i love how Gandalf invested in Hobbits in year one and has been pushing them ever since. Thorin, i hear you need help with a breaking and entering. Can I recommend one of these little cunts? Silent as fuck, trust me. Elrond my dude i know you're skeptical but these four chucklefucks just transported a weapon of mass destruction all the way here. Theoden, you've gotta get yourself a hobbit man, I've got a spare one here. Denathor you big prick, take a hobbit - literally this is the bottom of the range but listen to him sing. Beautiful little bastard.
The fact that Tolkien realized he’d created inconsistency for LotR with the first published version of The Hobbit and then retconned it with the in universe explanation of “Bilbo is a liar,” is never going to stop being both equal parts brilliant and funny.
imagine: you are chilling in front you your house getting high. along comes an old family friend who you last saw when you were six, you are now in your 50s. after a brief convo where he is kind of a dick to you, he’s like damn you’ve changed :/. and your like yeah bestie it’s been five decades why the fuck are you here. he leaves. later that night a shit ton of people show up and trash your house. just throw and absolute rager. halfway through the family friend from earlier shows up. he announces in full earshot of everyone that he wants you to come with him to rob a bank. you of course say wtf??? one of the people who broke into your house calls you a pussy. another person shoves you a contract which declares if you get shot robbing the bank they will not pay for your funeral. you pass out. when you wake up you find the contract on your table and your house almost completely back to normal. you stare at the contract for a moment and decide, fuck it this is just as a good a midlife crisis than anything.
I don't know if this was obvious to everyone else, but I just realised that one of the reasons why the Hobbit is so effective as a children's book is that while Bilbo is an adult, the skills that make him a hero are all those of a child.
By human standards he's child-sized, which makes him unobtrusive and light on his feet. He can slip by unnoticed where bigger people can't.
He's good at playing games, and even cheats (successfully!) in a way that - let's face it - is not so different to how children try to cheat at games. He's polite in a way that's fully comprehensible to children (rather than, say, being able to perform courtly manners). He's quick-witted, but the trick of keeping the trolls talking is also one that would be achievable for a child.
He doesn't have magic powers, he's not a great fighter, and he's not some kind of Chosen One. There's not much that he does that couldn't be done by a ten-year-old, but the story shows just how valuable all those skills and traits are. It's very empowering.
I’ve reprinted this Smaug risograph a few times now and I’m really digging the HOT fluorescent orange on brown paper in this batch 🤌 These have been restocked and are up in my shop!
absolutely despicable behavior from WB to plunder a fan film from 15 years ago just because their corporate greed led them to want to make their own (likely soulless even with PJ’s involvement) version with the exact same title.
UPDATE: the copyright has been released and the fan film The Hunt for Gollum is back on YouTube and can be watched. Though, it's still really telling of the capitalist corruption of WB and Hollywood that their first move and publicity for this (unnecessary) movie was to directly attack the fans for something produced over a decade ago.