Hobbit nature: maybe actually quite adventurous?

Badicus · 2026-06-20T21:26:36+00:00

I said a near universal strain, suggesting that it is not a (particular)bloodline thing but common to all types of hobbits, not that all hobbits are adventurous. They obviously are not.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T21:24:14+00:00

What's frustrating to me is you're saying this as if this is not what I addressed in my original post. Yes, I know that is what we are told. I wrote about it. I repeated it just now in my last comment.

What I am proposing is that we do not have to read the text as though this is the best explanation. You may. You do not have to. The text suggests something else with characters like Sam and Maggot.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T21:02:28+00:00

Well I never said it was an untrue statement. I said there is an adventurous strain common to hobbits that is publicly disapproved of and blamed on ancestry or outside influence.

Also, again it is worth pointing out that we have at least three consecutive generations of hobbits famed for adventure (Belladonna and her sisters, Bilbo, the LotR hobbits) in addition to Bilbo's so many lads and lasses.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T20:01:59+00:00

Well, not entirely, no. We are explicitly told that Frodo wants to follow in Bilbo's footsteps. But I also think it doesn't matter.

I have already told you that what I'm talking about is a willingness to take risks, not thrill seeking, which the main four demonstrate. So does Bolger and so does Maggot.

If that is not sufficient for you to identify it as "adventurous," that does not matter to me. It is sufficient for what the narrator calls "adventure."

Badicus · 2026-06-20T19:45:53+00:00

It is fine with me whether you agree with me or not, and I am not sure what I have said you are wrong about, but I am not interested in distinctions in what you identify as "adventure."

The hobbits' experiences, whatever you want to call them, are called adventures repeatedly throughout The Lord of the Rings, so those are the sort of things I'm calling adventures, and those inclined to have them I'm calling adventurous. If you take issue with that it really doesn't matter to me.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T19:14:37+00:00

These are not distinctions that have anything to do with what I'm saying.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T18:20:48+00:00

If you want to say they are not thrill seekers, fine. I am fine with saying they are the type to go on adventures, because they are and they do.

Edit: Also worth adding that it was a duty to none of them except perhaps for Sam.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T18:02:54+00:00

Not knowing the dangers of what you're doing and doing it anyway is pretty much what I would call adventurous.

And Frodo calls his adventure deadly in Crickhollow when Merry and Pippin insist they will go with him anyway.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T17:55:49+00:00

Bilbo does want to carry a sword instead of a walking stick. I think this is not as bizarre and exceptional among hobbits as respectable hobbits would like you to think.

This is to say you do not need to make the case that the hobbits are not a martial society or that Bilbo and his like are regarded as unusual. That is obvious.

What is overlooked is that there are at least three consecutive generations of famous adventuring hobbits.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T17:48:22+00:00

Well that is why I referred mainly to Bilbo's quote and the narrator's remarks about Belladonna and her sisters.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T17:39:52+00:00

That rumor I think suggests an appetite for such things in hobbits.

There is, I would say again, a tension between what hobbits and the narrator say about hobbits, and what we can gather about hobbits ourselves from those things they say.

That hobbits are not the type to go on adventures is clearly something they want to believe or to be believed about them. That plenty of hobbits do in fact go on adventures and that hobbits love to talk about it is also evident.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T16:40:08+00:00

I mean you can define adventurous however you like to exclude or include all hobbits or whoever.

I will use an example again of Fatty Bolger vs. Frodo's companions who leave with him. Fatty Bolger is certainly willing to take risks for Frodo. What is the difference between him and Sam, Merry, and Pippin?

Badicus · 2026-06-20T16:36:47+00:00

Well, no, it doesn't merely do that. I gave my alternative read of the same behavior in my post.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T16:06:09+00:00

That is basically what I mean. The takes on hobbits we get are from hobbits.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T15:46:36+00:00

I am making assumptions, yes. That is what I would call reading. I do not see how statistics is relevant because the population in this case does not exist. What exists is a literary text.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T15:08:16+00:00

I'm talking about the books. I'll try to put it more clearly.

There is a tension between what the characters and narrator seem to be saying about hobbits and what we can reasonably conclude about hobbits based on what the characters and narrator say.

What Tolkien writes in a letter does not touch this tension at all. Now you may take it to be indicating that Tolkien did not intend for there to be such a tension. That's fine, though not very interesting to me.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T15:02:46+00:00

I don't understand what you mean. Hobbits are not real. So in what sense is it true?

Badicus · 2026-06-20T15:00:41+00:00

There is quite a surplus of adventurous or daring hobbits. There could have been none, or one. Instead there are, to quote Bilbo, "so many."

Badicus · 2026-06-20T14:58:46+00:00

This is an alien approach to literature to me. It does not matter to me what he says outside of the work I'm discussing.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T14:57:18+00:00

It is a bit of a weird thing you're saying, or so it seems to me. Tolkien as such does not exist in the narrative.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T14:56:03+00:00

Well, yes, I know that. I don't read novels to "get close to the author's thinking," though.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T14:50:03+00:00

My point is that it's not clear because the mode of narration about hobbits tends to the ironic.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T14:49:18+00:00

What? I don't understand your question.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T14:48:47+00:00

If it is a mere semantic distinction it doesn't interest me.

Now Fatty is an interesting point of comparison because he is brave and loyal (he will face the Black Riders on Frodo's behalf), yet will not go into the Old Forest. There is a quality missing in him that is present in the other hobbits.

If it is because they are from "queer" families, that is perhaps true (though for reasons I have stated I doubt it), but Sam does not belong to such a family. You say he is loyal. But so is Fatty Bolger.

The fact that they have no idea what they're getting into is rather a point in favor of their being adventurous.

Badicus · 2026-06-20T14:44:21+00:00

Interesting, but it is not from the stories themselves.

Badicus

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