# Bilbo in the Hobbit vs Frodo in LOTR



## Starflower (Mar 11, 2004)

In the Hobbit Bilbo sets out as bit silly and naive, and grows to be incredibly heroic and brave towards the end of the book. He singlehandedly fights the spiders in Mirkwood, then organizes the dwarves' rescue from the Elven-kings hall, talks to Smaug, steals the Arkenstone, and gives it to the Elven-king as ransom for Thorin. But Frodo is no similarly naive in LOTR, he has heard of Bilbo's deeds, and Gandalf tells him in certain terms what to expect from the quest, but Frodo seems to be strangely passive throughout the quest, he does nothing at all , just runs away from everything and lets other people fight for him. Why this discrepancy? Why is Bilbo's character as a hobbit so wildly different from Frodo ?


----------



## Confusticated (Mar 11, 2004)

Well part of it might be a normal difference in personality (note their different handwriting... Bilbo's is nice and spidery), but I think a lot of it has to do with the point of view from which the story is told. We get everything from Bilbo, and little from Frodo in LotR. We get to hear more of Bilbo's thoughts and feelings about things, and Bilbo is a high spirited guy. Bilbo is always up front, Frodo is just another character, who happens to play a vital role. 

And Bilbo is just a odd, interesting, and very lovable fellow... in my opinion Frodo is not. Would Frodo, like Bilbo, have some deep desire to go out on adventures if not for his curiousity about and wish to see Bilbo? I think maybe not. I suspect he had less of that Took craziness.

But l wont underestimate the difference Bilbo's being naive made. 

But then, maybe Frodo is just dull... aside from being an extremely hollow character. Not sure how much of this was caused by the dark circumstances he found himself in... but this must play some role is his flat personality and... kind of detachment from the reader. But in the end, during the time spent in Mordor, Frodo really was out of it.

Perhaps Frodo would have more to him if LotR had been told more from his point of view and the story line was more narrow to accomidate this. On the other hand, this isn't done for Gandalf and look how well he works out as a character.


----------



## Starflower (Mar 11, 2004)

of all the hobbits only Sam shows some of old Bilbo's spirit when he's confronting Shelob and later the orcs at Cirith Ungol. Even Merry and Pippin who are supposed to be 'heroes' of Gondor and Rohan don;t actually do much do they ?


----------



## Fechin (Mar 11, 2004)

I would not say they did nothing they did do something. Merry and Pippen do have a vital role in LOTR on a certain scale. They should be consider Heros or whatever becuase they were outsiders and did a lot more than a commaner did in Rohan or Gondor during the war.


----------



## Aulë (Mar 11, 2004)

Starflower said:


> of all the hobbits only Sam shows some of old Bilbo's spirit when he's confronting Shelob and later the orcs at Cirith Ungol. Even Merry and Pippin who are supposed to be 'heroes' of Gondor and Rohan don;t actually do much do they ?


You seem to forget Merry's deeds in the Pellenor Fields...
And Pippin saved Beregond's life at the Black Gates, and Faramir's life in Minas Tirith.


----------



## Starflower (Mar 11, 2004)

what i meant was that neither Pippin nor Merry did anything deliberately they did not take active action as Bilbo did. Merry's participation at Pelennor fields was more to do with being in the right place at the right time, yes it was courageous, but he did not take any action into his own hands apart from that one act.
Pippin did even less actual action, he told Gandalf about Denethor's madness, and Gandalf took action. In LOTR the hobbits are so much more passive thatn Bilbo in the HObbit.


----------



## Greenwood (Mar 11, 2004)

Starflower,

I think you will find interesting the following excerpt from a letter Tolkien wrote to his son Christopher on 24 December 1944 (when he was still in the somewhat early stages of writing LOTR). From Letter #93 in The Letters of JRR Tolkien:


> Cer[tainly] Sam is the most closely drawn character, the successor to Bilbo of the first book, the genuine hobbit. Frodo is not so interesting, because he has to be highminded, and has (as it were) a vocation. The book will prob[ably] end up with Sam. Frodo will naturally become too enobled and rarified by the achievement of the great Quest, and will pass West with all the great figures; but S[am] will settle down to the Shire and gardens and inns.


So you see Tolkien really considered Sam to be the chief hero of the story.

As for heros, I think you perhaps have too limited a view of what constitutes a hero, apparently limiting it (or at least seemingly mostly considering it) to deeds of bravery and daring. Yes, Bilbo grows tremendously during the course of The Hobbit but he really had no idea what he was getting into when he left the Shire. Frodo (and the others to a lesser extent) knew they were leaving the Shire and going into great danger; danger from which they might not return. This kind of behavior of willingly accepting great danger and sacrifice (to save one's homeland and out of friendship and loyalty) shows far more heroism (at least at first) than running out your door without your pocket handkerchief with no real sense of danger.


----------



## grendel (Mar 11, 2004)

Don't forget that a lot of Bilbo's growth came after he found, and used, the Ring... I would certainly be more courageous, if I had the ability to become invisible! Frodo's outlook regarding the Ring, his requirement to protect it, and the danger of using it, probably affected his lack of adventureness (is that a word?).


----------



## Garwen (Mar 18, 2004)

*Bilbo vrs. Frodo*

After reading all of your posts I have to agree with everyone. I'd like to think they were all heros with different parts to play some had lesser parts but each part was important to the out come of the story.


----------



## Starflower (Mar 18, 2004)

I wasn't questioning Frodo's courage, I was just wondering why the two 'main' characters in the two books are so very different. To me Bilbo is the very image of an archetypical hobbit, whereas Frodo seems far too ... passive. Nowhere in the LOTR do we see Frodo as anything but a brooding, melancholy character. Some of you said that Bilbo's courage came after he found and used the Ring, well Frodo had the Ring for near enough twenty years before he set out to destroy it, and there is suggestion that he did indeed use it quite often, so why do we not see the same heroic growth in Frodo? On the other hand we have the quote from the Professor himself in the Letters, where he admits to thinking of Sam as the more likely heir to Bilbo, and I have to agree. Sam is a bit silly, simple country-hobbit if you like, but determined to see his master through whatever it takes out of him, and he is in many - if not all -things always the instigator, he is the one who does things, says things, makes things happen and Frodo follows.


----------



## Orcrist (Mar 19, 2004)

I think their difference in attitude and action stems from the difference in their respecitve situations. For Bilbo, the fate of the world did not hang on a chain around his neck, so mistakes made would not be catostrophic. He had nothing to lose if he were to get caught by Goblins, so he could attack them rather than run from them. But for Frodo failure meant the end of the world. It was probably a better decision to flee and not get caught for him, and not risk getting captured.


----------



## Garwen (Mar 20, 2004)

*True Hero*

Yes Gandalf was also A mover of deeds And the Biggest Hero. Iwas speeking of Hobbit heros. And Sam in my heart is the biggest hero, because of his choice to discard the Ring for Friendship. All of the Main charators were heros to some extent. Each had their task to do to distroy the Ring.


----------



## Eledhwen (Mar 21, 2004)

Starflower said:


> Frodo seems far too ... passive. Nowhere in the LOTR do we see Frodo as anything but a brooding, melancholy character.


Like when he gave a second rendition of 'The Man in the Moon' on the table at the Prancing Pony? His idea of a spur-of-the-moment distraction was a bit Tookish, I think.


> Sam is a bit silly, simple country-hobbit if you like, but determined to see his master through whatever it takes out of him, and he is in many - if not all -things always the instigator, he is the one who does things, says things, makes things happen and Frodo follows.


One of the things I like best about Frodo's character is that he appreciates Sam's true worth. Sam is the servant; but in the sense of true burden it is Frodo who is the packhorse, weighed down by the Ring. By Book Three, its as much as Frodo can do to exist under the increasing power of the Ring. Sam loves and encourages him through to the completion of the quest.

To Bilbo, the Ring was merely magical and beneficial. Though even his brave forays were things he forced himself to do through necessity of the moment (compare Merry on the fields of Pelennor, whose hobbit sense overcame overwhelming fear and he dealt a deadly blow: "So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse .... No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will." Eowyn could not have killed the Witchking without Merry's spell-breaking blade's thrust.) But would Bilbo have behaved otherwise if he had been younger, and was himself appointed to Frodo's task? I think not. Encountering the same perils, I can think of nothing Bilbo would have done differently from Frodo. He would have suffered the same burden and would have needed the same kind of help.


----------



## jallan (Mar 21, 2004)

Nóm said:


> But then, maybe Frodo is just dull... aside from being an extremely hollow character. Not sure how much of this was caused by the dark circumstances he found himself in... but this must play some role is his flat personality and... kind of detachment from the reader. But in the end, during the time spent in Mordor, Frodo really was out of it.


Of course almost from the beginning of writing his hobbit sequal Tolkien introduced a number of hobbits. It seems he had decided that one way to make the tale different would be to play off different kinds of hobbits against each other: a perky and heroic hobbit, a very resonsible hobbit, an insouciant and reckless and somewhat cowardly hobbit, a fat and lazy hobbit, and a wild hobbit named Trotter.

Things did change, but one of the outcomes is that Bingo/Frodo was from the beginning in some sense the _normal_ one, the blank one that is partly blank because reader’s can more easily insert themelves into a blank character than a fully realized character. Indeed until the rise of the anti-hero in literature the twentieth century bland protagonists were very normal in tales.

It was the people they met and the adventures they had and the things they saw that more often provided interest than did the character of the protagonist.

Tolkien had already done the unprepared and conventional person who finds his worth in _The Hobbit_ and didn’s want to repeat that.


----------

