A question of tone

[Mithadan]

The Hobbit is, unquestionably, intended for a younger audience. While the tone gets darker as the work progresses, it remains light. The trolls border upon comedy relief. Yes, Gollum threatens to murder Bilbo but there is the almost humorous riddle game and the lost buttons. Yes, there are goblins, but their portrayal does not approach the evil and more graphic images seen in LoTR. Yes, there is a dragon, but his interactions with Bilbo border upon the whimsical. The darkest images drawn in any detail are the burning of Laketown and the aftermath of the Battle of Five Armies (the battle itself is barely described).

The transition from The Hobbit to LoTR is very smooth. The tone of the opening chapters of The Fellowship is very similar to that of The Hobbit. The absurdity of the Shire and the Hobbits remains. The Shadow of the Past is darker, perhaps, and covers more serious history and events, but perhaps not significantly more so than An Unexpected Party. The Black Riders appear but are nebulous and not as threatening as they later are portrayed. Their "sniffing" for the Hobbits is emphasized, but never explained and is not mentioned later. The flooding of the bath in Crickhollow, the greed for mushrooms. The Hobbits are attacked by trees. Bombadil is... Bombadil. It is not until the Barrow-Downs, the assault on Bree and the attack at Weathertop that things get truly dark and serious.

We know that Tolkien rewrote LoTR multiple times, literally cover to cover, before it was published. One can assume that the tone in LoTR's early chapters and the smooth transition from The Hobbit to The Fellowship of the Ring was intended. Any thoughts about why?

[Morthoron]

The Hobbit was published in 1937, and The Fellowship of the Ring came out in 1954. That's an interim of 17 years. It would be logical for an author to ease previously youthful readers into the heavier material found in LoTR. However, I don't think Tolkien was ever quite "logical" in the creation of his universe. He was, if anything, confoundingly haphazard in assembling material, moving in fits and starts, writing in much the same way as he spoke, with words tumbling out in profusion.

It is more likely that Stanley Unwin, who wanted to publish a Hobbit 2.0, would be more averse to straying from the original (and highly successful) fairytale-like millieu found in The Hobbit for the more challenging, and at times very dark, plot of LoTR. So, Tolkien had to break him in, giving him the adorable and hayseed Hobbits for the first few chapters, before weaving in the far more ancient and terrifying story percolating in Tolkien's mind for several decades. Sir Stanley, it seemed, was lulled into a far greater tale.

Remember, Unwin originally declined Tolkien's submission of the Quenta Silmarillion, as being obscure and "too Celtic" -- not to mention, to paraphase Tolkien, that the "million words" was not likely to see the light, even if paper were easily available. The publisher instead asked Tolkien to write a sequel to The Hobbit.

[Pitchwife]

In addition to the marketing argument Morth offered, which I agree was probably the main reason, the transition in tone mirrors the journey (not merely geographic) of the Hobbits themselves from the cosy and familiar sphere of the Shire into the larger world where they must face higher, stranger and darker forces.


Today, ironically, the effect of the tone of the first chapters on readers who are drawn to LotR as an ur-text of the fantasy genre and may not even have read The Hobbit before may be the reverse of what Stanley Unwin intended. I remember how, coming from sword & sorcery à la Michael Moorcock, I found the Hobbits and their silly banter rather annoying at first. I think it was the first encounter with Elves that got me.