MiddleEarthBlog: The Hobbit chapter #2 and #3

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Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Hobbit chapter #2 and #3

  This is the second part of my analysis of the Hobbit chapter by chapter. The chapters are titled Roast mutton and no it's not a cookbook and A short rest.. It should be called Took vs. Baggins two, as we again have the two halves of Bilbos parentage coming in conflict. Bilbo as you will remember had two sides to his personality, the Baggins side which was the practical comfort loving homebody type more inclined to roasting mutton and there was the Tookish side that was the adventurous, lets see whats over the next hill and I'm looking for a thrill or two side of him. These two sides always seem to be in conflict with one another with the Tookish side usually winning out and agreeing to push on but with the Baggins side ever trying to clean up the infernal messes that he and others create. In these chapters the Baggins side of Bilbo is in for a bit of a shock when the reality of the quest and its inherent discomforts not to speak of the dangers begin to reveal themselves. The chapters are really divided into two parts, part one = Trolls and a brush with death so we are dealing with the Tookish side here and then there is part two which involves Rivendell and Elrond  and the creature comforts that the Baggins side so desires.In chapter two the journey sets out pleasantly enough and seems more like a Sunay picnc then things begin to change, the weather turns foul and soon our hero ( Bilbo ) is cold,wet,hungry and miserable. All the things the Baggins side of him detests. Maybe he had made a terrible mistake coming  along on this quest but it was too late to back out now. Night comes on and our band of adventurers were in a rather grumpy mood when they spotted a fire off in the distance and they decided to send there burglar ( Bilbo ) off to investigate which he does and what does he find but three Trolls. Now these are not the mindless Troll types you met in The Lord Of The Rings movie , rather these three talk and whats stranger is that they speak with an English cockney accent definitely not the proper speech that Tolkien infuses his gallant hero types with.Could this be a bit of upper class Englishmen looking down at and poking fun at lower class Englishman? Who knows who cares. Anyhoo our poor hero ( Bilbo ) is in a bit of a pickle, he can turn and flee back to his compatriots and advise them to make tracks and seek safer climes but no the Tookish side decides to return with one of the Trolls wallets. Doesn't make much sense but I believe Bilbo is trying to prove that there is a bit more of the burglar in him than the Dwarves think so he goes for the wallet but unfortunately Trolls wallets can talk and this one sounds the alarm and woosh poor Bilbo finds himself picked up by one of the Trolls and dangling upside down. Now do these Trolls have harsh foul sounding names like Grishnak or the like, no they have quite recognizable names like Bert and William. Also they as stated previously are able to speak and are trying to decide to eat Bilbo or not when the Dwarves show up and get themselves caught too. The whole lot of them seem to be quite inept at this adventuring business and would all surely have been a snack for the Trolls except for Gandalf who shows up and doesn't cast any magic spells on them but tricks them into arguing with one another so intensely that they forget the time and the sun rises and turns them all to stone which happens if Trolls get caught in the sunlight. Why didn't the Trolls in The Lord Of The Rings movies turn to stone? You will have to contact a Tolkien scholar for that answer, of which I am not. While at the Troll site they enter the Trolls cave and there find two swords with one being taken by Gandalf and one by Thorin and this will come to play in the 4th chapter. It seems Mr. Baggins is endowed with a lot of something that any adventurer heading off through dangerous lands to kill a Dragon needs and that is Luck. Now we move on to the next chapter which appeals more to the Baggins side they are to visit Erond in Rivendell and there rest and seek his advice before continuing there adventure. They meet some Elves on the way who really sound quite foolish and sing a rather silly song about them but eventually they arrive in Rivendell and this is as close that Bilbo is going to get to a Hobbitish sort of home, of course it is much grander but it is also infinitely more relaxing and has plenty of good food which certainly appeals to Bilbo. While here Gandalf produces a map given to him by Thorins father and here it gets a little incredulous because they look at the map and Elrond announces that it is a map designed to be read by the light of a particular moon and at a certain day of the year and aren't they so lucky this is just the right moon and this is just the right day to read it on,wow what coincidences. Elrond tells them where to go o the mountain to find the secret door to the Dragons lair. He also tell Gandalf and Thorin that the two swords from the Trolls cave were made by Elfs ages past for use in the Goblins war. So between them they are carrinyg the two swords made that the Goblins both fear and retest. So it would behoove them to avoid Goblins at all cost. Whoops, not going to happen , which we will cover in our next installment, The Hobbit Chapter # 4

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