This concerns Hobbits being Mortal Men or something else.
It is to end the accidental Hijack with **Qadgop the Mercotan ** of another thread.
I failed to find the thread and if you could, I would appreciate the link.
I would say that Hobbits are close relatives and possible an off-shoot but I thought there was support for them not being mortal men.
Treebeard not knowing where they fit.
Merry not being a mortal man for purposes of slaying the Witch-King
Hints that while close to man they are not man
Early in the Hobbit there is a hint that Hobbits went on to be the Leprechauns or other wee people, disappearing when big folk were around.
I remember reading somewhere that Merry was able to kill the Witch-King because his sword, which he got from the barrows, was a holdover from an old war that was enchanted against Angmar (or possibly just its king).
In any case, Hobbits appear to have been or been related to Men. For reasons wholly unnown to us, they happen to be very short and stout ones who mostly keep to themselves.
There was a “prophesy” for the Witch King that No mortal man shall kill him.
The Sword of the North Kingdom that Merry wielded is what unknit the Witch Kings spells. Eowyn delivered the final blow. So it has always been open to interpretation which one fulfilled the “prophesy”.
Eowyn’s blow would not have been capable of killing him without Merry’s blow first. It was the crucial strike.
Hobbits do appear to be related to Mortal men but they may not be Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
The problem is that Tolkein wasn’t very consistent. In the Hobbit there was no doubt at at all that Hobbits were a different race from men and they are explicitely said to be disticnt from the Big Folk. They even have a small amount of inherent magic, something that Men in Middle Earth don’t have and can’t have according to Tolkien’s later writings.
And as you point out Treebeard included them as a separate race.
But later on he goes on to describe them as being a branch of the human tree. IOW not a separate race from the Big Folk at all, simply another human race like the men of Harad.
I’ve had this discussion with Qadgop before. What it comes down to is that you can support either position with Tolkein’s own writings. So feel free to say Hobbits are a separate race or not as you see fit.
But JRRT consistantly placed hobbits in the “mortal branch of the family of man” repeatedly over the years, including some of the last writing he did on the subject, before his death.
" (JRRT, Peoples of Middle Earth, HOME 12)
(JRRT, Letters # 158 footnote)
(FOTR, Prologue)
As for the Witch-king, he fell by the hand of Eowyn, not by Merry’s. Merry’s attack injured the witch-king and allowed Eowyn to fulfill yada yada yada. Plenty of room for interpreting prophecy, you know.
Well considering they were at heart miniature Brits from the countryside of the 1900 with exceptionally long lives it is hard to argue the point. I always suspected they were not quite human, but Homo Sapiens Hoblyta, a close branching possible helped along my Yavanna who was not overly fond of normal men.
As far as the Witch-king, I again say that while Eowyn blow was the deathblow and she was no “Male” man, it was Merry’s strike that did the deed. Merry who being a Hobbit was no mortal man.
I would have to look up the exact phrasing again and tomorrow I will.
Strange that Treebeard would treat them separately from the men. But that is not conclusive in itself.
You have to remember, too, that Treebeard wasn’t familiar with Hobbits when he met Merry and Pippin. None of the ents was, as Treebeard had to add a verse about the Hobbits to the Song of the Peoples. Using Treebeard as an authority in the classification of the Hobbits isn’t terribly logical because of this.
Just to keep it clear, there is no doubt that Hobbits are mortal, as are dwarves.
The only real dispute is whether they are “Men”.
They are certainly related to men. But then Numenoreans are related to Maiar and Elves, yet they are not themselves either Maiar or Elves. And Aragorn would never be described as being the same race as Legolas.
Like all taxonomy this comes down to whether you are a lumper or a splitter. In this case I am a splitter. Hobbits are most closely related to men of all the ‘true’ types of Middle Earth. They are a branch of the mannish tree just as real world humans are a branch of the Homo erectus tree. But they have enough unique and distinctly non-mannish traits for them to qualify as a separate race.
That is further reinforced by the fact that they could live alongside Men without producing a hybrid race. Bree was populated by Men, and Hobbits, yet the Hobbits were no taller than normal and then men no shorter. There is no suggestion of hybrids. That in itself qualifies them as a separate race IMO.
Speaking of mortality…was JRRT somewhat obsessed with death & aging? He created a world in which all the highly-regarded peoples are immortal (elves, ents, istari, TomBombadils) or very long-lived (Numenoreans, dwarves…even hobbits live well past 100. And your life span is an outward indication of your status – as men become less noble, and more distant from their Numenorean heritage, their lifespans dwindle). It’s only mundane humans that have ridiculously short life spans.
I think it was more that men of legend had unusually long lifespans. Think Methuselah, the Greek Golden Age, the Norse gods (who were not immortal without outside help (Idun’s apples))…Tolkien was creating a mythology for Britain. In doing so, he borrowed concepts from other mythologies. The long lifespans of heroes and great men is one of those concepts, as is the idea that the closer one comes to mundanity or modernity, the shorter your lifespan becomes.
A bit of a hijack, but are Ents really immortals? I was under the impression that they slowly became treeish, and then trees, and then died as a tree might. In other words, just the longest lived of the mortal races. But that could be complete crap, since pretty much only read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series.
We’ve batted ideas about your comments around before, and I don’t plan to rehash that, but I do want to address the idea that dwarves are mortal, and to disagree with it.
Mortality, per JRRT, was the “gift of Iluvatar”, and it meant that the spirits of men and women were not fully subject to the Music of the Ainur while they lived, and left Ea after death to go to regions unknown.
Elves whose bodies had died still persisted in Ea, subject to the Music. And while less is written about the dwarves, it is stated that dwarves believe that Aulë gathers their spirits to him in a separate area of Mandos after their bodies perish, to wait until he needs them to rebuild Arda after Dagor Dagorath. So in that sense, I’d say that the Dwarves are as immortal as the Elves. Stuck in Arda, as it runs down over time, getting shabbier and shabbier, waiting for the last act. IMHO.
Y’know, there’s an Elvish version of Sondheim’s Follies lurking around in there somewhere… Spotlight: Elrond, stage left
Elrond:
Good times and bum times
I’ve seen them all and, my dear
I’m still here
Crushed velvet sometimes
Sometimes just lembas and beer
But I’m here
I’ve stomped the orogs
In my boots
Heard Noldolante
Sung with lutes
Seen all my dreams disappear
But I’m here
I’ve slept, kidnapped,
“Guest” of the Golodhrim
But I’m here
Danced with Celebrian
Helped her when things looked so grim
But I’m here
I’ve stood in battle
With the best
Watched while the mortals
Did the rest
In the Second Age was I depressed?
No where near
I provide provisions and gear
And I’m here
