Examples Of Greed In The Hobbit

Characterization and Geomythology of Gandalf in The Hobbit.

In The Hobbit, by author J.R.R Tolkien, is a story of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit who lives in Hobbiton. He enjoys a peaceful and pastoral life but his life is interrupted by a surprise visit by the wizard, Gandalf. They are embarking on a journey to recover lost treasure that is guarded by the dragon, Smaug, at the Lonely Mountain. On the journey, Bilbo and the dwarves meet all sorts of villains and obstacles. They meet many different kinds of creatures like trolls, hobbit like creatures, dragons, dwarves, elves, etc. and lastly but not least a Wizard named Gandalf, which is who this paper will focus on. This paper will cover what Gandalf is, his outstanding characteristics, powers and abilities, geomythology and how the hobbit, and my chosen character Gandalf, and how it may have been related to.

Middle-earth has been described in a variety of versions of Tolkien's work. The

hobbit and Lord of the Rings are the most popular. It was a large continent of Arda to the west, situated between Aman and the Land of the Sun to the East. It is here where inhabitants like a dragon, a hobbit, elves, a Gollum, a black bear, dwarves, and others lived which are all involved in the Hobbit.
So who is this amazing wizard Gandalf? Gandalf is a wizard who appears in The Hobbit occasionally, though he has a more continuous presence in the first novel of the Lord of The Rings Trilogy. Gandalf is a friend of Bilbo's mother, Belladonna Took, and he contrives the gathering of Bilbo and the dwarves that initiates the adventure to recover lost treasure that is guarded by the dragon Smaug, at the Lonely Mountain. Gandalf is indeed a good wizard who has powers beyond those of other characters. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that Gandlalf as “...an old man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which a white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots.” Which later Tolkien wrote “...a figure strongly built and with broad shoulders, though shorter than the average of men standing about 5’6. His broad shoulders, made him look like some wise king of ancient legend. In his aged face under great snowy brows his eyes were set like coals that could suddenly burst into fire.” He was dressed in all grey from head to toe which later turns to white. He's a guider and a protector. He is old but is very much respected for his wisdom. He can't see the future, but he can see a lot more than all the other characters in the novel. He sometimes uses a magic staff and he seems able to appear and disappear suddenly on his own quest. Gandalf's most important role in The Hobbit is serving as a guardian or protector figure to Bilbo (little hobbit friend). He has kind of a psychic side to him as well; he seems to sense Bilbo’s courage before Bilbo knows it himself. He is also more powerful than everyone else in the book: he's able to help the dwarves escape from the goblins with his fancy magic powers, and he even stops the opposing human, elf, and dwarf armies with a single shout and a warning that the goblins and wargs are coming. He is the guide that keeps Bilbo and mostly the dwarves safe through their first adventures with the trolls and the goblins.
Wizards as you know have many powers and abilities as did Gandalf.

He demonstrated extensive knowledge of the land and an assortment of magical abilities from trivial to essential. For example he would use his powers for entertainment, by blowing glowing smoke rings that moved around the room. He created blinding flashes and other explosives to distract the goblins of the Misty Mountains helping the dwarves in their escape from Goblin-town. On the eastern slopes, he turned pine cones into flaming projectiles that threw hot sparks and started fires that would not go out easily. He was also able to come and go from the presence of Thorin and Company without being noticed. When he was angered or provoked for battle, he seemed to grow in height and would come off as very terrifying individual. Lastly to name a few of his many powers and abilities, he was also able to start fires under blizzard conditions, create light of varying intensity for the journey through Moria, magically secure doors, and break the Bridge of

Khazad-dum.
So as you are wondering, what is Geomythology? According to the article Geomythology by Adrienne Mayor, Geomythology is a term first created in 1968 by the geologist Dorothy Vitaliano. It is best defined as the study of etiological traditions of pre-scientific cultures to explain geological phenomena. The concept behind it was thought up to be a guy named Euhemerus, a Greek philosopher roughly 300 BC held that myths about divinities and their activities were poetic accounts for real people and events. In 2000, Adrienne Mayor published The First Fossil-hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times in which she exposed the idea that classical traditions surrounding mythological creatures could be based on the mis-interpretation of paleontological remains. While the idea of the incorporation of metaphorical interpretations of fossil discoveries into myths is not in itself completely original, it was pushed further by Mayor in a way to open some new paths of exploration in Geomythology, mainly by providing convincing evidence that many paleontological findings were indeed unearthed from sites where legendary accounts originated. She certainly has opened a new research opportunity and perspective” (Chronicon Mirabilium).
In class we watched a History Channel movie called, History's Mysteries - Ancient Monster Hunter’s. The show mainly shows and explains Ancient European recorded fossil finds. From searching today it seems Adrienne has also worked with ancient weaponry and Native American myths. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that a lot of mythical beasts, dragons, etc. were in fact ancient people finding fossils. I wonder how much of these ancient works have a basis in reality. A lot of myths and religious stories do have a basis in reality, whether you believe it or not. There is a lot of imagination involved, but also superstition and lack of scientific knowledge that correlate to create the stories we know and love. Myths were told to explain the world and the things that happened in it. They are explanations of how things came to be, why they are the way they are, and why things happen the way they do.
Myths were based on the things the Ancient Europeans, and even paleontologists today found and are continuing to find and observe. They had to have basis in fact for one simple reason: without a something to explain, you have no reason to explain it, right? It is easy to imagine that trolls, hobbit like creatures, dragons, dwarves, elves, ents, etc. or even a wizard could have been thought up from dinosaur bones and other fossils. George Cuvier discusses in Adrienne Mayor’s her Enclopedia of Geology “complied a collection of ancient Greek accounts and North and South American Indian traditions about the discoveries of petrified bones of remarkable size to demonstrate the worldwide distribution of longstanding observations of the fossilized remains of immense creatures.” Edward Tylor was another pioneer of geomythology. He called traditional legends about natural history “myths of observation” to emphasize that they were reasonable efforts to account for mysterious physical evidence. Fossil remains produced a variety of geomyths researching on the creatures’ identity and cause of their destruction. Many ancient cultures, from China, and India to Greece, American, and Australia, told tales of dragons, monsters, and giant heroes to account for fossils of animals they had never seen alive. Gods from the Ancient Greeks, destroyed these giants and monsters and buried them underground. They accounted for the fossil skeletons of enormous, extinct Tertiary mammals found in “giants’ battlefields” all around the Mediterranean.
Andrienne Mayor has done extensive research in the field and has gathered the evidence to support that maybe these so called myths may have actually existed when dinosaurs once did. When you map out the "fossil" sites of the ancient culture they overlap with modern day fossil sites that have known to be infested with fossils.
I may be wrong about thinking that trolls, hobbit like creatures, dragons, dwarves, elves, etc. or even a wizard didn’t directly come from dinosaur bones, but I do believe they imitated and were thought to be related to dinosaurs and other creatures during that time. It is hard to really determine what these creatures originated from or what they could have been related to but the mystery will live on.