Ask About Middle Earth — Why Did Gandalf Choose Bilbo?

ℤzeldathemesLinksAbout MeThe Big Tag ListDownloadable GuidesTolkien Read-Along BlogAsk About Middle Earth Ask any question about Middle Earth - LotR, Hobbit, Silmarillion, or any random question about the peoples and history of Middle Earth (movie or book 'verse). Seriously, all questions are welcome! Also, don't forget to check the helpful links in the sidebar! (Oh, and I'm not Stephen Colbert.)Why Did Gandalf Choose Bilbo?

This is a great question, and one that really isn’t adressed too much in The Hobbit itself. But one of the chapters in The Unfinished Tales is Gandalf talking about how he met Thorin and his point of view of the start of the quest. From this we get a much better idea of Gandalf’s thought process.

When Gandalf meets Thorin in Bree he was actually already on his way to the Shire for a holiday (the Shire was his vacation destination of choice.) He’d met Bilbo as a child, and liked him quite a bit, because of “his eagerness and his bright eyes, and his love of tales, and his questions about the wide world outside the Shire.” And when Gandalf arrives in the Shire, he asks about Bilbo, and hears that the other hobbits already think he’s pretty odd, that he’s even known to go off for days on his own, and had even been seen talking to dwarves.

This particular rumor sparked an idea for Gandalf.

“Suddenly in my mind these three things came together: the great Dragon with his lust, and his keen hearing and scent; the sturdy heavy-booted Dwarves with their old burning grudge; and the quick, soft-footed Hobbit, sick at heart (I guessed) for a sight of the wide world.”

Basically, as Gandalf says in the movie (during the dinner party), he realized that a hobbit would have a much better chance sneaking around a dragon than a dwarf, and he knew that the journey would be good for Bilbo. Killing a few birds with one stone, that’s Gandalf’s speciality. And so, from there Gandalf went straight to check on Bilbo, scratched a mark on his door, and the rest is history.

SOURCES: Unfinished Tales (“The Quest of Erebor”)

262 notes // 2:30 PM // REBLOGthe hobbitgandalfbilboThe Unfinished Tales

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