Bilbo's modesty about his poems

amysrevenge

Well-Known Member
We talked about this for a while during the session, but I have a longer comment than I was able to fit in the Discord chat.

"And, of course, I make up a few songs. They sing them occasionally: just to please me, I think; for, of course, they aren't really good enough for Rivendell."

(OT: typing that out, with a colon and semi-colon in the same sentence. Wow!)

We talked about how the Elves would actually be delighted to sing his songs, and that part of the delight, independent of the objective quality of the songs, was in the uniqueness of their origin.

I have a real life analogue that helps me to understand this delight of the Elves, and how it isn't back-handedly insulting to Bilbo.

One of my hobbies in real life is painting models for tabletop wargames. I'm not exceptionally good at it: I'm basically an enthusiastic C+ quality painter. I have several friends who are dedicated A+ quality painters. These A+ friends genuinely delight in the progress of my models, and of others in the D through B+ world of painting. Our work obviously isn't as technically good as the A+ work, but that isn't the point. We are creating, improving on our own previous results, and proud of our models, and the A+ are proud right along side us in a non-condescending way.

I think the Elves will see Bilbo's songs in a similar light. It's not as good as theirs, but that's not the point.
 
This does make sense. For a fading people, who will eventually leave Middle-Earth, I imagine it gives genuine joy when they see that the things they love will be carried on, even "imperfectly." I recently stumbled upon a YouTube sub-genre -- new people's first reactions to hearing "old" (1980s) songs, from my youth. I was surprised how much it meant to me to find people hearing these songs for the first time & enjoying them.

For me, there's a second aspect of the modesty though -- humility is not a Bilbo strong-suit. Not that he's arrogant. More like, unmoved by the opinion of others. Fully sure of himself. It's actually striking to see him feeling humble about his work, and it feels genuine. Bilbo is surrounded by his (to use a Tolkien term) "betters," and seems fully aware of it. I bet he *loved* feeling comfortable enough with Elrond to give & take a little ribbing. I was on an archaeological dig once with a *giant* in the field. It was intimidating and I knew that I was among my betters. But the way he got down into the trench and met us at our levels, showing real joy in our experience and presence, was memorable.
 
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One of the greatest compliments a musician/songwriter/composer can receive is when another musician/band/etc. chooses to play live or record said musician/songwriter/composer's song. As we know some versions of cover songs stay strictly close to the original sheet music or the original recording while others do not. Some even are arguably better than the original.
 
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