Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Six

[sigridhr]

  Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Six (The Hobbit)
Chapter XI: On the Doorstep
Chapter XII: Inside Information

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 forcing you to live in an AU where Tolkien was never born. 
  
• 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 15th February 2013 to Friday 22nd February 2013. However, the post will remain open after that point, so you're more than welcome to continue discussions on.

Comments

[skadi_of_the_north]

I keep not posting on these, but I am loving the discussion. :D

[j_quadrifrons]

I love how facetious the chapter titles continue to be, even as the story gets more and more serious. (Inside Information, indeed.)

On the Doorstep is very possibly the bleakest thing in Middle Earth until you finally get to Mordor. They clearly don't know what to do. They stop and check out the front gate first - which, god, is an entirely heartbreaking mental image. Bilbo refuses to sneak in by the front gate because he doesn't want to see the ruins of Dale again (well, and because that's a shitty plan). Desolation of the Dragon indeed.

The image of them taking their axes to the door and being terrified away by the echoes reminds me of Moria, and is also deeply creepy. It's gotta be bad to scare Dwarves.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot make the key-hole and the moon-runes prophecy make sense in any kind of logical way, so I have given up trying.

Inside Information, on the other hand, is a chapter full of sass. "You are familiar with Thorin's style on important occasions," the narrator says. "O Thorin Thrain's son Oakenshield, may your beard grow ever longer," says Bilbo when he starts to get irritated. And then there's Smaug! No matter how smug he gets, Olson points out, Bilbo is still, in that scene, only the second-most proud and overconfident person in the room. Oh, Smaug.

I love, love, love, that Balin is the only Dwarf who will go into the tunnel with Bilbo, and even then only within sight of the door. I love Balin entirely. (This is probably why I developed such an attachment to him as a child, and was so heartbroken when I finally read what happened to him in LotR.)

The whole episode of stealing the cup from the dragon's hoard is straight out of Beowulf, which Tolkien says was unconscious. (I don't doubt it.) Consciously, Tolkien gave the dragon a pun for a name - "the past tense of the primitive Germanic verb Smugan, to squeeze through a hole." And the riddling with Smaug is from the Lay of Fafnir, one of Tolkien's very favorite stories (he borrowed heavily from it for Turin Turambar).

I have all kinds of Leadership Feels when Thorin splits up the company during the dragon's attack, so that "The dragon shan't have all of us." (Of course, Olson points out that this is the first real leadership Thorin's shown in the book. I am glad they changed that for the movie, for all it shifts some things around.)

I think the writing might be at its very best in this chapter. The tension as Bilbo goes down into the hoard - it's incredible.

[gallifaerie.livejournal.com]

I'm so unbelievably proud of everything Bilbo does in Chapter 12.

Already he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago

Bilbo has grown so much on this journey. Also, the fact that the line after this one is about his dagger really emphasises how much Bilbo's life has changed - he'd never even wielded a sword before setting out on this adventure.

One of my favourite bits in the whole book is this line:

He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait

It seems to me that the point where Bilbo stops, but decides to go on instead of turning back is another pivotal moment for him. It's the most terrifying part of the journey so far - the part he's been preparing for this whole time - and he's all on his own, and I think it's the last point where he could just decide that this was all actually a terrible idea and decide to forget it, but he carries on anyway. He has no idea what's going to happen or what he's going to do, but he displays bravery in the face of the unknown and decides to go ahead.

I'm going to comment on the use of dreams again here, because I noticed that Bilbo wishes that he was dreaming and really at home in Bad-End, and that Smaug is dreaming about greed and violence, and apparently about Bilbo. And the fact that Bilbo sneaks into the lair when Smaug is asleep might be the most significant case of Bilbo being awake when others are asleep and vice versa, because that obviously enables him to get a look at Smaug and steal the cup.

Luck is mentioned a lot in this chapter, and Bilbo actually 'bless[es] the luck of his ring' when he creeps in and sees that Smaug is actually awake. I completely understand why it's lucky for Bilbo to be invisible at this point, but just the fact that he's thinking 'oh, it's lucky I found this ring' I just can't deal with. Fast forward sixty years and let's see how lucky it feels then Bilbo.

I admit that I really feel for Thorin at the part where it says that Bilbo 'had become the real leader in their adventure.' I just feel so sad for Thorin because this is supposed to be his big quest to reclaim Erebor and his throne, and the amount of actual leading he does seems to diminish somewhat as the journey goes on. I feel like this has something to with what happens between him and Bilbo with the Arkenstone after Smaug is slain, but I shall see how I feel about it all then.

At the very end of chapter 12, Smaug refers to himself as ‘the real King under the Mountain’, which I found striking because I really thought he didn't care at all about prestige or power, just about hoarding as much treasure as possible and isolating himself with it. I really didn't think of Smaug as a king until this line.

[halberdier]

Completely off-topic but semi-relevant comment:

Guys, guys! Come quick! A friend gave me a link to one of Tolkien's fab essays on Fantasy writing! A public domain pdf file :D

http://public.callutheran.edu/~brint/Arts/Tolkien.pdf

[starliings.livejournal.com]

Crap is starting to get real in these chapters basically.

I LOVE the titles Bilbo gives himself. 'I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water.' It's just so clever. Like, it makes him sound like some amazing magical wizard when in reality he literally crammed some dwarves into barrels and then they all just fell into a lake and nearly died.

I totally agree with gallifaerie I love this part;

'He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait'

It's like, a lot of people say bravery is being fearless, but surely true bravery is being terrified, but carrying on anyway? I think it takes a lot more bravery to do something you're scared of, than to do something without fear.

Also I thought it was interesting that no one offered to take Bilbo's ring and go in themselves?? Would that be ~allowed~? I guess no one was particularly keen about going to see a dragon though, invisible or not...

[sigridhr]

I am seconding everyone's hilarity at pompous!Thorin. I have this hilarious mental image of Bilbo leaving out the endless, self-important prattle of Thorin the whole way there. Like he'd be the sort to tell those stories that go on and on with all these self-indulgent tangents and meanwhile Fili and Kili are all "Yes, we've heard this one before" and he just tells the same couple stories over and over on their trip.

There is something so evocative about the description of Smaug before we actually see him – just the light of the heat that radiates off him, and the sound of him breathing echoing in the deep halls... so delightfully creepy.

I love that Smaug's chiefest power in this scene is that of manipulation. Evil as the whisper that plants suspicious thoughts seems to be a theme of Tolkien's - it's certainly acted out through Morgoth, Sauron and Glaurung. I think that's probably the main reason why this is one of my favourite chapters – because Smaug pulls the same trick that lead to the oath of Fëanor, the ruin of Túrin, the forging of the nine and the seven, the downfall of Númenor...

And Bilbo essentially goes fuck you very much and laughs in his face.

You can really tell Tolkien's love of dragons in the description of Smaug's attack, though. It's terrifyingly vivid.

It's interesting too how you have the two enchantments, that of greed for the gold and the thrall of Smaug - both of which Bilbo is briefly subject to (he does entertain doubts about the dwarves) but gets over pretty damn quickly. I guess this is just hobbit natural resilience showing through.