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Old 01-05-2013, 11:05 AM   #1
The Squatter of Amon Rûdh
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Pipe 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:
This last [hood] belonged to Thorin, an enormously important dwarf, in fact no other than the great Thorin Oakenshield himself, who was not at all pleased at falling flat on Bilbo's mat with Bifur, Bofur and Bombur on top of him. For one thing Bombur was immensely fat and heavy.
Two pages later Bombur is mentioned to have produced a drum, after which no attention is paid him for twenty pages. In Roast Mutton he and Bifur are said to have "fought like mad, as dwarves will when cornered." (p. 40) At his next mention, however, he returns to corpulent form.

Quote:
'Why O why did I ever leave my hobbit-hole!' said poor Mr Baggins bumping up and down on Bombur's back.
Why, O why did I ever bring a wretched little hobbit on a treasure hunt!' said poor Bombur, who was fat, and staggered along with the sweat dripping down his nose in heat and terror.
As the company approaches Beorn's hall, Gandalf instructs the dwarves to arrive in pairs, finishing rather unkindly with the following (p.104).
Quote:
Bombur is fattest and will do for two, he had better come alone and last.
A few pages later, Bombur arrives:

Quote:
In came Bifur and Bofur. 'And me!' gasped Bombur puffing up behind. He was fat, and also angry at being left till last. He refused to wait five minutes, and followed immediately after the other two.
Crossing the enchanted stream in Flies and Spiders, Bombur is again appointed as tail-end Charlie, at which he protests (p. 126).

Quote:
'I'm always last and I don't like it,' said Bombur. 'It's somebody else's turn today.'
'You should not be so fat. As you are, you must be with the last and lightest boatload. Don't start grumbling against orders, or something bad will happen to you.'
This last pep-talk presumably comes from Thorin, whose innovative leadership style is already manifesting itself.

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:
Bombur slept on with a smile on his fat face, as if he no longer cared for all the troubles that vexed them.
On the next page, the point is driven home once more.

Quote:
...they were burdened by the heavy body of Bombur, which they had to carry along with them as best they could, taking the wearisome task in turns of four each while the others shared their packs. If these had not become all too light in the last few days, they would never have managed it; but a slumbering and smiling Bombur was a poor exchange for packs filled with food however heavy.
After a brief reference to the fact that he's still asleep on p. 129, Bombur finally awakens at p.130-1, predictably thinking about food.

Quote:
He could not make out where he was at all, or why he felt so hungry; for he had forgotten everything that had happened since they started their journey that May morning long ago. The last thing that he remembered was the party at the hobbit's house, and they had great difficulty in making him believe their tale of all the many adventures they had had since. When he heard that there was nothing to eat, he sat down and wept, for he felt very weak and wobbly in the legs. 'Why ever did I wake up!' he cried. 'I was having such beautiful dreams. I dreamed I was walking in a forest rather like this one, only lit with torches on the trees and lamps swinging from the branches and fires burning on the ground; and there was a great feast going on on, going on for ever. A woodland king was there with a crown of leaves, and there was a merry singing, and I could not count or describe the things there were to eat and drink.'
Thorin's testy reply to this concludes with "...you are no joke to carry even after weeks of short commons," but Bombur somehow fails to take the hint and continues to complain. At last he stops dead in his tracks and petulantly announces his intention to go back to sleep.

Quote:
All the same he suddenly refused to go a step further and flung himself on the ground. 'Go on, if you must,' he said. 'I'm just going to lie here and sleep and dream of food, if I can't get it any other way. I hope I never wake up again.' (p.133)
Later on the page, when Bilbo is found sleeping, his first talk is of dinner, at which his companions announce that he has "gone like Bombur," the first glimmer of a suggestion that the Elven magic might be causing all this somnolent feasting, and still later the Elven king is "very much as Bombur had described." The next reference to the Billy Bunter of Erebor is, however, another fat jibe.

Quote:
To the fattest of these bundles the spider went - 'It is poor old Bombur, I'll bet,' thought Bilbo - and nipped hard at the nose that stuck out. There was a muffled yelp inside, and a toe shot up and kicked the spider straight and hard. There was life in Bombur still.
Bombur's weight is again mentioned after the battle with the spiders (p. 140).

Quote:
Poor old Bombur was so exhausted - he was the fattest and had been constantly pinched and poked - that he just rolled off the branch and fell plop on to the ground, fortunately on to leaves, and lay there.
Having not been mentioned at all in the intervening pages, Bombur crops up again in A Warm Welcome, being removed from his barrel (p. 167): "Poor fat Bombur was asleep or senseless," after which he disappears again until the company is climbing up to its last camp on the Lonely Mountain in On the Doorstep. In an innovative new twist, here it is Bombur who complains about his size (p. 178).

Quote:
Bombur would not come up either the rope or the path.

'I am too fat for such fly-walks,' he said 'I should turn dizzy and tread on my beard, and then you would be thirteen again. And the knotted ropes are too slender for my weight.' Luckily for him that was not true, as you will see.
This looks very much to me like someone whose self-respect has been repeatedly undermined by incessant references to his weight problem. It calls up a frankly tragic image of poor Bombur eating a pork pie in the dark and crying, like a sad, fat dragon with no friends. See? It's not so funny now, is it, Ronald, you heartless swine? Maybe now everyone will show Bombur a bit of respect and support. Or more likely they won't.

In the following chapter, Bofur and Bombur are trapped in the valley as an enraged Smaug approaches (p. 187).

Quote:
Up came Bofur and all was safe. Up came Bombur, puffing and blowing while the ropes creaked, and still all was safe. Up came some tools and bundles of stores, and then the danger was upon them.
The more perceptive among you may have noticed that here Bombur is out of breath as usual and his weight is straining the ropes. This is because Bombur is, as may have been mentioned, the fattest dwarf, and therefore very heavy.

Bombur goes unmentioned again until p. 206 (Not at Home), where his comment on their situation is predictably of a gastronomic nature.

Quote:
'It's a cold, lonesome place,' said Bombur. 'There may be drink, but I see no sign of food. A dragon would always be hungry in such parts'
When Bilbo sneaks out with the Arkenstone, it's Bombur who's on watch. Amazingly he manages four whole sentences without mentioning eating, but then ruins it all by saying "I would give a good deal for the feel of a strong drink in my throat, and for a soft bed after a good supper!" Tolkien further says of Bombur that "he could sleep at any time, and ever since the adventure in the forest he was always trying to recapture the beautiful dreams he had then."

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?
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Last edited by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh; 01-06-2013 at 03:46 PM. Reason: I misquoted Kryten, which would never do
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