Bilbo v Frodo

"timananda" <veganpower.DeleteThis@optushome.com.au> wrote in message
news:BC4C607D.4D604%veganpower@optushome.com.au...
 > If you read The Hobbit first, then LOTR, was anyone else really annoyed
that
 > Bilbo quickly left the scene. I was about 13 I think, and can remember
being
 > really annoyed. We'd got to know and love Bilbo, and suddenly there's some
 > other 'hero' to get to know. Of course, this annoyance was gone after a
few
 > chapters!!

It took several drafts of those opening chapters before Tolkien knew who the
story would be about -- Bilbo in some drafts, his son Bingo, or prehaps
nephew Bingo Bolger-Baggins, or Bilbo's wife.... and then WHAT was it to be
about ... perhaps Bilbo had run out of money after 20 years (one does, you
know) and, on asking Elrond for advice, decided to go to an island west of
Middle Earth (England?). The ring was always mentioned, and at about the
fourth time through, he began to think it might be more important than the
quest, or even the money. He chose the name Frodo quite late.

Tom Bombadil and Old Man Willow already existed from previous material.
(This is why they don't quite fit into the mythos as it evolved in LotR.)
But then Bingo and his friends ran into this sort of hobbit-in-the-wild and
guide named Trotter....

(I just bought The Return of the Shadow. Can you tell? Fascinating looking
over someone's shoulder like this.)

Tsar Parmathule<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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"Xentrix" <samuel.RemoveThis@moffitt1011.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message news:<c05erf$djr$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk>...
 > timananda <veganpower.RemoveThis@optushome.com.au> wrote in message
 > news:BC4C607D.4D604%veganpower@optushome.com.au...
  > > If you read The Hobbit first, then LOTR, was anyone else really annoyed
 > that
  > > Bilbo quickly left the scene. I was about 13 I think, and can remember
 > being
  > > really annoyed. We'd got to know and love Bilbo, and suddenly there's some
  > > other 'hero' to get to know. Of course, this annoyance was gone after a
 > few
  > > chapters!!
  > >
  > > Tim
 >
 > Yes I to was surprised at Bilbo's swift exit, but soon warmed to the
 > character Frodo.

I found that Frodo was a very sympathetic character. Much more than
Bilbo. But i did not read "The Hobbit", just LoTR.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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"timananda" <veganpower RemoveThis @optushome.com.au> wrote in message
news:BC4C607D.4D604%veganpower@optushome.com.au...
 > If you read The Hobbit first, then LOTR, was anyone else really annoyed
that
 > Bilbo quickly left the scene. I was about 13 I think, and can remember
being
 > really annoyed. We'd got to know and love Bilbo, and suddenly there's some
 > other 'hero' to get to know. Of course, this annoyance was gone after a
few
 > chapters!!
 >
 > Tim
Yes, I remember having the same experience, and I think I was about 15 at
the time. I felt Frodo was an impostor in Bilbo's story. But I grew to love
him very quickly - and Sam, of course, softened my heart from the moment I
met him. But I will always have a very special fondness for Bilbo, I
think.

Ian<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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