Sunday, January 15, 2012

Blog Post 6: A Sequel to the Hobbit?

It may give you some satisfaction to know that grading the exams took an absurd amount of time. That's what I get, I suppose . . .

For this blog post, I'd like you to consider The Fellowship of the Ring as a sequel to The Hobbit. This was, in fact, Tolkien's original purpose, as his letters to his publisher repeatedly demonstrate. Yet, as he pointed out on numerous occasions, the story somehow got away from him. What I’d like to ask is: where do you see the more Hobbit-like moments in the story? In what sense is The Fellowship of the Ring a sequel to The Hobbit, and how does it deviate from that intention? Is there a particular moment when the story takes a turn away from the tone and purpose of The Hobbit, and starts developing a sense of its own story-ness? Are there changes in familiar characters or landscapes that let us know we are in a different sort of story, even if it is set in the same world?

23 comments:

  1. Personally, I don't consider The Fellowship of the Ring to be a sequel to The Hobbit. Yes, there are overlapping characters and locations, but overall The Fellowship of the Ring doesn't seem to be a sequel. To me, a sequel builds on to what occurred in the original, but other than the ring, there aren't many similarities between the two. It's not that there is a distinct place where the two no longer seem overly related, but more that The Fellowship went in such a different direction that it never really felt that way to me.
    Lauren

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  2. I certainly think Tolkien attempted to tie the stories together, and I think it is evident that he did so in the first two chapters, but struggled to keep it a sequel as the story progressed. If you look at The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, you can track his thought process about writing a sequel to the Hobbit. Tolkien admitted that “I have no idea that to do with [the Hobbit]. For one thing the original Hobbit was never intended to have a sequel…”(Letters, #31). Tolkien later wrote that the Lord of the Rings is “getting quite out of hand. It has reached about Chapter VII and progresses towards quite unforeseen goals” (Letters, #33). As the “sequel” progressed Tolkien realized “The Lord of the Rings is in itself a good deal better than The Hobbit, but it may not prove a very fit sequel. It is more grown up – but the audience for which The Hobbit was written has done that also” (Letters #35).

    I think it is rather apparent that The Fellowship of the Ring started out as a sequel, as seen with the first chapter, which practically bookends the Hobbit with the title “A Long-Expected Party”. But there is a time in the book where the Lord of the Rings seems to transfer from attempting to be a sequel, to coming into a story of its own. I don’t know if this can be pinpointed to the exact spot, but the closest I’ve found is when Frodo talks to Gandalf about the One Ring. Frodo says, “Bilbo went to find a treasure, there and back again; but I go to lose one, and not return as far as I can see” (Beginning of Ch. 3). At the very least, this is the spot where Frodo seems to take ownership of the story, and it ceases to really be about Bilbo.

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  3. I don't think that by the time Tolkien was finished writing The Lord of the Rings he intended for the reader to consider it a sequel to The Hobbit. It definitely started out as a sequel, but by the time Gandalf tell Frodo about the history of the ring we have entered into a completely new story. Towards the beginning of The Hobbit the story is set up in a way that leads us to believe this will also follow Bilbo. The narrative speaks of Bilbo's 'joke' and follows him packing his things. The first chapters are even reminiscent of each other ("An Unexpected Party" in the Hobbit and "A Long Expected Party" in the Fellowship of the Ring). Tolkien even throws in some dwarves for Bilbo to leave with. It is also strongly hinted that Bilbo leaves in the same clothes that he sets out in at the beginning of The Hobbit. The reader is all set up to follow Bilbo on another adventure, until the ring is passed to Frodo and it becomes clear that he is the one that will have to make a journey this time. Tolkien also reverts to referring to Rivendell instead the homely house and the elves are far closer to the kind we see in The Silmarillion than the kind we see in The Hobbit and Tolkien ties in far more history from the Silmarillion than he ever did in the Hobbit.
    -Chelsea Mueller

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  4. Certainly there are similarities to The Hobbit but similar is where it ends. As everyone has mentioned the first chapter certainly connects the two but it quickly begins to differ. We begin The Fellowship a similar tone to the hobbit but it only lasts so long. Even in the first chapter we see Bilbo and Gandalf fighting over the ring, we begin to loose that hobbit tone. Within two chapters of the book we are finding out that concealed within the shire is a ring that will decided the fate of the world. A far cry form The Hobbit where Bilbo merely goes of on a quest to steal gold from a dragon.

    What really sets the two books apart are the tones of the two. Certainly Tolkien tries to keep somethings similar in the tone with the description of the party. Agian though it ends quickly with Bilbo's departure, and Gandalf instructions to Frodo. The plot of The Fellowship is certainly more serious and stretched out then in The Hobbit, because of this I can't really see The Fellowship as a sequel.

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  5. The Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring are indeed similar in the beginning, following along the lines of how the Hobbit sounds. I think this is mostly because the beginning of the Fellowship involves the hobbit world, and does not seem like it will go much further than that at first. But when Gandalf tells Frodo about the Ring, it incorporates the rest of Middle-Earth and its history into the story. This gives it a more worldly view than the Hobbit had.
    Also, in the Fellowship it is first discovered that this ring that Bilbo found is indeed the Ring of Sauron, and that puts a whole new amount of gravity in the situation that was not really there before. From that point on, the story takes a more serious tone, although it still has lighter moments in it. As the group of friends realizes the gravity of the situation and how evil the times have become, so it almost seems that the reader is shown this through the way the story is told from that point on.
    Although the Hobbit and the Fellowship may have similar tones in the beginning, they end up being two entirely different stories. They may both be in the same country of Middle-Earth, but not even Tolkien knew that the Hobbit would be related until much later, after it was already published.

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  6. The voice Tolkien uses most obviously makes the transition to a new story. His diction seems a bit more removed and more grand, and he alludes to many bigger things than he does in the Hobbit. he does this partially because in the hobbit, if we are to view it as being written by Bilbo, Bilbo would not know many of the grander things. However the story demands wider knowledge and bigger setpeices, because it deals with much larger consequences for all middle earth.
    I don't think that Tolkien intended when he started out to have this large of a story, but the signs of his smaller scale story are pretty obvious in the first few chapters.
    He meant to have more hobbits along this time: the foursome (Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin) make an excellent team with different skills and attributes. But as he got closer to the edge of the shire he realized that they couldnt just take the ring to rivendell, they would have to go the whole way! and then he backpedaled and reworked it to allow for the necessary pieces to be in the right place. and then, he had to add in the fellowship. thus thereby changing the whole arc very far away from the original hobbit-centric ideal of a Hobbit sequel.

    One character that has changed enough to tell the audience that we are working on a new story is gandalf. He was very comparably easygoing in the Hobbit, but in the Fellowship, he takes a turn for the serious. he is all stressed over Sauron, and Saruman, and especially the ring. Gandalf is no longer about making adventures happen or re-balancing the wealth in Middle Earth, he is about making sure that Middle Earth doesn't fall into darkness.

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  7. It is easy to see the two stories as sequels in plot, bot not readily so in tone. Tlotr starts to deviate from The Hobbit, as many different elements come into play. Indeed, compared to Frodo's journey, Bilbo's adventure to the Lonely Mountain seems like a brisk walk on an afternoon. Middle Earth is vast, and it follows that the story of an adventure through it would be as large in length and detail. Of course, tlotr also has many new characters and details in it not found in The Hobbit, such as Strider, Tom Bombadil, Sam Gamgee and others.
    It can obviously be seen as a sequel, since it branches off the story of Bilbo and his journey. It makes specific mention of the Rind, Gollum, and Bilbo's adventures. The passing of the Ring signifies a new main character in the story, Frodo, and a new adventure.
    Though it shares some hobbit-like tone qualities with The Hobbit, tlotr takes on its own tone, delving into much more detail and history than The Hobbit ever did. I suppose this is caused by Tolkien's assertion that the story is really taking place in Middle Earth. He was not so sure with TH, at first, and it reflects as much with the general absence of detail.
    The two stories can be seen to be very similar, and certainly taking place within the same realm, but not so easy to be seen by simply reading. I suppose the tone shift might be caused by the culmination of a hobbit's perspective mingled with that of men, elves and a certain wizard, and so explain the change in a way that keeps both with the story of Bilbo and its own validity as an account of events that occurred in Middle Earth.

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  8. The Lord of the Rings definitely starts off feeling more like The Hobbit. The part where Tolkien originally intended it to be just a sequel to The Hobbit comes clear when so much of the first good part of the book is Hobbit-centric. Even with the main characters being Hobbits, the rest of Lord of the Rings does not focus as much on the concept of Hobbits. The side quest thing with Tom Bombadil seems very much like something that would come out of The Hobbit (it reminded me a lot of Beorn, actually) more than something intended to fit into the large scale of the Middle Earth saga.

    Even with this, already from the beginning there are hints of a larger world and darkness. There is talk of Ents and Elves leaving, and of course the Black Riders. However, I don't feel that the story deviates too much from "sequel to The Hobbit" until we meet Aragorn. When they meet Aragorn, we are firmly taken out of the skirting-around-the-larger-history-of-Middle-Earth-and-its-heroes-but-still-implying-it's-there to being smack dab in the middle of it. Here now is a major character (besides the mysterious Gandalf) who is a straight connection to the stories of old from the Silmarillion. Here is where the Hobbits really encounter the wider world of Middle Earth. As seen with The Hobbit, once the world of the Silmarillion has worked its way in, there is no going back. So as it is here hitting us smack in the face, there is no turning back to just a nice, little story about Hobbits on a quest. The Hobbits have stumbled into the legend.

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  9. I can see that The Fellowship and The Hobbit are very much alike now that I have read them back to back. The Hobbit has this sort of chapter by chapter obstacle that Biblo must face on his journey and it seems very structured to me and it seems almost the same with The Fellowship. Theres the party, the riders, then the old forest, Tom Bombadil, the barrow wights, and then the riders again. In fact the riders are the thing that sets it apart form the hobbit. In the hobbit it seems that once an obstacle has been passed there need not be any more worry about it, but the riders are following frodo and so they keep coming back into the story. Also the elves seem more fair and less jolly or carefree, which gives the book a different tone. Gandalf also doesn't seem as much of a quirky wizard as an important and powerful person in middle earth.

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  10. I've always considered The Hobbit to be closely related to The Lord of the Rings. The characters are similar; it is Hobbit-centric; and it obviously operates within Middle-earth. Apart from these things, though, The Lord of the Rings has very little in common with The Hobbit. It functions on another plane. In my mind, The Lord of the Rings is suspended between The Silmarillion and The Hobbit. It's curious, then, to read them in chronological order, starting with the most difficult and serious text and moving to The Hobbit which is more or less a children's story. The Lord of the Rings concludes things as far as Middle-earth goes and it reads the most like books I'm used to.

    The Lord of the Rings retains its Hobbit-centric themes throughout the text and is probably most consistently seen in Sam or Pippin. Even Frodo, who becomes worn down with the ring, has his hobbit moments. The Lord of the Rings becomes its own story, though, separate from The Hobbit, when Gandalf encourages Bilbo to part with the ring before his journey. Already we have themes of an intense and invasive darkness that has even penetrated the Shire. The Lord of the Rings takes a couple steps toward the serious and somber though it doesn't lose the Hobbit moments. There is also Tom Bombadil who attacks a Barrow-wight with a song. The Lord of the Rings should be read after The Hobbit as the two works complement each other, but I do not think that The Lord of the Rings is a true sequel.

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  11. The Fellowship of the Ring is clearly a sequel to The Hobbit in that it has many characters and locations in common, but they can deviate in their tone. The Hobbit is a very lighthearted adventure in which Bilbo, though reluctant at first, somewhat enjoys his adventure and becomes very comfortable with the thought of himself as a burglar. This is contrasted by Frodo being forced to flee for his life from his comfortable living and undertake an adventure to destroy an evil that holds the land under its shadow. Bilbo just went out looking for gold! We never got the sense of fear or emergency in The Hobbit that we get in The Fellowship of the Ring and the dark riders. There still are parallels in the stories that remind us we are still reading about the same hobbits as before, such as when Merry asks Frodo about dinner and Frodo says “We had our supper early… But we could do with another.” This is something that the reader could easily see Bilbo saying in The Hobbit and we are reminded that this is, in fact, still a sequel.

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  12. The Lord of the Rings is an altogether more serious and more adult focused book than the Hobbit. Even in the beginning when lots of jokes abound and the storyline is still fairly simple the language and the pace of the story are still different than the Hobbit. In the beginning there are a lot of similarities especially when it is just the Hobbits journeying but when they reach weathertop and especially when they join the fellowship the similarities start to dwindle. By the time they reach Lothlorien it is obvious that the Lord of the Rings is a completely different sort of story than the Hobbit.

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  13. There are places in the Lord of the Rings were it does seem to function as a sequel. There are similar character and locations mentioned. The very beginning of the Lord of the Rings has a similar feel to it as the Shire is explained and hobbits are the focus.
    However, most of the book is not really a sequel. The tone changes very quickly from happy hobbit-like to dark and dangerous. Even in the Shire, the black riders are mentioned, so it does not really feel the same. Up to Rivendell, the book could almost function as a sequel, but even as Rivendell is approached the tone changes and the story feels much more grown-up.
    Also, though many charaters and location are the same, they are very different. Gandalf seems much more powerful and wise. The shire seems pretty much the same, but the black riders take away the innocence of it. However, the hobbits and Bombadil keep the story happy and much more hobbit-like similar to the Hobbit. But even Frodo seems less hobbit-like and much more serious. At points, the Lord of the Rings can functionn as a sequel, but overall it really does not have the same tone or style of the Hobbit.

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  14. It shocked me a little bit that Lord of the Rings was so similar in tone and style to The Hobbit, considering that it is also much darker and more dense. The hobbits still remain hobbits throughout, even though they go through many trials and Frodo in particular seems to darken as a character. Gandalf still has the same sense of humor. However, it is clear that The Lord of the Rings is not, in fact, as much of a sequel as an addition to Tolkien's vast legendarium that happens to include some of the same characters. Simply making a Baggins the main character does not make it a sequel; the themes are far different, as is the quest.

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  15. I think it works as a sequel to The Hobbit on a very primary level. It references a little of the material from the hobbit, and brings back a few of the characters. It alludes to the happenings in the Hobbit, but only briefly. I would argue that it’s more a supplement to the Sillmarillion than a sequel to the Hobbit, but more than anything, the Lord of the Rings functions on its own as a stand-alone story with a stand-alone plot.

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  16. I think that the Lord of the Rings takes on a life of its own when the story ceases to be centered on the characters of the Hobbit. No longer is this a tale about Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit from Bag End. The tale becomes one of Frodo, and Gandalf, and company. While all the characters revolve around the possession of the ring, the seriousness of the plot also detracts from the Hobbit-ness. The tone of the story is altogether not even reminiscent of the Hobbit, the further your proceed.

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  17. The beginning of the Fellowship has many ways of appearing to be the sequel to the Hobbit. However, as the story moves on, we lose that happy, child-like tone that we had within the Hobbit and things become more serious. This turn starts to take place just after Frodo learns of the Ring's power. So, we could say that we know it's the sequel to the Hobbit, but not told from the same perspective. We no longer seem to be having a Hobbit telling us events in the way that Bilbo did. We know have someone telling us the story that is giving us the darker truth.

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  18. Obviously in beginning of the Fellowship there are similarities to the Hobbit: the tone is much more light hearted, Bilbo still seems to be the main character of the story, and we still don't know much about Gandalf's true purposes to name a few. However, the parts that reminded me most of the Hobbit were those with Tom Bombadil because he is so light hearted and always singing songs. The main differences I noticed between the two stories is that the antagonists remain throughout the story. That is the Black Riders aren't merely one obstacle that Frodo must overcome in order to continue on his journey but instead are the obstacle. Whatever else he faces will not even compare to the Riders. One the other hand with Bilbo he will face enemies such as goblins, Gollum, and spiders, but these are always overcome.

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  19. Since I haven’t read any of Tolkien’s work before this class it’s hard to see the lord of the Rings as a sequel and not just another piece of history. I think since starting out with the Silmarillion I don’t look at all three works as prequel-boook one and then sequel. I just see the entire lifespan of middle earth. With that said; I do already see thematic similarities between the two stories (Hobbit and LotR), the main one being how different Bilbo and Frodo are from the rest of the hobbits in the shire. They seem to have a completely different genetic makeup that allows them to have a sense for adventure. In the Lord of the Rings I was glad to see this sense of adventure in Sam, Merry and Pippen. I think pretty quickly we get the sense that this book is no longer just a sequel and begins to gain its own “story-ness”. In my mind the second that Merry and Pippen admit that they have a conspiracy centered around helping Frodo on his quest I sensed that it was a bit different. In the hobbit no other hobbits would have been caught dead trying to help Bilbo on anything semi-adventurous. But right away we see the young hobbits are eager to help Frodo and have a “won’t take no for an answer” type of attitude.

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  20. As the sequel to The Hobbit, I believe that the The Fellowship of the Ring still has Hobbit-like moments that appear throughout the story. For instance, in the chapter "A Long Expected Party", Tolkien describes the many characteristics of Hobbits which are very much like those in the first chapter of the Hobbit. Also, the Hobbit characters in The Fellowship display such characteristics in the novel. This element along with many others support the idea of The Fellowship being the sequel to the Hobbit. One other element is the continuation of the story of what happens to the One Ring after it is captured by Bilbo Baggins. The journey of the Ring along with the characters involved in its journey becomes the main plot line that makes up the Lord of the Rings series. From the time at the end of The Hobbit to the beginning of The Fellowship, which is about sixty years, Bilbo Baggin's character has greatly changed. He went from being innocent and naive of ring to becoming obsessed and possessive of it. This makes it very hard for him in the beginning of the Fellowship to depart from the Ring. There are many things in the Fellowship that separates itself from The Fellowship. An example is the introduction of the dark power of Sauron and of the Black Riders and their search for Frodo. The story also seems more serious than the Hobbit. Now that Frodo knows of the danger and evil of the burden he is carrying, he along with other characters take the matter very seriously. There is no time of fooling around.

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  21. I know I already posted before, but I thought this was interesting as I was reading:

    Near the end of the chapter “The Council of Elrond”, Bilbo volunteers to continue his journey by taking the Ring to Mordor. He says “I was very comfortable here, getting on with my book. If you want to know, I am just writing an ending for it. I had thought of putting: ‘and he lived happily ever afterwards to the end of his days.’…Now I shall have to alter that: it does not look like coming true; and anyway there will evidently have to be several more chapters, if I live to write them. It is a frightful nuisance…”

    Gandalf replies: “You cannot take this thing back. It has passed on. If you need my advice any longer, I should say that your part is ended, unless as a recorder. Finish your book, and leave the ending unaltered! There is still hope for it. But get ready to write a sequel, when they come back.”

    I love the way Tolkien seems to express his worries and concerns through Bilbo, even poking a little fun at himself with this passage. In the Letters of JRR Tolkien, Tolkien was getting hung up over the sentence he used in the ending of the Hobbit “and he lived happily ever afterwards to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long” (see letter 31). This sentence was part of what made it difficult to write a sequel, and I find it rather clever that Tolkien bothers to write this dialogue between Gandalf and Bilbo into the Lord of the Rings, as if to explain himself to his audience.

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  22. As the sequel to The Hobbit, I believe that the The Fellowship of the Ring still has Hobbit-like moments that appear throughout the story. For instance, in the chapter "A Long Expected Party", Tolkien describes the many characteristics of Hobbits which are very much like those in the first chapter of the Hobbit. Also, the Hobbit characters in The Fellowship display such characteristics in the novel. This element along with many others support the idea of The Fellowship being the sequel to the Hobbit. One other element is the continuation of the story of what happens to the One Ring after it is captured by Bilbo Baggins. The journey of the Ring along with the characters involved in its journey becomes the main plot line that makes up the Lord of the Rings series. From the time at the end of The Hobbit to the beginning of The Fellowship, which is about sixty years, Bilbo Baggin's character has greatly changed. He went from being innocent and naive of ring to becoming obsessed and possessive of it. This makes it very hard for him in the beginning of the Fellowship to depart from the Ring. There are many things in the Fellowship that separates itself from The Fellowship. An example is the introduction of the dark power of Sauron and of the Black Riders and their search for Frodo. The story also seems more serious than the Hobbit. Now that Frodo knows of the danger and evil of the burden he is carrying, he along with other characters take the matter very seriously. There is no time of fooling around.

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  23. I think that the Fellowship of the Ring is very Hobbit-like in the beginning. The first couple of chapters reminds me a lot of the Hobbit. The party chapter especially. That is light hearted and follows right from the Hobbit. Once Gandalf comes back and tells Frodo what the Ring actually is, though, that is where the story starts to get away from Tolkien. Once we find out that the Ring is actually the One Ring, and that it is dangerous to have, there starts to be a different theme in the book. It starts to get darker, which The Hobbit never was. Now, it wasn’t a sudden change. There were scenes after that that harkened back to The Hobbit, most especially the scene with Tom Bombadil. I would say that that scene is the most Hobbit¬-like that there was. To me, it seems like it could have been taken right from The Hobbit. But in all, I think that once we find out the true nature of the Ring, The Fellowship of the Ring starts to become less like a sequel to The Hobbit and more like its own story.

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