Hobbitted

Tonight on "The Hobbit": Thorin shows us his bad side.

Spiders are dead, Bilbo can turn invisible, and Thorin was CAPTURED!  Things start to feel political as Tolkein describes the tension between Thorin's captors, the Wood-Elves, and dwarves of yore. Apparently, a group of dwarves stole some beloved treasures from the wood-elves, and when called out for their bad deeds, the dwarves were all "Man, this was mine to BEGIN with!". I wonder how kids reading the story take all of this: do they just accept that grown people were meant to quarrel? 

Anyway, Thorin is now in jail, and the wood-elves know he's a dwarf, and now it's time to play what I can only describe as Wood-Elf-Dwarf Police Drama:

"Why did you and your folk three times try to attack my people at their merrymaking?" asked the king.

"We did not attack them," answered Thorin; "we came to beg, because we were starving."

"Where are your friends now, and what are they doing?"

"I don't know, but I expect starving in the forest."

"What were you doing in the forest?"

"Looking for food and drink, because we were starving."

"But what brought you into the forest at all?" asked the king angrily.

At that Thorin shut his mouth and would not say another word.

I can just see a king with a pointy hat, long beard, and layers of gold chains pounding the metal table, yelling until he's red in the face. Thorin sits at this table under a burning bulb/torch, head hung low, wrists cuffed/roped, a little Kevin-Spacey insane-but-composed, sticking to hunger as his alibi all the way, maybe smoking a cigarette slowly. Kids reading alone at home think, "Wow, Thorin is so cool.  He even knows how to use the fifth amendment!"  This scene is almost sexy.  A king? The accused, sticking to his story, providing smart-assed responses, rejecting an authority figure? All we need is some club music and a blonde holding a test-tube labeled "Evidence".  For the record, Thorin just won my Favorite Character badge.

So he gets thrown in the elf-slammer and is given lots of food and water while the other dwarves wander around aimlessly and hungrily looking for him.  </scene>

Leonard Nimoy <3s him some Hobbits.

Ladies with bobs, fake eyelashes, and sweet shoulder dance moves?  If I'd seen this propaganda as a kid, heckens yes i would have read this book!

NOTE: I only know that this is Leonard Nimoy because YouTube told me.  And I only know how Leonard Nimoy is famous because Wikipedia told me; I've never seen a single Star Trek episode or movie.

Holy Hobbit Hole!

BoingBoing wrote about this home in Portland as a "really swanky pad for superrich Hobbits". 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he lives in a hole, not a hut or a house or anything of that nature, but it's pretty easy to envision a Ultimate HobbitHole Makeover, as soon as Bilbo snags the treasures from the misty mountain (which, by the laws of plots of movies/literature where we're rooting for the underdog, I know he will).  He's already getting more chummy with the other dwarves so I have a good feeling that they'll need more space to have ridiculously crazy Hobbit/Dwarf/Wizard parties to reminisce the good ol' times when they got lost in a cave full of goblins or when Bilbo killed everything in sight.

Bonus points to Anil for presuming earlier that the story takes place in Oregon.  Any Oregonizers want to dispute this?

invisible hobbit sleuthing, jailbreak, and barrels full of anger. [graphically!]

To show my understanding of plot, today, I have drawn the key elements of where I am in the story.  I last left you with Thorin and his prisoner game , so the one thing you need to know is that Bilbo is not imprisoned, but is running around the Wood-elf compound invisibly (hence the dotted lines).

I think my reaction as an unbarrelled dwarf would involve more symbols, color, and violence.

at least ascii art makes The Hobbit more interesting.

Look, I've been reading. I'll prove it.

The dwarves, despite all of their exclamation marks, got over their anger and continued on to a

  _        _    _  _______   _____ _____        ___   _ 
 | |      / \  | |/ / ____| |_   _/ _ \ \      / / \ | |
 | |     / _ \ | ' /|  _|     | || | | \ \ /\ / /|  \| |
 | |___ / ___ \| . \| |___    | || |_| |\ V  V / | |\  |
 |_____/_/   \_\_|\_\_____|   |_| \___/  \_/\_/  |_| \_|
                                                        

where Throin (HAHA! Thorin, not Throin.  I can only wish this was a children's book where a character's name rhymed with "Groin") was treated like a friggin god and everybody ate and drank and smoked until they were fattened up a bit and grew big healthy beards. Then they continued about their merry way until they hit the

  _                  _                                     _        _       
 | | ___  _ __   ___| |_   _   _ __ ___   ___  _   _ _ __ | |_ __ _(_)_ __  
 | |/ _ \| '_ \ / _ \ | | | | | '_ ` _ \ / _ \| | | | '_ \| __/ _` | | '_ \ 
 | | (_) | | | |  __/ | |_| | | | | | | | (_) | |_| | | | | |_ (_| | | | | |
 |_|\___/|_| |_|\___|_|\__, | |_| |_| |_|\___/ \__,_|_| |_|\__\__,_|_|_| |_|
                       |___/                                                

where they were all subdued by a solid case of The Willies since they knew that This Was It.

I'm having a terrible time disassociating all of this mountain anticipation with Zelda for SNES, but really, isn't this what they were facing, more or less?  Yes, they brought ponies, and yes, the crew rolled 14 deep, but what's Link other than a sword-yielding Hobbit anyway? 

They couldn't find the entrance to the mountain, so they waited it out for a few days and then, in a clearing that more or less felt meaningful, MAGICALLY, a secret door to the mountain opened.  So, that means, they timed their trip exactly to the day of the anniversary of the goblin/troll/dwarf birthday/equinox situation or something, which is the one day that this door would open.   Good going, Tolkien.

The crew convinces Bilbo to go inside (invisibly), and...there's a

inside.

THEN, SOMEONE WOKE ME UP ON THE Q TRAIN JUST BEFORE I MISSED MY STOP! 

Do's and Dont's of Dragon Small-Talk

We're at the point in the story we've all been reading other books to pass the time waiting for: Bilbo has to go down into this big scary mountain and convince this dragon feller, Smaug, to give up his gold.

You probably weren't aware of this, but dragons aren't all fire and that blinking red bulb that you need to hit with the Master Sword while blocking rocks with your Hylian shield.  No, man. Dragons can talk (gasp!), they have an incredible sense of smell (really!), and they're really OCD about having their stuff all in the right place. 

In case you ever find yourself in a situation where, say, you'd like to casually influence the dragon to either leave or spontaneously die, take some notes from LL Cool Baggins.

• Wear your invisibility ring. (Why aren't you wearing yours right now, fool?!)
• Flatter the dragon.  Call him by name, tell him that he's dastardly good-looking and intimidating, but don't play dumb like you're lost and you're looking for the 13th missing dwarf.  You're in the pit of a cave where all you can hear is lava bubbling and a room-sized creature growling.  It's too late for whoopsies.
• Don't give away that you're rolling 13-dwarves deep!  Hello!?! I mentioned their heightened sense of smell because Dragons crave those cute, little, cakey filled, frosted topped, dwarves.
  
  
• Stock up on some good riddles.  Make this dragon think he's capable of solving your silly puzzles, but make sure they're ludicrous enough not to make any sense or divulge that you're actually 3.5 feet tall.  Try to tip him off to another location (like lame-o Lake Town, for example) to keep him thinking about you after he leaves. 
• Wear heat-resistant clothing.  I believe you can pick up a nice tunic like this one from the Goron families living towards the bottom layers of the volcano.
  
  
  But, most importantly of all,
• Get high off of your own confidence.  Take a shot of whiskey, put on the invisibility ring, and set your iPod playlist to "Inspirational/Explosions in the Sky" to psyche yourself up for face time with the big lizard himself. 
  

What happens after Bilbo follows these rules?  The dragon ever so CONVENIENTLY hitches out of town for a few days, leaving the treasure completely exposed.  ::: APPLAUSE :::

As much as I would have wanted this story to end peacefully and quietly, this, my friends, does not mean it's over.

Some ill shit is overdue in The Hobbit right about now.

So, defying all odds and logic, the dragon conveniently left his pit of treasures.  What the hell would you do if you just heard a witness' harrowing tale that this dangerous and huge creature aggressively seeks to devour your delicious ass? Would you fire up your little Dwarf-Droid and call your nearby pirate, bear-man, or lake peeps to rescue you from the danger they knew would happen? I mean, they let you stay at their place for free and drink all the mead that you want -- they must regard you as a brother, right?  Well, if you're in this particular gang of 14 with big dollar signs in your pupils, you head right into the moneypit, Ducktales-style.

 

Every one of them is walking around the dragon's lair and pocketing everything they can, practically doing the backstroke with their jovial selves surrounded by riches.  Long gone are the days when Bilbo's head and heels were singed with the dragon's firey breath, or that moody time they had when they were pretty sure death was coming their way.  No sirree! Ain't nothing gonna rain on their arkenstone-laden parade!

Yeah, right.  Somebody is about to get eaten or killed, and I'm going to guess who it will be.

WILL NOT GET EATEN:

• Bilbo.  People have already told me that he becomes more evil with this ring in later stages of his life, so he's categorically not going to die.  Plus, he has to make it back to his hobbit hole and prove he's not just a petite pink pig and all that.
• Gandalf.  This guy is effing MIA.  
• Bombur. He's the only plus-sized character, and he's already been in a coma where he awoke to unsupportive peers.  If he dies, Tolkien is sizeist.
• Dori, who was once called The Strongest of the group.  Can't eat him.  Sorry.

HAS A GOOD POSSIBILITY OF GETTING EATEN:

• Thorin. He's our most prominent character besides Bilbo and Gandalf, and he has a familial history with the dragon and the mountain.  It would make poetic plot-sense for him to die in order to defeat the dragon or reclaim the arkenstone or save the other sheep or whatever.
• Balin.  He normally serves as the lookout on dragon/spelunking missions, he's an old man, and he's very Pro-Bilbo.  Easy target.  Viewer's choice.
• Ori, Oin, and Nori.  Who the hell were those guys?  Moochers, that's who. 

SHOULD HAVE BEEN EATEN/KILLED ALREADY:

• Gloin.  He made the joke that Bilbo made a better grocer than a burglar.  The best way to foreshadow one's own death is to doubt the main character in the beginning. He should be gone by now, or should have betrayed the larger group and repented or something.
• Bofur.  He was on pony lookout!  Pathetic.
• Fili, Kili.  These bums "looked uncomfortable and stood on one leg" when Bilbo asked the crowd to help him on his mission.  I should eat these two on principle (and I'm a vegetarian!).
• Bifur.  I'm surprised this guy hasn't been naturally selected out of the group, since this is his claim to fame so far:

"Tomorrow begins the last week of autumn," said Thorin one day.

"And winter comes after autumn," said Bifur.

• Dwalin. This dude has a problem with taking responsibility for anything, and he's always pushing Bilbo closer to the firepit.  Kill this guy.

I'll keep reading, but seriously, Tolkien, prove to me that this mission is dangerous already.  And bring Gandalf back!

THE END, PART ONE: Really? That's the dragon's fate? Awkward. And why are there bats, again?

So by this time, I'm thinking that Dragon is about to come back and eat some dwarves like marshmellow peeps or torch some ponies or just get reallll mad and destructive.  But, the thing is,

THE DRAGON IS DEAD.

See, back when the cute lil Bilbo flirted with the big lizard, he dropped some hefty hints that his crew came from Lake Town (aka Esgaroth).  So the dragster flew away from the mountain, leaving the dwarves to play finder' keeprs' and chain-mail dress-up, and, without warning, torched the whole effing town. 

And, you know what?  Lake Town had it coming.  They were the closest town next to a mountain with a freaking dragon next to it.  It was only a matter of time before this shit came to their docks.  I mean, would you want to be that one stubborn idiot who lives at the base of Dante's Peak?  Even Pierce Brosnan couldn't save Grandma from the molten lava, and our only Pierce-like character in this story is Gandalf and he's egregiously absent at this point.

So, most people were kinda flipping out and jumping into the water, as is expected if your town is engulfed in flames. Then a little birdie gave a pep talk to convince The Man Who Shot the Dragon Down to...shoot the dragon down with a special arrow thingie or something.  TMWSTDD, aka Bard, instantly surpassed local politics of LakeTown to win the hearts and minds of the post-traumatic survivors.  They hailed him, he shrugged and cried in his best Hugo Reyes voice "But dudes, why did that dragon attack us?!"  Everybody shrugged. Then they remembered those schmucks who crashed their parties earlier in the week with big dumb plans to get that dragon's goodies.  A collective "Motherf***ers!" was reported to be heard from miles away.

Here's the awkward part: our sweet, fun-loving band o dwarves gets a knock on their mountain door from the Lake Town gang, and Thorin answers.  Lake Townies -- ever so cordially, mind you -- kindly explain the "Big Ol' Misunderstanding" that the dragon "thought the dwarves were in Lake Town! (laughs)" and it "(shrugs) wouldn't respond to begging" and it proceeded to "kill (slight murmur in the crowd) everyone but us, really" while more or less "demolishing our homes and heritage"!  Ha!  Ha ha.  How peculiar.  Then the Townies suggest that, since the dragon is gone, and they're in need of some supplies to rebuild their civilization, could Thorin and the group spare some metal to get them started.

And Thorin's all "No! You can't come into my treehouse!"...thus bending his bad-boy streak into a much lamer "I'm actually a young boy" theme. Really!?  Really.

Meanwhile, Bilbo and a few dwarves that should be dead are getting hungry and grumpy, so he makes a break for it late at night to make peace with the Townies with Thorin's beloved arkenstone.  Seriously, Bilbo did this for food, and afterward, when the Townies made a deal with Thorin, everybody hailed him as a soul with a big heart.  Whatever. 

Oh, and Gandalf showed up when Thorin threatened to throw Bilbo off the mountain for betrayal/theft/jealousy/unrequited love.

So, great!  The Townies plan to come back the next day a little after brunch to pick 1/14th of the goods (Bilbo's share, actually), Gandalf is alive and well, the dragon is dead, the book is done!

Yeah! 

No!  Thunder! Lightning!  Intense weather of sorts.  Stories where the weather coincides with plot intensity are yawnifying, even when Halle Berry is involved.  The sky grows dark with bats!  A bunch of postal birds come flying out of nowhere, and then Thorin's cousin with whom he'd been bird-mailing for a few weeks shows up opportunely with his people ready to throw down, and THEN (!) Goblins, Wolves, Wargs (I really don't know.) and, most frightening of all, BOLG!  BOLG IS HERE! I DONT KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! IS THAT BAD? HE SOUNDS LIKE 'BULGE'; DOES THAT MEAN HE'S BIG?  OR THAT HE'S BRINGING FOOD? OH, LOOK A CLUE IN THE PRINTED TEXT!!

THERE'S LITERALLY AN ASTERISK PRINTED NEXT TO BOLG'S NAME IN THE BOOK BECAUSE THE MAJORITY OF READERS NEED TO BE TOLD WHO HE IS!  I SUDDENLY FEEL ONE WITH THE REST OF READERS WHO HAVE MADE IT THIS FAR!  I ALMOST *GET* WHY SO MANY PEOPLE ARE IN LOVE WITH TOLKIEN -- because when you're drowning in details, your peers' suffering through the confusion makes the whole experience more socially rewarding.  KINDA LIKE LOST, WHERE LITERALLY NOBODY KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON!  SO, I SALUTE YOU, COMRADES! 

So onward I go. There are still dwarves to be killed.

THE END, PART TWO: The Final Battle

There was a big battle between Wood-Elves, Men, and Dwarves versus the Goblins the Wild Wolves. Bilbo was invisible for the whole thing and hid under a rock.  It lasted for two pages, the Bear Man showed up, and then Eagles came by and won the battle for the good guys.  Really, that's it.

These characters died:

• Bombur ¹
• Balin ²
• Thorin ²
  
• Fili ³
• Kili ³
• Bard
• Bolg
• Wargs
• Most of the Lake Men
• A couple of wood-elves

¹  A missed prediction that he will not die.  By my own rules, I declare Tolkien "sizeist".

² A 'Good Possibility' of death was accurate, although I don't have details on how the old man Balin died.  Thorin died a warrior's death but not before making up with Bilbo.   

³ No details; these guys should have already been dead.

The Lake Townies took the Arkenstone home after all, as well as some more goodies from the dead folks' share.  Bilbo parts with a trunk of silver and a trunk of gold, and then Gandalf and Bear Man start the journey with him back to the hobbit hole, since the story is over and Bilbo is hungry and uncomfortable.

...I'm sorry, do you remember this scene differently?  I just wasn't really into it.  I had been gearing up for an adventure with a dragon and unprecedented riches, and when we got to that point in the book and somebody ELSE killed the dragon, I felt tricked.  The fact that the Dragon adventure was really just an excuse to establish a bigger Good Guys army against the Goblins makes Gandalf look not like a hero but power-hungry villain that uses Hobbits and Dwarves as pawns in his wargames.  Did the Fantastic 14 really want to go to war against Goblins?  Or did Gandalf bank on their greedy attachment to the treasure, counting on the high likelihood a fraction of the gold would be bequeathed to the local economy? 

Were the Goblins really that bad?  What had Gandalf been doing this whole time?  I mean, geez, who's the authority in these parts?  LakeTownies are in danger of extinction after 75% of the town's death due to the dragon, and they dwindled further at the hands of the goblins.  Was the Elvenking on board with this spontaneous war?  I'm beginning to think Gandalf should be put on trial.  He's not the hero in later books, is he?   

GoodReads has sensed my disdain for The Hobbit.

My daily email update from GoodReads shares what my friends are reading, what they plan to read, and their own review of what they just read.  And today I got a healthy reminder that I need to finish what I started over 100 days ago.

Final post tomorrow.