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Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Three
Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Three (The Hobbit)
Chapter V: Riddles in the Dark
Chapter VI: Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire
Rules
I very much doubt we'll require much in the way of formal rules, but just for the sake of formality and clarity:
Chapter V: Riddles in the Dark
Chapter VI: Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire
Rules
I very much doubt we'll require much in the way of formal rules, but just for the sake of formality and clarity:
- Discussion is welcome and encouraged, as is disagreement. Name-calling and personal attacks will be punished by purchasing $10,000 worth of shares in Mordor Inc. in your name.
- There is no spoiler policy in place. Although we're reading the Hobbit, please feel free to bring in things from other Tolkien works, any of the films, the History of Middle Earth, the Letters of JRR Tolkien, and, if you should like, other literary sources.
- There is no such thing as too much geekery. Or taking the text too seriously.
- If you have any concerns at any point, I'm the closest thing this gong show has to a mod, so feel free to get in touch. I can be reached either by PM through this site, or directly by email at sigridhr.lokidottir@gmail.com.
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I love that Bilbo's first response is to start smoking.
I'm a bit sad that Orcrist and Glamdring didn't glow blue in the film.
This is by far the creepiest chapter - I love it.
Polite!Gollum is hilarious. It's interesting - Gollum is such a calculating creature. I wonder how much Tolkien knew about Gollum when he wrote this - he clearly planned that Gollum was a Stoor of some kind, given he'd planned out his history to include living in a hole with his grandmother. Likewise, I wonder if he'd done any planning on the history of the ring at this point.
The fish riddle is my favourite. So creepily wonderful.
So, Gollum has pockets. Given how long he's been down there, it seems unlikely to me that his clothes would have survived - so I suppose he's either nicked them from the goblins or fashioned them himself. Something about him being clothed makes him more Hobbit-like for me than the loincloth in the films. I like the idea that, like the riddles and memories he's preserved from his life before the Ring, he keeps clothing as a sort of latent hangover of living within a complex society. The trolls as well are described as 'large persons' and have pockets (and anyway they would arguably best-fit a hunter-gatherer type society, and clearly do have an organized social structure of some kind given they live in groups), but the other sentient creatures we see who go mostly unclothed are Ungoliant, (arguably) Smaug, and Huan (I'm sure there are more, I just can't think of them at the moment). While they're sentient, they're also unique and solitary - not fitting into a larger society and never seen acting with others of their group. I guess I'd mentally put Gollum in that category, and something about him – even before Bilbo came along and caused him to remember things he'd started to forget about himself – wearing clothing makes me reconsider that assessment. Same with his attempt at manners – though Smaug pulls a similar trick in that he seems to be aware of conversational/social conventions, and manipulates them to his own ends.
'Course, then there's the Eagles, so I suppose I'm just talking nonsense.
:P I wonder what on earth he keeps batwing for, though.
I'm really, really disappointed that the film added footsteps for Bilbo in the scene where he's invisible in the caves. Hobbits are meant to be silent - that's part of why Gandalf chose a Hobbit as a burglar in the first place. And Gollum's not an idiot, and would have heard Bilbo if his footsteps were even half as loud as they were in the film.
Bilbo's pity for Gollum is quite possibly one of the highlights of the book for me. Because, like Frodo when he deals with Gollum, Bilbo is looking at a version of his future, even if he's not wholly aware of it. They came from similar roots - the riddles conversation demonstrated that - and Bilbo pictures this almost anti-Hobbit lifestyle. It's in a hole, but it is a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, and it's alone.
This is pretty horrible, too, if it's the only thing Gollum's ever cared for. No friends or family, or anything before it. Smeagol was clearly a pretty ill-adjusted individual even before the Ring came along.
Chapter VI:
GANDALF IS ON TO YOUR SHIT, BILBO.
Yeah, because he's got Narya. Tolkien, you troll.
You know, I sometimes forget how dark the history of the Shire gets. I mean, not long before Bilbo's lifetime you have famine and orc attacks, and the Fell Winter. I always think of it as really rosy and insular, but that's really only a recent development. And it's a bit sad, in way - because it's like their insularity is them trying to keep the big, dark world out because they're traumatized.
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I rather think that this is telling that the Ring is the only thing that Gollum really cared for. I think that seeing the Ring, and having it dig its claws into Smeagol's mind is something of a defining moment, splitting Gollum and Smeagol apart. Or even more creepily, it's the Ring's influence in that he can't remember caring about anything, that the Ring has so infected his mind that everything else pales in comparison to this obsession. Because it really isn't love, any more than an abusive partner loves the object of his love/rage: it's obsession.
I wonder about the clothes thing too, tho I don't see why he can't have pockets in his loincloth. :P He would definitely have had to pilfer the clothes from the goblins, if he's been down there several hundred years (it was ~500, yes?). But I think that maybe that's another symptom of how thoroughly the Ring has gotten to him; there's no real reason for him to have pockets other than to carry it around.
Mmmm, I just like thinking about the amount of agency the Ring has. I mean, it obviously has a will of its own, and an endgame. Is it like a Horcrux, you think, where it's a part of Sauron's soul and its trying to reunite with him? But it also has some sort of forethought, in putting itself in Bilbo's hands. I mean, I'm sure it was rather aiming for a goblin, knowing what it does about their habits; a Ring-infected goblin would probably start to raise an army and march on *somewhere* pretty quickly, and gain Sauron's attention that way.
I am thinking thinky thoughts!
Still, I just love how *easy* this book is to read. It just trucks along!
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I hadn't imagined pocketed loincloths... I suppose you could but... However, he clearly does carry things around, and notably not the Ring. He couldn't bear to carry it around anymore (interestingly), so he kept it on the island he lived on for safekeeping. So clearly he keeps pockets for other purposes (namely batswings, shells and a knife, apparently).
I definitely agree about the Ring having agency, though. Gandalf says as much too, doesn't he? Or is that exclusive to the films? (I NEED A BIGGER MEMORY, DAMMIT). But the Ring tries pretty hard here too to get away - Bilbo's visible when he's seen by the Goblins at the gate because the Ring has slipped off his finger. So, yeah, it's a tricky bugger. :P
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This bit:
'Whether it was an accident, or a last trick of the ring before it took a new master, it was not on his finger'
kinda made me think that this was almost the ring's punishment for Bilbo's act of pity, for him not letting himself be made completely evil by it. Also it says he felt a 'pang of fear and loss' on realising he wasn't wearing it, so the ring already has some power of him, even with his compassion, which usually does not compute with normal ring-bearer actions.
The whole ring thing is just gets more creepy and interesting the more you think about it!
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I like your observations about Gollum wearing clothes putting him closer to civilization than he otherwise seems. It makes me feel for him. (I'm in the middle of rereading Book IV of LotR right now, and I'm surprised at how much I do care about Gollum, even as he continues to be damn creepy. As beautiful as Andy Serkis's performances are, it's easy to forget that it is an exaggeration of the books in a lot of ways, and Gollum is really quite a subtle character in LotR.)
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Ok, well, that makes sense. Because I'd thought that he'd need a lot more worked out than I thought he'd had for this to work. I really, really need to get my hands on a copy of the annotated Hobbit. Really.
Yeah, I've found a lot more sympathy for Gollum in the past couple years. I definitely wonder where the line falls between Smeagol and Gollum in the books – Sam definitely delineates between Slinker and Stinker, but I do wonder if Bilbo didn't wake Smeagol up, in a sense, with the Riddles here. The movies certainly seem to imply it, at any right. But you're right, he's much subtler in the books.
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The movies lean heavily on Smeagol here, but the book definitely doesn't. (Corey points out that while Gollum argues with himself, it isn't an argument between good and bad halves, it's an argument between the half that thinks he'll be able to get the ring back and the half that thinks it's hopeless.) Overall it's much more ambiguous in the books than it ever is in the movies; Gollum and Smeagol are both complex people, and neither of them are unaffected by the Ring.
The thing that breaks my heart now, that I don't think I noticed the first time through, is that Gandalf sent three eagles to Mount Doom.
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I don't really consider Smeagol a clear-cut good half either though - (but I will agree that it's not a Smeagol/Gollum argument). After all Deagol's murder was committed by Smeagol, I think. They're both affected by the Ring, and both self-serving and calculating in their own ways.
The thing that breaks my heart now, that I don't think I noticed the first time through, is that Gandalf sent three eagles to Mount Doom.
I'm not crying, I've just been cutting onions. I'm making a lasagna for one.
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OMG sorry but LET ME LOVE YOU with your Flight of the Conchords references!
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I agree with you about Gollum being much more, well, cartoony in the films than I ever read him in the book. I think the filmmakers have to exaggerate everything to make the lows lower so that the payoff is higher, but things do suffer and nuances do get hammered into giant grandiose motions as a result. I finally saw the hobbit film two days ago and I seem to recall that Gollum had a little leather pouch alongside his loincloth, where he searched for the Ring, and that didn't seem to be to jarring.
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The more I reread the more I realize just how *much* nuance got lost in the movies. Not all of it, but quite a lot, and I think Gollum gets the worst of it. They try so hard to make him sympathetic he just becomes pitiful. (The flashback to Smeagol and Deagol, on the other hand, I think they got just right.)