[Child of the 7th Age]

Tuor -

Very good question! I have trouble relating this to 20th and 21st century politics, so please excuse me if I come at this from a different angle. My gut reaction is to say that, despite their concerns for the Hobbits and the desire to protect them from dangers, the Dunedain were wrong when they tried to shield the Shire from knowledge of the outside world.

One of the core problems in the Shire through much of the Third Age and continuing into the Fourth was Hobbit insularity. In Unfinished Tales, Gandalf complains about the settled ways of Hobbits and says they have lost the adventuring spirit. This is the main reason he was so pleased when he first met young Bilbo. Bilbo was one of those rare hobbits from the late Third Age who liked tales of dragons and Elves: things that were outside his normal experience. As Bilbo grew older, he succumbed to pressures about him and became more like his neighbors, much to Gandalf's dismay. It was only because he went adventuring that he was saved from his neighbors' fate of dullness and insularity.

If you look at the map of Middle-earth and carefully read the early chapters of LotR, you can see there was actually more contact with the outside in the Shire than most hobbits were willing to admit. The East-West road to the Blue Mountains ran through Shire borders so dwarf travellers were quite frequent. The Dwarves trooping through the Shire even began to speak about the Enemy and the Land of Mordor. Surely any Hobbit who heard such things might have worried that such problems would one day threaten their home. Chapter 2 says even the stay-at-home hobbits had begun to hear 'strange tales' reflective of the wider troubles in the world.

Elves were less frequently seen than Dwarves but they did pass through on the way West. Frodo and Bilbo apparently had no trouble finding Elves on their woodland jaunts, since both Hobbits had at least some skills in Elvish. Some contact with Elves is implied in LotR but even more explicitly mentioned in Unfinished Tales.

In short, the Shire was not isolated: the Hobbits may have wanted it to be, but this may have been as much a defense on their own part as a reality. There were enough visitors for the Hobbits to have some idea of the world outside. The only way they could deal with that outside world was apparently to deny its existence. And the Dunedain encouraged them in this illusion.

The Dunedain's isolationist policy fed into Hobbit insularity. The Dunedain were apparently far more reclusive than either Dwarves or Elves. Frodo and Bilbo each had experience with the latter, but had no idea that Rangers even existed. Moreover, we have Gandalf's word in Unfinished Tales that the Hobbits had not always been so insular. There was a time in their past when some Tookish types were more aware of danger and willing to go adventuring.

Many posters in the chapter-by-chapter discussion commented on Hobbit insularity, but no one alluded to the fact that the Dunedain bear some responsibility for this isolationist attitude. It is one thing to be "isolated" from the outside world so that you do not have to bear the brunt of unrest and invasions. It is another thing to "isolate" your mind so that you try to pretend the outside world doesn't exist. It seems to me that by treating the Hobbits as children, the Dunedain actively encouraged the latter way of thinking.

The thing that bothers me is that Hobbit insularity did not disappear at the end of the War of the Rings. In one respect, it actually intensified. There was a law passed, at the request of the Hobbits and endorsed by Elessar, that forbade Men from ever entering the Shire. Ostensibly this was because of the Scouring: to keep the bad guys from coming back and respecting the Shire's independence. (Even Elessar could not set foot in the Shire but could only go as far as the Bridge. )

But is this the final legacy of the War of the Rings? Is this what we learn from the fellowship and the cooperation of Men, Hobbits, Dwarves and Elves? Is isolation the only way for different free peoples to have peace? To me, this prohibition on Men is nothing more than the continuation of the old Dunedain policy of isolation. Strider the Ranger has become Aragorn the King, and the policy of isolation remains.


I love LotR, but this theme of separation has always disturbed me. We've had other threads on this general topic including one on "gated communities", and I believe Bethberry has also talked about this issue. As far as I can tell, JRRT thought that Elessar's rule regarding the Shire and its exclusion of Men was a good one. I personally have grave doubts, both about the earlier Dunedain policies of treating the Hobbits like children in order to "protect" them and the continuation of those policies as defined by Aragorn, himself once a Ranger.

If Legolas and Gimli can become close friends, if the Dwarves can mine mithril and fashion the gates of Minas Tirith, if Men and Hobbits can live peacefully together in Bree for thousands of years (the Bree of the books, not PJ's dark version), then why can't Hobbits of the Shire and Elessar throw off old ways of thinking and acknowledge that cooperation and helping each other is the best way for the free peoples of Middle-earth to safeguard their freedoms in the Fourth Age?

The two hobbits who broke the stereotype, who were most outward looking, were Frodo and Bilbo. At the end of the Third Age, they must both leave. Despite Frodo's affection for Sam, and leaving aside all questions of healing, I can't imagine Frodo being content to live in a place where not only have the Elves all departed but a Man like Faramir is excluded from even visiting him at Bag-end (the way Bilbo used to have his old buddy Dwarves visit occasionally). Pippin and Merry did keep up friendships with Men in the outside world but they had to travel all the way back to Gondor and Rohan to do so, since such relationships were effectively "forbidden" in the Shire. How very sad!

Just curious, but does anyone else feel this way about the policy and Elessar's failure, or am I the only one?