h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My theory of hobbits is startlingly simple, I'm only surprised I haven't seen it published anywhere else.

The word hobbit is a portmanteau, in the usage invented by Lewis Carroll in "Through the Looking-glass, and what Alice found there". In the poem "Jabberwocky", slithy = lithe/slimy, mimsy = miserable/flimsy, and so on; meanings are jumbled together like clothes in a portmanteau.

Quite simply, hobbits represent the habits/hobbies of an English gentleman, and their names generally point out their references: Merry Brandybuck for the tipple, Pippin Took for pipe and tobacco, Fatty Bolger for stuffing the face. The Bagginses stand for the habit/hobby of "bagging" or collecting things and the heartless cousins the Sackville-Bagginses are, it is suggested, prepared to "sack homes" for their plunder.

Tolkien was famously reticent about allegory, but this one sticks. He develops a theory, that the more despicable the habit/hobby, the more its adherents glorify it (Meriadoc the Magnificent), and vice versa, the humbler the hobbit the closer its approach to positive virtue (Sam the gardener). In "The Hobbit" Bilbo Baggins regarded himself as a regular gent, and deeply resented Gandalf's joke of branding him as an expert burglar.

No hobbit is quite virtuous, or capable of altruism; but their dogged single-minded behaviour is their strongest recommendation. On account of it they are considerably less vulnerable to the seduction of the Ring of Power than more morally complex folk are; but Frodo cannot succeed in his altruistic quest without the unwitting help (which proves suicidal) of his demented alter-ego Gollum.

The thing we learn about habits/hobbies in this moral tale is that the gentleman (represented by Aragorn and Gandalf) who maintains and defends them may make light of his attachment as much as he can, but it is surprisingly resilient! He is in fact more or less an addict.

So in the absence of hobbits in our world, we will have to use h2g2 researchers to bring the Ring of Power to Orodruin.

Quite. Except there's no absence of hobbits; we all have them.
Manipulate them wisely and maybe -- maybe -- some of them might justify their existence.

Perhaps the egoism of Gollum and the diffidence of Bilbo are the extremes that are the sin to the habit/hobby of moderate self-esteem.

I don't see Gollum as egotistical, rather as demented. Nor do I see Bilbo's mildness as anything but the merest flicker of self-awareness, the ability to consider the possibility that his life of collecting things may be ever so slightly anti-social. This flicker, inherited by Frodo, is what sets them apart as morally more alive than the generality of hobbits.

Habits/hobbies are in general heartless and self-seeking. Gollum is so far gone he has lost all reason (the films overdo his ethical monologue, which is much less rational -- a rehearsal of woes -- in the book; though it serves to raise questions in the reader).

Sam's virtue is of a different order, more the virtue of 'knowing your place' and bowing to the superior wisdom of others (we are reminded that Tolkien was a Catholic), combined with the single-minded hardiness of the hobbit.

Most addicts I know are profoundly selfish, and doubly guilty of Sloth as anyone in the grip of a habit/hobbit. It takes certain predilections to sin in certain ways, though. Gollum's dementia comes from an addiction, one that was fed by feelings of power when he was invisible. This is how I inferred Pride.

Gandalf and the dwarves had to pretty much hijack Bilbo, so it's not mere diffidence on his part.

Hobbits are "profoundly selfish" -- agreed -- "and doubly guilty of Sloth" -- not agreed; I don't think it's fair to asscribe sins to non-humans (unless they are gods).

That is the other side of not blaming them for their selfishness.

They are after all only hobbits.

And LOTR is but a story.

My politics had always been on the side of the bad guys for the book. I figured Tolkein was just rewriting history on the winner's side.

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means." ~Oscar Wilde

But why say "LOTR is but a story"? The history of the universe is but a story!

Not only isn't it a story, it's a dance-musical, with a blockbuster ending by dance superstar Shiva!

Thinking about the ending.

Certainly the world ends with the busting of all the blocks, but it's a dicey job predicting it; so far the failure rate has been 100%.

All the pointers say, budget for survival. There's no need to plan for any other contingency.

I've a geology degree, and predicting earthquakes is one of the things that the United States Geological Survey is supposed to do. (don't know why our new-minted Homeland Security Dept isn't taking this task for it's own )

I was highly amused to read in the Los Angeles Times 2 days ago a story about the same topic, that is to say, for all the blur given in predictions (a typical forecast is an xtox+2 power quake within y decades), so far the failure rate is still 100%

Hurm

Why the hairy feet then?

You've all mentioned Gollum, but not one single one of you has mentioned Smeagol. Why not?

You big fibber !

I haven't mentioned Gollum once! Schizophrenic, slimy, web-toed freak.

Give me Bill Bailey onnastick any day.

There's no need to be nasty - I just wrote some nice bits about Dunwich AND I read all the black and white stuff about ravens. In actual fact you're not the Sam I was thinking about. The Sam I had been thinking about is always late home for his dinner.

That was very kind of you. I shall refrain from asking my usual questions about from whence come your crystals (I got thrown out of Stone Age in Glastonbury for inquiring whether or not their quartz was strip mined in Brazil by children, heh).

I'm hardly ever late home for dinner, because I'm usually the one making it....

I know exploitation stinks - but if the crystals are here with us now, it must be for a reason... Shame to leave them lost and lonely on the shelf.

What are you making for dinner tonight then?

Aye, the reason being the blatant consumerism and quick-fix obsession of the New Age and NeoPaganism (ahem , excuse me, I'll start ranting in a minute).

What did we have? We had the dhal that I made a couple of nights ago, with naans and spicey mango chutney. It was very nice, thank you.

The Smeagol/Gollum story shows the level of nascent conscience that hobbits operate at. Go one way and you become a frozen pattern of need (Gollum), go the other way and you become almost a responsible person (Bilbo Frodo and Sam; and even the nuisances Pippin and Merry do make some apparently altrusitic decisions too).

Perhaps the ultimate question is: at what level of consciousness do behaviour patterns (people) begin to have a choice in what way they will go?