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Spectre of Decay
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It may not have been mentioned very often, so it's probably worth pointing out that fat Bombur, the fattest of the Dwarves, was immensely fat. From his enormous fatness (which caused him to be known as Fat Bombur) derives the humour of his being rather fat and unfit; always falling on top of other characters or needing to be carried; and always thinking, talking or dreaming about food. This is, of course, the only thing that fat people ever do, which makes it hilariously funny; and this is why Bombur (who as you may recall was somewhat portly) is so side-splittingly hilarious.
Why am I bringing this up now? Well, apparently there are still those who don't think that Tolkien rather labours the point that Bombur was fat. I have therefore looked up every reference to Bombur in The Hobbit, and will proceed to share them all with you, after which you too will be able to share in the bottomless well of cheap laughs that is a Bombur Fatty McFatfat sentence. Page references are from the George Allen and Unwin fourth edition hardback. Bombur is first mentioned on page 18, arriving at Bag End with Thorin, Bifur and Bofur: Quote:
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After he has fallen into the stream and been duly recovered by his companions, they indulge in some general reported grumbling about his clumsiness (unfair, given that he has been all-but knocked down by a leaping hart), and when he is again mentioned a couple of paragraphs later (p. 127) it is with yet another comment about his weight. Quote:
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In the following chapter, Bofur and Bombur are trapped in the valley as an enraged Smaug approaches (p. 187). Quote:
Bombur goes unmentioned again until p. 206 (Not at Home), where his comment on their situation is predictably of a gastronomic nature. Quote:
From then on, apart from being woken up as Bilbo keeps his promise to wake him at midnight, Bombur receives no significant mention. He survives the Battle of Five Armies (suggesting more martial prowess than his description thus far would appear to merit) and is much later encountered in LR, described by Glóin as being too fat to walk to the table unaided and requiring the efforts of six young dwarves to share the load of carrying him. Bombur appears or is mentioned The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on twenty-three occasions, and on seventeen of those he is either described as being fat, talking or dreaming about food, or causing trouble by being too heavy. When he's not being hilariously fat he's being clumsy and oafish: falling over on Thorin, falling into the enchanted water or imagining a pratfall to his death on the Lonely Mountain. Were it not for his performance in the battle against the trolls and his assault on the spider it would be difficult to see what Thorin saw in him as a companion. Perhaps he was another of Gandalf's choices, or perhaps it was a case of nepotism. It does seem rather unfair, though, to drag him all over creation and drop him into all sorts of horrible situations for what threadbare scraps of amusement arise from so doing. Rather more amusement can be derived from parodying Tolkien's use of Bombur, so I shall conclude by doing so once again. Since Bombur was the fattest dwarf, being immensely fat, round, corpulent and morbidly obese, he was often known as 'Fat Bombur' or 'Bombur the Fat', by virtue of his enormous girth, fat face and the fact that he was really quite fat. He was immensely fond of pork pies, because that's what fat people eat; but he would eat them with salad in the belief that this would make them less fattening, because that's another thing that amusingly fat people do. As I may have mentioned, Bombur "of the Nine Bellies" was a bit of a porker, and repeatedly did amusing things that are quite typical of fat people in general, like complaining about small portions, falling over and generally being fatter than everyone else in a profitless and non-practical way. Also he was fat, which I'm not sure I mentioned before. Did I mention earlier that our Tolkien conversations in Finland weren't often very high in the brow?
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Man kenuva métim' andúne? Last edited by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh; 01-06-2013 at 03:46 PM. Reason: I misquoted Kryten, which would never do |
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#2 |
Laconic Loreman
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Makes me wonder if instead of counting calories, dwarves count bomburs? bomburies? bombalories? And how would they measure it? You burn food to measure the calories of course, but can't exactly burn Bombur.
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Fenris Penguin
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#3 |
Spectre of Decay
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Dwarves don't need to measure calorific content because all of their food is inside Bombur, causing him to break furniture hilariously. They just weigh him and divide the result by the number of things missing from the larder.
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#4 |
Pilgrim Soul
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Maybe they took him along as..well bait isn't quite the right word ... more a last ditch diversionary tactic like when in the Big Bang Theory the physicists upset someone who threatens violence and Sheldon tells Leonard as they flee that he doesn't need to outrun their pursuer only leonard.
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
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A Voice That Gainsayeth
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*Of course, that was not possible because of the way the whole story develops. The Dwarves go from comfortable places around the Shire further and further into the wilderness, into more and more dangerous places with less and less resources, so they cannot, unfortunately, grow fatter and fatter, but rather the opposite. However, we can see that Tolkien did not let his dream disappear completely, and led it to an eucatastrophe with the remark in LotR, where Bombur, finally in the place of peace and plenty, has the room to become as fat as he can get.
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#6 | |
Laconic Loreman
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I would think his fingers were too fat to play such instruments, having small keyholes and requiring inhaling/exhaling to play, don't want Bombur to faint from it. And Thorin's string instrument would be too delicate for him. With a drum he could easily pull out and rhythmically bang away.
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Fenris Penguin
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#7 |
Pilgrim Soul
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Another thing is that to maintain his weight Bombur must have been snaffling far more than his share of rations when awake since heavier folk burn off more calories walking the same distance and should have lost weight even when unconscious. I don't care how big boned or slow metabolised he is.
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
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Princess of Skwerlz
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Also, playing the drum need not have indicated clumsiness - he would actually have been the one responsible for keeping time so that all musicians would stay together.
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A Voice That Gainsayeth
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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Spectre of Decay
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Man kenuva métim' andúne? |
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Wisest of the Noldor
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"Even Nerwen wasn't evil in the beginning." –Elmo. |
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#12 |
Pilgrim Soul
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Searching the History of the Hobbit forsomething about Radagast I have fpound the appendix on dwarf names Bomburr in the Voluspa is translated as tubby.
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
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#13 | |
Woman of Secret Shadow
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![]() But then, many opera singers (who obviously have huge lungs) are fat too!
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He bit me, and I was not gentle. |
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#14 | |
Everlasting Whiteness
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“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” |
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#15 | |
A Mere Boggart
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![]() What I like best about Bombur is that his existence means they have made a unique Lego minifigure that has a little belly as an accessory you can attach. Course this means Bombur can go on a miracle diet, or you can also make Fili and Kili (or any of the policemen in Lego City, or well, any minifigure...) look pregnant. ![]()
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Gordon's alive!
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#16 | ||
Woman of Secret Shadow
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He bit me, and I was not gentle. |
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#17 |
Pilgrim Soul
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But then, many opera singers (who obviously have huge lungs) are fat too!
Really not so true these days since they are required to act rather than just stand and deliver, of course there isn't the same pressure as on actresses to be abnormally thin since the prerequisite is to be able to sing the role. They wouldnt tolerate someone eandering off mid duet for a glass of water like Pavarotti. And I hate to think what would have happened if Pavarotti had tried this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQeX...e_gdata_player
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
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#18 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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I detect a Red Dwarf reference! I suppose once he got hot and bothered after all that running and danger Bombur was at risk of becoming a red dwarf himself.
I've always been rather bemused by how many times the Professor feels the need to remind us that Bombur was fat. Is it worth mentioning, however, the notion in the 1960 Hobbit that Bombur and his brother and cousin were Thorin's "attendants"? I've always had the impression that these three who were not of Durin's Line (and therefore seemingly a bit more "common" and "working class" than the majority of the company) were potentially present in something of a more professional capacity. Perhaps this can explain why Bombur was present despite the fact that, as Professor Tolkien is eager to remind us, he was fat. |
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A Mere Boggart
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Gordon's alive!
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#20 |
Pilgrim Soul
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Well, as a great Wagnerian responded when asked what was the secret to singing Wagner, comfortable shoesì
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
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Woman of Secret Shadow
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He bit me, and I was not gentle. |
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Deadnight Chanter
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Well, I may argue that for the 19 chapters worth of story for [younger] children that's not that much (but I actually won't, let it stand) I have another point to make (as I've pondered the issue the very day I raised my doubts with regards multitude of instances of mentioning Bombur as fat. For it seems to me it's well-reasoned (as I've mentioned in my comment to Squatter's post on FB) - based on my own experience of bedtime reading to my kids - you have to constantly remind them about certain facts - even if they do seem already well established to yourself - so I see the reason of constantly stressing that particular fat guy's fat (I'm reading (or re-reading rather, for 10th time on end it seems now) Roverandom currently to my elder kid, so we are repeatedly rehearsing which of the Rovers is the oldest, and what dreams Man-on-the-Moon makes and on and on and on ![]()
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#23 | |
Flame Imperishable
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#24 | ||||
Spectre of Decay
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As Aganzir pointed out, Bombur is one of the few dwarves to put up a decent fight anywhere on their adventures, so there's probably a bit more to him than appears on the surface. Given that Thorin is reasonably intelligent, I would guess that an ability to fold hoods or make soup would not be a sole requirement for members of his company. I never picked up any class distinctions between the dwarves in The Hobbit other than Thorin's status as the leader, and as John Rateliff mentions in The History of the Hobbit, here 'attendants' is more likely to mean courtiers or an honour guard - hardly traditionally working-class occupations. Of course, even using terms like 'working class' suggests an anachronistic social structure: Thorin and his companions form something more like a comitatus, which would normally suggest a similar status for all, much as Thorin's company appears on the page. Quote:
Interestingly enough, I was reading The Hobbit this week and found another reference to Bombur that I missed before. It comes as the party has just descended the loose scree in Out of the frying-pan and into the fire (p. 88 of my edition). Quote:
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#25 | |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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#26 |
A Mere Boggart
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Oooh, I could also involve pudding in my unsavoury animations! Stand back, EL James, I'm here and I have custard and Lego!
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Gordon's alive!
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#27 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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While I laughed at Bombur when first reading The Hobbit, I was impressed even then at how he, and all the other dwarves, turned from merchants into ferocious fighters at the Battle of Five Armies:
Out leapt the King under the Mountain, and his companions followed him. Hood and cloak were gone; they were in shining armour, and red light leapt from their eyes. In the gloom the great dwarf gleamed like gold in a dying fire....Wolf and rider fell or fled before them. Go Bombur! ![]() ![]() |
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#28 |
A Voice That Gainsayeth
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Indeed. Given everything that's been said above, I'm surprised Tolkien didn't make the point of "and so the Dwarves armed themselves, because the armories of the former King Under the Mountain contained a host of armours, even one big enough for Bombur..."
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#29 |
Newly Deceased
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[deleted]
Last edited by BomburIsAwesome; 02-05-2021 at 05:37 PM. Reason: I was a child and I acted like one. Even if I was trying to sound adult, I...I'm so sorry. |
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#30 |
Pilgrim Soul
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Welcome to the Downs Bombur and please note that this thread is in the mirth section and is not to be taken seriously. Squatter is a witty fellow and his essay is tongue in cheek. And if anything mocks the one note characterisation.
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
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#31 | |
Gruesome Spectre
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#32 |
Wisest of the Noldor
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If "stride" is the right word...
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"Even Nerwen wasn't evil in the beginning." –Elmo. |
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#33 |
Gruesome Spectre
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#34 |
Wisest of the Noldor
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Now that's more like it.
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#35 | |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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So who was relatively fatter, Bombur or Lalia Took?
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#36 |
Pilgrim Soul
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Faramir Jones is an expert on Lalia. But Dwarves are generally larger so probably once they had reached the point of being so fat they could not move, Bombur probably was larger. But Lalia seems to have been less active and mobile through more of her life whereaa Bombur was more or less able to keep up. When he wasn't enchanted.
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
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#37 | |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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![]() According to Tolkien's 'Prologue' in LotR, Hobbits are a little people 'smaller than Dwarves: less stout and stocky, that is, even when they are not actually much shorter'. (My emphasis) Hobbits vary, he says, between 2 to 4 feet in height. Let us assume that both Lalia and Bombur are of average height for their respective races, making Bombur taller. It would seem, from this information alone, that a fat dwarf like Bombur was relatively fatter than a fat hobbit like Lalia. But we have further information making this difference clear. You, Tuor in Gondolin, gave the correct information that Lalia was, towards the end of her life, 'so fat she couldn't walk and was confined to a wheelchair'. However, according to information given by Gloin to Frodo in Rivendell in 3018, Bombur, towards the end of his life, was 'now so fat that he could not move himself from his couch to his chair at table, and it took six young dwarves to lift him'. It seems, therefore, that Bombur was certainly relatively fatter, needing six young dwarves to move him around, while Lalia needed only one young hobbit (Pearl, Pippin's sister) to move her around. |
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#38 |
Pilgrim Soul
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Yes but as we all know it is easier to push something on wheels rather than to carry it which is why airports are thick with wheelycases and the mini trolleys so popular at supermarkets. Odd as a side note that the hobbits had wheelchairs at their disposal while dwarves who I would have thought were relatively technically advanced seem to have moved Bombur on a litter. Also events seem to indicate that one young, female hobbit was not up to the task. Nevertheless for reasons previously stated I concur that Bombur was likely bigger.
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
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#39 |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
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The debate shall never cease,
As both of their weights increased. They each kept getting fatter, So what is the matter with agreeing they're equally obese?
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#40 |
Gruesome Spectre
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Though Hobbits they say
Can pack it away And eat til the cows come home, Bombur would exclaim 'If a cow to me came My belly would soon be a dome!' ![]()
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