Substance Use

• Characters regularly drink alcohol in different forms and enjoy smoking pipe weed (recurring). Prologue includes a section about the history of pipe-weed as a point of pride in the Shire (p. 10-11).
• Poetry about drinking (p. 112, 197)

Heavy Content

• Mention of the main character’s parents drowning in a boating incident. One character voices a rumor that the wife pushed her husband into the water and he pulled her in with him (p. 28).
• Gandalf, the leader of the Fellowship, falls into an abyss while fighting the enemy. The others are forced to flee, leaving him behind (p. 410).

Violence/Graphic Imagery

• A character suggests he was tortured (p. 73).
• A character strangles his friend to gain possession of the ring (p. 66).
• A character chops off a hand using a sword (p. 176).
• Brief mention of a character being gagged, made to walk in front of his captor with a halter around his neck, and given insufficient food and water in order to “tame” him (p. 314).
• Multiple short fights in which characters use medieval weapons to fight goblins, orcs, and wolves. Characters are frequently injured and occasionally die during these scenes (recurring).

Gender Relations

• A male dwarf asks for the hair of an elf lady as a parting gift. There are no romantic undertones (p. 467-468, 470).

Language/Crude Imagery

• Male characters bathe in different tubs in the same room (p. 126).
• The main characters’ clothes are stolen and they are temporarily undressed while waiting for someone to get new clothes for them (p. 179).
• A character calls someone an “ass” (p. 327).
• One specific character, Barliman Butterbur, is referred to as fat and stupid almost every time he is mentioned (recurring).

Magic

• Set in a fantasy world where wizards and other creatures perform magic and objects hold magical powers. Magic is portrayed as both good and evil (recurring).

Mythology

• Brief references by name to powerful, semi-divine beings (recurring).
• Fantasy world inhabited by elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs, hobbits, and other mythological beings (recurring).
• Tom Bombadil is described as the oldest being in Middle-Earth, “master” of everything within his domain, and immune to powerful magics like the ring (recurring).