Hobbit2 - Chapter 06 - Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Goblins and wargs and eagles, oh my! There's not much respite from escaping one danger before the next one comes.

I posted a number of questions and observations on the previous discussion thread, so I will merely invite you all to share your thoughts and opinions here. What parts of the chapter impress or amuse you? How does the danger affect our heroes, and is their unusual rescue a moment of eucatastrophe?

[Inziladun]

Overall the chapter is well done, and things like the goblins' song and the descriptions of the dwarves in the trees are chuckle-worthy.
Some brief observations and thoughts:

1.It seems Gandalf is practiced in knowing when someone is lying. He didn't believe Bilbo's explanation of how he escaped from the goblins, even without knowing of the Ring and its potential influence.

2. Gandalf was apparently ready to give his physical life for his friends, as he later did in Moria.

3. The way G. gets after the Wargs has its own callback moment when the Fellowship is attacked by wolves on the way to Moria.

4. Bilbo's reaction to the eagles is rather like a wild animal's, in line with his being said by one to even look like a rabbit in the next chapter.

5.The deus ex machina of the eagles' rescue is plausibly explained, and Tolkien knew just how often he could use them without the reader rolling his eyes.

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

5.The deus ex machina of the eagles' rescue is plausibly explained, and Tolkien knew just how often he could use them without the reader rolling his eyes.

Eh, the Eagles may have only been used once here, but each dangerous situation the company has been in, there's been a type of deus ex machina to get them out; either the Eagles or Gandalf. I mean we are a third of the way through the story, and we know almost nothing about any of the dwarves, except they get into difficult situations, only to be rescued by some sort of magical device. I believe it gets better when Gandalf goes away for a bit, but I've only read The Hobbit once, and that was a long time ago. I've been quite disappointed there still seems to not be much individuality separating the Dwarves (and I wonder now if PJ could really have cut out some of them for the movies). Bilbo is developing nicely though.

[Galadriel55]

I think my favourite part in this chapter is how Dori saves Bilbo, at risk for his own life. The Dwarves could be clumsy, grumpy, and all that, but they do have a second side that is very contrasting.

Gandalf's almost-sacrifice is just as touching.

[Bêthberry]

I too think the goblins' song is well done. Notionally of course it is nasty bragging and fear-mongering. Yet it is well written, linguistically good, the sort of thing that Tolkien praises in "A Secret Vice", the play of language that can give pleasure.

However, it makes me ponder something about the mythology. If the elves are praised for their love of creating beauty (ignoring the tra-la-la-lally ones for now), why are the goblins also being shown as creating something that has aesthetic merit or beauty? Or does the subject matter absolve that issue, so it is merely "a horrible song" as the narrator claims?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

If the elves are praised for their love of creating beauty (ignoring the tra-la-la-lally ones for now), why are the goblins also being shown as creating something that has aesthetic merit or beauty? Or does the subject matter absolve that issue, so it is merely "a horrible song" as the narrator claims?

I don't think the song has any beauty, only cleverness. The latter can be applied equally to good or evil purpose.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I don't think the song has any beauty, only cleverness. The latter can be applied equally to good or evil purpose.

I was thinking in terms of how Tolkien discusses the pleasure of language in "A Secret Vice". Most of what he says pertains to invented languages, but he does eventually get to discussing poetry. Here's a random sampling of his comments:

Originally Posted by Tolkien, A Secret Vice

This idea of using the linguistic faculty for amusement is however deeply interesting to me. . . . The instinct for 'linguistic invention'--the fitting of notion to oral symbol, and pleasure in contemplating the new relation established is rational, and not perverted. . . .

Certainly it is the contemplation of the relation between sound and notion which is the main source of pleasure. We see it in an alloyed form in the peculiar keenness of the delight scholars have in poetry or fine prose in a foreign language . . . . This compensation remains a great freshness of perception of the word-form. . . .

The very word-form itself, of course, even unassociated with notions, is capable of giving pleasure--a perception of beauty,which if of a minor sort is not more foolish and irrational than being sensitive to the line of a hill, light and shade, or colour.. . .

There is purely artistic pleasure, keen and of a high order, in studying a Gothic dictionary from this point of view. . . .

It [the invention of languages] is also--like poetry--contrary to conscience, and duty; its pursuit is snatched from hours due to self-advancement, or to bread, or to employers. . . .

The communication factor has been very powerful in directing the development of language; but the more individual and personal factor--pleasure in articulate sound, and in the symbolic use of it, must not be forgotten for a moment. . . . [my bolding]

By way of epilogue, I may say that such fragments [his own poems in one of his invented languages] , nor even a constructed whole, do not satisfy all the instincts that go to make poetry. It is no part of this paper to plead that such inventions do so; but that they abstract certain of the pleasures of poetic composition (as far as I understand it) and sharpen them by making them more conscious. It is an attenuated emotion, but may be very piercing--this construction of sounds to give pleasure. The human phonetic system is a small-ranged instrument (compared with music as it has now become); yet it is an instrument, and a delicate one. . . .

In poetry [of our day] . . . it is the interplay and pattern of notions adhering to each word that is uppermost. The word-music, according to the nature of the tongue and the skill or ear (conscious or artless) of the poet, runs on heard, but seldom coming to awareness. . . . So little do we ponder word-form and sound-music, beyond a few hasty observations of its crudest manifestations in rhyme and alliteration, that we are unaware often that the answer is simply that by luck or skill the poet has struck out an air which illuminates the lines as a sound of music half-attended to may deepen the significance of some unrelated thing thought or read, while the music ran.

Sorry for the long quotation and the selectivity, but I think they demonstrate Tolkien's keen interest in how sound affects us, particularly patterned sound in language, both in invented languages and in living languages (or dead).

This fascination with sound is I think a major characteristic of the Goblins' song, its alliteration, its beat and emphasis and the way in which certain sounds are used very deliberately to suggest the sound of roaring fire. The poem even concludes with some 'created' words, "Ya hey!/Ya-harri-hey!/ Ya hoy!".

This isn't orcish grunting but suggests a delight in sound music. Maybe it's meant to suggest the goblins' delight in slaughter, but nonetheless, I think there is here something close to the linguistic pleasure that Tolkien speaks of.

And when we consider it beside the songs Bilbo makes up (in the chapter "Flies and Spiders'), on the spur of the moment, to attract and anger the spiders, I'm not sure how much the songs differ, other than the explicit details of being burnt in the goblin song. The same applies to the elves' song in "Barrels out of Bond".

I guess what I might be suggesting is that Tolkien enjoyed very much writing the goblin song and finding sounds to fit their nasty threats. It might not demonstrate the characteristics he ascribed to his own elven poetry of being "over-pretty" and "phonetically and semantically sentimental" but I do think it shows great pleasure and delight in linguistic form, "pleasure in articulate sound".

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

However, it makes me ponder something about the mythology. If the elves are praised for their love of creating beauty (ignoring the tra-la-la-lally ones for now), why are the goblins also being shown as creating something that has aesthetic merit or beauty? Or does the subject matter absolve that issue, so it is merely "a horrible song" as the narrator claims?

"Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Ea, and evil yet be good to have been."
"And yet remain evil."

There's no contradiction, as far as I can see. Tolkien never takes the approach that "bad guys" are 100% evil (which might make some sense, once you think about it). Tolkien doesn't write in a black and white world, not even in The Hobbit, where everything seems as basic/simple as it can get.

Directly or indirectly, Tolkien gives evil characters their due. He doesn't dismiss them as completely evil and therefore not worth appreciating. Instead, throughout his books he aknowledges the strength/strengths of the enemy, even lets us sometimes admire their evilness/cunning/whatever - but never forgetting, as Mandos said, that all those things remain evil. Not because someone said that (for example) Sauron is evil and therefore whatever he does is also, but because he chooses to direct his deeds to it.

It's like there's beauty in a fire whenever it is there, but you would prefer that beauty to be staying nicely under control than having it consume your house - in a very beautiful and majestic way.

So Elves are being shown as creating beauty to praise it, to make more of it, to do good. Goblins create beauty to demolish other beauty, but what they don't realise is that they do so in a beautiful way...but still an evil one.

To sum everything up, there's beauty in an orc sword just as much aas an Elf sword; the difference lies in how this beauty is used.


So in their attempt to destroy some good(=Thorin & co) the goblins do so by subconsciously making a different kind of beauty, something they cannot avoid. Yet this new beauty doesn't make their deed less evil.


My, this is one long and convoluted answer for something that could have been said in a paragraph!

[Formendacil]

While considering the goblin song, I think it's worth remembering that the literary genre of The Hobbit is (at least ostensibly) a tale for children. Rather than looking at the goblin-song with an eye towards reconciling it completely with what is said about orks in The Lord of the Rings and subsequent works, it seems to me that this might be a good point to remember the author and audience instead.

After all, The Hobbit has a distinct narrator--certainly more so than The Lord of the Rings--and the Conceit is that we're reading a retold version of Bilbo's memoirs. Even "within the story" then, it might be fair to suggest that the goblin song, as we have it, isn't an entirely accurate representation of what the goblins were actually singing (or chanting... or screeching... or screaming... or whatnot). It could just as easily be conceived as Bilbo whimsically taking the rather unpleasant experience and using it as interpretation to write one of his trademark poems. Certainly, the author of "the Cat Jumped over the Moon" seems a better author for this poem than the orks of the Misty Mountains--however clever the they (and the lyrics) are.

Ignoring the Translator Conceit entirely, it seems to me that the poem is Tolkien's way of keeping the danger and fear of the scene to a level a younger child could handle. As far as that goes, it's quite clever, because it uses the threat that the goblins pose as its subject, but its form makes it more of a laughing matter for the audience than one of dread. In other words, Tolkien is able to deepen our sense of danger while simultaneously easing the possible nightmares--and, at the same time, indulging his own creative whimsy.

[Bêthberry]

Forgive the tardy reply, please. I'm really happy to see some discussion of this issue as it's good to see some of the old "back and forth".

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

There's no contradiction, as far as I can see. Tolkien never takes the approach that "bad guys" are 100% evil (which might make some sense, once you think about it). Tolkien doesn't write in a black and white world, not even in The Hobbit, where everything seems as basic/simple as it can get.

I'm not quite sure it is as clear as that, because Tolkien spent some time trying to "redeem" the orcs, at least as far as we can tell in the Letters, which of course are always a private correspondence between two people.

I will throw a wrench into the works, though, and suggest that 'reading backwards' from The Silm to TH won't work. Certainly Tolkien must have been working on his mythology as he was writing TH, but there's nary a mention of hobbits in The Silm which Christopher Tolkien produced, nor in HoMe. TH was an independent story from the Legendarium, as far as I know (and I could be wrong as I'm not the strongest on Silm history.) While the percolation of ideas which Tolkien went through might well have held all stories in balance, I'm not sure we can take things in CT's The Silm and read them into TH. Tolkien certainly struggled after the fact to work TH consistently into LotR, but I'm not sure we can take The Silm to explicate areas which might seem inconsistent with LotR.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

While considering the goblin song, I think it's worth remembering that the literary genre of The Hobbit is (at least ostensibly) a tale for children. Rather than looking at the goblin-song with an eye towards reconciling it completely with what is said about orks in The Lord of the Rings and subsequent works, it seems to me that this might be a good point to remember the author and audience instead.

After all, The Hobbit has a distinct narrator--certainly more so than The Lord of the Rings--and the Conceit is that we're reading a retold version of Bilbo's memoirs. Even "within the story" then, it might be fair to suggest that the goblin song, as we have it, isn't an entirely accurate representation of what the goblins were actually singing (or chanting... or screeching... or screaming... or whatnot). It could just as easily be conceived as Bilbo whimsically taking the rather unpleasant experience and using it as interpretation to write one of his trademark poems. Certainly, the author of "the Cat Jumped over the Moon" seems a better author for this poem than the orks of the Misty Mountains--however clever the they (and the lyrics) are.

Ignoring the Translator Conceit entirely, it seems to me that the poem is Tolkien's way of keeping the danger and fear of the scene to a level a younger child could handle. As far as that goes, it's quite clever, because it uses the threat that the goblins pose as its subject, but its form makes it more of a laughing matter for the audience than one of dread. In other words, Tolkien is able to deepen our sense of danger while simultaneously easing the possible nightmares--and, at the same time, indulging his own creative whimsy.

for the record, I'm quite in tune with your point that the story is a children's story--see my comments on the first thread. And your suggestion that the goblin song represents a different style is I think quite plausible, especially considering Tolkiens comments in "A Secret Vice" and what has been suggested by Roderick McGillis, that nonsense is a means of dealing with unpleasant realities. When reality is too much with us, nonsense is a means of reassurance.

As for the Translator Conceit, that hasn't appeared directly in the story yet, although we do have a variable narrator, so on a naive first reading, I'm not sure that's something we can legitimately consider--although if this thread is about naive first readings I'm of course not sure.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I'm not quite sure it is as clear as that, because Tolkien spent some time trying to "redeem" the orcs, at least as far as we can tell in the Letters, which of course are always a private correspondence between two people.

I will throw a wrench into the works, though, and suggest that 'reading backwards' from The Silm to TH won't work. Certainly Tolkien must have been working on his mythology as he was writing TH, but there's nary a mention of hobbits in The Silm which Christopher Tolkien produced, nor in HoMe. TH was an independent story from the Legendarium, as far as I know (and I could be wrong as I'm not the strongest on Silm history.) While the percolation of ideas which Tolkien went through might well have held all stories in balance, I'm not sure we can take things in CT's The Silm and read them into TH. Tolkien certainly struggled after the fact to work TH consistently into LotR, but I'm not sure we can take The Silm to explicate areas which might seem inconsistent with LotR.

I guess you're right here. Although I read somewhere (ie on the Downs) that JRRT started writing TH with THe Sil in mind, so that the first is part of the second (like, for example, the Lay of Leithian is part on The Sil). But at that point The Sil was not like we know it today either. So you're right.