Everything about Bilbo Baggins totally explained
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character_departure =
September 29, |
character_death = |
character_realm =
Eriador |
Book(s) =
The Hobbit The Lord of the Rings Unfinished Tales }}
Bilbo Baggins is the protagonist of
The Hobbit and a minor character in
The Lord of the Rings, two of the most well-known of
J. R. R. Tolkien's
fantasy writings. The story of
The Hobbit featuring Bilbo is also retold from a different perspective in the Chapter
The Quest of Erebor in
The Book of Unfinished Tales,
In Tolkien's narrative conceit, in which all the writings of Middle-earth are 'really' translations from the fictitious volume of
The Red Book of Westmarch, Bilbo is the author of
The Hobbit and translator of
The Silmarillion.
Appearances
The Hobbit
The Hobbit relates how Bilbo (in comfortable middle age at 50 years old), in spite of himself, is hired as a burglar, by
Gandalf and 13 dwarves led by their exiled king
Thorin Oakenshield on a quest to reclaim the
Lonely Mountain and its treasure from the dragon
Smaug. His adventure takes Bilbo through the wilderness, to the haven of Rivendell, through the black forest of Mirkwood, and a lake-community, eventually reaching the Mountain. Here, after the mountain has been reclaimed, the Battle of Five Armies takes place.
In his journey, Bilbo encounters other fantastic creatures like
trolls,
elves,
giant spiders, a man who can change
into a bear, and a mysterious, murderous creature named Gollum. In Gollum's underground lair, Bilbo finds a magic ring of invisibility, which he uses to escape from Gollum after winning a riddle competition.
While Bilbo initially is a mild-mannered, easygoing bumbler, he grows confident and wiser as the story progresses. He rescues the dwarves from giant spiders with a short sword he acquired and his magic ring. He also uses his ring to sneak about hostile areas like the Wood-elves' stronghold; he later uses his wits to break the dwarves out of the elves' prisons. He is able to hold his own in conversation with the wily Smaug. When tensions arise regarding the ownership of the recovered treasure he unsuccessfully tries to get the opposing sides to bargain, using a stolen heirloom jewel as leverage. Though this strains his relationship with Thorin they later part as friends. Bilbo also impresses leaders of men and elves, as well as Gandalf, who knew there was more to him than it seemed.
At the end of his adventure, Bilbo becomes even wealthier from his share of the treasure. Upon his reappearance, he loses his and his family's respectability among his neighbours.
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings begins with Bilbo's "eleventy-first" (111th) birthday, 60 years after
The Hobbit. The main protagonist of the novel is
Frodo Baggins, Bilbo's kinsman.
In 2989 (SR 1389), Bilbo, a lifelong bachelor, adopted Frodo, the orphaned son of his first cousin Primula Brandybuck and his second cousin Drogo Baggins, and made him his heir. Though Frodo was actually "his first
and second
cousin once removed either way", the two regarded each other as uncle and nephew.
All this time Bilbo had kept his magic ring, with no idea of its significance. He had mostly used the ring to hide from his obnoxious cousins, the
Sackville-Bagginses, when they came to visit. Gandalf's investigations reveal it to be a
Ring of Power, the very Master-Ring, or
One Ring, forged by the Dark Lord
Sauron to corrupt and dominate the bearers of the other Rings, and by extension their races.
The Ring had prolonged his life beyond normal hobbit limits, and at 111 he still looked 50. While the Ring didn't initially corrupt him as it had its previous owners, it did have some negative effects upon him; over the years, he began to obsess over it, losing sleep and feeling "stretched out and thin", as he says to Gandalf, when he was out of its sight.
On the night of his birthday party, he reacts with panic and suspicion when Gandalf tries to persuade him to leave the Ring behind with Frodo along with his other belongings. Bilbo refers to the Ring as his "precious" — the same name the wretched Gollum gives it in
The Hobbit. Gandalf loses his temper with his old friend, putting some sense into him. Bilbo then admits he'd have liked to be rid of it, and leaves it behind, becoming the first person to do so voluntarily.
Bilbo leaves the Shire that night, leaving the Ring and all the rest of his estate, including his home,
Bag End in Hobbiton, to Frodo. He puts on the Ring and vanishes from sight at his own birthday party, and is never seen in Hobbiton again.
This, coupled with his (for a hobbit) eccentric doings and a flash that Gandalf, in on the joke, sets off at the moment of his disappearance, leads to him being immortalized in hobbit folklore as "Mad Baggins", who disappears with a flash and a bang and returns with gold and jewels.
Bilbo travels to
Rivendell, where he lives a very pleasant life of
retirement: eating, sleeping, writing
poetry, and working on his memoir,
There and Back Again, known to us as
The Hobbit. He also wrote a book called
Translations from the Elvish, which formed the basis of what is known to us as
The Silmarillion.
At the end of
The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo accompanies Frodo, Gandalf,
Elrond, and
Galadriel to the
Grey Havens, there to take ship for
Tol Eressëa across the sea, on
September 29, 3021. He had already celebrated his 131
st birthday, becoming the oldest living Hobbit ever in Middle-earth.
The Appendices
According to the Appendices of the
Lord of the Rings, Bilbo was born to
Bungo Baggins and
Belladonna Took on
September 22, 2890, or SR (Shire Reckoning) 1290, of the
Third Age of Middle-earth. The
Bagginses of Bag-End were one of the oldest, wealthiest, and respectable hobbit families in Hobbiton until the year 2941 (SR 1341), when Bilbo inexplicably disappeared and was thought dead. He had in fact, gone on an "adventure" arranged by the Wizard Gandalf the Grey.
Posthumously Published
The poem "
Bilbo's Last Song", illustrated by
Pauline Baynes was published after Tolkien's death.
Names and titles
In
The Hobbit Bilbo calls himself "Ring-Finder", "Ring-Winner", "Luck-Wearer", "Lucky Number", "Stinging Fly", and "Barrel-Rider" in front of Smaug, who is pleased by the riddling.
He is later dubbed "Ring-bearer", and Elf-friend
Going by the
conceit that Tolkien's books were translated from the
Red Book of Westmarch, his true name in
Westron was
Bilba Labingi.
Labingi is related to the Westron
laban, bag.
Portrayals in adaptations
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In the 1966 BBC Radio serialization of The Hobbit, Bilbo was played by Paul Daneman.
Nicol Williamson portrayed Bilbo with a light West Country accent in the 1974 performance released on Argo Records.
In the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated version of The Hobbit, Bilbo was voiced by Orson Bean. Bean also voiced both the aged Bilbo and Frodo in the same company's 1980 adaptation of The Return of the King.
In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo was voiced by Norman Bird. Billy Barty was the model for Bilbo, as well as Frodo and Sam, in the live-action recordings Bakshi used for rotoscoping.
In the BBC's 1981 radio serialization of The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo is played by John Le Mesurier.
In Peter Jackson's films (2001) and (2003) Bilbo is played by Ian Holm, who had played Frodo in the BBC radio series 20 years earlier.
Family tree
Appearances in popular culture
In 1968, Leonard Nimoy released a record, "The Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy," which contained the song "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins."
In 2006, The TV Show Class of 3000 came out. In one episode the class is looking for Sunny's home. While looking in a deep forest the main character Li'l D bumps into an invisible thing which turns out to be Bilbo Baggins with the stolen ring from Gollum on. Philly Phil acknowledges him, but no one listens. There were also other mentions of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit in the episode.
In the episode of the TV show, one of the many crossed out spellings of a new student's name (Bolbi) was Bilbo, an apparent reference to Bilbo Baggins.
In an episode of Mind of Mencia in which the main character plays an Indian electronic store clerk, right before he badmouths a nerd, he says "Oh Mighty Krishna, please look the other way while I verbally kick Bilbo in the Baggins."
In a Simpsons episode Principal Skinner is blackmailed with peanutes to suckle a Bilbo Baggins action figure in the Comic book store window.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bilbo Baggins'.
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