[davem]

[QUOTE=Mr UI'd say you couldn't be more wrong about this. Bilbo is our mediator in the story, the one who we can identify with, really the most humdrum, human character in the whole fantastic world he inhabits.[/QUOTE]

What is a hobbit? hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us .... They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow natural leathery soles and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever brown fingers, goodnatured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it).

I'd say you couldn't be more wrong about this. Bilbo is our mediator in the story, the one who we can identify with, really the most humdrum, human character in the whole fantastic world he inhabits.

I won't cite every single instance in TH of Hobbits being described as a different species from us humans, but there are plenty of them. I think you're reading the Hobbits of LotR back into TH & seeing stuff that isn't there.

"Peripheral" is a long way from "nothing to do with Middle-earth" -- do you concede at least that TH takes place in Middle-earth? Even if you don't I give up. For if you are bound and determined to exclude The Hobbit from your conception of the Legendarium, it is your Middle-earth that is diminished, not mine -- a fruitless victory indeed, I should think. And little more than an intellectual exercise, I might add, since you in fact cannot conceive of a M-e canon in which TH does not exist.

Its not that far from it. I said in an earlier post that TH has the form of a kind of 'fantasia' on Middle-earth. It certainly doesn't take place in the same Middle-earth as LotR - apart from the basic geography being similar.

It is Flieger's children that I really feel sorry for. Imagine all the richness that is lost to them. Bilbo's past history and friendship with Gandalf that informs the opening chapters of LotR. The encounter with the stone trolls -- confusing. The moon-letters that prefigure the Gates of Moria -- unknown. The whole history of the Riddle Game, and of Sting, and of Bilbo's mithril shirt -- only guessed at. Frodo's conversation in Rivendell with Glóin about Lonely Mountain and what has become of the members of Bilbo's party -- shorn of color and meaning. Geez, a whole layer of subtext to Gimli and Legolas's relationship -- sacrificed to intellectual pretension. The story of the finding of the Ring, the central element in what you consider to be the culmination of the Sil, available only in bare outline. And on and on. A Middle-earth without The Hobbit is impoverished by its absence.

I see that again, no-one is actually listening to me. I don't want to deprive anyone of TH. I love TH. Its a question of whether it belongs in the Legendarium, on equal terms with LotR & the Sil writings.

It does mean we will read LotR in a different way. Everything you give from TH as 'necessary' to an understanding of LotR, can be countered by things in it which will cause confusion & perhaps break the spell - the Trolls, the 'Elves of Rivendell', Beorn's animals. The only way you seem to be able to account for them is by some wild theory that Bilbo's account was exagerated to such an extent that in large part what he says is completely wrong & untrustworthy.

The general argument seems to be that because LotR began as a sequel to TH, makes use (only in reference though) to the geography of TH & is referred to in it then TH must be included.

All I see (& maybe I'm wrong here) is people wanting to defend poor little Bilbo from the nasty man who wants to evict him from his home. It seems like from my first suggestion everyone has reacted by saying 'Whoa! I don't like that idea, so I'm going to attack it'. And to be honest, that was my initial reaction on hearing Flieger's statements. However, being that she is one of the world's greatest Tolkien scholars & gave reasoned arguments, I decided to calmly step back & look at what she was saying about TH not fitting into the Legendarium - for all the reasons I've given, & particularly in the light of The Fairy Stories essay, both what Tolkien says in it & the fact, & significance, of when he wrote it. The conclusion I came to was that inclusion of TH into the Legendarium causes far more problems than it solves.

Originally Posted by Bb

Because we can end up in places different from where we started out, does that mean we discount the importance of what set us out in the first place?

I'm not discounting the importance of TH. I'm just saying it belongs outside the Legendarium.