Questions from 'The Hobbit'

[Bêthberry]

Great questions, hS.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Why did Thranduil have a dozen prison cells scattered around his palace? Why did he have prison cells at all; is there a lot of petty crime among the Nandor? My best guess: he didn't, and the 'cells' are just random rooms which happened to have locks and could be repurposed. The keys are a 'great bunch', which suggests every cell has a different key, supporting this idea.

It is possible that Tolkien, philologist that he was, wasn't thinking of our modern usage of prison cell, but of the original Anglo Saxon or Middle English meanings, such as a room or small apartment of a nunnery or monastery or priory, dependent on a larger community, a monk or hermit's cell or even a storage closet, if the Oxford English Dictionary has anything to say about the matter. For example, monasteries offered accommodations to travellers. Mirkwood wasn't a particularly hospitable place to travel, so perhaps Tolkien was thinking it would be appropriate for Thranduil to have such rooms for providing hospitality. So the Legendarium might not be the only reference applicable here.

[Huinesoron]

How old is(n't) Smaug? I've always assumed he was ancient and terrible, but:

Originally Posted by Inside Information

... most of the plunder was meant to stop there in the town by the shore that in his young days had been called Esgaroth.

Which sent me back to:

Originally Posted by An Unexpected Party

"'Five feet high the door and three may walk abreast' say the runes, but Smaug could not creep into a hole that size, not even when he was a young dragon, certainly not after devouring so many of the dwarves and men of Dale."

Is the implication here that Smaug was young at the time he desolated the Mountain? Or is Esgaroth a lot older than it looks, and Gandalf just unclear?

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Inside Information

"I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then I was but young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows!"

Again, is Smaug really saying that a couple of hundred years takes a dragon from young to old?

hS

[Huinesoron]

Not so much a question, but:

Originally Posted by The Return Journey

He had many hardships and adventures before he got back. The Wild was still the Wild, and there were many other things in it in those days beside goblins; but he was well guided and well guarded--the wizard was with him, and Beorn for much of the way--and he was never in great danger again.

There is an alternate timeline out there somewhere where Tolkien's "New Hobbit" consisted entirely of Bilbo's journey home, and I kind of wish we'd gotten to read it.

hS

[Mithadan]

from the perspective of storytelling, the climax of the story is the Battle of Five Armies and Thorin's death scene. To add chapters after this about how Gandalf and Bilbo came across wolves, stray goblins or mosquitos, or that they ran out of food would be rather anti-climactic (excuse the pun). Of course, one could argue that Tolkien did exactly this in LoTR.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Not so much a question, but:

There is an alternate timeline out there somewhere where Tolkien's "New Hobbit" consisted entirely of Bilbo's journey home, and I kind of wish we'd gotten to read it.

hS

In the olden days, this would have inspired a role playing game.

It does, however, suggest a conundrum. If the compelling nature of thrilling stories is the threat to life--"great danger"--what does that suggest about any stories the elves would tell, given their immortality or longevity? We hear a great deal about loremasters and the information Gandalf seeks in Minas Tirith but that appears to be history rather than fiction/narrative. There's not a great deal of Middle earth intertextual references to narrative, although there is to the hinted at historical past. There is to songs, rhymes, poems but did the elves or hobbits have drama or fiction (ie, made up stories rather than historical report). Perhaps that is why the elves got into making beautiful objects rather than creating a literature?

For Tolkien the great themes were death and immortality. But not others?