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    The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way
    The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way
    The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way
    Ebook355 pages2 hours

    The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way

    By William Irwin, Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson

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    About this ebook

    A philosophical exploration of J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved classic—just in time for the December 2012 release of Peter Jackson's new film adaptation, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

    J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is one of the best-loved fantasy books of all time and the enchanting "prequel" to The Lord of the Rings. With the help of some of history's great philosophers, this book ponders a host of deep questions raised in this timeless tale, such as: Are adventures simply "nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things" that "make you late for dinner," or are they exciting and potentially life-changing events? What duties do friends have to one another? Should mercy be extended even to those who deserve to die?

    • Gives you new insights into The Hobbit's central characters, including Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, Gollum, and Thorin and their exploits, from the Shire through Mirkwood to the Lonely Mountain
    • Explores key questions about The Hobbit's story and themes, including: Was the Arkenstone really Bilbo's to give? How should Smaug's treasure have been distributed? Did Thorin leave his "beautiful golden harp" at Bag-End when he headed out into the Wild? (If so, how much could we get for that on eBay?)
    • Draws on the insights of some of the world's deepest thinkers, from Confucius, Plato, and Aristotle to Immanuel Kant, William Blake, and contemporary American philosopher Thomas Nagel

    From the happy halls of Elrond's Last Homely House to Gollum's "slimy island of rock," this is a must read for longtime Tolkien fans as well as those discovering Bilbo Baggins and his adventures "there and back again" for the first time.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWiley
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781118233894
    The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way

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    • 4/5
      I admit that I didn't quite know what I was picking up when I opened The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way.

      At the time, I was three quarters of the way through The Hobbit for the umpteenth time, but because I was reading it to my daughters, the book felt both new and familiar. The Hobbit is not a novel that would have survived today's publishing world and the attention span of children is even shorter than that of adults. Even with a cast of dwarves, goblins, wizards, elves, a dragon and, yes, a hobbit, it's hard not to find something that is interesting to a child. Bring the story to a child’s level isn’t a stretch, though translating it into bite size portions for bedtime reading does help. The story feels written for children (despite the gravity that Peter Jackson seems to imbue on the story with dark and violent scenes of giant spiders, murderous goblins, and deadly orcs).

      My girls are young: only 3 and 6. Even though both are children, they are at different stages of development and maturity. The 6-year old understands most of the plot, the character development, and remembers who is who (though sometimes the sheer number of dwarves and the paucity of development of any besides a few of them does confuse her when their names pop up). On the other hand, my 3-year old latches on only a few things, requiring that I “spice” the story up, so to speak, in order to keep her attention. For example, she stays interested when I create voices for the different characters, speaking deep and powerful for Thorin, meek but courageous for Bilbo, and confident but gravelly for Gandalf.

      For a while, her favorite voice was Gollum’s. Only after her older sister explained that Gollum was the "bad guy" did she stop asking me when Bilbo was going to see Gollum again.

      Pictures help, too, and that’s how we get to The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way (after that protracted detour). After repeated questions on the distinctions between elves, dwarves, and hobbits (I dodged the “orcs versus goblins” question altogether), I headed over to the library to find a book of art inspired by the novel. Not a set of promotional photographs for Peter Jackson's movies, mind you, but art from the last sixty year or so years since the novel was published.

      While looking for the art (perhaps I should review that one, too?) I found sitting on the shelf The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way. I’ve read The Hobbit dozens of times, but somehow I’ve never spent much time thinking about the philosophy behind it. I’ve read more and thought more about The Lord of the Rings in that regards, mostly, I think because it comes across as a weightier book. The parallels with J.R.R.Tolkien’s experience and view of World War II are obvious, while The Hobbit was published prior to the war and was primarily aimed at a juvenile market. Like juvenile fiction in the modern era, though, The Hobbit is perhaps a far more interesting and deep book than it is often given credit for. In that regard, The Hobbit and Philosophy, which is a collection of essays by various contributors, approaches what is perhaps the most popular fantasy novel of the last century with a serious and, occasionally at least, playful eye.

      Here you will essays on Tao, enlightenment, man’s place in society, greed, humility, glory, art and beauty, and more. Some are dry (after all, it is philosophy, right?), and others are light, playful, or inspirational. All are interesting and insightful.

      I’ve already burned 600 plus words talking about how I even found the book, and I’ve not said much about the essays other than this: it’s worth reading.

      I’m not really the philosophical type and I don’t think it helped me make The Hobbit more interesting to my daughters. But it did make the book more interesting to me, which is saying something about a book I already love and enjoy.

    Book preview

    The Hobbit and Philosophy - William Irwin

    INTRODUCTION

    Never Laugh at Live Philosophers

    Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson

    In a hole in the ground there lived a man who passed a quiet, uneventful life in a community that greatly prized convention and respectability. One day, however, he left his hole and journeyed off into the Blue. His adventure, though frightening and at times painful, changed him forever. His eyes were opened, and he matured in mind and character. When he returned to his hole, his neighbors regarded him as cracked because they couldn’t accept that there is more to life than order and predictable routine. Although he lost his reputation, he never regretted going on the adventure that enabled him to discover his true self and to experience an exciting new world.

    If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s Plato’s (ca. 428–348 BCE) The Allegory of the Cave, possibly the most famous there-and-back-again story ever told. Plato’s tale isn’t about hobbits or wizards, of course. It’s a parable about a man, shackled since birth in an underground prison, who ventures forth and discovers that the world is far larger, richer, and more beautiful than he had imagined. Plato hoped that the readers would learn a few lessons from the allegory, such as these: Be adventurous. Get out of your comfort zone. Admit your limitations and be open to new ideas and higher truths. Only by confronting challenges and taking risks can we grow and discover what we are capable of becoming. These lessons are essentially the same ones that J. R. R. Tolkien teaches in The Hobbit.

    The Hobbit, one of the best-loved children’s books of all time and the enchanting prequel to The Lord of the Rings, raises a host of deep questions to ponder. Are adventures simply nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things that make you late for dinner, or can they be exciting and potentially life changing? Should food and cheer and song be valued above hoarded gold? Was life better in preindustrial times when there was less noise and more green? Can we trust people as kind as summer to use powerful technologies responsibly, or should these technologies be carefully regulated or destroyed, lest they fall into the hands of the goblins and servants of the Necromancer?

    What duties do friends have to one another? Should mercy be extended even to those who deserve to die? Was the Arkenstone really Bilbo’s to give? How should Smaug’s treasure have been distributed? Did Thorin leave his beautiful golden harp at Bag-End when he headed out into the Wild? If so, how much could we get for that on eBay? From the happy halls of Elrond’s Last Homely House to Gollum’s slimy island of rock, great philosophical questions are posed for old fans and new readers.

    Tolkien—all praise to his wine and ale!—was an Oxford professor of medieval English, not a professional philosopher. But as recent books such as Peter Kreeft’s The Philosophy of Tolkien, Patrick Curry’s Defending Middle-Earth, and our own The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy make clear, Tolkien was a profoundly learned scholar who reflected deeply on the big questions. The story goes that while laboriously grading exams one fine summer day, the Oxford professor came across a blank piece of paper. After losing himself in thought for some time, Tolkien allegedly picked up his pen and wrote his famous opening, In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

    Peter Jackson—may the hair on his toes never fall out!—returns to the director’s chair for The Hobbit (2012), after taking home an Academy Award for his stellar direction of the three Lord of the Rings films (2001–2003). Hobbits may be small, but Jackson and New Line Cinema are going big, stretching the story into two movies, bringing back much of the cast from The Lord of the Rings films, and filming in 3D. After a dark and conflict-filled decade, fans of Middle-earth can finally watch Jackson’s latest installment of the greatest fantasy epic of our time.

    In this book, our merry band of philosophers shares Tolkien’s enthusiasm for philosophical questions of immense antiquity, but we also keep our detachable party hoods close at hand. Above all, this is a book written for Tolkien fans by Tolkien fans. Like other volumes in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series, it seeks to use popular culture as a hook to teach and popularize the ideas of the great thinkers.

    Some of the chapters explore the philosophy of The Hobbit—the key values and big-picture assumptions that provide the moral and conceptual backdrop of the story—and others use themes from the book to illustrate various philosophical ideas. In this way, we hope to both explore some of the deeper questions in The Hobbit and also teach some powerful philosophical ideas.

    Much like hobbits, our authors have a fund of wisdom and wise sayings that men have mostly never heard of or forgotten long ago. So pack your pipe with your best Old Toby and bring out that special bottle of Old Winyards you’ve been saving. It’s going to be quite an adventure.

    PART ONE

    DISCOVER YOUR INNER TOOK

    Chapter 1

    THE ADVENTUROUS HOBBIT

    Gregory Bassham

    The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.

    —Confucius

    The Hobbit is a tale of adventure. It is also a story of personal growth. At the beginning of the tale, Bilbo is a conventional, unadventurous, comfort-loving hobbit. As the story progresses, he grows in courage, wisdom, and self-confidence. The Hobbit is similar in this respect to The Lord of the Rings. Both are tales, J. R. R. Tolkien informs us, of the ennoblement of the humble.¹ Both are stories of ordinary persons—small in the eyes of the wise and powerful—who accomplish great things and achieve heroic stature by accepting challenges, enduring hardships, and drawing on unsuspected strengths of character and will.

    What’s the connection between an adventurous spirit and personal growth? How can challenge and risk—a willingness to leave our own safe and comfy hobbit-holes—make us stronger, happier, and more confident individuals? Let’s see what Bilbo and the great thinkers can teach us about growth and human potential.

    A Hobbit’s Progress

    Hobbits in general are not an adventurous folk—quite the opposite. Hobbits love peace and quiet and good tilled earth; have never been warlike or fought among themselves; take great delight in the simple pleasures of eating, drinking, smoking, and partying; rarely travel; and consider queer any hobbit who has adventures or does anything out of the ordinary.²

    Bilbo is an unusual hobbit in this regard. His mother, the famous Belladonna Took, belonged to a clan, the Tooks, who were not only rich but also notorious for their love of adventure. One of Bilbo’s uncles, Isengar, was rumored to have gone to sea in his youth, and another uncle, Hildifons, went off on a journey and never returned.³ Bilbo’s remote ancestor, Bandobras Bullroarer Took, was famous in hobbit lore for knocking a goblin king’s head off with a club. The head rolled down a rabbit hole, and thus Bullroarer simultaneously won the Battle of Green Fields and invented the game of golf.⁴

    In contrast, the Bagginses, Bilbo’s father’s side of the family, were thoroughly respectable hobbits who never did anything unexpected or adventurous. The conflict between these two parts of Bilbo’s makeup is frequently played out in The Hobbit.

    Gandalf noticed Bilbo’s adventurous Tookish side when he visited the Shire in 2941, twenty years before the events described in The Hobbit. The young Bilbo impressed Gandalf with his eagerness and his bright eyes, and his love of tales, and his questions about the wide world.⁵ When Gandalf returned to the Shire two decades later, he found that Bilbo was getting rather greedy and fat, but he was pleased to hear that Bilbo was still regarded as queer for doing odd things like going off for days by himself and talking with dwarves.⁶ When Bilbo says good morning to Gandalf and dismisses adventures as nasty disturbing uncomfortable things that make you late for dinner, Gandalf realizes that the Baggins side of Bilbo’s personality is winning out.⁷

    Bilbo’s inner Took is rekindled, however, by the dwarves’ treasure song and Gloin’s slighting reference to him as that little fellow bobbing and puffing on the mat.⁸ Bilbo reluctantly agrees to join the dwarves’ quest and finds himself in an adventure that proves to also be a quest for his own true self. Quite early in his perilous journey, Bilbo realizes that adventures are not all pony-rides in May-sunshine.⁹ He is constantly fearful and dependent and often thinks regretfully of his cozy hobbit-hole with the kettle just beginning to sing.

    On several occasions he is saved by sheer luck. Gradually, however, his confidence and courage grow. Alone and unaided, he is able to outwit Gollum, escape from the goblins’ cave, and free his companions from both the Mirkwood spiders and the Elvenking’s fortress. When the Company arrives at the Lonely Mountain, it is Bilbo who discovers how to open the secret door, and only he has the courage to walk down the dark tunnel to face the terror of the dragon. Already, we are told, he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago.¹⁰

    His decision to continue walking down the tunnel when he hears the dragon’s rumblings was the bravest thing he ever did.¹¹ When Bilbo returns with a beautiful two-handled cup he stole from the dragon’s hoard, he is acknowledged as the real leader in the dwarves’ quest.¹² Later, when Bilbo risks his life and unselfishly gives up the Arkenstone in an effort to prevent a fratricidal war over dragon-gold, the Elvenking praises him as more worthy to wear the armour of elf-princes than many that have looked more comely in it and later lauds him as Bilbo the Magnificent.¹³

    After the Battle of Five Armies, the dying Thorin Oakenshield recognizes Bilbo’s growth in moral stature, remarking that there is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure.¹⁴ And when Bilbo recites a bittersweet homecoming poem upon his return to the Shire, Gandalf exclaims, My dear Bilbo! Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were.¹⁵

    In short, The Hobbit is an adventure tale in which an ordinary and distinctly nonheroic person is morally ennobled by confronting and overcoming challenges and dangers. But how is such a transformation possible? Let’s consider what some of the world’s great philosophers have said about the linkage between challenge and personal growth.

    Bilbo’s Growth in Wisdom

    Men shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.

    —Aeschylus

    Humans can grow in various respects: physically, emotionally, spiritually, artistically, and so forth. Merry and Pippin grew physically—they became several inches taller—after drinking the Ent-draughts in Fangorn Forest. But in Bilbo’s case we’re talking about moral and intellectual growth. In traditional philosophical terms, Bilbo grows in both wisdom and virtue as a result of his adventures. The term philosophy derives from Greek roots meaning the love of wisdom. So to help us get our bearings, let’s start by asking: What is wisdom?

    Not all philosophical and religious traditions conceive of wisdom in the same way. A Zen Buddhist’s definition of wisdom won’t be the same as that offered by a Hindu or a Southern Baptist. But we needn’t be stymied by specific theoretical disagreements. Nearly all philosophical and religious traditions agree that wisdom, whatever it is precisely, consists of deep insight about living.¹⁶ A wise person understands what’s important in life, keeps lesser things in proper perspective, and understands what’s needed in order to live well and to cope with the problems of life.¹⁷ Wisdom comes in degrees. Gandalf is wiser than Elrond, and Elrond is wiser than Bard. But however, exactly, we define wisdom, it’s clear that Bilbo is wiser at the end of The Hobbit than he was at the beginning. How did this occur?

    Philosophers have noted two important ways in which challenging experiences can make us wiser: they can deepen our self-understanding and they can broaden our experiences. With Bilbo, we can see both factors at work.

    The first step toward becoming wise, Socrates (ca. 470–399 BCE) said, is to realize how little you know. Know thyself was his mantra. Socrates saw that people tend to have inflated views of themselves. They tend to be overconfident and imagine that they know more than they do or that they are better in some way than they really are. People who think they’re already wise and good won’t be motivated to pursue wisdom and goodness. So the first and most important step toward becoming wise, Socrates declared, is to engage in fearless self-examination.

    We should constantly be asking ourselves the following: Do I really know this, or do I only think I do? Could I be wrong? Could I be guilty of wishful thinking? Am I living the life I want to live? Am I walking the walk I talk? What are my true talents and abilities? How can I live most meaningfully and authentically? Only in this way can we root out our self-deceptions, discover our true potential, and discern where our greatest talents and opportunities lie.

    Philosophers and religious thinkers have long pointed out how one particular kind of challenging experience, pain and suffering, can deepen one’s self-understanding. Pain, said C. S. Lewis (1898–1963), can curb our pride, teach us patience, steel us against adversity, teach us not to take life’s blessings for granted, and remind us that we were made for another world.¹⁸ Pain, he noted, is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.¹⁹ God’s attitude to humans, said the Roman philosopher Seneca (ca. 4 BCE–65 CE), is that of a stern but loving father: ‘Let them be harassed by toil and sorrow and losses . . . that they may acquire true strength.’ . . . God hardens and exercises those he approves and loves.²⁰

    In The Hobbit we see Bilbo slowly growing in self-understanding. As the story opens, he reacts to Thorin’s forebodings of danger by shrieking like an engine coming out of a tunnel and kneeling on the hearth-rug, shaking like a jelly that was melting.²¹ On his journey to the Lonely Mountain, he encounters many dangers and suffers greatly through cold, hunger, sleeplessness, fear, and fatigue. Slowly, he grows in self-confidence and discovers hidden strengths, including an unsuspected talent for leadership.

    Bilbo achieves a deeper understanding of the conflicting sides of his makeup and realizes that he wants more out of life than simply comfort, good pipe-weed, a well-stocked cellar, and six meals a day. At the same time, he doesn’t develop a swollen head and get delusions of grandeur. After all his adventures and heroic deeds, he stills thinks of himself—and gratefully so—as only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all.²²

    There is another way in which Bilbo becomes wiser: his eyes are opened by travel and a wider range of experience. Philosopher Tom Morris points out that taking a philosophy class can be like an Outward Bound experience for the mind. Students of philosophy find themselves on an intellectual adventure in which the great philosophers serve as native guides: mapmakers of the spirit who can broaden their horizons, guide them to exciting vistas, enlarge their imaginations, warn them of potential pitfalls, and teach them essential existential survival skills.²³ Many writers have noted that travel and adventure can also have paradigm-shifting, life-altering consequences.

    The hobbits of the Shire are insular and provincial; they know and care little about the wider world of Middle-earth. Bilbo, though more adventurous than most hobbits, initially shares many of the limited and confining views of his fellows.²⁴ Like his hobbit friends and neighbors, he places great value on respectability, routine, comfort, and the simple bodily pleasures of eating, drinking, and smoking.

    In the course of his adventures, Bilbo comes to realize that there are weightier concerns and higher values in life. He experiences heroism, self-sacrifice, ancient wisdom, and great beauty. Like the crew of the starship Enterprise, he encounters new worlds and new civilizations, sees wondrous new sights, and meets peoples with very different value systems and ways of life. When he returns to the Shire, he is able to see it with new eyes and is better able to appreciate both its limitations and its unique charms.

    When all is said and done, he finds that he has lost the neighbours’ respect but has gained much of greater value.²⁵ By the final pages of The Hobbit, we find the contented and cosmopolitan Bilbo writing poetry and visiting the elves.²⁶ Truly, he is not the hobbit that he was. His adventures have made him wiser.

    Bilbo’s Growth in Virtue

    Too often, comfort gets in the way of inner reckonings.

    —Lance Armstrong

    Bilbo doesn’t just grow intellectually, however; he also becomes a more virtuous, or ethical, person. Through his adventures he becomes more courageous, more resourceful, hardier, less dependent, and more self-controlled. His decisions to spare Gollum’s life and to replace the keys on the belt of the slumbering elf-guard suggest that he has become more compassionate.²⁷ His choice to give up the precious Arkenstone in an attempt to broker peace, his refusal to take more than two small chests of treasure home with him (all of which he later gives away), and his donation of the priceless mithril coat to the museum at Michel Delving indicate that the rather greedy Bilbo has grown more generous and less materialistic.²⁸ Philosophers have noted two ways in which challenging adventures can promote moral development, one quick and one gradual.

    Sometimes big moral transformations can occur rapidly, even instantly. These major ethical changes often take place when something shocking or traumatic occurs in our lives. A loved one dies, we’re involved in a nearly fatal accident, or we wake up in the gutter—and we reevaluate our lives and make up our minds to change. In many cases, as the American philosopher William James (1842–1910) noted in his classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience, such transformations have a religious impetus. On Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge was a grumpy and mean-spirited old miser; on Christmas Day he was the soul of generosity and good cheer. But sudden and radical ethical changes need not be religiously motivated.

    Rapid ethical makeovers are rare in Tolkien’s writings, but there are some notable examples. Pippin undergoes one after his terrifying encounter with Sauron when he foolishly peers into the Seeing Stone of Orthanc.²⁹ Prior to this experience and Gandalf’s stern rebuke, he is thoughtless and immature, constantly exposing the Fellowship to danger through his carelessness. Afterward, he is radically changed. He offers his service to Denethor, serves in Gondor’s Tower Guard, saves Faramir’s life, slays a troll at the Battle of the Morannon, plays a key role in the scouring of the Shire, and later serves for fifty years as Thain of the Shire.

    Thorin’s deathbed conversion and reconciliation with Bilbo is another example of a Scroogelike sudden transformation (foreshadowing Boromir’s repentant death in The Fellowship of the Ring). Throughout The Hobbit Thorin is depicted as proud, greedy, and pompous. After he gains possession of the treasure, Thorin’s pride and greed swell, and he nearly provokes a senseless war among the Free Peoples, who should be united. By nature, dwarves are a calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money.³⁰ Moreover, Thorin is suffering from dragon-sickness, a corrupting possessiveness that afflicts all who touch a treasure that a dragon has long brooded over.³¹ But even Thorin, as he lies dying, realizes it would be a merrier world . . . if more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold.³²

    Sudden moral transformations can occur, but they are rare and often don’t last for very long. A more common and sustainable path to moral growth is through habit and training. Virtue, as Aristotle (384–322 BCE) noted, is a habit, an ingrained pattern of moral response. A person is truly courageous, for example, only if he or she has a fixed tendency or disposition to act boldly in support of important values, even at great personal risk.³³ Throughout human history, character building through habit formation has been the standard method of moral education.

    Athletics provides a model of how this works. Suppose you want to become a world-class long-distance runner. There’s no way to achieve it except through pain, sweat, and fierce determination. Great runners have great work habits. They’re not born with the habits of perseverance, commitment, self-discipline, and resiliency—they work hard to achieve them. That’s why the physician-philosopher George Sheehan speaks of running as a path to maturity, a growth process.³⁴ We pursue excellence by forming good habits and testing our limits.

    Aristotle’s great insight was to see that ethical development usually occurs the same way. To develop the virtue of self-discipline, it’s not enough to desire to be self-disciplined. We need to work at it, to develop good habits. As legendary basketball coach Rick Pitino says, Good habits create organization and discipline in our lives. . . . They become the rock, the standard of behavior that we must stick with so that we don’t go off track.³⁵

    We can see this process of ethical habit formation in The Hobbit. Bilbo’s moral development takes place gradually, as he learns new things, finds himself tested, increases in self-confidence, and develops virtuous habits. As Bilbo becomes accustomed to being cold, hungry, and wet, he complains less and becomes tougher. As his comrades’ spirits sag and his own remarkable good luck continues, he becomes more encouraging and hopeful—even quoting the Roman philosopher Seneca’s famous saying Where there’s life there’s hope before Seneca existed!³⁶

    As Bilbo repeatedly responds bravely and effectively in dangerous situations, his confidence grows and he develops the habit of acting courageously. As he finds himself willy-nilly forced to take the initiative, he becomes more comfortable in a leadership role and develops the habit of effective servant leadership. As he returns to the Shire, and Eyes that fire and sword have seen/And horror in the halls of stone/Look at last on meadows green/And trees and hills they long have known, he learns true thankfulness for simple blessings.³⁷

    Bilbo’s adventures changed him, and these changes, as we learn in The Lord of the Rings, were permanent. In The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a deeply moving scene in which Bilbo, in extreme old age, volunteers to attempt to destroy the Ring of Power. At Rivendell, where Bilbo has retired, Elrond calls a Council to determine what to do with the Ring. The Council decides that the Ring must be carried into the heart of Mordor and cast into the fires of Mount Doom, where it was forged. When Elrond notes that such an apparent suicide mission may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong, Bilbo speaks up:

    Very well, very well, Master Elrond. . . . Say no more! It is plain enough what you are pointing at. Bilbo the silly hobbit started this affair, and Bilbo had better finish it, or himself. I was very comfortable here, and getting on with my book. . . . It is a frightful nuisance. When ought I to start?

    When Boromir, the mighty warrior from Gondor, heard

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