Who's your favourite hobbit...

[the guy who be short]

I'm afraid I must bring the ultimate punishment down on Samwise Gamgee for daring to challenge Bilbo.

Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 246

Sam...Some readers he irritates and even infuriates. I can well understand it... Sam can be very 'trying'. He is a more representative hobbit than any others that we have to see much of; and he has consequently a stronger ingredient of that quality which even some hobbits found at times hard to bear: a vulgarity... a mental myopia which is proud of itself, a smugness... and cocksureness...
Sam was cocksure, and... conceited... his service and loyalty to his master... had an ingredient... of pride and possessiveness.

Even Tolkien disliked the scamp.*

*Slight omissions may have been carried out to portray Sam in a more negative light.

[Folwren]

*flushes red and tears start to my eyes*

That's hard! Cruel hard!

Originally posted by TGWBS:
Slight omissions may have been carried out to portray Sam in a more negative light.

Yes, I assumed that.

I don't think that Tolkien disliked the scamp...he couldn't have. You can't write a book as long as the LotR and turn one of the characters you dislike into the hero of the story.

Besides that, I'm not talking about what Tolkien thought of Samwise, I'm talking about how good Sam is. I'm not even comparing him to Bilbo Baggins. The two are uncomparable, really. Sam is a lot better than Bilbo, but I'm not going to go on and on about that fact. I'll defend Sam to the death (and I don't see that happening any time soon) because if you brought any real complaints against him, I could thwart them as easily as I...squished that caterpillar the other day. (That as gross.)

But what's a chap like me supposed to say when you come up with fragments of a letter I have no way to get my hands on? Fragments, I say, taking what makes Sam appear the worst? I have no possible way to refute what you just said! Do I?

I don't believe that any one in their right mind could dislike Sam, or be irritated by him. No one in the book ever was...besides when he was obviously bad by trimming the grass around the window sills when he wasn't supposed to be listening. (Many people got mad and irritated at Bilbo, but I'm not going into that because I said I wouldn't earlier.)

Honestly, TGWBS, if you're going to argue and rail against Sam, bring stuff from the books!

[CaptainofDespair]

Bah!

Samwise is a cheat! How can you ask us to bring out quotes from the books? We all know that after Frodo departed, Samwise edited everything to present himself in a better light. He is, in actuality, a bumbling fool. And he is a fat hobbit, as well. How on earth does he stay fat, while Frodo withers away? He ate all the food!

Bilbo is like Willy Wonka. Granted, I love Gene Wilder as Willy, but he's creepy. And so is Bilbo. And the whole butter over bread thing is just code for "I'm tired of this, time to pass on the burden to Frodo". And, he helped kill Smaug, my favorite character from The Hobbit.

Frodo is a tragic hero. That instantly garners disrespect, because he couldn't be wise enough to, oh let's say, give the Ring to Boromir.

Merry and Pippin both do horrible things. Merry helped out in the defeat of Wiki (he should have been burned at the stake for such a crime, seriously). Pippin is just...Pippin.

Thus, I will vote for...Pippin. He neither killed Smaug (well, Bilbo helped), nor Wiki, nor Sauron.

[Folwren]

Very interesting arguments, Captain.

I've been considering this problem, TGWBS...

Without Bilbo, Sam wouldn't have been what he was because he wouldn't have been told stories about the elves and things, wouldn't have learned his letters, and wouldn't have met with the upper class at all (Frodo, Merry, Pippin...).
Without Sam, Frodo would have perished before he made it to Mordor.
Without Frodo (or with Frodo perishing before making it to Mordor), the entire quest would have failed and everyone would have died or lived under slavery anyway and everything would have been in vain.

How's that for reasoning? It accepts the three most important and argued over hobbits and...I doubt it will be the case, but it could end the fight.

(I still think Sam's the best!)

[mormegil]

I think we can let the Shire residents themselves answer who the best hobbit was. That would obviously be Sam. How many times was he elected to be mayor? Also in contrast to Bilbo he didn't have to buy friends. Truly the only reason that Frodo acted like he loved Bilbo was to get at his fortune. Speaking of Bilbo buying his friends I find it hilarious that he actually had a small fortune and he gave out much of it and yet wasn't liked one bit by most shire residents. At least, one would think, he could buy some yes men but nobody was even willing to do that.

By the end of his life he was so cynical that he couldn't even give out a gift properly. He had to attack some snide remark to every gift. What kind of person does that I ask you!