I don't think the fandom talks enough about how traumatizing the mines of Moria must've been for the hobbits.

And I'm not referring to Gandalf's death (this is actually quite discussed), that's "oh no, they've killed grandpa".

I'm talking about the members of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield they've found dead. The hobbits grew up listening to the tales of their adventure and their extraordinary deeds.

That's "fuck they've killed the Avengers".

Frodo’s reaction to seeing Balin’s tomb, “How am I going to tell Bilbo?”

I bet after Aragorn became king he would continue to be Just Some Chill As Fuck Dude. You go to the market and there’s the king of Gondor. Buying turnips.

I firmly believe Aragorn gave his minders the slip on the regular, seeing as he's a) Aragorn and b) knew Minas Tirith before anyone who's bothering to chase after him was born. He is absolutely Just Some Guy about town with a frequency that gives anyone in politics conniption fits.

Faramir is SO JEALOUS

What?!? Faramir is probably right there next to him! Don't forget that Faramir was also a Ranger (just of the South). And you know Faramir never got to do any fun stuff like sneaking out of the castle when he was a kid, because Denethor was such a hard-ass.

I bet they sneak out together and go to taverns, and then pretend to have loud arguments about weird things like Should Quenya replace Sindarin as the Official Language? Or who would win in a fight, a Cave Troll or a Mountain Troll?

And then Farmir would show him the new bridge they're constructing in Osgiliath, under the direction of a few dwarf friends.

The hobbits would be leading the way. They are the masters of knowing how to chill and pay attention to the simple things like home and friends and good food because those are the important things.

TOLKIEN WEEK Day 2 - favorite hero

The Ring: If I had a quarter for every time a hobbit picked me up, I’d have two quarters.  The Ring: Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Of all the bearers of Sauron’s ring, 4 of them were hobbits.

I was wrong. It’s 5. Not 4

The lineage of ring bearers is as follows.

I love how Deagol counts as a ring bearer even though he had it in his possession for all of like five seconds

He held it for the rest of of his life!

[Image description: Tweet by @banalplay saying “but something happened then that the ring did not intend. it was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: a hobbit, the same fuckin thing that just had it for like 500 years.” End Image Description.] Link to original here. Otherwise reblogging for the final rb there, which made me cackle.

From the ring’s perspective:

1. Home, the finger of my creator and other self.

2. Well, I don’t like it but I can work with this. Cause some trouble, get some revenge, find my way home, this is fine.

3. What the fuck is you?

4. Right personality, wrong species, I don’t know what you are but I hate you and I don’t know why you’re so resistant to my powers.

5. NO NO NO there are goblins everywhere how did I find another one of THESE horrible things. This one’s even more resistant than the last one and also disgustingly nice. I suffer.

6. Listen, I’ll cooperate, just get me the fuck out of this hellhole full of small cheerful people my power doesn’t work on properly. No, not like that. I hate you. Please stop. 

7. FUCK

8. (Frodo again) I still hate you with every molecule of my mortal form but at least you’re not number seven. Think I’m starting to get through finally. 

9. (Smeagol again) YES it’s you I actually missed you now get me back to the Master and NO FUCK NO I HATE YOOOOUUUUU…. *fzt* 

you CHAIN The One Ring?! you chain it like the prisoner?! oh! OH! trauma! deep psychological trauma for hobbits for One Thousand Years!

Heh. :)

All that power and they still beat you. Hah!

Between the Arkenstone, the One Ring, and that cache of magic swords Bilbo uncovered during Thorin and company’s confrontation with the trolls that just happened to be the former property of the High King of the Noldor, Bilbo and Gandalf’s relationship is just a constant process of Bilbo showing up with some random artifact of world-changing significance and Gandalf sagely stroking his beard and making a pithy remark while internally screaming “WHERE DO YOU KEEP FINDING THESE THINGS”.

Alternately, this is why Gandalf always brings/sends hobbits on adventures. Because if you take a hobbit out of their nice safe holding-pen in the Shire, it will take them approximately ten minutes to stumble across whatever item of world-shaking importance is currently knocking around the vicinity. You take a hobbit out and set them loose and they will find ancient weapons of a godly age, ancient beings that pre-date the world, the one treasure in the middle of a hoard of treasure that you actually need, the single most deadly magic item in the world in the middle of a river, the same magic item in the middle of a cave centuries later, the local magic rock with a direct link to the current villain’s mind (which, in this case, was not necessarily a blessing, Pippin) …

If you put a hobbit down, basically, and there is an item of plot importance within a fifty mile radius, they will put their hand down and pick it up. Guaranteed. (Again, as with Pippin and the Palantir, this is not necessarily a good thing, but at least you’ll know where shit is)

The other reason he always brings/sends hobbits on adventures is that they will also kickstart world-shaking actions if left unattended for more than five minutes. See also: Merry and Pippin toppling Isengard the minute they were left alone near people they could trick into war-slash-mischief. See also: Bilbo giving Bard and Thranduil the Arkenstone in an attempt to negotiate because the dwarves left him unsupervised and somebody needed to at least try and keep the peace. See also: Pippin suborning a Gondorian guard into outright treason in the place of the dead to save Faramir and the Gondorian Stewardship from Denethor’s madness. See also: Frodo, Sam and Gollum royally mucking up Sauron’s everything while entirely alone and unsupervised under his very nose.

Like, it’s a gamble. Taking hobbits out into the wider world and letting them loose unsupervised is not an action for the risk-adverse or the faint of heart. But if you want results in a relatively short time-frame, by the Valar it’s effective.

See also Bandobras “Bullroarer” Took who defeated the Goblins at the Battle of Greenfields and invented Golf at the same time.

17,000 followers!

I just love Gandalf with hobbits. These are his people. 

The Ring: If I had a quarter for every time a hobbit picked me up, I’d have two quarters.  The Ring: Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Of all the bearers of Sauron’s ring, 4 of them were hobbits.

I was wrong. It’s 5. Not 4

The lineage of ring bearers is as follows.

I love how Deagol counts as a ring bearer even though he had it in his possession for all of like five seconds

He held it for the rest of of his life!

[Image description: Tweet by @banalplay saying “but something happened then that the ring did not intend. it was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: a hobbit, the same fuckin thing that just had it for like 500 years.” End Image Description.] Link to original here. Otherwise reblogging for the final rb there, which made me cackle.

From the ring’s perspective:

1. Home, the finger of my creator and other self.

2. Well, I don’t like it but I can work with this. Cause some trouble, get some revenge, find my way home, this is fine.

3. What the fuck is you?

4. Right personality, wrong species, I don’t know what you are but I hate you and I don’t know why you’re so resistant to my powers.

5. NO NO NO there are goblins everywhere how did I find another one of THESE horrible things. This one’s even more resistant than the last one and also disgustingly nice. I suffer.

6. Listen, I’ll cooperate, just get me the fuck out of this hellhole full of small cheerful people my power doesn’t work on properly. No, not like that. I hate you. Please stop. 

7. FUCK

8. (Frodo again) I still hate you with every molecule of my mortal form but at least you’re not number seven. Think I’m starting to get through finally. 

9. (Smeagol again) YES it’s you I actually missed you now get me back to the Master and NO FUCK NO I HATE YOOOOUUUUU…. *fzt* 

you CHAIN The One Ring?! you chain it like the prisoner?! oh! OH! trauma! deep psychological trauma for hobbits for One Thousand Years!

OH yeah! I love this!

But we should not forget Faramir who says “I would not take this thing if I found it lying on the side of the road, not if all of Gondor was in peril and I alone could save her.” Granted he never actually held the ring, but still.

Concerning Hobbits (via tolkienillustrations)

Merry: confused awe

Frodo: confused awe

Sam: confused awe

Pippin: finally i’m getting the respect i deserve from these peasants 

so accurate i am choking on my carrot. this is making me giggle harder than it should. I love Pippin so much.

I don’t think there will come time when I’m not reblogging this. Sorry guys. 

no no no you guys don’t understand, Pippin is someone really important in the Shire! The books don’t talk about it a lot, and the movies won’t touch that stuff with a bargepole, but Pippin will be inheriting land rights to about a quarter of the Shire. He’s second in line to becoming military leader of all Hobbits. His dad is currently in charge of that stuff, but he’s completely aware of it, and educated for it, and that’s why he’s such an over privileged little shit in the books.

I thought it was a shame the movies didn’t talk about class differences in the Shire. Also puts M&P stealing food in an uglier light.

To be fair, at the time of the Party, Pippin would have been 12, which puts it back into a more acceptable light.  And they’re stealing food from Bilbo, a wealthy and eccentric family member, which again makes things a bit different.

But yes, when they call Pippin Ernil i Perrianath - Prince of the Halflings - they are actually completely spot on.

And when Pippin tells Bergil “my father farms the land around Tuckborough” he’s deliberately downplaying his class so that he can greet the boy as an equal rather than a superior.  It’s Pippin’s most adult moment in the series.  Bergil is engaging in a status contest which Pippin can totally win - but instead chooses not to compete.  Pippin is a gilded and spoiled lordling in the Shire, but he becomes a Man of Gondor.

Yeah, to add a bit of unnecessary trivia/level of preciseness, Frodo is the oldest of the four; he was born in 2968, was (obviously) 33 at the time of the Party, and so he’s 51 here. Sam’s second-oldest; born in 2980, he was 21 when Bilbo left and is 39 at this point. Merry’s two years younger than Sam, making him 18 or 19 in 3001, when the Party took place, and Pippin was born in 2990, so he was actually 10 or 11 during the Party, and during this scene they’re ~37 and ~29, respectively.

So yeah, Pippin’s the youngest by a lot. Plus, taking hobbit aging into account, he really is still in the equivalent of his teens; remember the Party was half to celebrate Frodo’s coming-of-age at 33, and Pippin’s around twenty years younger than Frodo. 

This fucked me up. I didn’t read the books and in the movie it was shown like Frodo took off with the ring like 2 days after Bilbo’s gone away, but it was 17 years after that. OMFG.

Also worth noting that “Merry and Pippin stealing food” isn’t in the book - raiding Farmer Maggot’s fields, specifically the mushrooms, is something Frodo used to do when he was a kid, before his parents died and he moved to Hobbiton to live with Bilbo. Frodo’s still afraid of Maggot’s guard dogs, but the farmer himself is sympathetic and helpful when he finds Frodo & Co. cutting through his field.

And this is specifically invoked in the books at the Council of Elrond, where Elrond argues against Pippin in particular going, because  he is so young. He’s okay with Merry going but wants to keep Pippin in Rivendell. Elrond has serious misgivings against sending an early-teenager off to face the Shadow, and given what happens to Pippin in The Two Towers, he was not wrong.

@cyrefinns

@the-books-we-travel

This is just so great. I just–I can’t.

Merry is also a prince of sorts - his father is Master of Buckland, which is the semi-autonomous boundary community between the Brandywine river and the Old Forest (never, alas, discussed in the movies). Merry and Pippin are friends in the books in part because they’re of relatively equal status and in part because they’re cousins (like all nobs, Shire nobs mostly marry each other).

However, the books also clearly make Merry the Responsible One, even though he’s only been a full adult for four years. (Think early 20s in human terms.) Merry buys and prepares the house at Crickhollow. Merry figures out the secret of the ring before Bilbo even gives it to Frodo, but Merry keeps Bilbo’s secret. Merry convinces Sam to spy on Frodo. Merry explains that they’re all joining Frodo on the Quest, whether Frodo wants them to or not. Merry cautions about the Old Forest and doesn’t go down to drink in the taproom at the Prancing Pony.

So in the books, Merry isn’t Pippin’s partner in pranks - instead, Merry and Pippin spend all their time together on the Quest because Merry’s looking after his younger cousin. Can you imagine what his mother would say if he came home without Pippin? Merry can, and that’s why he takes some pretty absurd personal risks during the books to make sure that doesn’t happen. Like, he literally rides into battle on the back of someone else’s horse, in disguise, because Pippin is probably somewhere in that battle.

Merry is 99%* common sense unless Pippin is involved, and then he is 100% save/rescue/protect/support Pippin. The character growth and maturation we see in Merry in the movies isn’t in the books; instead he has almost the exact opposite arc of becoming an extreme risk-taker, driven by his protective instincts.

(*The other 1% stabbed a ringwraith in the calf that one time, but we can argue that this was due to a natural expansion of Merry’s protective instincts toward Eowyn, with whom he’d bonded quite a lot recently, and toward Theoden, who he deeply respected as being kind of like his dad.)

bonus kleenex moment:

when pippin finds merry stumbling half-blind and sick through the streets of Minas Tirith after killing the Ringwraith, he tells Merry “Poor old fellow! I’ll look after you,” half-carries him to the healing halls, and is worried sick about him until he can finally get Aragorn in to give him medicine.

It’s the first time in the story that Pippin  has looked after Merry, instead of the other way around.

It shows that Pippin has grown up, that he can protect the people who always protected him.

Also keep in mind that Frodo is related to both of them and he’s the heir of Bilbo Baggins of Bag End, one of the wealthiest (even before his adventures with Thorin and Co. Bilbo was landed gentry and independently wealthy, he didn’t need to work) and respected (well, before his adventures) hobbits in the Shire.

Of all of them Sam is the only “commoner” but he sure doesn’t stay that way!

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

This is why they fucked him up so bad.

hobbits were uncivilized based on how savagely they bodied sauron two consecutive times

Yup.

TolkienWeek 2021:Week 2 Day 2 (Most Heartbreaking Scene)

need me a t-shirt that says “THE TOOKS SHOT FIRST”

Tom Cotton: So there are Men all over the Shire, menacing people, locking them up, tearing down trees and good hobbit holes…all through Hobbiton, Bywater, Buckland…

Pippin: What about Tuckborough?

Cotton: Your father initiated guerrilla warfare and they’ve been at a military impasse for months.

Pippin: I love my family so fucking much.

it’s just, you spend much of The Hobbit and parts of Lord of the Rings with the narration periodically being like, “and then his Tookish heritage reared up and said, “don’t you want to just go feral?” But it’s narration, background. We’ve never met Belladonna Baggins née Took and we never do. Pippin repeatedly follows his friends into inane danger despite being repeatedly told not to, or sometimes just goes by himself, but so do Merry, Sam, and Frodo, and hey, Pippin’s the hobbit equivalent of 17. Maybe it’s just Pippin.

And then you get to the Scouring of the Shire and it’s like, oh. Oh no. They’re all Like That.

Pippin slew a Troll at the Hobbit equivalent of 17. Now take Pippin, multiple him by a couple hundred at least and give about 50 more years life experience. 

Saurman was an idiot for ever going to the Shire.