Hobbit Nostalgia Post

Yesterday I finished watching The Hobbit Trilogy in theater. And as much I'd love to tell you how much it sucks, I'm too caught up on nostalgia of the past 14+ years of my life.

 So, that's what I'm going to talk about first.

 If you don't want to a review my adolescent/Tolkien #feels please skip this post. I'll upload the content/thematic review shortly (either tomorrow or, you know, whenever I feel like it)

Annyyway....

When I was about 13-14, my sister Red got a dramatized edition of The Hobbit on five white cassette tapes with grainy, 1968-era audio sound (That, judging from the reviews on the product, pretty much everyone except me hates)

The story/script was compelling. Right from the beginning, there are these vivid descriptions that lead into the story without weighing the story down.

The cast was fantastic; The Narrator, the bumbling/stuttering Bilbo Baggins ("B-A-double-G-I-N-S"), Thorin, Gandalf and Gollum. Later, when I started Fellowship of the Ring and decided I should read the book version of The Hobbit, those voices were the ones I imagined.

Movie-goers fell in love with Richard Armitage's voice as he sang the adventure-anthem "Far Over The Misty Mountains" for the movie. (and for good reason, it's an excellent rendition). In the same way, fell in love the version of that song in the radio drama. It's longer, the tone is different but to me it's every even more enchanting because its the song that first ushered me into the adventure.

(I loved this song so much, I wrote more verses to it....mostly about what the people in Dale were doing when the dragon attacked and about what the dwarves were planning on doing. They weren't very good, but you know...fanfiction.)

I don't recall if I was babysitting or at school, but for some reason Red was able to listen to the story ahead of where we had left off. She left me in Gollum's Cave, she was at the Battle of Five Armies. When I  opened the door to the room, she was listening to the last cassette tape...

"NO!! You can't come in!!" 

...and she slammed her body against the door to keep me out.

"You have to listen to it all the way though!" 

I typically don't mind being spoiled when it comes to plot points, but I am so glad my sister did this for me.

 I went in to listening to the story no knowing what was going to happen. She wasn't being mean or anything, we both were enjoying the story and I knew if she didn't want me to skip chapters, it was because what was coming next was really, really good. And that just skipping to the end would make me enjoy it less.

She was totally right. The last 1/3 of the story blew me away.

One of the reasons I think the story resonated with me is because of what was happening in my life at the time.

If I recall correctly we started the story just prior to, or concurrently with, me beginning community college courses and volunteering at the hospital (and, in general, preparing for the future that I wanted to have: as a nurse, as a young adult, and ultimately as a wife/parent).

Bilbo's beginning could have easily been written as a midlife crisis (If it was, he would be looking back at his life with regret and book!Bilbo doesn't do this.) but Tolkien didn't do that. Even though Bilbo is an older man when the story begins, this story is his coming of age. It's the part of his life in which he's deciding who he wants to be.

A Few of Bilbo's "Teen" Struggles:

•  He worries about what other people think about him

• He's wants to be dependable and worthy of trust

• He lacks practical experience. 

• He struggles with fitting in.

• He gets depressed and overwhelmed (and kinda gothy)

• He gets obnoxious and cocky

• He (sometimes) gets lonely, even when he's surrounded by a bunch of people.

• He's competent

• He's the anti hero

I think I can pretty much echo Movie!Gandalf when he says:

Sometimes when I was in school or at work I would quote Bilbo to myself. Not the really memorable/meaningful quotes, just the little snippets of Bilbo being Bilbo: When I was overwhelmed (Why oh why did I ever leave my hobbit hole), or pleased with myself (Now I am a burglar indeed.) or disappointed ([So this is victory...] It seems a very gloomy business).

It sound really pathetic, but it gave me a lot of encouragement because I idolized him (still do ;))

Even if no one had ever thought to turn Tolkien's books into movies, this story would still have had a affect on my life (but it's probably would have been something that I'd have kept in my heart...Not posted twenty blog posts about, or dressed up as Thorin Oakenshield when I go to the theater.)


Here are some of my favorite (meaningful) Quotes from The Hobbit:


“He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.” 

A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo's heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second. he trembled. And then quite suddenly in another flash, as if lifted by a new strength and resolve, he leaped.

“Well, are you alive or are you dead?” asked Bilbo quite crossly. Perhaps he had forgotten that he had had at least one good meal more than the dwarves, and also the use of his arms and legs, not to speak of a greater allowance of air. “Are you still in prison, or are you free? If you want food, and if you want to go on with this silly adventure–it’s yours after all and not mine–you had better slap your arms and rub your legs and try and help me get the others out while there is a chance!”

“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

“Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.”

“Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!” 

“You! You!” cried Thorin, turning upon him and grasping him with both hands. “You miserable hobbit! You undersized—burglar!” he shouted at a loss for words, and he shook poor Bilbo like a rabbit.

“Thief, thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!” 


“You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.” 

“Gandalf, dwarves and Mr. Baggins! We are met together in the house of our friend and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious hobbit—may the hair on his toes never fall out!” 

"[I] have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, and uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them."  

“Don't tell us about dreams – dream dinners aren't any good and we can't share them.” 

“I may be a burglar...but I'm an honest one, I hope, more or less.” 

“To the end of his days Bilbo could never remember how he found himself outside, without a hat, a walking stick or any money, or anything he usually took when he went out; leaving his second breakfast half-finished and quite unwashed-up, pushing his keys into Gandalf’s hands, and running as fast as his furry feet could carry him down the lane, past the great Mill, across The Water, and then on for a mile or more.”