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Hey! I thought about this too! For a long time, I've been wondering what those nameless things are. Maia spirits dwelling unseen on earth and in the Dark? Or maybe even some of Morgoth's minions from before?

Hhmm..

Yes it is VERY interesting but your point about them being maiars CAN'T be true because in my text up there says that they are OLDER then Sauron and sauron is a maian spirit.ALL maian spirits are the same age and valars also...they were created in the same time....then i say could that nameless things be some sort of being that Tom Bombadil belongs to? Or is it more dreadfull that they are a sor of being that Eru belongs to-some sort of ancient gods?....then we could ask is tom bombadil eru or is he like him...the nameless thing.......Maybe Eru and Tom Bombadil are nameless things,the only ones that came out of the shadow??

Go shadowy!

But now, let's figure out "who" they are and what their examples are. I mean, did we ever see any of them in LOTR? Is the Watcher one of them? Tom Bombadil? Goldberry? Yeah..I know they have names but their origins are oblivious to everyone.

Thoughts?

Gwaihir?


Shadowfax?


Treebeard himself?

Gwaihir is an eagle. Shadowfax is a meras. Treebeard is an ent. I doubt they are connecteds to the nameless thing.

From it's desciption, it sounds evil. Something that scared Gandalf to silence. It sounds like their evil dwarves, but bigger and scarier.

Also, who said all the maiar are the same age? Could it be possible that there was another wave of maiar to inhabit Arda? I am clueless as to what they could be.

I said they could be the same age. I never confirmed it. And I didn't mean same age like I'm 13, he's 13, she's 13, all of us are 13 years old. Not that literally. What I meant was they might have been brought into Arda in the same era, or decade, or century, or millenium, you choose. What I meant was not as literally as they are all of the same age with same birthdays, what I meant was that they are all older than the First Borns and the Followers.

true, so whatever our mystery dude is, it probaly came b/f Sauron

*researches*

I found this quote:


The Book of Lost Tales, Part I, III The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor

Hhmm, they could be some of the Nameless Things, though the quote insinuates that these creatures are light-hearted and good-spirited (always laughing at things). After all, it wasn't really stated that all the Nameless Things are Evil, they're just not explicitly identified. I suppose the Evil ones are just the only ones who dwell in the dark sides of the world and under the earth.

Lol everything in the lost tales somehow sounds so cute


Yea, the Nameless Things also correspond with the description of the end of the War of Wrath... I couldn't find the quote I meant in the Silmarillion, but it says that many of Morgoth's nameless and greatest servants escaped after the battle and hid themselves in deep dungeons like the Balrogs also did for many millenia in fear of the Sun and the might of the Valar.

Btw, "the Nameless" was also the most common name of Sauron

i'm prety sure they came from before time....as in before the flood

so they must be balrog-like creatures, hiding in the mines for fear of the sun^exa

not so much balrog-like as evil-like *duh!*....maybee maiar but maybee not....

i stayed up all night reading stuff.....but didn't find much....

on the part about gandalf saying they are older than sauron...do you guys realy think gandalf would not know something, about this?....maybee he's mistaken...but i don't know if tolkien would have let gandalf not know something.....so to speak
maybee Tolkien Did make him unknowledgeable on some things.....so ppl like us can discuss...and blow are minds tryin' to figure it out!

You make a good point.....but i'm not sure about that part where you say that they were created by melkor.Melkor had only one thing on his mind when he came to middle-earth and that is to destroy all that the valars have created.it does not say anywhere that they (the nameless things) were created by melkor.For what we know melkor has created only ne form of new being and that is orcs.

It could be refering that they are phisically older then sauron.But there is one another point.In tolkiens letters it says when gandalf visits Tom Bombadil(and we do not know the origin of tom bombadil) it says that tom bombadil has known the origin of every being on this world that has walked in middle-earth but he does not know about the nameless things.It draws many interesting questions.

This is a good topic. It deserves more attention

Ok, back to the idea of Nameless Things and the Waters of the Ship of the World...

... I don't think Moria reached that deep, but isn't it really possible that some of those creatures have connections to the ancient waters below the world?

mmm.....it seemed quite deep when Gandalf fell down it in the movies which was over ex-aggerated I would think....

the nameless things, do we know what they are yet as I aint read the whole thread

Discos - AE's *bumps* to seek people not leaving

yep, I've been trying find good threads to bring back.

Anyway, what's this 'sea' your talking about, Exa?

that's umm, confusing. My picture of ME is now shattered.

erm, I cannot totally remember the whole process, but is the sun (when it has set and making its pass through the other end of the earth again) between the sea and the underground of the earth?

Discos - now am totally confused

The Sun and the Moon are in Ilmen, the region above Vista and below Vai
Ilmen is the "place of light" and "thinner and more clear" than real air; it's also where all the stars are.
At least in the globe-shaped world of the later ages, Vai encircles all the world and the other parts of the air, seen from the earth it's "behind" the other airs like Vista and Ilmen.
Vai is "more like water" under the earth and "more like air" above it

^^
I also just wondered how that's supposed to work because there IS no Ilmen under the earth must pass through Vaiya then