Two Gandalfs

[littlemanpoet]

And I'm not speaking of his change from grey to white.

The Structure thread brought this to mind.

Sorry if this has already been discussed. I searched and did not find a similar thread.

The Gandalf in The Hobbit is different from the one in LotR, don't you think? I mean, the characterizations verge on being two different individuals! Especially at first.

Or am I mistaken? Is there a steady growth in Gandalf from the beginning of The Hobbit to its end, then LotR picking up where TH left off, with continued growth? I don't think so, but if you think so, please show me.

I see a much more Norse saga-influenced Gandalf in TH, complete with the trickery Gandalf uses to cajole Bilbo into the Dwarves' Quest for Erebor (with appropriate apologies and acknowledgements to Mithalwen). Then Gandalf uses the same trickery on Beorn! (Not to mention, the Elves in TH or more Norse than in LotR - or am I being unduly influenced by images from a very awful cartoon?)

Maybe in Tolkien's early drafts Gandalf started out in LotR as the same character as in TH, but once Tolkien realized he had a different kind of story on his hands, he knew he had to make the changes, and could not completely rewrite TH to achieve the consistency of his new vision? After all, it was published and extant for a good 20 years by then!

Suffice it to say that in TH the reader has no inkling of Gandalf as a Maia. He's a wizard straight out of the Norse sagas.

LMP

[ElanorGamgee]

Perhaps a lot of the differences between the Gandalf of The Hobbit and that of The Lord of the Rings can be attributed to writing style. The former is a children’s book; the latter is written for a mature audience. The early Gandalf will be shown in fewer dimensions and more simply for the sake of the audience. He is wise and knowledgeable, but mostly gruff, a father figure of sorts. This same gruffness comes through in The Lord of the Rings, especially in Gandalf’s interactions with Pippin, but is blended with a dozen other attributes that Tolkien has time to develop through the course of the (much longer) book. It is also worth noting that the Gandalf of The Hobbit is given less focus and time to develop; a great portion of the book is left for Bilbo’s growth. It is likely that Tolkien’s ideas about Gandalf changed to a degree by the time he finished The Lord of the Rings; the gap between the publishing dates of the two works gave him lots of time to “discover” his characters.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Imp -

You keep coming up with interesting questions! Here are my thoughts on the two Gandalfs... I am going to approach this a little differently since I actually think your question raises a much wider issue: what kind of a book The Hobbit is and how all the pieces of the Legendarium fit together.

I think the problem is that we approach The Hobbit backwards. We tend to focus on the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, and we read The Hobbit through the prism of those two works. When we do that, we inevitably find many inconsistencies. Our natural instinct is to ask why and to wish there were a way to reconcile or at least to explain the differences. That is true about the differences in Gandalf, and it is also true about other devices and themes in The Hobbit. These differences range from the childlike narrative voice used by Tolkien to the more serious problem such as explaining differences in Elven personality, how a common troll could have a talking purse, or why there were numerous Elven-rings scattered about when neither magic rings or talking objects were common in Middle-earth.

Even Tolkien was not immune from this desire to reconcile and explain: witness his numerous revisions of Riddles in the Dark.

The plain truth is we can't reconcile the differences between the two works, and I'm not even sure we should try. Feeling rather reckless tonight, I will go even further out on a limb ( ) and say that Tolkien took on an impossible task when he tried to rewrite the chapter about Gollum to bring the two books into agreement. In effect, he was trying to make The Hobbit fit into the legendarium as a whole. I think that's nearly impossible. He would have had to go back and create another Gandalf, get rid of extra rings and talking purses, and change considerable chunks of the sections with Elves to make the work agree substantially with LotR.

The Hobbit began as a bedtime story for his children. My guess is that some of it was communicated orally before it was actually written down. It was heavily influenced by at least one other bedtime story his children enjoyed: that of the snergs. I see little indication that Tolkien was trying to make it fit into his earlier writings: he was free to experiment in any way he pleased without paying attention to the structure of the existing Legendarium. To try to undo that all is simply not possible or desirable.

I'm willing to take your two examples of Gandalf and even add one more! Not only did LotR cause Tolkien to try and revise the Hobbit. It also had a profound influence on the Silm. I am no expert on the Silm. Someone in the Silm project could probably do a better job, but it is my understanding that references to the Istari (including Gandalf) were not inserted into the Silmarillion until 1950, about the same time when the author finally told his publisher this:

the Lord of the Rings, originally expected to be a sequel to The Hobbit [is rather a sequel] to the Silmarillion

It seems that Tolkien wanted to set Gandalf in the wider historical context of Middle-earth and he did this by revisions to Silm.

It's also my understanding that it was only with the appendices to LotR that we got a comprehensive historical structure of the Second and Third Age as it later appear in Silm. I believe that Akallabêth (the destruction of Numenor) was only written after the main body of LotR. His original plan had been to include much of the Numenor material in the Notion Club Papers, a work he deemed "serious", but which he quickly dropped. Much of this material was instead incorporated into Lotr and after that into Silm. Thus, Lord of the Rings threw a very long shadow and led to the revision of the legendarium as a whole, both The Hobbit and the Silmarillion .

It's almost as if, before LotR, Tolkien regarded his writings in two separate ways (not counting his academic work, of course, which can also be seen as a third category). First, there were those works he deemed light and humerous, often created for his own children....things like Hobbit, Farmer Giles, Father Christmas Letters, Roverandom, etc. Then there was the serious stuff of the legendarium. Only with the writing of LotR, and the use of Hobbits as a mediating voice, did he find a middle ground that enabled him to bridge the two.

That leaves us with two and even possibly three or four Gandalfs if you count the material on the Istari in Silm and the comments in Tolkien's letters about the underlying meaning of Gandalf's "death and resurrection". It's when you get to that point, where you see Gandalf coming into Eru's presence and being transformed, that we realize just how far we've come from the Norse fellow with the funny hat we first met in The Hobbit .

I personally like all four Gandalfs and don't feel the need to iron out any differences. I am comfortable with the revisions of the unpublished Silm, but in some ways I almost wished Tolkien had left Hobbit on its own, without trying patchwork fixes.

[HerenIstarion]

It may be explained (not explained away, mind you ) without leaving the plane of the story - Gandalf 1 (the Hobbit) is account of Gandalf as seen by Bilbo, who is light-hearted and 'childish' as compared to grave and serious Frodo, who's pen brought about account of Gandalf 2 (LoTR). Gandalf 3 (S77 ) is what some Númenorean and/or Elvish annalists thought of him. And so forth.

I wonder what Gandalf's Autobiography would have had to say...

[Lalwendë]

It may be explained (not explained away, mind you ) without leaving the plane of the story - Gandalf 1 (the Hobbit) is account of Gandalf as seen by Bilbo, who is light-hearted and 'childish' as compared to grave and serious Frodo, who's pen brought about account of Gandalf 2 (LoTR). Gandalf 3 (S77 ) is what some Númenorean and/or Elvish annalists thought of him. And so forth.

H-I has said exactly what I was going to say. But to add to this, it's interesting that LotR is supposed to be based upon The Red Book of Westmarch, which was itself begun by Bilbo. Perhaps we have here a character seen through two sets of eyes, and within the texts themselves, a demonstration of the differences in authorial 'voices'. And with Frodo, that authorial voice is one which has seen much that is truly serious and threatening. Bilbo's voice is almost the young Tolkien, while Frodo's is the older Tolkien.

If the Gandalf we see in The Hobbit is in some way more simple, more traditionl, then I would say that this is to be expected as it was written as a children's book, and characters do tend to be more clear cut in such works. However, I love the fact that there are all these different 'Gandalves' as it verifies his complexity as a character.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

There may be a definite difference in their presentation, but I very much see these two Gandalfs as being the same figure -- both in terms of characterisation and in their thematic importance.

In both LotR and TH, Gandalf is there for part of the journey and absent for others: absent for those moments in which the heroes much first start really thinking/operating choosing for themselves. In this way, he is a guide and mentor, but not someone who forces change or awakening.

But for me, the clincher of the 'same' Gandalf idea comes right at the very end of TH, when Gandalf says to Bilbo:

'Surely you don't disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don't really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!'

How many times in LotR do we see Gandalf expressing this same sentiment, albeit in a more grandiloquent style?

[HerenIstarion]

The whole issue reminds me of this particular Post #127 (C-thread, C-thread, you will be never truly forgotten...)

[Boromir88]

I love the fact that there are all these different 'Gandalves' as it verifies his complexity as a character.

Good point lal, and seeing that Gandalf has spent a good deal of time around Hobbits, and dwarves, I would expect him to be a little more light-hearted, then let's say Saruman.

[Bungo Baggins]

I think the character is essentially the same. I think that since the Hobbit is written as more of a lighthearted tale, the character of Gandalf is likewise a little more lighthearted. Although the adventure is dangerous, it does not have the same stakes that play out in The Lord of the Rings. Also, although I am no expert yet, it seems Gandalf learns more about the ring in his latter, darker trilogy. But as some others pointed out, his brilliance can be demonstrated by how cleverly he interwove all his stories together.

[davem]

It is a difficult question. But it can be extended - as happened in the part of the Canonicity thread to which H-I has directed us. What about Galadriel? The 'later' Galadriel, is not the one we meet in LotR. Many of the characters in the Legendarium change - not just 'develop' but acually change in fundamental ways. This was why I feel that any hope of producing a 'definitive' Sil is doomed to failure. There are multiple 'Gandalfs', multiple 'Galadriels', multiple 'Elronds' (& of course a couple of 'Glorfindels' )scattered through the works. Come to that there are multiple 'Gondolins' - the Fall of Gondolin we have in BoLT is not the same as the account we find in the published Sil.

We have all this just in Tolkien's own writings - when we come to the versions of the texts which were 'edited' by CT we find ourselves in even greater difficulties. As Child says, these are basically insurmountable difficulties - if we wish to look at them in that way.

But these aren't 'problems' unless we demand some kind of consistency across all Tolkien's writings. We have internal consistency within each work, which is all we really need to enter in & be convinced by the 'reality' of the 'secondary world'. To demand any more would be unfair. Probably it would have been impossible for Tolkien to write LotR if he had stuck too closely to TH. He had to break free of the style & mood of TH before he could produce LotR.

Yet its a trap Tolkien himself falls into.The changes he made to TH later, to bring it line with LotR - principally the change in Riddles in the Dark - don't really fit the mood of the rest of the book. And they weren't actually necessary, as the original version of that chapter is accounted for in the story of Bilbo's 'lie' about how he came by the Ring which we're given in LotR.

Its also quite likely that one reason Tolkien was never able to complete the Sil to his satisfaction was because he felt it had to fit as perfectly as possible with LotR.

Clearly he had a desire to produce a coherent secondary world with as few internal inconsistencies as possible, but i can't help feeling that HoME is a better reflection of his mind, & his genius, than either CT's Sil or his own 'completed' Sil, if he'd managed to achieve it. Each character, each story is a product of who he was at the time he wrote it, & should really be seen in that way, rather than as the scattered pieces of a jigsaw, which if put together in the 'right' way will produce a coherent picture.

[Lalwendë]

I think that there is a very good reason why we see so many 'versions' of characters such as Gandalf and Galadriel and that is that Tolkien's major works were the works of an entire lifetime. Everyone throughout their life will change, both psychologically and in their philosophy of life; naturally this will mean that any creative endeavours will change. In Tolkien's case he devoted his whole life to the one secondary world, and many of the characters therein must by necessity have changed with him.

In effect, the Gandalf of the 1930's was very different to the Gandalf of the 1960's, as Tolkien was a different man at these times. These Gandalfs/Gandalves (I love that) were created by very different men. I'm sure there are other characters in literature who have changed in this way but I cannot think of any examples beyond those found in blockbusters as it is quite unusual to find such lifetime devotion to a character/characters.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Lalwendë

"Gandalves"! What a fine term. It made me smile, but it also contains a great deal of truth!

Davem -

We have all this just in Tolkien's own writings - when we come to the versions of the texts which were 'edited' by CT we find ourselves in even greater difficulties. As Child says, these are basically insurmountable difficulties - if we wish to look at them in that way.

But these aren't 'problems' unless we demand some kind of consistency across all Tolkien's writings. We have internal consistency within each work, which is all we really need to enter in & be convinced by the 'reality' of the 'secondary world'. To demand any more would be unfair. Probably it would have been impossible for Tolkien to write LotR if he had stuck too closely to TH. He had to break free of the style & mood of TH before he could produce LotR.

I couldn't agree with you more. To me, the differences in the texts are very real, and I can't gloss them over with a simple rewrite of the Riddles chapter. The varying characterization of Gandalf is just one part of a wider puzzle. A talking purse for a troll and a multitude of Elven rings simply don't exist within the Middle-earth of the Silm or LotR. These are only two small examples from many that could be highlighted. But even these two small changes suggest a different world, one where magic plays a primary role. I believe that we are dealing here with more than simple variations in tone, narrative voice, and characterization, or understanding that one part of the Redbook was written by a less mature Bilbo or a more naturally solemn Frodo, although all these factors are worthy of discussion and certainly play a role.

Lke you, Davem my "solution" to all this would be not to impose a solution at all, but simply to enjoy the variation and diversity expressed in the different texts. I think you are correct when you suggest that one of the things holding Tolkien back from doing revisions on the Silm was his desire to have complete consistency within the Legendarium. And, like you, I actually prefer much of the content of HoMe and UT to that of the Silm. The stories are richer and show what Tolkien thought at different points in his life. I also have less trouble deciphering the mind of CT from that of his father.

The funny thing is that this is exactly what historians are compelled to do, especially when dealing with the very wiggly chronicles of the medieval period. Sometime it's possible to find a way to synchronize differing accounts of things, but at other times the only real option is to leave the differences extant (and perhaps have an argument about which comes closest to the 'Truth'). So,in a certain sense, the legendarium with all its funny twists and side alleys is truthfully more like "real" history than a more sanitized version would be.

Fordim has made an excellent point in noting that the sentiment Gandalf expresed at the end of The Hobbit could also have been uttered by the later Gandalf of LotR. There are underlying themes and ideas that have to do with morality and a view of the world that we can see consistently through allTolkien's writings. These ideas helped to form and shape his characters, and they do not change. In that sense, we may have multiple Gandalves, but there is one core set of values that animate him, however differently they may be expressed.

**************

BTW, no one has mentioned my favorite Gandalf of all who shows up in an intriguing piece of the Hobbit story that lies outside the actual book. I love "Quest of Erebor" and how it reveals a picture of Gandalf as a maia sent to Middle-earth to choose someone for a task. This whole section also adds great depth to the character of Bilbo that goes beyond anything we read in the original tale.

Although dealing with the Hobbit tale, the Quest was probably written in 1953-1955, as the appendices for LotR were being fleshed out. The original intent was to include the material as part of Section III of Appendix A concerning Durin's folk. This was not done, most likely because of pressure from the publisher to keep things down to a reasonable number of pages. Still, I am glad it was published as a separate essay rather than trying to find a place for these ideas in the Hobbit itself.

[davem]

I can give you 'another' Gandalf (I've quoted this before, but I like it) - its from a page of doodles Tolkien made & reproduced in the catalogue for the 1992 Bodlean Library Tolkien exhibition:

Gandalf caused quite a stir in Alfaromdor by having his whiskers curled. Can you imagine anything more inept?

[Lalwendë]

"Gandalves"! What a fine term. It made me smile, but it also contains a great deal of truth!

I hasten to add - it was inadvertently stoeln from H-I. But where he said Gandhalves I was inept and said Gandalves!

[HerenIstarion]

where he said Gandhalves I was inept and said Gandalves

No ineptitude observed - both terms are rightful - Gandhalves standing for a lot of Gandalf halves which add up to make one complex Gandalf, and Gandalves being correct form on the ground of the stem alf in Gandalf meaning elf. As JRRT's singular elf becomes elves once there are at least two of the chaps having a picnic by the roadside, so Gandalves would stand for a party of bearded oldsters going for a walk puffing at their pipes.

cheers

[Child of the 7th Age]

Lalwendë -

Then I shall have to extend accolades to both you and HI. Except at the rate we are going with multiple images, we will end up with "Gandtuplets"!

Davem -

I must have missed your earlier post citing this wonderful quotation! Wish I had a copy of the Bodleian catalog to see what it looks like.

How about this for another "proto-Gandalf"? It is not Gandalf at all , but Mother Meldrum, a nasty figure from The Marvelous Land of Snergs who is disguised like an older man. Still, it does look a bit like Gandalf.

Mother Meldrum

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

There are multiple 'Gandalfs', multiple 'Galadriels', multiple 'Elronds' (& of course a couple of 'Glorfindels' )scattered through the works. Come to that there are multiple 'Gondolins' - the Fall of Gondolin we have in BoLT is not the same as the account we find in the published Sil.

Certainly it's true that over the course of Tolkien's work on the Legendarium, characters, places, and events underwent profound changes. Texts written at different times are often in direct contradiction with one another - and indeed one must expect that a revision of some story will contradict earlier versions. Characters changed, sometimes profoundly - the character that eventually became Sauron, for example, started out as a cat.

But to me to say that there are "two Gandalfs" or "two Gondolins" sounds suspiciously mystical. There aren't really two Gondolins, because Gondolin isn't real. There are simply certain texts that say certain things about Gondolin and other texts that say other things. As I said in that most infamous of threads:

Nor do I care about the semantics of "the same character" and "different characters with the same name" and "the same character with different names", etc., etc.

It is semantics because it depends entirely upon your definition of "characters". Your Galadriel (1) and your Galadriel (2) differ in certain ways and are similar in others. On the most basic level, that's all there is to be said. There's no need to argue about how to translate those differences into a proposition using the word "character".

This is the same reason that I have a problem with the insistence (e.g. by M. Martinez) that the Silmarillion is a "different mythology" from the Book of Lost Tales. That's a perfectly valid way of defining "mythology" in the context of Tolkien's work (we could speak of BoLT mythology, '30s mythology, '50s mythology, Myths Transformed mythology, . . .) but it is just a definition. Similarly, we could call the two Galadriels different characters, or we could call them the same character portrayed differently - but we would not be saying anything substantive; we would simply be defining a convention for the word "character".

A distinct question we might ask is: how different is the portrayal of person/thing/event A in text X from the portrayal of A in text Y? Do the portrayals directly contradict each other? Do they implicitly contradict each other? Do they differ in style or tone? And so forth.

Now, obviously there are differences to be found. But I think that these differences tend to be exaggerated, largely because we know so much about the way Tolkien wrote. What in other works we might call character development or simply the portrayal of different aspects of a character's personality, in Tolkien we tend to call conradiction, because we know about his tendency to revise and rewrite and change elements of the story.

In the case of Galadriel, we have some direct contradiction among some of the stories. The late version that has her leave Aman separately from Feanor is in direct contradiction to the earlier version that had her join in the rebellion. But what about Gandalf? Here we do not have direct contradiction. The claim is that we have different portrayals. But what specific things did Gandalf do in The Hobbit that LotR Gandalf could not have done? Is there really enough there to call the portrayals implicitly contradictory?

I don't think there is. We certainly do see more aspects of Gandalf's personality in LotR, but I see no problem there. Most people speak differently, for example, depending on whom they are addressing. Why shouldn't Gandalf do the same? Tolkien even notes (I can't recall whether this is in the appendices or only in HoMe XII) that the variation in speaking style by some of the characters was intentional.

For what it's worth, I see a far greater change in personality when he goes from being Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White.

Yet its a trap Tolkien himself falls into.The changes he made to TH later, to bring it line with LotR - principally the change in Riddles in the Dark - don't really fit the mood of the rest of the book.

This is an interesting issue. Do the changes really not fit the mood of the rest of the book? I first read The Hobbit (or rather, had it read to me) about seventeen years ago. It was only a few years ago that I learned about the extensive changes that had been made to that chapter. Prior to learning about them, I never detected any discrepancy in tone. Of course, it's possible that I simply wasn't attentive enough. Still, I can't help thinking that this:

And they weren't actually necessary, as the original version of that chapter is accounted for in the story of Bilbo's 'lie' about how he came by the Ring which we're given in LotR.

. . . is being a bit too kind to the story of Bilbo's lie. It always struck me as rather forced.

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

It was only a few years ago that I learned about the extensive changes that had been made to that chapter. Prior to learning about them, I never detected any discrepancy in tone.

I can put my name beneath that.

as for the

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

the character that eventually became Sauron, for example, started out as a cat.

I proclaim it the quote of the week and ask for permission to use it a signature (not immediately, but after some future change of my current one)

Funny thing being, for the rest of it I'm probably on the opposite end of the balance: I tend to assimilate all of the accounts to produce one coherent mental picture of any given character - but that probably would be rather a position of a 'low-brow' reader, who wants to know what to expect from 'persons' (and one can't help thinking of characters as 'persons' when carried off by the tide of the story) s/he is reading about, than 'high-brow' researcher who studies development of the text and characters.

I believe both approaches are lawful, both may be enjoyed (and by the one and the same person too) just my personal taste makes me prefer the former one.

With which I suggest we should rename (in the light of recent development, not without gentle push from yours truly, and with kind persmission of the author - lmp) current thread into Ganduplets Coming, or Canonicity Strikes Back and start it all anew

The last paragraph being a kidding, of course

[Bêthberry]

HI, could you please clear out your mailbox? I hear Father Christmas is having a hard time getting his letters through.

(will delete this later, after it has been read)

[davem]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

Do the changes really not fit the mood of the rest of the book? I first read The Hobbit (or rather, had it read to me) about seventeen years ago. It was only a few years ago that I learned about the extensive changes that had been made to that chapter. Prior to learning about them, I never detected any discrepancy in tone.

Always something that will be down to the individual reader, of course. I have to say that the more I consider the two 'Gollums' the more the original version seems to fit with the tone of the rest of the story. Take the 1937 account:

‘Must we give it the thing, preciouss? Yess, we must!. we must fetch it, preciouss, & give it the present we promised.’ So Gollum paddled back to his boat, & Bilbo thought he had heard the last of him. but he had not. The hobbit was just thinking of going back up the passage - having had quite enough of Gollum & the dark water’s edge - when he heard him wailing & squeaking away in the gloom. He was on his island (of which, of course, Bilbo knew nothing), scrabbling here & there, searching & seeking in vain, & turning out his pockets.‘Where iss it? Where iss it?’ Bilbo heard him squeaking. ‘Lost, lost, my preciouss, lost, lost! Bless us & splash us! We haven’t the present we promised, & we haven’t even got it for ourselveses.’Bilbo turned round & waited, wondering what it could be that the creature was making such a fuss about. This proved very fortunate afterwards. For Gollum came back & made a tremendous spluttering & whispering & croaking; & in the end Bilbo gathered that Gollum had had a ring, a ring that he had been given for a birthday present, ages & ages before in old days when such rings were less uncommon. Sometimes he had it in his pocket; usually he kept it in a little hole in the rock on his island; sometimes he wore it - when he was very, very hungry, & tired of fish, & crept along dark passages looking for stray goblins. Then he might venture even into places where the torches were lit & made his eyes blink & smart; but he would be safe. O yes! very nearly safe; for if you slipped that ring on your finger, you were invisible; only in the sunlight could you be seen, & then only by your shadow, & that was a faint & shaky sort of shadow.I don’t know how many times Gollum begged Bilbo’s pardoned. He kept on saying: ‘We are ssorry; we didn’t mean to cheat, we meant to give it our only only present, if it won the competition.’ He even offered to catch Bilbo some nice juicy fish to eat as a consolation.

The reason this fits more with the rest of TH, for me, is the absence of the tragic element, & perhaps more importantly the lack of any real 'threat' in the competition with Gollum. The Gollum of the revised Riddles chapter is a true 'horror', a canibalistic, immoral, creature, as well as a tragic victim. We feel a pity for him that we don't feel for the Trolls or goblins, or even for Smaug. The Gollum of the original is 'just' a monster, like all the others, just another 'adventure' Bilbo has along the way. In fact, in the original he is A gollum - one of (apparently) a whole race of such creatures. He is not the tragic, lost Hobbit, of LotR.

As I say, a matter or individual opinion.....

[Tevildo]

Aiwendil's comments:

This is an interesting issue. Do the changes really not fit the mood of the rest of the book? I first read The Hobbit (or rather, had it read to me) about seventeen years ago. It was only a few years ago that I learned about the extensive changes that had been made to that chapter. Prior to learning about them, I never detected any discrepancy in tone.

My earliest reading of the Hobbit was an old Houghton Mifflin first edition that I got from the library. Later on, I bought the revised Ballentine paperback even before I read LotR.

I was aware of a change in tone with the revisions. Since Riddles was a pivotal point in the story, I sensed there was something different going on. Plus, I knew that an author wouldn't go back and rewrite a book unless he had a serious reason for doing that (even if I didn't know what the reason was). Those changes cast a shadow over my reading of the story and lent a different tone than before. It wasn't as grim as LotR, but that chapter sounded more serious and less like a children's story.

Look at the critical phrase "my precious". I later read it again in Lord of the Rings. In the first edition, Gollum uses the word to describe himself. In the later revisions, "my precious" seems to refer to the Ring. Just a little change like that makes a difference. The Ring has become something more than a handy gadget to make someone invisible. Bilbo continues to use the Ring to get himself out of scrapes but you still can't help recalling the darker tones of the Riddles chapter.

It's not that the revisions were badly done. In fact they were done very skillfully. And if I had simply read the revisions without knowing about the original, I probably would not have been as aware of the discrepency in tone. But I did sense a difference between the unrevised and revised book even from a casual reading.

I also see a big difference between the Gandalf who is an artist in fireworks of the Hobbit and the early chapters of LotR, and the Gandalf who fought the Balrog in Moria. This was before the istar was transformed from grey to white. Perhaps it's too much to say there are two Gandalfs. There are points of connection and points of difference. But the points of difference are quite large, and I can't always fit the Gandalf of the Hobbit easily together with that of the Lord of the Rings (or for that matter the Necromancer with the later Sauron).

_______________

P.S. About that cat who was the original "Sauron".....I think JRRT made a big mistake in those revisions as well.

Tevildo, the lap cat of Melkor

[Aiwendil]

Looks like my invocation of Sauron's feline origins has conjured up the great cat himself.

Davem wrote:

The reason this fits more with the rest of TH, for me, is the absence of the tragic element, & perhaps more importantly the lack of any real 'threat' in the competition with Gollum. The Gollum of the revised Riddles chapter is a true 'horror', a canibalistic, immoral, creature, as well as a tragic victim. We feel a pity for him that we don't feel for the Trolls or goblins, or even for Smaug. The Gollum of the original is 'just' a monster, like all the others, just another 'adventure' Bilbo has along the way. In fact, in the original he is A gollum - one of (apparently) a whole race of such creatures. He is not the tragic, lost Hobbit, of LotR.

I think you are right that this is a matter of individual opinion. Still - I don't see The Hobbit as horror-less at all. On the contrary, I think that horror is an integral component of it, and of many other succesful 'children's stories'. I think you are right about tragedy - and I suppose that if the style of the revision differs significantly from that of the original, it is in this. But horror and tragedy are different things.

HerenIstarion:

and ask for permission to use it a signature (not immediately, but after some future change of my current one)

Permission granted to use this and any other inadvertantly funny things that roll off my fingers.

[THE Ka]

Gandalf does seem alot different between the Hobbit and LOTR. It might be of a specific audience but, i don't feel Tolkien was trying to convey that message... More or less, the Hobbit seems to be the "test drive" of middle earth and what it holds. You seem to be explained to by what characters learn in the Hobbit but, in the LOTR, things seem to be expected. As with gandalf, i really only see character development, or, how the main character conveys his personal image of Gandalf. Bilbo seems to view Gandalf much differently than that of Frodo who, in the beginning of the lord of the rings, bases most of his knowledge of gandalf by Bilbo's tales and gandalf's actions around him and other hobbits. As the book progresses, we see Gandalf literally, take on a new light. Frodo notices this as well, and begins to see a 'new' gandalf that he hasn't experienced before. Thus, we see through a new image.

Another factor can be that in the Hobbit, 90% of the point of view comes from Bilbo, while in the LOTR, more character's share their thoughts and views in the story.

Another person who changes, or we have a chance to see and hear more of is Elrond. Who, in the LOTR, plays more in the plot of the story than in the Hobbit. Explainning a map vs. Holding a council, frustration with in-laws and other activities... I see a change...

~Ka

[davem]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

Still - I don't see The Hobbit as horror-less at all. On the contrary, I think that horror is an integral component of it, and of many other succesful 'children's stories'. I think you are right about tragedy - and I suppose that if the style of the revision differs significantly from that of the original, it is in this. But horror and tragedy are different things.

They are different things - I wish I'd posted that at a time when I should'nt have been in bed!

The 'horror' I meant wasn't that of a 'big scary monster coming to eat you up' - which is basically what all the enemies in TH are, & what the original gollum was - its a deeper horror, of being trapped alone in the dark, by yourself, for age upon age. In short, none of the other 'monsters' Bilbo encounters seem to have feelings or emotional needs - we never wonder whether Smaug gets lonely on his bed of gold under the Mountain. We never think of any of the other 'monsters' having any kind of inner life, so we don't feel pity for them. With the 'revised' Gollum we do feel pity - Tolkien goes out of his way to make him a pitiable figure - & we feel such pity because of the horror of his existence.

[littlemanpoet]

Problem? Solution? What is all this? I just made a light hearted observation, and wham-o! eye yigh yigh!

I don't have time to respond to anything in specificity or in depth. I just want to say for the record that I see - - - that is, saw initially - - - three different types of responses/takes on the two Gandalves (I like that spelling too); each was equally legitimate.

1) the revisionist response - trying to follow Tolkien through his own creative process. (Child's approach)

2) the fabled historian response - getting in Tolkien's back pocket and sub-creating how Frodo and Bilbo and the rest of them could have given us the various - - um - - variants! (Heren Istarion's approach, I believe?)

3) the fan response - loving Tolkien's characters as presented, not needing all this extra bosh (which isn't really bosh, just a certain kind of nerdy fun!).

Me, I'm apt for the #2 & #3 approaches, both.

As to problem in need of impossible solution, I don't see it that way at all, and didn't when I whimsically started this humble thread. I see the two (or more) Gandalfs as part and parcel of that which attracts me to the whole creative work.

Just one additional note, having read through most of the posts - - it strikes me that The Hobbit has more of a Brothers Grimm feel than LotR, especially with talking purses, and trolls that turn to stone at daybreak; not to mention the feel of Mirkwood and all that. In other words, The Hobbit strikes me as strongly folkloric, though canted for children (which Tolkien later regretted, according to some letter or other). I still don't have The Letters! - it's on my Christmas list. Puleeze, Santa, pretty puleeze! Maybe you can send a special delivery by means of that Polar Bear......

[Gil-Galad]

thankfully i've never seen the Cartoon, but i feel that TH shows, in a way, Gandalfs true path, point of view, and he develops many ways to get it, when he realizes that he himself must act, then he throws off what people think of him...err yea...

[davem]

Originally Posted by LMP

- it strikes me that The Hobbit has more of a Brothers Grimm feel than LotR, especially with talking purses, and trolls that turn to stone at daybreak; not to mention the feel of Mirkwood and all that. In other words, The Hobbit strikes me as strongly folkloric, though canted for children (which Tolkien later regretted, according to some letter or other)

There's some interesting stuff re the origin of TH in this 1967 interview with Tolkien:

http://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/15/bo...interview.html

Try these quotes from Tolkien himself, which may shatter some long held beliefs:

"The Hobbit" wasn't written for children, and it certainly wasn't done just for the amusement of Tolkien's three sons and one daughter, as is generally reported. "That's all sob stuff. No, of course, I didn't. If you're a youngish man and you don't want to be made fun of, you say you're writing for children. At any rate, children are your immediate audience and you write or tell them stories, for which they are mildly grateful: long rambling stories at bedtime.

"'The Hobbit' was written in what I should now regard as bad style, as if one were talking to children. There's nothing my children loathed more. They taught me a lesson. Anything that in any way marked out 'The Hobbit' as for children instead of just for people, they disliked-instinctively. I did too, now that I think about it. All this 'I won't tell you any more, you think about it' stuff. Oh no, they loathe it; it's awful.

...Tolkien says his mother gave him his love of philology and romance; and his first stories were gathering in his mind when he was an undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford. When war came, however, he didn't write in the trenches as some chroniclers insist. "That's all spoof. You might scribble something on the back of an envelope and shove it in your back pocket, but that's all. You couldn't write. This [his study] would be an enormous dugout. You'd be crouching down among the flies and filth."

[THE Ka]

Hmm... that quote has me thinking...

Brian Froud said something, that i think, reflects wonderfully on what tolkien's interview or his message.

"I always assume that children live in the same world we do. I always approach it that way, so I don't specifically do books for children that are for adults however I always assume that children will read them."

That, for my opinion, is a wonderful example of the Hobbit...

Brian Froud is also an author and well known fantasy artist, if you are curious...


~Fae Ka~

[littlemanpoet]

Child: You raise some interesting points ... of course (I'd expect no less!). I don't think I've ever had the problem you speak of, regarding reading The Hobbit through the lens of LotR and The Silmarillion. It's not that I ever tried to keep the two separate in my mind, either. Maybe it's that I read The Hobbit first, and always cherished it for what it was.

Your first post on this thread, Child, cause two separate but linked thoughts for me.

One is the different geographies of the two stories. It's as if the setting of The Hobbit is actually Middle Earth (thing "midgeard"), with its Shire, Rivendell, Misty Mountains, Great River of Wilderland, Mount Gundabad, Mirkwood with its Elven King's Halls, Lonely Mountain, Iron Hills, Long Lake, Esgaroth, Dale, Withered Heath, and all the rest. Notice how the names are all non-Elvish? It's only with LotR that we get the Elvish names for these places: Imladris, Hitheiglin, Anduin, Ered Mithrin, Rhovanion, Thranduil's Palace, Erebor, and so forth. And it's with LotR that we discover that Middle Earth (midgeard) has a past that reaches back into the Silmarillion, making it Arda where there is Valinor, Beleriand, Doriath, and Tol Eressea. Really, I'm only expanding on Child's theme that The Hobbit started out having nothing to do with the legendarium. The Maps show it.

The second is the similar plot structure of the two works. They both start out lighthearted, with a trickster Gandalf, who by the time we're well into the story is revealed as a counsellor and arbitrator between powers. Think of the Battle of Five Armies to get a sense for the Gandalf that seems so familiar to us from LotR. So are there really two Gandalfs? Yes, but not between TH and LotR, I'm thinking. Rather, the Gandalf # 2 is revealed in The Sil and UT, where we learn of him as one of the Istari who is known as Olorin, a Maia. Whereas his resurrection (or whatever you prefer to call it) seems to make of him a virtually messianic figure, we still have no inkling of him as a Maia. But it's clear that once Gandalf was revealed as the White, Tolkien's creative imagination was already at work making the connections.

I'm glad of it.

Aiwendil:

But to me to say that there are "two Gandalfs" or "two Gondolins" sounds suspiciously mystical.

Mystical as opposed to what, pray tell? Tangible, perhaps? As usual, I find your closely reasoned logic rather befuddling. I think I figured out what you were really trying to say after I came to (almost) the same conclusion through my own intuitive process. And maybe I'm just kidding myself, and still don't know what you're talking about.

The claim is that we have different portrayals. But what specific things did Gandalf do in The Hobbit that LotR Gandalf could not have done? Is there really enough there to call the portrayals implicitly contradictory?

Are you sure that "implicitly contradictory" is actually what we're talking about? Allow me to turn that on its head: Perhaps you are claiming that we do not have different portrayals? Are there not many specific things that Gandalf did do in LotR that Gandalf in The Hobbit did not do? Is there really not enough there to call them two Gandalfs?

[Man-of-the-Wold]

First, I find Gandalf to be a satisfactory bridge between the (revised) Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, along with Gollum, Gloin, Eagles and some other things. Elrond, Bilbo, and above all, the relative distances travelled, are harder to reconcile. But so it goes.

Magic rings, well there were a bunch of lesser rings attributed to Celebrimbor and his elven-smiths. Though supposedly destroyed, they may have been part of legend. The Elves of Rivendell, of course, turn out to me decendants of some of those same people, and they may certain sing and make merry in the woods, despite being of serious High-Elven kind.

To JRRT's credit, he sometimes within the larger legend has his characters discuss legends, rumours and fantastic things that may not be or are not really true within his sub-creation. Even Gandalf reports on false information in places. Consider how careful Faramir and others, who are among his most noble characters, are about relaying hearsay or information that cannot be vouched for. Clearly, he's heard more about Cirith Ungol than he reports to Frodo.

Middle-Earth is a place where conjecture may or may not be more fantastic than reality in all cases, but the two don't always meet, and misinformation abounds.

In The Hobbit as originally written and with hindsight one may chalk some things up to confusion, misinformation or exaggeration on Bilbo's part.

Still, besides tone, there are things that might be best edited out, but it won't happen. So, I try to explain them this way or that, or ignore. I can even explain why it took Thorin & Company so many weeks to get to the Trollshaws or across Mirkwood, based on circuituity or serpetine-ness that is not reported or shown. For example, they took excessively round-about ways through and out of the Shire to avoid being noticed as necessarily heading eastward, and the Wood-Elves' magic in making their path may have been limited in that the path had to find its own way, and as a result it bends to and fro in addition to weaving among individual trees, as described. Not straight at all.

The talking purse is a curiousity, but various kinds of incomprehensible "magic" are ascribed to all of the various races. Beorn's extreme shape-shifting is really difficult. And what's with the Stone Giants, who are actually mentioned rather matter-of-factly twice!? The Arkenstone seems too fantastic in light of the Silmarils.

In any event, consider that there is also The Hobbit's Gondolin. In fact, that Book already consciously harks back to early (BoLT/Quenta Noldorina) elements of JRRT's larger, more serious legendarium. Gandalf's and Thorin's swords once belonged to Turgon and possibly Ecthelion. The three elf kinds are primitively noted. There is Elrond, the common thread in all Middle-Earth works. The attack of the Dwarves on Doriath is suggested.

Finally, for Telvido, consider that the Eye of Sauron is catlike. Perhaps, a now trite observation.