Still, he ends up accepting their offer on the whim of his Tookish side, his eagerness for an adventure rekindled by Thorin and his Company’s plight to reclaim their home and by Gandalf’s insistence that there is more to Bilbo than even he believes himself. The beginning of their quest has a rocky start and leaves Bilbo more than once wishing to return home to his comfortable smial and warm bed and this only serves to prove Thorin’s judgment over him; that he really does not belong on this quest.
Of course there really is more to Bilbo than meets the eye. His cleverness and quick thinking saves the company from becoming the Trolls’ dinner and then later on from the Spiders of Mirkwood and then from the dungeons of Mirkwood itself. From the point of discovering the Troll cave where Gandalf gifts Bilbo with Sting, Bilbo’s courage slowly grows from his fear of being such a small creature in such a large and dangerous world. Throughout most of his time with the company he doubts himself constantly, feeling the heavy weight of Thorin’s judgment especially on him wherever he goes. Yet while he may doubt himself and his ability to be what Gandalf believes he can be he sticks with the company even after Elrond’s generous off to stay in Rivendell.
He very nearly leaves at once point, just before being attacked by the Goblin’s, but he proves himself again when instead of running away when he had the chance, now with the new found power of invisibility granted to him by the One Ring, he returns to the company.
“(…) And that’s why I came back. Because you don’t have one. A home.”
After his encounter with Gollum in the caves and the discovery of his courage there Bilbo begins to recognize a change in himself and how he is seen by Thorin. Bilbo’s growing bravery is best characterized by saving Thorin from Azog and later when they are free from the current danger of being eaten by Wargs Bilbo and Thorin’s rocky relationship evolves from unwelcome and unneeded to a potentially wonderful friendship between the two. From here Bilbo sees Thorin and his company as part of an, admittedly strange, family and he would without a doubt lay down his life again for any of them if the situation arose. Thorin especially becomes a strong focal point in nurturing Bilbo’s growing courage, his passion to reclaim his family’s home again inspiring Bilbo to strive towards becoming someone worthy of Thorin’s trust and Gandalf’s confidence in him.
At this point Bilbo has more of a backbone than he did when he first left Bag-End and he shows it by speaking up more frequently around the Dwarves and Thorin, although whether anyone really listens to him aside from Thorin and Gandalf is up for debate. Still they manage to survive all the way past Beorn’s, past the Orcs, and all the way into Mirkwood where things really start to fall apart for everyone, especially Bilbo. After a scuffle with a giant trapdoor spider he nearly loses the One Ring and he finds him nearly sick by the idea of losing it. It’s one of the first of small, but many, signs of Bilbo slowly losing himself to the whims of the One Ring. While Sauron doesn’t come into power again for another 60 years Bilbo’s obsession over the Ring only extends as far as possessiveness and uses it only to avoid unpleasant company after he returns to Bag-End at the end of his adventure. In the end he is still able to give it up to Gandalf and thus proves himself to be stronger than Smeagol (Gollum) was when he first came into contact with the Ring.
He rescues the Dwarves again with no short amount of luck and cleverness yet again from the dungeons of Mirkwood and sends them on their way to Laketown and from there to the Lonely Mountain. While at the Overlook he shows hesitance at continuing on without Gandalf, but doesn’t press the issue with Thorin much farther than that out of trust that Thorin knows what he’s doing. Or he hopes so anyways.
When it finally comes to facing the dragon, Smaug, Bilbo asserts himself to Balin that after coming this far he must at least do his best to fulfill his part of the contract.
“I promised I would do this… and I think I must try.”
Of course the very idea of facing a dragon would have been enough to send the Hobbit he was at the beginning of this adventure scurrying back into his smial, but by this point is very much not the same Hobbit he was all those months ago. Much like his encounter with Gollum, he barely survives his encounter with Smaug through well-spoken riddles, twisting words, and the power of the Ring even as he fears for his life and very soon for Thorin’s sanity as well when he’s held at sword’s point by him over the Arkenstone’s whereabouts. It’s from this point that Bilbo begins to realize that maybe Thorin isn't completely unaffected by the goldsickness as he may have claimed to be and the thought of that scares him almost as much as watching Smaug descend upon Laketown.
pt 2
Of course there really is more to Bilbo than meets the eye. His cleverness and quick thinking saves the company from becoming the Trolls’ dinner and then later on from the Spiders of Mirkwood and then from the dungeons of Mirkwood itself. From the point of discovering the Troll cave where Gandalf gifts Bilbo with Sting, Bilbo’s courage slowly grows from his fear of being such a small creature in such a large and dangerous world. Throughout most of his time with the company he doubts himself constantly, feeling the heavy weight of Thorin’s judgment especially on him wherever he goes. Yet while he may doubt himself and his ability to be what Gandalf believes he can be he sticks with the company even after Elrond’s generous off to stay in Rivendell.
He very nearly leaves at once point, just before being attacked by the Goblin’s, but he proves himself again when instead of running away when he had the chance, now with the new found power of invisibility granted to him by the One Ring, he returns to the company.
“(…) And that’s why I came back. Because you don’t have one. A home.”
After his encounter with Gollum in the caves and the discovery of his courage there Bilbo begins to recognize a change in himself and how he is seen by Thorin. Bilbo’s growing bravery is best characterized by saving Thorin from Azog and later when they are free from the current danger of being eaten by Wargs Bilbo and Thorin’s rocky relationship evolves from unwelcome and unneeded to a potentially wonderful friendship between the two. From here Bilbo sees Thorin and his company as part of an, admittedly strange, family and he would without a doubt lay down his life again for any of them if the situation arose. Thorin especially becomes a strong focal point in nurturing Bilbo’s growing courage, his passion to reclaim his family’s home again inspiring Bilbo to strive towards becoming someone worthy of Thorin’s trust and Gandalf’s confidence in him.
At this point Bilbo has more of a backbone than he did when he first left Bag-End and he shows it by speaking up more frequently around the Dwarves and Thorin, although whether anyone really listens to him aside from Thorin and Gandalf is up for debate. Still they manage to survive all the way past Beorn’s, past the Orcs, and all the way into Mirkwood where things really start to fall apart for everyone, especially Bilbo. After a scuffle with a giant trapdoor spider he nearly loses the One Ring and he finds him nearly sick by the idea of losing it. It’s one of the first of small, but many, signs of Bilbo slowly losing himself to the whims of the One Ring. While Sauron doesn’t come into power again for another 60 years Bilbo’s obsession over the Ring only extends as far as possessiveness and uses it only to avoid unpleasant company after he returns to Bag-End at the end of his adventure. In the end he is still able to give it up to Gandalf and thus proves himself to be stronger than Smeagol (Gollum) was when he first came into contact with the Ring.
He rescues the Dwarves again with no short amount of luck and cleverness yet again from the dungeons of Mirkwood and sends them on their way to Laketown and from there to the Lonely Mountain. While at the Overlook he shows hesitance at continuing on without Gandalf, but doesn’t press the issue with Thorin much farther than that out of trust that Thorin knows what he’s doing. Or he hopes so anyways.
When it finally comes to facing the dragon, Smaug, Bilbo asserts himself to Balin that after coming this far he must at least do his best to fulfill his part of the contract.
“I promised I would do this… and I think I must try.”
Of course the very idea of facing a dragon would have been enough to send the Hobbit he was at the beginning of this adventure scurrying back into his smial, but by this point is very much not the same Hobbit he was all those months ago. Much like his encounter with Gollum, he barely survives his encounter with Smaug through well-spoken riddles, twisting words, and the power of the Ring even as he fears for his life and very soon for Thorin’s sanity as well when he’s held at sword’s point by him over the Arkenstone’s whereabouts. It’s from this point that Bilbo begins to realize that maybe Thorin isn't completely unaffected by the goldsickness as he may have claimed to be and the thought of that scares him almost as much as watching Smaug descend upon Laketown.