HELP?? Dude they add a whole scene of Octavius needing elephants and this is what we gain from it?? I swear everytime I read a NatM book they get gayer

0: Prologue - or more of a preface

I'm one of those who likes to ramble and publish the ramble without editing it, so these will be messy!

'prologue' Middle English: from Old French, via Latin from Greek prologos, from pro- ‘before’ + logos ‘saying’.

And before anything is said about the book, I want to give context to this all. I didn't participate in the Hobbit group-read - mostly because I wasn't in this fandom at the time - so I'm not 100% sure what everything should be in these posts. Also I'm very bad at doing actual thoughtful commentary, especially on books. It's easier on visual media, but my "commentary" is still usually half sentences that don't make any sense. I have two hobbit trilogies worth of notes to testify that. - Or, like seen here, I read fifteen levels into each word.

Should be mostly spoiler free, since I don't even know what happens past mid-point of The Two Towers in the books.

Reading this with a close eye (I have to, otherwise I might just skim everything), I noticed the wording "seldom now reach three feet". Hobbits used to vary between two and four feet, huh? So even though the films portrayed the hobbits all about four feet tall (Bilbo's listed as being 4'2'' in the art book so I'm going off that), that was more the upper limit for "normal" height. And then a few sentences later there's this: "[Bullroarer] was surpassed [in height] -- only by two famous characters of old; *but that curious matter is dealt with in this book*." I'm probably reading too much into it, but does it suggest that Frodo and Sam are especially tall for Hobbits, even in their time?

On feet: I'm a writer and research random things sometimes. Last night I was reading through nanowrimo's research forum, checking everything that sounded interesting, and stumbled upon a topic on barefoot running. From what I read, it's more likely that hobbits actually walk more on the balls of their feet than on heels, as it's easier on knees and hips. Not a detail that would get much notice in a book, but could be explored in art. (Maybe not so much in film, given the limitation of feet prosthetics used.) Walking like that consumes more energy than walking on heels, so if they're walking tip-toe all day, no wonder hobbits eat more! 

On pipeweed: "tobacco of the Southfarthing play[s] a part in the history that follows" I still don't have the full context for this one (recall my words that I'm in Chapter X of Book III?) but I recall being absolutely confused by this the first time. How could tobacco play a part in world history? Well, I know a bit now, (again, Chapter X) but still not much. (And well I've read portions of the Atlas so that was a few spoilers *shrug* but spoilers are still not full context!)

Given how idyllic the Shire is portrayed in the movies, I'm actually surprised not all Hobbits can read!

"who reached a hundred as often as not" means 50% of hobbits reach 100 years of age, right? I'm no mathmagician, and median is not mean, but does that suggest hobbits have a life expectancy of 100 years? Given the lack of modern technology in Middle-Earth, I'm rather surprised. How long might hobbits live if they lived in modern times? (In visible populations, with modern tech)

On the finding of the Ring: "the party was assailed by orcs in -- the Misty Mountains" nitpicking and grammar-filing, but I actually discussed at length with a friend about the difference between orcs and goblins, since in the Hobbit movies, only the ones under Misty Mountains are called goblins, and Azog and his army are called orcs. Of course it would be repetitive to repeat the discussion here, but I find it interesting that the switch from English 'goblin' to Westron 'orc' was here applied "retroactively" so to speak. (And also, 'goblin' will always say to me 'funny little creature under a mountain', whereas 'orc' is 'dangerous thing do not approach')

"the ring slipped quietly on to his finger" and given what I know of the ring, it was all deliberate by it. Ring wants to go back to its master, and it cannot achieve that goal by staying with Gollum. Making Bilbo invisible will help the ring out of the cave. ... I suddenly wonder if there are fics written in the Ring's POV? (Too bad the ring didn't know Hobbits are not so easily influenced by it) "the ring, secured by a fine chain --" which we never saw in the films! I wanted to see the ring on a chain like a pocket watch!

Regarding the last few sentences of the chapter. (I've quoted so much directly by now that I think I'll pass, esp. for this long an excerpt) I didn't really notice it last time, but this really makes it sound more like a preface to a historical novel than a work of fiction - which was the idea, I suppose, given this is meant to be the English translation of Red Book of Westmarch. In any case, detailing events so far into the book and past the scope of its prose section is certainly a different approach to fiction! (It also explained a few things I was left wondering about regarding movie's Gray Havens scene.)

I also want to detail how I got into this fandom, because it ties into the prologue a bit.

I tried watching the LotR movies back in 2014 (I wanted to watch the Hobbit films, so maybe I could go see BoFA in theatre, but knew I should start with LotR), but kinda fell asleep (or something) during FotR (like I did watch it through but didn't really focus on it) so I let that plan be (even though I had all three films borrowed from the library so honestly I could have just rewatched it the following day), and didn't come back to it until this summer (2016 July in case I someday have a theme that doesn't have time stamps) when YLE (Finnish national radio/tv broadcaster) showed them on tv and they were also available online for a few weeks. Did the traditional method of marathoning all three in a row, didn't finish till 4am. I have a friend who joked about me being the one to learn Sindarin once I'd read the books, but after LotR, I said something to the effect of "well I'm not that much into this" - like, for me, back then, it was still "a film classic I must watch to be a proper young adult" type of deal. 

Then I got the Hobbit trilogy from the library, and this is where I need to get into detail. I had a new computer ("new", it's over five years old, but it used to be my brother's so it's new to me), so I wanted to watch the DVDs on that, but I couldn't find AUJ on DVD in the library so had to take Blu-Ray. I swear this is relevant. DoS and BoFA I did get on DVD. So I watched AUJ on tv screen, and then next tday DoS on computer. And half of BoFA.

... Not because of the movie itself. It was my computer that fucked up. You see, it's that old and has a bad processor, so it couldn't handle me watching 4+ hours of DVD straight. Cut it off twice in the Dale scenes. I got mad and didn't get that it was because the computer was overheating. Anyway, now I'm getting to the point.

I mentioned I got the films from the library? Well, I also got FotR and The Hobbit books at the same time, and because I was still in the middle of BoFA, I started with FotR. Can you see where this is going? Well, I had been spoiled back in 2014 so technically I knew, but I had forgotten it, and then "On the Finding of the Ring" had to mention it. Killed my mood for a while, but I pressed on with the book. A few days later I finished BoFA, dug up the hobbit tags of those I followed, started following more people, read basically all meta I could find, and here I am. I'm still definitely more Hobbit person than LotR person (definitely more dwarf person than elf person!), but that may or may not change during this read-though. I'm in the middle of TTT, (After reading through FotR in a month...) so I don't know if I'll continue with that, or just re-read FotR and then have initial reactions to books 3-6. (I read the appendixes a lot for reference purposes so I don't count them here) In either case, this should be fun! It's sometimes scary to be in this fandom because I'm only a very tiny person who hasn't read everything yet, but frick, fandoms should be welcoming, I doubt you're as bad as the old SW fandom was joked to be. (I recall a text post that listed quizzing on Wedge's shoelaces or something)

Said friend? Well, she wasn't *wrong*... I took up Khuzdul.