# Bad Hobbits?



## BalrogRingDestroyer (Jun 27, 2018)

There seem to be few of these. The first one I can think of is Smeagol, though one comment Gandalf makes about what happened to him "could have happened to many a Hobbit that he knows" makes me wonder if he was that corrupt BEFORE he encountered the Ring.

The next ones I can find are the Sackville-Bagginses, particularly Lotho.

And Ted Sandyman seems like a creep, and, from the way the Gaffer talked to Ted's father, Ted's dad might have been a bit of a creep too. 

From "the Scouring of the Shire", it did seem that some of the Hobbits went along with their role of Sheriffs, helping to enforce the tyrannical laws in the Shire, so apparently they could be persuaded into the service of evil, though when the good Hobbits came, most of them joined the rebellion against Saruman, though it states that a few simply sulked off when the good Hobbits came, indicating that some may have loved their jobs so much that they didn't want Saruman to fall and thus they may have been bad Hobbits too.

Still, they seem to be hard to win over to evil, on the whole. (In fact, I think Sauron would have had to have slaughtered a huge portion of them before he could start to break them, so resistant would they have provided to doing the work of evil. Of all the things Melkor corrupted in the beginning, it seems that Hobbits took the least hit of all the races from his alterations of the creation song. Hobbits seem on a par with Ents as far as the scale of good/evil.) 

I've only read The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion, so maybe there are a whole legion of evil Hobbits in the other works, but, from the about two thousand or so pages that I read in the aforementioned books, bad Hobbits seem very rare indeed.


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## Deleted member 12094 (Jun 30, 2018)

I think you are right that hobbits are hard to win over to evil. Gandalf indicated something in that sense (_"Soft as butter they can be, and yet sometimes as tough as old tree-roots"_). Remember also their particular resistance against the evil of the Ring.

"The Scouring of the Shire" describes how a peaceful community undergoes hostile and suppressive domination and how they cope with it with individually varying attitudes. Several types of attitudes can be distinguished (as you already suggested):

some who actively collaborate with full personal conviction

some who reap personal profit from going along, or who enjoy domination/authority over others

some who openly disagree and undergo grave consequences

some who join some form of resistance

some who adopt a low profile, waiting for a leader to stand up together.
The author sends us some opinions, like his approval of Obelia, always the despised one, who suddenly becomes respected for resisting repression with her umbrella. Or his approval to an attitude of laughing away the structural intimidation of such a repressive system, like the 4 hobbits returning home.

The good nature of hobbits is confirmed also by the minimal bloodshed and the remembrance of the fallen.

In this reflection on good and bad, Tolkien's theme of forgiveness is never far away; e.g.:

regarding the worst of the criminals:
_But even as Saruman passed close to Frodo a knife flashed in his hand, and he stabbed swiftly. The blade turned on the hidden mail-coat and snapped. A dozen hobbits, led by Sam, leaped forward with a cry and flung the villain to the ground. Sam drew his sword.

‘No, Sam!’ said Frodo. ‘Do not kill him even now. For he has not hurt me. And in any case I do not wish him to be slain in this evil mood. He was great once, of a noble kind that we should not dare to raise our hands against. He is fallen, and his cure is beyond us; but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find it.’_​
regarding minor offenders:
_‘Don’t forget I’ve arrested you.’_
_‘I won’t,’ said Frodo. ‘Never. But I may forgive you.'_​


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