Fattest of the Dwarves

[Nerwen]

If "stride" is the right word...

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

If "stride" is the right word...

Ok, take it with fries.

[Nerwen]

Now that's more like it.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

So who was relatively fatter, Bombur or Lalia Took?

Lalia (Clayhanger) Took: (c. TA 2883 - TA 3002) was the wife of Thain Fortinbras Took II. She married in 2914, and her son Ferumbras was born two years later. Ferumbras never married, reportedly because nobody wanted Lalia as a mother-in-law. Lalia was so fat she couldn't walk and was confined to a wheelchair: she was widely known as Lalia the Great (or sometimes the Fat). In TA 3002 her attendant, Pearl Took, accidentally tipped Lalia out of her wheelchair into her garden, and she died. (Lalia isn't on the Took family tree published in The Lord of the Rings, but she is mentioned in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.)

[Mithalwen]

Faramir Jones is an expert on Lalia. But Dwarves are generally larger so probably once they had reached the point of being so fat they could not move, Bombur probably was larger. But Lalia seems to have been less active and mobile through more of her life whereaa Bombur was more or less able to keep up. When he wasn't enchanted.

[Faramir Jones]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Faramir Jones is an expert on Lalia. But Dwarves are generally larger so probably once they had reached the point of being so fat they could not move, Bombur probably was larger. But Lalia seems to have been less active and mobile through more of her life whereaa Bombur was more or less able to keep up. When he wasn't enchanted.

Thanks for the compliment, Mithalwen.

According to Tolkien's 'Prologue' in LotR, Hobbits are a little people 'smaller than Dwarves: less stout and stocky, that is, even when they are not actually much shorter'. (My emphasis) Hobbits vary, he says, between 2 to 4 feet in height.

Let us assume that both Lalia and Bombur are of average height for their respective races, making Bombur taller. It would seem, from this information alone, that a fat dwarf like Bombur was relatively fatter than a fat hobbit like Lalia.

But we have further information making this difference clear. You, Tuor in Gondolin, gave the correct information that Lalia was, towards the end of her life, 'so fat she couldn't walk and was confined to a wheelchair'. However, according to information given by Gloin to Frodo in Rivendell in 3018, Bombur, towards the end of his life, was 'now so fat that he could not move himself from his couch to his chair at table, and it took six young dwarves to lift him'. It seems, therefore, that Bombur was certainly relatively fatter, needing six young dwarves to move him around, while Lalia needed only one young hobbit (Pearl, Pippin's sister) to move her around.

[Mithalwen]

Yes but as we all know it is easier to push something on wheels rather than to carry it which is why airports are thick with wheelycases and the mini trolleys so popular at supermarkets. Odd as a side note that the hobbits had wheelchairs at their disposal while dwarves who I would have thought were relatively technically advanced seem to have moved Bombur on a litter. Also events seem to indicate that one young, female hobbit was not up to the task. Nevertheless for reasons previously stated I concur that Bombur was likely bigger.