Rater Reads The Hobbit

[pendell]

Issue there would be that Bill would probably refuse to move while carrying it. I don't think non-bird animals in LotRs can be corrupted as such, at least not without torture, selective breeding and sorcery, but they can still sense the taint of Morgoth and Sauron.

Not to mention the ring would still just convince someone else to take it from Bill. Would probably be easier than taking it from Frodo because no one needs to get hurt in the process. Boromir could literally have just picked it up and walked off with it with far less internal conflict. Being faced with the prospect of having to hurt Frodo to get the ring was probably a large part of why it took him as long as it did to break,

I read Pratchett's Night Watch. Give the Fellowship some ginger, I'll wager they can find a way to move him.

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

[Grim Portent]

I think only Merry and Pippin would be up for giving Bill that kind of motivation.

[DavidSh]

I think only Merry and Pippin would be up for giving Bill that kind of motivation.

Sounds more like Moxie and Pepsi to me.

Besides all that, I wonder who carved the tunnels that Bilbo has been using. Goblins? Slaves of goblins? Dwarves? Nameless elder things? Natural caves are usually a lot more difficult to traverse.

[Scarlet Knight]

Besides all that, I wonder who carved the tunnels that Bilbo has been using. Goblins? Slaves of goblins? Dwarves? Nameless elder things? Natural caves are usually a lot more difficult to traverse.

Chapter 4 says about goblins: "They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves..."

[PontificatusRex]

You know, I can't help but note that Lovecraft died the year this came out. I seriously doubt that they would have gotten along, but this talk of strange, ancient slimy creatures in old caves brings his works to mind.

I doubt that Tolkien ever read Lovecraft, but there was a lot of "Slimy, ancient horrors deep underground" going on at the time. Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Howard, lots of lesser known folks. It's be interesting to examine what might have gotten that vibe going through so much early 20th century fantasy.

Though his use of a boat makes him more of a fairytale monster, like the trolls. I don't know why exactly it's the boat that makes me think that, but...

Only now do we find out that the Riddle Game is an old game covered by Ancient Laws... Honestly, it makes the whole setting feel as though it has a touch of the Fair Folk to it

And... And Gollum, after losing this challenge against a being of alledgly fae blood, tries to break his word and in doing so no only ends up holding up his end of a deal inspite of himself but losing his most prized posession in th eprocess.

This is, of course, all total concidence in-story, but I can't help but draw the parrleles to stories of people trying to get one over The Fair Folk here. Just something that occurred to me as I read.

I have to wonder if that was deliberate. Tolkien playing with an old fairytale trope.

The Hobbit is definitely more governed by fairy-tale rules than LOTR. Monsters talk with heroes, engage in contests, and generally act in ways that aren't "realistic behavior". I think that's one of book's great strengths - and LOTR explicitly plays against that with its more serious vibe.

Not much happens in this chapter... But as I understand the story to come, and of course the sequel, this is the single most important chapter in all of Tolkien's canon.

Not much happens? I'm kind of surprised you see it that way. Whether or not it's "the single most important chapter", a whole lot is happening, though it might be only apparent with hindsight. This is the chapter that transforms Bilbo from a liability to the Burglar he is supposed to be. I think it's safe to say without spoilers that having a ring that makes you invisible is going to have a gigantic impact on your career as a professional treasure hunter.

This chapter is a classic example of one of the key stages in the Hero's Journey as described by Joseph Campbell/Carl Jung. The hero descends into the darkest depths and confronts their opposite, and emerges transformed and empowered. For Bilbo, this means a small, sneaky hobbit like creature. For Gandalf in the depths of Moria, it's the Balrog. My favorite other example is from the science fiction masterpiece The Stars My Destination in which the protagonist is locked in an underground prison, but as he is an uneducated brutal thug his opposite is a very clever, highly educated woman who becomes his teacher. In that book the transformation is realistic and overt, whereas in the Hobbit it is symbolized by the Ring and the power it gives Bilbo.

[PontificatusRex]

Chapter 4 says about goblins: "They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves..."

Where there's a whip, there's a way.

[Peelee]

The Hobbit is definitely more governed by fairy-tale rules than LOTR. Monsters talk with heroes, engage in contests, and generally act in ways that aren't "realistic behavior". I think that's one of book's great strengths - and LOTR explicitly plays against that with its more serious vibe.

I never thought of it before, but that's kind of how Dragon Ball and DBZ worked too.

[Fyraltari]

Where there's a whip, there's a way.

We don't want to go to war today, but the Lord of the Lash says "Nay, nay, nay."

[pendell]

We don't want to go to war today, but the Lord of the Lash says "Nay, nay, nay."

We're gonna march all day, all day, all day!

CHORUS: For where there's a whip there's a way!

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

[Fyraltari]

We're gonna march all day, all day, all day!

CHORUS: For where there's a whip there's a way!

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right.

A crack on the back says: "we're gonna fight! We're gonna march! All day! And night! And moooooore!"
For we are the slaves of the Dark Lord's waaaaars.

Left, right, left, right, left, right.
Where there's a whip there's a wayyyyyy.




I have never watched that movie.

[Rater202]

When I say not much happened, I mean that literally

Bilbo woke up, found a ring, got into a contest with a monster, and escaped. It could probably have happened in half the word count but Tolkien has a lot of heavily descriptive prose.

Which is not a bad thing, mind you, but... This chapter maybe covers an hour out of a day.

Surprisingly little happened, but what did happen was majorly important.

[Peelee]

When I say not much happened, I mean that literally

Bilbo woke up, found a ring, got into a contest with a monster, and escaped. It could probably have happened in half the word count but Tolkien has a lot of heavily descriptive prose.

Which is not a bad thing, mind you, but... This chapter maybe covers an hour out of a day.

Surprisingly little happened, but what did happen was majorly important.

Spoiler: don't read this until you've finished the book

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Oh just wait til you find out that they made an entire movie out of a part that the main character is unconscious for the entirety of.

[Scarlet Knight]

Yes, but oh the beauty of that prose! Fear, anger, despair, pity: and the reader feels them all.

It's like saying a rainbow is just some colors in the sky...

[Manga Shoggoth]

Older than the Goblins? You know, I can't help but note that Lovecraft died the year this came out. I seriously doubt that they would have gotten along, but this talk of strange, ancient slimy creatures in old caves brings his works to mind.

I doubt that Tolkien ever read Lovecraft, but there was a lot of "Slimy, ancient horrors deep underground" going on at the time. Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Howard, lots of lesser known folks. It's be interesting to examine what might have gotten that vibe going through so much early 20th century fantasy.

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea

Tolkien would be more likely influenced by The Rime of the Ancient Mariner than Lovecraft, I imagine... I don't think Lovecraft was published in England until the 1950's.

[druid91]

So I dunno if anyone else did this yet, but...

Spoiler

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I notice the descriptions of the dwarves describe quite colorful clothes and especially beards... I haven't seen the films, and only clips of the Rankin-Bass production. Am I right to assume that it is omitted in favor of more traditionally 'dwarvy' colors?

The full company in Rankin Bass,

Spoiler

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And the full Company in the peter jackson Hobbit.

Spoiler

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[Rater202]

Rankin-Bass did it better.

Peter Jackson's Dwarves sem... They're all visually distinct but the colors are all washed out.

...I'm not gonna rea Lord of The Rings and find out that Gimli was hot-pink, am I?

(I'm probably not gonna read Lord of the Rings. I don't have the energy for that anymore.)

[Fyraltari]

Rankin-Bass did it better.

Peter Jackson's Dwarves sem... They're all visually distinct but the colors are all washed out.

...I'm not gonna rea Lord of The Rings and find out that Gimli was hot-pink, am I?

No, but Legolas might have been a brunette.

(I'm probably not gonna read Lord of the Rings. I don't have the energy for that anymore.)

You can't see it, but I am making a sad face.

Edit: Also PJ's The Hobbit has a young Thorin which I don't like because it eliminates the element of "now or never" in Thorin's quest and because they show him looking the exact same when the Dragon takes the Mountain meaning that either that happened only a couple years before or dwarves don't age.

[Rater202]

No, but Legolas might have been a brunette.


You can't see it, but I am making a sad face.

It's 1178 pages.

I just can't. It'd take too long. I'd burn out before I finished.

And since it was written as one book, I can't imagine that I'd be able to take breaks between them. It'd feel incomplete.

I used to be able to read hundreds of pages in one go, reading entire novels in a single day—my record is reading Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, a book over 700 pages long, in less than 20 hours, no breaks—but I just can't do that anymore.

[Manga Shoggoth]

It's 1178 pages.

I just can't. It'd take too long. I'd burn out before I finished.

And since it was written as one book, I can't imagine that I'd be able to take breaks between them. It'd feel incomplete.

Actually, while it was written as one book it was originally published as three books (The films took the same titles), and you can still get the individual books. And even the doorstopper version was split into five or six parts.

Reading the whole thing is best left for long plane flights or train journies, but there are ways to split it up provided in the text.

[Fyraltari]

It's 1178 pages.

I just can't. It'd take too long. I'd burn out before I finished.

And since it was written as one book, I can't imagine that I'd be able to take breaks between them. It'd feel incomplete.

I used to be able to read hundreds of pages in one go, reading entire novels in a single day—my record is reading Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, a book over 700 pages long, in less than 20 hours, no breaks—but I just can't do that anymore.

Hey, you don't have to justify yourself, you do whatever you feel like.

Although The Lord of the Rings is convieniently split up in 6 different books.

[Keltest]

Rankin-Bass did it better.

Peter Jackson's Dwarves sem... They're all visually distinct but the colors are all washed out.

...I'm not gonna rea Lord of The Rings and find out that Gimli was hot-pink, am I?

(I'm probably not gonna read Lord of the Rings. I don't have the energy for that anymore.)

The picture just isnt good for showing the colors. In the actual movies there are shots that are much better lit that show them off better. Dori is in bright red, for example, but the picture just doesnt show it.

[factotum]

Edit: Also PJ's The Hobbit has a young Thorin which I don't like because it eliminates the element of "now or never" in Thorin's quest and because they show him looking the exact same when the Dragon takes the Mountain meaning that either that happened only a couple years before or dwarves don't age.

Yeah, that's not right--Thorin was only 24 when Smaug attacked the Mountain, pretty much still a child in dwarven terms. Alas, were that the only problem with the Hobbit movies...

[pendell]

Hey, you don't have to justify yourself, you do whatever you feel like.

Although The Lord of the Rings is convieniently split up in 6 different books.

If one is willing to fork over the money, and they aren't cheap, one can get audiobook versions of Lord of the Rings from Audible. I suppose if one has an audible membership , one can get the books for "free" but, of course, the subscription itself still costs. That's how I "read" a lot of fiction and nonfiction these days. Back before COVID, I had to spend hours a day commuting from home to office and back. This got boring. My radio choices were either music I didn't care or , or some old guy who sound like a crazy uncle ranting for hours on the evils of the day. This turned me to CD audiobooks at the time, and as technology advanced I turned to streaming instead. The professor and many others over the years since have been a companion on many a long, lonely drive.

In addition to Audible, there are other services such as scribd. Apropos of this, I cannot recommend highly enough Children of Hurin because it's narrated by Christopher Lee . The story is eh and has an unhappy ending, but it's all worth it to hear Christopher Lee read the story in his inimitable way.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[hamishspence]

Yeah, that's not right--Thorin was only 24 when Smaug attacked the Mountain, pretty much still a child in dwarven terms. Alas, were that the only problem with the Hobbit movies...

Yup - Dain Ironfoot, who fought Azog at Moria in the books, and killed him, was 32 at the time, and this was extremely exceptional for one so young.

[Trafalgar]

If one is willing to fork over the money, and they aren't cheap, one can get audiobook versions of Lord of the Rings from Audible. I suppose if one has an audible membership , one can get the books for "free" but, of course, the subscription itself still costs. That's how I "read" a lot of fiction and nonfiction these days. Back before COVID, I had to spend hours a day commuting from home to office and back. This got boring. My radio choices were either music I didn't care or , or some old guy who sound like a crazy uncle ranting for hours on the evils of the day. This turned me to CD audiobooks at the time, and as technology advanced I turned to streaming instead. The professor and many others over the years since have been a companion on many a long, lonely drive.

In addition to Audible, there are other services such as scribd. Apropos of this, I cannot recommend highly enough Children of Hurin because it's narrated by Christopher Lee . The story is eh and has an unhappy ending, but it's all worth it to hear Christopher Lee read the story in his inimitable way.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

You can get the excellent 1981 "Mind's Eye" version of the Hobbit for free on You Tube or on several other websites.

[An Enemy Spy]

I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere before in this thread but it's important to remember that The Hobbit was not originally meant to be part of Tolkien's mythic history that would end up becoming The Silmarillion, and the very idea of The Lord of the Rings hadn't even entered Tolkien's mind at the time. I'm pretty sure what we think of as Middle Earth was invented for The Hobbit as a distinct world from Beleriand and then when Tolkien decided to roll the stories into the same continuity while working on Lord of the Rings he stuck the two realms together. That's why you get weird things like trolls named William and Bert, and Tom. And the idea of the Ring as an evil item didn't exist yet. It was simply an invisibility ring useful for getting out of tight jams.

[DavidSh]

On the other hand, Glamdring and Orcrist were made in Gondolin, according to The Hobbit.

[factotum]

Yeah, I don't think it was quite as separated as all that. It's true that the original conception of the Ring didn't have it as evil, we've already discussed how chapter 5 changed after the publication of LOTR to add that, but the Hobbit was definitely set in Middle-earth from the get-go. The whole thing with the rings was undoubtedly added to the legendarium later on, but things were changing in that throughout Tolkien's life anyway--the fact there's a sort of "canonical" version of it is largely down to the work of Christopher Tolkien after his father's passing.

[Gnoman]

The most plausible explanation is that Tolkien pulled elements from his other work for set dressings, but didn't really think hard about fitting The Hobbit in with it until writing LOTR.

[Rater202]

Next Chapter: Out of the Frying Pan Into The Fire.

Spoiler: As I Go

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Bilbo is safe from Goblins but also completely lost.

On the other hand, he is literally on the other side of the mountains now.

He quickly finds Gandalf and the dwarves, who are arguing about trying to find Bilbo.

Bilbo elects to use the ring to surprise them, and in doing so causes a commotion.

He elects not to tell them about the ring because their praise of his stealth pleases him... That's gonna bite him in the ass later.

After explaining the story, Bilbo asks Gandal how he showed up again and it's literally just "I snuck through the crack and was following you the entire time."

After a moment of rest, Gandalf informs them that they need to get the hell out of Dodge before night falls and keep getting because the Goblins will come after them come sundown.

They walk on, scavenging what food they can find but it's very little.

Rockslide. Luckily, there are trees.

Ad Gandalf suggests that the rockslide will buy them time when the Goblinscome after them, so silver lining.

Huh... Bilbo coined a proverb. "Escaping goblins to be caught by wolves," meaning the same thing as "out of the frying pan..."

That's... Good storytelling. Attention to detail, proverbs like that aren't nessesarily something you think about.

Climb trees to avoid wolves... Seem's legit.

Dori rescues Bilbo, who is much too small to climb a tree.

The wolves are confirmed to be the Wargs after they show up. Evil wolves.

And they talk. They are people and have their own language, which sounds awful. Gandalf understands it though.

The Goblins and Wargs were planning a raid, but the death of the Great Goblin through a wrench in that.

Gandalf, fearful of what the Wargs and Goblins were planning and the danger the party was in, transformed pinecones into incendiary bombs and sets the lot of them alight with magical fire.

Thus, we have the beginning of a tradition: When in doubt, kill it with fire!

And then the Lord of The Eagles shows up out o freaking nowhere.

The eagles of these wood and mountains are a strong and noble race who make it a habit to drive the goblins into their caves, and they elect to interfere when they hear the commotion of the wargs and the marching of the goblins.

Cut back to the clearing, the goblins put out most of the fires... But not the fires near the trees that our heroes are hiding in. Instead, they build stacks of dead leaves and branches about them and then sing a song about burning the trees with our heroes still in them.

I think we're up to five songs?

And, as an aside, can I just say I love how even the "evil" races are spontaneously musical? I may have implied it before, but the presence of music, if only in lyrical form without notation, does a lot to make them feel like people and not just things that are there.

Gandalf chastising them and calling them little boys to make them angry just... It's just so petty. I can't help but laugh at the image.

And the Lord of the Eagles shows up just in time to save the day.

Illustration of the mountains... Looks completly different. How big is that range?

After a brief bit of confusion, the eagles feed our heroes and carry them down into plains and agree to carry them down into the plains. The chapter ends with Bilbo dreaming of home.

Spoiler: Collected Thoughts

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This feels like a transitional chapter.

Like, the entire conflict with the Wargs could have been skipped and you could just have our party on their merry way back to their original path, but...

Tolkien fits a great deal of worldbuilding into these 19 pages and I have to say I love every bit of it.