My favorite thing about Bilbo’s adventures is that there’s technically no “”canon”” version of Bilbo’s adventures.
Like The Hobbit– the book– is canonically a very biased account of events written by Bilbo himself. It’s also Canon that some of things Bilbo wrote were flat-out-lies (Ex. the original version of Riddles in the Dark, where Gollum willingly gives him the Ring as a gift.)
In the books Frodo also says that Bilbo “always jokes about serious things”, makes light of things that were actually important to him or hurt him. Which obviously also puts the bright, jokey tone of The Hobbit in a new light
So the question of…what really did happen, and what was its real effect on Bilbo? Is up in the air. And the only sources you have to piece it together are 1. a ridiculously biased account that’s mostly true but also contains who-knows-how-many lies and half-truths, told by an unreliable narrator aggressively determined to Laugh It All Off, and 2. a few random snippets, some that agree with Bilbo’s account and some that contradict them
(Ex. the original version of Riddles in the Dark, where Gollum willingly gives him the Ring as a gift.)
I seriously love how Tolkien handled that. For those who don’t know, when Tolkien was writing The Lord of The Rings he realized he was going to have to alter a few details of The Hobbit to make sure the continuity smoothed out the way he was obsessively compelled to ensure. Which is to say that there was a slightly revised reprint of The Hobbit shortly before Fellowship came out, with the main change being the Riddle Contest.
But Tolkien didn’t want to leave returning fans who’d reread their old copies of the Hobbit to be left confused! So when Bilbo and Gandalf are discussing the Ring, Bilbo, our kind, reliable narrator who lead us through the entire first novel in Middle Earth, Bilbo remembers the original version. But Gandalf? Wise Gandalf who greatly helped Bilbo and the dwarves through the first half of their journey? Gandalf remembers the version from the recent reprint.
New readers who’d only ever read the reprint get the surprise jolt of Bilbo clearly remembering his story incorrectly, lending strong credence to Gandalf’s concerns.
Old readers who knew the original? Get the horrifying moment of Gandalf disputing the story they read and Bilbo remembers. Bilbo’s not just remembering his story wrong, he copied it down wrong. Is Gandalf lying? Is Bilbo? Was Bilbo wrong about more? They don’t know! The only thing they can say for certain is that whatever is going on, it is a Big Deal.
Which just might be the best conceivable way to handle needing to retcon part of your story.
