The Lord of the Rings/Tropes P-R


 * Tropes from The Lord of the Rings (the book)


 * Tropes A-C -- Tropes D-F -- Tropes G-I -- Tropes J-L -- Tropes M-O -- Tropes S-U -- Tropes V-Z

Tropes P-R

 * Pair the Spares: Faramir and Eowyn.
 * Pals with Jesus: Gandalf and darn near anyone who's good.
 * Panacea: The Athelas plant, with the right usage, though the exact extent of its healing properties is never explored.
 * Papa Wolf: Everyone is this to the hobbits. Even the hobbits get to be this on occasion because of The Power of Friendship.
 * The Paragon Always Rebels: Morgoth, Saruman.
 * Parental Favoritism: Boromir (the elder son) is heavily preferred to Faramir by their father, Denethor. It's especially emphasized in The Movies, where Denethor is shown as blatantly unfair; in the book, Gandalf at least believes that it is partly that Denethor is still grief-stricken over the death of their mother.
 * And being Mind-Warped by the palantír.
 * Parental Marriage Veto: When Elrond finds out that Aragorn and Arwen are in love, he sets down what seems to be a impossible set of restrictions on their marriage (Sauron must be vanquished, Aragorn must unite the ancient kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor and become High King once again). Needless to say, Aragorn helps fulfill every single one of these conditions, and Love Conquers All.
 * Not really so much a Veto as just a traditional dowry: the daughter of an elven lord of Elrond's stature can only be married to a very important person, after all, and in the book Aragorn's final goal was to become king anyway, so it wasn't that tall an order. Who wouldn't want to provide the safest and best environment for their kid's future?
 * It also harkens back to The Silmarillion when Thingol tasked Beren with retrieving a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown before marrying Luthien. Since Aragorn and Arwen are both descendants of Beren and Luthien it seems appropriate; at least to Elrond.
 * Past Victim Showcase: What the Mouth of Sauron hints at when he
 * Pet the Dog: Gollum has a rare moment of humanity when he catches Frodo and Sam asleep on the stairs of Cirith Ungol. He even attempts to pet Frodo's knee. Unfortunately, the moment doesn't last.
 * Peaceful in Death: Boromir.
 * Subverted in the Dead Marshes.
 * Perma-Shave: Hobbits and all but the oldest of elves.
 * Perpetual Motion Monster: The ringwraiths, the Watcher in the Water.
 * Phosphor Essence: As Frodo succumbs to the Nazgûl blade, he perceives Glorfindel as "a shining figure of white light".
 * Sam notes that, at times, it seems as if a light is shining through Frodo.
 * Physical Religion: the Valar.
 * Pirates: The Corsairs of Umbar.
 * Playing Possum: A scene with Uruk-hai during Helm's Deep in the novel.
 * Playing with Fire: Gandalf
 * Please Wake Up: Sam to Frodo after Frodo is stung by Shelob.
 * Plunder : Merry and Pippin feasting in the ruins of Orthanc.
 * Pluralses: Gollum speaks like this all the time.
 * Poisoned Weapons: The Morgul blade and the arrow that hit Faramir.
 * Orcs in general are said to be fond of this.
 * Poke in the Third Eye: Using a Palantir.
 * Popcultural Osmosis: LotR's influence is widespread and isn't limited to the fantasy genre.
 * High Fantasy: It popularized the genre and is generally credited with creating it, although high fantasy in the novel format is actually older than Tolkien. The demand for novels similar to Lord of the Rings was so great that many imitators joined in to feed the demand. The term "Tolkienesque" has been used to describe the literature of his many imitators. A few writers actually tried to go in a different direction than Tolkien, such as Ursula K. Le Guin with her Earthsea novels. Even today, Tolkien's shadow is so big that it's difficult for a writer to escape it.
 * Hippies: The slang term "weed" sprang from a certain common misconception / bit of Fanon concerning Hobbit horticultural habits (Jossed by Tolkien himself).
 * A justifiable error, nevertheless. Cannabis was relatively rare in Europe, but tobacco was completely unknown until Europeans found it across the Atlantic. If no-one from Middle-earth had ever sailed west to the Americas, where the hell did they get the pipeweed??
 * This is actually explained in the Appendix: The Numénorians sailed around the world and found all the modern continents in trying to search remains of their lost homeland, and brought back plants like galenas, which the hobbits dubbed "pipeweed".
 * Role Playing Games: The Fellowship can be seen as the prototypical RPG party. It established many archetypes and tropes that are seen RPGs like "rangers", warrior dwarves, the Balrog and Mithril. The Fellowship's trek through the dwarven city of Khazad-dûm might have been the basis for Ruins for Ruins Sake. It inspired D&D and many of the RPGs that came after it.
 * War Gaming: Before LotR, war games were limited to historical wars like WWII, the Napoleonic Wars, and the American Civil War. LotR popularized the idea that war gaming can take place in a fictional land with fictional races and nations. It influenced such games as Warhammer, Warcraft, and Starcraft.
 * Which came full circle when Games Workshop made a tabletop wargame based on LOTR, inspired partly by Warhammer.
 * Heavy Metal: Many of the earliest metal bands were influenced by Tolkien. They use many of his themes and events as a basis for numerous songs. Led Zeppelin is a band that shows a lot of Tolkien influence (see page quote). There's even a subgenre called Tolkien Metal: See, for instance, Blind Guardian.
 * Possession Implies Mastery: Heavily, heavily subverted. About the only thing you with do with more possession of the ring is to become invisible. It may not even be possible for most ordinary beings to master.
 * Post Climax Confrontation: The One Ring has been destroyed along with Sauron and the armies of Mordor, Aragorn has been crowned the king of Gondor, and the members of the Fellowship have separated to return to their homelands. When the hobbits return to The Shire, however, they discover it has been taken control of by Saruman, and they have to fight one last battle against him.
 * Post Dramatic Stress Disorder: Merry and Eowyn after defeating the Witch-King, Sam after defeating Shelob, and Frodo and Sam when they finally achieve their goal (though they do manage to make it down the mountain first).
 * The Power of Friendship: Especially the friendship between Sam and Frodo.
 * Pragmatic Villainy: Uglúk, to some extent Sauron.
 * Preemptive Declaration: Gandalf says "Saruman, your staff is broken", and the staff is split asunder.
 * Prophecy Twist: The Witch-king
 * Prophetic Fallacy: Denethor and the Corsairs
 * Proud Warrior Race: Rohirrim, Uruk-hai
 * Merry and Pippin are kind of lampshaded Proud Warrior Race Guys . Tooks and Brandybucks have a reputation among other Hobbits for being more adventurous and warlike as Hobbit clans go, but Merry and Pippin just act like Hobbits. At least at first. Later both kind of go native and become something like Hobbit Swashbucklers. Yeah, I know, what would a Hobbit Swashbuckler be like?
 * A Protagonist Shall Lead Them: Aragorn
 * Psychic Dreams for Everyone: Faramir, and Boromir once
 * Frodo too.
 * Publisher Chosen Title: The publisher meddled with the titles of the three volumes. Tolkien wanted the last one to be named The War of the Ring to avoid spoilers, but it didn't get through.
 * The Quest: Frodo's quest is a double subversion. So much so, it might called an Anti Quest
 * Rags to Royalty: Aragorn, sort of. He was already the leader of the remaining Dunedain in the north, but they collectively appeared to be this to most other humans. Among the elves, however, he and his people still had fairly high status. And when his father died early in his life, he was taken in and raised by one of the most important elven leaders still in Middle Earth.
 * Ransacked Room: Happens to Frodo's house in Crickhollow after he leaves.
 * Ravens and Crows: The crows in the story serve Saruman.
 * Given that Wormtongue had Gandalf tagged as "Stormcrow", that little fact implies Grima was trying to put Gandalf in his place under Saruman... soul of a used car salesman, that guy.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Aragorn is 87 and still going strong, Gandalf is...well he's old.
 * Every last named elf is this as well, with Cirdan being the oldest of all elves that haven't set sail to Valinor. (It's probably relevant that Cirdan is the only Elf in the entire story who's explicitly stated to have grown a beard, let alone a long white beard.)
 * Recurring Dreams: Faramir, twice. One of these is based on the 'great wave' dream that both Tolkien and his son Michael had.
 * Red Eye, Take Warning: Sauron, while not red-eyed himself, uses a red eye on black as his symbol.
 * Although in the movie, he takes the form of a giant red eye.
 * Red Right Hand: There are only four fingers on the Black Hand, but they are enough. (especially with today's prosthetics.)
 * Redemption Equals Death: Boromir
 * Reforged Blade: Narsil, sword of Elendil, which was shattered - but the hilt-shard cut The One Ring from the finger of Sauron, thus winning the war. Much later, they were reforged for Aragorn's use and renamed Anduril. He never does anything 'special' with the sword, but since it serves as a symbol of his status as the Returned King, and since the reforging was part of a series of prophesied events leading up to the final fall of Sauron, it qualifies as a Sword of Plot Advancement.
 * Regent for Life: Denethor
 * Though he actually has a good precedent for not accepting Aragorn's claim - especially since he has reason to believe Aragorn won't act in Gondor's best interest - and we don't know what he would have actually done had he not been Driven to Suicide. So it's certainly not a clear-cut example.
 * The Remnant: Saruman qualifies in a round-about sense, in that he is a former 'Evil Overlord', but reduced to a pathetically small scale after his armies are routed and he is cast out from Isengard. He spends the remainder of the book running the Shire into the ground, turning into a sort of bandit leader with a mob of 'ruffians'. He is stabbed in the back (completely literally) by his servant at the end.
 * The Renfield: Wormtongue
 * Right Under Their Noses: Sauron would never expect something so small to sneak right past him!
 * River of Insanity: The voyage down the Anduin.
 * Robe and Wizard Hat: Gandalf
 * Rousing Speech: Given by Aragorn at the Stone of Erech and Theoden before the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Subverted in Eomer's speech during the same battle after he finds the bodies of, which is known to fans as the "Let's All Go And Get Killed" speech.
 * Royal Blood: Flows in Aragorn's veins and is rather important.
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: Aragorn again, as well as Theoden, Eomer and Eowyn. Legolas and Imrahil are princes, and Boromir and Faramir are sons of the steward, Denethor, who is in turn descended from Anarion, brother of Isildur.
 * The same goes for Brand, King of Dale and Dain II. Ironfoot, whose deeds are mentioned only in the appendices.
 * It's worth noting that three kings fight at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, one of whom is dead.