Visit The *EVEN NEWER* Barrow-Downs Photo Page |
|
01-05-2013, 11:05 AM | #1 | ||||||||||||||
Spectre of Decay
|
Fattest of the Dwarves
It may not have been mentioned very often, so it's probably worth pointing out that fat Bombur, the fattest of the Dwarves, was immensely fat. From his enormous fatness (which caused him to be known as Fat Bombur) derives the humour of his being rather fat and unfit; always falling on top of other characters or needing to be carried; and always thinking, talking or dreaming about food. This is, of course, the only thing that fat people ever do, which makes it hilariously funny; and this is why Bombur (who as you may recall was somewhat portly) is so side-splittingly hilarious.
Why am I bringing this up now? Well, apparently there are still those who don't think that Tolkien rather labours the point that Bombur was fat. I have therefore looked up every reference to Bombur in The Hobbit, and will proceed to share them all with you, after which you too will be able to share in the bottomless well of cheap laughs that is a Bombur Fatty McFatfat sentence. Page references are from the George Allen and Unwin fourth edition hardback. Bombur is first mentioned on page 18, arriving at Bag End with Thorin, Bifur and Bofur: Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
After he has fallen into the stream and been duly recovered by his companions, they indulge in some general reported grumbling about his clumsiness (unfair, given that he has been all-but knocked down by a leaping hart), and when he is again mentioned a couple of paragraphs later (p. 127) it is with yet another comment about his weight. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
In the following chapter, Bofur and Bombur are trapped in the valley as an enraged Smaug approaches (p. 187). Quote:
Bombur goes unmentioned again until p. 206 (Not at Home), where his comment on their situation is predictably of a gastronomic nature. Quote:
From then on, apart from being woken up as Bilbo keeps his promise to wake him at midnight, Bombur receives no significant mention. He survives the Battle of Five Armies (suggesting more martial prowess than his description thus far would appear to merit) and is much later encountered in LR, described by Glóin as being too fat to walk to the table unaided and requiring the efforts of six young dwarves to share the load of carrying him. Bombur appears or is mentioned The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on twenty-three occasions, and on seventeen of those he is either described as being fat, talking or dreaming about food, or causing trouble by being too heavy. When he's not being hilariously fat he's being clumsy and oafish: falling over on Thorin, falling into the enchanted water or imagining a pratfall to his death on the Lonely Mountain. Were it not for his performance in the battle against the trolls and his assault on the spider it would be difficult to see what Thorin saw in him as a companion. Perhaps he was another of Gandalf's choices, or perhaps it was a case of nepotism. It does seem rather unfair, though, to drag him all over creation and drop him into all sorts of horrible situations for what threadbare scraps of amusement arise from so doing. Rather more amusement can be derived from parodying Tolkien's use of Bombur, so I shall conclude by doing so once again. Since Bombur was the fattest dwarf, being immensely fat, round, corpulent and morbidly obese, he was often known as 'Fat Bombur' or 'Bombur the Fat', by virtue of his enormous girth, fat face and the fact that he was really quite fat. He was immensely fond of pork pies, because that's what fat people eat; but he would eat them with salad in the belief that this would make them less fattening, because that's another thing that amusingly fat people do. As I may have mentioned, Bombur "of the Nine Bellies" was a bit of a porker, and repeatedly did amusing things that are quite typical of fat people in general, like complaining about small portions, falling over and generally being fatter than everyone else in a profitless and non-practical way. Also he was fat, which I'm not sure I mentioned before. Did I mention earlier that our Tolkien conversations in Finland weren't often very high in the brow?
__________________
Man kenuva métim' andúne? Last edited by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh; 01-06-2013 at 03:46 PM. Reason: I misquoted Kryten, which would never do |
||||||||||||||
01-05-2013, 11:31 AM | #2 |
Laconic Loreman
|
Makes me wonder if instead of counting calories, dwarves count bomburs? bomburies? bombalories? And how would they measure it? You burn food to measure the calories of course, but can't exactly burn Bombur.
__________________
Fenris Penguin
|
01-05-2013, 12:08 PM | #3 |
Spectre of Decay
|
Dwarves don't need to measure calorific content because all of their food is inside Bombur, causing him to break furniture hilariously. They just weigh him and divide the result by the number of things missing from the larder.
__________________
Man kenuva métim' andúne? |
01-05-2013, 12:19 PM | #4 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
Posts: 9,916
|
Maybe they took him along as..well bait isn't quite the right word ... more a last ditch diversionary tactic like when in the Big Bang Theory the physicists upset someone who threatens violence and Sheldon tells Leonard as they flee that he doesn't need to outrun their pursuer only leonard.
__________________
“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
01-05-2013, 12:33 PM | #5 | |||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,606
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
*Of course, that was not possible because of the way the whole story develops. The Dwarves go from comfortable places around the Shire further and further into the wilderness, into more and more dangerous places with less and less resources, so they cannot, unfortunately, grow fatter and fatter, but rather the opposite. However, we can see that Tolkien did not let his dream disappear completely, and led it to an eucatastrophe with the remark in LotR, where Bombur, finally in the place of peace and plenty, has the room to become as fat as he can get.
__________________
"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
|||
01-05-2013, 01:04 PM | #6 | |
Laconic Loreman
|
Quote:
I would think his fingers were too fat to play such instruments, having small keyholes and requiring inhaling/exhaling to play, don't want Bombur to faint from it. And Thorin's string instrument would be too delicate for him. With a drum he could easily pull out and rhythmically bang away.
__________________
Fenris Penguin
|
|
01-05-2013, 01:23 PM | #7 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
Posts: 9,916
|
Another thing is that to maintain his weight Bombur must have been snaffling far more than his share of rations when awake since heavier folk burn off more calories walking the same distance and should have lost weight even when unconscious. I don't care how big boned or slow metabolised he is.
__________________
“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
01-05-2013, 01:51 PM | #8 | |||
Princess of Skwerlz
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: where the Sea is eastwards (WtR: 6060 miles)
Posts: 7,645
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Also, playing the drum need not have indicated clumsiness - he would actually have been the one responsible for keeping time so that all musicians would stay together.
__________________
'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...' |
|||
01-05-2013, 01:57 PM | #9 | ||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,606
|
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
||
01-05-2013, 02:03 PM | #10 | |||||
Spectre of Decay
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
Man kenuva métim' andúne? |
|||||
01-06-2013, 04:11 AM | #11 | |
Wisest of the Noldor
|
Quote:
__________________
"Even Nerwen wasn't evil in the beginning." –Elmo. |
|
01-06-2013, 06:28 AM | #12 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
Posts: 9,916
|
Searching the History of the Hobbit forsomething about Radagast I have fpound the appendix on dwarf names Bomburr in the Voluspa is translated as tubby.
__________________
“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
01-13-2013, 12:50 PM | #13 | |
Woman of Secret Shadow
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: in hollow halls beneath the fells
Posts: 4,607
|
This is too funny
Quote:
But then, many opera singers (who obviously have huge lungs) are fat too!
__________________
He bit me, and I was not gentle. |
|
01-14-2013, 04:13 PM | #14 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 785
|
I detect a Red Dwarf reference! I suppose once he got hot and bothered after all that running and danger Bombur was at risk of becoming a red dwarf himself.
I've always been rather bemused by how many times the Professor feels the need to remind us that Bombur was fat. Is it worth mentioning, however, the notion in the 1960 Hobbit that Bombur and his brother and cousin were Thorin's "attendants"? I've always had the impression that these three who were not of Durin's Line (and therefore seemingly a bit more "common" and "working class" than the majority of the company) were potentially present in something of a more professional capacity. Perhaps this can explain why Bombur was present despite the fact that, as Professor Tolkien is eager to remind us, he was fat. |
01-15-2013, 07:58 AM | #15 | |
Deadnight Chanter
|
Quote:
Well, I may argue that for the 19 chapters worth of story for [younger] children that's not that much (but I actually won't, let it stand) I have another point to make (as I've pondered the issue the very day I raised my doubts with regards multitude of instances of mentioning Bombur as fat. For it seems to me it's well-reasoned (as I've mentioned in my comment to Squatter's post on FB) - based on my own experience of bedtime reading to my kids - you have to constantly remind them about certain facts - even if they do seem already well established to yourself - so I see the reason of constantly stressing that particular fat guy's fat (I'm reading (or re-reading rather, for 10th time on end it seems now) Roverandom currently to my elder kid, so we are repeatedly rehearsing which of the Rovers is the oldest, and what dreams Man-on-the-Moon makes and on and on and on )
__________________
Egroeg Ihkhsal - Would you believe in the love at first sight? - Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time! |
|
|
|