On Hobbits and Dragons

Lincoln Alpern

Active Member
Less a question than a couple of observations which occurred to me after last week's live discussion, when I sat down to finish reading chapter 1:

There was a lot of talk in the chat about Hobbits giving away rather than receiving gifts on their birthdays; and I, for one, fixated on the fact that Hobbit children “never got tired” of the presents they received (unlike my childhood self).

Then I was reading the scene of the day after the party, with all the gifts for friends and relations, and I was struck by this passage: “Bilbo’s residence had got rather cluttered up with things in the course of his long life. It was a tendency of hobbit-holes to get cluttered up.” For some reason, when I read this, I flashed to an image of Smaug’s horde in the Lonely Mountain. You might say a dragon’s lair has a tendency to get “cluttered up” with other people’s treasure.

The difference is that Bilbo presumably acquired his clutter by more acceptable means than Smaug, and the narrator informs us the hobbit tradition of gift-giving was explicitly developed as a de-cluttering strategy. Hobbit holes get cluttered because they accumulate stuff over their lives and can’t be bothered to get rid of it piecemeal.

The part about Hobbit children never getting tired of their presents also came back to me as a contrast with Smaug, who was described as not getting any particular enjoyment or satisfaction out of the treasure which made up his horde, but knew it all by heart and went into a murderous rage when a single piece of it was stolen.
 
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