J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Lord of the Rings is the most significant work of fantasy literature in the 20th century, and possibly all time. The archetypal hero’s journey, the book follows the quest of a young hobbit to destroy the powerful One Ring, revisiting Middle-earth, the setting from Tolkien’s previous work, The Hobbit. Although originally intended as one book, it has since been commonly split into three distinct chapters: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.
Today, the books remain widely beloved, studied, discussed, and appreciated by critics and fans. In fact, each book has an impressive score on Goodreads, the world’s largest cataloguing and community website for readers. But which of them has the highest rating? The answer to that question may or may not surprise you, but it’sa great way to understand what audiences love about this particular saga and why it has remained so popular over 70 years later.
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‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ – 4.41 Rating
Image via HarperCollins
The first entry in the trilogy is The Fellowship of the Ring. It follows young hobbit Frodo Baggins, who receives from his uncle, Bilbo, a mysterious ring capable of making the one who wears it invisible. Soon, Frodo learns it is actually the One Ring, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron and meant to dominate the free people of Middle-earth. Joined by a group calling themselves The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo embarks on a dangerous journey to destroy the ring in the fires of Mount Doom in the land of Mordor. Meanwhile, Sauron’s power grows.
As an introductory chapter to this larger-than-life story, The Fellowship of the Ring thrives. Tolkien fills his narrative with adventure, lyrical poetry, and a sense of mysticism that makes the journey feel entirely mythical in nature. The characters feel alive and strangely familiar, as if you knew them from years past. Meanwhile, the One Ring is suitably elusive and surrounded by mystery, making it all the more threatening. The book also has two of the most celebrated and beloved chapters in literary history, “The Shadow of the Past” and “The Council of Elrond,” which have been widely analyzed for their narrative quality and overall significance to fantasy.
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‘The Two Towers’ – 4.51 Rating
Image via HarperCollins
The Two Towers picks up where its predecessor left off. Frodo has chosen to continue to Mordor alone after Boromir tries to steal the ring, with only Sam accompanying him. Along the way, they are joined by the creature Gollum, who longs to recover the One Ring. After a group of orcs kill Boromir and capture Merry and Pippin, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli choose to rescue the hobbits while trusting Sam and Frodo to continue alone. However, the trio instead goes to Rohan, accompanied by the newly resurrected Gandalf, to rescue King Théoden from a dark influence, while Merry and Pippin escape and make their way to the ancient tree-like Ents.
This second book is where the narrative becomes grander and larger in scale. Tolkien deals with more of Middle-earth’s ever-changing politics, allowing us to see the bigger picture in the upcoming war against Sauron. Where there was a mythical sense in Fellowship, The Two Towersfeels more urgent and exciting, but above all, it feels truly epic. Particularly impressive is the now-legendary Battle of Helm’s Deep, a masterclass in action writing that switches between character POVs to increase the tension while maintaining momentum. Tolkien’s mythology grows, and his greatest trick is pairing worldbuilding with significant character development. This second volume also introduces one of the saga’s most compelling and complex characters, Gollum, a tragic figure who runs away with many of the book’s most memorable passages.
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Middle-earth
Personality Quiz
Collider/ Movies/ The Lord of the Rings/ Which Race Do You Belong To
Ten Questions · Five Peoples Which Lord of the Rings Race Do You Belong To? Hobbit · Elf · Dwarf · Man · Orc
Middle-earth is home to many peoples: the courageous, the ancient, the stubborn, the ambitious and the wretched. Ten questions will determine which race truly claims your soul. The answer may surprise you, or it may confirm what you already suspected.
The Five Peoples
🌿Hobbit
🌟Elf
🪓Dwarf
⚔Man
💀Orc
Stage 1 of 10Comfort
What does your ideal day look like? How we rest reveals as much as how we fight.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 2 of 10Time
How do you feel about the passing of time? Our relationship with mortality shapes everything we value.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 3 of 10Instinct
Danger is approaching. Your first instinct is to: Fight, flight, or something in between.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 4 of 10Treasure
You stumble upon a great treasure. What do you feel? What we desire, and what we do about it, is the true test.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 5 of 10Community
How important is community and belonging to you? No race of Middle-earth is truly alone, but some prefer it that way.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 6 of 10Ambition
How ambitious are you, honestly? Ambition is neither virtue nor vice. It depends entirely on what you want.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 7 of 10Nature
Where do you feel most at home in the natural world? Middle-earth is vast, and every race has its place within it.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 8 of 10Strength
What kind of strength do you most respect? Every race defines strength differently, and they are all at least a little right.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 9 of 10Legacy
What do you want to leave behind when you are gone? Legacy is the story we tell ourselves about why any of this matters.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 10 of 10Truth
Be honest. What do you want most out of life? The truest question always comes last.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Middle-earth Has Spoken You Belong To
A tie. You walk between two peoples.
🌿 The Hobbits The Shire-folk Heroism does not require ambition, and you are the proof.
You are, at your core, a creature of comfort, community and quiet joy, and there is nothing small about that. Hobbits are proof that heroism does not require ambition, that the bravest heart can beat inside the most unassuming chest. You value good food, warm hearths, close friends and a world that stays largely untroubled by dark lords and quests. When adventure does find you, and it will, you rise to it not because you sought it but because the people you love needed you to. That is not ordinary. That is the rarest kind of courage in all of Middle-earth.
LoyalGroundedUnassumingBraver Than You Look
🌟 The Elves The Firstborn They mistake your depth for distance.
Ancient, graceful, and carrying a weight of memory most mortals cannot fathom, you are one of the Elves. You see the world in its fullness: its beauty, its impermanence, the unbearable ache of watching everything you love eventually fade. You pursue perfection not from pride but because excellence is how you honour the time you have been given. Others may see you as remote or melancholy. They are not wrong, exactly. But they mistake depth for distance. You feel everything, which is precisely why you have learned to carry it so quietly.
AncientExactingObservantMelancholy
🪓 The Dwarves The Stone-born Anything worth doing is worth doing properly.
Stubborn, proud, fiercely loyal and possessed of a work ethic that would exhaust most other races before breakfast, you are Dwarf-kind through and through. You do not ask for approval and you do not offer it cheaply. Your loyalty, once given, is given for life. Your grudges last longer. You love deeply and defend ferociously, and the things you build, with your hands and your sweat and generations of accumulated craft, are made to last. Not for glory. Because anything worth doing is worth doing properly, and you have never once done anything by half measures.
StubbornLoyalExactingImmovable
⚔ The Race of Men The Mortal Kind You fall, and you rise, and the rising is what defines you.
Mortal, ambitious, flawed and magnificent, you belong to the most complicated race in Middle-earth, and that complexity is your greatest strength. Men are capable of cowardice and extraordinary bravery, of cruelty and breathtaking sacrifice, sometimes within the same breath. You feel the urgency of your finite years and it drives you. You want to matter. You want to leave something behind. You fall, and you rise, and the rising is what defines you. Tolkien called mortality the Gift of Men, not a curse but a fire that burns bright precisely because it does not burn forever. That fire is you.
AmbitiousMortalDrivenUnfinished
💀 The Orcs The Broken Kind You have made your peace with a world that is not kind.
Brutal, survivalist and contemptuous of anything that cannot defend itself, you answered with the instincts of an Orc, and there is a certain savage honesty in that. You do not dress up your desires in polite language or pretend you want things you do not. You want power, survival, and to never be at the bottom of any hierarchy again. Orcs are not evil by nature. They were made from something that was once good and broken into this shape by forces they did not choose. What remains is fierce, territorial, and deeply aware that the world is not kind. You have made your peace with that. The question is what you do with it.
TerritorialBluntRelentlessUnsentimental
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Quest recorded by COLLIDER Collider.com · Middle-earth
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‘The Return of the King’ – 4.59 Rating
Image via HarperCollins
Finally, we have the epic conclusion of the trilogy. The Return of the King is the culmination of everything Tolkien set up in the previous two books. As Sauron’s forces prepare to launch their attack on Gondor, Gandalf attempts to warn Denethor, Steward of Gondor, while Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli take the Paths of the Dead to recruit the Dead Men of Dunharrow. In Mordor, Sam rescues Frodo from the tower of Cirith Ungol, and the two prepare for the final stretch of their journey, with a vengeful Gollum hot on their trail.
The Return of the King is one of the most exciting conclusions in literary history. Once again, Tolkien’s writing is vivid and atmospheric, depicting the devastation of Middle-earth with such command of the prose that it’s outright impossible to put the book down. Here, we have all-out war, and the author injects everything with a heightened sense of drama that makes every action feel urgent and crucial. Just as important is the story’s emotional impact, best represented in the fierce loyalty and unbreakable bond between Sam and Frodo. Perhaps the best part of the book, however, is the one that didn’t make it to the movie: The Scouring of the Shire, where the four hobbits rescue their home from the forces of Saruman. It’s a curious addition that might feel like an afterthought, but Tolkien makes it a key part of the story by showing the larger consequences of war, especially in communities that avoided the main conflict.
