So I finished The Hobbit this morning. Given that I'm much more of a "blaster guns and faster-than-light drive" guy, rather than "swords and sorcery", I'm fairly surprised I liked it more than Hyperion. Of course, comparing Tolkien to Dan Simmons isn't really a fair fight I suppose, but still.
Reading the story, and combining it with the Lord of the Rings movies, I have to wonder about Tolkien, and his political stance. Now this is without having ever read anything about the man, with me knowing absolutely zilch about his history, upbringing, etc., other than that it's thought World War 1 (2?) influenced him. The I've noticed is that "true" rulers always seem to come from a lineage. You know, their dad was the great So-and-So, who did This and That. Or else it's their great-grandfather, and so on. It feels like Tolkien is implying that for someone to be a great leader, they have to descend from previous great leaders (such as is the case with Bard, or Aragorn). If they don't, they're inevitably more interested in hoarding wealth and power (such as the Master of Esgaroth, prior to its destruction by Smaug), and don't really give a flying fig about helping their subjects, who are usually the ones who helped them gain power, by electing them, or supporting their ascenscion.
Which leaves me feeling that Tolkien isn't much of a fan of democracy, that he feels the rabble are better off just following the orders of their betters. To be fair, those who aren't rulers certainly have their moments in his works (Bilbo and especially my favorite character Sam), but it's not really in situations of leading others, but more as men of action. They have the warrior part that these "true" rulers have, but they don't have the bloodline to command respect from large groups of people. Again, to be fair, Bilbo seemed to have the respect of the dwarves he was with, but he wasn't leading them, so much as he was aiding them.
The interesting part is that the stories don't seem to imply people can change much. Reading The Hobbit, and watching the movies, I got the impression that changes in character over the course of the stories was simply an emergence of their true nature. Sam was always willing to stand by someone he cared about, having to make sure Frodo's increasingly loopy ass got to Mount Doom, just pushed him to new levels. Aragorn wasn't sure he could be a king, but when it came down to it, he commanded an army of the dead, and got legions tired from one immense battle to march to the gates or Mordor and challenge an even larger force. And it seemed like second nature to him by then. The fellow that became Master of Esgaroth, seems to have been motivated to gain power and wealth, and once he's achieved it, it's still all he's concerned with. He doesn't decide that he should use this power he's gained to help the masses. he's the same greedy bastard he started as, he's just got a wider reach. So, Tolkien dislikes democracy, and believes people can't change who they are. Yeah, I can see how a violent and drawn-out international conflict might have affected him.
The caveat to all this is I've only read The Hobbit and seen Peter's Jackson's movies, so it's quite likely I'm missing some things. Probably quite a few things.
I must admit, all the talk about lineages makes me wonder if Tolkien was a DC fan, or would be, if he had the choice today.
As a final question, the arrow Bard slew Smaug with, he said it was special, and that he had always retrieved it from where it fell, so did he do that this time, or did he just leave it in the dragon? If I had an arrow that took down a dragon, I'd do my best to get it back.
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I personally think Tolkien would honestly be a DC fan, but he'd lean more to Green Arrow and Green Lantern than Superman. I think he'd be pretty undecided about Wonder Woman and probably really hate Batman.
No, I don't think Bard recovered his arrow. I think the reason for that is the importance of the final use of the arrow. besides, the arrow struck the only soft spot of Smaug. Recovery would be really hard, and Bard at least has the additional noteriety of slaying the beast.
And yeah, the Dwarves liked Bilbo mainly because he was useful However, I'm more prone to think they simply treated him as just a business partner.
On the other hand, random useless Hobbot trivia! The Necromancer that Gandolf mentioned fighting? Yeah, that was Sauron in his 'newer' body. After his defeat at the end of the 2nd age he lost his original body. Since then he had been building a new body, and had recently joined with it. Gandalf and company defeated him in the body. In Rings he was once again trying to build a new body, but was defeated before he could inhabit it. After splitting his power into the One Ring it was much harder for him to create a body, and once the ring was destroyed he was unable to build a new body, so basically his spirit still exists (today!), but he only has the ability to slightly influence people to do bad things.
Also, the king of the wood elves? That's Legolas's father. And Gloin is Gimli's father (and has a cameo in the Fellowship movie, though not mentioned).
The biggest thing you miss from the movies is the existance of Tom Bombadil. He's a fun character, but I find him really annoying. He's in the first half of Fellowship. Arwen also has only a few mentions in the book, and I like her larger role in the movies with the exception of bits in Return of the King.
As far as good leaders inheriting their titles goes, the big exception is Sam. In the years after the War of the Ring, he is elected mayor of the Shire several times--being mayor means that you only have to answer to one person, the king (Aragorn).
The basis for the stories was World War 1. Tolkien disliked comparisons to WWII so much, he briefly described what he would have done with Lord of the Rings had it been based on the later war. That being said, Lord of the Rings was written during WWII, with Tolkien sending pages to his son, who was on the battlefield.
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