Middle Earth

The Middle-earth (originally in English, Middle-earth) is a fictional continent in which most of the stories that the British author J. R. R. Tolkien wrote take place. for his legendarium. The novel The Silmarillion narrates the struggle for control of the world, and Middle-earth, the Valar, elves and men against Morgoth and his servants. In later times, after Morgoth's defeat and his expulsion from the world, his role is continued by his lieutenant, Sauron, titular and main antagonist of the novel The Lord of the Rings . The Valar cease to participate directly in the affairs of Middle-earth after Morgoth's defeat, but later send the Istari to help in the fight against Sauron; the most important are Gandalf the Grey, who remains faithful to his mission and proves crucial in the fight to defeat Sauron, and Saruman the White, who nevertheless becomes corrupted and allies with the enemy to take over Middle-earth.. Other races that participate in the fight against evil are the dwarves, the Ents and the hobbits, and it is one of the latter, Frodo Baggins, who is responsible for the final defeat of Sauron by destroying his source of power: the One Ring.

The name Middle-earth is a literal translation of the Anglo-Saxon term middangeard (midgard), referring to this world, the habitable lands of man. Tolkien translated "Middle-earth" as Endor (or sometimes Endórë) and Ennor in the Elvish languages (Quenya and Sindarin, respectively). Mythologically, northern Endor became Eurasia as the primitive earth transformed into the spherical earth we know today.

The Middle-earth setting takes place in a fictional period in Earth's past. Tolkien insisted that Middle-earth is Earth in several of his letters, one of which (no. 211) put the end of the Third Age at 6,000 years before his own time. The action of the books is largely confined to the northwest of the continent of Endor, implicitly corresponding to Europe today. The history of Arda is divided into several Ages: The Hobbit and most of the text of The Lord of the Rings deal exclusively with events that occur towards the end of the Third Age. of the Sun and concluding towards the beginning of the Fourth Age of the Sun, while The Silmarillion occurs mainly in the First Age of the Sun. The world (Arda) was originally flat but was transformed into a spherical one during the Second Age of the Sun by Eru Ilúvatar, the creator of the universe.

Most of the knowledge about Middle-earth is based on Tolkien's posthumously published works, creating controversy over what is considered "canonical".

The name

The term "Middle-earth" was not invented by Tolkien, as it existed in Old English as middanġeard, and as midden-erd or middel-erd in Middle English; in Old Norse it was called Midgard. It is the English denomination for what the Greeks called οικουμένη (oikoumenē), or "the place where Man inhabits", the physical world as opposed to the unseen world (The letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, 151).

Middangeard is quoted half a dozen times in Beowulf, which Tolkien translated and from whom he was undoubtedly a world authority (see also " J. R. R. Tolkien" for discussions on his inspiration and sources; see Midgard and Norse Mythology for earlier uses).

Tolkien was also inspired by this fragment:

Eala earendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended.

Hail Earendel, brightest of angels / above the middle-earth sent unto men.

in the anonymous medieval poem «Christ I». The name earendel (which may mean 'morning-star' but in some contexts was a name for Christ), was Tolkien's inspiration for Captain Eärendil. The name was consciously used by Tolkien to situate The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and other related writings.

Tolkien began using the term "Middle-earth" in the early 1930s, instead of the initial terms "Great Lands", "Outer Lands", and "Through Lands" to describe the same region in his stories. "Middle-earth" is intentionally intended to describe the lands east of the Great Sea (Belegaer), excluding Aman but including Harad and the other mortal lands not visited in Tolkien's stories. Many people mistakenly apply this name to the entire world, or exclusively to the lands described in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

In ancient German and Norse mythology, the Universe was believed to consist of the union of nine physical worlds. The world of Man, Middle-earth, lay in the center of this universe; the land of Elves, Gods and Giants stretched around a surrounding sea; the land of Death lay under Middle-earth; a rainbow bridge, the Bifrost Bridge, stretched from Middle-earth to Asgard, across it; an outer sea encircled the other seven worlds (Vanaheim, Asgard, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, Muspellheim, Niðavellir, and Jötunheim). In this conception, a "world" is closer to the idea of homeland than to that of a separate physical world.

The world

Tolkien commented that the geography of Middle-earth was thought to correspond to that of our real Earth in several instances. To further this idea, some speculate that if the map of Middle-earth is projected against a map of Earth, and some of the climatological, botanical, and zoological similarities line up, Hobbit Shire could fall into the temperate climate of England, Gondor could be in the Mediterranean of Italy and Greece, Mordor in the arid regions of Turkey and the Middle East, Gondor of the South and Near Harad in the deserts of North Africa, Rhovanion in the forests of Germany and the steppes of the west. and southern Russia, and the Forochel Ice Bay in the Norwegian fjords. Another aspect of Middle-earth that also corresponds to today's world is that of astronomical objects.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings present Tolkien's retelling of the events of the Red Book of the West Frontier, originally written by Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, and other hobbits, and corrected and annotated by more than one Gondorian scholar. Like Shakespeare's King Lear or Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, the tales take place in a historical period that could never really exist. Dates for the length of a year and moon phases, along with constellation descriptions clearly identify the world as Earth, no more than a few thousand years ago. Years after publication, Tolkien postulated a letter in which he claims that the action of the books takes place approximately 6,000 years ago, but that he was not sure of this.

Tolkien wrote extensively on the linguistics, mythology, and world history on which his tales are based. Many of these works were edited and later published by his son Christopher.

Notable among them is The Silmarillion, from which is born a creation story similar to the biblical one and a description of cosmology that includes Middle-earth. The Silmarillion is the primary source of information about Valinor, Númenor, and other lands. Also notable are the Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth and the multi-volume The History of Middle-earth, which includes many incomplete tales and essays as well as numerous first drafts. of Tolkien's Middle-earth mythology, from the earliest forms to the last writings of his life.

Cosmogony

The supreme deity of Tolkien's universe is called Eru, the One, also called by the elves Ilúvatar. In the beginning, Ilúvatar projected thoughts from him and created spirits, called the Ainur, and taught them to make music. Once the Ainur reached a deeper understanding, Ilúvatar commanded them to play more powerful music, a theme of his own creation. The most powerful Ainu, Melkor (later known as Morgoth to the elves) subverted the matter, and in response Ilúvatar introduced new harmonies that augmented the music beyond the comprehension of the Ainur. His song movements laid the seeds for many of the stories of the hitherto uncreated universe and the people who were to inhabit it.

Ilúvatar put an end to their music and revealed its meaning to the Ainur through a vision. Moved by this vision, many of the Ainur felt the need to experience the events directly. Then Ilúvatar created Eä, the universe for himself, and some of the Ainur came down to the universe to share their experiences. But upon reaching Eä, the Ainur found it amorphous, since they had entered at the beginning of time. The Ainur undertook great labors in the "ages of the stars" in which they shaped the universe and filled it with many things beyond human comprehension. In time, however, the Ainur formed Arda, the permanent home of the Children of Ilúvatar, Men and Elves. The fifteen most powerful Ainur are called the Valar, of which Melkor was the most powerful, but Manwë was the leader. The Valar established themselves in Arda to watch over it and prepare it for the awakening of the Children of Eru, whom they had seen during the vision of their music but none of them had participated in its creation, only Eru.

Arda began as a flat world, to which the Valar gave light through two gigantic lamps. Melkor destroyed the lamps and brought darkness to the world. The Valar withdrew to the extreme western regions of Arda, where they created the Two Trees to give birth to their new home. After several ages, the Valar seized Melkor to punish and rehabilitate him, and to protect the Children of Ilúvatar. But when Melkor was released on parole, he poisoned the Two Trees. The Valar then took the last two living fruits of the Two Trees and used them to create the Moon and the Sun.

Before the end of the Second Age, when the Men of Númenor rebelled against the Valar, Ilúvatar destroyed Númenor, separating Valinor from the rest of Arda, and formed new lands, transforming the world into a sphere.

Geography

J. R. R. Tolkien never finished detailing the geography for the entire world associated with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In The Making of Middle-earth, Volume IV of The History of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien published several extraordinary maps, of the flat as well as the spherical earth, which his father had created in the late 1930s. Karen Wynn Fonstad used these maps to draw highly detailed, non-canonical maps of Tolkien's entire world, with a consistent display of the historical ages represented in The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings.

Maps prepared by Christopher Tolkien and J. R. R. Tolkien of the world surrounding the works of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were published as illustrations in The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Early conceptions of the maps provided with The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings were included in several volumes.

Endor, the Quenya term for Middle-earth, was originally conceived as two broadly symmetrical schemes that were torn apart by Melkor. The symmetry was defined by two great subcontinents, one in the north and one in the south, and each had a long range of mountains in the eastern and western regions. The ranges were given color names (White Mountains, Blue Mountains, Gray Mountains, and Red Mountains).

Multiple conflicts with Melkor resulted in the distortion of Earth's formation. Originally, there was a single inland body of water, on which was the island of Almaren where the Valar lived. When Melkor destroyed the Lamps of the Valar that gave light to the world, two vast seas were created, but Almaren and its lake were destroyed. The northern sea became the Sea of Helcar (Helkar). The lands west of the Blue Mountains became Beleriand. Melkor raised the Misty Mountains to prevent the advance of the Vala Oromë for he hunted Melkor's beasts during the period of darkness before the awakening of the elves.

Violent fighting during the War of Wrath between the forces of the Valar and the armies of Melkor at the end of the First Age of the Sun caused vast destruction in Beleriand. It is also possible that during this same period the internal sea of Helcar had dried up.

The world, not including associated celestial bodies, was identified by Tolkien as "Amber" in various texts, but also as "Imbar", The Room, in Some texts after The Lord of the Rings. From the time of the destruction of the two Lamps until the fall of Númenor, Amber was supposed to be a 'flat world', in the sense that all its habitable lands were situated on only one side of the world. His sketches show a flat round disk-like world under the stars. A western continent, Aman, was the home of the Valar (and the Eldar). The lands of Endor were called "Middle-earth" and are the place where most of Tolkien's stories take place. There is an easternmost continent that was not inhabited.

When Melkor poisoned the Two Trees of the Valar and fled from Aman back to Endor, the Valar created the Sun and Moon, which were separate masses (of Amber) but were still a part of Arda (the Realm of the Children of Ilúvatar). A few years after the publication of The Lord of the Rings, in a note associated with the narrative story of "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth" (which occurred in Beleriand during the Wars of the Jewels), Tolkien compared Arda with the Solar System, as Arda at this point consisted of more than one celestial body.

According to the stories of both The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, when Ar-Phârazon invaded Aman to claim immortality for the Valar, they they set aside their stewardship of the world and Ilúvatar intervened, destroying Númenor, removing Aman "from the circles of the world", and reorganizing Ámbar within the round world of today. In the Akallabêth it is said that the Númenóreans who survived the Fall set sail as far west as they could in order to search for their ancient home, but their voyages only took them around the world and back to where they began. Thus, before the end of the Second Age, the transition from the "Flat Earth" to the "round Earth" it had been completed.

The continent of Endor became roughly equivalent to the landmass of Eurasia, but Tolkien's fictional geography provides no correlation between the Lord of the Rings narrative and the lands near it. Europe. The reader is then assumed to understand that the world underwent a subsequent undocumented transformation (some people speculate that Tolkien compared it to the Biblical deluge) some time after the end of the Third Age.

Population

Middle-earth is home to several sentient races. First are the Ainur, angelic beings created by Ilúvatar. The Ainur sing for Ilúvatar, who creates Eä to give life to his music in the cosmological myth of "Ainulindalë" ("music of the Ainur"). Some Ainur enter Eä and the highest ranking of them are known as the Valar. Melkor (later called Morgoth), the main personification of evil in Eä, is also one of the Valar.

Other Ainur who enter Eä are called maiar. During the First Age of the Sun, the most active maia is Melian, the wife of the elf king Thingol. In the Third Age, during the War of the Ring, five of the Maiar are given a body and sent to Endor to help the free peoples overthrow Sauron. These are the Istari or the Wise Men (called wizards by men), who are Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast, Alatar and Pallando. There were also evil maiar, called umaiar, which include the balrogs and the second Dark Lord Sauron.

Then there are the Children of Ilúvatar: Elves and Men, intelligent beings created by Ilúvatar alone. The Silmarillion tells how elves and men awaken and occupy the world. The dwarves are said to have been made by the Vala Aulë, who offered to destroy them when confronted by Ilúvatar. Ilúvatar forgave Aulë's transgression and adopted the dwarves. The three tribes of men who allied with the elves of Beleriand during the First Age are known as the edain.

As a reward for their loyalty and suffering in the Wars of Beleriand, the descendants of the Edain are given the isle of Númenor to call home. But as described in the History of Middle-earth section, Númenor is eventually destroyed and a holdout of Númenóreans establish kingdoms in the northern lands of Endor. Those who remained true to the Valar founded the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. They are then known as the Dúnedain, while other survivors of the Númenóreans, still adherents of evil but living further south, became known as the Black Númenóreans.

Tolkien identified hobbits as a branch of the race of men. Although their origins and ancient history are not known, Tolkien said that they settled in the valleys of the River Anduin during the early Third Age, but that after a thousand years the hobbits began migrating west from the Misty Mountains to Eriador.. Eventually many hobbits settled in the Shire.

After Ilúvatar gave them true life, Aulë, the creator of the dwarves, put them to sleep hidden in hidden places in the mountains. Ilúvatar does not awaken the dwarves until the elves have awakened. The dwarves spread across northern Endor, eventually founding seven kingdoms. Two of these kingdoms, Nogrod and Belegost, allied with the elves of Beleriand against Morgoth during the First Age. The greatest of the dwarf kingdoms is Khazad-dum, later known as Moria.

The Ents, shepherds of the trees, were created by Ilúvatar at the request of the valië Yavanna to protect the trees from the depravity of Elves, Dwarves, and Men.

Orcs and trolls are evil creatures originating from Melkor. They are not creations per se, but "mocks" of the Children of Ilúvatar and of the ents, since only Ilúvatar has the ability to give things being. The detailed origins of orcs and trolls are uncertain (Tolkien considered various possibilities and frequently changed his mind). Later during the Third Age, the uruks or uruk-hai appear: a race of orcs of great size and strength that, unlike ordinary orcs, are not hurt by daylight (some hold that by the end of the Third Age, the only Uruks proper Uruk-hai were those who served Saruman). Saruman crosses orcs and men together to produce "were-orcs", some of these are called "half-orcs" u "goblin men" (There is no consensus as to whether Saruman's uruk-hai fall into these categories, the books contain no indication as to how the uruk-hai came to be as depicted in Peter Jackson's recent trilogy.) Trolls are rarely seen (and actually Tolkien doesn't really describe them), they are stupid, vile and brutal creatures. If touched by daylight they turn to rock. In an episode of The Hobbit , three trolls trap Bilbo and his dwarf companions, and plan how to eat them.

Seemingly intelligent animals also appear, such as eagles, Huan the great dog of Valinor, and wargs. Eagles were created by Ilúvatar along with the Ents, but in general the origins and nature of these animals are unclear. Some of them could be maiar in animal form, or maybe even the children of maiar and normal animals.

Tom Bombadil is an enigma; it is not known to which race in Middle-earth he belongs. However, he is clearly sentient and humanoid. About the nature of Bombadil, Tolkien himself said that some things should remain a mystery in all mythology, hidden even from the inventor of it.

Languages

Tolkien primarily devised two Elvish languages, which would later be known as Quenya, spoken by the Vanyar, Noldor and some Teleri, and Sindarin, spoken by the elves who remained in Beleriand. These languages are related, being associated in a general denomination of Eldarin.

Other world languages include:

• dunael or adunaic, spoken by the Noennoreans;
• an inch, spoken by the Ents;
• Black tongue, spoken by the servants of Sauron;
• khuzdûl, spoken by the dwarves;
• rhetoric, spoken by the rohirrim and related to the kuduk, language originally spoken by the hobbits (represented in The Lord of the Rings Old English);
• the “common league” (represented in The Lord of the Rings English); and
• valarin, the Ainur language.

History of Middle-earth

Historical periods

1. Creation of Arda
2. Ages of lamps
3. Ages of the Trees
4. Ages of the Sun
   1. First Age of the Sun
   2. Second Age of the Sun
   3. Age of the Sun
   4. Fourth Age of the Sun

The history of Middle-earth is divided into three periods: Ages of the Lamps, Ages of the Trees, and Ages of the Sun.

The Ages of the Lamps begin as soon as the Valar finish their labors to form Arda. The Valar created two lamps to light the world, Illuin and Ormal, and the Vala Aulë made two great towers, one in the far north and one in the south, to support the lamps. The Valar lived in the middle, on the island of Almaren. Melkor's destruction of the lamps marks the end of the Ages of the Lamps.

Then Yavanna made the Two Trees called Telperion and Laurelin in the land of Aman. The Trees illuminated Aman, leaving the rest of Arda in darkness, lit only by stars. At the beginning of the First Age of Trees, the elves awoke by Lake Cuiviénen in the east of Endor, and the Valar soon met them. Many elves were convinced to make the Great March of the elves west to Aman, but not all of them finished this journey (due to the Separation of the elves). The Valar seized Melkor but he appeared to repent and was released. He then sowed discord among the Elves and fomented rivalry between the Elf-princes Fëanor and Fingolfin. He then he slew his father, King Finwë and stole the Silmarils, three gems created by Fëanor containing the light of the Two Trees, from his place, and destroyed the Trees themselves.

Fëanor convinced most of his people, the Noldor, to abandon Aman and pursue Melkor to Beleriand, cursing him with the name Morgoth. Fëanor led the first of two groups of Noldor. The largest group was led by Fingolfin. The Noldor stopped at the Teleri port-city of Alqualondë, but the Teleri refused to give them ships to reach Middle-earth. The First Massacre of Elves against Elves then happened, Fëanor and many of his followers attacked the Teleri and stole their ships. Fëanor's host set sail in the stolen ships, leaving Fingolfin behind to cross into Middle-earth via the deadly iceland of Helcaraxë in the far north. Soon after, Fëanor was slain, but most of his sons survived and founded kingdoms, as did Fingolfin and his heirs.

The Ages of the Sun begin when the Valar make the Sun and raise it above the world, Imbar. After several battles, a long peace lasted for four hundred years, during which the first Men entered Beleriand by crossing the Blue Mountains. As Morgoth emerged from the siege, one by one the elven kingdoms fell, including the hidden city of Gondolin. The only considerable success of Elves and Men came when Beren of the Edain and Lúthien, daughter of Thingol and Melian, stole a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown. Afterwards Beren and Lúthien died, and were brought back to life by the Valar, under the agreement that Lúthien must become mortal and Beren must never be seen by Men again.

Thingol argued with the Dwarves of Nogrod and they killed him, stealing the Silmaril. With the help of the Ents, Beren ambushed the Dwarves and recovered the Silmaril, which he gave to Lúthien. Then Beren and Lúthien died again. The Silmaril was given to his son Dior the half-elf, who restored the kingdom of Doriath. The sons of Fëanor demanded that Dior give them the Silmaril, and he refused. The Fëanorians destroyed Doriath and killed Dior in the second Slaughter of elves against elves, but Dior's youngest daughter Elwing escaped with the gem. Three of Fëanor's sons – Celegorm, Curufin and Caranthir – died trying to retrieve the gem.

By the end of this age, all that remained of the Elves and free Men in Beleriand was the camp at the mouths of the river Sirion. Among them was Eärendil, who married Elwing. But the Fëanorians again demanded the return of the Silmaril, and after being denied, they decided to take the gem by force, leading to the Third Culling of elves against elves. Earendil and Elwing carried the Silmaril across the Great Sea, to ask the Valar for forgiveness and help. The Valar responded. Melkor was captured, and most of his works were destroyed, and he was exiled beyond the confines of the world to the Gates of Night.

The Silmarils were recovered at terrible cost, as Beleriand itself began to sink into the sea. The remaining sons of Fëanor, Maedhros and Maglor, were ordered to return to Valinor. They then stole the Silmarils from the victorious Valar. But, as with Melkor, the Silmarils burned their hands and they realized that they were no longer destined to possess them and that their oath was in vain. Each met their own fate: Maedhros threw the Silmaril into a pit of fire, and Maglor threw the Silmaril into the sea. Thus, the three Silmarils ended up in the sky with Eärendil, on the earth, and in the sea, respectively.

Thus begins the Second Age of the Sun. The Edain were given the isle of Númenor, to the west in the Belegaer Sea as a new home, while many Elves were welcomed in the West. The Númenóreans became great sailors, but they also became jealous of the Elves for their immortality. But after many centuries, Sauron, the greatest servant of Morgoth, began to organize evil creatures in the eastern lands. He convinced the elven smiths of Eregion to create the Rings of Power, and secretly forged the One Ring to control the other rings. But the Elves became aware of Sauron's plan and as soon as he placed the One Ring in his hand, they removed theirs before he could subdue his will.

The last Númenórean king Ar-Pharazôn, with the strength of his army, humbled Sauron himself and took him to Númenor as a prisoner. But with the help of the One Ring, Sauron tricked Ar-Pharazôn into invading Aman, promising immortality for all who set foot in the Immortal Lands. Amandil, leader of those True to the Valar, attempted to sail west to seek his aid. His son Elendil and his grandsons Isildur and Anárion prepared to flee to Middle-earth. When the King's forces reached Aman, the Valar asked Ilúvatar to intervene. The world was changed, and Aman was removed from Imbar. Since then Men cannot find Aman, but Elves seeking passage in specially made ships have been graced to use the Straight Path, which leads from the seas of Middle-earth to the seas of Aman. Númenor was destroyed, and with it Sauron's body, but his spirit endured and he fled back to Middle-earth. Elendil and his sons escaped to Endor and founded the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor. Sauron soon rose again, but the Elves allied with Men to form the Last Alliance and defeated him. The One Ring from him was taken by Isildur, but not destroyed.

The Third Age of the Sun saw the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor rise to power, and their decline. By the time of The Lord of the Rings , Sauron had regained much of his former strength, and was searching for the One Ring. He discovered that he was in possession of a Hobbit and sent his Ringwraiths to retrieve it. The Ring bearer, Frodo Baggins, traveled to Rivendell, where it was decided that the Ring must be destroyed by the only means possible: by throwing it into the fires of Mount Doom. Frodo went out on that mission with eight companions—the Fellowship of the Ring. At the last moment Frodo failed, but with the intervention of the creature Gollum - whose life had been saved by the mercy of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins - the Ring ended up being destroyed. Frodo and his companion Samwise Gamgei were then held to be heroes. Sauron was forever destroyed and his spirit dissipated.

The end of the Third Age marks the end of Elven rule and the beginning of Men's rule. As the Fourth Age begins, many Elves who still lived in Middle-earth left for Valinor, never to return; those who stayed would "fade away" and they would decrease. The Dwarves eventually dwindled as well. The Dwarves also ended up returning in large numbers and resettling in Moria. Peace was restored between Gondor and the lands to the south and east. Finally, the stories of the first Ages became legends, and the truth behind them was forgotten.

Tolkien's Works on Middle-earth

• 1937 The hobbit
  • The Hobbit Bilbo Bolsón joins a company of Enanos and the Mago Gandalf in a mission to recover an ancient treasure dwarf of the dragon Smaug.
• 1954 The Ring CommunityPart 1 The Lord of the Rings
  • The nephew (and cousin) of Bilbo, and his heir, Frodo Bolsón departs on a mission to liberate the Middle Earth from the One Ring, together with the Ring Company.
• 1954 The two towers, part 2 The Lord of the Rings
  • The Community is separated: while Frodo and his friend Sam continue their mission, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas fight to rescue the hobbits Peregrin Tuk (Pippin) and Meriadoc Brandigamo (Merry) of the Orcs and to save the Kingdom of Rohan.
• 1955 The return of the King, part 3 The Lord of the Rings
  • Frodo and Sam arrive in Mordor, while Aragorn arrives in Gondor and takes his place as king of the Dúnedain.
• 1962 The adventures of Tom Bombadil and other poems of The Red Book
  • A set of poems, a little related to The Lord of the Rings.
• 1967 The Road Goes Ever On
  • A cycle of songs with the composer Donald Swann (out of print, but reprinted in 2002).

Tolkien died in 1973. All subsequent works were edited by Christopher Tolkien. Only The Silmarillion is presented in finished work form — the rest are collections of notes and draft versions. (However, in these books, Christopher admits to making editing errors in The Silmarillion regarding what his father intended regarding certain aspects of Middle-earth history.)

• 1974 The last song of Bilbo

• 1977 The Silmarillion
  • The story of the First Days, before the Lord of the Rings, including the Fall of Numenor.
• 1980 Unfinished stories of Numenor and the Middle Earth
  • Stories and essays related to the Silmarillion and Lord of the RingsBut many were never completely left.

Series The History of Middle-earth:

• 1983 The Book of Lost Tales 1
• 1984 The Book of Lost Tales 2
  • The earliest versions of mythology, from beginning to end.
• 1985 The bullets of Beleriand
  • Two long poems (the shooting of Leithian on Beren and Lúthien, and the saga of Túrin).
• 1986 Formation of the Middle Earth
  • Rewriting of mythology from the beginning.
• 1987 The lost way and other writings
  • Introduction of Numenor to mythology and continuation of rewriting.
• 1988 The Return of the Shadow (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. I)
• 1989 The betrayal of Isengard (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. II)
• 1990 The Ring War (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. III)
• 1992 Sauron defeated or The End of the Third Age (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. IV)
  • The development of the Lord of the Rings. Sauron defeated also includes another version of the story of Numenor.
• 1993 The ring of Morgoth (Posterior Silmarillion, part one)
• 1994 The War of the Jewels (Posterior Silmarillion, part two)
  • Post Lord of the Rings to review the mythology to be published. It includes the controversial 'Mitos Transformados' section, which documents how Tolkien's thoughts changed radically in the last years of his life.
• 1996 The peoples of the Middle Earth
  • Source material for the appendices of The Lord of the Rings and other later writings related to The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.
• 2002 Middle Earth History: Index
  • This book completely integrates all the indexes of the twelve previous volumes into a long index.
• 2007 The children of Húrin; edited by Christopher Tolkien; illustrated by Alan Lee.
  • This book returns the reader to a distant scenario in the time of Lord Of The Rings — it happens in the First Age, more than 6,000 years away in the past — in a part of the Middle Earth that sank before the Hobbits appeared —Belerian, vast land to the west — and when the Great Enemy was, even, Morgoth and Sauron. Romantic and heroic history, tells the life of a man, Húrin, who, defying Morgoth's power and strength, sealed the tragic fate of his family, condemning his son Túrin Turambar and a tragic ending to his daughter Nestor.
• 2017 Beren and Lúthien; edited by Christopher Tolkien; illustrated by Alan Lee.
• 2018 The Fall of Gondolin; edited by Christopher Tolkien; illustrated by Alan Lee.
  • He narrates the story of Tuor and as Ulmo entrusts him to seek the city of Gondolin to warn King Turgon about the Fall of Gondolin if he does not send messengers to Valinor for the piety of the Valar.

Accommodations

Movies

Air New Zealand Boeing 777-300 with the liverly «The Midland Airline» at London-Heathrow Airport used to promote the film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

In letter #202 to Christopher Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien defines his policy regarding film adaptations of his works: "Art or Cash". He sold the film rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to the American film production company United Artists in 1969, after receiving a tax bill. He was, above all, to pay the percentage of taxes on the inheritance rights of his works. Three years after Tolkien's death, in 1976, United Artists sold those same film rights to the Saul Zaentz Company, founded by producer Saul Zaentz (1921-2014). The Saul Zaentz Company has no relationship with the Tolkien Estate, a legal entity that is in the hands of Tolkien's family heirs (especially his son, Christopher Tolkien, the latter's wife, Baillie Tolkien, and a nephew of the writer, Michael Tolkien, Jr.) and who holds the literary rights, that is, the texts, of absolutely all of Tolkien's works, including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The rights purchased by Zaentz from United Artists concern only the commercial exploitation of audiovisual works and derived products, but only from the contents of the two aforementioned novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The commercialization of audiovisual works and products derived from all other works of the writer, including The Silmarillion, the Unfinished Tales etc., is in the hands of the Tolkien Estate. For its part, for the commercialization of products and audiovisual works derived from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the Saul Zaentz Company founded a division of its own, called "Tolkien Enterprises ». In 2010 Tolkien Enterprises changed its name to "Middle-earth Enterprises".

The first adaptation to emerge from this commercial exploitation by Tolkien Enterprises was The Hobbit, a telefilm made in 1977 by Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. It was initially broadcast on American television.

The following year, in 1978, a motion picture titled The Lord of the Rings was produced by Saul Zaentz and directed by Ralph Bakshi. It was an adaptation of the first half of the story narrated in the novel, using a rotoscopic animation technique, that is to say: cartoons traced over the frames of a previous real filming. Although relatively true to the story, this film was neither a commercial success nor a critical success.

In 1980 Rankin/Bass produced a television special covering roughly the last half of The Lord of the Rings, called The Return of the King. However, the plot did not continue from the end of Bakshi's film.

The actual realization of a film version of The Lord of the Rings starring human actors was not put into practice until well into the 1990s. During the second half of the decade, Peter Jackson, financed by New Line Cinema and with the support of the New Zealand government and the banking system, he began to direct a trilogy of films produced and shot simultaneously, although released progressively in 2001, 2002 and 2003, one for each volume of the novel:

• The Lord of the Rings: the Ring Community (2001)
• The Lord of the Rings: the two towers (2002)
• The Lord of the Rings: the return of the King (2003)

The films were huge critical and box office successes, and together they won seventeen Oscars. However, in the book-to-film adaptation, plot and character changes offended some fans of the books.

In late 2007, New Line Cinema announced that it would make two films based on The Hobbit, with Peter Jackson producing and Guillermo del Toro directing. In October 2010, the 'green light' was still awaited. to begin filming the films in New Zealand, but this time under the direction of Peter Jackson since Guillermo del Toro had abandoned the direction due to delay problems in filming. The following year, in 2011, it was announced that the first film would be titled The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Filming, which as scheduled took place in New Zealand, finally began on March 21, 2011, despite delays, and wrapped on July 6, 2012, after 266 days of shooting. Shortly after After filming, Jackson announced that there was material to divide the story into three films and interest for it, so that the adaptation of The Hobbit would finally be a trilogy:

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
• The Hobbit: Smaug's Desolation (2013)
• The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was previewed on 28 November 2012 in Wellington, hometown of Peter Jackson and home of Weta, and the commercial release took place worldwide on December 13 of that year. The world premiere of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug took place on December 13, 2013. As for the third and final part of the trilogy, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, was originally scheduled to be titled The Hobbit: Departure and Return and to be released in July 2014, but in April of that year the production announced that the title had been changed to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and that the premiere would take place on December 17, 2014. December 2014 in London (United Kingdom). In other countries the premiere took place on later dates in the same year of 2014, such as December 10 in France, December 11 in New Zealand and December 17 in the United States, Spain and some other countries.

Reception

Role Playing

Tolkien's works have been and still are today a major influence on a large number of role-playing games. Other fantasy writers, such as Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft, and Michael Moorcock, are also a major influence, but none of them have influenced role-playing games as intensely and lastingly as Tolkien. The first role-playing game to be published and marketed was Dungeons & Dragons, published from 1974, and was heavily inspired by Tolkien's creations. The influence of Dungeons & Dragons in role-playing games was decisive at the time when these games appeared and became popular, essentially in the period between the mid-1970s and the late 1980s. In the 1990s and after, the games Role-playing games were already very numerous and were presented in all kinds of genres, many of them very different from Tolkien's own epic fantasy. Yet the Tolkien-style epic fantasy genre was clearly dominant among early role-playing games. For example, it is significant that, due to legal and copyright issues, the authors of Dungeons & Dragons had to remove from their texts direct references to terms coined by Tolkien. This was shortly after the game was first published, when it was still in the 1970s. "Hobbits", for example, was a term replaced by "halflings".

The first to create an official role-playing game for Middle-earth were the Americans Pete Fenlon and S. Coleman Charlton, who in 1980 had created a generic game system that two years later, in 1982, they called Rolemaster. They then requested the company Middle-earth Enterprises (at that time still called "Tolkien Enterprises") for a license contract to market a role-playing game officially set in Middle-earth. The license was granted and in 1984 they were able to publish, with a simplified game system based on the Rolemaster system, the role-playing game known as MERP (Middle-earth Role-Playing, translated into Spanish as The Lord of the Rings, the role-playing game of Middle-earth). With their publisher, Iron Crown Enterprises, Fenlon and Charlton also published, in 1991, a second role-playing game set in Middle-earth, an even more simplified version titled Lord of the Rings Adventure Game (translated into English). Spanish the following year, in 1992, as The Lord of the Rings, basic adventure game). Around 1999 Iron Crown Enterprises went bankrupt and had to abandon the Tolkien Enterprises game license, so their two role-playing games ceased to have editorial continuity. Another American game company, Decipher, Inc., soon after bought the rights to the license and published in 2002 a Middle-earth role-playing game created by Steve S. Long and titled The Lord of the Rings, The role play. The game was illustrated in full color with stills from the movie trilogy that Peter Jackson was making at the time. By 2006 Decipher had no financial problems, but even so it stopped giving continuity to the editorial line of the game. This meant that after a few years another company, British this time, the game publisher Cubicle 7 Entertainment, took over and entered into a contract with Middle-earth Enterprises, publishing in 2011 the Middle-earth role-playing game by an author Italian, Francesco Nepitello. It is the current official role-playing game of Middle-earth. At the time of its publication, in 2011, it was titled The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild and that is how the publishing house Devir Iberia translated it into Spanish in the same year of its publication, with the title The One Ring, adventures on the edge of the wasteland. This first manual was conceived to play characters in a vast geographical area of Middle-earth called Rhovanion. Two other manuals were planned to complete the other main geographical areas of the Northwest quadrant of Middle-earth (Eriador, Rohan, Gondor, etc.) but after a few years the project of dividing the game into three geographically oriented manuals was abandoned. abandoned. In 2014, the manual set in Rhovanion, the only one that had seen the light until then, was reissued by Cubicle 7 Entertainment with the generic title The One Ring Roleplaying Game (reissue translated by Devir Iberia simply as The One Ring) and became the only rulebook for the range.

There have therefore, to date, been four legally licensed tabletop RPGs set in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth:

• Middle-earth Role Playing (published in cash format, 1984)
• Lord of the Rings Adventure Game (published in cash format, 1991)
• The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game (published in book format, 2002)
• The One Ring Roleplaying Game (published in case format with two books in the interior in 2011 and reissued in book format in 2014)

TV series

In November 2017, Amazon announced an adaptation of the world of J.R.R. Tolkien in the form of a series, called The Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power, which would narrate different events that occurred during the second era. It was released on September 2, 2022 and will have 5 seasons of 8 episodes each.

Games by Mail

There is a Middle-earth correspondence game titled Middle-Earth Play-By-Mail (en). It was created in 1990 by Game Systems, Inc. under license from Tolkien Enterprises and is still in production today. This game was inducted into the Adventure Game Academy of Art and Design Hall of Fame in 1997.

War Games

Simulations Publications created three wargames (or wargames) based on Tolkien's work. The War of the Ring covers most of the events of the The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Gondor focuses on the battle on the Pelennor Fields, and Sauron covers the battle outside the gates of Mordor in the Second Age. A war game based on the Lord of the Rings movies is being produced by Games Workshop. A board game called War of the Ring is published by Fantasy Flight Games.

Video Games

The video game Angband is a free-form dungeon crawler type video game, C&D style, which includes many features from Tolkien's works.

EA Games has produced video games for both console and PC platforms. These include The Two Towers, The Return of the King, The Battle for Middle-earth or The Third Age. Vivendi produced The Fellowship of the Ring and Sierra created The War of the Ring, although both turned out not to be as successful as expected.

In addition to these video games, many others have been made. Some were made by paying royalties to the Tolkien Estate (such as the 2003 video game The Hobbit) and others by paying royalties to the Saul Zaentz Company, whose commercial exploitation rights are the same with which the films have been made. films of the trilogies The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and with which the marketing derived from these trilogies has been developed.

A very comprehensive list of Tolkien-inspired video games can be found on the page titled The Tolkien Computer Games Pages. This is a web page from the official website of the Lysator club, a club for computer enthusiasts attached to the University of Linköping, in Sweden.

Comics

There are few adaptations to the world of the Saga of the Ring comics. Marvel tried it without success and we had to wait for the premiere of Ralph Bakshi's film for the first comic to appear.

• 1979-1980 The Lord of the Rings 1, The Lord of the Rings 2 and The Lord of the Rings 3 by Luis Bermejo and Nicola Cuti (Toutain). More faithful adaptation to Bakshi's film than to Tolkien's book.
• 1979 The Lord of the Rings Fotonovela (Editorial Bruguera). Reproduction of the frames of the Bakshi film.
• 1991 The Hobbit 1: One-way story and a return, The hobbit 2: story of one way and one round and The Hobbit 3: One-way History and a Round by David Wenzel and Chuck Dixon. Adaptation The hobbit that the year 2002 would be reprinted in a single album and cartoné binding using the premieres of Peter Jackson's versions.