Tolkien knew how to create heroes, and he did so by focusing on psychological battles as much as physical ones.

That’s counter-intuitive. Usually, when we think of heroism, we think of grand acts: powerful enemies and mighty conquests. But heroism begins in the mind. A hero can only conquer an external enemy once they’ve won the psychological war of their own shadow.

In the quote above, Bilbo’s personal crucible is the tunnel, a dark corridor with only two ways out:

For Tolkien, the “real battle” has to be fought alone. It’s in this silent reckoning, where the option to retreat is still available, that Bilbo must summon the courage of true bravery.

The tunnel represents an archetypal human struggle. The internal battle comes before the external one. Some people spend their whole lives paralyzed in the claustrophobia of their own tunnel, steeped in the fear of a battle they never find the determination to fight.

This psychological battle foreshadows the challenges yet to come, and provides an emotional scaffolding for them. So connect readers with your hero in a solitary trial before they face off against their ultimate adversary – it lays the foundation for us to see ourselves in them at the climax of the story.