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Abuse Of Power In The Hobbit

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Dean Ornish, an American physician and motivational speaker once said, “Power corrupts, and anytime you have power, even the best of men, it gets taken advantage of.” He wrote this quote to show how power and evil go hand in hand. It portrays the idea that anyone who receives power will abuse it and become corrupt. In The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien, that philosophy reigns true throughout the whole book. Power will corrupt those who come upon it including Smaug, Thorin, and even Bilbo Baggins. The first example is how Smaug, the dragon, relies on his supernatural power to massacre and steal from others yet has no use for said wealth. The first instance of Smaug abusing his ability is from the narrator's perspective about the creature's origins. …show more content…

The first example of Bilbo relying on the ring too much is when he first obtains it and tries to escape the creature which he stole it from. Page 81 states, “Forgetting to even draw his sword, he stuck his hand in his pocket, and there was the ring.” In other words, he stopped relying on himself and his ability to fight by himself. He began to fully rely on the ring's power to even help him survive. In the next instance, Bilbo relies more on the ring than his friends around him during a fight with colossal-sized spiders. On page 136 it states, “Also, Bilbo slipped on his magic ring before the fight had even started.” This illustrated that Bilbo began to fully survive off of the ring's power. This has already started to corrupt him because he trusts the ring more than anything or anyone else including his friends and even himself. The last example of Bilbo giving up his free will to the ring was during the battle of the 5 armies. He eventually gets knocked out while the ring is on. Page 242 cites, “He likely would've been counted among the dead if he had gone unseen with the ring any longer.“ To clarify, because he got knocked out while the ring was on, he was invisible while unconscious. As a result, no one could find him and he was almost left for dead. To summarize, Bilbo gets corrupted by the power of the ring based on the fact that he progressively begins to rely on it fully throughout the

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Bilbo fails to steal a bag from a Troll’s pocket when he was told to observe the red light from the dwarves’ camp. (43) From this failure, the dwarves begin to doubt his usefulness as a burglar, causing him to lose faith in himself. As time progresses, Bilbo proves to the dwarves, especially Thorin, and himself of what he is capable of. He gains confidence with the defeat of each of his enemies.

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In chapter 12 of “The Hobbit” Bilbo uses certain types of weapons or abilities to his advantage while talking to Smaug. Although he almost gets burnt to smithereens he uses the ring to help him slip away from the dragon. He also uses physical abilities like creeping around silently and effortlessly, he also uses his knowledge about dragons and riddles to help him communicate and cope with the dragon. In chapter 12 Bilbo uses the ring to his advantage by putting it on so he could steal the cup unnoticed by the dragon.

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From this experience Bilbo leanr that you can never underestimate the inteliigence, and the striotypes that say strength is everything are missleaading. Bilbo also learnt and developed through his own experiences, one of those moments was in the misty mountain. Biblo Baggins was assined as the Burgler at the begining of his expidition, his job was to simply find any weakness of the dragon as everything had to have a weakness. Then as Bilbo was creaping out into Smaugs layer he was smelt by the 'sleeping smaug' soon smaug told biblo that the dwarfs were untrustworth and began thinking this was an easy meal. Since smaug underestimated Bibo it allowed him to swiftly escape with his life.

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Tolkien uses Bilbo as a character who is not so easily corrupted by greed and is thus, able to carry the journey forward. Because of this virtue, Bilbo is able to see reason and make decisions that will benefit the greater good and stop useless violence. Even though this is not his home, Bilbo feels a sense of duty and risks his life to help the Dwarves. Unlike Odysseus, Bilbo is an unlikely hero who only sets out on the journey after being persuaded by Gandalf, a wizard. Bilbo relies mostly on his luck and on Gandalf to be saved.

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Along the way, they overcome many obstacles that threaten their lives and put their trust for one another to the test. Bilbo learns that there is more to him than he realizes and through hard work and dedication, he can accomplish almost anything. Overcoming these problems and learning more about himself helped Bilbo change from an ordinary, self-doubting hobbit into a clever, courage-filled, loyal hero. In the beginning, Bilbo has no desire to go on an adventure of any kind, but he quickly learns about the cleverness he obtains when he is forced to make quick decisions.

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