Tolkien's monsters are the evil beings, such as Orcs, Trolls, and giant spiders, who oppose and sometimes fight the protagonists in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium.
Tolkien was an expert on Old English, especially Beowulf, and several of his monsters share aspects of the Beowulf monsters; his Trolls have been likened to Grendel, the Orcs' name harks back to the poem's orcneas, and the dragon Smaug has multiple attributes of the Beowulf dragon.
The European medieval tradition of monsters makes them either humanoid but distorted, or like wild beasts, but very large and malevolent; Tolkien follows both traditions, with monsters like Orcs of the first kind and Wargs of the second. Some scholars add Tolkien's immensely powerful Dark Lords Morgoth and Sauron to the list, as monstrous enemies in spirit as well as in body.
Scholars have noted that the monsters' evil nature reflects Tolkien's Roman Catholicism, a religion which has a clear conception of good and evil.
Tolkien's later, wordless trolls have been compared to Grendel, a monster in Beowulf. Illustration by J. R. Skelton, 1908
One of the two "monstrous Watchers" of the Tower of Cirith Ungol, aware but immobile, possibly not even living
Alive long past his expected lifespan, but monstrous: Gollum by Frederic Bennet, 2014 (detail)
An orc, in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy fiction, is a race of humanoid monsters, which he also calls "goblin".
Beowulf's eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas, "ogres and elves and demon-corpses", inspiring Tolkien to create orcs and other races
Tolkien wrote that his orcs were influenced by the goblins in George MacDonald's 1872 The Princess and the Goblin. Illustration "The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces" by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1920
Peter Jackson's film versions of Tolkien's orcs have been compared to wartime caricatures of the Japanese (here, an American propaganda poster).
An ork from Warhammer Fantasy
