The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill
Jan. 11th, 2014 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityA short bit today, because RIDDLES IN THE DARK is next, and I have been waiting my whole life to make that particular post!
Okay, so there's a whole bit with goblins here that Tolkien will say later is a translation issue (I don't have that particular version with me (I'm at my parents'), but basically there's a whole common/orkish/westron thing where goblin and orc are sometimes interchangeable and sometimes not, so Moria-orcs and the Misty Mountain goblins are, like, TRIBES or something, and WHATEVER: goblins), which is another thing about the shifting history that I love. What I am going to talk about, however, are two throw-away lines, one of which will be important later.
At one point very early in the chapter, Gandalf is mentioned to know that they are likely to come to trouble in the mountains because they are "where no king ruled". This is, I think, the first hint of Aragorn we ever get. It's buried pretty well, and you could just think he was speaking metaphorically, except Aragorn is (I think) 10 at this point (so it's possible that Gandalf SAW HIM while they were at Rivendell, even if Elrond and Gandalf were the only two people who knew who he was).
In his "how I did it" book THE RIVAN CODEX, David Eddings talks quite a bit about Tolkien's influence on him, and how he buried fishhooks of his own in THE BELGARIAD. This is, I think, one of Tolkien's better fishhooks. I mean, we're about to read a WHOLE CHAPTER that's a fishhook, where as this is just one little line, and it's so well worked in that you don't even realize you're hooked until you're half-way into the boat. I love it.
The other part I really like is the stone-giant battle, and Thorin's line about being "kicked sky-high for a football". It makes me giggle. In the movie, as I have mentioned before, they used the stone giant scene to split up all the family groups for the first time, making it very serious. In the book it's kind of random, and even though giants are mentioned here (and later on, when Gandalf talks about blocking up the pass), we never really SEE a giant, decent or otherwise, EVER AGAIN.
I like this because I like that some things just get abandoned.
(Also, I can't confirm this AT ALL, but the giant scene is also a scene that Tolkien and Lewis wrote intentionally to mirror one another. Lewis's scene is in THE SILVER CHAIR, but it ALSO has to do with dodging giants who are throwing stones, but in an entirely different way. Kind of like how everyone yelled at Suzanne Collins for ripping off Battle Royale, when she had NO IDEA, except Lewis and Tolkien did it ON PURPOSE, and still came out with two very different things.)
In terms of characterization, we learn that Fili and Kili are the youngest by some fifty years, and that Dori is a decent sort, because he's the one who carries Bilbo. It's also really our first indication of what Gandalf is capable of. We saw with the trolls that he knows how to think his way out of problems, but this is the first exposition of his power, and of his reaction time, which I always thought was very cool.
I do have to wonder how movie-Thorin would take to being called an "elf-friend", though. ;)
Poor ponies!
Okay, so there's a whole bit with goblins here that Tolkien will say later is a translation issue (I don't have that particular version with me (I'm at my parents'), but basically there's a whole common/orkish/westron thing where goblin and orc are sometimes interchangeable and sometimes not, so Moria-orcs and the Misty Mountain goblins are, like, TRIBES or something, and WHATEVER: goblins), which is another thing about the shifting history that I love. What I am going to talk about, however, are two throw-away lines, one of which will be important later.
At one point very early in the chapter, Gandalf is mentioned to know that they are likely to come to trouble in the mountains because they are "where no king ruled". This is, I think, the first hint of Aragorn we ever get. It's buried pretty well, and you could just think he was speaking metaphorically, except Aragorn is (I think) 10 at this point (so it's possible that Gandalf SAW HIM while they were at Rivendell, even if Elrond and Gandalf were the only two people who knew who he was).
In his "how I did it" book THE RIVAN CODEX, David Eddings talks quite a bit about Tolkien's influence on him, and how he buried fishhooks of his own in THE BELGARIAD. This is, I think, one of Tolkien's better fishhooks. I mean, we're about to read a WHOLE CHAPTER that's a fishhook, where as this is just one little line, and it's so well worked in that you don't even realize you're hooked until you're half-way into the boat. I love it.
The other part I really like is the stone-giant battle, and Thorin's line about being "kicked sky-high for a football". It makes me giggle. In the movie, as I have mentioned before, they used the stone giant scene to split up all the family groups for the first time, making it very serious. In the book it's kind of random, and even though giants are mentioned here (and later on, when Gandalf talks about blocking up the pass), we never really SEE a giant, decent or otherwise, EVER AGAIN.
I like this because I like that some things just get abandoned.
(Also, I can't confirm this AT ALL, but the giant scene is also a scene that Tolkien and Lewis wrote intentionally to mirror one another. Lewis's scene is in THE SILVER CHAIR, but it ALSO has to do with dodging giants who are throwing stones, but in an entirely different way. Kind of like how everyone yelled at Suzanne Collins for ripping off Battle Royale, when she had NO IDEA, except Lewis and Tolkien did it ON PURPOSE, and still came out with two very different things.)
In terms of characterization, we learn that Fili and Kili are the youngest by some fifty years, and that Dori is a decent sort, because he's the one who carries Bilbo. It's also really our first indication of what Gandalf is capable of. We saw with the trolls that he knows how to think his way out of problems, but this is the first exposition of his power, and of his reaction time, which I always thought was very cool.
I do have to wonder how movie-Thorin would take to being called an "elf-friend", though. ;)
Poor ponies!
