The Hobbit (6 points)

    I honestly feel ashamed that I call myself a nerd and haven't read or watched anything by JRR Tolkien until this week. After reading The Hobbit, though, I really do understand what all the hype is about. The story feels like the backbone for so many high fantasy stories that have come after, both the good and bad parts. The book felt way shorter than it actually was because the sense of immersion was so strong. Now, that may have been because I was listening to a fan-made audiobook with music and sound effects, but I think it also has to do with how well thought out the actual world of Middle Earth is. What knowledge I have acquired of Tolkien has been from cultural osmosis, but I definitely know how much time he put into the worldbuilding shows in The Hobbit. Because Tolkien’s worldbuilding was such an enchanting part of his writing, I know there is a pressure for other fantasy authors to worldbuild as much as he did to even be thought of as a good writer.

    I have also been aware of the racism that was intrinsic with the creation of Middle Earth, and I was waiting for the very blatant dismissal of dwarves and greedy, humans as corrupted, and goblins as inherently evil. It did happen, but I was genuinely surprised by the way it was reasoned within the novel. Excluding the goblins, I found a really funny connection between the way the dwarves and elves are written about and the way my dad talks about all of the families that have lived around our area for such long times. I’m pretty much 100% PA Dutch and my dad’s side of the family has lived in this area for at least four generations to my knowledge, and because of that, there are a lot of recognizable last names. The way Bilbo talks about the dwarves in their habits is almost the same way my dad will talk about the “Beils” and how they act and go about things. I feel like that is what Tolkien was at least reminded by when writing these segments, so I don’t think he was intentionally trying to push racial stereotyping. Despite whether it was intentional or not, it could be interpreted as intentional, which in itself is still damning by ignorance.

    Also, it was very entertaining reading The Hobbit and pointing out all of the mechanics and lore that Gary Gygax basically just ripped straight out of the book for D&D. He really just pulled everything about hobbits out and put it in 1E and just changed the name. I knew that was the case, but just reading it and picking out literally word-for-word mechanics about halflings, dwarves, and elves was the funniest part of reading The Hobbit.