186: The Hobbit 56: Bilbo, the Heroic Thief
Lord of the Rings Lorecast - J.R.R. Tolkien's World & Writings Explained
Robots Radio
4.9 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
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Summary
Not every hero needs a sword, and sometimes sacrifice and kindness is the most powerful quality you can possess.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Lord of the Rings lore cast, the show that explores the background of Tolkien's amazing world from the very beginning. Not all heroes win fights by force, and not all thieves steal for themselves. |
| 0:32.5 | We've discussed multiple times on this show, how many times Tolkien either plays off of previous, what we would |
| 0:41.4 | call today tropes, but patterns in literature, patterns in fantasy, and uses them in his own ways |
| 0:47.7 | and kind of stands on the shoulders of giants, you could even say, you can use different |
| 0:51.5 | analogies for this. But he usually plays within the lines of things that already existed if we understand those sources. |
| 1:01.3 | A simple example of this would be Smog the dragon. |
| 1:04.5 | He's not the first writer to ever write about a dragon. |
| 1:07.7 | And when we go back and like we did, look at all the other dragons that |
| 1:12.3 | inspired Smog in our bonus episode, we find that, well, Smog actually has a number of precursors. |
| 1:20.6 | And Tolkien usually takes those as templates and then gives them a little bit of his own spin, |
| 1:26.2 | but for the most part, you could kind of pick |
| 1:28.4 | up Smog out of the Hobbit and stick it back into Beowulf, and it wouldn't be too odd. |
| 1:34.6 | Another trope that would go exactly with that would be the heroic adventurer with their |
| 1:39.8 | sword and their wits fighting a monster and taking out the monster in a very traditional means. |
| 1:46.0 | And sure, there are lots of stories that buck that trend, that something happens with the |
| 1:52.0 | hero and things play out in a different way, or the hero needs to learn a new tact, a new skill, |
| 1:58.0 | a new approach to a situation because it's not just all about hitting things |
| 2:03.4 | with your sword. Sure, that's very common. What I find so interesting about chapter 16 is |
| 2:10.5 | not only that it's short, it's one of the two shortest chapters along with chapter three |
| 2:14.8 | in the entire book, but it is a chapter solely devoted to Bilbo |
| 2:21.1 | being a thief. It's called a thief in the night. This chapter defines Bilbo's thievery, |
| 2:30.0 | not in the purpose that we originally assumed to steal the treasure from the dragon for the benefit of himself and the dwarves. |
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