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05-14-2012, 12:34 AM | #1 |
Princess of Skwerlz
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: where the Sea is eastwards (WtR: 6060 miles)
Posts: 7,500
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Hobbit2 - Chapter 02 - Roast Mutton
The adventure begins: this chapter moves Bilbo and the reader from the safety - and boredom! - of Bag End to the realisation that "adventures are not all pony-rides in May-sunshine" and the first time his life and that of his comrades is in danger. It also adds a name for him that incorporates his new function with the old identity - what do you think of the burrahobbit?
(Link to the previous discussion, for those who wish to read it.)
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...' Last edited by Estelyn Telcontar; 05-14-2012 at 12:39 AM. |
05-14-2012, 07:35 AM | #2 |
Wight
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Home (either of them)
Posts: 151
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I think Roast Mutton is a lovely, and yet very somewhat unfitting chapter. That is, unfitting to the regular idea of Middle Earth - isn't there, for example, talking wallets (which is probably one of the most confusing things in the whole book, where did that come from? What is it related to?), trolls that turn into stone with sunlight, the complete lack of understanding from the side of dwarves as to what Bilbo is capable of (the owl calls are sweet and fairytale-like, but just don't match with anything else I 'know' about dwarves).
This is a very much children's book -like chapter. Things happen fast and they don't have to be fully explained. Also Gandalf's appearance and the unexpected solution for the mortal danger.
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05-14-2012, 12:33 PM | #3 |
Shade of Carn Dűm
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Toronto
Posts: 479
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I can’t recall any authentic folk tale with a talking purse or a talking wallet but it feel perfectly right to me.
In Jack and the Beanstalk the harp calls out, “Master, master!” when Jack takes it and that wakes up the giant. Also, evil magical beings in folk tales often roam about at night but are turned to stone at dawn. Tolkien only uniquely make this a characteristic of the monsters known as trolls. This works, for me, in part, because Tolkien presents these magical characteristics as though the reader really ought to know about them and most readers accept that, at least for this story. The effete and city-bred character who is ridiculed because he cannot do bird calls is a common motif in tales. The point of Thorin urging that Bilbo ought to “hoot twice like a barn-owl and once like a screech-owl” is surely to point out that the dwarves have previously been involved in many adventures so that the could not imagine that anyone, especially a supposed professional burglar, could not do something so simple. But Bilbo can’t. Bilbo makes a mess of his first adventure, and he knows it. Bilbo understands what a legendary burglar ought to do but it is simply beyond his capability. Gandalf is necessary to save the dwarves by the simple folk tale method of distracting the evil creatures until dawn comes, like the hero of the Grimm Brothers’ “The Brave Little Tailor” near the end of that tale: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm020.html . The tailor tricks the giants into fighting just as Gandalf tricks the trolls. The difference in Tolkien’s tale as compared to most (but not all) traditional tales is that usually the protagonist may start out as an apparent failure but beginning with his first adventure he triumphs over whatever he comes across. It is a more modern technique to actually show the protagonist as a failure to allow a build-up to his latter success. |
05-14-2012, 02:16 PM | #4 | |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,365
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I think it's funny that trolls have last names. That's what "Huggins" is supposed to be, in context. In the LOTR-Middle Earth, last names are a purely hobbitish thing. Men, Elves, and Dwarves do not have them, and creatures of evil barely have first names. And here's a typical troll standing about with a last name. Seems that Tolkien had a much more "human" conception of trolls, and a more modern one.
Also, about Bilbo not knowing the "basic" skills of immitating birds - Quote:
Yeah, yeah, TH and LOTR are to be considered separate stories, they shouldn't be compared for canonicity, etc, ok, I'm going.
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05-14-2012, 04:28 PM | #5 | |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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There are several interesting notes in Chapter 2 of the
Annotated Hobbit. 1) Quote:
Great Britain that as children, he, his two brothers, and his sister had each, at some point in their development, thought that the Troll chapter was the best chapter in the book. He continued, "We thought there was something rather nice about Trolls, and it was a pity they had to be turned to stone at all."/QUOTE] It's also noted that Tolkien's having the trolls use lower class speech is akin to that of Chaucer using the Middle English northern dialect as a source of humor for his southern English audience, in a 1931 paper presented to the Philological Society of Oxford, entitled "Chaucer as a philologist: The Reeve's Tale."
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The poster formerly known as Tuor of Gondolin. Walking To Rivendell and beyond 12,555 miles passed Nt./Day 5: Pass the beacon on Nardol, the 'Fire Hill.' Last edited by Tuor in Gondolin; 05-14-2012 at 04:34 PM. |
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05-15-2012, 09:08 AM | #6 |
Shade of Carn Dűm
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: The Shire (Staffordshire), United Kingdom
Posts: 273
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“Hoot twice like a barn-owl and once like a screech-owl”.
Barn owl and screech-owl are two different names for the same bird. They don't hoot, they screech. Does this explain Bilbo's confusion or is Bilbo ignorant of all things pertaining to owls? Is Thorin also ignorant or is it all down to a lapse of memory on Bilbo's part when he wrote down the story some years later? Or, horror of horrors, is Tolkien wrong? . |
05-16-2012, 08:01 AM | #7 | |
Laconic Loreman
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Anytime I see that word, my head has programmed me to think about the long time member of the 'Downs. So, in an attempt of being like the burrahobbit...
clumsy. Quote:
I went to bed wondering why the dwarves all approach the troll camp one at a time, because that was such a terrible strategy if they all wanted to avoid capture. I think your post has inadvertently been a partial answer, but it's still something I'm wondering. Approaching the trolls one-by-one (granted they didn't know whose camp it was) just seemed a strange way to not get everyone sacked.
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Fenris Penguin
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11-20-2017, 12:50 PM | #8 | ||
Laconic Loreman
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I agree with the previous discussions that this is a bleak and dreary chapter. It starts off light and humorous. Bilbo gets his handkerchief after all, and the beginning of the adventure Bilbo thinks adventuring isn't all that bad. But then things take a turn for the worst, when the weather turns and they can't find a dry place to get cover from the rain. Gandalf mysteriously disappears and I wonder is this going to be a recurring thing for the wizard?
I do think Bilbo is mostly to blame for the plight with the trolls in this chapter. It is in the previous chapter when we learn about a hobbits ability to conceal and get past trouble unnoticed: Quote:
Quote:
Now yes, it is the dwarves fault that they themselves get captured too, as the only one that finds something off and prepared for trouble was Thorin. The continuing log of dwarves... Balin is always the look out dwarf, he's the oldest dwarf, but must have the sharpest eyes. He is the first dwarf to come into the campfire and get captured by the trolls. It's also noted that his concern is to find where Bilbo is in the commotion of the trolls fighting each other. This is I believe the first dwarf to show concern for our hobbit. Oin and Gloin can build the best fires, and quarrel a lot. Twice in this chapter it mentions the two arguing/quarrelling. Dori and Nori shared Bilbo's opinion of meals "plenty and often." Thorin, his leadership so far appears to be he's too important to risk himself on tasks of the common folk...he doesn't cook the meals, he doesn't start fires, he doesn't investigate the fire. However, he is the only one who approached the fire cautiously, wasn't caught off guard and put up a fight with a tree branch until he gets sacked.
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Fenris Penguin
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