Editing Hobbits (section)

==Concerning Hobbits==
(Just FYI, this section is named after the prologue chapter in The Fellowship of the Ring, and you can read the professor's description of Hobbits there. Seriously, go check it out.)

Hobbits are essentially rural Englishmen, and they are portrayed by Tolkien as decent, hard-working folk who tended toward being good-natured and jolly in appearance rather than beautiful, which is entirely appropriate to their natures. As far as the Hobbits living in the Shire were concerned the best part of life was sharing a feast table with their friends at a party everyone was invited to! Their clothes were usually made in bright colors such as yellow and green, and they were quite handy at whatever profession or craft they practiced, which in the Shire meant basically anything except shoemaking. If they weren't eating, sleeping, or working then they were making light-hearted jokes to one another, singing songs, telling stories, or thinking of another reason to throw a party, because no Hobbit worth their salt can say no to a good party with presents aplenty for everyone.

To top it all off Hobbits are, as a rule, very hospitable people. Anyone lucky enough to befriend a Hobbit has probably made the best friend of their life, and probably several others once they're introduced to all of the Hobbit's other friends.

Given the list of examples of Awesome detailed down below, in conjunction with their general purity, one might be tempted to see the Hobbits as something of a Mary Sue race. But for all their incorruptibility and surprising amounts of courage and resilience in a pinch, Hobbits aren't totally perfect and have some shortcomings: with a few exceptions, their ambitions end at a reasonable home with six meals a day and they have little interest in things outside their collective comfort zone once they manage to set that up. They didn't like or understand any machines more complex than a forge, mill, or loom, and they're so discomfited by water that few of them knew how to swim, and they would have deep misgivings about something as simple as crossing a river. They were so afraid of deep water that the sea eventually became a terrible symbol of death to them, and the Elves' love of it drove a massive wedge between the two peoples. Their idea of a riveting book is something they've already memorized to heart. Finally, Hobbits can, as one might expect from a very insular, closed-off community, be close-minded at times. They frown on adventurers, go-getters, and people who want more out of life than simple comforts, and view such individuals (or folks from the outside like Gandalf who come in encouraging Hobbits to get out of their armchairs and go on a big quest), as troublemakers. So there is an element of conformity to their culture, though even then they aren't generally too pushy about it.

In short, Hobbits will make some superb ales, pies, and mushroom and beef stew in their cozy villages of hobbit holes, but they'll never forge empires, explore new lands, unlock the secrets of the universe, or ascend to the stars, and they're totally cool with this. 

Tolkien's portrayal of Hobbits probably has something to do with the fact that he was an Englishman who loved nature and the countryside, and also witnessed firsthand what horrors an industrialized war inflicted upon his fellow man; keep this in mind when you read about what happened to the Shire at the end of "Return of the King". Also, he intended Middle-Earth to be a mythology for Jolly Old England in general, so it makes sense that one of the purest parts of his setting would be based off of one of his favorite parts of his home. 

Hobbits possessed excellent hearing and sharp eyesight, as well as a natural kinship with the earth which primarily manifested itself in two ways. First was the tendency to live underground in holes and tunnels; cozy little places that one couldn't mistake for anything but a well-kept and well-loved home, and stood in contrast to the grand stone holds and halls that Dwarves carved into the mountains. The second was the ability to navigate terrain quickly and with incredible stealth, and while their love of food tends to make them heavy around the middle they are still nimble creatures. If a Hobbit doesn't want you to see them, then unless you roll a natural 20 on your perception check you're ''not'' going to see them. In fact, Hobbits are so good at hiding and moving silently that humans who experience it firsthand tend to believe it's some form of magic.

Hobbits are also fond of smoking a substance referred to as "pipeweed." Although it is clearly stated to be tobacco, most people joke about it being marijuana instead (which is reinforced by the hobbits' laid back nature), which is always popular due to the easily accessible joke about Samwise Ganja. Jokes aside, the smoking of pipeweed is one thing that Hobbits can definitely say they invented, and the custom gradually spread outward from the village of Bree, where Dwarves, rangers, wizards, and other wanderers would stay on their journeys and sometimes take up the habit themselves. In view of Tolkien's own fondness for his pipe, the Hobbit's love of smoking in fancy pipes of their own is fitting.

Lastly, Hobbits adore genealogies for some reason. Some families kept and studied their own histories, but this wasn't common amongst their people, nor was the love of learning for its own sake. The only exception to this was genealogical lore, and if you brought the subject up in conversation it would be almost impossible to prevent any Hobbits present from talking about the subject until they fell asleep from exhaustion. If there was a reason for this, it's probably because it's a down to earth familiar subject that they could directly link to themselves, their family and their extended community.

There are some who might deride Hobbits for their willingness to ignore the wider world around them, or their lack of any great ambitions. The first argument ''does'' have merit, as their complacency nearly brought the Shire to ruin when they forgot there are some bad motherfuckers out in the wider world, like washed-up Istari wizards who want to pollute and destroy their homeland out of pure fucking meanness. As for the second point of criticism, this is also technically true, but also not really much of a flaw. Keep in mind that great empires tend to be forged through war and violence, something Tolkien had firsthand experience with and wouldn't hesitate to tell you is an ''extremely'' terrible thing; anyone who thinks Hobbits suck because they don't want to kill people who have never wronged them has either forgotten this or falls somewhere on the "Evil" end of the alignment scale. Their ambition may mean the Hobbits rarely have any major accomplishments or achievements, but it also means they have no big fuck ups either (unlike, say, the Elves).