Merry Brandybuck in the context of "Company of the Ring"

The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in The Lord of the Rings and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively by hobbits, the Shire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in the rest of Middle-earth. It is in the northwest of the continent, in the region of Eriador and the Kingdom of Arnor.

The Shire is the scene of action at the beginning and end of Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Five of the protagonists in these stories have their homeland in the Shire: Bilbo Baggins (the title character of The Hobbit), and four members of the Fellowship of the Ring: Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Merry Brandybuck, and Pippin Took. At the end of The Hobbit, Bilbo returns to the Shire, only to find out that he has been declared "missing and presumed dead" and that his hobbit-hole and all its contents are up for auction. (He reclaims them, much to the spite of his cousins Otho and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.) The main action in The Lord of the Rings returns to the Shire near the end of the book, in "The Scouring of the Shire", when the homebound hobbits find the area under the control of Saruman's ruffians, and set things to rights.

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.

Peregrin Took (Westron: Razanur Tûk), commonly known simply as Pippin, is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. He is closely tied with his friend and cousin, Merry Brandybuck, and the two are together during most of the story. Pippin and Merry are introduced as a pair of young hobbits of the Shire who become ensnared in their friend Frodo Baggins's quest to destroy the One Ring. Pippin joins the Company of the Ring. He and Merry become separated from the rest of the group at the breaking of the Fellowship and spend much of The Two Towers with their own storyline. Impetuous and curious, Pippin enlists as a soldier in the army of Gondor and fights in the Battle of the Morannon. With the other hobbits, he returns home, helps to lead the Scouring of the Shire, and becomes Thain, or hereditary leader of the land.

The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy of epic high fantasy adventure films directed by Peter Jackson based on the novel The Lord of the Rings by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. The films are titled identically to the three volumes of the novel: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003). Produced and distributed by New Line Cinema with the co-production of Jackson's WingNut Films, the films feature an ensemble cast combining established and younger actors.

Set in the fictional world of Middle-earth, the films follow the hobbit Frodo Baggins as he and the Company of the Ring embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring to defeat its maker, the Dark Lord Sauron. The Company eventually splits up and Frodo continues the quest with his loyal companion Sam and, eventually, the treacherous Gollum. Meanwhile, Aragorn, heir in exile to the throne of Gondor, along with the elf Legolas, the dwarf Gimli, Merry, Pippin, Boromir, and the wizard Gandalf, unite to save the Free Peoples of Middle-earth from the forces of Sauron and rally them in the War of the Ring to aid Frodo by distracting Sauron's attention.

Éowyn (/ˈeɪoʊwɪn/ or /ˈeɪoʊwuːn/) is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. She is a noblewoman of Rohan who describes herself as a shieldmaiden.

With the hobbit Merry Brandybuck, she rides into battle and kills the Witch-King of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl, in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. This fulfils the Macbeth-like prophecy that he would not be killed by a man.

The Nazgûl (from Black Speech nazg 'ring', and gûl 'wraith, spirit') – introduced as Black Riders and also called Ringwraiths, Dark Riders, the Nine Riders, or simply the Nine – are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. They were nine Men who had succumbed to Sauron's power through wearing Rings of Power, which gave them immortality but reduced them to invisible wraiths, servants bound to the power of the One Ring and completely under Sauron's control.

The Lord of the Rings calls them Sauron's "most terrible servants". Their leader, known as the Witch-king of Angmar, the Lord of the Nazgûl, or the Black Captain, was Sauron's chief agent for most of the Third Age. At the end of the Third Age, their main stronghold was the city of Minas Morgul at the entrance to Sauron's realm, Mordor. They dress entirely in black. In their early forays, they ride on black horses; later they ride flying monsters, which Tolkien described as "pterodactylic". Their main weapon is terror, though in their pursuit of the Ring-bearer Frodo Baggins, their leader uses a Morgul-knife which would reduce its victim to a wraith, and they carry ordinary swords. In his final battle, the Lord of the Nazgûl attacks Éowyn with a mace. The hobbit Merry Brandybuck stabs him with an ancient enchanted Númenórean blade, allowing Éowyn to kill him with her sword.