Bilbo Baggins and Right Engagement With the Monster, Part 1
From Hobbit to hero
Monsters are everywhere. They’re in myths and fairy tales; movies and video games; in nightmares and dreams. Monsters are even in our daily lives; we often describe them in mythical terms. From the troll on the internet looking to get a rise out of us, to our cranky neighbour who, like an old crone, scares off young children. Forked-tongue liars, bloodsucking exploiters, two-faced traitors: all monsters.
But what is the category of monster, specifically? Why are they so prevalent in not only the tales of old but also in our most contemporary stories? Is monster simply a replacement word for ‘villain’? Why do monsters always have such strange descriptions and chimeric qualities? And, finally, if their existence is such a given, how then do you deal with them? For a dragon is not a vampire; a witch is not a zombie; yet ‘monsters’ they all are.
Perhaps the designation of monster speaks to something greater than simply a generic term for an adversary. An opposing sports team may be your rival, but that does not mean they are monstrous. Frankenstein’s monster may have a horrible visage, but that does not make him evil.
The word monster speaks to something more - the more that exists in the strange land beyond your borders of perception. And as the heroes of yore have shown us, monsters are certainly capable of devouring us, but they are equally capable of being overcome. They sometimes reveal hidden treasures, but they always call you to great adventure.
How then does one avoid being devoured or win a treasure? Through right engagement with a strange pattern.
What is a monster?
The way I have come to interpret monsters is directly related to the idea of the strange. More specifically, something or someone that does not fit your current categories of identity. Monsters are categories of beings that an individual or group has not yet experienced; because they have not been experienced, the proper way to engage with or even perceive their alien identity is unknown. And, as every child who has been afraid of the dark intuits so well, the unknown is home to the strongest fears and strangest monsters.
This perspective helps to explain the monster’s chimerical or unusually mixed and mutated appearance. A dragon resembles a lizard or serpent, but it has wings and breathes fire; a giant may look like a human, but its proportions are all ‘wrong’; a werewolf may seem a beast but stands as a man. It soon becomes obvious as to why the sphinx speaks in deadly riddles, its very form embodying the puzzles its speech poses.
Consider you are an ancient Greek hoplite. You find yourself far afield on the very edge of the world, the lands of the Aethiops. On your travels, while passing a pregnant and overflowing river, the balm of a long march in arid lands, you happen upon a remarkable sight. Just beyond the slopes, on the edge of swelling renewal, a great hulking creature is stamping its colossal hooves. Mighty splashes and waves obscure the mass of what must be a tremendous beast. You catch sharp and erratic teeth in a gaping maw that is so wide it seems unhinged. A tail hangs lazily in the rear. An incredible, if not fearful, spectacle. Having never before seen such a miscreated and dangerous thing, you forgo the slaking of your thirst and flee. Could your spear have even pierced its hide of iron, newly quenched by the river from the furnace of its molten core? For what other engine could animate such a gargantuan? After your months abroad you finally return to home and family. As you regale your travels, you tell of a freak of nature - some monster that stood at the borders of a river, protecting its flowing and rejuvenating waters; a veritable treasure in those distant lands. Failing to properly describe or give name to such an alien creature, you grasp at the identities already known to you: you call it a river horse. A hippopotamus.
Monsters are the junction between your ability to order and structure reality and that which is foreign to the reality you have so far conceptualized. They are the union of the opposites of the known and the unknown, often being offensive, frustrating or challenging at best and savagely feral or fatal at worst. If you want to increase in your power, expand your influence, gain wealth or wisdom, or simply better secure your borders, you must be able to effectively incorporate and engage with the categories of identity that are always on the periphery of your current perceptions.
Why engage with monsters?
You may be wondering why you should bother facing such repugnant forces at all, especially if your disposition is inclined toward that of a Hobbit’s, believing adventures to be nasty disturbing uncomfortable things that will make you late for dinner. What reason could there be to risk the spells of a witch, the club of an ogre or the fangs of a vampire? In our tales, there is usually a recompense that makes the peril worth it, be it gold, honour and prestige, lands and titles, or secrets of the arcane. If personal gain holds no weight, perhaps the safeguarding of loved ones or the gain of the less fortunate is motivation enough. A village needs defending, a people need liberating, a curse needs lifting, or a damsel is somewhere in distress. These motivations are not only for charming bedside stories. Both threat and prize will manifest in your own life.
Imagine a singer who, despite exceptional talent, is plagued with stage fright. They have ambitions of fame, fortune, and electrifying opportunities, but a monster has stolen their voice. In the dark recesses of their mind, they vaguely recall being mocked by many young jeering faces; frightful features that materialize and snare the singer further in a curse with goading laughs every time they think of returning to the stage. If these illusive imps are not confronted, the singer’s treasure remains stolen; they remain in a cyclical exile, and a core part of their identity remains lost.
If the ambition for gain and glory or the pursuit of chivalric virtues is not sufficient encouragement to engage one’s monsters, then the alternative must be considered: blinding yourself to them. If you ignore that which is in your periphery, make no mistake, it will eventually encroach on your lands. It will plunder, ravage, and infect your structured reality. Your borders will melt away into chaos. You may soon come to lose or even hate your very own identity. Unfortunately, this happens all too often. Perhaps you’re an artist who falls prey to anonymous trolls online, and over time they wear you down and make you believe that all you create is worthless. Maybe a toxic friend drips their poison long enough to make you doubt every action you take. Emotional leeches who sap you of all feeling and care - a vampire that would turn Dracula pale. They are only too easy to conjure. Most of these examples are like the river horse, semblances and façades of known identities pieced together over something you don’t yet really understand. How can a person who exudes a toxic miasma over all that you do truly be a friend? It’s an improper category made dangerous when not accurately identified or when inhabiting the wrong place.
Monsters are therefore real - and it is not enough to cower behind your borders, for they will be razed. You must be vigilant on the walls or brave the outskirts; fortify or expand. You must draw your sword or sharpened tongue and do battle.
In many fairy tales, these borders are those of a homestead, a village, or a nation. The protagonist is enticed or compelled into the strange land, the periphery, beyond the comfort of their home - the world that makes sense. If you’re Hansel and Gretel, this is being abandoned in a thick wood and coming across a witch’s house made of alluring sweets. If you’re Jack and his beanstalk, it’s climbing far above your hovel and into the clouds toward the massive castle of a giant. If you’re Beowulf, it’s venturing forth to confront Grendel, the creature’s mother, and ultimately Beowulf’s Bane, the prototypical dragon. If you’re a thirsty hoplite, it’s the hippo guarding cool waters.
In this commentary, it’s a respectable if not timid little fellow, who is coerced to leave his hole in the ground to face the chiefest of all calamities: Smaug the Great and Terrible.
How to engage with the monster: Bilbo Baggins and Smaug
“Now is the time for our esteemed Mr. Baggins, who has proved himself a good companion on our long road, and a hobbit full of courage and resource far exceeding his size, and if I may say so possessed of good luck far exceeding the usual allowance—now is the time for him to perform the service for which he was included in our Company; now is the time for him to earn his Reward.”
We know what a monster is and we know why they must be faced, but the crucial question remains: how do we properly face a monster? Enter Bilbo Baggins, a true masterstroke of literary fiction.
I’m sure many of you are aware of J.R.R. Tolkein’s debut novel The Hobbit, and if you are not, make it a priority. Unfortunately, we do not have time to recount the whole tale here, but it is an exceptionally rich story, one which I plan to explore in much further detail in the future.
For now, we will make do with the fundamentals. Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit of the idyllic Shire, has been travelling with thirteen dwarves in the company of Thorin Oakenshield. Their quest is simple: reclaim the stolen treasure of their dwarven ancestors at the root of the one-time mountain kingdom Erebor. The problem is less simple: the supplanter that now sits the hoard is none other than the mighty and ancient dragon Smaug, a wrym of many fearsome titles. Juxtaposed against this fire-breathing drake is poor Bilbo. He is small, apprehensive, comfortable, has no lust for wealth gain or glory, and, above all, is unhurried in all things. He is only too reluctant to be cajoled by the wanderer Gandalf to leave hearth and home - something he frequently laments on his travels. However, despite Bilbo’s many contentments and genuine love of the simple life, he is no coward, nor by any measure is he a fool. This is on clear display in chapter 12 of The Hobbit, titled ‘Inside Information’: the climactic encounter between burglar and monstrosity.
At this point in the telling, Bilbo has faced and overcome a variety of challenges and adversaries. He has expanded beyond his prior boundaries, no longer a meagre Hobbit put off by mud in the hallway, but rather a well-travelled and seasoned adventurer, equipped with an ancient and enchanted blade and mysterious Power (the Ring). He has outwitted the three trolls, faced the skin-changer Beorn, braved the spiders of Mirkwood, eluded the elves of the Woodland Realm, and, of course, outfoxed Gollum, who will receive his own analysis in Part 2. All of these would work as examples of proper engagement with the monster, and I encourage you to go back and explore why yourself. But Bilbo’s verbal wrestling match with Smaug incorporates the best of the previous trials and serves as an exemplar of how to deal with not only dragons - as if that is a small feat - but the category of the strange itself.
‘Be wise as serpents’
“Already he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag- End long ago. He had not had a pocket-handkerchief for ages. He loosened his dagger in its sheath, tightened his belt, and went on.”
We will pick up the narrative right as Bilbo descends the long dark tunnel leading to Smaug’s gold-glowing and ember-incensed chamber. The furthest margins of the company’s map. A true hell; and in it a serpent. Bilbo may have heard tell of dragons in whispers before; nevertheless, the beast was foreign to the Hobbit and only allusions to a terrible danger gave a veiling of identity. When he first lays eyes on Smaug he is enthralled; and what’s more, the monster’s grand treasure too puts him under a spell - the serpent’s temptation. Never before did a Hobbit have need to even begin to imagine such a foe or such fruits. Like the call of the siren, the spoils of Jericho, or the very fall of mankind, the lust of the prize can inflict as much or more damage than the monster itself.
“To say that Bilbo’s breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.”
before, but the splendour, the lust, the glory of such treasure had never yet come home to him. His heart was filled and pierced with enchantment and with the desire of dwarves; and he gazed motionless, almost forgetting the frightful guardian, at the gold beyond price and count.”
Fortunately, our Bilbo has some wisdom in him, pulling him “almost against his will” and the spell is broken. This first interaction, brief as it is, gives insight into the potential dangers that the strange immediately presents - it can be nothing short of dazzling. It absorbs all of your attention (your ability to both observe and navigate) into its strange particulars, immobilizing you. Consider the basilisk, cockatrice, or gorgons, mythical monsters who could kill or petrify you with their hypnotic gaze alone. Were it not for Bilbo’s canniness and experience, but also his unhurriedness, he may have given way to the allure of this alien sight, racing right into the jaws of Smaug. To be wise has etymological roots in the Proto-Indo-European word ‘weyd’, to see. To be master of your attention. When facing monsters, discern as much as possible; pay proper attention. This will prove advantageous for Bilbo later on.
Sharp wits against a forked tongue
And now comes the real battle, where Bilbo and Smaug will go toe-to-toe, sparring it out in a game of who can properly identify the other first. Who will discern the weak spot? We must remember: one element that helps level the playing field is that Smaug has never smelled a Hobbit before. Bilbo himself is strange and shadowed in mystery - he just successfully stole from Smaug’s scrutinized hoard, what else is this monster capable of? It is akin to the idea of that which you fear may be more afraid of you. Something worth keeping in mind.
Bilbo has returned once more to the dragon’s lair, but Smaug is not able to be fooled twice. He feigns sleep, hoping to lure Bilbo into a false sense of security. But as we’ve recently observed, Bilbo is an attentive Hobbit, and at the last moment catches a hateful light under a drooping eye. But here another element comes into play, further balancing the scales: the Ring of Power. Where Smaug outwardly adds power to his body with gem-crusted scales, Bilbo adds power to his very identity, which is made secret. At this point, the Hobbit knows well enough not to naively trust that which is strange, so he cloaks himself. He becomes a mirror of Smaug’s own terror and directs this fear back to the wyrm. Another example of this idea can be found in the character Batman and his grimacing cowl. However, though Smaug cannot see Bilbo, he can still smell his strange odour; and the game begins.
Smaug first calls out to Bilbo, naming him ‘thief’ and letting this mysterious creature know he is aware of him. Smaug goes so far as suggesting there is enough treasure to share - an obvious trick. Bilbo ripostes with flattery, building up the pride of the dragon.
“You have nice manners for a thief and a liar,” said the dragon. “You seem familiar with my name, but I don’t seem to remember smelling you before. Who are you and where do you come from, may I ask?”
Once more, Bilbo responds deftly, further embodying his own riddle: he comes from under hill and over hill; “I am he that walks unseen”. Smaug often interjects, trying to draw out a proper identity. “I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number.”; “I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water.”; “I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles.”; “I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me”; “I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer.” And so it goes. However, even a clever Hobbit such as Bilbo is not above revealing too much too fast: “I am Barrel-rider,”. ““That’s better!” said Smaug.” Bilbo’s self-attributed accolades were having a grating effect on the dragon, frustrating him, luring him in. But in Bilbo’s last epithet, he allowed the cunning Smaug to guess that the Lake-men of Dale were behind this intrusion. Though not entirely correct, it is a slip-up that would go on to put innocent lives at risk. Bilbo, realizing this lapse of judgement, loses his confidence and is put on the back foot. After a successful parry, Smaug begins to press. He divulges that which he previously held back, further frightening Bilbo: he knows there is a company, their number, and that dwarves are at least partly involved. Keeping his frustration at not knowing Bilbo’s smell hidden still, he then strikes from another angle. Smaug begins to sow doubt into Bilbo about the treachery and greed of dwarves. How Bilbo is being set up for betrayal; and so the Hobbit begins to question all that he previously held to be true about his companions. Bilbo then makes a final error in confirming all that Smaug has said to be true. And in that moment of uttermost fear and doubt, like a cobra that has sniffed out the mouse, Smaug leers into the shadows.
“Bilbo was now beginning to feel really uncomfortable. Whenever Smaug’s roving eye, seeking for him in the shadows, flashed across him, he trembled, and an unaccountable desire seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug. In fact he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell.”
But our dear Bilbo was not yet bested. As his nephew would later withstand the Eye of Sauron, so too did Bilbo hold firm in the gaze of the great snake. Remembering his strengths, he lets go his final fatal lunge, pushing Smaug’s dread back onto himself. Announcing that Thorin’s company has come to exact revenge on Smaug puts the beast in a blind rage. Smaug boasts of his strength in pride, of his teeth of swords, his claws of spears, and his lightning bolt tail, and raises himself high. Biblo follows through, first goading the dragon, then feeding its arrogance; so much so that Smaug willingly rolls over and exposes his belly. The picture is complete; the dragon is known. Bilbo perceives the chink in Smaug’s armour: an exposed patch over the beast’s left breast. The game is won. Smaug would soon fall to the arrow of the skilled bowman, Bard, armed with this information, piercing his heart, and ending the Great Calamity.
Right engagement
“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations if you live near him.”
Monsters exist at the intersection of what is known and unknown; they inhabit the borders, the margins, and the depths. Their hidden identity makes them dangerous; there is no knowing what they are capable of until it is either too late, and they burn down your village, or until you summon the courage and venture forth to face them. What Bilbo Baggins teaches us in his confrontation with Smaug is a lesson in right engagement with the monster. First and foremost, he shows us you are not required to be an awesome force of a bygone age to brave such threats - all you need is some patience, attention, and a bit of courage.
“It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.”
Bilbo shows us that it is through paying attention, questioning, and prodding that we can piece together the hidden aspects of the strange. Your periphery is only as bounded as you are willfully blind. You can remain a Hobbit in a hole in the ground or you can be a hero of many titles. These same opportunities are afforded equally to both the small and the great. Had Bilbo been overconfident from his previous victories, he would have waltzed into the dragon’s den and been devoured. Had he remained timid and naïve, he would have fallen victim, as our forebears did, to the lies of the serpent. He refused the temptations of Smaug’s evil eye and the promises of riches and secret knowledge the strange so often wraps itself in. Instead, he listened. Intently. Observed how Smaug acted and reacted; found his striking points (in this instance flattery and pride), and pressed his advantage. He safeguarded his own identity; he did not give himself up simply because he was asked to. Rather, he became the riddle. He made himself strange or, in some real capacity, he allowed himself to be perceived as a monster: something that is not to be trifled with.
Nietzsche once wisely observed that when fighting monsters one should take care not to become one; in the instance of Bilbo Baggins, properly assuming the mantle allowed him to engage with one rightly. He used the gifts of craftwork, the tools at his disposal which were appropriate (the Ring) to project his power into the world, and stayed the ones that, at present, were not (the dagger Sting). And, above all, he leaned into the strengths of his own identity - a quiet unhurried Hobbit, with a true heart. The more he acted in the truth of his being, the more he would often perceive luck at work throughout the tale. Luckwearer.
Bilbo was all in. So be attentive, question, ruminate, give not way to fear or doubt, use what has been given, push forward, know yourself and be true. If you’re all in, you can slay any dragon.
That’s it from me for this week. Make sure to look out for part 2 dealing with Bilbo, Gollum and, as Gandalf puts so well, knowing not only when to take a life but when to spare one.
Thanks for reading,
Sam