A hundredth re-read of the LotR

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

Those last words, skip spence, pretty much sum up the Hobbit's themselves. When I was reading Concerning Hobbits Tolkien immediately gives you the feeling of the hobbits being different people in terms of their legal system. It starts off by telling us by explaining that Hobbits were not much different from men, in their characteristics, but when they formed the Shire all that changed. I won't preach about what you already know, and is explained in the book.

That change from being diligent to becoming lax and slothful gives rise to my opinion of Hobbits just being overgrown kids. While under the king they worked hard and were sometimes renowned for doing great things, much like a child under a parent, but that all soon faded when put under their own leadership, if you can call it leadership at all there was basically no governing ruler for the Hobbits (besides that of good old common sense) save only in name. Yet there seems to be a great deal of spirit left in the Hobbits from the good old days, as seen with the Tooks, and if they're given the opportunity (or cast into it like Bilbo was) they can mature and accomplish things well beyond what one would expect.

Well, it's hardly fair too call the Hobbits lax and slothful. By all accounts they worked hard with their respective trade and made the Shire into a rich and well-tended part of ME. Actually, whereas the development in other parts of ME seemed to go backwards, the Shire is the only place we read about where things seem to improve with the passing of the years. The Hobbits of old fex. lived in simple burrows while at the time of the War of the Ring most of them had nice, comfortable houses or holes. Of old they also had no written records, whereas most can read and write at the time of Bilbo and many own books and write letters.

The fact that they had no army or police is hardly something they should be blamed for either. For over one and a half millennia they'd only experienced a few minor skirmishes on the border and while many armies in time become a power serving mostly its own interests this is hardly a good thing and we should applaud the Hobbits for realising they needed none, at least for many a long years. Also, a land without cops is to many of us a utopia

I agree with Nogrod though that the rosy picture painted by Tolkien isn't very realistic and had The Shire been a real place not all would be so happy living under "the rules of old".