The Nightmare World of Tolkien

[drigel]

The essential characteristics of the scary things seem out of context to the modern world. But, in the context of the ME primordial world, they are all nature (or nature corrupted) oriented, primary things that are stripped of most (post middle ages that is) societal cues or references.

we are given more the effect of evil on the characters rather than having evil depicted directly

well put. The scary things arent the focus of the story, but the fundamental element of evil is.

It's sort of essential to the realism (if fantasy can seem real to a certain extent*) that violence and blood stuff be included.

I always imagine that the flesh eating and blood stuff to be more of a fact of life to the players, than it is scary for the reader. The reality of a time or an age like that IMO would in fact be quite a bit more dirty, gritty and gruesome than the author revealed or expanded upon.

I have had a couple of dreams about ME, none of them scary. As to the works, for me, it's the implied scary that has the most impact. Not "dont turn off the nightlight!" scary, but a scary that provokes the imagination. I would have to turn to the Silm to find my scariest:

Sheer were the precipices of Ered Gorgoroth, and beneath their feet were shadows that were laid before the rising of the Moon. Beyond lay the wilderness of Dungortheb, where the sorcery of Sauron and the power of Melian came together, and horror and madness walked. There spiders of the fell race of Ungoliant abode, spuming their unseen webs in which all living things were snared; and monsters wandered there that were born in the long dark before the Sun, hunting silently with many eyes. No food for Elves or Men was there in that haunted land, but death only.

Mountains of Terror, Valley of Dreadfull Death. The stuff of (real) nightmares for, not only a Beleriand inhabitant, but all living things. Blood, guts and insanity indeed.