#ThereAndBackAgain Readalong
Thranduil, the Elven-King Who Might Have Come from the First Age
The Hobbit — Ch 9 Barrels Out of Bond — Tolkien’s legendarium tried to intrude The Hobbit many times. The Elven-King might have been another breach.
In a sense, it may look like this chapter is a repetition of the episode of the Spiders. It is quite similar in structure: the Dwarves get caught, Bilbo escapes, and eventually, he is the one who finds a solution and saves all his friends. Plotwise, it’s the same structure for both episodes.
But theme-wise it is a step forward in Bilbo’s journey.
The Spiders episode, which happens in the darkness of Mirkwood, is intimate. What happens there happens for Bilbo’s sole benefit, in a sense. He’s the one who feels different after he can face, fight and win the Spiders. He is the only one who perceives the change inside himself. Which, of course, is an essential step in his personal journey.
In the episode of the caves of the Elves, Bilbo may do similar things in terms of plot, but he acts now as part of a community
