#bilbo isn't a great warrior or a legendary hero or the prophesied savior of middle-earth. he's just what the title says: a hobbit.
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Obligatory and quite pertinent
#but i will be specific (read: essay incoming)#for the purposes of the poll the worst is tauriel/kili (and tauriel's entire existence tbh) which is part of the key offense:#the movies tried to make the story more epic than it is. unlike lotr the hobbit is a very personal narrative.#it follows one small person with a small part to play in a conflict that (in the grand scheme of the world) is also fairly small.#bilbo isn't a great warrior or a legendary hero or the prophesied savior of middle-earth. he's just what the title says: a hobbit.#that's not to say he's uninteresting or unimportant of course#but it does mean that that he is intentionally rather ordinary and his story more closely resembles a fairy tale rather than an epic legend#(which is fitting since the hobbit was originally a bedtime story for tolkien's children)#consider: bilbo doesn't overcome challenges by being the strongest fighter or the darling of fate or even by just enduring (like frodo)#his most important assets are his wits his friends and his spirit (the ring itself is less important than his plans using it)#let's focus on the friends:#bilbo himself is almost never the one to defeat the company's enemies. that honor goes chiefly to gandalf and bard.#thorin and company are more epic characters than bilbo (given the nature of their quest) but still not on the scale of (eg) aragorn.#the cast of secondary characters in the hobbit is correspondingly smaller than in lotr (and they're generally less powerful)#but most importantly we only see them when and how bilbo sees them. the focus never shifts onto them.#in lotr the narrative tracks different members of the fellowship in turn but the hobbit is specifically bilbo's memoir.#adding more (and more powerful) characters and subplots about them pulls the story away from its essence as bilbo's experience.#he doesn't know much about the world outside the shire yet. he and the readers basically discover it together and the scope is narrow.#trying to turn the hobbit into a grand history comprised of many peoples' story arcs completely undermines the intended experience.#bilbo titles his work “there and back again: a hobbit's journey” and that is exactly what it should be#no more no less.#also having an elf/dwarf relationship is stupid and poorly handled given the lore about the fate of the different races after death.#there. i said it. i could expand on that too but it's getting late here. good night.#the hobbit#tolkien#peter jackson
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