Men in Middle-earth in the context of "Death and immortality in Middle-earth"

The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.

The title refers to the story's main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, who in an earlier age created the One Ring, allowing him to rule the other Rings of Power given to men, dwarves, and elves, in his campaign to conquer all of Middle-earth. From homely beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land reminiscent of the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the quest to destroy the One Ring, seen mainly through the eyes of the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. Aiding the hobbits are the wizard Gandalf, the men Aragorn and Boromir, the elf Legolas, and the dwarf Gimli, who unite as the Company of the Ring to rally the Free Peoples of Middle-earth against Sauron's armies and give Frodo a chance to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom.

Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien. About half average human height, Tolkien presented hobbits as a variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof. Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings, they live barefooted, and traditionally dwell in homely underground houses which have windows, built into the sides of hills, though others live in houses. Their feet have naturally tough leathery soles (so they do not need shoes) and are covered on top with curly hair.

Hobbits first appeared in the 1937 children's novel The Hobbit, whose titular Hobbit is the protagonist Bilbo Baggins, who is thrown into an unexpected adventure involving a dragon. In its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, Pippin Took, and Merry Brandybuck are primary characters who all play key roles in fighting to save their world ("Middle-earth") from evil. In The Hobbit, hobbits live together in a small town called Hobbiton, which in The Lord of the Rings is identified as being part of a larger rural region called the Shire, the homeland of the hobbits in the northwest of Middle-earth. Some also live in a region east of the Shire, Bree-land, where they co-exist with Men.

The Company of the Ring, also called the Fellowship of the Ring and the Nine Walkers, is a fictional group of nine representatives from the free peoples of Middle-earth: Elves, Dwarves, Men, and Hobbits; and a Wizard. The group is described in the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, itself titled The Fellowship of the Ring. The number nine is chosen, as the book's author J. R. R. Tolkien states, to match and oppose the nine Black Riders or Ringwraiths.

Scholars have commented that Tolkien saw community as the right way to live. They note, too, that the Company is diverse both in culture and in personal qualities, and bound together by friendship, a model very different from the western image of the lone hero. Tolkien uses the term "company" far more often than "fellowship", the word coming from Latin companio, a person who shares bread, suggesting a co-traveller on the road or a group with a shared purpose. The Company of the Ring has been likened to the Arthurian order of the Knights of the Round Table, a group that has many points of similarity including a person carrying the burden of a quest, a returning King, an accompanying Wizard, and a treacherous knight.

The fictional cosmology of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium combines aspects of Christian theology and metaphysics with pre-modern cosmological concepts in the flat Earth paradigm, along with the modern spherical Earth view of the Solar System.

The created world, Eä, includes the planet Arda, corresponding to the Earth. It is created flat, with the dwelling of the godlike Valar at its centre. When this is marred by the evil Vala Melkor, the world is reshaped, losing its perfect symmetry, and the Valar move to Valinor, but the Elves can still sail there from Middle-earth. When Men try to go there, hoping for immortality, Valinor and its continent of Aman are removed from Arda, which is reshaped as a round world. Scholars have compared the implied cosmology with that of Tolkien's religion, Catholicism, and of medieval poetry such as Pearl or Dante's Paradiso, where there are three parts, Earth, Purgatory or the Earthly Paradise, and Heaven or the Celestial Paradise. Scholars have debated the nature of evil in Middle-earth, arguing whether it is the absence of good (the Boethian position) or equally as powerful as good (the Manichaean view).

Evil is ever-present in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional realm of Middle-earth. Tolkien is ambiguous on the philosophical question of whether evil is the absence of good, the Boethian position, or whether it is a force seemingly as powerful as good, and forever opposed to it, the Manichaean view. The major evil characters have varied origins. The first is Melkor, the most powerful of the immortal and angelic Valar; he chooses discord over harmony, and becomes the first dark lord Morgoth. His lieutenant, Sauron, is an immortal Maia; he becomes Middle-earth's dark lord after Morgoth is banished from the world. Melkor has been compared to Satan in the Book of Genesis, and to John Milton's fallen angel in Paradise Lost. Others, such as Gollum, Denethor, and Saruman – respectively, a Hobbit, a Man, and a Wizard – are corrupted or deceived into evil, and die fiery deaths like those of evil beings in Norse sagas.

The fictional races and peoples that appear in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth include the seven listed in Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings: Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents, Orcs and Trolls, as well as spirits such as the Valar and Maiar. Other beings of Middle-earth are of unclear nature such as Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry.