The New Hobbit Hole

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The New Hobbit Hole
Concerning Hobbits
The New Hobbit Chronicles

This is a continuation of the infamous thread New Zealander Builds Hobbit Hole originally posted on January 26, 2001 by John Farson, who at the time undoubtedly thought he had found a rather obscure article that would elicit a few replies and die out. Without knowing it, he became the founder of the Hobbit Hole. For reasons incomprehensible to some, the thread grew to over 4100 replies. It became the place for hobbits and friends of hobbits to chit chat and share LoTR news and views, hang out, and talk amongst ourselves in the comfort of familiar surroundings.

In keeping with the new posting guidelines, the thread idea is continuing here, as will the Green Dragon Inn, our more structured spin-off thread, as soon as we figure out how to move all the good discussion that has been had there. As for the Hobbit Hole, we will just start fresh, bringing only a few mathoms such as the picture above with us to make it feel like home, and perhaps a walk down memory lane:

Our discussion has been light:

It very well may be that a thread named "New Zealander builds Hobbit hole" will end up being the longest Tolkien thread of them all, with some of the best heartfelt content... Sorry John, but I would have rather it had been one with a more distinguished title!… post 252 - HairOfTheDog

However, I can still celebrate, with quiet dignity, the fact that what started as a laugh about some wacko in New Zealand has mutated and grown into a multifaceted discussion of the art, literature, and philosophy that is Tolkien. And now that I've managed to write the most pompous sentence of my entire life, I agree, Rosie… post 506 - JenB

Hah! I was number 1000!! (Elvish victory dance... wait, no; that would be too flitty) … post 1001 - BibChr

Real men don't have to be afraid of being flitty! Go for it. – post 1011 – HairOfTheDog

Seventeen years to research one mystical object seems a bit excessive… post 1007 - JenB

Okay...who's the wise guy who didn't renew Gandalf's research grant?… post 1024 – Overtaxed

To the very philosophical:

…Judas Iscariot obviously was a good man, or he wouldn't have been chosen to be one of the Apostles. He loved Jesus, like all of the Apostles, but he betrayed him. Yet without his betrayal, the Passion and Crucifixion would never have occurred, and mankind would not have been redeemed. So without his self-destruction infinite good would not have been accomplished. I certainly do not mean this to be irreverant but it seems to me that this describes the character of Gollum, in the scenes so movingly portrayed above… Lucius Cornelius Sulla

To fun but heartfelt debates about the integrity and worth of some of the characters…

…Anyone else notice how Boromir treats the hobbits? He's very fond of them but he seems to think of them as children - ruffling Frodo's hair, calls them all 'little ones'. He likes them, but I don't think he really respects them… post 1536 - JenB

Yes... Tolkien told us not to trust Boromir right off the bat when he began to laugh at Bilbo, until he realized that the Council obviously held this hobbit in high esteem. What a pompous dolt… post 1538 - HairOfTheDog

…I think almost every fault of his can be traced directly back to his blindness to anything spiritual or unseen. He considers the halflings as children, because that is what they look like. He considers the only hope of the ring to be in taking it and using it for a victory in the physical realm. He cannot see what the hobbits are truly made of, he cannot see the unseen hope of what the destruction of the ring might mean--the destruction of Sauron himself, and he cannot see the unseen danger that lies in the use of the ring itself… I just feel sorry for Boromir--he is like a blind but honorable man, trying to take the right path on the road but missing the right path entirely because he simply cannot see it… post 1548 - Penny1

Boromir isn't a jerk, he's a jock… post 2401 – Overtaxed

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Oh, I think by the time Frodo reaches the Cracks, he's not even himself anymore! I think he's not only on the brink of a dangerous place physically, he's on the brink of losing himself completely during the exchange with Gollum. But for some reason, the take-over isn't complete till he actually has to throw the Ring in. The person speaking to Gollum is not Frodo, but the "Wheel of Fire" that Sam sees. After the Ring is destroyed, Frodo not only comes back to himself, but comes back with the unbearable (to him) knowledge of what it's like to be completely without compassion. I think that's why it's so important to him to be compassionate in the Shire… post 2506 - 2Jedismom

…Regarding Frodo's compassion... it's a little too much at the end. Even Merry tells him that he's going to have to quit being so darn nice. But you're right. He's learned a lesson about evil that very few ever learn since it wasn't an external lesson but an internal one. (Those kinds of lessons have the greatest impact) Not only did he totally succumb to it, but he was rather ruthless to my little Smeagol… post 2516 - carton253

Well that Frodo was a big mean bully! (to Smeagol)… post 2519 – Overtaxed

So as you can see, everything JRR Tolkien (and Peter Jackson) is welcome here in our New Row, our soon-to-be familiar New Hobbit Hole…; philosophy, opinion, good talk and frequent silliness.

[Overtaxed]

Got it anyway! Nyah!

[Corin Stormhands]

What is Cartwright disease? Did you make that up just to distract me from the precious?

[Overtaxed]

You never saw Bonanza? Any girl that had the misfortune to be interested in a Cartwright boy bought it within the hour. Old Ben himself had 3 wives die on him.

[Corin Stormhands]

Oh yeah, I know Bonanza. In fact the flashback to Adam's birth was on this afternoon...

I remember the reference now.

There was a similar situation in my college. None of the boys died. But a certain, very well to do family (if I mentioned the product you'd recognize it) always vacationed at their home in the Bahamas. We always knew if the boys met mama and papa's approval if they were still dating the girls after spring break on the island.

Neither girl married a guy from our school...

[JenB]

Ah... to prevent the Galactic Overlord from ruling the world? Just kidding. The Galactic Overlord is to make an appearance in my story if I can possibly justify it. I'm calling it a literary reference. See, in my favorite novel by Robert Heinlein, The Rolling Stones, the dad and then the grandmother write this really bad space-serial cartoon, all about heroic spacemen and the "Galactic Overlord", and it's about the same quality I expect my story to be. But the grandmother, Hazel, has a great philosophy of writing; you just keep the action too fast and furious for the readers to notice it makes no sense whatsoever.

[Overtaxed]

Would the Galactic Overlord be Bob by any chance?

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

That has a bit in common with my potential plot

I noticed that! In fact, all three plots posted featured alternate worlds as a main feature...

I'm going to change mine! I'm going to do a space opera instead... first test of an interstellar drive goes wrong, stranding the crew millions of light years away from Earth...

Yeah, I know that's been done before, but mine is going to be different!

[Corin Stormhands]

...you just keep the action too fast and furious for the readers to notice it makes no sense whatsoever.

I have a feeling that's what NaNoWriMo is all about...

[Corin Stormhands]

Yeah, I know that's been done before, but mine is going to be different!

What, yours will have substance? If you're referring to Voyager, that would be different (even though I liked Voyager...)

[HairOfTheDog]

I once had a story idea... perhaps one of you well-read types would be able to tell me if it has been done or if it is actually a new idea.

The story is the life of a one dollar bill... or rather all the people it passes to in it's lifetime. bank teller passes it to a grandpa who give it to his grandchild who draws a happy face on it and his initials, and saves it up until he has enough money to buy a bike. The store owner has it and gives it out in change to someone else who drops it. The bum who finds it and uses it to buy wine. That store owner is robbed and it passes to a crook who uses it to buy drugs. A woman has it who is trying to come up with enough money for rent. The landlord passes it to someone else, and so on and so on...

I don't have any of it worked up, I just made up all those scenarios off the top of my head, but the idea is that it passes from hand to hand, some people are ordinary, some extraordinary, some buy simple things, some unusual, years pass and it goes all over the place, and ends up back in the hands of the original little boy a long time later, tattered and worn, but he recognizes the smiley face and his initials on it and wonders where it has been.

[Corin Stormhands]

If I suddenly bail, it's because the pizza is here. We're going to have pizza and watch Monsters, Inc.

I also got A Beautiful Mind and Fiddler on the Roof (so I can practice being a singing Hebrew...)

[JenB]

So... we should work together and write about an analytical chemist who's trying to solve the murder of a political consultant while lost in space in an alternate universe and fighting Galactic Overlord Bob?

[HairOfTheDog]

A Beautiful Mind will not help you sing in Hebrew, but it is a pretty good movie ;~D

[JenB]

That sounds fairly original... we have a picture book called "Paddle to the Sea", about a little wooden indian in a canoe who is carved by a boy in Canada, set afloat in the Great Lakes, and travels down to the sea... and the boy finds him, years later, on a beach in France.

[Overtaxed]

But I thought Lando fixed the hyperdrive!

[Corin Stormhands]

I once had a story idea... perhaps one of you well-read types would be able to tell me if it has been done or if it is actually a new idea.

I don't know about a dollar bill (but you can go to that "Where's George" website that lets you register where a dollar has gone...

But, I remember a book my fifth grade teacher read to our class. I think it was called "Hitty." It was about a doll ("Hitty") that was made I think in Colonial America. It follwed the dolls travels over about 200 years. That's about all I remember, except for the fact that it had us mesmerized.

But then, that was they days of black and white television and we were pretty easily amused...

[Overtaxed]

...and Galactic Overlord Bob wrote the acquisition software before his Overlord gig so the chemist was after his butt in the first place!

[Corin Stormhands]

Hotdog Smartypants would fit nicely in the keywords...

gotta run, pizza is here...

[HairOfTheDog]

But then, that was they days of black and white television and we were pretty easily amused...

Does that mean it sounds boring to you? ;~D - I have no intention of writing it... so even I don't seem too interested in it! I have just always wondered where money has been when I get it, and wonder what tales it would tell if it could.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

What, yours will have substance?

Well, yeah... you see, the actual story isn't about the crew being lost... it's about why they're lost (it wasn't an accident, you see) and the choice each crewmember must eventually make... whether to live free in space, or return to Earth, which is run by a fascist tyranny.

Voyager and Lost in Space never had anything like that!