"Concerning Hobbits"

(This is not spoiler free, y’all. Read at your own risk.)

Most people who don’t follow me on Twitter may not be aware of my passionate affection for the Halflings of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, commonly referred to as hobbits. But today is your lucky day because I recently obtained a set of the books (including The Hobbit) so I’m about to word vomit all about how amazing they truly are.

We can start, as the books do, by talking about Shire culture. Hobbits appreciate nothing more than a life of peace and pleasure. They love parties and smoking tobacco and eating about a million meals a day. It’s pretty clear that nobody particularly admires Bilbo Baggins after he comes back from his adventure. They don’t know or care about how important he was in the quest. Many hobbits in the Shire regard him as a bad influence on the younger ones by sharing his stories. Bravery isn’t a trait admired in a hobbit, and they definitely don’t aspire for adventure.

Now we introduce Frodo Baggins, who was adopted by Bilbo and raised hearing about his exciting history. Frodo has a very obvious admiration for Bilbo, but he’s also conscious of what older hobbits think about his guardian. While he likes to ponder what it’d be like to leave the Shire, Frodo never has real intentions to do so. He understands and is content with life in the Shire. But he still agrees to take the Ring to the Elves. And in Rivendell when the council struggles to choose someone to bear the Ring to Mordor, Frodo volunteers to do it, even while thinking of the comfort of returning to the Shire. At many points, he’s confronted with the idea that he won’t finish the journey, let alone make it back home, but it never stops him from pushing on.

If you want me to get grossly emotional, ask me how I feel about Samwise Gamgee’s loyalty. Not only is he happy to follow Frodo into the unknown and dangerous, but when Frodo tries to send him away, (on multiple occasions) Sam refuses to let his friend continue such a dangerous journey alone. Even when Frodo appears to be dead, Sam insists on staying with him because it’s where he belongs. I could honestly do a blog post just about how amazing Samwise Gamgee is, but I’ll just leave it there. He could have had a normal life in the Shire with a wife, but he willingly gives it up in order to do whatever he can to help Frodo.

I’m going to talk about Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck (Pippin and Merry) as a unit because they’re rarely separated in the story. They’re taken from the rest of the fellowship by orcs and drugged, but they manage to escape. Then, alone in a forest they had been warned is dangerous, what do the two hobbits do but convince the sleeping, incredibly slow-to-action Ents to fight back against Saruman and take Isengard back. Even when the two are separated, they continue to pursue goodness. When Pippin arrives at Gondor with Gandalf, he pledges his service to King Denethor in honor of Boromir dying to protect him. After just saying, “Man! Indeed not! I am a hobbit and no more valiant than I am a man, save perhaps now and again by necessity. Do not let Gandalf deceive you!” Likewise, Merry devotes himself to serving King Théoden of Rohan while Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli go off on their own quest. When the people of Rohan are preparing to ride to the aid of Gondor, Merry offers to fight with them instead of being left safely behind and when the king declines the request, he rides with another soldier. These two joined Frodo on his journey to help their friend out, but even after separating, they continue working for the greater cause.

Undoubtedly knowing that when they arrived back at the Shire, nobody would truly appreciate what they had gone through and accomplished, these 4 hobbits risk their lives countless times in hopes of making a safer world. They don’t have the same sense of honor ingrained in them as the other members of their company, so they’re not motivated at all by receiving recognition. Instead, they feel a deep sense of responsibility to do whatever is in their power to better the world for everyone.

But it’s not just Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. At the very end, all the hobbits in the Shire have to stage an uprising against the men who had taken over. It may take a little work, but they fight back and claim their home back.

My point is that hobbits have a reputation for being low-key and isolated and peaceful, but as Gandalf is reminded time and time again, there is much more to hobbits than it initially seems. They’re capable of being brave and selfless and fighting for a higher cause as much as anyone else.

“It never ceases to amaze me, the courage of hobbits.” – Gandalf, The Desolation of Smaug, 2013

I know the feeling, do you?

Stay rad, pals.

((And, for the record, the title of this blog post is a title in the Prologue of The Fellow of the Ring. I'm not trying to take any credit for that.))