The Lord of the Rings/Tropes A-L: Difference between revisions

* [[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.

* [[Backstory]]: Plenty of it, as found in ''[[The Hobbit (novel)|The Hobbit]]'', ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', ''[[Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth|Unfinished Talesof Numenor and Middleearth]]'' and ''[[The Children of Húrin|The Children of Hurin]]''.

* [[Badass Adorable]]: The Hobbits probably count.

* [[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.

* [[Creator Backlash]]: Hippies buying the [http://lotrscrapbook.bookloaf.net/gallery/bookcovers/pages/04.htm Ballantine edition] is what popularized the book in [[The Sixties]] <ref>Frodo Lives! Gandalf for President!</ref> (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.)

{{quote|''"He caught the glint of clear grey eyes; and then he shivered, for it came suddenly to him that it was the face of one without hope who goes in search of death.''"}}

* [[Deconstruction]]: Of the more conventional heroic fantasy in which [[The Hero]] gains power to overthrow [[Big Bad|evil]] and [[Happily Ever After|achieve happiness]]. In Tolkien's story, [[Big Good|anyone]] [[Woman in White|strong]] [[Supporting Leader|enough]] to use the One Ring to defeat Sauron would themselves become, in the process, [[The Dark Side|as evil as Sauron]] (or worse<ref>In one of his letters, Tolkien stated that Gandalf claiming the ring would lead to a worse situation than Sauron recovering it, because at least Sauron was openly evil, whereas Gandalf with the Ring would do evil in the name of good, thereby corrupting even the idea of good</ref>). The main protagonist is a [[Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes|Type I anti-hero]] who is [[The Only One]] for the job for this very reason, and his mission is to ''throw away'' the only weapon powerful enough to defeat their Enemy (several characters [[Lampshade Hanging|comment on]] the seeming folly of this). Moreover, at the end of the story, {{spoiler|Frodo}}, rather than finding happiness, {{spoiler|suffers from physical and spiritual wounds that will not heal}}, and must eventually {{spoiler|leave Middle-Earth altogether}}.

* [[Defictionalization]]: Caradhras, Orthanc, Dol Goldur [sic!] and the Mindolluin Crag are [http://books.google.com/books?id=-ukAUElJXPIC&pg=PA287&lpg=PA287&dq=caradhras+cascades&source=bl&ots=euSEc07JNO&sig=Hvzq9zLCQ-TW9XT8BqDLAbRprsU&hl=en&ei=Nl8dTd_jHZDCsAOPu72TCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false real places] in [[The Other Rainforest|Washington State]]. Two climbers (and Tolkien fans) in the 1960's were the first to climb a segment of mountains in the Cascade range and thus [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|ensured naming rights]].

* [[Denouement]]: the Scouring of the Shire is a pretty jarring denouement sequence

{{quote|'''Frodo''': ''For I have become very fond of Strider. Well, fond is not the right word. I mean he is dear to me; [[Good Is Not Nice|though he is strange, and grim at times]]. [[You Are a Credit to Your Race|In fact, he reminds me often of you. I didn't know that any of the Big People were like that]]. [[Innocent Bigot|I thought, well, that they were just big, and rather stupid:]] [[Dumb Is Good|kind and stupid like Butterbur]]; or [[Stupid Evil|stupid and wicked like Bill Ferny]]. [[Captain Obvious|But then we don't know much about Men in the Shire, except perhaps the Breelanders.]]''<br />

'''Gandalf''': ''[[Pitying Perversion|You don't know much even about them, if you think old Barliman is stupid...]]'' }}

* [[Fate Worse Than Death]]:

{{quote|'''Witch-King:''' Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn ... He will bear thee away to the Houses of Lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.}}

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