Heartbreaking Fan Theories About The Hobbits Of 'Lord of the Rings'

From Redditor u/felix_florentine:

The tone of the Lord of the Rings trilogy evidently more gritty than that of The Hobbit. The Hobbit is a lot more action-oriented, and the CGI used gives those movies a more fantastical styling. This kind of bothered me, I really liked that dark feeling the first set of movies had.

So I rationalized that the different tones must be because of the writer of the story. Bilbo is more whimsical and tends to exaggerate, so his movie follows that personality. On the other hand, Frodo was met with more injury and damage, so his part of the tale reflects that.

From Redditor u/SnakeeyesX:

I always wondered why Gollum never tried to kill Bilbo, like he promised he would. I think the answer might be that he thought he did kill Bilbo, but really killed Drogo and his wife.

Drogo and Primula died from drowning on the Brandywine river in Buckland. Witnesses claim to have seen a struggle. This is Smeagle's MO.

Gollum only had two clues; ‘Shire and Baggins.’ Not likely to travel on land, Gollum would have killed the first Baggins he found along the Brandywine river. Being the only Baggins in Buckland, this would have been Drogo. He wouldn't know the difference between Drogo and Bilbo, as he never actually saw Bilbo, and didn't know his first name.

From Redditor u/kwonza:

Think about it: you are sending a task force of die-hard fighters on an almost suicidal mission into the heart of the enemy's territory. Then some hapless teenagers (and despite their age that's what Hobbits mostly were) claim they would like to tag along. Of course you would bring them to their senses and send them home, unless...

Out of the couple of facts we know about Hobbits are: they are rather silent, they have hairy legs, they have unusual resistance to the powers of the Ring. It was stated a few time that the Ring corrupts the f*ck out of its bearer. Hell, the wizard didn't even trusted himself with the d*mn artifact. So, what would happen if somewhere in the middle of the road Frodo catches an arrow and is no more? The whole operation on which the fate of the world depends in jeopardized. Solutions? Have a spare ring-barer. Maybe two, four won't hurt either. Sure, the Gray loves the Hobbits, but its better to sacrifice four so that thousands may live.

From Redditor u/patrickhh20:

Watch the Council of Elrond scene. After Frodo puts the ring on the table, he begins to experience uneasiness. After Elrond says the ring must be destroyed, Frodo becomes even more uneasy and even starts to hear the voice of Sauron calling to him. When everyone stands up and starts shouting at each other, the voice of Sauron intensifies in Frodo, and he sees flames in the Ring, and then he stands up and says he will take it to Mordor. He does not say he will take it there to destroy it, just, he will take it there.

Also, he decided to take it, not having shook off the bad feelings, and not having resolved to destroy it. After he hears Sauron calling to him, he immediately stands up and says he will take it. This makes it look more like an act of obedience than anything else.

This makes the end, where he decided not to destroy the Ring, more believable. What seemed like great resistance to the Ring through out the movies, was actually because Sauron was empowering him to bring the ring to Mordor.

From Redditor u/HenceForth:

Throughout The Lord of the Rings movies people, such as Gandalf, make mention of how the One Ring wants to get back to it's master, implying the ring has a mind of it's own.

The Ring was held by a creature named Smeagol for about 600 hundred years, In this time they say ‘It Poisoned his mind.’ We see it caused Smeagol to have a form of dissociative identity disorder, or split personalities, one being Smeagol the other Gollum.

In the beginning of The Fellowship of The Ring, after Bilbo pulls his vanishing act for the Hobbits, there is a scene where Bilbo calls the Ring his precious. Gandalf calls him out on this, saying, ‘It has been called that before, but not by you.’ He is talking about Gollum specifically, not Smeagol.

The thing about Gollum and Smeagol is that Gollum refers to the Ring as his ‘precious’ throughout the trilogy, while Smeagol calls it my ‘love,’ like he used to call Deagol. Gollum also is more hateful, spiteful and evil in general, back to this in a bit.

I propose that Gollum isn't exclusive to Smeagol, and is the name of the identity itself that lives in the One Ring, and upon fully possessing any creature, would have went upon being called by the name Gollum.

From Redditor u/thebeginningistheend:

So the big question about Hobbits is where exactly they came from. Their origin is not in the Silmarillion and even Treebeard, the oldest creature in Middle-earth, doesn't seem to know the answer.

While they are human, they weren't apparently directly created by Eru. And evolution from baseline humans doesn't seem likely, not only because of the short timeframe but also because of their small size doesn't really confer much of an evolutionary advantage.

Their most ancient legends hardly looked further back than their Wandering Days. It is clear, nonetheless, from these legends, and from the evidence of their peculiar words and customs, that like many other folk Hobbits had in the distant past moved westward. Their earliest tales seem to glimpse a time when they dwelt in the upper vales of Anduin, between the eaves of Greenwood the Great and the Misty Mountains. Why they later undertook the hard and perilous crossing of the mountains into Eriador is no longer certain. Their own accounts speak of the multiplying of Men in the land, and of a shadow that fell on the forest, so that it became darkened and its new name was Mirkwood.

The Greenwood during this period was home to the Silvan Elves. Who were notably famous amongst their peers for their unwise and impulsive behavior.

Perhaps after the disastrous Battle of the Plains the Elves took some humans and kept them as pets or servants, changing them or breeding them to make them better lapdogs.

Elves have treated sentient species as animals before. In one instance even hunting down the petty-dwarfs after mistaking them for beasts.

Hobbits are described as small, quick, nimble, light-hearted, pleasant-faced but not beautiful, non-violent and, much like Elves, beard-less with leaf-shaped ears which are very sensitive to noises. More importantly Hobbits seem immune to the indolence and ennui that afflicts the elves. For a race that sees the World slowly dying, Hobbits love growing things and making gardens.

Although Hobbits have vices, they are all ones Elves would find endearing. Even when foolish only in a bumbling sort-of-way. Even a Sackville-Baggins would be fun for an Elf to have around just as a source of teasing and merriment.

Read the full theory here.