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.

[HairOfTheDog]

Spongebob is on

Hullo! - Tackling my chores, one by one, with stops in between at the Hobbit Hole!

[JenB]

Man, writing is a chore today. Fortunately it's still better than studying about recursive-descent parsers.

[HairOfTheDog]

SInce I caught you sneaking.... you get another spongebob! As a gift.

[JenB]

I'm gonna get you for that... gonna write lots and lots today so you have to kill many, many trees to print and read my story.

[Overtaxed]

It's supposed to be football.

[JenB]

Oh. That doesn't sound good.

Yay, at least I've done a thousand words today. Man, I'm going to get behind... must at least get Gil into an even worse situation.

[HairOfTheDog]

so you have to kill many, many trees to print and read my story.

Hroom hoom! - I don't see why you are taking everything out on me!

[JenB]

Now that's a much better picture!

[2Jedismom]

You would not believe the work I've done! I got a huge amount of the leaves raked and piled most of them onto a tarp. Then I drug them around to the back yard and the boys have been playing in them! (That mashes them up and then we use it for mulch in the garden.)

Then I mowed and mulched the rest of the front yard leaves into tiny pieces.

Then I sprayed the house with house cleaner and then took a MOP and scrubbed the entire front of the house. We had so many spiders that they had pooped an incredible amount on the front of our light bamboo colored masonite-sided house! Who knew spiders could poop so much!? Most of them didn't tolerate the house cleaner solution I used.

Then I spiffed up the outside of the windows with Windex.

[Overtaxed]

Come and do my house tomorrow?

[JenB]

You sound over-efficient. I washed a car, studied, and wrote about... 1300 words today. Saturdays are for being lazy!

[2Jedismom]

Unfortunately, I think someone stole the boy's pumpkins that they got at their pumpkin patch party a couple of weeks ago...

[JenB]

Oh, well, they'd be getting moldy anyway, right? So... someone did you a favor and got rid of them early?

Man, I sound like Pollyanna. Sorry!

[2Jedismom]

Well, the last time I saw them, they were in great shape. We picked them fresh off the vine on October 12th. We were going to roast the seeds. A good thing is the boys seem to have forgotten about them...out of sight, out of mind so to speak.

But it depresses me. We just live in that kind of world now. And our neighborhood isn't that great. Last year, the kids built a snowman in the front yard and it got torn down and the stuff stolen off it. I hate it that they are unable to do things in their own front yard.

I am able to take them to my mom's house and they play outside with the neighbors. They moved in right next door, much to my delight...five homeschooled children and I was already good friends with their mom. An answer to prayer. The kids in our neighborhood are wild and have no manners or even basic understanding about what it polite and good.

[Snake65]

I've been tracking my extended version online...Best Buy shipped it, and it is moving through the bowls of the Post Office reeeeeally slowly. What's especially frustrating is that is shipped from a suburban Chicago warehouse and I'm in Chicago too...I was hoping to get it a bit early.

Ah well. Cleaned the office and vaccumed up cat hair from behind the 'puter. Then it's time to do some writing.

[JenB]

That's really sad. We have our own bit of property, not as much as at our old house. There, our backyard was very narrow but it went down for ages, and there was about a mile of woods behind it, and nobody else in the area had kids so we wandered all over their woods too. Here... well, there's a really nice piece of woods next to us but it belongs to some really nasty people who threatened to sue us if we so much as set foot in it.

But we don't really have neighbors. There are a couple houses behind us, and one next to us, but none of them have kids, and the next-door folks are the local Republican committee people so they're never there. We're really rather fortunate there. It's so nice not to live in a neighborhood.

[Overtaxed]

Sorry to hear about the pumpkins. :(

I've got a bit more of my daily quota written and a few plot twist and subplot material I'm thinking about. I'll try to get this plot thing more organized before the week starts so (hopefully)it'll be easier to write during the week.) Right now I'm taking a tea break, watching the end of the Busch race, and practicing on the Feadog.

[JenB]

Excellent! Incidentally, if you want to share your disjointed scenes, I'd love to see them... you could email them to me if you wanted to share.

Man, I'm kinda stuck. I mean, I know what I want to do but I can't write it out. Let's see if I can just get to a good stopping point and work on it more tomorrow.

[Overtaxed]

Well....it's kind of disjointed but so far I'm writing the same point of time from three different characters' viewpoints. I still can't decide whom to make the viewpoint character but I've got a bit of background/ motivation stuff down.

[Overtaxed]

BTW, since it's gotten cooler do your whistles...uh...form condensate and drip more readily than in the summer?