Mysteries of Middle-earth: The Nameless Things

[@feefifofum6383]

Why do people asume they are ancient things. I always assumed they were like giant beetles, worms, woodlouse creatures. Basically animals that breed down there. As a form of life, they have existed since before Sauron (bit odd). But no reason to assume they are individually immortal.

[@TarMody]

Theory: The Nameless Things, whose spiritual existence came into being as a result of Melkor distorting the Music of the Ainur with his own melody and who gained an incarnate form as a result of Eru realizing the vision with the Secret Fire, are older than Sauron in Arda due to the nature of this formation. Since they were formed simultaneously with Arda, Sauron had not yet descended to Arda, and they are among the oldest beings in Arda, like Tom Bombadil. Their evil nature comes from Melkor due to the nature of this formation. The expression of the Nameless Things gnawing at the roots of Arda can actually be considered in a metaphorical context. The Secret Fire was sent to the heart of Arda by Eru, meaning the vision was made concrete with the Secret Fire. These beings can be described as a reflection of Melkor's desire to possess the Secret Fire within the scope of this theory. Since it is not mentioned in the lore whether Melkor knew about their existence, it can be assumed that he knew. According to this theory, there is a parallelism between the Nameless Things and Ungoliant in terms of their formation nature. Tom Bombadil is the opposite of this, a result of harmony in music.

[@emrek99205]

Headcannon: The nameless things are Langoliers from Steven King's book of the same name. They are the foundation of time itself and constant push events forward while utterly destroying the world of the past. If you were to somehow slip the present and be even 1 second into the past they would be there to chew away all matter and substance. Gandalf hints at this by his reference to slipping out of all time during his fight with the Balrog and his description of them gnawing fits as well.

[@Dinoguy555]

The nameless things are like Ungoliant. She was named, yes. But her origin wasn't fully explained.

[@lhadzyan7300]

The closest references for a real mythological source for the Nameless Things inspiration are either the Primordial Gods which came from Chaos and are much alike his nature as Nyx, Erebus and Tartarus on classical Greek mythology, but on German-Norse one there is the beings gnawing the roots of the Yggdrassil ash connecting all worlds, as the dragon Niddhogg and OTHER WORMS even more ANCIENT and DARKER-FOULER than him, though with less power.

[@lhadzyan7300]

Niddhogg isn´t alone doing havoc for the Yggdrassil roots, but there are other less-powerfull yet kinda fouler darker WORM-BEINGS and even more ANCIENT and mysterious than him!!

[@lhadzyan7300]

Well Gaia is very primordial too but closer to Yavanna somehow - unless Tolkien was using Demeter as reference then instead. However Tartarus, Erebus and Nyx are so quite eerie and menancing on themselves, than Gaia alone.

[@lhadzyan7300]

I doubt that Gandalf did left unsolved the knowledge about this new lurking menance recently acknowledged that will made trouble on the world some time in the future, so I guess he discussed about them with that mysterious last talking with Tom Bombadil choosing him as the most fitted one to try something about it. (He might have known his true identity then too for acknowledging fitted to do some sort of solving or dealing with them in the future.) Unless that they might be only gonna work a major key role on dooming all on Morgoth´s return on the Dagor Dagorath time.

[@lhadzyan7300]

The Nameless Things are much alike Ungoliant nature and if she is based on Nyx and Erebus references, then them could be a mix between Tartarus, Erebus and Gaia or Chaos too.