Lord of the Rings Part 1: I Just Love Hobbits

Okay, so I have to post about this, because honestly, it means a lot to me. And I need to get it out of my system.

My Lord of the Rings love flared up a few months ago, when I was bored and in need of something to watch. I found my Extended Editions (aka EXTRA LONG) set of the Lord of the Rings movies, which had been sitting around my room for a while, and figured, "Hey, good movies, long, boring day, what the hell." So I popped Fellowship into the DVD player and off I went.

The movies--which are truly epic and amazing and really, really awesome--sucked me in, and before long I was watching little clips of them daily, repeatedly viewing my favorite parts of the extra features, and just generally immersing myself in LOTR culture. I developed "crushes" on all the actors (which in my case entails wanting to hug them all the time and referring to them by first names) and read about the characters, growing more and more attracted to this amazing world of Middle-Earth every day. Getting into the movies, however, meant something obvious: reading the books. I'd tried a while ago, but could never get into them. This time, however, I was determined. Fueled by my love for Peter Jackson's masterpieces and by my love and respect for Tolkien literature, I plunged into the first of the three books. The three very, very, very long books (one "very" for each book).

Now, again, a little background information: when I was about...hmmm, maybe five or so, my father read The Hobbit aloud to me and my sister. He always read to us, and this book was one of his favorites. It soon became one of mine, so much so that a year later I made him read it to me a second time. As many Tolkien fans will tell you, Tolkien wrote The Hobbit as a book for his daughter and other young children. The writing is rather simpler and less sophisticated than much of his other work, but it struck the perfect pitch for a little girl who loved fantasy and fell in love with hobbits from the first word out of old Bilbo Baggins' mouth. I adored everything about the book: Gollum and his horrible riddles, the myriad dwarves and their rough-but-lovable band, Thorin Oakenshield the Grouchily Awesome, and especially Gandalf, the wise old wizard who I always imagined looking a little like my grandpa combined with Albert Einstein. I also had a fondness for Smaug, who embodied the terrifying monsters of childhood fairy tales that I was so enthralled with.

Fast forward to FifteenYearOld!Me. The Hobbit is still one of my favorite books, and now, enamored with the movies and ready to return to Tolkien, I opened Book One: The Fellowship of the Ring and readied myself to be amazed.

And right from the off, I had to struggle through a chapter-length introduction about the history of hobbits, their pipe-weed, their culture, their hair-color, their favorite bedtime snacks, and pretty much everything there was to know about the furry little midgets (yeah, and I haven't even STARTED the appendices in Return of the King yet).

Tolkien, a master storyteller and inventor of amazing worlds that stand the test of time, had a serious flaw: overestimating his readers' stamina and putting in an intro that slows you down before you even begin. Though most sane persons might skip that introduction, I felt it was my OBLIGATION to read it, and so I read on and on and on until finally it came to Frodo and Bilbo and the Shire. Tolkien could have put the introduction at the back so as not to ensnare dedicated readers like me, but NOOOOOOO, he just had to trip us up like that. I do actually understand why he put it at the front, because it gives a lot of information on hobbits that's useful later on, but you'd think he'd edit or something. Jesus, it took me a full day just to finish the section on pipe-weed (which is never called tobacco or snuff or anything, just "weed"; I don't know about you, but I'm thinking quite a few hobbits were flying high during most of the year in the Shire).

ANYWAY. Once we got to the Shire, I found myself back in the world of hobbits that I love so much. I've always said that Tolkien shone brightest when he was writing the hobbits, and I think many will agree with me. Aragorn and Gandalf and Eomer and all the rest are still well done and awesome characters, but it's the hobbits who draw the reader in from the start, and who keep us engaged on an emotional level as well as a literary and heroic one (not that Aragorn and the rest of them don't have my love and affection, but it's harder to squee over "I am the rightful heir to the throne and shall return to claim my country" than it is to squee over Sam crying when he loses his cooking pots).

The hobbits connect people to the story and really reflect what it is that makes this whole thing so special. I read that Tolkien began the whole saga by randomly writing one day, "There once was a hobbit who lived in his hole." He seemed to express his favorite things about life through them: peace, tranquility, kindness, the comfort of a small tight-knit community. The hobbits love nature, live by their own simple means, and try never to tangle in the Big Folks' business. They're good-natured and sweet, and mischievous as well as funny. Bilbo, the original comical, upstanding, proper, latently adventurous hobbit, has now retired and become rather eccentric. His distant relation who we'll call his nephew, Frodo, is a gentlehobbit: calm, intelligent, well-mannered, possessed of an inner strength, and easily loving. Merry and Pippin, his closest friends and racally cousins, are fun-loving and immature at times, but also individually awesome in their own ways. Merry is scholarly and sharp, figuring things out when he's not been told anything, and Pippin is intuitive and smart, often coming up with neat solutions and striving to do the right thing. They are both strong and brave, and grow a lot throughout the book. But the hobbit of all hobbits...is Samwise Gamgee, gardener of Bag End and endlessly devoted servant to his master, Frodo.

Sam is my favorite character by far of the series. Tolkien portrays him as simple and "rustic", his speech styled in a rough country tone and his manner both blunt and very polite. Sam is modeled after men Tolkien fought beside in World War I, who he saw become heroes and saviors of their fallen comrades. Sam is kind and sweet, and purely good-hearted. He is in awe of the elves and unlike most hobbits, always loved to hear stories of adventures and great deeds. He's...just...basically, Sam is good in every way, shape, and form. Oh, he has flaws, like mistreating Gollum and basically being a little lumpish for his own good sometimes, but everything he does is so sincere and so kind and so lovely that you can't help but love the little guy. He's also in love with Frodo at the boundaries of sanity; he follows him to the ends of the earth and never stops caring for his master. Honestly, I did get a gay vibe, but only because Tolkien writes of Sam and Frodo's affections for each other in a way that no one would do anymore, in this world of sexual separation and stereotypes and so on. Sam is amazing: he is good all over, from his hairy feet to his round head, and I love him.

I wish I could be more articulate, because there's a lot more to say (OH GOD), but it's late and I'm going to bed. More on Lord of the Rings later. You know, these books are epic classics that made my heart beat fast and my eyes fill with tears...but in the end, I think the chief reason they've captured my heart so thoroughly is a simple and unashamed truth: I just love hobbits.