“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
With that simple, enchanting sentence, J.R.R. Tolkien transformed the fantasy genre forever. Hobbits are now beloved by fans across the globe. Their popularity transcends nationalities, languages, and creeds. What can explain this near universal appeal? I think part of the answer can be discovered by taking a closer look at the life and adventures of Tolkien’s original hobbit hero — Bilbo Baggins of Hobbiton.
Bilbo seems at first glance to be the most unlikely protagonist for a tale of high adventure. He’s not a mighty wizard, a stalwart knight, or a king in exile. When we meet him, he’s a well-to-do hobbit living a quiet life surrounded by his prized possessions and all the conveniences of his beloved home of Bag End.
One fine morning, Gandalf the wizard finds Bilbo on his doorstep, blowing smoke rings and taking the air, contentedly uninterested in the troubles of the wider world around him. Gandalf has come to disrupt Bilbo’s comfortable routine with an invitation to share in an adventure. Bilbo Baggins has no use for adventures — “Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things!” — and tells Gandalf so. But Gandalf the Grey will not be so easily put off.
If you’ve read The Hobbit or seen the film adaptations, you know what happens next: Gandalf and the dwarf-lord Thorin Oakenshield arrive at Bag End the next day for an “unexpected party” where, much to his own distress and consternation, Bilbo is recruited as the expert “burglar” on a quest to the faraway Lonely Mountain of Erebor to reclaim ancestral dwarven treasure from the hoard of the vicious dragon Smaug. At first, Thorin and his companions are skeptical of Bilbo’s qualifications, but Gandalf perceives that beneath the hobbit’s homebody exterior, there is something special just waiting for a chance to break free. The wizard tells the dwarves that “there is a lot more in [Mr. Baggins] than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.”
Indeed, on his journey over the “Edge of the Wild,” Bilbo finds himself doing things he never would have dreamed of before — fighting trolls and escaping goblins, flying with the great eagles, slaying giant spiders, and trading wits with a dragon! Of course, there are many unforeseen mishaps. There are struggle, sorrow, and suffering to be had. Bilbo is often wet, cold, tired, and hungry. Many times, the little hobbit wishes he were back home at Bag End sitting by the cozy fireplace. But adventures are not—and never have been—comfortable things. Bilbo grows in maturity and wisdom as he learns to choose virtue over comfort, and to place the needs of his friends and of the quest above his own personal safety. Over time, Thorin and the dwarves come to have a deep respect for the hobbit, realizing just how much they had underestimated him.
Mr. Baggins is a very sympathetic everyman character, and I find that I can relate to him quite a bit because we actually have a good deal in common: We are both bachelors. We both love to read books and look at maps while fantasizing about adventure (but, of course, when push comes to shove, would rather remain at home). We have similar flaws, such as having a strong aversion to unexpected discomfort. We both, at times, can be petty and cross and fall to pieces at the slightest inconvenience. And yet, for all that, Bilbo’s remarkable transformation over the course of the tale, as well as his enduring good qualities—his kindness, his good sense, and his humility—are what make him stand out as one of the most likable and endearing fantasy heroes of all time.
I would suggest that The Hobbit draws much of its power and appeal from the primal motif of “the hero’s journey”—a pattern of meaning that crops up repeatedly in myths and epic tales from across the ages and from around the world. Many of the most beloved heroic tales share a similar narrative arc: they tend to feature an overly self-regarding person who finds the courage to break free of the cramped confines of the ego into a wider reality through service to a higher good. By facing down enemies and dangers, and overcoming interior obstacles (such as ignorance and fear) the hero is able to help the people around him and make the world a better place. In the end, such stories teach us all about finding our mission—the reason why we have been sent into the world.
In our own lives, the one who calls us forth to heroism and adventure is God himself. The hero’s journey is all over the Bible. Indeed, Jesus’s call to discipleship is the invitation to the greatest adventure we could ever conceive of! We are meant to pursue goodness and heroic virtue. We are meant to become saints! What could be a greater calling than that? In his apostolic exhortation “Gaudete et Exsultate”, Pope Francis says that “[God] wants us to be saints and not to settle for a bland and mediocre existence.”
We are made for this high destiny, but the road is not an easy one. It is full of hazards and pitfalls, perils, and even sufferings. All too often, our attachments to possessions and worldly pleasures, as well as our fears and doubts about the future, keep us from stepping out boldly to follow Christ on the noble quest of discipleship. To move forward, we need to ponder the wisdom of St. Paul, who writes so beautifully in his letter to the Romans that “none of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:7-8)
One of the hardest spiritual lessons to truly come to grips with is this: You are not your own. It is not our narrow desires and selfish prerogatives that truly matter. All of these lesser attachments must be cast away if we are to follow where the Lord is leading us: into a much wider and far more fulfilling world.
Much of the culture milieu around us can stifle our desire to follow the Lord on the “unexpected journey” of sanctity. Sometimes we stifle it ourselves. Indeed Bilbo had buried his own desire for adventure so deep, that he needed Gandalf’s literal shove out the door to find it again. In the collection of Tolkien’s writings known as The Unfinished Tales the section called “The Quest of Erebor” which reveals more about the background of Bilbo’s famous quest. Tolkien writes that as a younger hobbit, Bilbo once dreamed about going on great adventures, but by the time he reached adulthood, “Bilbo had changed… and his old desires had dwindled down to a sort of private dream. Nothing could have been more dismaying than to find it actually in danger of coming true!”
As long as Bilbo remained in the cramped little world of Bag End, he could not discover his full potential and enter into the grand adventure of life that is true human flourishing. In order to make his way in the wide, wild world, all of Bilbo’s self-centered prerogatives had to be systematically stripped from him as part of his hero’s journey. Bilbo needed to learn that the world does not revolve around his fussy little domestic concerns.
Ultimately, too, Bilbo had to learn that he’s not in the one in ultimate control of his own life. He is being led by a higher power and even his seemingly chance encounters and deeds have momentous consequences for all of Middle-earth. As Gandalf makes clear in The Fellowship of the Ring, a greater providence was at work in the course of Bilbo’s journey to the Lonely Mountain. The wizard tells Bilbo’s cousin and heir Frodo Baggins that “Bilbo was meant to find the [One Ring], and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.”
It was Bilbo’s willing cooperation in the call to unexpected adventure that eventually made possible what could not have occurred otherwise: the destruction of the Ring of Power and the triumph of the forces of good over the Dark Lord. And that may be, as Gandalf would say, an encouraging thought for us Christians too, as we do our best to follow in the footsteps of the saints who came before us on the road to eternal life. In fact, Christian discipleship is a road not unlike the one Bilbo Baggins sang of in the twilight years of his life:
The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.
“May the stars shine upon your faces” and have a Happy Hobbit Day!