Men in Middle-earth

In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, Man and Men denote humans, whether male or female, in contrast to Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and other humanoid races.

Arnor becomes fragmented, and declines until its kings become Rangers in the wilds, but they retain their memory of Númenor or "Westernesse", through many generations down to Aragorn, a protagonist in The Lord of the Rings.

The result, as with the earlier intermarriage of their ancestors Lúthien and Beren in the First Age in Beleriand, was to make Aragorn's line exceptionally long-lived among Men, and as the royal family intermarried with other people of Gondor, to maintain or extend the lifespan of the entire race.

[T 20][23][24][25] The overall feeling in The Lord of the Rings, however, despite the victories and Aragorn's long-awaited kingship and marriage, is of decline and fall, echoing the view of Norse mythology that everything will inevitably be destroyed.

[28] As the Tolkien scholar Marjorie Burns put it, "Here is a mythology where even the gods can die, and it leaves the reader with a vivid sense of life's cycles, with an awareness that everything comes to an end, that, though [the evil] Sauron may go, the elves will fade as well.

"[29] This fits with Tolkien's equation of Middle-earth with the real Earth at some distant epoch in the past, and with his apparent intention to create a mythology for England.

He could combine medieval myths and legends, hints from poems and nearly-forgotten names to build a world of Wizards and Elves, Dwarves, Rings of Power, Hobbits, Orcs, Trolls and Ringwraiths, and heroic Men with Elvish blood in their veins, and follow their history through long ages, provided that at the end he tore it all down again, leaving nothing, once again, but dim memories.

By the end of The Lord of the Rings, the reader has learnt that the Elves have left for the Uttermost West, never to return, and that the other peoples, Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents and all the rest, are dwindling and fading, leaving only a world of Men.

[27][29][23] Kocher writes that the furthest look into Man's future in The Lord of the Rings is the conversation between the Elf Legolas and the Dwarf Gimli, close friends, at the moment when they first visit Minas Tirith, the capital city of the Men of Gondor, "and see the marks of decay around them".

[30][T 21] Kocher comments that this "sad little fugue" is at variance with the hopeful tone of the rest of the work, remaining cheerful even in the face of apparently insuperable odds.

Whereas the tough Dwarves resisted Sauron's domination, and the Elves hid their Rings from him, with Men his plan "works perfectly", turning the ambitious kings into Ringwraiths, the nine Black Riders.

In contrast, Sauron is evil exactly because he seeks to dominate the wills of others; the Ringwraiths, the nine fallen kings of Men, are the clearest exemplars of the process.

Elrond explains how dangerous the Ring is; Boromir reluctantly sets the idea of using it aside for the moment, and suggests again that Elendil's sword might help save Gondor, if Aragorn is strong enough.

David Ibata, writing in The Chicago Tribune, asserts that the protagonists in The Lord of the Rings all have fair skin, and they are mainly blond-haired and blue-eyed as well.

[37][38] Michael N. Stanton writes in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that Hobbits were "a distinctive form of human beings", and notes that their speech contains "vestigial elements" which hint that they originated in the North of Middle-earth.

[39] The scholar Margaret Sinex states that Tolkiens' construction of the Easterlings and Southrons draws on centuries of Christian tradition of creating an "imaginary Saracen".

[40] Peter Jackson, in his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, clothes the Haradrim in long red robes and turbans, and has them riding their elephants, giving them the look in Ibata's opinion of "North African or Middle Eastern tribesmen".

[1][3] Ibata notes that the film companion book, The Lord of the Rings: Creatures, describes them as "exotic outlanders" inspired by "12th century Saracen warriors".

She notes that the Hobbits are to an extent the low, simple, earthbound "clods" of the story who like beer and comfort and do not wish to go on adventures;[b] they fit the antihero of modern literature and Northrop Frye's lower literary modes including various forms of humour.

[41] In contrast, Tolkien's Men are not all of a piece: Rogers mentions the "petty villain", Bill Ferny; the "loathsome" Grima Wormtongue; the "slow-thinking" publican Barliman Butterbur of Bree; "that portrait of damnation", Denethor, Steward of Gondor; and at the upper end of the scale, the kingly Théoden, brought back to life from Wormtongue's corruption; the "gentle warrior" Faramir and his brother the hero-villain Boromir; and finally the ranger Aragorn, who becomes king.

Equipped with a named magical sword, he emerges as an unqualified hero, in Frye's "High Mimetic" or "Romantic" literary mode, making the whole novel indeed a heroic romance: he regains his throne, marries Arwen, and has a long, peaceful, and happy reign.

Tolkien modelled the Rohirrim , the Riders of Rohan, on the Anglo-Saxons (here in an 11th-century illustration). [ 7 ]
The Variags of Khand are named for the Varangians , medieval Germanic mercenaries. [ 1 ] Painting by Viktor Vasnetsov
The Haradrim used battle-elephants, as Pyrrhus of Epirus did. Illustration by Helene Guerber [ 8 ]
Tolkien imagined Arda as the Earth in the distant past. [ T 19 ] [ 26 ] With the loss of all its peoples except Man, and the reshaping of the continents, all that is left of Middle-earth is a dim memory in folklore , legend , and old words . [ 27 ] Shapes of continents are purely schematic.
A sword fit for a hero : Andúril , "Flame of the West" is forged anew, "for Aragorn son of Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor". [ T 23 ]