Comfort - it comes not just in hobbit holes; it comes in the nostalgia, and the romanticization of adventure. It comes in that which is familiar, yet foreign, and not in an uncanny way. Whether you sit out on a bench, smoke from a pipe, or having second breakfast, your mind can drift to simpler times - of small moments. For me, sometimes my mind drifts to the old VHS recording of Rankin-Bass’s 1977 animated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
Admittedly, I did not know much of Middle-Earth, just that this funny, miniature man was going with chubbier men, also of short stature, and some scary looking wizard. There were the many pitfalls and terrors that I didn’t know, yet felt discomfort by - goblins, wargs, and the weird, reptilian looking Gollum, and the threats of the outside regarding man and the Mirkwood elves, led by the Elvenking. Perhaps, most frighteningly of all, Bilbo Baggins risked being late for dinner - adventures do make one late for dinner, after all.
The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.
The chances, the changes are all yours to make.
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.
Hesitant as he was, Bilbo Baggins knew he craved adventure, he knew he wanted to explore, do something, be someone bigger than what he is. He just didn’t know what it was, and would’ve outright scoffed at the notion, for he, like many hobbits, were stubborn in their ways. I mean, who wouldn’t? Just chilling and relaxing by a calm countryside, undetected to the threats of the outside world…that’s a dream for many who seek to avoid a dangerous lifestyle, and it was perfect for a hobbit.
Yet, you know the story - and the 1977 cartoon follows the same beat, adding in parts and eschewing others, yet it all harkens back to the general plot, theme, and message of the book. Almost every song in the book is in here, and it is sung with heart and love. There is a sense of hope when needed, passion when desired, and dread when necessary. From the hope of “The Greatest Adventure” to the sobering “Roads”, from the chilling “Down, Down, Down to Goblintown” to the oddly upbeat “Rollin’ Down the Hole” it is here. Even “The Misty Mountain Cold” which starts off in a sing-song way before leading into a spoken-word retelling of the lyrics by Gandalf the Grey.
There’s a magic in that music - one that moves through you. You’ll feel the love of beautiful things, wanting to go and see the great mountains and hear the pine trees and the waterfalls. To carry a sword instead of a walking stick…just once.
It’s that simple beginning, yet it gives me goosebumps and fills my heart with inspiration. That life can be a change away from just a single adventure that will leave one not the same. Growing older, that road winds and expands and twists into turns that you learn to take. No matter what you choose, they stretch on. Many times over, I’ve taken the necessary turns when needed and it took me to many stops and destinations, but the road must stay traveled until life’s twilight and your feet kiss the shore at the end.
Roads go ever, ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shown,
By streams that never find the sea.
At a certain age, I didn’t care for the Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings (which combined Fellowship of the Ring and half of The Two Towers), and Rankin-Bass’s continuation, Return of the King, and I wasn’t too blown away by the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was young and dumb, and I wish I gave it that chance, to be filled with another wonder in my childhood, to know the world that came after that cartoon from a decade before my existence. But you bet when I finally watched the Jackson films and the cartoons of the past upon Jackson’s return to direct a Hobbit trilogy, I was excited. Enthralled. I was ready to see those moments I grew up with play out.
Only this time, things were different. The pieces were still there, but there were additions that would later befuddle me - not anger me, but confuse me, why they’d toy with something so familiar and well-read. Why fix something if it isn’t broken? However, it didn’t matter. It felt like someone else telling a story through their eyes. You’ve probably heard a different variation of Little Red Riding Hood than I have, so maybe this is the case. Someone else’s grandpa is telling the kids around the fireplace the story, rather than your grandpa bouncing you on his knee as he tells it his way. Both ways can be told with love and heart and reverence.
I will say, one thing I disliked about the trilogy is the treatment of original character Tauriel as a sort of thing to fight for, when it was clear the love in her heart for Kili over Legolas was true. You see, Hollywood had this silly little thing to “spice up” romances in some of their films, where two, maybe three or four characters vie for the love and affection of a love interest and this was incredibly common for a time - see: the majority of the films adapted from young adult novels at the time. Tauriel was an interesting Elven character on her own and she needed not the twisted ropes of love to make her interesting. Tauriel was Tauriel, and had so much potential to match with the likes of Galadriel and Arwen. However, this is not a film review, and it is not about the Jackson trilogy, so with me getting back on track, I digress.
Heave ho! Splash plump!
Rollin' down the hole!
Heave ho! Bang bump!
Roll-roll-rollin' down the hole!
Bilbo’s adventures may not be suitable for many modern sensibilities when it comes to this animated classic. The characters are ugly, but the views are gorgeous. The voice acting is campy and fun, and it feels just like reading the novel. It’s a feature that I’ve watched again and again, and it fills my heart to the brim. I’m a kid again.
It is a different experience from reading the book, however. The original grandpa, Tolkien, told that story to me in 2019 on my very first read from his time in the 1930s (adapted later in the 50s), and it stuck with me ever since. I was a kid suddenly, I forgot the world as it is, as I was now in Middle-Earth, riding on a pony with Bilbo and the dwarves, through spider-infested forest and dragon-inhabited caves.
Page after page, chapter after chapter, I lived there. I felt the connections. Every glimmer of hope in finding lost gold and senses of purpose was met with heartache and fear at every obstacle and demise.
When I got to the final page, I didn’t want to read that final sentence. I didn’t want to say goodbye - though I could return again and again. I didn’t want the rush of this first experience to die. It’s an ending that leaves one empty because you fall in love with it, like you would a dear friend that you have to say goodbye to. Life just rolls on that way. After all, the dragon is slayed, so why not move on?
The dragon is withered,
His bones are now crumbled.
His armour is shrivered,
His splendour is humbled!
Oh, tra-la-la-lally
Here down in the valley, ha! Ha!
The message and reason is simple. There’s a Bilbo Baggins in all of us. Whether we are leaving home for something grander, or returning, we all go there and back again in some way. As Bilbo learned, a house is not the real home, it’s those we surround ourselves with and the experiences we lived. We are home. And that is good enough.
I love every variation of this tale, told to me now by the heaviness of my eyes, now glassy with tears and the dimples piercing through my smile, that this is a story that anyone who is lost, should read. For those people are wanderers, and all who wander are not lost.
We are helped, just like Bilbo was and how Frodo will be. These are our roads, but these people we met in life are our passengers. Of course we can’t walk it alone, that these aren’t our prophecies merely because we helped it come about.
We may be fine folk, but we are not main characters. The road is fond of us, but we are only but quite a tiny fellow in a wide world, after all.