Evolution Comes to Hobbiton

[Kalimac]

One point that I've become rather curious about, and if anyone has any thoughts on it I'd really like to know what they are [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. Is there any way to reconcile conflicting evidence on hobbit evolution? This might seem like a strange question but the reason I'm asking is because of the passage in FOTR where Gandalf is telling the story of how Smeagol/Gollum murdered Deagol after he found the Ring in the Gladden pools. Gandalf begins by saying that this happened "Long after, but still very long ago," and describes Gollum's people as "clever-handed and quiet-footed. I guess they were of hobbit-kind; akin to the fathers of the fathers of the Stoors."

This passage implies very heavily that there's a LOT of distance between the present-day Frodo Baggins and Deagol's matriarchal and fairly simple (non-handkerchief and teakettle-oriented) society. First of all, when Gandalf says that something happened "very long ago" then we're probably dealing with a fairly substantial amount of time (since wizards are, after all, wizards). Secondly, "fathers of the fathers of the Stoors" distances Deagol's people greatly from the present-day Stoors - even if it doesn't mean there were any actual evolutionary differences it still implies that there's a huge gap between them - roughly the same relationship as we would have to the ancient Babylonians; same planet, but different worlds.

But later on we find out that Gollum is "only" about 500 or 600 years old. A long time for anyone mortal, it's true, but it doesn't seem quite old enough for the story Gandalf is telling. For one thing, Gandalf tells the story with a sort of "back in the misty eons of time" feeling which makes it clear that he himself didn't know anything about these fathers of the fathers of the Stoors until quite recently, but since Gandalf has been interested in hobbit-kind for quite a long time, at least since the Old Took (and between the Old Took and Frodo is a good 200 years alone, and there's no reason to suppose Gandalf didn't know hobbits even before then) it seems odd that Gandalf would never have had a clue that these creatures existed. Also; could Smeagol and Deagol's people have really changed so much over the course of 500 years, changed to point where they've either vanished or become the present-day Stoors? Hobbits are tough and long-lived - Bilbo and the Old Took are exceptionally tough, but Merry, Pippin, Otho and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, and many others all broke the century mark without too much astonishment. Even supposing that the average hobbit age at death is about 70, that's only about 10 generations between Gollum being "cast out of his grandmother's hole" and Bilbo Baggins of the tea-parties and seedcakes picking up the Ring near Gollum's pool in the Misty Mountains. It just doesn't seem like enough time.

On the other hand, the fact that Gollum still speaks a language that Bilbo can comprehend would seem to contradict the "fathers of the fathers" statement; few of us would be able to understand what was going on if we were dumped in the middle of 15th-century London, but somehow Gollum and Bilbo can understand each other pretty well and even use the same turns of phrase ("Chestnuts, chestnuts!") even though Gollum should be the linguistic equivalent of a human being from about 1450 or so...oh well, that's probably a topic for another thread.

Anyway I'm rather confused (hope I haven't made you more so! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]). Any thoughts on all this?

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

If memory serves, Hobbit expansion throughout Middle-Earth happened like this: they appeared somewhere in the North of ME, East of the Misty Mountains. They then began to migrate down, through the Gap of Rohan and eventually up through the Shire. There were a few who dropped along the way;

(The Hobbit)In fact there were probably a great many more outsiders (or something like that, meaning hobbits living outside the Shire) than Bilbo knew about...

but most seem to have settled in the Shire or at least nearby. Gollum's Stoor clan never migrated, and stayed along the bank of Anduin. They were a rather more primitive people, obviously, for reasons stated, and had a society most unlike that of the Shire; matriarchial, without too many comforts, and interestingly giving birthday presents to the person whose birthday it was, not the other way around (Smeagol demanded the Ring of Deagol because it was his birthday). However they were definitely similar. They both lived in holes, were both quite long lived, and both hardy, resilent and down to Earth for a start. There were similarities in the TT between Gollum and Frodo, and between Bilbo and Gollum in the Hobbit, for a surety.

Gandalf said they were of 'hobbit-kind'. Well, we say we are Man-kind, and we are Men; I think that's what the wizard meant. 'Akin to the fathers of the fathers of the Stoors' could simply mean that it was generations back from the present day Stoors; in the days of the great-great-grandfathers of the Shire.

To conclude this somewhat scattered post. No, I do not think that the Shire hobbits had 'evolved' from Gollum's kind. They were just more advanced, as time had gone on and they were in less forbidding lands. An ancient Cro-Magnon Man, for example, would be different from one of us; yet he would be very similar, as he is the same species. He is also, if you are white and European, the same race. That, I believe, the relationship between Gollum's comparatively medieaval Stoor society and the Shire society of those Stoors who lived there. If Gandalf didn't know about them, it's because they were well hidden, small in population, secretive (like all Hobbits) and insignificant in the scale of things. They were also a long time ago, and Gandalf himself was new to Middle-Earth at that stage as well.

[Diamond18]

I just want to mention two things. Well, okay, three. The first being that I'm not going to pretend that I'm not confused (because I am, a little).

Secondly, Kalimac, you stated that perhaps the average life-span of a Hobbit is about 70. Conversly, Tolkien remarks that Frodo's parents died young, at 80.

In one of Tolkien's letters he spends a great deal of time writing about the gift-giving tradition of the Hobbits. It's actually very complicated. I can't quote the letter because I had to return the book to the library (and I didn't see it in the bookstore).

But in it Tolkien addressed the supposed differences between the Smeagol/Deagol culture and the Shire culture. He left me with the impression that there wasn't all that much of a difference; I mean, when you get down to the basics. In other words, they were still Hobbits.

Sorry I can't give the quote to back myself up. I knew I'd want to use that book again...

[ November 16, 2002: Message edited by: Diamond18 ]

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

Er actually, Diamond, Kalimac said 70 for the purpose of a hypothetical situation, not as the actual hobbit life span. Hobbits were quite long lived indeed compared to Men (non-Numenorean Men anyway).

I mean; when you get down to the basics. They were still Hobbits.

Exactly. It is I think rather like our society versus, say, the Latvian one. We are still humans, and whatever society we have, is based on that fact. Since we all share that fact, societies everywhere have similarites.

[Rumil]

I think the reason that Gollum was described as physically different from the hobbits was that he had been 'warped' by the influence of the ring and had lived long past his 'time'. I'd always imagined that originally he looked the same as any other hobbit.

Concerning evolution, one of the easiest 'changes' which can be achieved by this process is a change in size. In our times we have 'dwarves' who are around hobbit height. You could imagine that a number of 'dwarfish' people could have developed in isolation from the rest of humanity, becoming the seperate people known as the hobbits.

This could have occurred relatively quickly in evolutionary terms. Perhaps the 'fathers and mothers' of the hobbits were excluded from bigoted human societies and forced to live apart from them. Could this have happened during the 'dark years' of the second age?

A similar process seems to have occurred amongst the Dwarves; they excluded the 'petty dwarves' from their society. However, I'm not sure if the petty dwarves were physically any different from the 'real' dwarves, any opinions?

[Child of the 7th Age]

There is another body of evidence which suggests the close ties between Gollum and the Shire, and that is the riddle game of The Hobbit. Bilbo and Gollum were able to match each other stroke-for-stroke, riddle-for-riddle. That would not be possible unless they shared a common body of culture and folklore. A riddle game is not just an isolated intellectual exercise, but draws upon the common associations of both players.

I think there may be another way to interpret Gandalf's words about the tale being "very long ago." Since he is telling this tale to a hobbit, perhaps he is using terms that a hobbit would understand, rather than giving the true pespective of a Maia.

Remember that hobbit history is very short. There is no example of recorded hobbit history before 1050 T.A. Nor are there even any hobbit legends before that time. In effect, 1050 T.A. is the "Adam and Eve" story for the hobbits, since they can not trace their lineage back any further. This short history is totally unlike other peoples of Middle-earth.

Therefore, to a hobbit, 500-600 years old would be very old. You can understand this better if you compare a present day European with an American. I may brag about a 250 year old building and say it is very old. A person from England or France would laugh at this and point to some buildings from almost 1,000 years ago. Thus, our perspective on old is influenced by our own culture, and perhaps Gandalf is adopting the references his audience would understand.

[ November 17, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[Oliphaunt]

I think there is certainly an anomaly between the similarity of speech between Gollum and Frodo, and the differences of speech between Frodo and the Bree-Hobbits.
I can't remember the quote exactly, but it says that Bree-Hobbits did not use the words Geography and History. From a linguistic perspective, it appears that Shire-Hobbits are closer to the Smeagol-Deagol society than to the Bree society.

[The Barrow-Wight]

The Riddle Game is not the best tool to draw the conclusion that the languages (or, better said, speech patterns) of Gollum and Bilbo were particularly ‘close’. The riddles were common to them both, but as written, they were almost certainly put down on paper as Bilbo knew them and not as Gollum actually spoke them. Writing his memoirs many years later, Bilbo likely could not remember exactly how Gollum had phrased his riddles, so he wrote them down in the form familiar to him.

Likewise, the rambling sing-song way that Gollum spoke in is not indicative of the way his people communicated. Gollum was clearly insane and very out of touch in a social sense. With no one to talk with but himself for 500 years, and hindered by the mental machinations of the Ring, it is doubtful his speech patterns much resembled those of his long-gone family.