Well, I'm a rather morbid person who adores Halloween so what one person would find scary (barrow wights) I wouldn't mind at all.

What I DO find scary though, is the following:

1. Naked Hobbits...do with it what you will, it needs no explanation.

2. Nazgul. While I said that this sort of stuff DIDN'T creep me out... these, however, scare the ever living daylights out of me.

3. The Old Forest. Trees should NOT move (other than swaying with the wind or other tree...things) nor should they be able to attack you. That is NOT a conversation I would like to have with someone in the afterlife...

"So, what'd you do to get here?"

"I'd rather not discuss it."

"Awe, c'mon can't be that bad..."

"Oh, really? Have you ever been attacked by a killer, angry tree?"

"..."

"That's what I thought."

4. Ungoliant. Because, well, I just hate spiders period. I won't even go in the bathroom by myself if there's a spider in there. I have to take a whole Army in there to defend me. :p

5. Aragorn on a bad day. I mean, really. Wouldn't you be the slightest bit afraid of an extremely ticked off, king-to-be wielding a sword (mind you that he KNOWS how to use) saying, "Go ahead punk, make my day."

6. And thus, leading to Galadriel all hell bent on becoming queen of the sandbox. Don't get me wrong, I love her character and she's one of my favorites, but Psychotic!Galadriel scares the ever living out of me.

1. I think someone mentioned that before, so you're not alone :)

3. Oh God, that creeped me out so badly on my first read!

6. I scare the living daylight out of you? :eek: But really, I like Artanis. The sole living member of the house of Finwë (If you don't count Gildor, which I don't think anyone does), and the most powerful woman in Middle-earth. I like it ;)

I know! I live in an area with trees surrounding me, so the first time I read it I was like.. "there's no way in heck I'm going out there to be attacked by a tree.." My parents thought I had gone off my rocker. :p

Haha, she's still a favorite character though, don't get me wrong, she just has a tendency to scare the ever living out of me!

Well, correct me if I'm wrong since It's been a WHILE since I've picked up a book, but I suppose they don't count Gildor because he's from the house of Finrod and that's what they associate him with, even though Finrod is a descendant of Finwë, I would say it has more to do with distance in the bloodline I.E. like distant cousins and what not...if that makes sense. And...and *sniffs* I really like Gildor too. I suppose I've always been different though, even if he is distant in the bloodline of Finwë, he still is a descendant and would belong to that house, wouldn't he?

You are so lucky. I was raised in a cramped and dirty (not to mention unsafe) city, and I positively would give anything to be out there in a countryside or in the hills. I can't wait to get out of here (one...year...till I go to college!).

Oh relax, I was joking.

Yeah, I agree. And I love Gildor too. I actually thought he would end up being a main character (I mistook him for Legolas lol. Probably because the Bakshi film confused me). Sad he turned out to be like Bombadil. Terribly lovable, hugely entertaining, but no solid role :p

I couldn't handle it in the city, at all. I sympathize with you, my friend I really do. I don't even really like visiting cities all that much.

:p Hehe.

I thought he would too, actually (being a main character). Oddly enough I've not watched the Bakshi film :eek:. Yes, 'tis very sad indeed *sniffs*. Though I always thought Tom to be a little...out there, haha, but he was loveable none the less!

*cries* I wish I was you. My friend loves the city though. She's in love with New York *throws up* I can't handle it. The pollution, the noise, the bloody rude people (excuse my language). I prefer the English countryside. Even London is okay, at least it's historical and interesting. I don't live there though. Such is life.

I used to find Tom a bit irritating at first, till I read The Silmarillion and understood everything a little better. Then I was like 'Oh my God he could be an Ainur" :p

You need to watch it, seriously. I used to get scared out of my pants when I was eight :p Now it seems a little ridiculous, not to mention inaccurate, but you could watch it for laughs :D

I've always wanted to go to the English countryside and live *sigh*. I wouldn't be able to handle New York AT ALL. Not to mention getting lost nearly all the time, I would miss the clean country air far too much.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought that about Tom, what with him being an Ainur, that is! I found him to be a bit...out there and annoying at first as well, so not alone there either. But all in all he's still a loveable character.

I use to be afraid of Pocahontas :p no joke, the sounds of the drums and whenever I thought they were actually going to kill John I would run in my room and hide. But I shall go off in search of the movie and watch it this weekend.

LOL you sound like me when I used to watch the Hunchback of Notre Dame :p

Are you serious!I am and was in love with the bells!

As for the initial point,the only thing that ever scarred the hell out of me was the part of Queen Beruthiel in UT.OK,it doesn't seem the scariest but try it on a stormy night,the sea roaming outside of your window and a bat coming to pay you her daily visit :p

As for my beloved Ulairi,I am perhaps the only person in the world that fot over her fear of darkness and the black-hooded figures with their help-well,maybe the image of Strider in Bree helped a little bit in the second,though;)-

Oddly enough I was never scared of that one! I adored the bells, like Erendis. The little goat was adorable too!

I could see, Erendis, where you would think the Queen to be scary. Though that sort of thing is right up my alley, so to each his own, heh.

Bwahaha! Yes, the image of Strider in Bree does help with that, doesn't it? Heh, was never really afraid of the dark...just afraid of the things that lurk in it! :D *coughNazgulcough* :p

[QUOTE=xMellrynxMaidenx;641538Bwahaha! Yes, the image of Strider in Bree does help with that, doesn't it? Heh, was never really afraid of the dark...just afraid of the things that lurk in it! :D *coughNazgulcough* :p[/QUOTE]

Lol as I say, I'm not afraid of heights, I'm only afraid of hitting the ground!

"You will not find anyone more dangerous than me" (Gandalf)
...Except maybe Turin Turambar when he's mad at you...

No. Except for Mandos when he's annoyed at you O.O Though Túrin comes pretty close :p

Or worse, when Turin has taken a liking to you...;)

hehehe, that's a good one, Alatar!

Pretty insightful ;)

Eh. Dangerous or unspeakably horrific stuff doesn't scare me nearly so much - at least with those I can see them, fight them and go down in history as "that idiot who charged at Morgoth with nothing but a stick and an angry look."

No, what really scares me are stealthy things, the ones you don't have any warning of. Especially when you know they're after you, somewhere . . . Most of my worst nightmares involve that feeling of having nowhere to hide. Given that, my list would be thus:

5. Ungoliant/Shelob/the giant spiders of Mirkwood. They fall under the category of "big, obvious menaces" for sure, but this particular geek DOES. NOT. LIKE. SPIDERS.
4. The Dead Men called by Aragorn. I only remembered them after reading about people's fears of the Barrow-Wight (which for some reason fails to scare me at all).
3. Nameless Things. Like the Nazgul, except they take what's scary to me (undefined, unknown, stealthy, relentless things) and become it to the point where it's not quite so scary anymore. They still creep me out veeeery badly though.
2. Thuringwethil. As with the Dead Men, I had forgotten about her until reading some other posts on this thread . . . Then I thought about her and ended up thinking "Oh my God that's scary!"
1. Nazgul. Just enough of everything that scares me, without overdoing it like the Nameless Things.

Lalaith.

Bom, welcome to the Downs!

If I were to analyze your post a bit, I would conclude that you fear the unknown more than the known. Or that your imagination (fex. what *might* be out there) really runs wild, given little data. You would fear less the dungeons of Sauron than the shadows just outside some ruin's door mayhap.

And fear of spiders may be instinctive, right from the DNA.

Anyway, was watching the 80's TV miniseries "V" last week, and, if you don't know, the aliens are reptiles in human costumes. This fact, I guess, was to creep you out, because everyone who sees a Visitor unmasked runs screaming. Julie, the human rebel leader, was psychologically tortured by being made to believe she was being chased by an iguana.

My point (there might be one ;)) is that either the culture has changed, as this iguana looks darn right silly (and after a few episodes of "Man vs Wild," I might be chasing it with a bottle of ketchup), or I have changed, meaning that what you (or society) might think scary today may be silly tomorrow.

Even those things you cannot name.

Now what does this remind me of? ;)

Naked hobbits?

No, this!:eek::eek::eek:

Are Gandalf Uncloaked references a dying breed these days? :eek:

Did they get out of fashion? :( Or did we just get too tired of them?:p
Balrog wing references too...


New scariest thing ever (aside from Gandalf uncloaking): a Balrog with only one wing! :eek:

I didn't even think of Gandalf uncloaking . . . would somebody pass the Brain Bleach?

Eeeewum!
 

Mandos, because he takes his job too seriously, never smiles, and cannot take a joke. :eek:

Yes and no...
 

On second thought- Naked Hobbits running through the downs. :eek:

That's been done quite a few times :smokin:

Scariest?
 

Along with the arachnids, watcher in the water, and the terrifying barrow wights that freaked me out when I first read it, I have to agree with spirit of fire:

All that padding behind them in Moria and the snuffling in Mirkwood when the hobbits were sleeping on the flets, and Frodo saw his pale eyes peering up at him -all before they knew what it was.... ooh, gives me the creeps!

One thing about Melkor, though....he might be the reason Arda has fear, but he was also the only Vala to know fear himself...

I had to laugh at all those 'gandalf uncloaked' references, though I must say when I was reading the books I had a very different interpretation of that phrase(one that doesn't involve nakedness in any way, shape or form). If you think about it though, there are dozens of phrasings that can be misconstrued like that, for example: Gandalf cautioning Aragorn not to 'reveal himself' to Sauron after they recovered the palantir.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but the silent watchers at Minas Morgul should be ranked pretty highly in this thread. They were scary I thought, because their power over you wasn't made clear. They threatened you on a spiritual/mental level, from which you cannot defend yourself with a sword or shield. It was an intangible and unknowable horror that preyed on the mind.

Orcs would also have been quite frightening if they weren't so common, if you only take into account how they were created.
They were ordinary elves, taken in the darkness, then twisted and tortured by the dark lord, warped and mutated until they were no longer recognizable as the firstborn that they once were, and in being so, they were instilled with an insatiable hate and hostility towards all life.

The fate of Hurin scares me more than anything else in Tolkien:

I don't find it scary, but rather doom-tragedy-dread-etc sort of thing... That passage that you uote brings an "evil awe" feeling to me.

I find the idea of being captured by Morgoth terribly scary -_- Really, Eru help you...

The scary part is what he's forced to watch his children go through. And he cannot do a single thing to help them, just sit there in chains and listen to Morgoth's laughter.

That's the scary part.

Agreed.

True. But I feel awful for those poor parents in Utumno who are forced to watch their children become Orcs – if, of course, the Orcs-were-Elves theory is correct.

Agreed, but what about those watching their children (becoming orcs) who have justified it in some way?

"Our children are getting 'stronger,' 'aligning themselves with the true Lord of Arda,' etc."

Meaning, what about the parents who are sacrificing their children? :eek:

I don't remember if this has been mentioned before, but -

The Oath of Feanor.
The Doom of Noldor.

Both are pretty scary if you ask me.

I'd pity them, but truth be told I'd find it hard to feel bad for them.