Arthur: How Do We Get Inside This Place?

Retelling The Hobbit Chapter 15: Unattached First chapter / Previous / Next (coming November 13th 2023, tentatively) Webtoon/A03 /Instagram/Tumblr Sideblog

Thank you for reading! The next chapter of this comic adaptation of The Hobbit will be titled (drumroll)....The Song of the Lonely Mountain!

Check under the cut for notes on the callbacks to previous chapters of this comic, and to Tolkien stories like the Unfinished Tales! —-

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One of my guiding ideas for this comic is that the story is being written/drawn by Bilbo Baggins, an  “unreliable narrator,” who has a biased way of recounting events. As the comic goes on, parts of the story get retold through new perspectives (or through the eyes of other characters), and you realize the initial version you read was incomplete. 

A lot of you probably noticed that this chapter features a ton of callbacks to the earliest chapters of this comic! We saw child Bilbo and Gandalf's friendship told from Bilbo's POV in Chapter 3.....but in this chapter we see it retold from Gandalf's POV. However, Belladonna Took is our biggest instance of that!   Not to overexplain my own writing, but Chapter 1 is an older Bilbo painting an idealized happily-ever-after fairytale picture of Belladonna, while Chapter 15 features a younger Bilbo telling a far less optimistic version of her life.  While there's truth to both of them, neither of them is the full truth.

In the Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo tells Frodo that ‘books need to have good endings,' like endings where everyone "lives happily ever after." If I were to continue this comic to the end of the novel, Bilbo’s habit of “rewriting things to be happier" would become a whole Thing. 

Second: Much of this chapter is taken directly from “The Unfinished Tales: The Quest For Erebor.” That story was Tolkien’s attempt to unite the tone of The Hobbit with LOTR, by having Gandalf explain what The Hobbit looked like from *his* perspective. The gay line about Bilbo feeling incapable of settling down into a Traditional Marriage with a Wife And Kids is taken almost directly from the Unfinished Tales. So are all the lines where Gandalf reflects on what Bilbo was like as a child, and the moment where Bilbo reflects that all of his desire for adventure has dwindled to a private dream.

Third: Obviously, the other big influence on this chapter (outside the original novel) was a similar scene in the PJ film. The little bit where Gandalf reveals the lore behind Bullroarer took monologue is the only dialogue I’ve directly lifted from that scene. ;3

Fourth: some of you may have caught that I used a quote describing Frodo’s wanderlust in the Fellowship of the Ring to describe Bilbo. The bit describing "the maps that only show white spaces beyond their borders" is also why I emphasized Bilbo’s canonical nerdiness around  maps in earlier chapters (chapter 5 especially, but also in Chapter 6, Chapter 7, and a blink-and-you-miss-it moment in chapter 14.) 

Fifth: one of my favorite things in the original book are all the scenes where Gandalf does fun Whimsical things with smoke/smoke rings. In the book he usually makes them change color or race around; in my comic he usually makes them turn into butterflies (he also does this in chapters 3 and 11.) you may have noticed that Butterfly Symbolism is a big thing in this comic.  But yeah, in another callback: Gandalf finally had time to blow smoke-rings with Bilbo, which he said he 'had no time for' in Chapter 2!

Thanks again for reading! I tentatively plan for the next chapter to arrive on November 13th.

ratatouille brother challenge

Okay so a lot of people write Arthur as being emotional constipated in a way that strongly implies that his emotional intelligence is close to a box of wet and soggy bread’s ability to read and understand feelings. And that’s valid! With mister troll shagger as a father, I get that it would be a likely outcome of his childhood. BUT what I love much more (and I’m not projecting at all, shush!) is Arthur knowing damn well what he feels but never truly feeling safe in any of his core emotions, because he has had to suppress them since he was a child. That he feels guilty and uncomfortable when he enjoys something. That he hides what he likes in fear of somebody using it to hurt him, and that he hides what he dislikes in fear of somebody using it to hurt him.

Frerin son of Thráin in the green valley of Azanulbizar

What if I was a lonely brooding man but my features softened as I stared at you adoringly?

Craig's gang deserve more appreciation and content. I love them so much

Arthur <3

Based on this clip from the 60s Batman

Bruce: Dickie…old chum… I have some books i’d like you to read. *hands him books on logic and problem solving*

Dick: Ok, B! 😊✨

The humor of the show is that they are being serious but I can’t help seeing Bruce humoring his kid’s dumb answers. Dick is like 8< *serious face* and Bruce is like 🥹 “yes precisely. It’s the only possible meaning”

I can’t do it, Alfred. I’m not strong enough.

Beautiful commission for my Beauty and the Beast inspired fic, Dragonhearted [E], done by the always amazing, @smolestboop!!! Thank you for capturing just how sweet and dopey these fellas are!!

Thorin lives a life of solitude since Smaug’s curse fell upon Erebor. That is, until a brave hobbit turns the mountain upside down with little fear of Thorin’s snarls, scales and enchanted company, and learns to love a beast. (Explicit, Complete, 83k)