Rater Reads The Hobbit

[pendell]

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Seriously, a week? These guys take long breaks. Most stories of this kind of journey have breaks of maybe a night?

The dwarves have just crossed Mirkwood. During this time they experienced starvation, combat, poison from spiders, capture by elves, topped off with a barrel ride from which some emerged half-drowned.

It's no surprise it took them close to a week to recuperate. In the real world, Tolkien came down with trench fever and was in hospital for months. He knew something about the strains of this sort of thing and the toll it took on the body. This was before the trope of a one night stay in the inn curing all status ailments and restoring all hp/mp was a thing, after all

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[PontificatusRex]

This was before the trope of a one night stay in the inn curing all status ailments and restoring all hp/mp was a thing, after all

Yeah, in 1st Edition AD&D I believe characters recovered 1 hit point per day of rest.

[Corvus]

Yeah, in 1st Edition AD&D I believe characters recovered 1 hit point per day of rest.

2ed was the same, unless someone had herbalism and healing nwp in which case they could get it up to 3 hp a day with rest.

But generally groups had a cleric in the group to speed things up.

Was it third or fourth that changed that?

[The_Snark]

I believe 3rd edition changed it to 1 hp per level per day of rest, so that high-level characters without magic healing (an admittedly rare scenario) wouldn't have to rest for literal months to get back to full HP. 4e was the first edition to adopt the full-heal-overnight thing, although it was present in video games well before that.

[Rater202]

Okay, next chapter.

Spoiler: On The Doorstep

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Three days up the river before landfall, then supplies and the Lake-Men refuse to stay the night in the shadow of the Lonely Mountain because this close to the mountain it's easy to believe in the Dragon.

And, as an aside, use of proper nouns. Smaug is not "a dragon," he is "the Dragon." Though I'm used to seeing "The" capitalized in this context as well.

This is similar to Sauron being "the Necromancer" or, more lightly, the fact that Bilbo lives under "the Hill" instead of under "a hill."

It's the magic capital letters trope. By treating what should be a common term as a proper noun, it becomes more important symbolically.

We have a note on how cold and lonely the night is and how weary the leg of the journey is... The fact that we are explicitly told there's no music during it after how important song and story have been throughout drives it home perfectly.

Descriptive prose describing the desolation that Smaug had brought to the area.

The Front Gate, as an illustration, is somewhat unsettling. It drives home how barren things are.

At the end of the journey, the sheer amount of time and hardship they have experienced to get here and the fact that the hard part is yet to come is hard on the soul. I can relate.

So I missed it earlier, back after the troll encounter, because Gandalf was still with them, but this chapter makes mention of the party attempting to pen the secret entrance with "spells of opening." Gandalf is obviously the magical powerhouse of the party when he's with them at least, but between this and the spells of protection on the buried loot way back when suggests that the dwarves are capable of their own spellcasting, to a degree. It's interesting and I wish for more details.

Most of the next bit of the chapter is exploring around the secret entrance, trying to find a way in or break through it. Except for Bilbo, who mostly stares toward the west and thinks of home.

The dwarves begin to plan to send Bilbo in the front gate using the ring to spy, but finally, the appropriate evening occurs and the key to the secret door appears. The chapter ends with the door opening.

Honestly, I could feel the weariness, the tiredness, the homesickness, and the bleakness of the surroundings. Reading this chapter made me feel tired.

And I'm gonna try to get the next chapter soon. If I understand correctly, it's the big one.

[Eldan]

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep
In hollow halls beneath the fells

***

A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor
And runes of power upon the door


I don't think it ever goes into more detail than that. Dwarves engrave powerful runes on their dwellings and they make wondrous magical artefacts. That's it. But in Middle Earth, all craftsmanship is magical. Elven rope can untie itself, because it is well made.

[Grim Portent]

They probably also knew some forms of incantation type magic. Poems and songs that extoll something to open, shut, be hidden or revealed and so on. Magic that works off already present properties or possibilities, like how Gandalf needs fuel to conjure fire.

Obviously there's a distinction that should be drawn between the Hobbit and the LotR and it's portrayal of things. The dwarves in the Hobbit can talk to birds, know magic and so on because they're in a more fairytale narrative. I don't recall any similar abilities or knowledge being attributed to Gimli in the LotR.

An in universe explanation for how they might know such things would be that they are from Erebor and not the Iron Hills, and the dwarves of Erebor can understand birds in general, and that they have spent a long time as travelling merchants, miners and craftsmen and could have picked up various bits of knowledge about how to find and open secret doors left by elves and dwarves.

[Misery Esquire]

Obviously there's a distinction that should be drawn between the Hobbit and the LotR and it's portrayal of things. The dwarves in the Hobbit can talk to birds, know magic and so on because they're in a more fairytale narrative. I don't recall any similar abilities or knowledge being attributed to Gimli in the LotR.

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To be fair, Gimli doesn't meet any ancient lineage of talking ravens while on his LotR journey to demonstrate with.

And there is a fox early on in FotR that has a human-esque wondering narrated to us - though that admittedly should probably be considered just fun prose rather than a serious suggestion that there's philosophical foxes around.

[Grim Portent]

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To be fair, Gimli doesn't meet any ancient lineage of talking ravens while on his LotR journey to demonstrate with.

And there is a fox early on in FotR that has a human-esque wondering narrated to us - though that admittedly should probably be considered just fun prose rather than a serious suggestion that there's philosophical foxes around.

Spoiler: Spoiler

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The dwarves in the Hobbit can speak to the thrush though, and understand the crows hanging out by the main entrance to Erebor, the ravens actually speak in the tongue of men such that even Bilbo can understand them.

Of course there's the matter that the line of Girion can speak to birds, so it might be a trait shared specifically by the dwarves of Erebor and the kings of Dale and no other mortals.

[factotum]

I'm pretty sure it's explicitly stated that depends on your birth in a later chapter:

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Bard the Bowman finds, to his surprise, that he can understand the raven telling him where to shoot Smaug, and it says it's because he's of a particular lineage that he can do that.

[Wintermoot]

I'm pretty sure it's explicitly stated that depends on your birth in a later chapter:

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Bard the Bowman finds, to his surprise, that he can understand the raven telling him where to shoot Smaug, and it says it's because he's of a particular lineage that he can do that.

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Bard's mom was into some freaky freaky {scrubbed}

[Grim Portent]

I'm pretty sure it's explicitly stated that depends on your birth in a later chapter:

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Bard the Bowman finds, to his surprise, that he can understand the raven telling him where to shoot Smaug, and it says it's because he's of a particular lineage that he can do that.

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Which applies to Bard of the line of Girion, last king of Dale as his bloodline of men explicitly inherits bird speech. Though it was the thrush that told him on it's own initiative, the raven went to the Iron Hills to contact Thorin's second cousin on behalf of the dwarves. If the ravens knew of Smaug's weak spot they could have told basically anyone about it because they spoke the human tongue, even the trolls from earlier in the story would be able to talk to them.

I'm not sure it would apply to Thorin son of Thrain, or the dwarves of Erebor in general. Of course we don't know if Iron Hills dwarves could speak to birds, or if Dain specifically could as a relative of Thorin*, so it's impossible to know if bird speech is a learned skill of the dwarves in the Hobbit, an inherent ability of some dwarves, or an inherent ability of all dwarves that just never came up again.

*Since it was Roäc who went to speak to Dain on Thorin's behalf, and Roäc spoke in a language Bilbo understood (presumably Westron, the common speech) he doesn't provide any evidence about bird speech among the broader dwarven people nor in Dain specifically. To my knowledge Dain never speaks to any birds other than the raven messengers who ferry messages between him and Thorin, though it doesn't necessarily mean he couldn't talk to thrushes, sparrows and so on, just that if he ever did it wasn't important to the Hobbit, especially since Dain has something like one line of dialogue in the book as I recall.

[pendell]

The magic of the dwarves is in craftsmanship ; their artifacts are magical, like elvish artifacts are, but it's a different kind of magic. Also everybody uses magic to close and open doors. Witness Gandalf telling us he knew every spell used for the purpose of opening closed doors in the tongues of elves, men, and orcs. This was in fellowship of the ring before the doors of Moria. Good for him no one in thousands of years of middle earth history discovered the equivalent of two-factor authentication!

A similar magic is seen in the weapon taken from the mounds of the barrow downs originally forged by the men of Arnor. They didn't glow like Sting, but they could "break the spell" knitting the "flesh and sinew" of the ringwraiths to their will.

So we know that doors will open and shut when the proper doors are spoken. Perhaps lights of some kind as well. Many of the details are left to the imagination, which is just as well; imagining what dwarves were capable of has been the pasttime of fantasy writers for decades.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Rater202]

Okay, next chapter. Inside Information.

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...I love how Tolkien admits that Thorin goes on too long when making important speeches and just gives the important bit.

Bilbo: "So by 'burglar' you mean 'canary to go in first and die if there's danger?' I mean, I'm pretty sure I've already earned my pay, but, fine, at this point I'm used to danger. Who wants to do something stupid with me? No one? Okay, bye."

Sarcastic Bilbo is the best. I get the feeling that he's just kind of done right now.

"dwarves are not heroes. They are calculating and greedy but the good ones will make the effort to pay what you're worth." That's a nice way to put it.

...No, as I read the passage describing Bilbo's frightened but determined descent deep under the mountain, through perfect tunnels carved by master craftsmen, he's not done... He's just completly out of ****s to give.

A glow? A red light that grows redder and redder as he gets closer and closer... And it's getting hotter? And a massive animal snorting...

...Is... Is Smaug incandecent?

Long description about how continuing forward is the bravest thing Bilbo does, even compared to what comes next.

"But rising from the near side of the rocky floor thre is a great glow. The glow of Smaug."

He is! He's Incandescent! Smaug is a great big scaley Lightbulb!

Spoiler: Pictures

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Here we have two pictures, taken from Wikis, of the two film adaptions of Smaug.

Note: Neither of them glow.

Where's the glow? Where's the firey, incandescent glow? Why am I only learning this for the first time reading the orignal book?

And he's described as "red-golden." red-gold as a color looks sort of bronze, a glossy red-orange with yellowish undertones. As a metal, red-gold seems to be another name for rose-gold, which is an alloy of gold and copper that varies from beige to pale pink.

Most artistic depictions make him flat-out red and the live-action movie seems to make him brown.

And as I noted when I started this, Tolkien's drawings of Smaug show him as long and serpent-like. I admit that the description of a sleeping Smaug as batlike could be confusing, but one adaption made him a wyvern while the other made him a cat with wings.

...Why did the Rankin-Bass adaption make him a cat?

Moving on!

Bilbo flees with a cup from Smaug's hoard purely to impress the dwarves... And he does.

Meanwhile, Smaug is roused from his sleep by a nightmare about a man with a bitter sword and realizes that some of his plunder has been re-plundered.

Tolkien makes a scathing commentary about the rich, and Smaug fleeces the mountain to scour it for his thief. The dwarves scramble to rescue what they can of the members of their party and their goods left behind at their camp before Smaug is upon them. Bofur andBombur are saved, as are some goods and tools, but the ponies are lost.

Man. This book is not kind to equines.

Also, a reminder that he glows.

...The dwarves never came up with a plan to deal with the dragon. Seriously?

And they blame Bilbo. Admittedly, it is partly his fault, but as he points out they hired him to burgle the dragon so they bear a portion of the blame and, as the narrative points out, they really should have thought of this.

As everyone wonders what to do now, Bilbo showcases his character development by volunteering to go and observe Smaug while he sleeps to try and find some weakness that could be used to slay him or drive him off, even though he doubts it's possible. I don't see the man who tried to politely shoo away the wizard at his doorstep doing that.

...And Smaug immediately notices Bilbo by smell. And he speaks.

Now, I knew that Smaug was intelligent and spoke eloquently, but up until this point he'd been described as a base animal, but bigger and more dangerous. And I understand that while intelligent dragons were existent in the western canon, but Tolkien certainly popularized it.

I wonder, exactly, how many first-time readers back in the day were surprised by this turn of events.

And here we see Bilbo's cleverness in play. He doesn't fall for Smaug's trap, but tries to flatter him and trap him in riddles when his name is requested. It's... A mixed bag.

The narration describes how dragons can't resist riddles... And then it goes on to say that Smaug came to the wrong conclusion and now thinks that Bilbo is one of the Lake-Man. Mayhaps he should have left out the barrel-rider part.

Smaug confirms that he ate the ponies. I do believe I saw this coming.

And then we see Smaug's own cleverness: He could smell and taste dwarf on the ponies he ate... And tries to cast doubt upon their claims of fair compensation for doing the dangerous part. Noting correctly that Bilbo wasn't paid for the cup, suggesting that the Dwarves have no real intent to pay him...

And guesses correctly that the Dwarves haven't said anything about how they intend to get the gold off the mountain, even if Bilbo plundered it all, and about transporting his share back to his home...

And it works, Bilbo begins to doubt... But chooses to remain loyal anyway. He makes up a lie, about the quest being one of revenge, not profit... Smaug laughs.

And here it is... The part that everyone knows.

Humor me, please.

"Revenge! Revenge! The King under the Mountain is dead and where are his kin that dare seek revenge? Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten his people like wolf among sheep, and where are his sons' sons that dare approach me? I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in this world today. Then I was young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows. My armor is like tenfold shields. My teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!"

Forgive me, I had to quote this boastful speech in its entirety. It was a compulsion.

How... Amazing, a line is this? This is someone who is absurdly powerful, knows that they're absurdly powerful, and is confidentin that power speaking.

Smaug id no beast. Smaug is no man. Smaug is a primal force of nature made flesh and he knows it.

Backtracking a bit, Bilbo tacking "Unreasonably Wealthy" onto the list of flattering titles he addresses Smaug with to me comes off as a subtle burn. Smaug of course did nothing to earn this treasuire. This was mined and crafted ages ago by the dwarves solely to sate their love of crafting and their desire to make beautiful things. Smaug is a thief and a murderer.

It is thus most unreasonable that he has this wealth.

Edit, never mind, I misread.

And after this boast, it's back to Bilbo's cleverness: He makes a note about how it is known that a dragon's chest(not belly?) is less armored than the rest of them, prompting Smaug to reveal the gold and jewels attached to his scales and Bilbo, already knowing off it, then flatters Smaug into showing it... Letting Bilbo find the chink in his armor.

Bilbo excuses himself, Taunts Smaug because, again, he just doesn't seem to give a damn anymore, and flees, getting his biscuits burned for that last bit of hubris.

Mention of intelligent magical birds and how the men of Dale could speak to them. Knowing what I know from osmosis, this foreshadowing is as subtle as a brick to the face. I again wonder how those who went in truly blind perceived it.

...Or maybe that wasn't meant to be foreshadowing. The chapter flat out says the Thrush was listening to the entire recap and the follow-up discussion of various tales of dragon slaying. Maybe it's just flat-out saying things.

Then they hide in the tunnel, prepared to shut the door behind them if need b, and then discuss Smaug's attempt to dissuade Bilbo.

Thorin basically says "we didn't plan that far becuase we didn't know if we'd live, but if we make it out of this you're getting your cut and we'll hold the costs of getting it home for you if need be." This might just be becuase Thorin was explicitly said to be one of the "good dwarves" earlier in this chapter, but it seems like he's a good man. Or at least one of his word.

Loving description of the dwarven treasures that may yet lie below... Though having been humbled by almost being cooked alive, Bilbo is too wary of coming attack to be interested in the vast riches.

The chapter ends with Smaug flying down the river to take his anger out on the Lake-Men

so this chapter was bt 19 pages, but it honestly felt like more has happened in this one chapter than in the last two combined. I love Tolkien's descriptive prose but some passages in this book feel like using a lot of words to say not a lot. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't...

This feels like the exact right amount of words for what happened.

[factotum]

I recall one edition of "The Hobbit" had a picture drawn by Tolkien himself on the front showing Smaug above Lake-town which was basically a mahoosive spoiler for what happens there--always thought it a bit odd, really! Although I wish I'd kept that particular edition because it seems to be a very unusual one. In that particular image Smaug is shown as long and wormlike, but he's actually white and green with no particular indication of a glow.

(For reference, this is the front cover I'm talking about, in spoilers for obvious reasons):

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https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4d/16...75950a8085.jpg

[Eldan]

This is also by Tolkirn, though: https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-st...downsize=640:*

[DavidSh]

This is the point where Smaug really feels like the dragon from Beowulf, with which Tolkien was very familiar.

[Fyraltari]

Yeah this is the point where the dwarves' lack of preparation is extremely blatant.
I got the impression that Thorin wasn't really expecting to succeed but would not forgive himself if he didn't at least try and old as he was getting, it was now or never. But if that's the case, bringing his nephews along was kind of irresponsible.

This is the point where Smaug really feels like the dragon from Beowulf, with which Tolkien was very familiar.

I think he said he took inspiration from Fafnir and Beowulf's dragon.

Edit: Also, Smaug isn't in much of the book but damn if he doesn't leave an impression.

[Grim Portent]

I got the impression that Thorin wasn't really expecting to succeed but would not forgive himself if he didn't at least try and old as he was getting, it was now or never. But if that's the case, bringing his nephews along was kind of irresponsible.

I imagine they would have insisted on coming along regardless of what Thorin wanted, dwarven kin-bonds seem rather strong so going on a nominally doomed quest with family is more or less culturally expected, especially for gold and revenge against a dragon.

[Fyraltari]

I imagine they would have insisted on coming along regardless of what Thorin wanted, dwarven kin-bonds seem rather strong so going on a nominally doomed quest with family is more or less culturally expected, especially for gold and revenge against a dragon.

Spoiler: Not really a spoiler but kinda

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Yeah, but one of them is heir to the crown!

[Scarlet Knight]

A prince has to go questing...it's what they do.

[Sapphire Guard]

If they don't win, there's no throne to win anyway. And biding your time doesn't work against a dragon, because he's not going to die of old age or anything.

[Fyraltari]

A prince has to go questing...it's what they do.

I think it's in Unfinished Tales that it is said that in Gondor the Crown Prince is not allowed to go to battle with his father and one disobeying that rule is a big part of why there ain't no king left in Gondor.

[Grim Portent]

I think it's in Unfinished Tales that it is said that in Gondor the Crown Prince is not allowed to go to battle with his father and one disobeying that rule is a big part of why there ain't no king left in Gondor.

The dwarven royals have a few cousins to fall back on, and are generally quite hard to kill under normal circumstances, so they aren't necessarily going to have particularly robust rules to guarantee the succession.

Thorin has Fili and Kili as nephews and potential heirs, his cousin Dain II and Thorin (son of Dain,) then also his more distant kinsmen Balin, Dwalin, Oin, Gloin and Gimli who would all be heirs in the event that the line of Dain I died out, as they were descended from Dain I's brother Borin and are all descended from Thrain I who founded Erebor. So even if all the party of thirteen died there'd still be Dain and Gimli to inherit the title.

The genealogy doesn't seem to go past Dain II's grandson Durin VII, which indicates only Dain had children out of the entire extended family.


It's still a shortsighted move, but given that they had no kingdom anyway there wasn't really much point in not all joining in out of a combination of personal loyalty and resentment of the dragon. As something of a last hurrah if nothing else, though in truth they didn't seem to expect to actually get there. I think it was the sort of thing they'd bigged up in their minds for so long that when it actually came down to it they didn't really think about what would be involved.

Of course they might not be aware Dain had a kid at the time, the genealogy indicates he would have been less than a hundred when the adventure ended, and Thorin and co hadn't visited the Iron Hills in a very long time.


EDIT: Apparently Ori, Dori and Nori were also distant relatives of Thorin, though not of the line of the kings of Erebor they would probably have a claim in the event the main branches died.

[factotum]

If they don't win, there's no throne to win anyway.

From what I recall it's not like the dwarves are destitute at the beginning of the book--they've made a reasonable life for themselves in exile in the Blue Mountains, and there's mention of a sky-blue hood with a silver tassel (which I think was worn by Thorin himself), so precious metals are at least somewhat available. And this wouldn't be the first time Durin's Folk had been forced into exile while still keeping their ruling structure intact, don't forget they only went to the Lonely Mountain in the first place because they were driven out of Moria, their true kingdom.

[Fyraltari]

From what I recall it's not like the dwarves are destitute at the beginning of the book--they've made a reasonable life for themselves in exile in the Blue Mountains, and there's mention of a sky-blue hood with a silver tassel (which I think was worn by Thorin himself), so precious metals are at least somewhat available. And this wouldn't be the first time Durin's Folk had been forced into exile while still keeping their ruling structure intact, don't forget they only went to the Lonely Mountain in the first place because they were driven out of Moria, their true kingdom.

There's even another kingdom sandwiched between these two, situated in the Grey Mountains that they lost to some more dragons.

Middle-Earth is not very kind to Durin's Folk.

[Peelee]

I think it's in Unfinished Tales that it is said that in Gondor the Crown Prince is not allowed to go to battle with his father and one disobeying that rule is a big part of why there ain't no king left in Gondor.

Forgive me if I'm remembering The Hobbit incorrectly, but there already ain't no king left in Eberor.

[Fyraltari]

Forgive me if I'm remembering The Hobbit incorrectly, but there already ain't no king left in Eberor.

Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror may not be king under the Montain, but he is king of the Longbeard Dwarves who have settlements in the Iron Hill and the Blue Mountains. His father lead a coalition of all dwarfkind against the orcs of Moria.
Durin's line still has a lot of power.

[Peelee]

Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror may not be king under the Montain, but he is king of the Longbeard Dwarves who have settlements in the Iron Hill and the Blue Mountains. His father lead a coalition of all dwarfkind against the orcs of Moria.
Durin's line still has a lot of power.

Fair. Next issue, then: Longbeard Dwarves are not Gondorians*, and different cultures have different rules and values.

*Granted, I don't know this for sure, but I'm willing to go out on a limb here.

[Fyraltari]

Fair. Next issue, then: Longbeard Dwarves are not Gondorians*, and different cultures have different rules and values.

*Granted, I don't know this for sure, but I'm willing to go out on a limb here.

I know. I was just using the Gondorrhims as convienient example of " a prince gotta go questing" not being a universal truth in Middle-Earth.