My favorite novel in the world is Lord of the Rings. I’ve read it at least 20 times, in three languages. To anyone who has seen the movie or read the book, the basic plot is pretty well known. However, with multiple readings I started to notice little cool details which either aren’t emphasized or are easy to overlook. Here’s my list of such things. (By the way, this is about the book, not the movie.)

1. Even though the movies show the four hobbits as about the same age, this is not the case in the books. At the time of the quest to destroy the ring, Frodo was 50, Sam was 38, Merry was 36 and Pippin was 29. Of course, considering hobbits come of age at 33, Pippin would have been about 16 if he were human.

2. Hobbits aren’t the only ones who look younger than they are: Aragorn was 87 at the time of the Lord of the Rings and Gandalf was over 2000 years old.

3. List of words that appear in Lord of the Rings that sound bad, but really aren’t:

–      faggot (Book 2, Chapter 3: “a bundle of sticks”)

–      niggard (Book 6, Chapter 6 : “a selfish person”)

–      boner (Book 1, Chapter 12: a nonsensical word in a song, rhyming with ‘owner’)

–      bastards (Book 4, Chapter 9: “illegitimate children, used in the context of Shelob’s offspring)

4. Sam actually has five siblings but only mentions one of them in the Lord of the Rings: his younger sister Marigold. He mentions her in the chapter “Mount Doom” as someone he would have liked to see again, after he realizes they don’t have enough food to get back home.

5. The high elves are telepathic and can have conversations with each other without speaking out loud (Book 6, Chapter 6)

6. Gandalf has a telepathic link with Shadowfax and can call him mentally whenever he wants.

7. Nine women have speaking roles in Lord of the Rings. They are very ethnically diverse, although they usually don’t have many lines of dialogue. Here is the list, in order of appearance:

–      Lobelia Sackville-Baggins – hobbit (2 lines)

–      Mrs. Maggot – hobbit (1 line)

–      Goldberry – Maiar (wife of Tom Bombadil) (10 lines)

–      Galadriel – elf (many lines)

–      Eowyn – human/Rohirrim (many lines)

–      Ioreth – human/Gondorian (8 lines)

–      Arwen – half-elf (2 lines)

–      Rosie – hobbit (3 lines)

–      Mrs. Cotton – hobbit (1 line)

There tend to be large gaps between them, however, and at one point, 17 chapters go by between women speaking.