Gordy N. Knott
New Member
I will finally catch up this week after three months of very long dog walks. Now to find a way to be free on class night for the next couple of decades.
I hope this question is still relevant to class conversation, but we’ll see. Lately I’ve been pondering what I sometimes see as the strange relationship between Bilbo and Frodo. I’ve never been able to account for it to my satisfaction, but I think your recent discussions about The Lord of the Rings as a sequel to The Hobbit, at least in its conception, have shed some new light on it for me.
To be clear right up front, I do not seriously doubt the love that Bilbo and Frodo share for one another. Nevertheless, I’m not entirely sure why I don’t doubt it more than I do. Bilbo and Frodo do not speak to each other once in The Long-Expected Party. Not to good morning one another, not to discuss party plans, and not to say goodbye. They don’t even share fond, knowing winks across a table at the party. Frodo’s 33rd is every bit as significant as Bilbo’s eleventy-first, yet Bilbo doesn’t cede the floor for even a moment for Frodo to get a few words in edgewise. Though reasons are given, we never directly see Bilbo at Frodo’s bedside while he sleeps in Rivendell, and it’s Gandalf who’s there when Frodo awakes. In fact, the first time the two speak is about 200 pages in, in the HOF after the feast where Bilbo was again absent. Within minutes, their first conversation nearly comes to fisticuffs.
Frodo’s fondness is more firmly established than Bilbo’s. Frodo “realized suddenly that he loved the old hobbit” at their birthday party, and his response to Gimli about his feelings for Bilbo are heartfelt. The best evidence of Bilbo’s fondness seems to me to be found in how others see their relationship rather than anything he says or does. Elrond’s anticipation that the reunion of Bilbo and Frodo is long wished for and will be meaningful for them both is very telling. Bilbo has undoubtedly discussed Frodo at length while in Rivendell, and we can’t seriously doubt that Elrond has read Bilbo wrong. That Bilbo is truly fond of Frodo is also supported by what is referred to as Bilbo’s “last letter” in The Shadow of the Past. Unless the post in Hobbiton is excellent indeed, I can’t imagine Bilbo sending Frodo letters while living in the same house rather than simply talking to him over second breakfast. The letter Bilbo left for him after leaving with the dwarves has to be regarded as the “first letter.” Bilbo must have been sending letters to Frodo since his departure, though clearly not since coming to dwell in Rivendell. This correspondence speaks of Bilbo’s fondness.
To what degree do you think these impressions I’m left with are due to The Lord of the Rings birth as a sequel to The Hobbit and the resulting focus on Bilbo to the exclusion of Frodo in The Long-Expected Party? To what degree can we assign it to the notion that Frodo as author/editor focused on Bilbo in that chapter rather than himself or their relationship out of love and respect? Does Frodo channel some of Tolkien’s own British reserve here, keeping sentimentality at arm’s length?
The distance kept between Bilbo and Frodo early in Book One leaves me with the impression that they are isolated characters: isolated from each other when living together and isolated from everyone when Bilbo departs. Does this not go beyond mere bachelorhood and say something either about the influence of the ring (Jackson’s “To bear a ring of power is to be alone”), about the nature of heroes, or both?
I hope this question is still relevant to class conversation, but we’ll see. Lately I’ve been pondering what I sometimes see as the strange relationship between Bilbo and Frodo. I’ve never been able to account for it to my satisfaction, but I think your recent discussions about The Lord of the Rings as a sequel to The Hobbit, at least in its conception, have shed some new light on it for me.
To be clear right up front, I do not seriously doubt the love that Bilbo and Frodo share for one another. Nevertheless, I’m not entirely sure why I don’t doubt it more than I do. Bilbo and Frodo do not speak to each other once in The Long-Expected Party. Not to good morning one another, not to discuss party plans, and not to say goodbye. They don’t even share fond, knowing winks across a table at the party. Frodo’s 33rd is every bit as significant as Bilbo’s eleventy-first, yet Bilbo doesn’t cede the floor for even a moment for Frodo to get a few words in edgewise. Though reasons are given, we never directly see Bilbo at Frodo’s bedside while he sleeps in Rivendell, and it’s Gandalf who’s there when Frodo awakes. In fact, the first time the two speak is about 200 pages in, in the HOF after the feast where Bilbo was again absent. Within minutes, their first conversation nearly comes to fisticuffs.
Frodo’s fondness is more firmly established than Bilbo’s. Frodo “realized suddenly that he loved the old hobbit” at their birthday party, and his response to Gimli about his feelings for Bilbo are heartfelt. The best evidence of Bilbo’s fondness seems to me to be found in how others see their relationship rather than anything he says or does. Elrond’s anticipation that the reunion of Bilbo and Frodo is long wished for and will be meaningful for them both is very telling. Bilbo has undoubtedly discussed Frodo at length while in Rivendell, and we can’t seriously doubt that Elrond has read Bilbo wrong. That Bilbo is truly fond of Frodo is also supported by what is referred to as Bilbo’s “last letter” in The Shadow of the Past. Unless the post in Hobbiton is excellent indeed, I can’t imagine Bilbo sending Frodo letters while living in the same house rather than simply talking to him over second breakfast. The letter Bilbo left for him after leaving with the dwarves has to be regarded as the “first letter.” Bilbo must have been sending letters to Frodo since his departure, though clearly not since coming to dwell in Rivendell. This correspondence speaks of Bilbo’s fondness.
To what degree do you think these impressions I’m left with are due to The Lord of the Rings birth as a sequel to The Hobbit and the resulting focus on Bilbo to the exclusion of Frodo in The Long-Expected Party? To what degree can we assign it to the notion that Frodo as author/editor focused on Bilbo in that chapter rather than himself or their relationship out of love and respect? Does Frodo channel some of Tolkien’s own British reserve here, keeping sentimentality at arm’s length?
The distance kept between Bilbo and Frodo early in Book One leaves me with the impression that they are isolated characters: isolated from each other when living together and isolated from everyone when Bilbo departs. Does this not go beyond mere bachelorhood and say something either about the influence of the ring (Jackson’s “To bear a ring of power is to be alone”), about the nature of heroes, or both?
