Quests in Middle-earth

Quest novels

The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings can both be viewed as quest narratives with parallel structures. Both stories begin at Bag End, the home of Bilbo Baggins; Bilbo hosts a party; the Wizard Gandalf sends the protagonist on a quest eastward; the wise Half-Elf Elrond offers a haven and advice; the adventurers escape dangerous creatures underground; they meet another group of Elves; they traverse a desolate region; they are received by a small settlement of men; they fight in a massive battle; their journey climaxes within an infamous mountain peak; a descendant of kings is restored to his ancestral throne; and the questing party returns home to find it in a deteriorated condition.

Randel Helms comments that the two novels have the same story and the same theme, a quest on which a most unheroic hobbit achieves heroic stature. Both have the there and back again quest romance format and a timescale of one year, though the natures of the two quests and the reasons for beginning them are strikingly different: Bilbo's is at first little more than a lark with venal motives, whereas Frodo's quest goes with the pain of a sad but noble decision.

The Silmarillion is not a quest novel, but it contains quests of its own, such as Lúthien and Beren being sent on a quest by Lúthien's father Thingol to bring him one of the Silmarils from the Dark Lord Morgoth's Iron Crown.

Balanced structures

The Lord of the Rings is built around a central quest to destroy the One Ring, which is necessary to prevent Sauron from destroying or enslaving Middle-earth. The story combines a slow, descriptive journey through Middle-earth—a place readers come to love—with this unifying plotline. The destruction of the Ring provides a eucatastrophe, a happy ending that saves the world. The penultimate chapter, "The Scouring of the Shire," introduces a separate quest to save the Shire, implying a formal structure for the entire work.

Tolkien stated that this structure—a journey outward for the main quest and a journey home for the Shire quest—was planned from the start. Critics have noted that this chapter is morally as important as the main quest, but applies its lessons to everyday life. Frodo, having discarded his weapons and armor on Mount Doom, chooses to fight only on the moral plane in the Shire. This chapter thus plays a key formal role in the overall composition, reinforcing the idea that the expansive descriptions and the Ring-based plot fit together precisely.

Reversed quests

The Lord of the Rings follows a simple central plot: the hobbit Frodo Baggins must carry the Dark Lord Sauron’s Ring to Mount Doom and destroy it. Scholar Richard C. West calls this the primary quest, alongside the war against Sauron. Critic David M. Miller agrees that the quest is the book’s most important narrative device, but notes it inverts the usual pattern: the hero seeks to destroy a treasure, not obtain one. From Sauron’s perspective, the story is indeed a quest, with his Black Riders acting like twisted versions of errant knights pursuing a holy relic, while the Fellowship, unable to use the Ring, must keep it from him—creating several reversals.

Other writers, including Jared Lobdell and Lori M. Campbell, label it a reverse or inverted quest. Campbell quotes Michael N. Stanton’s description: “Evil struggles to gain power; Good to relinquish it.” Tom Shippey agrees, calling it an anti-quest focused on renunciation. He points out that Tolkien lived through two world wars, civilian bombings, famine used as a political tool, concentration camps, genocide, and the development of chemical and nuclear weapons.

Shippey argues the book asks whether destroying humanity’s capacity for such evil—even at the cost of sacrifice—would be worthwhile. Mason Harris, writing in Mythlore, contrasts Frodo’s renunciatory journey with Bilbo’s.

In The Hobbit, Bilbo’s curiosity overcomes his hobbit fear of the unknown. Frodo, however, wishes he had never seen the Ring, yet under its influence also wants to keep it. He both dreads his journey and resists completing its goal.

Multiple meanings

The Lord of the Rings contains meanings of different kinds beneath the immediate quest story. Tolkien, a Christian, makes the newly-assembled Fellowship set out on its quest from Rivendell on 25 December, the date of Christmas, and has the Fellowship destroy the Ring and cause the fall of Sauron on 25 March, the date in Anglo-Saxon tradition for the Crucifixion, embedding a subtle reference to the life of Christ. Both Frodo and Aragorn receive their renewed magic swords in Rivendell, marking them out as heroes in the epic tradition of Sigurd and Arthur at the start of their quest.

Did You Know?

• J. R. R. Tolkien was an English Roman Catholic writer, poet, philologist, and academic.
• A quest is a difficult journey with a specific goal, serving as a plot device in mythology and fiction.
• In a conventional heroic romance quest, the knight-errant overcomes obstacles to win the heart of a beautiful princess.