Scariest Thing In All Of Tolkien's Creation...Ever

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

It's also why, I think, basically it's unusual for people to imagine something like Galadriel as evil (now I'm intentionally recalling on the episode with her and the Ring in the chapter Mirror of Galadriel). And hey, speaking of that, I even think Tolkien mentions something like that himself in the essay "On Fairy-stories", saying something like that in a story, a castle of an evil ogre is nasty&such, while a beautiful place is hard to imagine as "evil", and yet it may be so - I would have to look up for the particular part in there. But, well, I think I at least outlined what I wanted to.

An O/T Ramble follows: Yes, a Utopian ideal often turns out to be a Dystopia (in fact I think Thomas More's original Utopia was never meant to be something that could actually happen?), beauty often hides ugliness. Tolkien uses it himself in regard to characters - Sauron was beautiful but was at heart wicked, and vice versa, Aragorn was a scruff but was in fact a King. He never seemed to use it for places though - can you think of any beautful places that were in some way 'dystopian'. You've got me pondering there...

...anyway...

Originally Posted by Legate

Hmm, going along these lines, what about the Pukel-Men? Or Ghan-buri-ghan and his folks just like that? Although this may be just one of the cases of "xenophobia" (cf. above in this post my point about children-eating people), because why should they be more scary than let's say Rohirrim - I mean, had the story been made from the perspective of Ghan-buri-ghan, surely the Gondorians and their stone cities would have been the thing described as "scary". Anyway, not that I would consider Ghan worth taking post in my top 10 ladder, but just mentioning it as it may be worth some attention.

[/QUOTE]

Oh I don't find the Pukel-men or the Woses scary, just fascinating!

But the idea that Men were going into the Paths of the Dead to enact some kind of sinister rituals is really quite frightening. It's not clear if they were dead or alive when they got Baldor, but either way, that bit is probably the second most frightening episode in the whole of Tolkien's work for me.