Moral: Dwarves are disposable now?

No, I didn't have the time to re-read The Hobbit, even the annotated version of it. I read up to the beginning of the musical excursion before I realized how far behind I was in everything else. What I did do, considering that I read this book about nine years ago, was watch the animated Hobbit movie from the seventies {I think}.

It brought a lot to memory in just the span of an hour and a half.

The first thing I found myself thinking was that Gandalf ruined so many lives that he deserves a metal. Not only did he pick on a hobbit who was leading a decent life before the old wizard showed up, but he rallied up a group of dwarves to come along {all of who might as well have been named after Snow White's seven} who all ended up giving their lives at the end of the story because Tolkien didn't think that a super-special-awesome ending should have been resorted to. Don't get me wrong, it's an epic fantasy; it's a lot better than some of the other fantasy stories I read and you can tell Tolkien really takes his time to make Middle Earth seem like a real place that we all probably just forgot about. When I was a kid, I rather liked the story and I didn't question anything that happened.

But now that I'm older, I realize that had Gandalf left Bilbo to his devices, he would have grown up none the wiser, hobbits would have continued to be the merry little folk on the plains, the one ring that caused epic battles to break out would have still been lost underground with the wrinkled old monster-hobbit, the dwares wouldn't have all died, there would have been no war over the gold, and Smaug was still be alive and kicking.

In all honesty, I'm just looking for things to complain about, but The Hobbit is actually a really great story. I mean, I give it a 9.5 out of 10, which is saying something. I would have given it a 10, but my only real qualm about it is that it's not entirely obvious what audience it's geared for. At first you'd call it a children's story, but I first read this book when I was 11 or 12 and I had to stop every ten minutes to ask my dad what this or that meant. I wasn't a remedial child or anything, but without him I would have misunderstood a portion of what was going on. It also doesn't seem like I could fully appreciate the wonder and adventure the older I got, though if I might have read the book while I was 15 I might have actually found it a comfortable read.

So maybe it was just the time and the place. I'm not as upset about all the dwarves being killed off at the end and frankly neither was Tolkien because he made a slew of new characters for Lord of the Rings and oddly enough only one member of the Fellowship died despite the fact that the journey had a LOT MORE GOING ON than Bilbo's. I just have to point out that the timing was off. Bilbo tricks the dragon after a journey that has been thusfar filled with danger but not enough to kill anyone and then suddenly the men are fighting the dwarves over the leftover gold just at the end and everyone practically dies. Gandalf's like "Oops, well I better take Bilbo home and sort out this mess...later." But other than that, I can fully appreciate this story.

-Peace out