sigridhr | Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Four

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Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Four

Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Four (The Hobbit)
Chapter VII: Queer Lodgings
Chapter VIII: Flies and Spiders

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 forced attendance at the Vogon-Orcish Poetry Recitation Competition in Minas Morgul.
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.

Discussion on this post will officially run from Friday 1st February 2013 to Friday 8th February 2013. However, the post will remain open after that point, so you're more than welcome to continue discussions on.

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Thorin is kind of a mess, isn't he? And it's hard to make sense of him in the book as we don't know very much about him before now, but what I tend to think is he's got an ideal of kingship that he's never had a model for, and a lot of experience of failure and ruin, and a very strong sense that the world is not the way it ought to be but no clear idea of how to put it back together again, which is why he fails so miserably when actually faced with a kingship decision, ie, Bard demanding a (perfectly justified) share in the treasure.

(I see why they put Thorin's more personal hatred for Elves in general and Thranduil in particular into the movie, but I do think it simplifies things in a way that makes them less interesting.)

Are you kidding? If there were Entwives in Mirkwood the spiders wouldn't have lasted two days.

Everyone doesn't read the Silmarillion because if you're not paying careful attention the language will put you to sleep through some of the most amazing bits. I prefer to just go around telling the stories at people so they understand why Fëanor is such a failboat and Galadriel is the greatest badass ever to walk the face of Middle-Earth.

I've always assumed that rumors about a Took taking a fairy wife were just that, hobbity rumors that have no actual basis in reality. But you never know, I suppose.

IS IT DECEMBER YET?

That's very true. I'd forgotten that the only reason he didn't get fried when Smaug attacked is because he was out hooliganing (well, not really...) with his friends when the dragon attacked and was, for a dwarf, very young at the time.

He fails as a leader too, though, really even before Bard. He's defaulting to Bilbo already when they're outside the Lonely Mountain.

There's something really tragic about Thráin to me - who goes mad and essentially wanders off (I think it's implied this is at least in part due to his bearing of one of the seven?), leaving Thorin alone (with no knowledge of what had happened to him) and stripped of yet another heirloom of his family - and yet in all that time he'd never told Thorin of the backdoor to Erebor or the key.

I'm really really curious as to how Beorn knew Thorin's name and lineage but not Gandalf's. I suppose if his name proceeds him in that fashion it would contribute to his feeling like he had a greater purpose and life to fulfil than the one he'd been living.

Well, my pet theory is that the Entwives, like some of the Ents, have sort of turned into trees. I think there's a line about how some of the older Ents have stopped moving altogether or become more like the Huorns (less conscious, I suppose).

I suppose they still would have eaten the spiders for breakfast, though.

Fëanor is my favourite failboat ever. What a little (glorious) snot. NOBODY IS MORE AWESOME THAN HALETH TO ME THOUGH. I love Haleth so damn much and secretly ship Haleth/Caranthir like whoa.

NO IT IS NOT AND IT IS A POINT OF GREAT DESPAIR TO ME.

Thrain just kind of kills me. He goes off determined to retake Erebor alone (at least, given the direction they were heading, that's what I always assumed) and Balin and Dwalin go along, presumably to try to talk him out of it and get him to see sense, and then he up and disappears on them and no one ever knows what happened to him.

Except for Gandalf, who only figures it out years later, because it never occurred to him that the pathetic creature in the Necromancer's dungeons would be Thrain, son of Thror.

(I've always thought Gandalf very much redeemed of his frequent dick moves in The Hobbit simply for the fact that he never tells Thorin how he came by the map and key. Thorin does not need to know that.)

...I'd quite forgotten that, too. You're right, running across people who know his story like that can't be good for Thorin's ego. And since this is Tolkien, I do think that ego is a huge part of it. Thorin never succumbs to Tolkien's greatest sin, despair; his failure is much more like Boromir's, in that he has an idea of how the world is going to work and he doesn't let little things like the greater experience of wiser people get in his way. Both of them do learn, but they learn the hard way, and too late.

I like this theory, I like it a lot. I choose to believe that they have turned into trees in the Shire, though, because I agree with Treebeard that the Shire does seem exactly like the kind of place they would enjoy.

Fëanor is the world's biggest failboat, how he lives as long as he does is a terrible mystery to me. ...I admit to not remembering Haleth, it has been a long time since I read the Silmarillion and I'm only up to Chapter Fourteen in the Rewrite. (BUT I'M ABOUT TO GET TO FINGON AND MAEDHROS ZOMG.)

I really hope they put some of Thráin's arc in the films because OH GOD YES the fact that Gandalf can't get anything sensible out of him than his desperate desire for his son to have his heirlooms... geez.

Yeah, there are a lot of interesting parallels between Thorin and Boromir.

Perhaps they went off to shepherd the old forest and then sort of tree-ified there?

Haleth's family and people were decimated by orcs while they were held up under siege for days, and she rallies them alone and leads them on a final desperate charge and is kicking orc but when Caranthir turns up. He offers her protection, but she refuses and marches her people through the Valley of Dreadful Death where Ungoliant used to hang out, and then is granted a place to settle by Thingol on lands that used to be within the girdle of Melian. She was elected chieftain and afterwards they called themselves the People of Haleth.

She is so badass and does not get enough appreciation.

GAGHEOAGJEAOW FINGON AND MAEDHROS MAKE MY HEART HURT.

PJ does love to start his movies off with flashbacks, so I have hopes that we'll get some of Thrain in the start of the second or third film.

(And by "hopes" I mean "oh god I already know I'm going to sob like a lost child at the end of the third movie, do they really have to do it to me more than once?" But y'know.)

...Haleth is my new superhero. You may rest assured that I will give her all the credit she is due when I get to that part in the Rewrite.

FINGON AND MAEDHROS ALFKJEKSLJA I honestly cannot deal with them and the FEELINGS that they give me.

It's pretty much my mission in life to go around telling people about how awesome Haleth is. There are so many characters in the Silm it's easy to miss her - especially since he pretty much just narrates what happens to her and moves on, but when you actually look at it SHE IS SUCH A BAMF. And we don't get many human women BAMFs.

She's like a better version of Eowyn for me. I wish he'd written more about her. SOMEDAY I WILL WRITE MY EPIC HALETH FANFIC. Someday.

OH MY GOD MAEDHROS AND FINGON. I pretty much spend the entirety of the Silmarillion reading small passages and then putting the book down when I sob uncontrollably because Maedhros and Fingon, and then Fingolfin's death and oh geezus everything hurts.

Well, Thráin is listed on the IMDB page for the next film, so I'm really, really hoping we get something of his story. The thing is, since Gandalf hasn't been to Dol Goldur yet, I have a theory that Thrain is still there right now and Gandalf got the map and key somehow before he wound up in the clutches of Sauron. So it might not necessarily be a flashback.

Yeah. The waterworks will be out in full if they do include it, I think. And I'll probably just have a cardiac arrest in the theatre during the third film.

This is what I love about Middle Earth, it's so huge and there's so much going on that you can just miss awesome shit like that. And then, lo, one day you are going about your business and are just blindsided with awesome.

DON'T REMIND ME THAT FINGOLFIN DIES I am in the middle of a passionate love affair with Fingolfin, The Elf Who Just Would Not Fucking Lie Down And Die, and I cannot deal with him dying

*sob*

I love Beorn so much, he's like an angry Hagrid. I kind of see him as a sort of a '"""Father Nature"""" figure (if that even is a thing); he treats the animals like his children, he can change his skin and he has a very practical approach to life (no trinkets or gold or prizes). Also I love how he's so gentle with his animals but fierce as hell to enemies. AND I like to believe that the 'large long-bodied grey dogs' are Irish Wolfhound-esque which is totally the breed of dog I would have if I had time/money/space because they are massive and shaggy and amazing. But I digress.

I think one of the best things about The Hobbit is the fact that there's always an underlying comedy of this truckload of dwarves hiking around everywhere. Like Gandalf constantly counting them, them all bowling into Bilbo's house and turning up in pairs for Beorn. I just love dwarves a lot. Like this bit: 'Some of them even got up and bowed right to the ground before him, though they fell over with the effort, and could not get on their legs again for some time.' WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE ABOUT DWARVES.

Ha, when I'm feeling particularly sorry for myself, the first description of Mirkwood totally reminds me of university/studying/being away from home. Reason number 3253633 why I may in actual fact be a Hobbit...

'Then the elves put thongs on him, and shut him in one of the inmost caves' I'm sorry to lower the tone but DEAR LORD THE MENTAL IMAGES

I think Smaug is definitely another category - he loves treasure, but he has no use for it (except possibly for sleeping on, and making himself a protective undercoating with a strategically-placed vulnerable spot). I suppose he exemplifies greed - just wanting more things for the sake of it.

Thank you!

Yes, Bilbo definitely seems more confident, and competent, in Mirkwood, despite the fact that he is finding their journey extremely difficult and he is still thinking about Bag End. I love that about him - as he progresses through the book and slowly grows in courage and skill, he still retains this realism and longing for home, and it's just so believable. I want a protagonist who's dreaming about bacon and eggs for breakfast one minute, that stabbing a spider between the eyes the next! It makes him the everyman's hero.

Thank you!

Yes, I've been noticing his dreams as I've been going along - he has a sort of dream-premonition about the goblins, and he dreamt of Bag End the night they spent at the eyrie. There's definitely something going on with the dreams, but I'm not sure what it is!

If that doesn't make it into the movie, I cannot be held responsible for the consequences of my actions.

There's something hilarious and wonderful about that to me - and it ties into Tolkien's mantra of hope, I suppose
That's such a great way of looking at it - they just have this blind optimism and perseverance, and that's enough to get them through.

I noticed that about Fili and Kili - it said that Fili had the best eyesight. So what does that mean for the whole Durin line canon? Would Kili have been Thorin's successor?

Your comment about Beorn struck a chord and I had to sit around for a few minutes thinking about what he reminds me of when suddenly I realized, it's Tulkas. (Beorn as a Valar? I'd buy it.) IIRC, Tulkas is also a Thor-derivative.

The Annotated Hobbit has a footnote explaining that the thongs in question are leather cords used to bind Thorin's hands. I had honestly never had any other mental image until I read that footnote. Thanks, Annotated Hobbit.

I tried to find a source for why spiders are one of the go-to fantasy monsters, but there doesn't seem to be any. I came across just as many tales of spiders being good, but I guess they're easy to make into something scary since they're freaky looking up close and many are venomous. Plus there's a cleverness associated with them through the way they catch their prey.

Ugh, I need to stop forgetting to log-in. >_

I was amused at how co-dependent the dwarves seemed when Gandalf was going to part ways with them.

I love the description of the butterflies Bilbo sees when he's up in the tree. In addition to being beautiful imagery, it highlights the fact that hobbits are more agrarian and love the simple things in life while dwarves seem more industrial.

It's also interesting that the butterflies are clearly something positive while the moths are scary. I had to pause and think about how big "nearly as big as your hand" is for a hobbit or a dwarf. That's already ginormous for a human!

It's gotta be the eyes and legs (and the sheer number of arachnophobic types in the world) that can scare the bejesus out of people. I guess I'll just have to live with it ;)

I definitely think the cunning of the webs is definitely part and parcel - many animals with a reputation for cunning can be considered amoral in lore (weasels and foxes come to mind, too, as well as magpies in Western myths/lore)

Ah, JRR was a tease!

Also, can I just say WHAT is it with the sheer number of sleep-enchanted bodies of water in Fantasy/mythology? The stream in Mirkwood, Lethe, that lake in Pierce's Realms of the Gods... What is it with sleepytime water sources, especially ones that appear when travellers are at their thirstiest?

Ah, I see what you mean! Beorn is really quite an epic character, I wish we saw more of him really.

I blame my mental images on the internet and fanfiction. My innocence was sadly lost a very long time ago :(

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Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Four

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