History TheLordOfTheRings / TropesDToF

* DoomedHometown: The Shire, though it's sort of inverted. [[YouCantGoHomeAgain You Can Go Home Again]], but home is not the same: the BigBad is defeated, but the homeland they set out to protect has become a {{Dystopia}}. There aren't even any hints of this (except a brief glimpse via Galadriel's mirror, by Sam, and even then it's not clear whether it's ''really'' going to happen--Galadriel warns of a possible SelfFulfillingProphecy if Sam tries to go back and stop it) until the main plot of the book is over. It's compelling enough to avert the EndingFatigue you'd expect when the climax is in Chapter Three of the last book, and its omission is one reason that EndingFatigue exists in the movie, as it's a new source of tension in the scourging of the Shire, which has to be resolved before the final ending of Frodo's and Bilbo's trip into the west and Sam's epilogue. With the scourging removed in the film, so is the tension; as the rest remains the same, the plot spends its last half-hour just coasting downhill.

--> '''Frodo''': ''For I have become very fond of Strider. Well, fond is not the right word. I mean he is dear to me; [[GoodIsNotNice though he is strange, and grim at times]]. [[YouAreACreditToYourRace In fact, he reminds me often of you. I didn't know that any of the Big People were like that]]. [[InnocentBigot I thought, well, that they were just big, and rather stupid:]] [[DumbIsGood kind and stupid like Butterbur]]; or [[StupidEvil stupid and wicked like Bill Ferny]]. [[CaptainObvious But then we don't know much about Men in the Shire, except perhaps the Breelanders.]]''
--> '''Gandalf''': ''[[CondescendingCompassion You don't know much even about them, if you think old Barliman is stupid...]]''

** In Rivendell, Gandalf tells Frodo that, had he become a 10th Ringwraith (due to being stabbed with a Morgul Knife), Sauron would have tormented Frodo for eternity for trying to keep the Ring away from him-if anything could compare to the torment of having the ring taken away by force.

** [[JustifiedTrope Sauron at least has good reason]] for disregarding this possibility. The Ring's power grows as it approaches the place of its creation. Standing right there at the Crack of Doom its seduction is so great that choosing to destroy it is literally impossible. Only a power greater than Sauron's could have overcome the will of the Ring in that place...and one such as that would never have made it that far. If Sauron cannot conceive that anyone would want to destroy it, it's at least partly because he knows the Ring will make that assumption reality.

* DarkerAndEdgier: When seen as a sequel to ''Literature/TheHobbit''.

* DeadpanSnarker: Both Aragorn and Gandalf at times.

Although deconstruction wouldn't be around in name until a decade and a half after ''The Lord of the Rings'' was published (and then only in French), Tolkien's [[WordOfGod letters]] clearly show that he did intend his book to interrogate conventional ideas about heroism. [[spoiler: Frodo Baggins]]'s fate in particular was inspired by Tolkien's [[ShellShockedVeteran own experiences]] in the [[WorldWarOne First World War]].

* {{Determinator}}: The Three Hunters, Gollum, Frodo and Sam, especially when going through Mordor.

* DistantFinale: There is an epilogue with Sam and his children after having just finished a reading of the book. Tolkien decided against including it in the original ''[=LotR=]'', but it was eventually published in ''[[Literature/TheHistoryOfMiddleEarth HoME]] 9: Sauron Defeated''.
* DistinguishedGentlemansPipe: In the books, pretty much ''everyone'' smokes a pipe. But the older, more established authority figures are seen smoking them more often. Especially in the films.

* DividedWeFall: More in the beginning than the end. Fortunately.

* DoomedHometown: The Shire, though it's sort of inverted. And it gets better eventually.

* DyingForSymbolism : Gandalf might be the Most Triumphant Example of 'DyingForSymbolism' : his sacrifice to save the party marks the nadir of the heroes' morale, his death symbolises the progress of evil forces in Middle Earth, and his resurrection and color upgrade (from Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White) announces the necessity, at the end of the opus, for the hero to go meet death at the Grey Heavens.

* EvilIsPetty: The Ring tempts its bearer with power fitted to their stature, and after it betrays Isildur, it ends up only in the hands of Hobbits and their river-folk kin, whose powers and ambitions are correspondingly small. Sméagol uses it to torment his relatives and hides for centuries at the mountains' roots. Bilbo uses the Ring to escape from his obnoxious relatives and neighbors. Frodo falls at the last minute and claims it exactly when the Ring cannot help him. And Sam's dreams of conquest are so petty (an army of enslaved gardeners?) that even he finds it ridiculous and laughs.

* EvilOverlord: Sauron.

* EvilTowerOfOminousness: The [[Franchise/TheDarkTower (original)]] Dark Tower, Barad-dûr.
** Also Minas Morgul, Orthanc, Dol Guldur, the towers at the Black Gate, and the Tower of Cirith Ungol.
** Not to say that there are no ''good'' towers. Minas Tirith is only the most obvious example; there are some to the west of the Shire, though the hobbits never get curious enough to climb them.
** Most of the examples given are corrupted towers. Only Barad-dûr was Evil from its founding. All the others were constructed by the Númenóreans except Dol Guldur, which was originally the capital of the Elves of Mirkwood.

* ExecutiveMeddling: Tolkien and his publisher went back and forth about the titles of the books, with Tolkien suggesting many different possibilities for both the three published volumes and the six narrative books (including some subsequently used by Christopher Tolkien like "The Return of the Shadow" and "The Treason of Isengard", and some very [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin literal]] ones such as "The Ring Goes East"). Tolkien finally settled on "The Fellowship of the Ring", "The Two Towers", and "The War of the Ring" for the volumes, and left the narrative books untitled. The publisher [[ExecutiveMeddling overruled]] him and went with "Return of the King" for the third volume despite Tolkien arguing that it was a {{spoiler}} for anyone picking up the series.

** Most extreme with [[TimeAbyss Tom Bombadil.]]

* TheFaceless: The Nazgûl.

* FamedInStory: Aragorn's family; ultimately Frodo (but [[NeverAcceptedInHisHometown not in his hometown]]).

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The Palantíri are epic artifacts crafted by Fëanor himself, [[SufficientlyAdvancedTechnology which mostly do things that act like a computer with Skype and Wikipedia]]. And, in some cases, some ''serious'' malware... One of them gets the image of two burning old man's hands burned into them, like a ghost image on an old computer screen.
** Also a [[BilingualBonus bilingual pun]]: "palantír" in Quenya means "far-seeing", as in RealLife "television".

* FlamingSword: The Balrog and the Witch-King.

* FollowTheLeader: It started the fantasy genre as we know it, and indirectly started role playing games as we know them too. The live action movies led the way for more film adaptations based on epic fantasy books.

* ForbiddenZone: The Paths of the Dead, and of course {{Mordor}}.

* FreudianTrio

** A place contaminated by the forces of evil is forever tainted, even if it was originally built by one of the Free Peoples (one example is Minas Morgul, formerly a Gondorian city of Minas Ithil, which was so tainted by evil that the GenreSavvy Gondorians had to destroy it rather than reclaim after Sauron's defeat). Various attempts to reclaim places such as Moria (a former Dwarven underground kingdom) invariably end in tragedy. No one makes an attempt to claim Saruman's tower of Orthanc after the evil wizard is banished: they just surround Orthanc with Ents and Huorns and make sure no one tries to squat in the tower. Only the places that were merely destroyed by Sauron's minions, not claimed as their own, such as Osgiliath and Fornost, are rebuildable and reclaimable.

* DarkestHour: Happens at least once in each book; the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, the Breaking of the Fellowship, the Battle at Helm's Deep, the Siege of Gondor, the Battle at the Black Gates.

** Andúril, Aragorn's sword and an AncestralWeapon (in the sense that it was reforged from the shards of his ancestor Elendil's sword Narsil), is called "Flame of the West", but it never actually catches on fire, though it occasionally shines as though it were. Its a more metaphoric fire, the flame of courage and hope.
*** Actually, Andúril does burst into flame at one point. But that's Gandalf's doing, when he reveals that he has returned.

** Played straight in the same book. Theoden doesn't have time to sit and chat about Merry's ancestors and pipe-weed when they meet at Isengard, but promises that they will have as long a conversation as the hobbits could ask for once they're all sat in peace at Meduseld. However, the events of the War sweep them away and Theoden dies without ever having the opportunity to make good on his word.

** Sauron left the door to Mount Doom unlocked. No matter how else fate/chance conspired against him, if there had been some sort of physical obstacle at the entrance to the Sammath Naur, the Ring could not have been destroyed. Partly justified by the fact, as Gandalf points out at one point, that Sauron is almost incapable of even thinking of the very ''concept'' of anyone destroying the Ring, rather than trying to use its power for themselves.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The Palantíri are epic artifacts crafted by Fëanor himself, [[SufficientlyAdvancedTechnology which mostly do things that act like a computer with Skype and Wikipedia]]. And, in some cases, some ''serious'' malware...

* {{Doorstopper}}: Despite being [[DividedForPublication called a trilogy]], it's really just one giant book. Which the publisher divided into three volumes. Different reasons have been given: to reduce its intimidating size, to earn three sets of attention-getting reviews, or to get around the initial financial and paper-supply shortages by printing three Fellowships rather than one three-in-one.

* {{Doorstopper}}: Despite being [[DividedForPublication called a trilogy]], it's really just one giant book. Which the publisher divided into three volumes. Different reasons have been given: to reduce its intimating size, to earn three sets of attention-getting reviews, or to get around the initial financial and paper-supply shortages by printing three Fellowships rather than one three-in-one.

* EldritchLocation: Morgul Vale. And if we're talking just 'eldritch' and not 'spooky, filled with death and decay' as well, then Lothlórien and Rivendell would qualify due to the use of the Elven Rings to alter the perception and flow of time. Keeping track of time there becomes a complete MindScrew for anyone who isn't an Elf.

* FreudianTrio:
** Ego: Aragorn
** Id: Gimli
** Superego: Legolas

** Sauron left the door to Mount Doom unlocked. No matter how else fate/chance conspired against him, if there had been some sort of physical obstacle at the entrance to the Sammath Naur, the Ring could not have been destroyed.

* {{Doorstopper}}: Despite being [[DividedForPublication called a trilogy]], it's really just one giant book. Which the publisher divided into three volumes because of its size. And, supposedly, postwar paper shortages. There wasn't enough to print a full run of the whole book, and a financial risk as success was not seen as guaranteed.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: Very much so for the Hobbits in the Scouring of the Shire.

** The Watcher in the Water, which may be one of the "nameless things" mentioned below.

* EmotionBomb: Evil things, especially the Nazgûl, are cloaked in Fear and Despair. In fact, fear is the Nazgûls' primary weapon.

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: The heroes' only hope hinges on the fact that Sauron can't even conceive of someone even ''wanting'' to destroy the Ring and give up that kind of power, let alone actually setting out to try. He just could not conceive that the creature holding the ring would not chose to be a world conqueror (See EvilIsPetty). He easily fell for Aragorn's bluff of using the Ring against him, but it never occurred to him that the real intention was to take it to Mount Doom and melt it.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The Palantíri are epic artifacts crafted by Fëanor himself, [[SufficientlyAdvancedTechnology which mostly do things that act like a computer with Skype and Wikipedia]]. Obviously, this wasn't the author's intention.

* TheFilmOfTheBook: Several, see film page for tropes.