Actions speak louder than words. No one knows this better than hobbits, who have a complex language of body posture, manners, and etiquette known as Hobbitish or the Proper Ways that silently says everything it would be rude to say aloud (it's quite mean, to be honest). Bilbo Baggins, as a gentlehobbit, has spent his whole life 'speaking' in the Proper Ways. He knows how to insult someone in dozens of ways using nothing but a handkerchief, understands the meaning of the number of petals in a bouquet of flowers, knows which color of shirt means what when worn to any specific event, and can host a dinner party that either welcomes its guests or lets them know exactly how much he hates the fact of their existence and the social obligations by which they were invited.
But nothing could prepare him for thirteen dwarves and a wizard who have no clue about the Proper Ways and want him to go on an adventure... while also unknowingly sexually propositioning him, threatening him with death by sugar spoon, and insulting his decor, cutlery, garden, and feet. And did they mention the dragon?
A Way Tropes Should Be
- Almighty Mom: Bilbo's opinion on Lady Dis, Fili and Kili's mother. He comments that she sounds like the sort of person who fully intended to follow through on even her most outlandish threats... and perhaps even escalate them, just in case somebody thought they could take the first one.Move the cliff until they're already off it, sort of thing.
- Anger Born of Worry: Bilbo to Thorin when the latter is injured. Fortunately, Thorin survives.
- Arc Words: Actions speak louder than words.
- Cross Cultural Kerfuffle: Poor Bilbo takes a while to fully grasp that the dwarves don't actually know that they're saying all sorts of nonsense and very rude things in Hobbitish and so aren't trying to insult him.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Hobbitish threats are usually very complex and inventive. And while most of the time it's just hyperbole, some hobbits really do mean that they're going to shove eggplants into all of your orifices.
- Everybody Lives: Fili, Kili, and Thorin are badly injured instead of dying.
- Fantastic Racism: Aside from the elves and dwarves, the One Ring does not like elves.
- Flowery Insults: Hobbitish insults are as complex as their threats.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: The One Ring is stuck like this to Bilbo, providing invisibility on demand and occasionally saving him by telling him to get on with things when he's too panicked to think. It would probably be more annoyed about the situation if it weren't also relieved to get away from Gollum.
- Innocent Swearing: The dwarves do this in Hobbitish all the time.
- Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier: Bilbo's preferred method of dealing with too much stress is to swear at the closest-to-responsible party in Hobbitish. When Thorin nearly dies, he drops the Hobbitish and just yells at Thorin in Westron.
- My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Hobbitish is so fiddly and complicated, involving so many small gestures, that it's hard to not follow this trope if you aren't used to the Proper Ways. Most of the comedy comes from poor Bilbo reading accidental and ridiculous Hobbitish into normal elven/dwarven/human body language.
- More than Mind Control: The One Ring tries, but after centuries with Gollum it's yet to get back the hang of being subtle and nearly outs itself several times- and probably would have if Bilbo wasn't constantly distracted by whatever adventure problem he was having.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: Swear words aren't censored, but the narrative refuses to give the details of all the sexual acts proposed, both intentionally and unintentionally, in Hobbitish.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Gandalf knew Hobbitish all along. He purposefully chose not to participate because he disapproved of how it was used to be horribly rude to people.
- Only Sane Man: Bilbo sees himself as one to the Dwarves. He actually becomes this late in the story when the dwarves start going gold-mad.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Bilbo has a very foul mouth when he loses patience with the dwarves... in Hobbitish. Not so much out loud until the very end, where he curses out Thorin out, much to everyone else's surprise.
- Surprise Creepy: The Gollum scene. Even the One Ring manages to get in on the humor, but there's nothing funny about Gollum. Even the 'Hobbitish' element isn't funny, because Gollum knows Hobbitish, if brokenly, and everything he says in it is a threat or statement about how he wants to kill and eat Bilbo.
- Uncanny Valley: Bilbo's reaction when he realizes Gollum knows Hobbitish.
- Unreliable Narrator: Bilbo, at times. Poor hobbit is fairly prone to denial.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: The One Ring is terrified of dragons, because dragonfire is hot enough to melt some rings of power and the Ring worries that it itself might be melted. Canonically, it can't, but the ring would much rather be safe than slag.
