1. Hobbits?
2. Silent Watchers?

#2 is correct; you need to be more literal for #1.

1. Earth's anonymous gourmands.
SILENT WATCHERS: Mordor's misnamed alarms.
3. Bewildering- me, in a conflict? What would my dad say, if I had one?
4. Emo feline at the Pelennor.
5. ...but are they worms now?
6. Emaciated king of beasts confused for even more ravenous predator.

Hole-dwellers?

No, it's nothing to do with hobbits. I meant you need to be more literal in your interpretation of the clue.

Eat earth, dig deep ... Willow man or tree roots?

Dig deeper! And think about that word "anonymous".

Not the Dead Marshes?

d
e
e
e
p
e
r
!

A Nameless Fear ... ? Balrogs? Uruloki or whatever they are?

No... but these are neighbours. In the sub-basement. ("Nameless" is indeed the synonym you need, though.)

Is 5 just dragons, or firedrakes?

Nope.

Some sort of Unnamed Things?

A vague memory from the Mirth forum hints Ringwraiths / Nazgul for 5. Something about nine worms trying to dig under Aragorn.

"Unnamed Things"... so close!

But no, it's not Ringwraiths for #5. None of this relies on in-jokes.

Things Unnamed? ;)

Terrors Unnamed? Unnamed Terrors?

Please let it be Nameless No-Nos!

As noted above, it's "Nameless ____". The second word has also been supplied by the two of you- just have to put them together.

It comes from a specific quote, which I believe is the sole reference to these creatures.

Unnamed Fears?

No, it's "Nameless ______". Need the second word.

I mentioned them as "neighbours" of Balrogs- more strictly, that's of one specific Balrog.

Well yes, the things in Moria - if we could only remember how they were referred by. Nameless Things, the one combo not tried yet?

That's it!

:eek:

NAMELESS THINGS: Earth's anonymous gourmands.
SILENT WATCHERS: Mordor's misnamed alarms.
3. Bewildering- me, in a conflict? What would my dad say, if I had one?
4. Emo feline at the Pelennor.
5. ...but are they worms now?
6. Emaciated king of beasts confused for even more ravenous predator.

I think the password, like the answers guessed so far, will be plural, but worth a guess: MEWLIP, reading down the third column?

A good guess, and one that would fit the theme- but no, sorry.

I thought EMO was an anagram indicator, but I can't get anything by scrambling FELINE.

The only monsters I am aware of there being at the Pelennor (apart from the Nazgul) are the FELL BEASTS.

There were also Mumakil, but with no more support behind it.

Not an anagram. A (near) synonym. You're looking for substitutions.

Who said the theme was "monsters"?;)

As it happens, most of the answers are monsters, but that's not why they qualify. They all have one specific thing in common.

Lastly- I'm not sure if it will help or hinder you to learn that the straight part of the clue both is and isn't important. That is, it won't really help you get the answer (the Pelennor was rather crowded), but it will once you do.

No proper names? :p


5. Wereworms. Thought of it for a long time, but only figured out now that they were worms.

Correct!

But no, the thing in common is not a lack of proper names. You just haven't solved the ones that have them yet.

NAMELESS THINGS: Earth's anonymous gourmands.
SILENT WATCHERS: Mordor's misnamed alarms.
3. Bewildering- me, in a conflict? What would my dad say, if I had one?
4. Emo feline at the Pelennor.
WERE-WORMS: ...but are they worms now?
6. Emaciated king of beasts confused for even more ravenous predator.

6. UNGOLIANT.

I had been trying to 'thin' lion by removing one or two letters, but finding no other part of the clue to supply the missing letters.

However, when I typed the name just now, I realised that we have a confused but GAUNT LION. Nice one!

UNGOLIANT it is!

NAMELESS THINGS: Earth's anonymous gourmands.
SILENT WATCHERS: Mordor's misnamed alarms.
3. Bewildering- me, in a conflict? What would my dad say, if I had one?
4. Emo feline at the Pelennor.
WERE-WORMS: ...but are they worms now?
UNGOLIANT: Emaciated king of beasts confused for even more ravenous predator.

An emo feline is a GOTH MOG... :D

(And since I was away at the time: excellent password from Pervinca! I'm astounded that we managed two passwords doing exactly the same thing, but so completely different from each other!)

hS

One common answer: Aragorn. (But different clues for him). It was such a brilliant idea to do the Fellowship as a password. I had never thought of it, but once I'd seen you accomplish it, I had to have a go too!

I thought of Goth for emo, but I was stuck on tom and cat ....

Pervinca - you also managed to pull out names I'd totally forgotten existed; I'm embarrassed to not have had Holdwine on my lists, but Panthael is beyond even that.

Coming back to the password in hand: the 'if I had one' for #3 suggests we might want the Oldest and Fatherless, Tom Bombadil himself, but I can't fit him into the rest of the clue.

hS

Bombadil has 3 other names. Dwarves called him FORN, men ORALD, and elves IARWAIN BEN-ADAR (I might have spelled that wrong).

GOTHMOG is correct, and Huey and Pervinca are very close to the final answer...

NAMELESS THINGS: Earth's anonymous gourmands.
SILENT WATCHERS: Mordor's misnamed alarms.
3. Bewildering- me, in a conflict? What would my dad say, if I had one?
GOTHMOG: Emo feline at the Pelennor.
WERE-WORMS: ...but are they worms now?
UNGOLIANT: Emaciated king of beasts confused for even more ravenous predator.

Are they all things that are basically immortal, unless they are killed?

If Bombadil is close, I can't see how we get to the final answer. None of his names seem to have the elements required.

"Bewildering" is an anagram indicator.

And no, the theme is not "immortal creatures".

I mentioned "at the Pelennor" as being a hint towards the overall answer/theme. Now that the clue has been solved, I will explain that it's very important that it was that Gothmog, and not Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs. You just have to think why that might be.

The phrasing of the "were-worms" clue is also a hint.

IARWAIN is an anagram of 'I in a war.'

'Ben' I think means 'son or daughter of' in Arabic?

Yes, I was trying to find the answer with 'war' for conflict, but also wondering whether conflict or bewildering was the anagram indicator.

Nice catch, Pervinca! Hope it's right. ^_^

'Ben' (or rather, 'Pen', mutated due to being the second word), means 'without' in Sindarin, but I'm sure Tolkien was aware it also looks like a Hebrew(?) name (a la 'Ben-Hur'). Has Balfrog posted that one as evidence of the Biblical connections in the Bombadil chapters yet...?

I guess the theme is something about creatures/beings which we don't know what they were. Ungoliant may have been a giant spider, but she was also a Maia/nature spirit/incarnation of darkness/???. (Latest crackpot theory: when Bombadil says he 'knew the Dark under the Stars', he was talking about Ungoliant... XD.)

No idea what that makes the password, though.

hS

IARWAIN BEN-ADAR it is!

"Ben" means "son of" in Hebrew (don't know about Arabic, but they're related). However, I guess that's a coincidence, as BEN-ADAR means "fatherless" in Elvish, where the "ben-" element must mean "without".

NAMELESS THINGS: Earth's anonymous gourmands.
SILENT WATCHERS: Mordor's misnamed alarms.
IARWAIN BEN-ADAR: Bewildering- me, in a conflict? What would my dad say, if I had one?
GOTHMOG: Emo feline at the Pelennor.
WERE-WORMS: ...but are they worms now?
UNGOLIANT: Emaciated king of beasts confused for even more ravenous predator.

Now you just have to work out what all these persons, beast and monsters have in common.

Edit: x'd with Huey. Correct on the theme. They're all beings of unknown nature. The password expresses this concept.

Did Huinesoron guess the connection in his last post? (Just wondering if he cross-posted with you).

Is the connection the password, or is something hidden in the letters of the answers too?