Welcome to the Lord of the Rings lorecast, the show that explores the background of me as I work my way through The Hobbit this time

is just how dense with information every paragraph, every sentence is. We're on the third episode of our

close reading of The Hobbit, and we're only a few pages in still, and now we're just discussing

the way in today's episode that Bilbo interacts with Gandalf and then the dwarves as they

arrive at his house.

And how much information we can glean, not just about Bilbo, but about the dwarves and about

Gandalf and his plan to take somebody on this adventure.

And the way this works out is beautiful and systematic.

It shows that Gandalf knows Bilbo in a way that Bilbo could never imagine.

And whether Gandalf knows Bilbo specifically that well because somehow he has information on him,

or he just knows Hobbits that well to know he has information on him, or he just knows

hobbits that well to know what Bilbo would end up doing in this situation.

Or maybe he's just a myr and he's powerful in knowing in other ways.

Let's dive into it and take a look at Bilbo and the arrival of the dwarves.

So we pick up toward the end of Gandalf and Bilbo's conversation the first time they run into each other outside of Bilbo's house.

And Bilbo begs his pardon and says, I haven't asked for anything.

And Gandalf says, well, yes, you have twice now.

My pardon, I give it to you.

And in fact, I will go so far as to send you on this adventure. It's a very interesting and bold thing for Gandalf to do here. First, he plays with the words a little bit about how you haven't asked for anything, like we've discussed on the previous episode. But more interesting to me in this part is the fact that Gandalf tells Bilba exactly what he's going to do. I'm going to send you on this adventure. And then he says,

very amusing for me, very good for you, and profitable too, very likely, if you ever get over it.

And so there's some foreshadowing here, right?

This idea that things will be beneficial to Bilbo in the long term.

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