Hobbits | Games | Tolkien
Playing a Hobbit
Me Tolkien Nonsense
Apart from being a Tolkien nerd, another thing you should know about me is that I have spent an inordinate amount of time playing multiplayer online role-playing games (also known as MMORPG’s). This is partly the fault of my closest friend of many years (now my wife) who has played such games for much longer than me. I used to tease her about it, saying I preferred to shoot bows, fight with swords, and ride horses in real life. However, then I had my first daughter, and started playing Pixie Hollow, a game with Disney fairies. I was hooked.
What I mostly like about MMOPRG’s is the character creation. I like to imagine people living in this world and create their life within it. I usually ignore the “lore” and narratives the developers have created, and just mess around making things and harvesting.
Given the Tolkien nerd aspect, I have played two games that call heavily on this tradition, one is called The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) the other is called Everquest II (EQ2 — yes, there was an EQ beforehand). Both are now rather dated, with LOTRO dating to 2007 and EQ2 to 2004 (the original EQ dates to 1999). Both games have Hobbits or “Halflings” in them, and I have played this race on both, neither of which left me entirely happy. My thoughts about what a Hobbit should look like have been provoked by these games. This is particularly relevant at the moment, as a new Hobbit game, Tales of the Shire, is due to be released in 2024.
So the Halflings of EQ2 and the Hobbits of LOTRO are both decidedly chunky. Don't get me wrong, I believe in people being able to play characters of any body weight, that is not my point. Chunky Hobbits evokes to my mind Smeagol’s description of Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings as being a “stupid fat hobbit” and not necessarily what a Hobbit generally should look like. Nowadays we are somewhat influenced by Elijah Wood, but Elijah is a 5' 6" (168cm) human and his proportions reflect that, so what should a Hobbit look like?
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Hobbits were, of course, invented by J. R. R. Tolkien, and the copyright on the name “Hobbit” is why they are called Halflings in EQ2 and Dungeons & Dragons. Looking at Tolkien’s depictions of Hobbits, specifically Bilbo, should be definitive. Figural depiction was not Tolkien’s strongest point, so some leeway should be allowed (as a former art-student myself I know how tricky the human figure can be).
The image above is Tolkien’s drawing of Bag End from The Hobbit. Tolkien describes Hobbits as having the capacity of getting a little bulgy in the middle. Frodo’s Hobbit companions at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings suggest he is getting a little tubby, and a nice walk would help him lose weight. They, supposedly, do not have that problem. So Bilbo here is presumably an otherwise well-proportioned individual, but with a bit of a tummy. Okay, a lot of tummy, but still he isn’t the EQ2 Halfling or LOTRO Hobbit.
Tolkien depicts Bilbo again much later in his journey, clinging to a barrel as it approaches the huts of the raft-elves. Later again, Bilbo is shown in silhouette (because he is supposed to be invisible) while visiting Smaug, and here he is positively skinny. Since an adventuring Halfling would be like Bilbo in one of these later scenes, the fact that you are adventuring in these MMORPGs makes it seem to my mind that they should look skinnier, or you should have the opportunity to play a svelte Hobbit if you wish.
Hobbits are described a number of times as being difficult to distinguish from human children (“They would be small, only children to your eyes”). Beregond says of Peregrin Took that he looks like “a lad of nine summers”, but Pippin would have been a tall Hobbit even before the Ent-draught (a 9-year old is about 4 feet 4 inches (132 cm) although Pippin describes himself as “but four feet”). The average Hobbit height is 3 feet 6 inches (107 cm), a height which for a human would make them about 5 years old.
Here (below) is a human growth chart showing the proportion of humans at different ages. The chart includes at 3rd from the right, a 5-year old, and a ten-year-old next to him. So it is probable that the proportions of a normal healthy Hobbit is between these two.
If Tolkien was indeed essentially thinking that the average Hobbit was the proportion of an average human of about 5–7 years that would hardly be surprising, as the primary audience for the early oral version of The Hobbit seems to be Tolkien’s children.
Tolkien is said to have first written the words “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” in 1931, Christopher Tolkien was born on the 21st November 1924, so about seven years previously. Apparently it was Christopher Tolkien’s demands for consistency that made Tolkien senior start writing everything down.
So it is possible that the first Hobbit looks like the boy in this picture (above). I’m afraid I can’t find the source, but it is said to depict Tolkien’s wife Edith with Christopher and daughter Priscilla. Interestingly, Tolkien describes Hobbit hair as curly, which seems to be a more accurate description of Priscilla’s hair!
Hopefully any future MMORPG will include Hobbits or Halflings that are built for adventuring, whether stocky or skinny. But I doubt this will be any day soon, so if I want to go on an adventure as a Hobbit, I will have to write it rather than play it. I like the idea of a magic-wielding Hobbit however, so I do wonder how that might be achieved in Tolkien’s universe, and somehow I imagine having a beautiful yet edgy and dangerous half-goblin girlfriend!
