The Hobbit (novel): Difference between revisions

 

 

Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.'' }}

 

** Bilbo's ancester Bullroarer Took probably qualifies as well.

* [[Badass Boast]]:

'''Smaug:''' I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today.Then I was but young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, strong... ... My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death! }}

* [[Battle-Interrupting Shout]]: Gandalf appears between the Dwarven, Elvish, and Human armies as they move to battle each other.

* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: If you can decode the runes around the original cover (which are simply standard [[wikipedia:Runic alphabet|Norse runes]]), it gives a full title in English: "The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again: Being the record of a year's journey made by Bilbo Baggins; compiled from his memoirs by J.R.R. Tolkien and published by George Allen & Unwin." (Newer editions added "of Hobbiton" after "Baggins", and changed the name of the publisher.)

* [[Blackmail Is Such an Ugly Word]]:

* [[Boisterous Bruiser]]: Beorn, at least [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|once you've gotten through his defenses.]]

* [[Book Ends]]

* [[Butt Monkey]]: Bombur. He always manages to come last in everything, and if one of the dwarves slips and falls into a river, gets caught by an enchantment or has something unpleasant or humiliating happen to him, it'll be Bombur.

* [[Call to Adventure]]: One of the classics.

* [[Canon Welding]]: When he began writing the sequel, Tolkien moved it and ''The Hobbit'' into his Middle-Earth legendarium setting, which had already been around for over twenty years, although nothing of it had been published so far. The move brought with it some [[Retcon]] and [[Rewrite]] concerning the events of ''The Hobbit'', which was partly explained as Bilbo being an [[Unreliable Narrator]]. (Or rather, a Reliable Narrator whose lying about the recovery of the Ring was extremely portentous and whose knowledge of the Elder Days wasn't quite up to snuff.)

* [[The Caper]]: Stealing the treasure.

* [[The Fair Folk]]: The narrator says that Wood Elves can be a lot closer to this than High Elves.

* [[Famed in Story]] / [[Shrouded in Myth]]: As Tolkien's narration puts it:

* [[Faux Affably Evil]]: Smaug is extremely articulate when Bilbo was sneaking around, and has some enjoyment in conversing and riddling, but he would have killed him immediately if he could see and at the same time makes no attempt to hide that he's a merciless killer.

* [[Fiction 500]]: Smaug sleeps atop a pile of coins and jewelry ([http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2011/04/06/how-much-is-smaug-tolkei-dragon-worth/ app. value: $8 billion]) and his hideout has many more riches -- in fact, the interest to loot it leads to...