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Middle-earth Expanded Mythology
Our definition of the expanded Mythology of Tolkien’s World is as follows:
Any and all content that goes beyond the published writings of J.R.R Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien. Any story, character or setting that takes place in Tolkien’s Middle-earth but is not found in the Tolkien Canon. Films, TV Movies, TV Shows, Video Games, Websites, Role-playing Games, Board Games, Trading Card Games along with expanded languages, illustrations and music that include characters, settings and story that expand upon the writings of Professor Tolkien.
The Expanded Mythology of Middle-earth is by definition an augmentation of Tolkien’s world. We here in The Land of Shadow.com have no problems with adding invented characters, places, and events which are not a part of Tolkien’s written Canon as long as they conform to his invented world. Mordor for example, is shrouded in mystery, and throughout most of Tolkien’s writings it remains unilluminated, so here in The Land of Shadow.com we have incorporated many different sources of non-canon content to give description to areas and characters in Mordor not detailed in the books.
If you see this symbol on our site, then you know what you are reading is derived from the Expended Mythology of Middle-earth and goes beyond Tolkien’s original published works of fiction. Whenever possible, we will delineate between what we term ‘Tolkien Canon’ and the ‘Expanded Mythology’ of Middle-earth.
You can go HERE to read more about our definition of the Tolkien Canon. And HERE for a discussion on Canon vs Expanded Mythology.
The term ‘Expanded Mythology’ has gone through many iterations here in Mordor, but we feel the Expanded Mythology is the best way to describe all of the content about Middle-earth not derived from Tolkien Canon. Story, characters and locations not found in Tolkien’s writing can be found on this website from Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogies, as well as the animated films by Ralph Bakshi and Rankin & Bass. Expanded Mythology can be seen here in Mordor from games such as Lord of the Rings: War in the North and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. In addition content from The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game for the names of the Nine Nazgûl, which Tolkien never named in full. In our interactive map of Mordor (sorry no longer available on this site), we sourced names and places from a Map of Mordor created by New Line Cinema and exceptional cartographer Daniel Reeve, who made the maps used on both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films. He names locations and places never mentioned by Tolkien.
Finally, we here in Mordor have created a great deal of content of our own for use on the site. Our rule is as follows… whatever non-Tolkien content we use or invent, it MUST fit logically and thematically into the world Tolkien created.
