[Child of the 7th Age]

I have wondered about this for a while.

Why did Tolkien make both Frodo and Bilbo leave on their adventures at the grand age of fifty? In most myths, epics, legends --- what have you -- the chief protagonist is generally younger. JRRT was a very careful writer. In my opinion, he had to have given some thought to this plot device, especially since the exact same age was chosen for both hobbits.

Yes, I know that some hobbits live to the ripe old age of one hundred or more. But if you take the geneologies plus HoMe and calculate the average age at death for hobbits, it comes up as 92. Using this as a standard, Bilbo and Frodo at '50' were no longer young.

Nor do I think that hobbit culture normally regarded '50' as a 'young' age. Take a look at the description of Bilbo that is given by Gandalf in Unfinished Tales. Gandalf had seen Bilbo as a youth and describes him in glowing terms. He mentions that Bilbo loved tales, spoke with dwarves, asked questions about his Took relatives who had run off long before, and had bright eyes. But when Gandalf returned to the Shire after many years, he reports that Bilbo had changed. He'd become "fat and greedy". His old desire for adventure "had dwindled down to a sort of private dream". From all accounts, it sounds as if Bilbo had slunk down into a camplacent middle-age and was just like the rest of his conforming neighbors.

I am aware that when thirty-three year old Frodo took on the Ring, he would have aged more slowly than the normal hobbit. Yet this preservation by the Ring works only in terms of physical appearance, not mental age or maturity. Compared to Samwise, Pippin, and Merry, Frodo definitely acted older than his younger friends and had a wider knowledge of the world, e.g., speaking some Elvish.

I would say that in our society the example of Bilbo or Frodo is still not the norm. Life expectancy is inching up, so it's not unusual to meet a healthy ninety-two year old. Yet it's a rare thing to have a fifty-year old depicted as the central character in a fantasy or fairy tale, whether in a book, TV, or the movies. Elijah Wood who was picked to play Frodo is a good example of this. He looks and acts quite a bit younger than thirty-three (let alone fifty!) If they ever do film The Hobbit, I am also expecting Bilbo to be depicted as younger than Tolkien actually intended, although I could be mistaken here.

Back to the central question.....

Was there something in Tolkien's own life that caused him to pick the age of 50 for his protagonists? Was there a point in the story he was trying to get across? Or was it a commentary on what happens to too many of us once we hit middle age, and our dreams shrink? Or perhaps I am reading too much in here. The choice of age was simply coincidence or '50' means something different for hobbits than it does for us Big Folk.