A hobbit of two minds

Joe Ursic

New Member
Last session, you covered Bilbo's struggle over giving up or keeping the ring. To what extent do you think his yes/no-ing foreshadows the Sméagol/Gollum personality conflict that we see later? Is this an early-stage sign of the same transition starting to occur in Bilbo or does it just reflect his internal struggle against the hold of the ring.
 
I had a thought on this subject as well and thought I would just add it here instead of making a new thread:

Whenever we were discussing Frodo's desire to stay or leave the Shire, the thought that came to my mind was this is the same "Took vs. Baggins" concept that Bilbo dealt with in the Hobbit. We are told that Frodo enjoys being the Baggins of Bag End (can't remember the exact wording) and is in a very comfortable situation. While he may be "more than half a Brandybuck," he is still a Baggins and that has certain connotations. Corey talks a lot about this idea in his Exploring the Hobbit book, and this just sounded similar to me.
 
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