InTolkien's legendarium, ancestry provides a guide to character. The apparently genteelHobbits of the Baggins family turn out to be worthy protagonists ofThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings.Bilbo Baggins is seen fromhis family tree to be both a Baggins and an adventurous Took. Similarly,Frodo Baggins has some relatively outlandish Brandybuck blood. Among theElves of Middle-earth, as described inThe Silmarillion, the highest are the peacefulVanyar, whose ancestors conformed most closely to the divine will, migrating toAman and seeing the light of theTwo Trees of Valinor; the lowest are the mutableTeleri; and in between are the conflictedNoldor. Scholars have analysed the impact of ancestry on Elves such as the creative but headstrongFëanor, who makes theSilmarils. Among Men,Aragorn, hero ofThe Lord of the Rings, is shown by his descent from Kings, Elves, and an immortalMaia to be of royal blood, destined to be the true King who will restore his people. Scholars have commented that in this way, Tolkien was presenting a view of character fromNorse mythology, and anAnglo-Saxon view of kingship, though others have calledhis implied views racist.

J. R. R. Tolkien was an English author andphilologist of ancientGermanic languages, specialising inOld English, the language of theAnglo-Saxons; he spent much of his career as a professor at theUniversity of Oxford.^[1] He is best known for his novels about his inventedMiddle-earth,The Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings, and for the posthumously publishedThe Silmarillion which provides a more mythical narrative about earlier ages.These have been so influential that has been called the "father" of modern fantasy.^[2][3] He inventedseveral peoples for Middle-earth, includingElves,Dwarves,Hobbits,Orcs,Trolls, andEagles.^{[T 1]}

Tolkien's Middle-earth family trees have multiple functions, including establishing the characters' lineages and the relationships between them, and helping to create animpression of depth.^[4] Apart from these, a key function is to show how different ancestries, and hence in Tolkien's view different aspects of character, come together in his protagonists.^[4][5][6] The Tolkien scholarJason Fisher explains that the apparently home-loving but in fact also adventurous and resourcefulBilbo Baggins, for instance, was born to a genteel Baggins and an adventurous Took, while his similarly conflicted cousin (often familiarly described as his nephew) and heir Frodo was the child of a Baggins and a relatively outlandish Brandybuck.^[4] Thus, character is explained and predicted by ancestry.^[4] Tolkien has hisHobbits share this belief; families were important to them, and they were extremely fond of studying their owngenealogy, as illustrated, too, by the multiple Hobbit family trees in the appendices ofThe Lord of the Rings.^[4] Tolkien stated directly in the prologue:^{[T 3]}

All hobbits were, in any case, clannish and reckoned up their relationships with great care. They drew long and elaborate family-trees with innumerable branches. In dealing with hobbits it is important to remember who is related to whom, and in what degree.^{[T 3]}

The ancestry of Bilbo and Frodo involved the Boffin and Bolger families alongside the better-known Tooks and Brandybucks. Tolkien had drawn up family trees for the Boffins and Bolgers, providing additional background on the character of the central Hobbit figures, but these were left out of the appendices to save space.^[b][7]

In the long and complex process of theSundering of the Elves, Tolkien consistently shows that the highestElves are those who deviated least from theirinitial uncorrupted state: they complied with the will of theValar, travelled to the blessed realm of Valinor where they saw the light of theTwo Trees, and continued to speak the highest language,Quenya. Conversely, the lowest Elves, the Avari, refused to make the journey, never saw the light, and fragmented into many kindreds with different languages as they eventually spread out acrossMiddle-earth. The Tolkien scholarsTom Shippey andVerlyn Flieger both note that Tolkien thus intended ancestry to be a guide to character. The differences between the various Elvish languages mirror both the Sundering and the events ofThe Silmarillion.^[9][5][6]

Flieger states that the three major groups of Elves who set out on the journey to Valinor, theEldar, each had their own character, which the reader needs to grasp to understand what drives the protagonists ofThe Silmarillion, by way of their personal membership of one or more of these groups.^[10]

Shippey writes thatThe Silmarillionechoes Norse mythology in its belief that character is determined by ancestry, and that one perhaps needs to study the family trees to see clearly how it all works. He gives the example ofFëanor, the impetuous creator of theSilmarils, and his relatives:^[5]

Shippey comments that one way to readThe Silmarillion is to assume that "'character' is in a sense fixed, static, even diagrammatic."^[5] He states that this was a common belief in medieval times, giving the example of theOld English proverb which asserts that "a man shows what he's like when he can do what he wants", i.e. their character was assumed to be built-in. Similarly inNorse mythology, the nature of each person in a saga is, Shippey writes, stated when they are introduced; the rest of the story just demonstrates how that plays out in practice.^[5]

Aragorn, hero ofThe Lord of the Rings, appears as aMan, and is described as such with the epithetDúnadan, "Man of the West". His blood is however richer than that, as he can trace his ancestry back to the marriage ofEärendil and Elwing, bothhalf-Elven and thus higher than mortal Men. Further, Elwing's ancestry goes back to the marriage ofThingol, the Elven King ofDoriath, andMelian, aMaia or immortal spirit, one of the angelicAinur. As far as his Elven pedigree is concerned, he was not only of theTeleri ("Those who come last") via Thingol; Eärendil was descended viaIdril Celebrindal fromFinwë of the Noldor ("Deep Elves") and Indis of the Vanyar ("The Fair").^{[T 5]} These two groups were the highest of the Elves, and unlike the Teleri kept the faith by migrating all the way to Aman and thus saw the light of the Two Trees of Valinor.^{[8][T 7]} Aragorn was thus not only of a long royal lineage, and not only with an admixture of Elvish blood: it was the best possible, being both from high Elves and Elvish kings.^[12][13]

The Tolkien scholar Angela Nicholas argues that Aragorn's combined Man, Elf, and Maia ancestry "infuses divinity into his character."^[12][14] Judy Ann Ford andRobin Anne Reid write inTolkien Studies that while the destruction of theOne Ring prevents Sauron from taking over the whole of Middle-earth, the "true king", Aragorn, is required "to restore the world of men to its former glory."^[13] Aragorn has this destiny in his epithets, "for in the high tongue of old [Quenya] I am Elessar, the Elfstone, and Envinyatar, the Renewer'".^{[13][T 8]} Ford and Reid comment that Tolkien has made Aragorn conform to theAnglo-Saxon ideal of kingship, noting that their kings "claimed descent from [the god]Woden", and further that "This divine ancestry was believed to endow royal blood with a portion of divine wisdom and supernatural power."^[13]

In his 2022 bookTolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth, Robert Stuart on the other hand describes Tolkien's emphasis on Aragorn's ancestry as "aristocratic racism", likeningTolkien's implied views on race to those of the French 19th century diplomatArthur de Gobineau, which he characterises as "anti-democratic, anti-national and, above all,anti-modern".^[11]

• Carpenter, Humphrey (1977).J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. New York:Ballantine Books.ISBN 978-0-04-928037-3.
• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981].The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York:HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
• Dickerson, Matthew (2013) [2007]. "Elves: Kindreds and Migrations". InDrout, Michael D. C. (ed.).J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia.Routledge. pp. 152–154.ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1.
• Fisher, Jason (2013) [2007]. "Family Trees". InDrout, Michael D. C. (ed.).J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia.Routledge. pp. 188–189.ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1.
• Flieger, Verlyn (1983). "Light into Darkness".Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World.William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. pp. 88–131.ISBN 978-0-8028-1955-0.
• Shippey, Tom (2001).J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century.HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0261-10401-3.
• Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982].The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (Third ed.).HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-261-10275-0.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954a).The Fellowship of the Ring.The Lord of the Rings. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.OCLC 9552942.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955).The Return of the King.The Lord of the Rings. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.OCLC 519647821.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977).Christopher Tolkien (ed.).The Silmarillion. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.ISBN 978-0-395-25730-2.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1994).Christopher Tolkien (ed.).The War of the Jewels. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.ISBN 0-395-71041-3.

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