitally important in the battle of the Pelennor Fields. Tom Bombadil was content with himself and thus couldn't be tempted by the Ring. Tolkien himself stated that he considered the Tom Bombadil sequence one of the most important sequences in the entire story. From a narrative perspective, he represents the mystery that remains even after a reader thinks he knows all there is to know about Middle Earth and represents what could be lost. From a writing perspective, he gives Tolkien a chance to present backstory exposition in a way that interests the reader. Still, considered a Big Lipped Alligator Moment by some readers, which might be why it is not found in the Movie.
• Arc Number: 9 - Nazgûl, Fellowship (chosen to match the Nazgûl), Rings for Mortal Men, Frodo's fingers at the end, number of people who touched the One Ring (Sauron, Isildur, Deagol, Smeagol, Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf, Tom Bombadil, Sam).
  • In Real Life, an Arc Number both in Norse Mythology and popular Medieval Christianized astrology (where it represented perfection, a "trinity of trinities") - both of which influenced Tolkien immensely.
• Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: Beregond deserts his post, kills a porter, breaks into Rath Dinien, and kills two fellow members of the Guard...all to save the life of Faramir. To be fair, the others wouldn't listen to him, and drew sword on him first.
• Artifact of Attraction: The One Ring.
• Artifact of Doom: Again, the Ring.
• Asleep for Days: Frodo does this in Rivendell after being near-fatally wounded by the Nazgûl. It happens again to both him and Sam after getting rescued from Mount Doom, due to their near starving, wounded state.
• Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever: The Mumakil, enormous elephant-like beasts.
• Attack of the Monster Appendage: The Watcher in the Water.
• Author Avatar: Faramir, whom Tolkien considered himself to be most like out of all the characters. An early version of him explained in depth about the Elves.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Théoden is King of Rohan and pretty handy with a sword as well, Aragorn is Chieftain of the Dunedain and King of Gondor and hacks his way through a whole mess of orcs and Uruk-hai.
  • Gil-Galad. Last High King of the Elves, was described as an unmatched fighter/leader and died taking Sauron with him (who may have been barely weaker than Morgoth at the time).
  • Elendil and Isildur.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Aragorn at the end.
• An Axe to Grind: Gimli carries an axe.
• Babies Ever After: Sam marries his longtime sweetheart the year after the end of War, and the next year sees the birth of little Elanor. He goes on to have twelve more, although, as the epilogue was cut, this is revealed in the Appendices instead of in the narrative.
• Back From the Dead: Gandalf
• Backstory: Plenty of it, as found in The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Talesof Numenor and Middleearth and The Children of Hurin.
• Badass Adorable: The Hobbits probably count.
• Badass Boast: Éowyn's is probably the most famous, but Frodo's to the Nazgûl at the ford also counts.
• Badass Bookworm: Faramir is considered the 'nerdy' one of the brothers, but is quite capable of fighting.
• Badass Family: Théoden and his niece and nephew; Boromir, his brother Faramir and Faramir's two sons; and Aragorn's lineage. Tolkien seemed to be inordinately fond of this trope.
• Badass Grandpa: Gandalf, Theoden, Saruman, Elrond...
• Badass Normal: Boromir, Éowyn, and all the Hobbits, but especially Sam.
• Barbarian Tribe: The Orcs as well as most varieties of Eastern Humans.
  • The Rohirrim might count, too - their enemies, the men of Dunland, certainly do.
• Batman Gambit: Gandalf used one of these to distract Sauron from the true location of the One Ring, convincing him that the Free People were planning to use it against him. Of course, the whole thing was a diversion to allow the Hobbits to enter Mordor unnoticed.
• Battle Butler: Sam is described as the "batman" (no, not that Batman) to Frodo's inexperienced high-born WWI officer.
• Bearer of Bad News: Gandalf has quite a reputation for this in many places. The Rohirrim don't like him much because of it — they call him Stormcrow.
  • They probably like Shadowfax a whole lot more, just for being Shadowfax.
    • But that just means they hate Gandalf more for taking him, so, swings and roundabouts...
  • Of course, as Gandalf himself points out, he has this reputation because he tends to seek out the places where his help is most needed.
• Because Destiny Says So: "There are other forces at work besides the will of evil... Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker."
  • Although considering this is Tolkien we're talking about, he probably intended it to be more "because Eru says so."
• Being Watched: Being eavesdropped on by Sam (for the most heart-warming conspiracy ever) and several times with Gollum. Also, there are several moments when the good guys either perceive directly the gaze of the Eye of Sauron, or feel themselves watched from above by the winged Nazgûl.
• Beneath the Earth: The dwarven realm of Khazad-dûm
• Benevolent Boss: Bilbo Baggins to Hamfast Gamgee, his gardener, and in turn, Frodo to Sam.
• Best Friends-in-Law: Sam and Pippin, thanks to the marriage of Elanor Gamgee to Faramir Took.
• Better Than a Bare Bulb: Many examples, done very well, of characters noting they are like, or are, characters in a saga and that some trope applies to them. "Give us a story, I want to hear about 'Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom'", et cetera.
• Better to Die Than Be Killed: Denethor. Of note is that this is presented as an utterly reprehensible decision — it comes closer than anything in the book to actually being called a sin. Tolkien deliberately has Gandalf use the anachronistic term "heathen" in his final dressing-down of Denethor. Of course, this may have less to do with him trying to kill himself and more to do with him trying to take Faramir with him.
• The Berserker: Éomer.
• Beware the Nice Ones: The hobbits, but also the Ents, and Faramir.
• Big Bad: Sauron.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate: Subverted. Saruman seems to consider himself Sauron's equal partner and has full plans of double-crossing him, but Sauron is both phenomenally more powerful and smart enough to be fully aware of his pawn's ambitions. It's quite clear to everybody else that there is only one Big Bad in Lord of the Rings.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Saruman, for the reasons above.
• Big Badass Wolf: Wargs.
• Big Damn Heroes: Several times-- Gandalf at Helm's deep, the Rohan army at Pelennor and later Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, the Grey Company and a host of men from south Gondor in the same battle.
• Big Eater: Pretty much the entire Hobbit race. Six meals a day is considered normal for them, and many young Hobbits learn to cook before they learn to read (if ever). This trope is taken Up to Eleventy-one when it comes to special occasions like Bilbo's 111th birthday party...
• Big Good: Gandalf. Galadriel and Elrond to some extent as well.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Gandalf.
• Binding Ancient Treaty: Gondor has one of these with Rohan, leading to a great call for aid.
• Bilingual Bonus: Most of the Meaningful Names. Generally speaking, the rest have translations given.
  • For instance, "Gamling" is Swedish for "old man". A fitting name, considering the character is, well, an old man.
  • Tolkien loved to do this, especially with the Rohirrim. For instance, Theoden's name is an Old English word for "king". Meduseld, the name of Edoras' central mead-hall, means.... "mead-hall."
    • In fact, if you look at the lineage of Rohan in the appendices, all the rulers, from Eorl to Eomer, have names that are Old English words or epithets for "king" or "nobleman".
• Bittersweet Ending: Although Sam, Merry and Pippin have long, happy lives, Frodo can't go back to enjoying life and leaves for the Undying Lands.
• Black Blood: Orcs have it.
• Black Cloak: The unusually powerful Nazgûl.
• BLAM Episode: Tom Bombadil.
• Blind Idiot Translation: The infamous Swedish translation.
  • Amusing, Gandalf's mistranslation of the inscription over the Doors of Durin. It's supposed to be "Say 'friend' and enter"! instead of "Speak, friend, and then enter". Commas are very important.
• Blunt Yes

Faramir: You wish now that our places had been exchanged, that I had died and Boromir had lived. Denethor: Yes. I wish that.

• Body Count Competition: Legolas gets an early lead on Gimli at the Battle of the Hornburg, but Gimli ends up winning, forty-two to forty-one.
  • Somewhat Flanderized in The Movie. "That still counts as one!"
• Body Motifs: A subtle theme throughout the book is that good guys tend to be gifted with better sight and/or hearing; clean, human senses. Bad guys, meanwhile, have much better smell, which lends them an animalistic or Uncanny Valley feel. Sauron is an exception, although the eye that he uses as his symbol still is uncanny, being 'a great eye, lidless, and wreathed in flame'.
  • On the other hand, Frodo finds that his sight (in the dark) and hearing are improved after he has been stabbed with the Morgul blade, an evil weapon.
• Boring Return Journey: Traveling is a lot easier when you aren't being pursued by Sauron's servants.
• Born in the Saddle: An unusually civilised version in Rohan.
• Break the Cutie: Frodo mainly, but Sam to a lesser extent.
• Break the Haughty: Saruman.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Eowyn and Merry nearly died after killing the Witch King. Eowyn's arm was literally broken, but this was the least of her hurt.
• Bulletproof Vest: Frodo's mithril chainmail shirt.
• But Now I Must Go: The passing of the Three rings and their bearers. This is played most straightly with Gandalf, who was meant to serve as a paragon in Middle-Earth.
• Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: Pipe-weed, Oliphaunts/Mûmakil (Oliphaunt is an archaic English usage - so not really a Smeerp)
  • Also, the Oliphaunts are said to be precursors to modern elephants, so it makes sense to call them something else.
• Call Back: The Battle of the Black Gates has one to "The Hobbit", with Pippin hearing the shout of "The Eagles! The Eagles are coming!" In a parallel with the Battle of the Five Armies as well, Pippin is knocked unconscious immediately after hearing it, as Bilbo was just after saying it. He doesn't even believe that he actually heard the cry, since he thinks 'That came in his [Bilbo's] tale, long long ago.'
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Frodo never actively resists the Call, but (as he doesn't just jump and run unprepared, but instead makes and executes a careful plan for his disappearance and subsequent journey) he just avoids meeting a Nazgûl literally on his front doorstep; it's his neighbor, Ham Gamgee (Sam's father), who tells the Black Rider that Frodo has gone away — and doesn't bother to tell him where Frodo has gone.
• Came Back Strong: Gandalf the Grey dies and comes back as Gandalf the White.
• Camp Cook: Sam is always the cook, but he is neither bad at it nor comic relief.
• Camp Straight: Tom Bombadil. He embodies the reason why "gay" changed meaning from "enormously happy" to "campy homosexual" (though he has a wife, and wouldn't really care about such things considering he's a god, even possibly directly descended from the Ainur). Others say he's just... high on life. Tolkien himself describes him as a "merry fellow".
• Capital City: Minas Tirith
  • Subverted in that Osgiliath was the actual capital of Gondor and Minas Tirith was originally the westernmost military fort. Denethor wastes a lot of resources trying to keep Osgiliath, although not because it was the former capital, but as a front line against Mordor at the easiest place to cross the Anduin.
• Casting a Shadow: The Nazgûl, and Shelob. Unlike her mother Ungoliant, Shelob's Weakened by the Light but does not actively consume light to weave her webs of shadow.
  • There is a moment where Frodo and Sam pass by Shelob's actual lair and can feel or see nothing but the stench of her lair, which is suggested to be even blacker than the pitch black around it, as if inhabited by the actual absence of light. A very effective case of Nothing Is Scarier, since you don't know if she's home or not.
• The Cavalry: The Riders of Rohan and Aragorn, Rangers of Eriador and troops from southern Gondor. They are also, literally, the cavalry. On the evil side, the Haradrim.
• Cavalry Betrayal: Inverted. The fleet of ships of the Corsairs of Umbar, allies of Sauron, arrive at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields to the rejoicing of his armies... only Aragorn had intercepted and captured it, and the ships are flying the royal colours and filled with soldiers from southern Gondor.
• Cave Behind the Falls: Henneth Annûn.
• Cerebus Syndrome: discussed by the author Tolkien himself in his Letters. The book started out as a shorter sequel to The Hobbit and the earlier chapters display much of the whimsy of the latter. Gandalf's personality also gets Darker and Edgier as time goes on. Less surprising when recalling that the Hobbit's story was moved to Middle-earth, and its previously existing tales had already been even darker.
• Character Title: "The Lord of the Rings" is none other than Sauron, the main antagonist. "The Fellowship of the Ring" refers to the nine protagonists in the Fellowship, and "The Return of the King" to Aragorn.
• Charm Person: Saruman, until the heroes break free of it.
• Chekhov's Gun: Galadriel's gifts to the Fellowship and the elven rope from Lorien play useful parts later. The Numenorean barrow-blade given to Merry proves vital in defeating the Witch-King, plus the One Ring itself is a retroactive Chekhov's Gun from The Hobbit.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Frodo's mithril shirt, given to him by Bilbo. It saves his life in Moria. Later it comes in handy when it incites the Orcs to fight over it. It proves helpful yet again when it foils Saruman's attempt to stab Frodo.
• Chessmaster: Several, but Denethor's "he uses others as his weapons" is probably the main doctrine of Chessmastery. Sauron, Gandalf, and even Aragorn are cited for this explicitly.
• Chess Motifs: See previous entry.
  • Pippin refers to himself as a pawn, but "on the wrong chessboard."
• Children Are Innocent: Theoden manages to break free of Saruman's charming voice because of the dead children (and the mutilation of a corpse).
• The Chosen One: Frodo (and Bilbo) were meant to have the Ring. Also, Aragorn is Isildur's heir.
• Chronoscope: The Mirror of Galadriel can show visions of the past and the future. Sam sees events that will occur in The Two Towers during his and Frodo's entry into Mordor, as well as events in the Shire after Saruman takes over. Frodo sees the fall of Numenor and the founding of Gondor, which occurred in the distant past.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The wizard Radagast the Brown disappears and is simply never mentioned again after the Council of Elrond.
• City of Spies: Bree, Minas Morgul
• Clingy MacGuffin: The One Ring. Justified: the Ring wants to be found.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Orcs do it to anyone they can get away with doing it to, including each other.
• Collectible Card Game: two, Middle Earth in the 1990s and [one of] The Game[s] Of The Movie.
• Collapsing Lair: Barad-dûr
  • Though no heroes are escaping it at the time.
• Color-Coded Wizardry: Saruman the White, Gandalf the Grey, Radagast the Brown. There's also the Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando, but they do not appear in any stories; we're told that they went far into the east and were never seen in the West of Middle-earth again, and no-one there knows precisely what they got up to.
  • When Saruman reveals his plans to Gandalf he declares that he is no longer the White but now Saruman of Many Colors. Gandalf is not impressed.
• Come with Me If You Want to Live: Aragorn gets introduced this way in Bree, albeit in a particularly slow-moving fashion. While it's implied the hobbits would have been quickly ambushed in their beds without him, they do spend some time gathering supplies prior to departure. This is more pronounced in the film, however.
• Come to Gawk: Saruman's accusation, when found on the road.
• Common Tongue: The Trope Namer, although only half an example; Common is the language of any culture descended from Gondor, but all species have multiple languages.
• Compelling Voice: Saruman, although his is more of the charm and persuade variety.
• Compressed Hair: Played straight when Éowyn reveals her presence on the battlefield by removing her helmet and unloosing her hair. In an early draft, though, Tolkien averted the trope by noting that Eowyn had cut her long hair short before donning armor.
• Con Lang: Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin, some of the most developed in literature. And other less detailed ones, like Khuzdul (Dwarvish), the Black Speech (Sauron and the orcs), etc. Tolkien was a philologist, after all.
• Constantly Curious: Pippin during the ride with Gandalf to Minas Tirith. Gandalf tries answering questions, but finds each answer just leads to more questions; they wind up joking together about Pippin's curiosity. Exposition nicely done.
• Constructed World: Set in the world of Tolkien's legendarium, on the continent Middle-earth.
• Contemptible Cover / Art Shift: In the first authorised American paperback, Tolkien complained about the creative artwork for the covers. "Horrible colours and foul lettering." The Hobbit featured the part of this work showing a "tree with bulbous fruit" and "lions and emus" on the covers. The editors' representative called Tolkien up to explain that Remington hadn't had time to read the book and that the ornaments on the tree were "meant to suggest a Christmas tree". Tolkien said (in somewhat more colourful language) that he felt like the Only Sane Man. The Ballantine edition, with its expressionistic covers, is nicknamed the "Hippie Edition". (Interview with Remington here.)
• Cool Chair: The throne of the King of Gondor, and the Steward's chair.
  • The seat on Amon Hen.
• Cool Horse: Shadowfax.
• Cool Old Guy: Gandalf. Theoden as well.
• Cool Sword: Gandalf has Glamdring, Frodo has Sting, and Aragorn has Andúril. The Witch King of Angmar wields a flaming sword at the Siege of Gondor, and the Balrog of Moria uses a burning sword as well.
• Corpse Land: The Dead Marshes, a foul bog stretching for miles filled with corpses from the first war with Sauron. Spirits of the men, elves, and orcs that were buried there try to lure travelers into the marshes to add to the body count.
• The Corruptible: Boromir was the one in the Fellowship most open to the seduction of the Ring.
  • Without Isildur's fall to the corruption of the Ring, it would not have survived Sauron's fall. The race of Men in general are often seen as easily corrupted.
  • And then there's Gollum...
• Cosmic Horror Story: In the backstory, the Dwarves Dug Too Deep and connected with the tunnels of "nameless things" which are older than Sauron, where the Balrog was hiding; later Gandalf falls into their territory via the abyss below Durin's Bridge, and says that he will not speak of what he saw there. Tolkien may have had a passing familiarity with H.P. Lovecraft...

Gandalf: Far, far down below the deepest delvings of the dwarves, the earth is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he.

• • The Balrog tries to run off and leave him there, and chasing after him becomes Gandalf's hope of finding a way out.
• Cosmopolitan Council: The Council of Elrond. Possibly also The White Council — which we know included Gandalf, Saruman, Galadriel and Celeborn, and Elrond.
• Courtly Love: Gimli and Galadriel.
• Cowboy Bebop at His Computer: Inflicted on the series by the Writer's Almanac.
• Creator Backlash: Hippies buying the Ballantine edition is what popularized the book in The Sixties (see Memetic Mutation), and the back cover contains its own bit of Creator Backlash in the form of a written Take That, directed against the numerous unauthorized pulp versions that were spreading like wildfire on college campuses: "This edition, and no other, was authorized by me... those who approve of courtesy (at least) to living authors will purchase it, and no other." as Tolkien was, in fact, quite unsettled to learn that American counter-culture was embracing his work.
  • To their credit, the college students mounted a campaign of protest against the unauthorized editions after Tolkien made a point of mentioning, in his responses to fan mail, that he was being royally ripped off by the pulp publishers and did not receive a single cent in royalties from any American LOTR paperbacks other than the Ballantine edition. (Ace Books, the main offender among the pulp bootleggers, were harassed sufficiently by angry fans that they made a point of paying a massive royalty check to Tolkien and withdrawing their edition of LOTR from print.)
  • Ironically, the covers for the Ace edition showed that the artist had read the books and knew what he was doing.
  • Parodied in the Bored of the Rings inscription, based on the one up top: "This Ring, and no other / was made by the Elves — / Who'd pawn their own mother / to get it themselves." In fact, the first edition included a direct parody of the author's warning stating that the intention of Bored was to make money off the pop-culture colossus that LOTR was becoming.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Tom Bombadil.
  • Gandalf sometimes cultivates this image, such as when he pretends to be a harmless old man at Meduseld. Hama the doorwarden isn't fooled — "A staff in the hands of a wizard may be more than a prop for age" — but he still trusts in Gandalf's essential goodness.
• Cruel Mercy: This is how Saruman views Frodo's decision in the Scouring of the Shire.
• Crystal Ball: The Palantí­ri, "those that see from afar."