Let's (re)Read the Hobbit! Chapters 3 & 4
Welcome back to my reread. When we last left Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves, they’d nearly all gotten themselves killed by mindlessly walking one-by-one into an ambush. As this time we’ll be covering two chapters (#3, “A Short Rest”, being rather short), we’ll be taking a good look at how they perform under wildly different circumstances: being ambushed in a slightly more forgivable way! But first, Elrond! As always, expect casual spoilers.
They camped under the stars, and their horses had more to eat than they had; for there was plenty of grass, but there was not much in their bags, even with what they had got from the trolls.
Again, I really want to point out how nice it is that concerns about food are a significant matter throughout the journey instead of them just running out whenever it’s convenient. It’s a good detail and there’s several major journeys I can think of in other major fantasy stories where I do wonder why they never seem to worry about rations or water.
“That is only the beginning of the Misty Mountains, and we have got to get through, or over, or under those somehow, before we can come into Wilderland beyond.”
Don’t try Caradhras though – he’s a very grumpy mountain.
“We must not miss the road, or we shall be done for,” [Gandalf] said.
Again, by all rights this should not be difficult. The Great East Road is seldom used at this point but it’s survived for thousands of years and you should be on it! That said, the descriptions of the terrain as they approach the mountains are quite lovely and remind me a good deal of home. Tolkien had a great way of describing wilderness.
Altogether it was a very slow business following the track, even guided by Gandalf, who seemed to know his way about pretty well.
As always, the mistake is assuming that Gandalf is actually trying to be helpful or that he knows what he’s doing. Dude probably has to retrace his exact steps from the very first time he went to Rivendell, which involved sixteen false starts.
(More charitably, it’s probably a favor to Elrond to keep visitors too confused to know how to find Rivendell again on their own.)
The faggots are reeking, / …
Wow Tolkien that’s very rude. Even without this line though, I think this song is probably my least favorite of the ones in this book? We’ll see depending on what else is there. (Also spoiler alert my favorite is “Fifteen birds in five fir-trees” and you owe it to yourself to listen to the Rankin/Bass cartoon’s version every day.)
He loved elves, though he seldom met them; but he was a little frightened of them too.
I suppose the elves sometimes still follow the Great East Road, which definitely exists despite Thorin and Gandalf’s difficulty in finding it, from the Grey Havens to Rivendell’s vicinity and back? This is too early for them to be sailing off I’d think. Then again, it’s only about sixty years until the exodus really takes off so maybe they already are? When did they start anyway? Has it been going on the whole time since the end of the second age?
Also [Bilbo] would have liked to have a few private words with these people that seemed to know his names and all about him, although he had never seen them before.
Gandalf spent half the time meeting with the Rivendell crew last chapter telling them all sorts of exciting hobbit facts. Unlike the dwarf version, all of them were true. They were also horribly invasive to Bilbo’s privacy.
“Don’t dip your beard in the foam, father!” they cried to Thorin, who was bent almost on to his hands and knees.
Is that just to guide the pony? Doesn’t seem like the pose you’d take but what do I know? It’s certainly not like there’s any vertical obstruction over the river or the ponies couldn’t cross at all.
“Hush, hush! Good People! and good night!” said Gandalf, who came last.
“Sing any songs about me and I’ll turn you all into toads!”
The master of the house was an elf-friend—one of those people whose fathers came into the strange stories before the beginning of History, the wars of the evil goblins and the elves and the first men in the North.
Not quite before the beginning of History in Elrond’s dad’s case – Eärendil was born 503 years into History proper, assuming it starts at the dawn of the First Age. Dude was something of a badass too, and apparently the first character Tolkien came up with for the Legendarium, which explains why Bilbo will later write a song about him. But that’s not until the sequel!
They were made in Gondolin for the Goblin-wars. They must have come from a dragon’s hoard or goblin plunder, for dragons and goblins destroyed that city many ages ago.
Here is stuff that just outright ties into the Legendarium perfectly. Fun fact for those unaware: these swords are older than Elrond and older than his dad too, since Gondolin fell when he was seven. And yet despite being multiple thousands of years old, they still work perfectly (it probably helps that they were probably held by the dwarves for awhile according to Elrond’s other guesses). Elf swords are hella awesome. Troll-made swords probably work like the Giant’s Knife of Legend of Zelda and break after two swings.
...he grieved to remember the ruin of the town of Dale and its merry bells, and the burned banks of the bright River Running.
Elves really hate change, and that’s not absent in this book. Really Elrond may be one of the shared elements of The Hobbit and its sequel that fits perfectly in both.
“What do they say?” asked Gandalf and Thorin together, a bit vexed perhaps that even Elrond should have found this out first, though really there had not been a chance before, and there would not have been another until goodness knows when.
Gandalf had the map for the better part of a century and thus actually had many chances to notice the moon runes (which are another cool bit of dwarf magic that needs more love). Elrond is probably on his shit list now for showing him up, and Gandalf will be regaling him with new “Hobbit Facts” that won’t pay off until Bilbo is 111.
Also, he’s going to give Aragorn a whole stash of elf porn that belonged to his great-grandfather, and a spyglass so he can see through Arwen’s window when she’s changing.
“The first day of the dwarves’ New Year,” said Thorin, “is as all should know the first day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter. We still call it Durin’s Day when the last moon of Autumn and the sun are in the sky together. But this will not help us much, I fear, for it passes our skill in these days to guess when such a time will come again.”
Well Thorin, I’m pretty sure you can at least guess the one day a year that a Durin’s Day might happen, so you’ve got that going for you. I also have to question why it’s beyond Elrond or Gandalf’s skill to make such a guess – they surely have the capacity and if the dwarves needed to wait five years it would be nice to let them know. But Gandalf never shares facts unless they’re to fuck with hobbits and Elrond saw him slip the Playelf to young Aragorn under the table and doesn’t want any more trouble, so the group is doomed to ignorance.
Anyway, with the knowledge of the moon runes and the way to sneak into the mountain established, it’s time for the dwarves to get back on the road and see if they can actually get there, which is how we transition into chapter four, “Over Hill and Under Hill” (but not that Underhill).
The dwarves and the hobbit, helped by the wise advice of Elrond and the knowledge and memory of Gandalf, took the right road to the right pass.
Based on the evidence thus far, we can assume it’s mostly Elrond here. Once again, the description of the mountains is lovely – one wonders if the boulders that end up nearly falling on them are the early games of the storm-giants.
They had thought of coming to the secret door in the Lonely Mountain, perhaps that very next last moon of Autumn—“and perhaps it will be Durin’s Day” they had said. Only Gandalf had shaken his head and said nothing. Dwarves had not passed that way for many years, but Gandalf had, and he knew how evil and danger had grown and thriven in the Wild, since the dragons had driven men from the lands, and the goblins had spread in secret after the battle of the Mines of Moria.
See? Gandalf literally has good reason to be concerned – and good reason to know it will be Durin’s Day – and he shares nothing with the party, because that would be helpful. .Literally everything that happens after this is his fault, and while it does technically save the world, the fate of the horses lies on him. The horses deserved better!
When he peeped out in the lightning-flashes, he saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out, and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang.
The storm-giants are another thing that actually feels more like something out of a fairy tale than part of the Legendarium – I don’t know if they really come up again anywhere else – but props to Jackson for making them feel like an organic part of the story anyway. There is very little to recommend the film trilogy but I will give credit where it’s due, which comes out to this bit, Bilbo’s casting, Thorin’s casting, and surprisingly, Bofur’s whole aesthetic. We need more dwarves in comfy hats, it’s very sexy of them.
...everybody could see that it was absolutely no use sending Bilbo)
You’d think hobbits would be good at finding subterranean shelter, all things considered. And it’s cruel to dunk on him when he’s still a top 3 member of the party whose only real competitors are Thorin (good at fights but horrible at strategy) and Gandalf (who seems to delight in the suffering of the party giving him chances to show off).
“Have you thoroughly explored it?” said the wizard, who knew that caves up in the mountains were seldom unoccupied.
“Yes, yes!” [Fili and Kili] said, though everybody knew they could not have been long about it; they had come back too quick.
It’s really surprising that these two didn’t die sooner. Note again that even Bilbo can see through their crap and that Gandalf provides only the smallest crumbs of help.
But the wizard was taking no risks. He lit up his wand—as he did that day in Bilbo’s dining-room that seemed so long ago, if you remember—, and by its light they explored the cave from end to end.
“There’s clearly a secret passage here, but it’s probably nothing,” Gandalf whispered, observing that he’d technically said it aloud but in a tone too low for any of the party to actually hear.
…then they made their blankets comfortable, got out their pipes and blew smoke rings, which Gandalf turned into different colours and set dancing up by the roof to amuse them. They talked and talked, and forgot about the storm, and discussed what each would do with his share of the treasure (when they got it, which at the moment did not seem so impossible); and so they dropped off to sleep one by one. And that was the last time that they used the ponies, packages, baggages, tools and paraphernalia that they had brought with them.
It’s round two of the mini-game! Hope you’ve been practicing!
Also, it’s a great turn-around there with the impending horror of the horse’s fate completely undercutting the semi-coziness of the cave. Frankly until all this shit happened it seemed even nicer than Rivendell just because there weren’t any assholes singing mocking songs.
Then he dreamed that the floor of the cave was giving way, and he was slipping—beginning to fall down, down, goodness knows where to.
Yeah, I have dreams like this all the time when I’m falling asleep. Shit sucks even when it’s not actual monsters coming to kill you and all of your friends.
Out jumped the goblins, big goblins, great ugly-looking goblins, lots of goblins, before you could say rocks and blocks. There were six to each dwarf, at least, and two even for Bilbo; and they were all grabbed and carried through the crack, before you could say tinder and flint. But not Gandalf. Bilbo’s yell had done that much good. It had wakened him up wide in a splintered second, and when goblins came to grab him, there was a terrific flash like lightning in the cave, a smell like gunpowder, and several of them fell dead.
Wizards are OP. I can’t give the dwarves too much shit for getting captured this time because they were so badly outnumbered, but I have to point out that if they’d bothered to keep a watch at least some of this damage could have been avoided. Shame Gandalf didn’t mention that there was shit to be looking out for.
Also I’m not gonna quote the goblin song in part or in full but I will note that it’s still better than the shit the elves sang at the crew as they arrived. Fucking jerkass elves.
I am afraid that was the last they ever saw of those excellent little ponies, including a jolly sturdy little white fellow that Elrond had lent to Gandalf, since his horse was not suitable for the mountain-paths.
This is of course just another way that Gandalf was sure to punish Elrond for showing him up. RIP horses. You were much, much smarter than the guys who marched you to your deaths.
There in the shadows on a large flat stone sat a tremendous goblin with a huge head, and armed goblins were standing round him carrying the axes and the bent swords that they use.
You know how I gave Jackson credit for the stone-giants? Time to give him some shit: it was way better of Tolkien not to make the Great Goblin a weirdly diseased mutant just for extra gross factor. They’re unpleasant enough.
Sadly, the goblins are a lot less distinctly characterized than the three trolls, with the Great Goblin standing out mostly because he gets dialogue tags and all of them being unpleasant. Guess you can’t win them all.
It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far.
Thus begins the theme of industry vs. pastoralism. Tolkien was quite a romantic at heart, in no small part because adopting such attitudes was one of the best ways to handle the trauma of WWI. Thus the bad guys are always associated with innovation, particularly automation and warfare.
“Up to no good, I’ll warrant! Spying on the private business of my people, I guess! Thieves, I shouldn’t be surprised to learn! Murderers and friends of Elves, not unlikely! Come! What have you got to say?”
Three out of four is pretty good, though technically they weren’t planning on burgling from him specifically.
“He is a liar, O truly tremendous one!” said one of the drivers. “Several of our people were struck by lightning in the cave, when we invited these creatures to come below; and they are as dead as stones.”
Thanks for helping, Gandalf.
Just at that moment all the lights in the cavern went out, and the great fire went off poof! into a tower of blue glowing smoke, right up to the roof, that scattered piercing white sparks all among the goblins.
Okay at least this is useful. Thanks, Gandalf! He’s even considerate enough to keep the party from being affected by this, or maybe the spell just automatically comes with friendly fire suppression. Probably the latter.
“Half a minute!” said Dori, who was at the back next to Bilbo, and a decent fellow. He made the hobbit scramble on his shoulders as best he could with his tied hands, and then off they all went at a run, with a clink-clink of chains, and many a stumble, since they had no hands to steady themselves with.
Dori for best dwarf! Sorry Balin.
This sword’s name was Glamdring the Foe-hammer, if you remember. The goblins just called it Beater, and hated it worse than Biter if possible. Orcrist, too, had been saved; for Gandalf had brought it along as well, snatching it from one of the terrified guards. Gandalf thought of most things; and though he could not do everything, he could do a great deal for friends in a tight corner.
And only when they’re in a tight corner, unfortunately.
…they took it in turn to carry him on their backs.
Ah well, Balin probably participated in this so he’s back in first. Fili and Kili are at the bottom for having so utterly fucked things up. Thorin is up there for being competent, and everyone else is an amorphous mass, just as they are in the text.
“Why, O why did I ever bring a wretched little hobbit on a treasure hunt!” said poor Bombur, who was fat, and staggered along with the sweat dripping down his nose in his heat and terror.
Poor Bombur, all that will ever be said about him in the books is how fat he is. His cartoon adaptation is a little more dignified (but dies), and the live action films make his immensity even more prominent.
Quite suddenly Dori, now at the back again carrying Bilbo, was grabbed from behind in the dark. He shouted and fell; and the hobbit rolled off his shoulders into the blackness, bumped his head on hard rock, and remembered nothing more.
Dori is now also close to the bottom, having lost Bilbo so terribly. Thus ends chapter four, with the party being split and losing someone who is currently dead weight but who is usually a lot more useful than even the narrative gives him credit for.
Next time: the chapter that was so thoroughly retconned you’d think it was a Homestuck panel!
