Quote:
Originally Posted by Morthoron
Now that we (every poster in this thread minus one poor sod) have reached consensus establishing that Bilbo's magic ring in the first edition of The Hobbit was not the One Ring of Lord of the Rings, the thought I had was -- why would anyone need to assign outside sources to Bilbo's behavior in The Hobbit, or, at least, The Hobbit before it was revised?
Bilbo Baggins was from the outset not a sterling and spotless individual. He was house-proud, rather haughty of his comfortable station and could be very rude in a Hobbitish manner. That he could be pompous, secretive, covetous and dissembling is not out of the realm of Hobbit character; in fact, there are many other instances of Hobbits behaving badly I'm sure we all can recall.
But he did manage, through adversity and his own reluctance, to do the right thing more often than not, and to do the right thing even when his inner stodgy-Baggins was arguing against his actions.
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Pompous - mildly but humorously, after all, his position on the Sackville Bagginses and all that (though that was adapted in LotR)
But - no - covetous, dissembling - perhaps a little. E.g. the social desirability of polite declinations to Gandalf about guests and s on.
That's interpolation and extending character flaws beyond - arguably - their 'base levels'.
The question that has been explored this thread by several posters was
Did Bilbo's
base levels of secretiveness, beguiling by lies of omission, and dissembling (mendatious perhaps to alter the 'flavour' or prevarication, if one imputes more sinister tones) manner
increase over the course of the narrative.