# Power in Shire



## Aldarion (May 3, 2020)

Gandalf said, in Fellowship of the Ring, that in Shire, there is another power which could withstand Sauron:
*"Indeed there is a power in Rivendell to withstand the might of Mordor, for a while: and elsewhere other powers still dwell. There is power, too, of another kind in the Shire. But all such places will soon become islands under siege, if things go on as they are going. The Dark Lord is putting forth all his strength." - Gandalf *

Now, "power" in Rivendell and Lothlorien could have been two things (acting in concord): presence of Rings of Power (Elrond and Galadriel wore them), and presence of those who had lived in Aman/Valinor (Glorfindel and Galadriel). But Shire has neither of those things, nor does it have Tom Bombadil, a spirit of nature who achieves the same effect as aforementioned Rings. What Shire does have, however, is similar mentality. Elven Rings of Power were created with explicit purpose to _preserve_. They slow the passage of time (at least Galadriel's does) and preserve the memory of times past. Shire has no Ring of Power; but Hobbits are very much of similar mentality to Elves in these matters. They are laid-back, know their geneologies (ancestors) for generations upon generations back, and delight in researching stuff. This is to say, they aim to _preserve_ what is good in the world from dark powers of what is, essentially, "mental industrialization" - obsession with control, with power, with so-called "progress". Hobbits would be much less easily corrupted by such stuff than Humans, or even Dwarves or Elves (especially Noldor), all of whom have certain aspects of "industrial mentality", though much less pronounced than those of Sauron and Saruman. In short, "hobbit mentality" has almost the same effect as one of Three Rings of Power (and also gives them certain resillience to corruption by One Ring).

Thoughts?


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## Olorgando (May 4, 2020)

If you mean that Hobbits (including the most deluded Hobbit of all time, Lotho Sackville-Baggins) are the most pigheadely stubborn "race" in Middle-earth very much so!
Somewhere I read something about that even Sauron, while torturing Gollum, in some way noticed that Gollum was even for him indomitable. Sauron could have mutilated (or have killed) Gollum - but he could never ultimately break him like he did the nine Nazgûl ...


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## Aldarion (May 5, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> If you mean that Hobbits (including the most deluded Hobbit of all time, Lotho Sackville-Baggins) are the most pigheadely stubborn "race" in Middle-earth very much so!
> Somewhere I read something about that even Sauron, while torturing Gollum, in some way noticed that Gollum was even for him indomitable. Sauron could have killed (or have killed) Gollum - but he could never ultimately brake him like he did the nine Nazgûl ...



Yes, that is definitely part of it. But while stubborness is important, it is not _just_ stubborness: as Tolkien wrote, Hobbits _loved_ all the good things _so much that they could do without them in times of need_. In other words, they liked good food, drink, fun and comfortable life; but they knew how to enjoy them, they did not (with exceptions) become greedy, and could in fact withstand many hardships just so they could preserve - and/or return to - their normal, comfortable life.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (May 5, 2020)

Aldarion said:


> in Shire,


You've been talking to Radagast, I see.  

OK, seriously, all the places you cite are, in story terms, _polders _-- a common trope in fantasy:









SF Encyclopedia Editorial Home


Welcome to the third edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.




sf-encyclopedia.uk





The nature of the polder varies, of course; the main difference between the Shire and the others you mentioned is that it -- as polder -- is protected from without, rather than within (this is the case with Bree as well, as Aragorn makes clear).

The "power" Gandalf refers to does have to do with the qualities you mention, but it's "of another kind"; I don't take that to mean _equivalent _to the power of the Great Rings. That power enabled Rivendell to withstand the sieges of the Second Age, and the assaults on Lothlorien in the Third.

We see the result of the withdrawal of external protection from the Shire and Bree, during the War of the Ring, as Barliman acknowledges. I'd say that the power of those places lies primarily in _resilience, _the ability to recover after suffering assaults and destruction -- as seen in the Scouring of the Shire.


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## Firawyn (May 5, 2020)

My first thought goes to the Entwives. Fangorn speculated that perhaps the Entwives made it so far as the Shire, and if they were similarly at rest in the forest of Buckland as the Ents were in Fangorn, then a Shire under siege might have awoken then. Don't know about you guys, but I'd call that _power_.


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## Sir Eowyn (May 5, 2020)

Ah, was just going to mention the Entwives, then you beat me to it, Firawyn! Yes, there may or may not be Entwives walking around in the Shire... that's power, that is. Probably some other kind as well.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (May 5, 2020)

The possibility is certainly raised by Sam's "Cousin Hal" sighting a "walking tree", though nothing more is made of it.

Tolkien himself thought the Entwives had died out, as he stated in a letter.

This hasn't stopped speculation about their fate, of course; in fact someone expressed the view here recently that the tree stump Sam tied the rope around was an Entwife who "threw" the rope down to him. I think the text makes clear that it was the effect of the Elven-rope itself, but it's an idea.


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## Sir Eowyn (May 5, 2020)

Yes, I somehow doubt the Entwives would enjoy hanging out in the Emyn Muil... doesn't sound like their style. 

Tolkien didn't want to commit, of course, one way or the other, but between Cousin Hal's story and Treebeard's view that they'd love the Shire, well...


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## Firawyn (May 5, 2020)

The beauty of a fictional world as expansive as Tolkien's Middle Earth, especially after his death, is that the amount of pot holes in the plot left for us to fill in as readers is not unlike a Pennsylvania highway. (Yes, I did just make fun of my own state's terrible roads!) He couldn't account for everything in his lifetime, so it's up to us to fill in the blanks. 

Entwives in the Shire is a viable theory. I would also point out that the Harbor to the Grey Havens is very near the Shire, and I can't imagine that location was picked nilly-willy. Every other point on the map of Elven significance is a seat of power because either an Elven Ringbearer resided there, or an Elven King or Queen did. So it begs to question (and if someone already has this answer, by all means jump in) was there an Elf bearing a Ring of Power, or an Elf of the Royal Bloodline, who held residence at a castle, keep, or other abode near the harbor, it's power radiating all the way down to the Shire.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (May 5, 2020)

Cirdan, of course, dwelt at the Grey Havens, and was one of the "Big Three" among the Elves. He was given the Ring of Fire, though he gave it to Gandalf hundreds of years before the hobbits entered what became the Shire. And Gandalf, with his Ring, passed in and out of the Shire, apparently with some frequency, at one time.

So you can make of that what you will.


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## Erestor Arcamen (May 6, 2020)

Regarding Entwives, there was a fun little discussion a few years so where some guy claimed they were in TTT all along, alleghorically. As you can see from my comment on the post, I feel the Brown Lands is all that's left of them.








I Found the Entwives!


Well, not I, but a member by the name of Teleporno (Telerin for Celeborn) of the Tolkien board Minas Tirith claims in the thread "I Found the Entwives!" to have found them. He has not revealed exactly where in LOTR he found them, but he has given several hints. But only one other member...




www.thetolkienforum.com


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## Deleted member 12094 (May 6, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> Somewhere I read something about that even Sauron, while torturing Gollum, in some way noticed that Gollum was even for him indomitable. Sauron could have killed (or have killed) Gollum - but he could never ultimately brake him like he did the nine Nazgûl ...



You are right Olorgando; that is in UT:

_From Gollum, even under pain, he could not get any clear account, both because Gollum indeed had no certain knowledge himself, and because what he knew he falsified. Ultimately indomitable he was, except by death, as Sauron guessed, both from his halfling nature, and from a cause which Sauron did not fully comprehend, being himself consumed by lust for the Ring. Then he became filled with a hatred of Sauron even greater than his terror, seeing in him truly his greatest enemy and rival. Thus it was that he dared to pretend that he believed that the land of the Halflings was near to the places where he had once dwelt beside the banks of the Gladden._​
So, the way I understand this, is that Gollum was so indomitable not only because Hobbits in general are tough by nature but in addition also because he perceived Sauron as a rival in his lust for the Ring.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (May 6, 2020)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Regarding Entwives, there was a fun little discussion a few years so where some guy claimed they were in TTT all along, alleghorically. As you can see from my comment on the post, I feel the Brown Lands is all that's left of them.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's it, EA, thanks!

I now see I misremebered: it wasn't _posted _recently -- I _read _it recently.

Late edit: Here's another older thread on the Entwives:








What happened to the Entwives? Where did they go?


We cannot assume they were killed because Treebeard specifically said that they were not killed, to his knowledge, only lost. So where did they go? Are they in the Old Forest, in Mirkwood, or in some other part of Middle Earth? Did Tolkien ever say?




www.thetolkienforum.com


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## Olorgando (May 6, 2020)

Merroe said:


> … So, the way I understand this, is that Gollum was so indomitable not only because Hobbits in general are tough by nature but in addition also because he perceived Sauron as a rival in his lust for the Ring.


That would be - and not the first time - that something Sauron intended turned against him (those (in)famous "side effects" of almost all pharmaceutical advertising in Germany). Those arguments that Gollum *decided* to jump into the lava of the Sammath Naur as the only solution to preventing his greatest rival for his precious from taking it from him gains plausibility.


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## Rivendell_librarian (May 6, 2020)

Fonstad's Atlas of Tolkiens Middle Earth shows the "primeval" First Age forest and the Ents reaching as far as where The Shire would be - maybe some Entwives stuck around.

Also reading Fonstad's section on the kingdoms of the Dunedain (TA 1050) and a later population map I was struck by how isolated The Shire was at the time of the War of the Ring compared to the period of the three kingdoms of Artherain, Cardolan and Rhudaur. The Great Plague, internal strife and conflict with Angmar had depopulated Eriador so that the only significant settlements were The Shire, Bree, the area round The Grey Havens and Rivendell (plus maybe some dwarf settlements). So its not too surprising that Hobbits in The Shire were so self sufficient and often suspicious of strangers. A visit from an outsider like Gandalf would be a major event and I would think Elves passing through would tend to keep a low profile.


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## TrackerOrc (May 6, 2020)

Aldarion said:


> Gandalf said, in Fellowship of the Ring, that in Shire, there is another power which could withstand Sauron:
> *"Indeed there is a power in Rivendell to withstand the might of Mordor, for a while: and elsewhere other powers still dwell. There is power, too, of another kind in the Shire. But all such places will soon become islands under siege, if things go on as they are going. The Dark Lord is putting forth all his strength." - Gandalf *
> 
> Now, "power" in Rivendell and Lothlorien could have been two things (acting in concord): presence of Rings of Power (Elrond and Galadriel wore them), and presence of those who had lived in Aman/Valinor (Glorfindel and Galadriel). But Shire has neither of those things, nor does it have Tom Bombadil, a spirit of nature who achieves the same effect as aforementioned Rings. What Shire does have, however, is similar mentality. Elven Rings of Power were created with explicit purpose to _preserve_. They slow the passage of time (at least Galadriel's does) and preserve the memory of times past. Shire has no Ring of Power; but Hobbits are very much of similar mentality to Elves in these matters. They are laid-back, know their geneologies (ancestors) for generations upon generations back, and delight in researching stuff. This is to say, they aim to _preserve_ what is good in the world from dark powers of what is, essentially, "mental industrialization" - obsession with control, with power, with so-called "progress". Hobbits would be much less easily corrupted by such stuff than Humans, or even Dwarves or Elves (especially Noldor), all of whom have certain aspects of "industrial mentality", though much less pronounced than those of Sauron and Saruman. In short, "hobbit mentality" has almost the same effect as one of Three Rings of Power (and also gives them certain resillience to corruption by One Ring).
> ...


I think that we can overestimate the power of the Shire here, as it's notable that Gandalf differentiates the Shire from the likes of Rivendell and 'elsewhere' (Lorien, Cirdan at the Havens perhaps?)

I think perhaps it's just an allusion to the innate stubbornness and toughness of Hobbits as a whole, and not, to my mind, any kind of overt power to do with Rings, Wizards, or Elves themselves.

Saying that, this could be a purely personal bias on my part, as I'm not too fond of the Shire itself (a little too twee and 'Squireocratic' for my taste- give me a good Orc tunnel, especially one filled with Dwarves getting a good kicking!)


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## Olorgando (May 8, 2020)

TrackerOrc said:


> I think that we can overestimate the power of the Shire here, as it's notable that Gandalf differentiates the Shire from the likes of Rivendell and 'elsewhere' (Lorien, Cirdan at the Havens perhaps?)
> I think perhaps it's just an allusion to the innate stubbornness and toughness of Hobbits as a whole, and not, to my mind, any kind of overt power to do with Rings, Wizards, or Elves themselves.


*We* may overestimate the Shire - and certainly Rivendell, Lórien and The Havens were of another order of magnitude. But the point could well be that, except for Gandalf, anyone who had the foggiest notion of the Shire (a very small number of "important" people, close to zero) would have sriously *underestimated* the Shire and its inhabitants. Those small, fat people. Three of whom, Sméagol, Frodo and Sam (with an "intermission" with Bilbo) took down Sauron ...


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## Deleted member 12094 (May 8, 2020)

As regards (over-) / (under-) estimating the Shire, it is at least so, that dwarves were contemptuous regarding hobbits.

Reading the "Quest of Erebor" in UT the dwarves' reactions to Gandalf's proposal to include a hobbit in Thorin's company, two rather unambiguous quotes about that are here:

_We actually passed through the Shire, though Thorin would not stop long enough for that to be useful. Indeed I think it was annoyance with his haughty disregard of the Hobbits that first put into my head the idea of entangling him with them. As far as he was concerned they were just food-growers who happened to work the fields on either side of the Dwarves’ ancestral road to the Mountains._​​_“What!” cried Glóin. “One of those simpletons down in the Shire? What use on earth, or under it, could he possibly be? Let him smell as he may, he would never dare to come within smelling distance of the nakedest dragonet new from the shell!”_​


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## TrackerOrc (May 8, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> *We* may overestimate the Shire - and certainly Rivendell, Lórien and The Havens were of another order of magnitude. But the point could well be that, except for Gandalf, anyone who had the foggiest notion of the Shire (a very small number of "important" people, close to zero) would have sriously *underestimated* the Shire and its inhabitants. Those small, fat people. Three of whom, Sméagol, Frodo and Sam (with an "intermission" with Bilbo) took down Sauron ...


I've never thought that Gollum gets the recognition that he should, in the fact that it is by and large his efforts that actually get the Hobbits to Mount Doom in the first place (basically without his help they would have starved to death walking round in circles in the Emyn Muil); granted, he had ulterior motives for aiding them, but it's a harsh fact that, at the end, Frodo fails and it's left to Gollum to actually destroy the Ring and fulfil the Quest. So of the three who took down sauron, I'd personally say that Gollum was by far the most important.


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## Olorgando (May 10, 2020)

Merroe said:


> _What!” cried Glóin. “One of those simpletons down in the Shire? What use on earth, or under it, could he possibly be? Let him smell as he may, he would never dare to come within smelling distance of the nakedest dragonet new from the shell!”_​


In TH, JRRT went to extraordinary lengths to put this Dwarven prejudice to shame. The *Dwarves* were the ones soiling their underwear at going into that tunnel on the side of Erebor. Bilbo going to meet not a "dragonet", but the most terrifying dragon of the age.


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## TrackerOrc (May 11, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> In TH, JRRT went to extraordinary lengths to put this Dwarven prejudice to shame. The *Dwarves* were the ones soiling their underwear at going into that tunnel on the side of Erebor. Bilbo going to meet not a "dragonet", but the most terrifying dragon of the age.


True, but I wonder if Bilbo would have ventured down the tunnel if he had as much first-hand knowledge of Dragons as the Dwarves did?


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (May 11, 2020)

Indeed:
_Had he known more about dragons and their wily ways, he might have been more frightened and less hopeful of catching this one napping._



TrackerOrc said:


> So of the three who took down sauron, I'd personally say that Gollum was by far the most important.


I wouldn't put it like that, but you did remind me of another piece of symmetry in the story: near both the beginning and end of Frodo's quest, he is guided by a mysterious figure of disreputable rumor through a maze-like wilderness -- the maze being a common symbol of the "lost direction" motif of ironic-mode writing -- even to feature marshes in each instance

And in both cases, it's Sam who is most distrustful of the guide. Wrongly, in the first instance, but rightly in the second.


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## TrackerOrc (May 11, 2020)

Sam does a good job of helping Frodo no doubt, though a little too much slavish devotion is on hand for my personal taste, but it's a good job Frodo doesn't always listen to him - he'd have tied Gollum up and left him to die in the Wastelands of the Emyn Muil (which is quite shocking really), thereby condemning both of the Hobbits to death as well.

Plus, when they are at the Black Gate, again it's Gollum who saves the Quest, whereas Sam would have happily (and stupidly) followed Frodo on his stroll into Mordor, even though he had no hope of this succeeding. Everybody knows one does not just walk into Mordor after all!


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## Alcuin (Jan 21, 2021)

I believe I recall that Tolkien wrote somewhere that Old Man Willow was not an Ent. In any event, he included Tom Bombadil in the story because Bombadil was an existing character of Tolkien’s, and he wanted to give Bombadil “an ‘adventure” on the way.” (_Letter_ 153) Old Man Willow was described in Tolkien’s poem, “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil”, first published in Oxford Magazine in 1934, where Old Man Willow also captures Tom in a crack in his bark, so he predates any writings about Ents by a decade. (Tolkien also wrote that Tom Bombadil was an _intentional_ enigma in _Letter_ 144. He also discusses Bombadil in a couple of paragraphs in this letter.) 

In _Return of the Shadow_, Chapter XV, “Ancient History”, the precursor draft of the eventual _Fellowship of the Ring_ chapter “Shadow of the Past”, Christopher Tolkien comments of Sam’s query about “these Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them”,
Was this passage (preserved in F[ellowship of the ]R[ing]…) the first premonition of the Ents? But long before my father had referred to “Tree-men” in connection with the voyages of Eärendil…​


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