Tom Shippey in the context of "Westron"

The Old Straight Road, the Straight Road, the Lost Road, or the Lost Straight Road, is J. R. R. Tolkien's conception, in his fantasy world of Arda, that his Elves are able to sail to the earthly paradise of Valinor, realm of the godlike Valar. The tale is mentioned in The Silmarillion and in The Lord of the Rings, and documented in The Lost Road and Other Writings. The Elves are immortal, but may grow weary of the world, and then sail across the Great Sea to reach Valinor. The men of Númenor are persuaded by Sauron, servant of the first Dark Lord Melkor, to attack Valinor to get the immortality they feel should be theirs. The Valar ask for help from the creator, Eru Ilúvatar. He destroys Númenor and its army, in the process reshaping Arda into a sphere, and separating it and its continent of Middle-earth from Valinor so that men can no longer reach it. Elves can still set sail from the shores of Middle-earth in ships, bound for Valinor: they sail into the Uttermost West, following the Old Straight Road.

Scholars have noted the importance of the theme to Tolkien, as he revisited it repeatedly. His early mention of the Straight Road as being a level bridge recalls Bifröst, the bridge between the earthly Midgard and the gods' home of Asgard in Norse mythology. Other possible inspirations for the theme include a literary crux in Beowulf in the shape of the character Scyld Scefing. He arrives in the world as a baby in a boat filled with gifts, and he departs from it in a ship-burial, with the odd feature that the ship is not set on fire, as in the typical Viking ritual. The scholar Tom Shippey suggests that Tolkien may have felt that Scyld is being sent back to the gods across the Western sea via a kind of Straight Road, and that Tolkien perhaps created his Valar and their home Valinor to explain that gap in Beowulf. His poem "A Walking Song", which occurs in different versions at the start and end of The Lord of the Rings, also alludes to the theme.

The theme of addiction to power in The Lord of the Rings is central, as the Ring, made by the Dark Lord Sauron to enable him to take over the whole of Middle-earth, progressively corrupts the mind of its owner to use the Ring for evil.

The corrupting power of the Ring has been compared to the Ring of Gyges in Plato's Republic, which gave the power of invisibility and so tempted its owner, but there is no evidence that Tolkien modelled The Lord of the Rings on that story. Scholars such as Tom Shippey consider the theme to be modern, since in earlier times, power was considered to reveal character, not to alter it, recalling the English politician Lord Acton's 1887 statement that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

The Battle of Helm's Deep, also called the Battle of the Hornburg, is a fictional battle in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings that saw the total destruction of the forces of the Wizard Saruman by the army of Rohan, assisted by a forest of tree-like Huorns.

Helm's Deep was a valley in the north-western White Mountains of Middle-earth. Helm's Deep, with its fortress the Hornburg, becomes the refuge of some of the army of Rohan, the Rohirrim, under King Théoden, from assault by the forces of Saruman. Although Théoden says that "the Hornburg has never fallen to assault," in the battle a massive army of Uruk-hai and Dunlendings sent by Saruman almost overwhelms the defences. Saruman's Orcs breach the fortress wall that blocks the valley by setting off an explosion in a culvert; Aragorn names it "Saruman's devilry" and "the fire of Orthanc"; the critic Tom Shippey calls it "a kind of gunpowder". The defenders hold out in the fortress until dawn, when Théoden and Aragorn lead a cavalry charge that drives the Orcs from the fortress. They are surprised to see the valley to the enemy's rear blocked by a forest of tree-like Huorns that have walked from Fangorn in the night. On the side of the valley are relieving forces assembled by Gandalf and Erkenbrand, a Rohirrim leader. These attack, driving the Orcs into the angry Huorn forest, from which the Orcs never emerge; the Huorns bury the Orcs' bodies in an earthen mound known as "Death's Down".

Mirkwood is any of several great dark forests in novels by Sir Walter Scott and William Morris in the 19th century, and by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 20th century. The critic Tom Shippey explains that the name evoked the excitement of the wildness of Europe's ancient North.

At least two distinct Middle-earth forests are named Mirkwood in Tolkien's legendarium. One is in the First Age, when the highlands of Dorthonion north of Beleriand became known as Mirkwood after falling under Morgoth's control. The more famous Mirkwood was in Wilderland, east of the river Anduin. It had acquired the name Mirkwood after it fell under the evil influence of the Necromancer in his fortress of Dol Guldur; before that it had been known as Greenwood the Great. This Mirkwood features significantly in The Hobbit and in the film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Galadriel (IPA: [ɡaˈladri.ɛl]) is a character created by J. R. R. Tolkien in his Middle-earth writings. She appears in The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and Unfinished Tales. She was a royal Elf of both the Noldor and the Teleri, being a grandchild of both King Finwë and King Olwë. She was also close kin of King Ingwë of the Vanyar through her grandmother Indis.Galadriel was a leader during the rebellion of the Noldor, and present in their flight from Valinor during the First Age. Towards the end of her stay in Middle-earth, she was joint ruler of Lothlórien with her husband, Celeborn, when she was known as the Lady of Lórien, the Lady of the Galadhrim, the Lady of Light, or the Lady of the Golden Wood. Her daughter Celebrían was the wife of Elrond and mother of Arwen, Elladan, and Elrohir. Tolkien describes her as "the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth" (after the death of Gil-galad) and the "greatest of elven women".

The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey has written that Galadriel represented Tolkien's attempt to re-create the kind of elf hinted at by surviving references in Old English. He has compared his elves also to those in a Christian Middle English source, The Early South English Legendary, where the elves were angels. Sarah Downey likens Galadriel to a celestial lady of medieval allegory, a guide-figure such as Dante's Beatrice and the pearl-maiden in the 14th-century English poem Pearl. Another scholar, Marjorie Burns, compares Galadriel in multiple details to Rider Haggard's heroine Ayesha, and to Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott, both being reworked figures of Arthurian legend. Galadriel, lady of light, assisting Frodo on his quest to destroy the One Ring, opposed to Shelob, the giant and evil female spider of darkness, have been compared to Homer's opposed female characters in the Odyssey: Circe and Calypso as Odysseus's powerful and wise benefactors on his quest, against the perils of the attractive Sirens, and the deadly Scylla and Charybdis.