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There seems to be a bit of a gap between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. While we know the outcomes from The Hobbit to Lord of the Rings, we don't know what happened between them. Did Tolkien ever novelize this?

Connecting the two movies together, I've pieced the following sub-plots:

  • Saruman becomes corrupted by peering into the Palantír of Orthanc at some point after The Hobbit
  • Gollum gets captured by Sauron's army
  • Legolas leaves his homeland, in search of a ranger of some importance
  • Tauriel is banished from her homeland
  • Bilbo returns to the Shire, and finally relinquishes The One Ring on his 111th birthday to Frodo

What doesn't seemed joined by the books or the two trilogy films:

  • How did a powerful white wizard like Saruman become enchanted/corrupted by Sauron
  • What was Gollum doing before he was captured
  • Where was Thranduil during the events of Lord of the Rings
  • What happened to Tauriel during Lord of the Rings
  • What happened to the remaining company of dwarves after The Hobbit
  • Who now resides within Erebor
  • What happened to Radagast during Lord of the Rings
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    I can tell you that Tolkien never wrote about Tauriel; the character was created out of whole cloth by Jackson and co. For the others, I'm not aware of all of them (Although Radagast makes an appearance in Fellowship), but a likely place to look would either be the History of Middle Earth series or Tolkien's Letters
    – Jason Baker
    Commented Dec 14, 2014 at 22:57
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    And we know who resided in Erebor.
    – Matt Gutting
    Commented Dec 14, 2014 at 23:21
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    @MattGutting Tyler Perry's Madea? (Seems to be everywhere.)
    – Meat Trademark
    Commented Dec 14, 2014 at 23:26
  • @JasonBaker: Radagast's name is mentioned in LotR (at the Council in Rivendell), but he never actually makes an appearance.
    – Kyle Kanos
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 15:03
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    There is a fundamental problem with asking about "what Tolkien wrote" based on events in Peter Jackson's movies. If the policies of other SE sites held here, this question would be closed as off-topic because you didn't do any preluminary research (at a minimum, reading the books Tolkien actually wrote).
    – Spencer
    Commented Oct 3, 2017 at 22:32

3 Answers 3

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SPOILERS ALL UP IN THIS PIECE!!

The answers to your specifics are mostly found in the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (including its appendices), and perhaps also in the Third Age section of The Silmarillion with dribs and drabs in Unfinished Tales. Most of this you would get simply by reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Here we go:

How did a powerful white wizard like Saruman become enchanted/corrupted by Sauron

He was seduced by the lure of power and the fear of defeat. Straight up out of The Two Towers, he did not believe it was possible to defeat Sauron without the One Ring, and if anyone was going to have the ring besides Sauron he was. Per Jason's comment: Saruman was seduced by the possibility of using The One Ring to force Middle-earth into an alternate image than Sauron's.

What was Gollum doing before he was captured

Post The Hobbit he eventually set out from the Misty Mountains in search of Bilbo Baggins. He knew Bilbo Baggins headed East, therefore so did he. He was eventually caught by the agents of Mordor and then set loose, possibly because Sauron believed he might seek and find the ring and bring it to him. So: he was seeking the ring.

Where was Thranduil during the events of Lord of the Rings

Defending Mirkwood.

What happened to Tauriel during Lord of the Rings

She was entirely a creation of Peter Jackson. Tolkien never wrote her.

What happened to the remaining company of dwarves after The Hobbit

They generally lived in Erebor, being BDoCs (big Dwarves on campus). Some of them (unspecified) would also visit Bilbo here and there over the years... probably whilst in transit to or from Ered Luin. Notably, post The Hobbit, Balin left to retake Moria, the ancient and greatest city of the Dwarves. With him from the Quest of Erebor went Óin and Ori among other dwarves; these were all eventually slain in their endeavor.

Whom now resides within Erebor

If by "now" you mean post The Hobbit and pre The Lord of the Rings then Thorin's cousin Dáin Ironfoot took up the kingship of Erebor. With him came many Dwarves from the Iron Hills, and Dwarves from other regions (e.g., Ered Luin, the Blue Mountains) joined also to rebuild the kingdom.

What happened to Radagast during Lord of the Rings

It's a loose end, and we do not really know. Peter Jackson constructed a great deal of narrative around Radagast that was never authored by Tolkien. The last we ever hear about Radagast the Brown is that he is duped into luring Gandalf into Saruman's clutches.

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    Tolkien talks about Saruman's fall in more detail in Letter 181: "[The Istari] were also, for the same reason, thus involvedin the peril of the incarnate: the possibility of 'fall', of sin, if you will. The chief form this would take with them would be impatience, leading to the desire to force others to their own good ends,and so inevitably at last to mere desire to make their own wills effective by any means. To this evil Saruman succumbed."
    – Jason Baker
    Commented Dec 14, 2014 at 23:38
  • @JasonBaker Excellent! +1 See my edit amplifying based on your comment. (And feel free to upvote for my effort! :)
    – Lexible
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 0:32
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    I seem to recall there is a comment somewhere in canon that Radaghast was sent back to Valinor in disgrace. He had "failed", not in terms of actively opposing the will of the Valar like Saruman, but by becoming enamored of the animals and plants of middle earth and forgetting his true purpose.
    – Bob Tway
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 17:27
  • @MattThrower I remember reading about the "failure" in the relevant chapter of Unfinished Tales, but I'd never heard about him being called back to Valinor. Do you have a reference?
    – Jason Baker
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 18:11
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    It is important to mention Thranduil defending Mirkwood. A lot of people miss that without the reclamation of Erebor, the north would have been lost. Mirkwood and Dale alone were not strong enough to fight Sauron's forces in the north plus a reawakened dragon. They barely stood even with Erebor (even without a dragon). "Yet things might have gone far otherwise and far worse ... Dragon-fire and savage swords in Eriador, night in Rivendell. There might be no queen in Gondor. We might now hope to return from victory here only to ruin and ash." - The Return of the King, Appendix A
    – ssell
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 20:25
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Most of the information you've noted is actually given as backstory in the Lord of the Rings; a closer reading of The Council of Elrond will reveal the information you're looking for. If you require more detailed information on any of the items you list, you should ask them as separate questions (although be sure to search the site first as they may already have been asked).

There is more information on the movements of Gollum in the Unfinished Tales section entitled The Hunt for the Ring, but this mostly concerns the time after his capture by Sauron.

Tauriel is, of course, a movie invention and she doesn't appear in the books, so Tolkien wrote nothing about her.

The only Middle-earth novels Tolkien wrote were The Silmarillion, the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, but he died leaving The Silmarillion uncompleted (despite it being the one that was written first; it's a long and complicated story). There are no other novels covering the intervening period.

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  • While there are no other complete and published novels, as Lexible notes there are a number of elements in Unfinished Tales and also in the other Histories covering the writing of LotR.
    – Zhaph - Ben Duguid
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 9:59
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After The Hobbit, the rest of the Dwarves went to Moria for gold and the lost ring of Thorin.

They were successful in capturing it . But nobody knew exactly what had happened next. Actually, the dwarves were captured and killed by the orcs and goblins later . According to lotr, the demon Balrog resided there and destroyed them. The Goblins lived there hiding.

They learnt about it when the fellowship went there (as Gimli told them) and made a huge mistake.

In the 60 years, Sauron slowly rose in power, gathered an orc army and started his expansion by attacking the black gate. The rangers of the black gate were killed.

The story begins with the ranger Talion, who was also a ranger of the black gate. He and his family were killed by the orcs. But was cursed and possessed by the wrath of Celebrimbor.

Thus having a second chance , he used his special powers to brand orcs and create his own orc army and fought with Sauron's army.

Between these, Talion defeated the tower and hammer of Sauron and ultimately defeated the black hand . Thus having taken his revenge he said "its time for a new ring".

This is taken from the game Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, based on what happened in the 60 years.

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    So you're saying: "No, Tolkien never wrote anything more about it, yet some game designers did?
    – BMWurm
    Commented Oct 28, 2015 at 17:51

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