Bilbo

G

Alternate Universe- Canon Divergence

I first read The Hobbit in high school and at that time, saw no problems with how everyone treated Bilbo. Especially in the beginning. Gandalf and everyone else working on his naivety to literally Shanghai him into going with the dwarves on their mission.

Now I am much, much older. And it got to me. And no matter how much I’ve enjoyed other fanfics of the story, he was still unworldly and being forcefully overridden into going with everyone.
This got me thinking as I started to reread the story about what would have happened if he had done something different. And thus, this story. About a different beginning.

In a hole in the ground; An alternative tale.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. Tolkien, J.R.R.. The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again (Lord of the Rings) (p. 3). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits were still numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast smoking an enormous, long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his woolly toes (neatly brushed)—Gandalf came by. Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again (Lord of the Rings) (p. 5). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Normally Bilbo would have greeted this tall one, but in the back of his mind, his Baggins side trampled down his Tookish mother’s side, and remember all those before him, who had listened to this tall one, and went off with him. To never return again.
No. He had responsibilities to his people and renters here, to be off and disappearing forever on adventures only tall ones should be getting into.
So, he tamped out his pipe, and ignored the strange tall one, who had yet to call out any greetings, and went back inside to his den to do his paperwork. Getting a humph and “How rude.” From the strange one. As the door shut behind him.

Gandalf in the meantime was still standing outside the door, and laughing long but quietly. After a while he stepped up, and with the spike on his staff scratched a queer sign on the hobbit’s beautiful green front-door. Then he strode away, just about the time when Bilbo was finishing his second cake and beginning to think that he had escaped adventures very well. Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again (Lord of the Rings) (p. 8). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

However, Bilbo thought he had better check that the big one had left. If he had not, Bilbo would get the protectorate out to take care of him and escort him off his property.
Cautiously he opened his door to see the man – and he tried not to use that as a swear word. He was a proper Hobbit after all – had left. But looking down at his walkway to see if it needed to be swept, he saw green flakes of paint the same color as his own door. And cried out in alarm. Getting notices from his neighbors on both sides who had come running.

He had closed his door to see the markings carved into it, which vexed him something awful. And he had his neighbor on the right send his kin off to get someone in the protectorate to document the vandalism the MAN had done to his property. So, the word could get out to everyone in the village to have this MAN. THIS HUMAN! Wizard, WHATEVER! Escorted out of the village along with any with him, next time he showed up.

And the other neighbor to send kin to aid him in sanding down the damage and helping him re-paint his property immediately to show that MAN-WIZARD he would not get the best of a Hobbit.

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When the band of thirteen Dwarves came, there were armed guards at the entrance to the village who demanded to know just who they were coming to see. And who then refused entrance to any Hobbit village for their patron’s bad behavior to the Head of one of the most important families in that village. And told them there would be absolutely no trade to be had anywhere in the vicinity. Not even in the nearby Taller Ones village a few miles down the side path they had passed. As their patron had dared to destroy property not his, and it was decided that they and he were no longer welcome.

And that was that. Not even the Great Gandalf coming back could persuade them as he was the one to vandalize another’s property and leave without paying for his actions. And the party ended up disappearing into the mists of lost history.

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7/5/25

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7/7/2025