The scariest characters in the LOTR?

Oliphaunts are pretty scary considering their size. What if one decided to land it's foot on the Witch King & crush him?

I'd say the Barrow-Wights... Not much explaining to be done, the whole discription fo them unto me just seemed scary.

As all of you af course now they are based upon the Old Norse mythological creature's called "Draugar". (Singular = Draugr). Origenally the Nazgul were barrow-wights as well, which would mean that the Nazgul are based upon Draugar as well, although there's not much to be seen back about that.

[Celegost]

The Nazgul or the Barrow-Wights
Actually, the Balrog (Durin's Bane) Is pretty scary because he's so mysterious; after the Dwarves in Moria were all killed no-one knew what had happened to them, so when The Fellowship were travelling through Moria you didn't know what to expect...

[The 1,000 Reader]

Originally Posted by Mansun

Oliphaunts are pretty scary considering their size. What if one decided to land it's foot on the Witch King & crush him?

He'd live. Granted getting stepped on would totally suck, but he'd live.

On the subject of oliphaunts, I never saw them as scary. They were first portrayed as rather innocent creatures in Samwise's song, and I only saw them as elephants.

Originally Posted by The 1,000 Reader

He'd live. Granted getting stepped on would totally suck, but he'd live.

On the subject of oliphaunts, I never saw them as scary. They were first portrayed as rather innocent creatures in Samwise's song, and I only saw them as elephants.

I believe Gandalf said spells can be broken by great strength, so I could not say for definite that he'd still live. It depends on what you think 10 tonnes could do to even a spell-protected creature.

Oliphaunts in rage are as deadly as anything, so they can inspire great panic in the ranks of soldiers, regardless of which side. A close look at them shows a burning desire to cause damage - these are no sweet animals like elephants you see in the zoo!

I have found the subject of graveyards, ghosts & the undead the most chilling & fearful topic of all. The Dead Mountain is more or less an ancient graveyard, with the King of the Dead the ghost-like guardian. Quite terrifying stuff if you put it in context with the 3 Hunters going it alone into the unknown. Seems like a fitting home for the Nazgul too.

Well, Elephants can be great in earthly wars as well. The Persians and several Asian nations have what we call war-elephants. Alexander the Great is supposed to have coped with these elephants.

And to how they might be scary, well, several Latin texts state that Phyrrus (A Greek having war with the Romans) had brought an Elephant with him to Itali to scare the Roman Commander. And according to the text I had to translate about it at school, they were pretty damn scary in the eyes of the Romans....

[Isabellkya]

I can't really say that I was terribly scared by any of the characters in the books.. if I had to choose.. I would probably say the Nazgul.. they were more creepy than scary.
I didn't find Shelob scary.. mainly because I kind of like spiders... well I don't mind them.. but they don't scare me... even giant ones.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

One of the scariest parts for me was when Frodo woke up in the barrow and saw his friends lying next to him, as if dead, dressed in strange garments. It's not so much the big monsters that do it for me on the page; this scene was just really creepy.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

There is many scary charachters in the book so it is hard to point out the scariest one, also because you learn more things about some of them as the book progress.

Personally I found the Nazgul very scary when we only knew them as black ridders that constantly showed up behind Frodo and Sam. . .they really creeped me out.

Another charachter I found scary was Old man willow. . . you could do nothing against him, if you tried to hurt him he would crush your friends and if you did not then he probably would anyway.

[The Sixth Wizard]

Originally Posted by Mansun

Oliphaunts are pretty scary considering their size. What if one decided to land it's foot on the Witch King & crush him?

Well, the Witch-King had the raw power to drive his servants mad, couldn't he just raise a hand or scream or something and get away?

I think that the scariest places for me when I FIRST read the book (about 10 years old) were the places that it really seemed like there was no way out. The Balrog wasn't that scary to me because you knew Gandalf was going to finish it off. But in that chapter, I find the 'drums in the deep' very disturbing. Just as we finished reading about how the dwarves were trapped and killed, we get the same drums. Scary.

Other places that made me scared were the Barrow-Wights (until Tom came, which was a relief, let me tell you!) the lair of Shelob, Boromir attacking Frodo, anywhere past the Fellowship of the Ring involving Nazgul and Frodo and Sam, when the wolves closed in around them on the hilltop, the Nazgul that Legolas shoots down and was described as "a shadow [like] the Balrog", when Frodo was captured by the enemy (I really thought Sam would go it alone then) and Pippin saving Faramir.

Sorry, not so much characters as scenes.

Places that I didn't get scared in include: Balrog vs. Gandalf, Lorien (Galadriel), the King of the Dead (I was a bit lost at this point) and Saruman wasn't really scary either.

[Volo]

Originally Posted by The Sixth Wizard

Other places that made me scared were the Barrow-Wights (until Tom came, which was a relief, let me tell you!)

Yup, deffinitely!