Riddles in the Dark: Spiritual Warfare by Bilbo and Gollum
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2021
- Bilbo's riddle contest with Gollum is much more than just a game....
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It's interesting to note that the names 'Smeagol' and 'Smaug' are really the same, both being derived from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'to squeeze through a hole' - which is applicable to both the dragon and Gollum, as they live in tunnels under the mountains. Bilbo then ventures into those tunnels and engages in a battle-of-wits - the riddle-game with Gollum, and the rather riddle-like description of himself in his dialogue with Smaug.
Another thing I see is that Evil is self-defeating. Gollum set the terms and accepted 'what have I got in my pocket' as a riddle via his own logic, and thus self-defeated
"Oft evil will shall evil mar," Théoden would say seventy-seven and a half years later. And sure enough, both Gollum's malice and Sauron's malice in the Ring ultimately led to both Gollum's demise and Sauron's permanent incapacitation.
Excellent as usual!
Regarding Gollum's riddles being impressive, but dark, and Bilbo's being homely: the very simplicity of Bilbo's riddles makes a few of them challenging for Gollum, who can barely remember what a decent ordinary life is like. Bilbo's humility becomes his advantage, not only in a spiritual sense but in a cognitive one.
Absolutely said it better than I!
Spiritual warfare - I didn't think about until now but that is a perfect way to describe it.
Gollum’s last true riddle is very fitting; the slow decay of Time is definitely a theme for LotR - every Age, Kingdom, hero etc. is lesser than those that came before.
I think Gollum is simply better at Riddles because literally all he has is time to think. In my opinion it’s also Gollum and Bilbo’s perspective based on their life experiences more than spirituality. Gollum has lived most of his years in misery as a slave to the power of the ring, so it makes sense that his riddles are so dark. Whereas Bilbo has lived a very comfortable life up until his adventures, so he is more focused on life’s simple pleasures.
Or on a somewhat less positive explanation: Bilbo didn't just get a boost of confidence based on the riddle game, but because he was now in possession of the One. The ring does boost what is already there. So he bravery was also strengthened.
Great point! It reminds me of the part in the song of creation where Melkor is striving with Eru Iluvatar. Eru calls Melkor out for the discord and tells him that in the end his designs and purposes will ultimately serve and work for Eru in his music. I think this may be an example of this playing out, the ring betrays Gollum to get to Sauron but ultimately dooms itself to follow the intent of Eru Iluvitar’s designs
Wow
Great comment and reply
Something I didn't notice mentioned in the video is the setting of the battle. They're in a vast underground cavern, on the shores of a dark lake, with all the weight of the mountain above them, where Bilbo and the Shire are interlopers. It's an idea that's revisited more explicitly in LotR books 4 and 6, where, as Frodo and Sam approach and cross Mordor, Frodo is lost to the debasement and despair of his surroundings, and only Sam's hope and deep roots in the green growth of the Shire's gardens keeps the Quest on track.
If Bilbo and Gollum had traded riddles over afternoon tea in the Shire, rather than in the oppressive dark of the mountains' roots, then I can't help but feel that Bilbo would have provided a much better showing (if not as good a story).
It's also worth mentioning, as another comment has pointed out, that, despite the home ground advantage, and having dictated the rules of their engagement, ultimately it's Gollum who snatches his own defeat from the jaws of victory, both accepting Bilbo's panicked squeaking of a correct answer, and accepting Bilbo's careless musing as a valid "riddle". In the context of the Hobbit, particularly, the fairy tale logic of Gollum's promises alone being enough to bind him to show Bilbo the way out (even without consciously intending it) upon losing the game also makes a lot of sense.
_The Hobbit_ also has this really impressive "for want of a nail" structure in which all of Thorin & company's misadventures and misfortunes from the trolls to the battle of five armies has the effect of bringing them to the mountain at the right time of year to find and open the door, aggravate Smaug to his doom, and delay the confrontation of the peoples of wood, lake, and mountain in order for them to unite against the goblins and wolves. One example to think about: what if Bombur hadn't fallen in the river in Mirkwood...?
Providence. I am increasingly of the opinion that Gandalf had a "joker card" in hand in that he knew something of the mind of Eru Ilúvatar, which was as long as the Istari (or at least one of them) were able to get some of the Children of Ilúvatar to do their best in the fight against Sauron, he would not let them fail.
As an example, Gandalf might not have had a firm plan on how to get into Mordor, but he counted on Ilúvatar providing a way as long as the Fellowship (or some portion thereof) made the attempt.
Yeah, another way to look at it is that the ring saved Bilbo. It betrayed Gollum not only by allowing being found by Bilbo, but by helping Bilbo to survive and get out of those mountains. When Bilbo touched it, the ring put those words in his mouth.
I know that was probably not Tolkien's plan but following the death of the author principle, it could be considered. In the end, that ring is Sauron.
It was by an act of Eru Ilúvatar that Bilbo just happened to feel the ground at the exact place needed to find the ring. Without this assistance, it is extremely unlikely that anyone would find a small ring on a rough tunnel floor in complete darkness.
@@tominiowa2513 It could if the ring wanted to be found. The ring betrayed Gollum after all, someone was gonna find it sooner or later.
As Gandalf mentions in LotR, it was ridiculously unlikely that the Ring should be found by a Hobbit who had left the Shire for an adventure, been captured by Goblins but escaped, and, separated from his companions, be wandering lost in the depths of the mountain. Far more likely that a passing Goblin would have chanced upon it, and it then find its way fairly swiftly to Sauron's hand.
@@rmsgrey We know there wasn't any goblin around. There was a hobbit though and a Hobbit carrying a weapon, that was trying to get out of the mountains. If I was a ring on the floor, that would be enough for me XD
If there is a moment where the will of the ring failed wasn't there. It happened when Bilbo spared Gollum's life. That's where the will of the ring failed doing its magic. The fact that Bilbo took the ring, perfectly fits with the plan of the ring.
Remember the song of the Ainur. The dark acts, but everything fits into Eru's plan in the end. The will of the ring was that Bilbo took it, but by doing it, in the end it ended up dooming itself. That totally fits with Tolkien's view where evil ends up defeating itself.
@@Alfonso88279 Gollum had been using the Ring to hunt Goblins from time to time, so, while the Goblins may avoid the tunnels where Gollum usually hunts, they have gone there in the past, and it's still more likely that a Goblin would be in those tunnels at some point than that a Hobbit would.
Monday mornng: starting the week with Tolkien ♥️
Amazing topic. Thanks for the discussion.
Very interesting, I never thought about what the riddles meant... It's crazy how whenever I start feeling that I know all there is to know about Tolkien's world, something like this falls into my lap. ^^
Thank you!
Fascinating. On the one hand, the Ring itself wanted quits of Gollum, and on the other, Eru and the Valar wanted to keep it away from Sauron...it seems that Bilbo was the solution to both dilemmas....
Very good point. Using your analogy, I think there may be some parallel with the song battle between Finrod and Sauron back in the First Age. Although Finrod lost that battle, I do believe there is a certain element of providence as well. I think it is worth exploring.
This view of the riddle-game being a battle of two worldviews remind me of the battle of songs between Sauron and Finrod.
Sauron:
He chanted a song of wizardry, Of piercing, opening, of treachery, Revealing, uncovering, betraying.
Finrod:
Sang in a song of staying, Resisting, battling against power, Of secrets kept, strength like a tower, And trust unbroken, freedom, escape; Of changing and shifting shape, Of snares eluded, broken traps, The prison opening, the chain that snaps.
And another parallel I saw with how you noticed Gollum's riddles being more developed in imagery and richness, which reminded of the debate between Ivan and Alyosha in the Brothers Karamazov. Ivan is much more intelligent and skilled in rethoric and easily wins the debate. But it is Alyosha who wins the main plot you could say
Good point! The parallels just keep on coming ^^
@@LeHobbitFan Indeed ^^
On the subject of Providential protection: In the _Myst_ series, when The Stranger first arrived on Myst Island, it could have been easy to blunder into Haven, Spire, or J'nanin. Linking to any of those would have left The Stranger stuck with no way back and only a dangerous, disturbed individual for company. Then Atrus would never have been able to contact the other survivors of D'ni. Furthermore, the fall of Terahnee would have happened at a different time without Atrus et al. to help guide the ex-slaves to a leader with a will to build instead of a leader consumed by hatred. Yahvo (as the D'ni called Eru) protected The Stranger by preventing a disastrous Link through the wrong Book, and The Stranger played at least four pivotal roles in the history of Age-Writing civilizations.
AMEN!
Forgot to comment here it seems (I can't believe it! Thought I did!), and say love this video it is one of my absolute favourites. Though going to disagree; Bilbo's riddles are more interesting for the psychological insight they give us into his views on the world, and that this is really a battle between nihilism and its views vs the idealism, honesty and goodness of Bilbo. And that the prof thought the preferable one to be Mr. Baggins' views (or so I think). Sorry for nitpicking but this video is just utterly fascinating and I had to geek out about it twice or thrice over. You are really on point here, and though I disagree this is one of your top ten videos for how it got everyone thinking I think about one of the most integral scenes in the whole of the history of Middle-Earth!
I found Sméagol's fish riddle to be connected the egg riddle Bilbo had told; Bilbo had made a riddle about eggs, and Sméagol thought of his favorite food. So it's also the closest that Sméagol, who by this time had been under the Ring's toxic spiritual and psychological influence for four hundred seventy-eight years--and in exile for most of that time--comes to a homey riddle of his own.
Fantastic analysis!! My favorite book ever keeps on getting better!
Very apt title. This is a powerfully insightful video.
I like the new camera angle!
The riddle game can also be seen as a parallel of Satan tempting Christ in the New Testament, where Christ has to apply scripture to resist Satan while Satan tries to twist scripture to destroy Christ. That's really the beginning of Christ's ministry after being baptized, just like it's the beginning of Bilbo coming into his own.
A very insightful commentary. It makes me think of Burns poem" To a mountain daisy," which has some of these themes from a more humanistic viepoint.
Biblo broke/evaded the curse of the ring by not killing gollum. Isildur killed sauron, and smeagol killed deagol, but the pity of hobbits broke the cruel cycle
One thing that strikes me is Gollum's riddle of the mountains never growing. One area where Tolkien's works have not held up over time is that he was a fixist with regard to geography, other than the great changes caused when the Valar defeated Morgoth and lands sunk into the sea, there is no sense that the world changes over time. Even over the thousands of years that Rivendell existed the stream running through it would have eroded, and mountains do rise and fall. In the United States you can see old mountains like Appalachia being eroded and worn over time, the Rocky Mountains which have heavily eroded, the discontinuity in the Grand Canyon where millions of years in the vertical column are gone, and mountains in the northwest where the Stuart Range is a tall set of peaks, but 50,000,000 years ago was buried at a depth of 40 miles and has risen to the surface, At the time he wrote these Geologies were not well understood and were outside his areas of study. Would be interesting to see how differently the stories might have been.
What makes you think that? There’s nothing in the stories to suggest that everything in the geography is static.
Third! Great video 👍🏻
Thanks. I always found it a bit annoying that Bilbo kind of cheated ( I felt) but this made me see it in a very different light. Thanks
Well, according to the theological framework Tolkien operated by, one is not held to compelled promises. If someone puts a gun to my head and says, 'play chess with me, and if you lose, you still die.' I would not consider myself bound to the rules of an engagement that I didn't really consent to. I would be cheating as much as I could get away with and feel no compunction whatsoever! :D
Great Video!
What edition of the book (which year/publisher) is the one you show in the thumbnail?
It was part of a Hobbit+LOTR box set with stills from the Jackson films on the LOTR volumes.
Great points. Did Gollums's invocation of the dark feed into the Barrow-wight's chant and Tom's reply, "Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness"? They aren't the first evil things to worship Night, the Furies in Aeschylus' Eumenides do this. Also, while there are many models for riddle-games, I think 'The Red Etin' in 'The Blue Fairy Book' might be one. The riddles are fairly banal, but the hero has the fairy-tale 'luck' of having been told the answers already, because he was kind to an old lady who turns out to be a fairy. (Oh and he rescues a beautiful princess, he is a widow's son and there is a knife which changes colour)
Then there are the questions of the Keeper of the Bridge of Death.
Your camera quality was amazing in this video. Did you try out a cam but decided not to keep it?
Same camera; not sure why this was different unless I was just in a sweet spot for focus
On what platform is your podcast going to be? I have more time for listening than watching, and would certainly enjoy listening!
I know for sure it’s on Spotify, Apple, Overcast, and Castbox. Maybe some others.
First! : )
it has been a while since i read the book but i have this vague recollection that the whole riddle thing and them knowing the riddles was kinda about them having a similar cultural background?
Gandalf suggests that in LOTR, but honestly I think that’s one of the least credible things he theorizes.
The idea that Smeagol was an ancestral Hobbit, from before they came to the Shire, and that it was one of the properties of Hobbits that they were uniquely resistant to the One Ring (because of their innate nature, and possibly also because Sauron was unaware of them when he forged the Ring, so it doesn't have specific power over them). That idea makes a lot of sense. The idea that they share the same riddles as a result is like expecting a modern Cornishman to have riddles in common with the Dumnonii under Roman rule...
Nice video! This is random question: does Sauron have a physical body throughout all of the Third Age?
Almost certainly not ALL the Third Age. He was destroyed only shortly before the beginning of it after all lol.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Okay, lol!
So Bilbo is Tolkien and Gollum is Clark Ashton Smith.
are the riddles different in the original version?
Pretty sure they’re identical.
Is it possible to fully enjoy Tolkien's works and not be part of that Christian/Catholic world view Tolkien had when he was writing? It feels more and more like if you are not part of that you can't fully grasp the meanings. As a Buddhist myself, this is getting me really down. Am I taking this all wrong?
I don’t see why you can’t enjoy it regardless. To be clear, I don’t think Tolkien was intentionally trying to insert all of what I discuss into his text. Tolkien was constantly putting things into his stories that resonate with topics he had studied deeply, and my theory is that he acted subconsciously much of the time. His own writings indicate he “discovered” story elements rather than invented them, and I think that’s a function of having a deep understanding of a lot of things that naturally led him down the path of what “worked.”
@@TolkienLorePodcast Thank you, I'm sorry if I offended you or anything. That wasn't my intention. I was just worried that I'd never be able to get the full picture of Tolkien's works.
I’m not sure any of us will lol. It’s deep stuff and can be plumbed indefinitely.
You certainly do not have to be Catholic or Christian to enjoy Tolkien's works, but the larger philosophical questions are the same; e.g., if Eru Ilúvatar/God are good, created Melkor/Satan, why did the latter turn evil and why does not an all powerful Eru Ilúvatar/God stop Melkor/Satan from bringing evil into the world?
Understanding and agreeing are different things. Ilúvatar-and hence divine providence-can simply be accepted as part of the setting. How well the mechanics of the setting as outlined in the Legendarium reflect real life is another matter entirely. It isn’t actually history after all, as much as Tolkien (and the fans) often like to pretend it is. That is just a game we play among ourselves. Similarly, you needn’t be Catholic to understand Catholic dogma. Studying Catholic theological precepts from a purely scholarly perspective definitely does help understand Tolkien’s work: and is just a good idea anyway, because for better or worse the Catholic Church has a lot of political power. It’s always smart to know how those in power think, especially when you don’t agree.