Watcher in the Water

In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, The Watcher in the Water is a mysterious and horrific beast with tentacles. It appears in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of the novel The Lord of the Rings as originally printed.

It lurked in a lake caused by the damming of the Sirannon river, beneath the western walls of Moria. The creature had at least 21 tentacles, with which he attacked the Fellowship.

The Watcher attacked the Fellowship of the Ring as they were about to enter the mines of Moria via the Doors of Durin. Tolkien writes very little about the creature. Even Gandalf did not know what the Watcher was, or whether there were many of its kind. It grasped Frodo with a long tentacle, possibly with a fingered end, which was pale green and luminous. Many other tentacles emerged from the water after the one that grasped Frodo was driven away, but it is not totally clear whether these were all part of the same multi-armed beast, or a number of monsters acting together. In any case, the creature or creatures possessed great strength; after the escape of the Fellowship into Moria, the arms hurled the enormous stone doors shut and uprooted the trees that grew to either side, barring the doors.

Later, when the Fellowship finds the journal documenting the doom of Balin's expedition to reclaim Moria, it relates: "... run the pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin. We cannot get out." This is the only name Tolkien ever gave to the creature. Gandalf himself as well as others noted that the Watcher had grabbed Frodo first out of all of them.

Identity

David Day, in A Tolkien Bestiary, calls the Watcher a Kraken and implies that there are some differences between the Scandinavian and the Watcher in the Water. However, Tolkien never referred to the Watcher as a kraken or described the presence of krakens in Middle-earth. In The Tolkien Companion by J. E. A. Tyler, under "Dragon" it says, "Cold-Drakes...these dragons rely on their strength and speed alone (the creature that attacked the Ring-Bearer near the Lake of Moria may have been one of these)." Like Day's account, this is only conjecture.

Film adaptations

The Watcher in the Water is mentioned in both the film adaptations of the Lord of the Rings.

In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 version, the Hobbits are transfixed by the lake outside the gates of Moria. When Gandalf opens the doors, the creature grabs Frodo, but only the tentacles of the creature are seen, and they reach out and close the doors.

In Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring, the Watcher is portrayed as one creature, a black, giant squid-like monster with a gaping maw filled with sharp teeth.