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

[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!

[Formendacil]

While considering the goblin song, I think it's worth remembering that the literary genre of The Hobbit is (at least ostensibly) a tale for children. Rather than looking at the goblin-song with an eye towards reconciling it completely with what is said about orks in The Lord of the Rings and subsequent works, it seems to me that this might be a good point to remember the author and audience instead.

After all, The Hobbit has a distinct narrator--certainly more so than The Lord of the Rings--and the Conceit is that we're reading a retold version of Bilbo's memoirs. Even "within the story" then, it might be fair to suggest that the goblin song, as we have it, isn't an entirely accurate representation of what the goblins were actually singing (or chanting... or screeching... or screaming... or whatnot). It could just as easily be conceived as Bilbo whimsically taking the rather unpleasant experience and using it as interpretation to write one of his trademark poems. Certainly, the author of "the Cat Jumped over the Moon" seems a better author for this poem than the orks of the Misty Mountains--however clever the they (and the lyrics) are.

Ignoring the Translator Conceit entirely, it seems to me that the poem is Tolkien's way of keeping the danger and fear of the scene to a level a younger child could handle. As far as that goes, it's quite clever, because it uses the threat that the goblins pose as its subject, but its form makes it more of a laughing matter for the audience than one of dread. In other words, Tolkien is able to deepen our sense of danger while simultaneously easing the possible nightmares--and, at the same time, indulging his own creative whimsy.

[Bêthberry]

Forgive the tardy reply, please. I'm really happy to see some discussion of this issue as it's good to see some of the old "back and forth".

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

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.

I'm not quite sure it is as clear as that, because Tolkien spent some time trying to "redeem" the orcs, at least as far as we can tell in the Letters, which of course are always a private correspondence between two people.

I will throw a wrench into the works, though, and suggest that 'reading backwards' from The Silm to TH won't work. Certainly Tolkien must have been working on his mythology as he was writing TH, but there's nary a mention of hobbits in The Silm which Christopher Tolkien produced, nor in HoMe. TH was an independent story from the Legendarium, as far as I know (and I could be wrong as I'm not the strongest on Silm history.) While the percolation of ideas which Tolkien went through might well have held all stories in balance, I'm not sure we can take things in CT's The Silm and read them into TH. Tolkien certainly struggled after the fact to work TH consistently into LotR, but I'm not sure we can take The Silm to explicate areas which might seem inconsistent with LotR.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

While considering the goblin song, I think it's worth remembering that the literary genre of The Hobbit is (at least ostensibly) a tale for children. Rather than looking at the goblin-song with an eye towards reconciling it completely with what is said about orks in The Lord of the Rings and subsequent works, it seems to me that this might be a good point to remember the author and audience instead.

After all, The Hobbit has a distinct narrator--certainly more so than The Lord of the Rings--and the Conceit is that we're reading a retold version of Bilbo's memoirs. Even "within the story" then, it might be fair to suggest that the goblin song, as we have it, isn't an entirely accurate representation of what the goblins were actually singing (or chanting... or screeching... or screaming... or whatnot). It could just as easily be conceived as Bilbo whimsically taking the rather unpleasant experience and using it as interpretation to write one of his trademark poems. Certainly, the author of "the Cat Jumped over the Moon" seems a better author for this poem than the orks of the Misty Mountains--however clever the they (and the lyrics) are.

Ignoring the Translator Conceit entirely, it seems to me that the poem is Tolkien's way of keeping the danger and fear of the scene to a level a younger child could handle. As far as that goes, it's quite clever, because it uses the threat that the goblins pose as its subject, but its form makes it more of a laughing matter for the audience than one of dread. In other words, Tolkien is able to deepen our sense of danger while simultaneously easing the possible nightmares--and, at the same time, indulging his own creative whimsy.

for the record, I'm quite in tune with your point that the story is a children's story--see my comments on the first thread. And your suggestion that the goblin song represents a different style is I think quite plausible, especially considering Tolkiens comments in "A Secret Vice" and what has been suggested by Roderick McGillis, that nonsense is a means of dealing with unpleasant realities. When reality is too much with us, nonsense is a means of reassurance.

As for the Translator Conceit, that hasn't appeared directly in the story yet, although we do have a variable narrator, so on a naive first reading, I'm not sure that's something we can legitimately consider--although if this thread is about naive first readings I'm of course not sure.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I'm not quite sure it is as clear as that, because Tolkien spent some time trying to "redeem" the orcs, at least as far as we can tell in the Letters, which of course are always a private correspondence between two people.

I will throw a wrench into the works, though, and suggest that 'reading backwards' from The Silm to TH won't work. Certainly Tolkien must have been working on his mythology as he was writing TH, but there's nary a mention of hobbits in The Silm which Christopher Tolkien produced, nor in HoMe. TH was an independent story from the Legendarium, as far as I know (and I could be wrong as I'm not the strongest on Silm history.) While the percolation of ideas which Tolkien went through might well have held all stories in balance, I'm not sure we can take things in CT's The Silm and read them into TH. Tolkien certainly struggled after the fact to work TH consistently into LotR, but I'm not sure we can take The Silm to explicate areas which might seem inconsistent with LotR.

I guess you're right here. Although I read somewhere (ie on the Downs) that JRRT started writing TH with THe Sil in mind, so that the first is part of the second (like, for example, the Lay of Leithian is part on The Sil). But at that point The Sil was not like we know it today either. So you're right.