The Watcher in the Water is a fictional creature in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium; it appears in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings. Lurking in a lake beneath the western walls of the dwarf-realm Moria, it is said to have appeared after the damming of the river Sirannon, and was first recorded by Balin's dwarf company 30 or so years before the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring. The origins of the creature are not described in Tolkien's works, but writers have compared it to squids, the legendary kraken, and even to Tolkien's dragons.
Read more about Watcher In The Water: Literature, Concept and Creation, Portrayal in Adaptations
Famous quotes containing the words watcher and/or water:
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“Beauclerc: You’ve got a good memory for one who drinks.
Eddie: Drinkin’ don’t bother my memory. If it did, I wouldn’t drink. I couldn’t. You see, I’d forget how good it was. Then where’d I be? I’d start drinkin’ water again.”
—Jules Furthman (1888–1960)