I suspect that if one were to ask people at random what one contribution to modern literature and entertainment J.R.R. Tolkien would be most identifiable with, popularizing the quest story would be a very frequent answer (if not necessarily the most frequent one). Quests have been a part of our story-telling since Gilgamesh. Jason and the Argonauts popularized the notion for the Greco-Roman world, and they laid down the basic law of Quest Tales: you start with a humble hero, probably of noble blood, surround him with heroic companions, and send him off to the far corners of the world to achieve great deeds.
It doesn’t really matter how many people go on the quest, what they are questing for, or if their blood is really royal. The excitement is in the quest itself, in the realization that something must be done or the world may end tomorrow. A good quest is filled with villains and monsters, treachery and secret help, the loss of old friends and the gaining of new friends.
In The Lord of the Rings and even The Hobbit Tolkien satisfies the reader’s classic expectations by delivering all these elements. But he didn’t stop there. He explored many facets of the quest story, in depth and briefly, throughout his three ages of Middle-earth history. The Quest of Mount Doom made this sort of thing fashionable, but Tolkien had older quests in mind when he wrote the story. Older in terms of his life and in terms of the history he was assembling out of previous efforts to write a great mythology.
And it is perhaps significant that quest stories are a part of virtually every mythology. Mythologies try to bring some order to a people’s sense of the world, and a good mythology explains how the wisdom and understanding it represents was acquired. Thor’s quest for his hammer in the land of the giants is a metaphor for the battle between good and evil. The ultimate clash can be deferred with a small struggle, but it cannot be prevented. Thor ended up killing all the giants in the castle where he found his hammer, but the giants still gathered for Ragnarok.
Like Thor’s quest, Frodo’s quest didn’t end evil forever, either. Sauron was defeated but other evils remained in Middle-earth, or would rise up in ages to come. Frodo merely deferred the final conflict by taking the Ring to a position where it could be destroyed. Middle-earth’s Ragnarok may still come, despite all that the heroes great and small achieve to defer that final event. The clock is ticking, Tolkien implies, and one day it will stop.
Earlier quests in Middle-earth’s history achieved far less grand ends. For example, Feanor set out upon the Quest of the Silmarils. He failed, and in his failure he led his people and the Sindar down the path to ruin. The Sindar might have suffered terribly anyway. It may have been only a matter of time before Melkor’s servants became powerful enough to overcome even Melian’s girdle. So some good came out of Feanor’s pursuit of Melkor. The Sindarin civilization was preserved for a few centuries longer.
Following upon Feanor’s death his son Maedhros was taken prisoner, and Melkor hung him upon a high peak of Thangorodrim. Years later Fingon set about finding and rescuing Maedhros. In the space of a few sentences, really, Tolkien compressed what must have been a heroic adventure. Fingon couldn’t have known that Maedhros was hanging on the peak when Fingolfin and most of the Noldor were banging on the doors of Angband. The Elven prince must have learned about Maedhros’ fate from the Sindar of Hithlum, who in turn must have learned about Maedhros from the Feanorian Noldor.
Fingon took no army with him. He set out from the fortified camp or city his people had built and crossed the Ered Wethrin into Ard-galen. From there he journeyed up to the Ered Engryn and then wandered around Thangorodrim until he found Maedhros. How long did the journey last? Days? Weeks? Months? Did Fingon encounter Orc patrols, or other creatures? Was he ever in serious peril of being captured himself?
And how did Thorondor know that Fingon was trying to rescue Maedhros? The Eagles must have been watching Thangorodrim very closely, and Thorondor most likely saw Fingon (or one of Thorondor’s vassals saw him) crossing Ard-galen and wandering through the Emyn Engryn. Thorondor didn’t offer any help, though. He seems to have just hovered in the background, waiting, watching. Were the Eagles forbidden to help the Noldor directly? Or were they under orders only to assist in the noblest of causes?
Thorondor protected Gondolin. The hidden city was beautiful and its people for the most part stayed out of the Wars of Beleriand, but many of them were still Noldor. They were still under the curse of the Valar. It seems odd that Manwe should grant them protection unlike that extended to any other Elven group (save the Sindar of Doriath, who were warded by Melian — and she undoubtedly had Manwe’s permission, also having acted on their behalf before any of the Sindar became embroiled with the Noldor and their curse).
The finding of Gondolin was itself the result of a quest, a sort of mystical quest, much more like the quest of the Holy Grail than the quest of Jason. Turgon and Finrod were the most spiritually pure of the Elven princes, it seems. Neither had had a part in the Kinslaying at Alqualonde. Neither had helped Feanor betray his people. Finrod, being akin to the kings of the Teleri, had strong personal reason for not taking action against his mother’s people. But Turgon didn’t support his brother when Fingon, wrongly thinking the Teleri had attacked Feanor, rushed to Feanor’s aid.
So Turgon was accorded a special grace. Although Ulmo sent dreams to both Turgon and Finrod, encouraging them to seek places where they could build hidden refuges, it was Turgon whom Ulmo led to the vale of Tumladen in the Echoriath. And there Turgon’s people labored in secret for many years before leaving their homes in Nevrast forever. In Gondolin they achieved a measure of the ancient glory of Tirion in Aman. Of all Elven cities, Gondolin was the most enchanting, the most beautiful, the most blessed. The Valar did not entirely abandon the Noldor, but the greater part of their efforts to help the Noldor were focused upon Gondolin. Turgon found the Holy Grail, but in the end he proved himself unworthy because he ignored Ulmo’s final warning and stayed in Gondolin. And what a terrible price Turgon’s people paid for his pride. He never dreamed one of his own relatives would betray him.
The greatest quest of the First Age, of course, was the Quest of the Silmaril, Beren and Luthien’s journey to steal one of the precious gems from the Iron Crown of Melkor. This quest contained all the classic elements, and it borrowed something from the pure adventure quest and something from the pure spiritual quest. Beren had to prove himself worthy of the Silmaril, and he couldn’t do that without Luthien’s help. She might have gone on dancing in the woods for many more years, oblivious to the hurts inflicted upon her people and his in the world outside, had Beren not stumbled through the Girdle of Melian.
Like Fingon and Turgon before him, Beren was of noble blood. His great-grandfather Boromir had been made first Lord of Ladros by Finrod. In human terms Beren had some “old blood” in him. He wasn’t just some heroic knight-errant out seeking his fame and fortune. He had lost his people, his land, and his family. Beren’s was the first quest to actually achieve something significant in the war between good and evil. The accomplishments came at great cost, of course. Finrod and several of his most loyal lords died trying to help Beren.
The cost to Nargothrond was incalculable and ultimately the kingdom was destroyed because of its rebellion against Finrod. Had the Nargothrondrim been more faithful and supportive, Finrod might not have died at Tol Sirion, and if he had lived, perhaps he wouldn’t have been as easily cowed and swayed by Turin to go forth into open battle as Orodreth eventually would be.
Beren, with and without Luthien, wandered all over the landscape. He probably ended up seeing more of Beleriand than any other man of the Edain. And Beren’s actions affected everyone, not just Doriath and Nargothrond. Because of the success Beren and Luthien achieved — storming Angband, subduing Melkor briefly, and taking a Silmaril — Fingon and Maedhros realized that Angband could indeed be assailed. In time the Union of Maedhros was formed, and the Nirnaeth Arnoediad led to the downfall of the kingdoms of Hithlum and the March of Maedhros, and of the Falas.
The Quest of the Silmaril was therefore the most tragic of the First Age quests. Beren’s sole purpose was to win the hand of Luthien. He didn’t want kingdoms, power, or wealth. He didn’t even ask for revenge. One can almost picture Max the Miracle Worker from “The Princess Bride” asking a forlorn Beren, “Hello! Hey! What’s so important that’s worth living for?” And, of course, Beren would whisper back, “Truuueeee lovvve”.
For this noble cause Beren planted the seed which would bring down Elven kingdoms. It was the seed of hope, and that hope was fruitless, as the Noldor had been warned. But Beren and Luthien also brought back a Silmaril, and it would be with that Silmaril that Earendil and Elwing would find Valinor.
Earendil’s quest was also briefly told in a few scanty sentences, but it covered many years and many lands. The Elves had attempted to reach Valinor before. Turgon sacrificed many braver adventurers in seven attempts. All but one of them, Voronwe, died. Voronwe was preserved by Ulmo and led to Tuor, who took Ulmo’s final warning to Turgon, which Turgon ignored. But Voronwe and Tuor both survived the fall of Gondolin and they brought nearly 1,000 refugees south to join the survivors of Doriath near the Mouths of Sirion.
Tuor’s son, Earendil, grew up in the south, far removed from Angband and Melkor, but ever threatened by the shadow in the north. Their people increased in number as more Elves (and Edain) came to join them, and a new generation was born. But when Tuor, Idril, and Voronwe sailed off to the west seeking Valinor, Earendil was left to cope with the perils of Middle-earth. He married Elwing, the grand-daughter of Beren and Luthien, and she brought the Silmaril with her out of the ruin of Doriath. But it never occurred to anyone that the Silmaril might be the key they needed to unlock the way to Valinor.
In theory one need only sail west from the northernmost shores of Middle-earth, and then to sail southward along the coast of Aman. Eventually one would come to Alqualonde. Cirdan’s mariners should have been capable of doing this, as it would have been a matter of retracing Feanor’s own journey. But the Valar prevented such returns. Uinen and Osse raised vast storms which sank the ships in the north. Farther south the seas were infested with the Shadowy Isles that trapped mariners. And voyagers who thought they could figure out the way were driven back or confused until they became lost.
Earendil must have sensed something dreadful in the future for his people. He built a ship with Cirdan’s help and left his wife and young sons behind to sail across the seas. The ship could not have been very large, as Earendil needed only three companions (Falathar, Erellont, and Aerandir — apparently all Edain, perhaps Beorians since they had Sindarin names) to help him control it. A small crew required little food and less water than a large one. Vingelot took him south in search of Tuor and Idril, and of the last shore, but he found neither. And sensing something evil in the north he turned back toward Beleriand, but never reached home. The Feanorians destroyed the people of Arvernien and Elwing escaped with the Silmaril. Under the power of Ulmo she became an albatross and flew to Earendil, and together they forged a path west over Sea.
The story of Earendil implies so many great deeds, and The Silmarillion makes one reference only to the lost “Lay of Earendil” (if, indeed, it was ever written or more than conceived of in passing). In Earendil’s quest the final battle for control over Middle-earth was achieved, as far as Melkor was concerned. By reaching the Valar and fulfilling their requirements for mercy, Earendil set into motion a conflict which would alter much of Middle-earth and drive Melkor from power once and for all. His would be a hard act to follow.
And there were quests which came afterward, although we hear little about them. Veantur was the first Numenorean captain to sail across the seas to find Lindon. His quest was a sentimental one, less spiritual and adventurous than those of the First Age. But he inspired his grandson Anardil (later Tar-Aldarion) to undertake many journeys to Middle-earth.
On the other side Sauron also undertook quests. At first he sought to win the trust of the Elves, and it appears he went from Elven land to Elven land, offering friendship. Few of the Elves suited his purposes or trusted him, but he found willing allies in Eregion, pawns in his game to become a great power.
Centuries later, after the Elves of Eregion had learned about Sauron’s treachery and understood his true nature, they prepared for war with Mordor. Who is to say that Sauron’s march upon Eregion in search of the Rings of Power was not a quest? He had a clear goal in mind, and the fact he took along a great army doesn’t diminish the hardship he encountered. He only captured the Seven and the Nine. He acted villainously, of course, and utilized his friends and allies as expendable resources (burning the forests which sustained the Gwathuirim, for example — perhaps Sauron knew better than the Numenoreans that these alienated men were as much Edainic in origin as the Beorians and Marachians of central Eriador).
Many centuries later Ar-Pharazon, last King of Numenor, undertook a quest in Middle-earth: to bring Sauron to his knees. These powerquests, as one might call them, wrought great evil and accomplished little toward the ends being chased after. Ar-Pharazon’s later adventure, seeking immortality in Valinor, achieved far less than he hoped for. Perhaps “foolquests” would be a better description for his endeavors.
Of course, Ar-Pharazon’s stupidity gave Isildur a reason to achieve a heroic task. He saved a sapling of the White Tree, and very nearly lost his life in doing so. Amandil, last Lord of Andunie, sailed west with one old servant to ask for help from the Valar. He didn’t achieve anything. And Elendil secretly travelled across Numenor to look out upon the western waters one last time, hoping to see his father again, but in vain. All three men risked their lives, each for a different if noble purpose. Only Isildur produced long-lasting results which would be felt into the Fourth Age.
In the Third Age quests became less important. Middle-earth was civilized and became the province of powerful nations in Sauron’s absence. With powerful nations, mighty armies, vast fleets, the actions of one individual are less important. Great and heroic men become great and heroic captains of war, wise kings, noble counselors. And when Sauron’s machinations brought about the waning of Arnor and Gondor’s power, there was no time or energy for great quests. Nor was there anything to quest for, save an occasional treasure or a bit of knowledge.
Fram’s adventures in the northern lands led him to slay the dragon Scatha, and thereby he gained great wealth. Did he go seeking the dragon or did he just stumble across the great worm and have to deal with it in a desperate defense?
Gandalf undertook two quests to Dol Guldur, neither very well documented. Earnur undertook a quest to rid Eriador of Angmar (he succeeded) and later a quest to rid Middle-earth of the Lord of the Nazgul (he failed). And the quests go on.
Tolkien’s quests are diverse and often clash with traditional ideas of quests. The Middle-eatrh quest isn’t always to save the local kingdom (in fact, it’s rarely to save the local kingdom) from some evil invader. Nor is the Middle-earth quest usually undertaken for glory, adventure, wealth, and fame.
Role-playing games embrace the quest and the gamers often think of Tolkien as the father of the genre which inspired the games. I’ve played in a few RPGs myself, and I’ve helped to save more than one world. One of my favorite characters, Admiral Bryan Gruffydd, went down fighting 30 demons because he refused to abandon a comrade in arms. That was just one small skirmish in a wider war brought on by a quest the purpose of which I can’t even remember, there have been so many.
Gaming quests are often undertaken rather casually. Someone’s character needs “a few more experience points”, so the characters ask around, find out there are some Cave-Yucks over beyond the next hill, and trudge off to do their heroic duty. We were literally singing “A-hunting we will go, a-hunting we will go, hi ho the derrio a-hunting we will go” as we marched to our destiny. Turned out the Cave-yucks had organized themselves into wedges (ala Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant books) and it was a-limping we dragged ourselves home looking for help.
I sent a group of gamers off on a time-quest to save an adept (a very, very powerful magician) one time. He was saved, but two characters disobeyed my orders and killed two evil magicians, leading to a radical change in the timeline (my mistake, I had put two really important guys in the line of fire, and my entire 2,000-year history was thrown out the window, but that’s the way games go).
RPG quests are so unlike The Lord of the Rings, I often wonder why people see connections. Would anyone really go trekking down through Eregion and try to cross over Moria, or would you take the short cut across the Misty Mountains and the High Pass, which was held by the friendly Beornings, and then saunter down the Anduin’s west shore to Lorien? What were Gandalf and Elrond thinking? Take those boys down a level for bad strategy.
Eomer, however, represents a classic helpful NPC encounter (note for non-gamers: an NPC is a non-player character, a character handled by the game referee or game master). One can almost imagine Tolkien sitting there with Chris, John, and Michael (and maybe Priscilla) working out the encounter. “That’s 2 six-sided dice, Chris.” “All right, dad, I’ve got a 7.” “Wonderful charisma roll, Aragorn! This NPC has warmed to you almost at once!”
Reminds me of the time 20,000 Bosque riders surrounded our party as just as 12 giants on dinosaurs were about to overtake us. The Bosque riders came to see why 12 giants were interested in us, and they had a wondeful time tossing the baby in armor back and forth as they led us back to their camp (the “baby” was a dwarf — Bosque riders were sort of giant-like themselves). You never know what to expect when the cavalry comes thundering over the horizon.
With all their scrolls, artifacts, talismans, potions, runes, magical devices, spells, mages, fighters, clerics, healers, half-thises and half-thats, gamers managed to take on almost anything and get away with it. Sure, I’ve heard stories about entire parties being wiped out. Why I even remember one time when….But it’s not like Tolkien. That is, in a role-playing game, players like playing with all the gizmos. Tolkien’s characters don’t really get gizmos.
Can you imagine Gandalf sitting on the back of the barge, making necklaces of Flight all day long as the Fellowship breezed its way down Anduin? “Yo, Aragorn! Another group of Orcs are massing on the east bank ahead!” “Good, Boromir! You and I can use the experience!” While Aragorn and Boromir wipe out whatever war-trolls come along, Legolas and Gimli will wipe out the Orcs, and the hobbits will use their poisoned arrows and compound bows to pick off the mages Sauron sends against them. By the time the Fellowship reaches Rauros Gandalf will have made enough invisibility rings and amulets of flight to get everyone to Mount Doom safely, and poor Gollum is blubbering back on the river bank.
I’ve always wondered why people don’t ask, “Why didn’t Gandalf just teleport everyone to Mount Doom?” instead of the infamous “Why didn’t the Eagles fly Frodo to Mount Doom?” (Answer to the second question: The Shire’s Eagle Taxi Service was on strike for that adventure.)
Tolkien would have had no stories to tell if his questing characters were as powerful and resourceful as the typical RPG character may become. And it’s not like Fingon was the equivalent of a first-level fighter when he lopped off Maedhros’ right hand. The arbitrary rules one applies to story-telling are quite different from the arbitrary rules of role-playing games. It will be interesting to see how the “Dungeons and Dragons” movie handles the mixture of the two. I’ve read that the storyline is very similar to that of a gaming adventure.
Of course, one of the criticisms levelled at modern story-telling is that so much of it reads just like a gaming adventure. Heck, many of us have written down our adventures. One game I played in for about 7 years had a continuous log contributed to by many people (although it didn’t occur to us to start one at first, so when I wrote the first chapter I had to figure out what had happened from bits and pieces which said things like, “Gwindor, 1 goblin”). You can find gaming logs on the World Wide Web. And you can find them in the bookstores. Literally. Remember Gary Gygax’s Gord the Rogue books? They came straight out of an AD&D adventure, according to Gygax’s own foreword in the first book.
TSR made quite a sub-genre in producing its Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books. I gave up trying to collect them years ago, there were so many. The Dragonlance books stated out very weakly, as the authors developed their skill. There were even sections where they described whole adventures as “interludes”.
I would have liked to read about how the adventurers found the dragon and rider encased in ice, thank you very much. The weak writing wasn’t as bad as, say, Terry Brooks’ first big novel, The Sword of Shannara (when one of the twins goes over the cliff in the obligatory company sacrifice, many readers are about ready to hang the author — never mind when the dwarf single-handedly routs a whole bunch of bad guys).
I have often advocated the idea of seeing Middle-earth expanded by new stories. And yet I have to admit that as much as I stand up for the principle of keeping alive the tradition of telling Middle-earth stories, the thought of seeing nearly any living author today write more Tolkien stories makes me cringe. And there are many very good authors whose books I’ve enjoyed. But I don’t believe they would be able to refrain from introducing themes and character traits which don’t even vaguely resemble Tolkien’s heroic ideas.
So, Sam would be caught up in his personal problems with Rosie, Pippin would be dealing with the conflicts in his family, wondering if his sister Pearl would be beaten to death by angry mobs before he gets home, Merry’s conflicts with his father would have to be resolved through his relationship with Theoden, Treebeard would have to control his raging hormones, there would be a lot of profanity and sexual innuendo rolling off the tongues of Eomer and his rustic soldiers, and the guys of Gondor would all be arrogant, mysterious proto-monarchs scrambling for power amid the ruins of their decaying empire.
This is what we have to read today. To be blunt — and honest — I don’t think many of us will be reading this stuff in 50 years, but we’ll still be reading Tolkien. And quite probably we’ll be sending our imaginations off on new quests, perhaps armed with props and gizmos unlike anything that came out of AD&D, Runequest, or Rolemaster.
What would it take to write another Tolkien story today? I’ve often wondered if anyone alive could do it. A lot of people suggest Christopher Tolkien could do it. I, myself, have argued he may be the only person with a snowball’s chance of pulling it off. But Christopher himself has admitted to many errors in his one serious attempt to bring to light a new Tolkien work (The Silmarillion).
Maybe we’ll have to be satisfied with nothing but cheap, shlocky quest books for the next twenty years. Maybe we’ll have to hope that the next wave of computer fantasy games will be more imaginative and more interesting than the simple hunt-and-scoop stuff which consumes so many peoples’ time now. DOOM and Lara Croft are really just gaudied up versions of Tetris (a game I always detested — one turns off the mind to play it).
For my part, I’d like to see what Earendil’s adventures were. I’d like to follow Fingon through the mountains, perhaps avoiding columns of orcs and trolls the way an Andre Norton hero would come close to falling in with servants of the Shadow. I’d like to see exactly why Fram ended up killing a dragon, and if he was really a jerk to begin with or if the dragon-gold corrupted him so that he insulted the dwarves and brought about his own death. I’d like to know what terrors Gandalf encountered in Mirkwood and Dol Guldur.
There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned Middle-earth quest. And, sadly, looking at all the books in my library, many of which I’ve read more than once and have enjoyed for years, and remembering all the gaming hours of my youth spent with good friends (and some obscure individuals), I have to admit there is nothing like a good, old-fashioned Middle-earth quest.
This article was originally published on October 20, 2000.
