|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
uncle Iorlas
Nargothrond
Mar 29 2025, 7:04pm
Post #1 of 56
(21712 views)
Shortcut
|
|
on the character of life in the Shire
|
Can't Post
|
|
I’ve been ruminating a bit about Shire culture, and what we can surmise about it that isn’t said outright in the text. Maybe I was too quick as a boy to conclude that the archetypical hobbit would be Bungo Baggins: solid, comfortable, predictable, respectable, risk-avoidant. Or maybe Hamfast Gamgee and the crowd down at the pub, issuing firm opinions on matters they know nothing about, most especially labeling anything not residing in their immediate geographical environs as queer and therefore suspect. Proudfoots who proudly can’t even get their own names right.
Even Bungo himself deserves some rigorous thought. Since we are told that prior to Bilbo’s encounter with Gandalf and subsequent dwarf involvement, he was shaping up to be an apparent exact copy of his father, we can presume we’ve got a pretty precise idea of what Bungo was like from day to day. He was friendly, maybe a little bit of a wit in conversation, keen to make a good impression with his proper manners and his grand smials and his generous table and his sartorial splendor. He saw himself as something of a public figure, a man about town. Perhaps, like his son, he was gifted in games of the throwing and catching variety, and keen of eyesight. Quite likely, like Bilbo, he was expansively well-read; we are told that Bilbo could do all sorts of things there was no time to enumerate for us, and that he had read with a breathless interest about even more things he couldn’t or wouldn’t personally do, including proceedings both burglarious and various. None of that began after he met Thorin and company, so when we are told he was an exact copy of his father we can presume this was what Bungo was like as well.
And there was one more thing about Bungo, something that is never named or described or mentioned but which has to have been true nevertheless: there was something about him that won the heart of Belladonna Took.
The famous Belladonna Took. One of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took. She was famous. Why on earth was she famous? Bungo had something about him that nabbed him a rock star, in Shire terms, for a wife. Not his money; she came from greater wealth herself. Not his respectability? She was famous.
We are told the bit of Shire mythology about there being fairy blood in the Tooks somewhere up in the generations, which seems like a distant echo of Beren and Luthien, scaled down. I do not dismiss that story lightly; there’s room in this landscape for fairies even if we haven’t seen any other mention of them, and anyway I take the moderately perverse stance of regarding the Hobbit as no less authoritative a text than its sequel. But regardless, we are told that Tooks still have an adventurer appear among their family from time to time, that once in a while a Took will slip off to do unrespectable things and the family will hush it up. But even that description seems somewhat beggared by the single remark that we can be certain Belladonna never went on any adventures after her wedding.
What else can this mean but that she did indeed have adventures, plural, before her wedding day? That seems to significantly raise the apparent incidence of adventures in the Shire population overall, even if this applies strictly and solely to Tooks, which is nowhere said. And this is Bilbo’s mother. Can he possibly not have known? Can Bungo possibly not have known? Why else was she famous, if not precisely as an adventurer?
Maybe, since it is the narrator who calls her “famous,” we can suppose that the general Shire populace didn’t know about her adventures during her own lifetime. But I am drawn to the idea that Bungo won her over, not just by being generous and civil and decent to everyone around him (which ain’t nothing), but because he, as an avid reader of stories about all sorts of things he wouldn’t undertake to do himself, was someone she could tell all about her dubious doings, and he not only wouldn’t berate her, but perhaps he ate it up. She would have been a font of grand tales, just the sort he loved (in the comfort of his favorite chair by the fire). Speculation, of course, but there had to have been something.
At any rate, to step back from those particular characters; we know shirriffs were generally few (since absent any specific fascist coup, the threat in the Shire wasn’t usually from within). But the bounders are another matter. How many of the Shire-hobbits had done a tour beating the bounds by middle age, and how much beating was actually involved in a given year? How much work and energy did the Brandybucks spend in a typical year to keep the Old Forest in abeyance? For how long had the easy peace of the Shire been established, really, and how much more dangerous were their circumstances beforehand—and to what extent was even the life of the Shire at the end of the third age, when we know it best, still colored by the real dangers around it and the occasional—or maybe not so very occasional—deeds of derring-do those dangers required of them?
|
|
|
Meneldor
Doriath
Mar 29 2025, 7:44pm
Post #2 of 56
(21365 views)
Shortcut
|
(said to have 'gone to sea' in his youth)*
*That's one of my favorite notes in the appendices.
I dearly wish the Professor had written his story. In my imagination, it would have elements of Treasure Island, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Moby Dick.
My impression is that adventurous hobbits are likely to be snubbed in polite society, but they have their admirers, especially among youngsters who have yet to settle into their comfortable everyday Shire lives.
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. -Psalm 107
|
|
|
Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Mar 29 2025, 9:28pm
Post #3 of 56
(20482 views)
Shortcut
|
|
"There was something about him that won the heart of Belladonna Took."
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
Maybe that says it all.
|
|
|
CuriousG
Gondolin
Mar 30 2025, 2:28am
Post #4 of 56
(19277 views)
Shortcut
|
|
I had assumed that Belladonna Took was
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
famous for her beauty, but I like your suggestion that maybe she was famous for her adventures too. Did she make regular visits to Bree and the Grey Havens?
I'm not sure where else an adventurous hobbit could go without getting in over their head, unless they went to Rvendell and the Dunedain lands southwest of Rivendell? I guess I don't see even adventurous hobbits charging into Moria or Mount Gundabad and mowing down armies of orcs with their sword prowess, though the hobbits might be in traveling bands of say,10-20, and they could come across small orcs bands of similar size and fight them off. That seems more small-scale and in line with hobbit-flavor. Then they'd go back to The Green Dragon and the numbers would grow in the telling.
|
|
|
uncle Iorlas
Nargothrond
Mar 30 2025, 3:08am
Post #5 of 56
(19071 views)
Shortcut
|
Maybe! Parties of hobbits doing battle with squads of orcs is pretty heavy-duty, but I suppose not strictly unprecedented. Still, “adventures” can run the gamut from that to merely getting lost in the country and tipped over in a boat, or having an unsettling interaction with a tree, or hearing elves singing in the distance where no one would have thought to expect them, or who knows what. Setting to sea, as Meneldor points out. Maybe an exchange of tricksterish deceptions with a fairy of the wood—or with a farmer of the field. Any number of things. A hobbit might venture outside the bounds of the Shire after dark and be frightened silly by the apparition of a big man with a big sword stalking the hills, and get good mileage out of that story down the Perch, without anybody ever realizing the man was a Ranger keeping an eye on the Shire because he’d noticed signs of a troll’s passage too close for comfort. There’s adventures and adventures.
|
|
|
noWizardme
Gondolin
Apr 2 2025, 9:20am
Post #6 of 56
(13080 views)
Shortcut
|
|
"Attractive, psychoactive, dangerous"
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
... well that at least is the description of Atropa belladonna (Deadly nightshade), one likely source of Ms Took's name, since flower and plant names seem common among hobbits. And Tolkien did seem to enjoy word games with his names....
And these puns coud be (seen as) multi-level. For example Barliman Butterbur with the family name from Butterbur Petasites hybridus But the name contains both barley (with which the beer is brewed) and 'butt' - as in a barrel for storage, perhaps. So an appropriate name for an innkeeper.
Anyway, Belladonna, the beautiful lady with a dangerous side, seems to fit with your lovely idea that Belladonna the retired adventurer was a good match for Bungo the adventurer-by-proxy.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Apr 2 2025, 9:27am)
|
|
|
noWizardme
Gondolin
Apr 2 2025, 11:41am
Post #7 of 56
(12051 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Some elements are affectionate parody
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
Thinking about The Shire and its culture, I see some general-purpose (and therefore timeless) English Rural Idyll.
And I see some elements that seem like England from literature. For example, maybe it is not too hard to imagine the hobbit equivalent of Jane Austen's Mrs Bennett lining up her mariagable daughters and being well aware to the last pound shilling and pence of the 'worth' of those batchelor Bagginses.
And I see some elements that seem like a gentle parody of Edwardian and Victorian society. What are the tropes about that? On the one hand the include stifling propriety; on the other, wild adventures.
Now of course The Shire is only these things insofar as it suits Tolkien and his Tale. It does not seem to me that any elaborate parody or allegory is intended (though perhaps one could be found, given sufficient determination). But adventurers being a fact of life but not entirely a respectable one? That fits with this idea.
Let's remember too that the Baggins home starts out as children's literature. The comical explosion of the boys-own-adventure world into your parents stuffy lives is also a well-marked path.
And then later, in LOTR, Tolkien turns that to more serious effect. Hobbit society may seem -- may actually be -- absurd and parochial, but deep down hobbits are quite capable of being tough and resourceful. And in hard times that trait turns out to be more general than the outlier adventure Tooks would suggest.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
|
|
|
uncle Iorlas
Nargothrond
Apr 2 2025, 6:37pm
Post #8 of 56
(11512 views)
Shortcut
|
|
some parents are effectively a lament
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
I see some elements that seem like a gentle parody of Edwardian and Victorian society. What are the tropes about that? On the one hand the include stifling propriety; on the other, wild adventures.
Now of course The Shire is only these things insofar as it suits Tolkien and his Tale. It does not seem to me that any elaborate parody or allegory is intended (though perhaps one could be found, given sufficient determination). But adventurers being a fact of life but not entirely a respectable one? That fits with this idea.
Let's remember too that the Baggins home starts out as children's literature. The comical explosion of the boys-own-adventure world into your parents stuffy lives is also a well-marked path. And you must NOT leave the path, for any reason.
Your lens here, grounded in what was probably, for the Professor, a period of English culture barely further removed from everyday life than the realm of personal nostalgia, is really compelling. So much so that I begin to wonder if I was just lacking in the cultural training to see what an easy default it was for his mind (and readership) in the first place: we don’t talk about hobbits going on adventures, because that subject exists on the far side of the curtain of Respectability, but that doesn’t mean we don’t all know perfectly well that it’s going on all the time, maybe more than a strictly respectable person would imagine.
It feels plausible; a level of social complexity befitting real life. And once again, it shows Tolkien’s adroit touch with leaving a central truth unsaid.
ps kudos also for the exegesis on Butterbur’s name, that’s an unexpectedly dense wordplay that can hardly have been accidental in these hands. No notes.
|
|
|
Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Apr 2 2025, 7:46pm
Post #9 of 56
(11465 views)
Shortcut
|
|
" . . . a gentle parody . . . '
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
Yes, I always thought Tolkien was very much doing that. Not only giving us a picture of things he valued from those eras, but also some of the foibles and pitfalls.
And he tells us that, almost explicitly in Aragorn's words: "If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be."
|
|
|
uncle Iorlas
Nargothrond
Apr 2 2025, 7:57pm
Post #10 of 56
(11460 views)
Shortcut
|
It veers from the thread to ask this, but would the same be said of elves?
I’ve been thinking about elves again, partly because I finally got round to watching a couple episodes of the new show, and among other things I think their culture has been powerfully shaped by the very active satanic overlord who always shows up to lay waste any nice thing anybody has made until by the close of the first age the national character of the elves rests on a cornerstone of deep, unrelenting trauma. But had it been otherwise? Would they have been… simple?
Because of course the other possibility is that dear Aragorn is being something of a classist git right here?
|
|
|
Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Apr 2 2025, 8:59pm
Post #11 of 56
(11427 views)
Shortcut
|
is pretty much what everybody is in Lotr (and maybe in RL!), including possibly even Ghân-Buri-Ghan. And I think it's largely unconscious, at least on the part of the characters. Yes, I think there's an element of that in what Aragorn is saying.
And about the Elves if they'd had an unthreatened, unopposed environment: They weren't created to be simple-minded, but they had a tendency to be both insular and superior, which really is a form of simplistic thinking; and the absence of any real challenge would have made that attitude almost impervious to outside influences and opinions. A lot like the Shire, maybe, only with high art (of a sort. No Rembrandts or tortured Michelangelos) all over the place.
(This post was edited by Ethel Duath on Apr 2 2025, 9:00pm)
|
|
|
noWizardme
Gondolin
Apr 3 2025, 8:27am
Post #12 of 56
(10964 views)
Shortcut
|
|
I think Aragorn's outburst at Elrond's council is a great moment
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
It feels very out of character and so it's important to remember the circumstances, I think. Aragorn is pretty clearly referring to our friend Butterbur (whose name, I forgot earlier, also contains a reference to that soft, luxurious stuff, butter: most likely still rationed when Tolkien was writing). So Aragorn seems to be thinking about his difficulties in getting access to the hobbit 'walking holiday' party at Bree, and perhaps also about the terrifyingly rank amateurishness of our four fave hobbits at that point. For Aragorn however, it would have been clear that the stakes couldn't have been higher. Ultimate stakes for Middle-earth, for his own dynasty's project and for him personally if he is ever to marry Arwen.
I'm following Paul Kocher's excellent essay on Aragorn in Tolkien: Master of Middle Earth here, and I'll follow along further. Kocher assumes that by the time Aragorn meets Frodo (or certianly by the tie of Elrond's Council) Aragorn knows about the Rangers who died defending Sarn Ford in a brave but probably hopeless attempt to stop the Black Riders enering the Shire.
And maybe there have been other unremarked and unthanked deaths, and other humiliations over many years. Quite likely the ingratitude would wear a person down -- at least in an unguarded moment.
But I think it's also important that at this point Aragorn is replying to Boromir.
Boromir has just made a speech to the effect that Gondor is doing all the heavy lifting in this alliance and other nations ought to get off their lazy ungrateful butts and do their bit.
I can see why he thinks that.
But it's a limited perspective. For one thing, Boromir is addressing not only Aragorn, who is doing the thankless task of holding down the North. He's also talking to Gloin and a representative of the Elf King of Mirkwood. Gloin fought personally at the Battle of the Five Armies. Legolas is representing another of the combatitants. Bilbo lost friends there too. That battle--come Quest of Erebor, certainly -- and so possibly at the time he was still working on Council of Elrond -- Tolkien is thinking about as a preliminary thrust in the War of the Ring; an attempt by Sauron to establish a right-hook route around Gondor.
So it is possible that Boromir is also the one being 'simple'. His perspective is limited, nationalist and parochial, though he's not quite so ignorant of world affairs as Breelanders or Shire hobbits. But then, nor should he be, so more might be expected. And Boromir is present as part of what turns out to require a diplomatic offensive from Gondor; so he's a fool to be offensive.
Elrond calms it all down with some remarks about Anduin following past many shores before it reached Gondor. A gesture towards the involvement of Galadriel too, I suspect.
(I'm going to think about the idea of Aragorn being classist if I get some time: I think that might be complicated by different meanings of 'simple'. Simple as in 'inferior beings who need to be looked after', or simple as in 'enviable creatures whose society is something of a beacon of hope in dark times'. I also note that Aragorn very much has 'the common touch' of fairy-tale kings)
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Apr 3 2025, 8:40am)
|
|
|
noWizardme
Gondolin
Apr 3 2025, 5:21pm
Post #13 of 56
(10572 views)
Shortcut
|
Having re-read that passage, I think Tolkien does have Aragorn riff on different meanings of 'simple'. Simple as in what yer man Myles na gTolkeen might call The Plain People of Eriador, but also 'simple' as in mentally unsophisticated. Which is a bit rude, but (as I said) maybe understandable in the circumstances.
Tolkien is of course very willing to make fun of the story's rustics. For example, I've just been re-reading the part of 'Homeward Bound' in which our hobbit heroes and Gandalf have a lot of difficulty explaining world events to friend Butterbur: Most of the things they had to tell were a mere wonder and bewilderment to their host, and far beyond his vision...
Later, Bree folk enquire whether Frodo has written his promised book yet, and he gamely agrees to give an account of wartime events in Bree, and so to give a bit of interest to a book that appeared likely to treat mostly of the remote and less important affairs 'away south'. Similarly, our travellers returning home to The Shire find hobbits largely pre-occupied with what has been happening to them, and with little interest in (or respect for) what our quartet of war veterans have been through.
But on the other hand, Tolkien also likes characters such as Farmer Maggott or Farmer Cotton, or Ioreth to have some folk wisdom that the so-called wise lack. A little patronising of our author perhaps. But not the obvious point of view for a trope-version of a mid Twentieth Century Oxford Don to have.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
|
|
|
Silvered-glass
Nargothrond
Apr 3 2025, 6:56pm
Post #14 of 56
(10509 views)
Shortcut
|
There is more than one type of an adventure. I think Tolkien may be hinting that Belladonna probably wasn't a virgin when she married Bungo but (as far as can be known for certain) remained faithful afterwards. I think this type of indirect language to refer to indiscretions fits the hobbit culture.
|
|
|
CuriousG
Gondolin
Apr 3 2025, 10:07pm
Post #15 of 56
(10467 views)
Shortcut
|
Not arguing, just suggesting that some people do really have simple world views, and Tolkien was including them, and there's no way to dress them up and make them look worldly, informed, and sophisticated. They can't be those things and/or don't want to be them. So if you have strategists like Elrond, Cirdan, Gandalf, Aragorn, and Galadriel, and some worldly types like Bilbo and Frodo, you also have Butterbur and the Gaffer who don't know/don't care about what happens outside their hometowns.
|
|
|
noWizardme
Gondolin
Apr 4 2025, 8:53am
Post #16 of 56
(10024 views)
Shortcut
|
You might call it 'realistic' - as in, in the Primary World I see people who want to push the wider world this way or that each according to their ideas; or to do things with, for or even to others. And I see many people who don't.
'I have lived to see strange days. Long we have tended our beasts and our fields, built our houses, wrought our tools, or ridden away to help in the wars of Minas Tirith. And that we called the life of Men, the way of the world.
'We cared little for what lay beyond the borders of our land. Songs we have that tell of these things, but we are forgetting them, teaching them only to children, as a careless custom. And now the songs have come down among us out of strange places, and walk visible under the Sun.'
Theoden sees his first Ent
Within Tolkien's tale and the Council of Elrond chapter that we've been discussing, I think we're seeing immediately clues as to who at is going to 'go wrong' for Boromir - and indeed his father Denethor. Their unilateralist vision leads them to take any risk to save Gondor, and that is one thng that's going to lead them into trouble with Rings and Palantirs.
In the same chapter, we hear about why the Ring can't be given over to Tom Bombadil, arguably Middle-earth's extreme non-interventionist. I hope Reading Room lifers will forgive me trotting out maybe my favourite Bombadil item again:
Tom Bombadill is not an important person - to the narrative.
...I would not, however, have left him in if he did not have some kind of function. I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object except power, and so on; but both sides want a measure of control, but if you have, as it were taken a ‘vow of poverty’ renounced control, and take your delight in things themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless.It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war. But the view of Rivendell seems to be that it is an excellent thing to have represented, but there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue, or even to survive. Nothing would be left to him in the world of Sauron.
Tolkien Letters #144 (to Naomi Mitchison, who was proof-reading LOTR, and had evidently raised a number of deep questions)
I notice that (I think characteristically) Tolkien says that 'the view of Rivendell seems to be...' rather than to state a personal opinion.
So, I think it's clear enough that Middle-earth in Tolkien's imagination needs its Aragorns and Elronds and Galadriels. And most especially Gandalf, rushing about the place.
But at the same time - and just as important, I think - Tolkien's tale is clear about the limits of this. Requiring everyone to go along with your excellent scheme to improve things is the route to darklordism - especially if you use coercion to do it.
Our friend Butterbur is useful again here, showing that a willingness to do what you can is not strictly limited to hero hobbits or hidden kings:
[Frodo to Butterbur]:'But if you mean to help me, I ought to warn you that you will be in danger as long as I am in your house. These Black Riders: I am not sure, but I think, I fear they come from--'
'They come from Mordor,' said Strider in a low voice. 'From Mordor, Barliman, if that means anything to you.'
'Save us!' cried Mr. Butterbur turning pale; the name evidently was known to him. 'That is the worst news that has come to Bree in my time.'
'It is,' said Frodo. 'Are you still willing to help me?'
'I am,' said Mr. Butterbur. 'More than ever. Though I don't know what the likes of me can do against, against--' he faltered.
'Against the Shadow in the East,' said Strider quietly. 'Not much, Barliman, but every little helps.'
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Apr 4 2025, 8:58am)
|
|
|
Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Apr 4 2025, 5:20pm
Post #17 of 56
(9678 views)
Shortcut
|
overlooked; but I think we mostly do. And he had it right away, without any time for it to "kindle."
He's gone up quite a bit in my estimation. Thanks!
|
|
|
uncle Iorlas
Nargothrond
Apr 4 2025, 6:36pm
Post #18 of 56
(9613 views)
Shortcut
|
I do wonder, when Gandalf and the hobbits pass back through Bree on the way west and give Butterbur an update about doings and developments across the land, if anybody ever mentioned to him how Elrond’s historically pivotal grand strategy meeting of the noble and the wise from every which where drifted a couple times into some serious roasting of him, Barliman Butterbur, by name.
It’s a kind of immortality I suppose.
|
|
|
Felagund
Mithlond
Apr 4 2025, 7:13pm
Post #19 of 56
(9564 views)
Shortcut
|
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
|
|
|
CuriousG
Gondolin
Apr 4 2025, 7:42pm
Post #20 of 56
(9545 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Felagund getting recognition for a change--perfect
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
|
|
|
CuriousG
Gondolin
Apr 4 2025, 8:10pm
Post #21 of 56
(9532 views)
Shortcut
|
Dang, that is a fun subject line.
Within Tolkien's tale and the Council of Elrond chapter that we've been discussing, I think we're seeing immediately clues as to who at is going to 'go wrong' for Boromir - and indeed his father Denethor. Their unilateralist vision leads them to take any risk to save Gondor, and that is one thng that's going to lead them into trouble with Rings and Palantirs. I agree with your point, and only wanted to add that I think D & B suffer from hubris, and their excess pride is related to their self-aggrandizement, which I believe is a fatal flaw in Tolkien's world. The great heroes of LOTR are the ones who feel like they're part of a bigger picture and have some adherence to ideals: Elrond says the Elves will accept the destruction of the Three and the realms they've enchanted if it means the greater evil of Sauron is destroyed. Faramir wants to win as much as D & B do, but for the sake of Gondor as an enlightened ruler, not to make himself great. Similar to Aragorn.
And Frodo, Sam, M&P: they all feel to some degree that they're part of something greater and they're not just mercenaries or self-centered heroes (*cough* Han Solo) out for monetary gain, booze, and easy women. [For the record, I enjoy Han and wouldn't change him, but I won't pretend he's any moral hero either.]
Then pacifism:
Again, I'm not disagreeing, but I like how Tolkien refers to Bombadil as a pacifist, and one who needs others to fight a great war on his behalf or "nothing would be left to him."
All the same, Bombadil isn't a strict pacifist. While gentle with Old Man Willow, he polished off the Barrow-wight, and I always like this passage too:
and there was a glint in his eyes when he heard of the Riders. My gut reaction to that line is Bombadil thinking: "I'd just love to mess up those guys in a very bad way if I ever get my hands on them." So, not wholly non-violent.
|
|
|
Felagund
Mithlond
Apr 5 2025, 5:35pm
Post #22 of 56
(8654 views)
Shortcut
|
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
|
|
|
uncle Iorlas
Nargothrond
Apr 6 2025, 12:37am
Post #23 of 56
(8304 views)
Shortcut
|
|
in the 1800s a female villain was called an “adventuress”
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
There is more than one type of an adventure. I think Tolkien may be hinting that Belladonna probably wasn't a virgin when she married Bungo but (as far as can be known for certain) remained faithful afterwards. I think this type of indirect language to refer to indiscretions fits the hobbit culture.
Always on the spot with the scurrilous read on beloved characters. Well, a bit unusually, I am forced to agree with you. A bit. Potentially. Or at any rate I must acknowledge this: if in fact it occurred to the professor that Belladonna’s personal history was such, this is actually exactly how I might expect him to handle the delicate business of relating this to the reader: with a gossamer touch, the barest implication from which one may if one wishes infer the unsavory facts of the case, but with a sort of built in plausible deniability for readers whose emotional constitutions would be upset by confronting it (or simply too innocent to conceive of it).
Do I believe that it crossed the author’s mind that Belladonna was a sexual adventurer rather than, or as well as, a traveler, soldier, sailor, survivalist or even burglar? On the whole, I do not. Mostly. But I can’t swear that I’m certain; I do in fact think that he populated his stories on more than one occasion with secret-canon tales too ticklish to tell on the pages proper. On a quiet night you can hear them sighing from the indices.
Since you’ve cracked the door open, though, might it be possible that the going sexual notes in, say, the Tookish subculture within the Shire (already known to be a fish of a different spot, culturally, in a couple ways) was in fact somewhat more hedonist in this area? Or even, like the “adventure” question of this thread overall, that such behaviors were more common across the Shire than the Red Book might have recorded? Known but unspoken, French-style?
Again, I only mostly don’t think so.
|
|
|
squire
Gondolin
Apr 6 2025, 1:28am
Post #24 of 56
(8280 views)
Shortcut
|
One can argue at length that Tolkien was a bit of a prude when it comes to the sexual side of history, or mock-history as the mode in which he wrote his romantic fantasies of Middle-earth. Sure it's not 'realistic', given the importance of sex in real-world history. But it's very Tolkien.
For instance, history simply crawls with illegitimate children of noble men and women, kings and queens, merchant princes and merchant wives. But is there a single instance of an illegitimate child - a child born outside of a legal marriage, no matter how such marriages are defined - in Tolkien's extensive imaginative 'history' of Middle-earth?
More specifically to the earlier post, if I remember, there's nothing in the Prof's writings about Belladonna Took having liasons - that is, sexual intercourse - before her marriage. I am curious where you are finding your agreement with Silvered-Glass on this front, even as you too-coyly dance around that agreement: "Secret-canon tales too ticklish to tell"? "Sighing from the indices"? "Behaviors more common across the Shire than the Red Book might have recorded"?
Ah, how romantic, how real, how enticing to us moderns - but where? Give us something, anything. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
With all respect, what on Middle-earth are you actually talking about?
squire online:
Unfortunately my longtime internet service provider abandoned its hosting operations last year. I no longer have any online materials to share with the TORn community.
 = Forum has no new posts. Forum needs no new posts.
|
|
|
Kimi
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Apr 6 2025, 4:15am
Post #25 of 56
(8162 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Belladonna: renowned even among the Dwarves?
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
Extracts from "The Quest for Erebor", Unfinished Tales:
"He is soft," [Thorin] snorted. "Soft as the mud of his Shire, and silly. His mother died too soon". (emphasis mine)
- This suggests that Thorin thinks the necessary hardihood and willingness to tackle a difficult and high-risk adventure needed to come from Belladonna.
" 'I want a dash of the Took' (but not too much. Master Peregrin) 'and I want a good foundation of the stolider sort, a Baggins perhaps.' That pointed at once to Bilbo."
- Gandalf on why he thought of Bilbo.
"I [Gandalf] remembered how he used to pester me with questions when he was a youngster about the Hobbits that had occasionally 'gone off,' as they said in the Shire. There were at least two of his uncles on the Took side that had done so."
- This seems to suggest that Belladonna did not "go off", at least not as dramatically as those two uncles, one of whom "went off on a journey and never returned", while the other was said to have "gone to sea in his youth". I wonder if Bilbo used to "pester" his mother with similar questions before her early (by Hobbit standards) death. Was she reluctant to speak of such things? Or did Bilbo never think to ask until it was too late? - something many a family historian speaks of with regret.
What were her adventures? I picture someone physically active and somewhat dauntless, going on long hikes, camping in the wild, climbing peaks, slithering down scree slopes; sometimes alone, sometimes as one of the "three remarkable daughters" of the Old Took, with their wordplay names: Belladonna, Donnamira, Mirabella (a good thing they only had brothers, as a fourth sister would've been awkward).
What attracted her to Bungo? Obviously we're in the realms of speculation here, but I suspect it was kindness, and a devotion to her. And perhaps he made her laugh.
The Passing of Mistress Rose
My historical novels
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
(This post was edited by Kimi on Apr 6 2025, 4:17am)
|
|
|
|
|
1
