Otho and Lobelia Apply for a Mortgage

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Lindale

Unless I'm dreadfully mistaken, Otho was also a Baggins, quite respectable (and I assume, also part of the middle class); Lobelia related to the Bracegirdles who had pipeweed farms? Unless pipeweed farms are not that well-off, though.

*runs in a corner and hides*

They're definitely not 'traditional' middle class despite their more solid relations - if they were they'd never have dreamt of making such a fuss about gaining Bag End, and they're always struggling to gain 'status'. Plus Tolkien did write them with a satirical eye on the 'metropolitan middle classes' and aesthetes of the early 20th century; it's no mistake that they are called Sackville Bagginses. If he'd been writing today they might have been called the Blair-Bagginses or the Rushdie-Bagginses