** "The Scouring of the Shire" ** 3. Disobedience, civil and otherwise

[Elizabeth]

Gandalf's parting words to the Hobbits were:

I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.

We are now about to find out how their training pays off. But, first, let's reflect on that "training". Each of the hobbits has had a unique experience. Merry and Pippin went separate ways, though both saw war at first hand. Sam and Frodo were together, but their individual experiences were quite different.

1. What did Gandalf mean by saying they had been "trained for" settling the affairs of the Shire. Who trained them? Comment on what each hobbit was "trained for" and how.

They certainly do present a most "un-hobbity" appearance, in splendid clothes, mounted on ponies that were surely finer than the average Shire pony, and impressively armed. Most impressively, though, they are armed with a double dose of "attitude".

Imagine you have been away for a while. As you drive home, you find your neighborhood has been turned into a "gated community", and you have no key. The gate keeper assumes you are up to no good, and orders you to "be off". How would you respond? Personally, I think I would politely explain that I lived here, show my ID, and (if necessary) offer to get a neighbor to vouch for me.

That is more-or-less how the hobbits begin, but they quickly become much more assertive. They tear down the "No Admittance!" notice, and demand to see who's in charge. When Bill Ferny appears, Merry threatens to kill him if he doesn't open the gate immediately and then leave never to return (which he does, with a parting "blessing" from Bill).

2. Is this perhaps a little excessive or, dare I say it, hasty? How do they know evildoers on the fringe of the War haven't been assaulting the Shire and these have become necessary defensive measures? Ok, Bill Ferny is known to be a jerk, but what if he had reformed and come to help with the defense?

The hobbits spend an uncomfortable night, and at the end of the next day's journey to Frogmorton, they find themselves arrested by a "large band" of hobbit Sherriffs armed with staves. The Sherriffs have been ordered to take these insubordinate hobbits to Bywater to be judged and imprisoned. Far from being cowed, our hobbits refuse to take it at all seriously, but announce that they are heading to Bag End "on their own business" and they're willing to travel together with the Sherriffs, leading to this priceless exchange:

‘Very well, Mr. Baggins,’ said the leader, pushing the barrier aside. ‘But don’t forget I’ve arrested you.’

‘I won’t,’ said Frodo. ‘Never. But I may forgive you.'

I was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1960's, during the time of the civil rights demonstrations, Free Speech Movement, and Viet Nam War demonstrations. I was never personally arrested, but I knew people who were. The demonstrators quickly developed a strategic response to being arrested: don't resist, but "go limp" and make the police work hard to haul you into the van to be taken to jail. Moreover, they refused to post bond, preferring to just let the jails fill up with protestors, which caused the maximum inconvenience and expense to the civil authorities. Our hobbits' approach is somewhat more active, but similar in spirit.

On the following day, they set off. But the hobbits have a considerable advantage: they're mounted, while the Sherriffs are forced to walk. By the end of the day, the Sherriffs have given up, and reluctantly allow the "prisoners" to continue on their own.

3. How are the leadership roles among the four hobbits developing? Are these roles consistent with what we've seen of them right along? How does it relate to their "training" discussed above?

Along the way, Merry, Pippin, and Sam sat at their ease laughing and talking and singing, while the Shirriffs stumped along trying to look stern and important. Frodo, however, was silent and looked rather sad and thoughtful.

4. What's going on in Frodo's mind?

Next: first skirmish.

 

[CuriousG]

1. What did Gandalf mean by saying they had been "trained for" settling the affairs of the Shire. Who trained them? Comment on what each hobbit was "trained for" and how.

Gandalf's comment sounds to me like there's a larger power at work that intended for them to be "trained." I don't think he or anyone else deliberately "trained" them, though he's perceptive enough to reach this conclusion about them. They are partly trained by all the challenges they've faced on their own, and partly by some "guiding hand," I believe. The main thing is that they're trained to no longer be passive hobbits but to take charge, be assertive/aggressive, be brave and have confidence, and prevail against adversity.


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Imagine you have been away for a while. As you drive home, you find your neighborhood has been turned into a "gated community", and you have no key. The gate keeper assumes you are up to no good, and orders you to "be off".
How would you respond? Personally, I think I would politely explain that I lived here, show my ID, and (if necessary) offer to
get a neighbor to vouch for me.
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You sound so reasonable!

I'm not sure what I would do. I'd probably be initially indignant, try to disguise that, and then explain that I do live there, as my ID indicates. If all that failed, I'm not sure what my next step would be. I probably wouldn't scale any fences or gates. Maybe I'd try to find the upper management and go through them. In this case, the upper mgt. would be hostile and uncooperative, so the hobbits did what was reasonable in their situation.

The hobbits do behave in an aggressive, militaristic fashion. As Butterbur commented, they have a toughened, experienced military air to them in addition to the armor and weapons they bear, though they themselves weren't aware of their appearance. I think in this instance, they're not aware of how aggressive they appear, they're just acting as if they've observed others behave "down South" where they were caught up in so many conflicts. I do applaud them and love how they stand up to corrupt authority!

2. Is this perhaps a little excessive or, dare I say it, hasty? How do they know evildoers on the fringe of the War haven't been assaulting the Shire and these have become necessary defensive measures? Ok, Bill Ferny is known to be a jerk, but what if he had reformed and come to help with the defense?
Excellent question! I've always assumed they knew that the Shire had become corrupted and they needed to fix it. I've never thought that the Shire could have faced the problems that Bree did and had become more defensive and militarized, and that this posture would be justified. So, maybe a little hasty, but possibly their instincts are telling them that the situation is all wrong, so they don't stop to deliberate. Maybe the biggest indicator to them that this is not a legitimate defensive posture is that they are clearly Shire hobbits and not ruffians or anything else, and Shire hobbits should naturally be exempt from any suspicion of causing trouble.


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‘I won’t,’ said Frodo. ‘Never. But I may forgive you.'
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I love Frodo's line! And also how they mock the shirrifs by not treating them seriously, including taking a long delay in getting started just to annoy them. Plus they show they're in control when a shirrif tries to silence an old gaffer who mocks the troupe, and he's recalled after a threat from Merry. The four hobbits are of course great outnumbered, but there seems an aura about them that is daunting.

3. How are the leadership roles among the four hobbits developing? Are these roles consistent with what we've seen of them right along? How does it relate to their "training" discussed above?
Merry seems to be taking the lead, just as he had back at Crickhollow. I'd say they're reverting to their old roles. Frodo had taken a stronger leadership role after leaving Bag End, telling Pippin and Sam what to do, and sharing somewhat the lead with Merry. But here he's become too introspective to play leader. And Pippin has matured during the last year and plays a stronger role, as a second to Merry, than seems possible from his past self. Sam is more assertive than he had been in the past, calling out a hobbit he knew and chastising him for his behavior. The old Sam didn't seem as confident in confronting Ted Sandyman when the latter insulted the Bagginses in The Green Dragon at the start of the story.

Frodo, however, was silent and looked rather sad and thoughtful.
4. What's going on in Frodo's mind?
Frodo, as ever, is being the most perceptive of the hobbits. I think he was the first to really figure out Aragorn in Bree, and when they reach Balin's tomb in Moria, it's Frodo who said that Balin was dead and he "feared it was so." I don't think the other hobbits put much thought into Balin and his fate.

It's perceptive Frodo who will explain to the other hobbits that Lotho is no longer in control, and that they should even rescue him! Whatever we may think of that, and the others certainly protest, Frodo is somehow reading all the signs of what's happened in their beloved land. I get the impression that his friends have a more superficial understanding: things are wrong, there are some enemies to oppose, and we're going to oppose them. I think Frodo is seeing a touch of Mordor's malice at work in the Shire, which the others don't understand until later, though I may be wrong.

Beyond all that, I think that Frodo is contemplating what's to come, and is grieving that conflict is inevitable, and with it will come loss on both sides. He's less focused on the heroic liberation of the land and more focused on how much innocence and tranquility the Shire has already lost, and how more innocence and hitherto unknown bloodshed must occur in the liberation. (Yes, Bandobras had fought Orcs in the Shire before, but that was a rare event and was long ago, and there was never any issue of hobbits fighting hobbits.) Frodo has become more Gandalf-like in the sense of Gandalf telling Denethor "I pity even [Sauron's] slaves."

Last, there could be Frodo's sense of guilt that not only did he fail to destroy the Ring, but his quest to do so didn't shelter the Shire from evil as he had assumed it would, and that maybe this is all somehow his fault.

 

[Atlas]

Civil disobedience is only effective in the face of a government that is not too repressive. Ghandi successfully challenged the very democratic and lenient British government. Martin Luther King Jr. successfully faced down Southern authorities with the weight of the North and the Federal government backing him up. Neither faced an implacable government willing to do anything to retain its power. Tyrannical governments usually have far less compunction in resorting immediately to violent repression. Cf. Hungary 1956, Prague 1968, et al.

Our heroes made the right choice in immediately taking forceful steps and not pussy-footing about. And that is the training they have received: that sometimes violence is the answer, depending on what the question is. They have been trained by adversity to know that there is evil in the world that must be confronted forthrightly, with courage and determination and to palter with it can sometimes mean one becomes complicit with it. The shirriffs are examples of people who may have thought they could moderate the evil system from within and were instead co-opted by it. If all the hobbits had taken the stance that our heroes did, they could have successfully resisted, but the only ones willing to do so were allowed to fall singly, as Lobelia was. But the other hobbits had not been trained; they could not lead. As Farmer Cotton tells them, they needed someone to call them, to lead them. (The Tooks independence was both an advantage and a drawback; it allowed them to remain free within their domains, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to them to break out and lead a revolution to free their fellow hobbits.)

Merry and Pippin have tactical ways of thinking. They are the military leaders, but Frodo and Sam have become strategic leaders. Politicians in the oldest senses of the word, not the corrupt modern sense. They have the ability to lead the populace and the wisdom to see that to respond too forcefully would be as corrupting for the Shire as to allow it to continue to languish in cowed servility. To their credit, Merry and Pippin are willing to defer to Frodo despite their willingness and desire to take the fight strongly to the enemy with less restraint.

 

[Hamfast Gamgee]

Or at least two ways of dealing with this situation. Frodo seems to opt for the pacifiest approach. Demonstrations, maybe strikes, civil disobediance, letters of protest or simply going around looking sad would do the trick. It is amazing how often this does work actually. Wheras Merry prefers the more direct violent approach. Perhaps we have a Frodo party and a Merry party here!

 

[sador]

1. What did Gandalf mean by saying they had been "trained for" settling the affairs of the Shire. Who trained them?
Myths and great events serve to train one to deal with his/her simple, mundane crises.

Comment on what each hobbit was "trained for" and how.
Merry was trained for it by the vision, or dream, he has had - and now he awakes.
Frodo, apparantly, has not been trained, or doesn't feel like it (he feels as if he was falling asleep again) - although one might say that restraining the just wrath of the hobbits was an excellent thing!

2. Is this perhaps a little excessive or, dare I say it, hasty?
You realise that Merry is the son and Heir of the Master of Brandy Hall? He won't receive no sauce from these folks.

How do they know evildoers on the fringe of the War haven't been assaulting the Shire and these have become necessary defensive measures?
Bill Ferny as a defensive measure?!?

Ok, Bill Ferny is known to be a jerk, but what if he had reformed and come to help with the defense?
How many live jerks have reformed in Tolkien?

3. How are the leadership roles among the four hobbits developing? Are these roles consistent with what we've seen of them right along? How does it relate to their "training" discussed above?
I think pretty well.

4. What's going on in Frodo's mind?
He isn't finding the joke funny.

 

[Elizabeth]

Shire culture seems to be peaceful and accommodating. That's part of what makes them so vulnerable to being dominated by the ruffians. All it takes is for Merry to assert himself and they respond immediately. Which makes it all the more impressive that the Four rose to the challenges of the quest so superbly. It's also possible that the selection factor that made these sherriffs makes them more subservient.