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Annûniel
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Post History behind the Hobbit
on: February 23, 2005 02:29
From what I understand, when Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, he didn't have any intention of writing a sequel (namely The Lord of the Rings). However, it would seem that he kept in mind the possibility of another book. Or at least something much more in depth than The Hobbit.

Recall that Gandalf left the dwarves and Bilbo at the edge of Mirkwood, claiming he had other busniess elsewhere. Namely, he was going to Dol Guldur and the Battle of the Five Armies. Obviously, Tolkien had to have something in mind when he wrote in Gandalf leaving the company at Mirkwood. He must have already started writing notes, histories, and everything.

So my thought is that why would Tolkien say he wasn't going to make a sequel when he had the thought process to make one? It could have been coincidence, but knowing Tolkien and knowing that missing pieces to a puzzle that's already made are hard to make, I find that hard to believe it worked out so nicely for Tolkien.

Anyone have any thoughts to share?
Earnur
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 23, 2005 03:20
You definitely have a point here. I've often wondered about the same thing. If Tolkien really hadn't planned anything for the LotR before he wrote the Hobbit, it did work out quite well indeed.

Still, not everything fits perfectly. In the Hobbit, the Ring is just a magical Ring that turns the bearer invisible. It does nothing more to the bearer, which is not the case in the LotR. The Elves also seem a little silly and annoying in the Hobbit. They make fun of the Dwarves and Bilbo when they arrive in Rivendell, and then there's those alcoholized Elves in Mirkwood
In the LotR, we get the impression that Elves these incredibly wise and serious people.

Another reason why lots of story lines in the Hobbit and the LotR seem to fit with each other is that Tolkien probably struggled to write the LotR in a way that made it fit with the Hobbit. He didn't write draft after draft for nothing.
atalante_star
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 24, 2005 02:29
As Earnur said, some bits of LotR got shoe-horned into fitting with The Hobbit - an example is Elrond ...

The Elrond of the Hobbit was initially a different character to the Elrond of the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings. Of the blending of the two Elronds, Tolkien said:

"From The Hobbit are also derived … Elrond. The passage in Ch. iii relating him to the Half-elven of the mythology was a fortunate accident, due to the difficulty of constantly inventing good names for new characters. I gave him the name Elrond casually, but as this came from the mythology … I made him half-elven. Only in The Lord was he identified with the son of Eärendel" (Letters #257)
Eressëa
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 24, 2005 06:23
Not to mention the way some of the characters are portrayed... Especially Gandalf... In a way he acts the same, but a bit more 'childlike' -or at least not as wise, knowledgeable etc as he does in the Hobbit.... Just think that he gets a bit annoyed when Elrond sees something on the map that he didn't see (and couldn't have seen) -a bit childlike to get annoyed about it He is also far more 'grandfatherly' somehow... And then there is still, deep down a core that is very much like the Gandalf we know from the LotR...
Annûniel
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 24, 2005 09:24
Keep in mind that the difference could just be the audience for which The Hobbit was written.

It doesn't say that the Silmarillion was written in detail about Elrond, but it does say that the Sil was the first book that Tolkien started writing.

So obviously he had some idea of what else could be going on, and it wasn't the Hobbit that started the trend.
Morwinyoniel
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 24, 2005 11:02
The stories that later evolved into the Silmarillion were indeed the first Middle-earth stories Tolkien wrote. The Hobbit actually wasn't at first a part of that world, but intended as a "stand alone" children's book; only when he started to write the LOTR, as a sequel to The Hobbit at first, TH became incorporated in it. I think it's explained in the same Letter that Atalante cited above.

Beside Elrond, another similar "happy coincidence" was that he was able to make the Necromancer in TH turn out to have been Sauron in LOTR.
Don_Palantir
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 25, 2005 06:20
First was The Hobbit
then LOTR
then The Silmarillion, finally all those Tolkien writtings throught the years were published

Yeap, when hew wrote The Hobbit, had something in mind but not clear, still a lot of un-named things and so, that make The Hobbit a kind of different, but not at all, from LOTR and Silma.
Even, The Hobbit it self start as something quite different, but ended as something closer to LOTR...It started funny and magical, then turned into a dramatic story.

Conclusion: Hobbit, LOTr and Silma, as brilliant as different from each other but tie together
Morwinyoniel
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 25, 2005 08:02
First was The Hobbit
then LOTR
then The Silmarillion, finally all those Tolkien writtings throught the years were published


Yes, that's the order in which the stories were published. But, the first drafts for the Sil stories already existed before The Hobbit (and finally got published as The Book of Lost Tales 1 and 2).
eyowen_the_queen
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: September 06, 2007 05:28
Maybe Tolkien just had a brilent mind and when asked for a sequel he back-tracked and just wrote off of what he found. Just my oppinion
Tcherepin
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: September 06, 2007 07:07
If I remember rightly, in a few of Tolkiens letters to his publisher he made mention of some of the bigger and scarier things...meaning Sauron and the REAL purpose of the Ring and so on, "peeking over the top" into The Hobbit. So while The Hobbit had a different audience and purpose remember that it was his friends son from his pre-teenyears through college who vetted a LOT of LOTR before it went to the publishers.... Nonetheless, Sauron and the stories of the Eldar Days are *there* within the story. We first hear about Earendil in The Hobbit, eh?
PotbellyHairyfoot
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: September 07, 2007 12:05
Something that you need to remember is that The Hobbit that we read now is not the same as the original. The story was revised to fit more closley as a companion to LOTR. Some of the plots, that seem to suggest bits of the continuing story, were added much later.
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: September 07, 2007 03:26
Tolkien wasn't the only author to revise stories that have been published. Trying to remember which ones now, but have the feeling this was done intentionally as PBHF notes. As someone mentioned, originally in The Hobbit, the ring Bilbo takes from Gollum is nothing more than a magical ring. I remember either hearing on a documentary or reading that when Tolkien was tasked with writing a sequel, he considered that magical rings rarely were simple and often had dire consequences if used (i.e. The Rings of the Niebelung - sp.). Thus began the metamorphasis of the One Ring into a near sentient object that longed to return to its creator and corrupted all who held it into creatures desiring to reach Sauron and give it back. Actually, the fact that Gollum managed to hold on to it so long speaks a great deal to HIS strength. Despite its deliterious effects on him, Gollum resisted the Ring's urging to go to Sauron for a very, very long time. Bilbo was next strongest, holding it for what? 60 years? Men were not nearly as strong (as witnessed by Isildur and Boromir) and believed they could actually USE the ring for good. Uh huh... Nope.

One thing I find interesting is that some characters Tolkien created just kind of... dead-ended. The Beornings, Tom Bombadil and Goldberry... Mentioned, written about in some detail, then just... forgotten? Not expanded? Were they intended as background? We will probably never know unless Christopher someday unearths either writing or a letter where his father explain the workings of his mind.
Celebrian
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Post RE: History behind the Hobbit
on: September 23, 2007 04:23
I don't think Tolkien himself forgot about Tom and Goldberry and some of the others we never heard much else about. There simply wasn't any further place for them in the story he was telling. Also, I think he liked to get people thinking and seemed to enjoy leaving some questions unanswered so that the imaginations of his readers would be inspired rather than spoon-fed.
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Post Re: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 12, 2013 01:36
*Bump
tarcolan
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Post Re: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 13, 2013 02:49
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It's easy to read too much into TH. Regarding the original post, Gandalf disappears from the action three times in the story. It is, after all, supposed to be about a hobbit's adventures and having a wizard around all the time spoils the story somewhat. When Gandalf returns the first time to deal with the trolls he says what he had been doing, so why not later? Probably because Tolkien didn't know, it just left Bilbo to be the reluctant hero.
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Lastiel Rusc
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Post Re: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 13, 2013 05:23
Well, also when Tolkien 'forgets' characters that he had mentioned before, it makes the world seem much bigger. Especially when you meet more characters along the way.

Also, he had been working on the books that are all part of The Histories of Middle Earth before The Hobbit was published, so I think it may be safe to say that even if The Lord of The Rings didn't get published but The Hobbit did (or didn't), he would have still written those books for the enjoyment of his family and for himself if nothing else.
'If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise.' ~ Flies and Spiders The Hobbit
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Post Re: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 13, 2013 02:37
When Gandalf returns the first time to deal with the trolls he says what he had been doing, so why not later? Probably because Tolkien didn't know, it just left Bilbo to be the reluctant hero.


An interesting thought... I don't suppose we have any quotes on this subject by JRRT or his son?
I've been recently re-reading TH, and find it possible that JRRT had an idea when writing TH as to what Gandalf was up to. I've been wondering about the passage where the company gets trapped inside the Mountain, and the bit about Bilbo's spirits lifting suddenly and inexplicably may refer to other things such as Smaug's death, or it may be the moment when the Necromancer is driven from Dol Guldur; sort of like the mind connection between Frodo and Gandalf (at least in my reading) on the slopes of the Orodruin.
I quite like the interpretation (suggested by JRRT I believe) that TH's tone is lighter and things are glossed over because it was 'written down by Bilbo', and from his perspective. I guess the Wise would not find it necessary to disturb Bilbo's mind about the Necromancer. Anyway, just my reading.
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
tarcolan
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Post Re: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 14, 2013 05:58
I've just read that bit nolemë, and it's possible it coincides with the expulsion of Sauron from Dol Guldur. Bilbo's sudden lightening of heart could be due to some sort of link to Gandalf, but then why should he have such a link and not Thorin, for example? Or it could be due to the removal of Sauron's influence in the area, but again, why did only Bilbo feel it? Or it could just be his hobbit nature. However I'm willing to concede it is possible that Tolkien intended this correspondence.
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cirdaneth
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Post Re: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 14, 2013 01:40
... and of course, Gandalf had a particular love of Hobbits and could literally be on their wavelength.
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Post Re: History behind the Hobbit
on: February 14, 2013 02:59
Yes, that's my reading as well. I too had the impression that while he cared about the Dwarves in a way, Gandalf knew or felt Bilbo was a rare person, important for the shaping of history, and felt a special fondness for him. It can also be that Bilbo's spirits were more ready to be lifted than the Dwarves, who in the book are kind of defeatistic and easy to lose hope. But then, thinking back to the slopes of the Orodruin scene, it was just the Ringbearer and not Sam who felt the call... so perhaps the Ring itself is involved in enhancing the abilities of the mind, and allowing to an extent the mind-to-mind communication.
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
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