Hobbit2 - Chapter 06 - Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Goblins and wargs and eagles, oh my! There's not much respite from escaping one danger before the next one comes.

I posted a number of questions and observations on the previous discussion thread, so I will merely invite you all to share your thoughts and opinions here. What parts of the chapter impress or amuse you? How does the danger affect our heroes, and is their unusual rescue a moment of eucatastrophe?

[Inziladun]

Overall the chapter is well done, and things like the goblins' song and the descriptions of the dwarves in the trees are chuckle-worthy.
Some brief observations and thoughts:

1.It seems Gandalf is practiced in knowing when someone is lying. He didn't believe Bilbo's explanation of how he escaped from the goblins, even without knowing of the Ring and its potential influence.

2. Gandalf was apparently ready to give his physical life for his friends, as he later did in Moria.

3. The way G. gets after the Wargs has its own callback moment when the Fellowship is attacked by wolves on the way to Moria.

4. Bilbo's reaction to the eagles is rather like a wild animal's, in line with his being said by one to even look like a rabbit in the next chapter.

5.The deus ex machina of the eagles' rescue is plausibly explained, and Tolkien knew just how often he could use them without the reader rolling his eyes.

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

5.The deus ex machina of the eagles' rescue is plausibly explained, and Tolkien knew just how often he could use them without the reader rolling his eyes.

Eh, the Eagles may have only been used once here, but each dangerous situation the company has been in, there's been a type of deus ex machina to get them out; either the Eagles or Gandalf. I mean we are a third of the way through the story, and we know almost nothing about any of the dwarves, except they get into difficult situations, only to be rescued by some sort of magical device. I believe it gets better when Gandalf goes away for a bit, but I've only read The Hobbit once, and that was a long time ago. I've been quite disappointed there still seems to not be much individuality separating the Dwarves (and I wonder now if PJ could really have cut out some of them for the movies). Bilbo is developing nicely though.

[Galadriel55]

I think my favourite part in this chapter is how Dori saves Bilbo, at risk for his own life. The Dwarves could be clumsy, grumpy, and all that, but they do have a second side that is very contrasting.

Gandalf's almost-sacrifice is just as touching.

[Bêthberry]

I too think the goblins' song is well done. Notionally of course it is nasty bragging and fear-mongering. Yet it is well written, linguistically good, the sort of thing that Tolkien praises in "A Secret Vice", the play of language that can give pleasure.

However, it makes me ponder something about the mythology. If the elves are praised for their love of creating beauty (ignoring the tra-la-la-lally ones for now), why are the goblins also being shown as creating something that has aesthetic merit or beauty? Or does the subject matter absolve that issue, so it is merely "a horrible song" as the narrator claims?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

If the elves are praised for their love of creating beauty (ignoring the tra-la-la-lally ones for now), why are the goblins also being shown as creating something that has aesthetic merit or beauty? Or does the subject matter absolve that issue, so it is merely "a horrible song" as the narrator claims?

I don't think the song has any beauty, only cleverness. The latter can be applied equally to good or evil purpose.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

However, it makes me ponder something about the mythology. If the elves are praised for their love of creating beauty (ignoring the tra-la-la-lally ones for now), why are the goblins also being shown as creating something that has aesthetic merit or beauty? Or does the subject matter absolve that issue, so it is merely "a horrible song" as the narrator claims?

"Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Ea, and evil yet be good to have been."
"And yet remain evil."

There's no contradiction, as far as I can see. Tolkien never takes the approach that "bad guys" are 100% evil (which might make some sense, once you think about it). Tolkien doesn't write in a black and white world, not even in The Hobbit, where everything seems as basic/simple as it can get.

Directly or indirectly, Tolkien gives evil characters their due. He doesn't dismiss them as completely evil and therefore not worth appreciating. Instead, throughout his books he aknowledges the strength/strengths of the enemy, even lets us sometimes admire their evilness/cunning/whatever - but never forgetting, as Mandos said, that all those things remain evil. Not because someone said that (for example) Sauron is evil and therefore whatever he does is also, but because he chooses to direct his deeds to it.

It's like there's beauty in a fire whenever it is there, but you would prefer that beauty to be staying nicely under control than having it consume your house - in a very beautiful and majestic way.

So Elves are being shown as creating beauty to praise it, to make more of it, to do good. Goblins create beauty to demolish other beauty, but what they don't realise is that they do so in a beautiful way...but still an evil one.

To sum everything up, there's beauty in an orc sword just as much aas an Elf sword; the difference lies in how this beauty is used.


So in their attempt to destroy some good(=Thorin & co) the goblins do so by subconsciously making a different kind of beauty, something they cannot avoid. Yet this new beauty doesn't make their deed less evil.


My, this is one long and convoluted answer for something that could have been said in a paragraph!