XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien
From: the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm
On Sat, 05 Jan 2013 22:18:24 -0500, ~consul wrote:
>
> 'tis on this 1/1/2013 7:38 AM, wrote Sandman thus to say:
> > Steuard Jensen wrote:
> > Spoiler space removed!
> >
> >> I'm moderately confused by the changes to the backstory. Why make
> >> Thror corrupted by gold and Thrain a maddened coward?
> > Corrupted by gold... well, that was odd.. But in what way did you
> > percieve Thrain to be a maddened coward? I missed that.
>
> I don't know about the coward part, but in later half of the book,
> there is much text of the gold lust. Bilbo, with true hobbit
> willpower, brushes it off, while Thorin mouths off at Bard and the
> Elven King reps.
I don't think that is hobbit willpower, any more than Tom Bombadil
exerted willpower to avoid being corrupted by ring. Tom simply
wasn't attracted by power.
Gold simply didn't interest Bilbo, not past the point of getting
enough to live on. Remember that on the return journey, when they
dug up the trolls' hoard, Bilbo suggested that Gandalf take all of
it. He wasn't being self sacrificing; he simply didn't think he
needed it. (Gandalf insisted that they share, and that was a good
thing as Bilbo did eventually have to buy back lots of his own
property.)
--
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