History Headscratchers / TheHobbit

** In ''Unfinished Tales'', Gandalf actually addresses this question head-on and speculates that it was in fact apathy or "idiocy" on Sauron's part as another poster mentioned above: "I think that the Dark Power had desired nothing from him except the Ring only, and when he had taken that he troubled no further, but [[EvilIsPetty just flung the broken prisoner into the pits to rave until he died]]. [[ForWantOfANail A small oversight; but it proved fatal.]] [[LampshadeHanging Small oversights often do.]]" Keep in mind that Thráin somehow managed to conceal the map and key from Sauron, suggesting that Sauron couldn't even be bothered to have him searched properly.

** Magic (Literally). Mirkwood as a whole is under heavy magic, which is why it is so easy to get lost and turned around once off the path, and why the river that runs through it puts you to sleep. The path is explicitly kept clear of overgrowth by magic, and presumably part of that magic also keeps foul beats off it as well. It is even considered that the remnants of Elvish magic are why the spiders abandon their pursuit right when Bilbo leads the Dwarves into one of their used fire circles. Also, getting slightly segued into predator psychology, while on the path the dwarves were a prepared force that could have put up a strong fight if attacked. Predator animals will often specifically avoid challenging prey that they think can fight back. Lost and confused off the path, and blinded by literal darkness, they're suddenly a lot more vulnerable. It could be the spiders were pacing them for the whole time, just waiting for them to appear vulnerable.

* Also why dit Bilbo confess to stealing and giving the Arkenstone to the people of Lake Town? If he'd just keep his mouth shut while the emissaries would come up with a lie that they pried the jewel out of Smaug's corpse (and it would come off as plausible since indeed many jewels got stuck between the dragon's scales) Bilbo could've saved himself much trouble. I get it that he's an honest chap but also pragmatic enough to lie when it proves useful to him.

* At the very beginning in what way did Bilbo "beg" Gandalf to send him on an adventure? Maybe I can't read between words properly but even Bilbo's ambiguously specific denial doesn't seem like a subtle "I want to go to an adveture" to me.
* How is it that Gandalf emphatically warns Bilbo and the dwarves not to mention skins or any other animal product around Beorn, yet later the book casually mentions that Beorn provided them with water skins? Were they made from goblin skin?

** Notably, during the Company's stay at his home, Beorn snuck off and killed a warg, afterwards nailing its skin to a tree outside his house, so he wasn't adverse to skinning his enemies. Perhaps the water-skins were made from wargs he'd killed in the past?

* Why is it that the Dwarves are so woefully underprepared for their journey? They know they're going on a dangerous quest and attempt to kill Smaug who has proven so far to be unbeatable. Yet until they find the Trolls cave they carry no weapons or any of such sort, their supplies run low often, they keep getting into predictaments and if not for Bilbo and Gandalf I'd be surprised if they could make it out of The Shire without getting into trouble. Except for Glóin and another one (Óin I think) carrying lighter fluid and oil for torches they don't really have anything. Did Thorin not realize that hey maybe going into Troll infested forests and Goblin infested mountains you might need to protect yourselves with weapons and armor in case you ran into trouble?

** Smaug beat a dwarven army with embedded defenses and a ring of power. Thorin didn't even bring a sword. Little bit of a gap there.
*** Of couse, Thorin and company may have figured that if Smaug can beat a dwarven army with embedded defenses and a ring of power, then why bother to bring a lot of heavy armor and weapons that are just going to be useless against him anyway?
*** Pretty much the above, they most probably saw that the brute force of armies don't help, so they decided to try the sneaky way around it. Hence why they even need a burglar in the first place.
** All that being said, what was Thorin's plan to retake the Mountain, anyway? What was he going to ''do'', exactly, with a handful of Dwarves, a Hobbit, and a Wizard who can't be relied on to actually be there half the time? The Dwarves don't even have up-to-date information about whether the Dragon is even still there, let alone how they can take him down! We as readers know that the whole Quest for Erebor was orchestrated by Gandalf as part of his elaborate plan to eliminate Smaug, but Thorin doesn't know this. In fact Thorin doesn't seem to know much about the situation, nor does he have the patience or humility to ask for help. He comes across less as a great King of Dwarves and more as a hotheaded, stubborn fool, leading a bunch of bigger fools blindly through the wilderness.

*** Only in the movies. In the book the plan is simply to go and scout out the mountain, then think of some way to deal with Smaug, with Bilbo along to steal what treasure he could.

** I was always under the impression that Five Armies in reference are indeed dwarves, elves, men, goblins and wargs. The eagles must not count because they're more... air force? Beorn's kind of an army of one...

* I just wondered about when Gandalf tricked Beorn into having so many visitors by having them only come a few at a time until there were all in. Did Gandalf pull the same trick with Bilbo at the start of the book? Because the dwarfs came to his door bit by bit as well until the last few fell into the room with Gandalf, was this to stop Bilbo turning them away at once like beorn would have? Knowing Gandalf it could be true or it might be coincidence.

* Probably not an answer for this one to be found, but how, exactly, did three swords (well, two swords and a dagger) forged in the greatest Elf-kingdom of the the First Age wind up gathering dust in a Troll hoard on the other side of the world six thousand years later? I'll bet there's a great story there somewhere...

** That's one possible origin for considering 13 unlucky, but no one seems really clear on whether it's the only explanation. Pre-Christian mathematicians really liked 12, with its easily-divisible nature (12 months and a 12 hour clock both pre-date Christianity), so 13 might have been seen as unlucky in ancient cultures simply because it was one more than the "perfect" number.
** Also, given that Middle Earth is supposed to be the history of our world (and that Tolkien was a Christian and Eru is sort-of the Christian God) it could be argued Judas's future actions could still be the reason for 13 being considered unlucky, even before they'd actually happened. Tolkien's friend C.S.Lewis used a similar argument to explain why pagan mythologies often seemed to come close to certain Christian ideas.

** Their complaint was that they only had mutton ''meat'', since they preferred to eat human meat. Presumably they eat the usual accompaniments along with their human meat (Bread, cheese, etc.) they're just upset that their main course is sub-par. Also, as we see with them eating the mutton, they will eat 'normal' food when they can't eat people, even though they grouse about it, so that stockpile could be the "I don't like it, but it's better than nothing" pile.
* Why are the dwarves safe when crossing the path for two weeks, but the instant they leave they are captured by spiders? What about the path would make the spiders avoid it?
** Magic (Literally). Mirkwood as a whole is under heavy magic, which is why it is so easy to get lost and turned around once off the path, and why the river that runs through it puts you to sleep. The path is explicitly kept clear of overgrowth by magic, and presumably part of that magic also keeps foul beats off it as well. It is even considered that the remnants of Elvish magic are why the spiders abandon their pursuit right when the Bilbo leads the dwarves into one of their used fire circle. Also, getting slightly segued into predator psychology, while on the path the dwarves were a prepared force that could have put up a strong fight if attacked. Predator animals will often specifically avoid challenging prey that they think can fight back. Lost and confused off the path, and blinded by literal darkness, they're suddenly a lot more vulnerable. It could be the spiders were pacing them for the whole time, just waiting for them to appear vulnerable.

* When the men of Lake-town and the wood elves both demand a share of the treasure after the death of the dragon Smaug, Bilbo instantly agrees with Bard, the new king of Lake-town, and the wood elf king, that there is more than enough treasure to go around, and that all three factions should get a share. Now, Bilbo is clearly presented as being in the right, and as being the reasonable, sensible one, in contrast to the greedy and intransigent dwarf king Thorin. Except that Bilbo is offering to give away treasure that does not belong to him; he could offer to pay the men and elves out of his own fourteenth of the treasure, but does not, even though he ends up keeping much less than a fourteenth anyway. Secondly, the Lake-towners have a reasonable claim, since they helped the dwarves and were, after all, the ones who killed Smaug in the first place, and Bilbo and the dwarves brought Smaug's wrath down on Lake-town, leading to much suffering for its residents. But the wood elves actively hindered the dwarves, imprisoning them without any provocation. Why should they get a share? In fact, how are the wood elves any different from the goblins in this story? The book version is somewhat different, since there the elves are acting in conjunction with the humans, so the elf claim can be argued to be subsidiary to or an extension of the human claim. In the animated movie, however, the elves have simply shown up with their army and demanded a share of what is, after all, Thorin and the dwarves' rightful property, and no one thinks to point out that this is nothing but plain banditry.

** In the book, it is also pointed out that a goodly amount of the gold was taken by Smaug from Dale, so Bard and his people have a legitimate claim to a share of the treasure.
** When they arrive the elves mention having suffered from attacks by Smaug, which they blame the dwarves for since their hoard was what drew him to the region. They're basically suing for damages.

*** The probelm with the first two replies is that they begin "In the book." In the book, the story is a little different, as I pointed out in the original comment. As for the second two, the elves do indeed have a grievance with Smaug, but they cannot justly ask the dwarves to pay for damages caused by Smaug. That's like arguing that since I have a nice house, that tempted a thief into robbing my house, and, in the process, the thief stole your car to make his getaway, therefore I owe you for the loss of your car.

** In one of the ''Unfinished Tales'', it's stated that Gandalf had two reasons for helping Thorin on this quest. First, he knew Smaug needed to be dealt with lest Sauron come up with a way to use him. Second, he wanted to re-establish a Dwarf kingdom at the Lonely Mountain. He was afraid that Sauron would use the same route that Bilbo and the Dwarves used in order to attack Rivendell, and that without the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and the men of Dale, there weren't enough "good" people in the North to stop him. Finally, it's also implied that on some level, Gandalf had retained enough of his divine knowledge to have an inkling that something else important was going to happen if Bilbo came on this quest.
** Also, as to the "something more important to do", he did, in fact several times after getting over the Misty Mountains he tells the Dwarves he has pressing matters elsewhere, is already running late, and has to go, till finally he does leave them before entering Mirkwood. The pressing business he was hurrying off to? Driving Sauron out of Dol Guldor with the rest of the White Council.

*** Tolkien did indeed think of The Hobbit as being separate from the invented universe he'd been working on for years, and it shows up in his early drafts; for example, in the first edition of The Hobbit, Bilbo finds the ring and keeps it, and then meets Gollum and has a riddle-game with him because Gollum wants to eat him. Gollum loses and agrees to give Bilbo a present -- namely, his magic ring, which Tolkien (at the time he was originally writing The Hobbit) just thought of as a way of making yourself invisible. Gollum goes off to get said ring and can't find it (because Bilbo has it) and is all apologetic, and actually ''shows Bilbo the way out'' -- and that's the last we see of him. Years later, when Tolkien was trying to think up a sequel for The Hobbit, he had the idea of centring it on Bilbo's ring, and {{Retcon}}ned the ring to be an evil, powerful artefact crafted by Sauron. This meant that when his publishers brought out a second edition of The Hobbit, he completely rewrote the stuff with Gollum, making the ring into the Precious and lighting the spark that Gollum hated "Baggins" and wanted revenge. Like all of Tolkien's books, the tale (in the words of WordOfGod) "grew in the telling".

* Rather than steal the Arkenstone, give it to Thorin's supposed "enemies", and pissing the shit out of Thorin (''[[OhCrap AND THE 500 dwarven warriors from the Iron Hills sent as reinforcements,]]''), why didn't Bilbo simply offer his fourteenth share for the sake of peace to begin with? In the end, he only wound up with two small chests of gold&silver anyway, he knew from the start there was no way he could have lugged his entire share home. He even said, after the Arkenstone was shown to Thorin, that Thorin could use Bilbo's fourteenth share to pay for the exchange. Why not offer his share to begin with? Y'know, rather than make everyone more hostile by stealing a valuable heirloom ''and giving it to their enemies''. I know it all worked out fine in the end, but still.

*** Bilbo may at that point have been suffering from the doubts planted by Smaug, over whether or not Thorin actually intended to pay him at all, once his job of getting to the treasure was done. [[JerkassHasAPoint From Thorin's later behavior]] this is understandable. Also, Thorin had come out and stated that he refused to pay ''anything'' while there were armed men and especially the hated Elves at his gates; this probably included anything Bilbo offered to pay. He would likely have been refused permission to turn over even his own share, as it would have been seen as Thorin capitualting.
*** there is also the One Ring in Bilbo's possession as well. The thing is semi-sentient and essentially exists to cause evil. It might have motivated Bilbo into stealing the Arkenstone and handing it other to Thorin's "enemies". The ring was able to inspire unwarranted homicidal rage in a hobbit (gollum) of all creatures for crying out loud.

** It's just his own supposition, but Gandalf directly states that the trolls must have plundered a dragon's hoard to pick up these swords in the intervening time since Gondolin was destroyed.

* If the Trolls had so much food already stocked in their cave for Thorin and Company to replenish their own supplies with, why were they outside of the cave complaining about having nothing but mutton to eat? If the Trolls can't or don't want to eat the kinds of food (which was mostly untouched, as the dwarves noted) they already put into their own cave, why did they bother putting it in there at all?

* If the Trolls had so much food already stocked in their cave for Thorin and Company to replenish their own supplies with, why were they outside of the cave complaining about having nothing but mutton to eat? If the trolls can't or don't want to eat the kinds of food they already put into their own cave, why did they bother putting it in the cave at all?