Board 8 > What's the best chapter of The Hobbit?

(+) Yeah! (+)

rereading it now and enoying it a lot.

I think my top candidates are the ones where Bilbo is talking with scary beings in caves. "Riddles in the Dark" and "Inside Information"

Riddles in the Dark and the following chapter Out of the Frying Pan-Into the Fire are probably the two best. Really though it is just a well paced book. Every chapter has something and could be somebodys favourite.

I also really like the Bjorn one and the barrel river riding one

Riddles in the dark still sticks with me the most

(It helps that its the scene the movies adapted the closest)

I think some of the early chapters are really fun but a little weak narratively. The middle and late chapters have some of the most epic moments. I don't know about favorite chapter(s) overall but these were some great scenes.

chapter 8 where bilbo goes on a rampage against the spiders in mirkwood, cementing himself as one of the most badass hobbits of all time. this is the point where 'gandalf saves everyone' stops being the solution to every problem, and bilbo takes over the gandalf role. which I would say is pretty impressive. there's even a section where he fights off a horde of spiders single-handedly while kili is focused on freeing the other dwarves, without using the ring, and only armed with a dagger. also in one particular passage he leaps into the spiders who are trying to drag bombur away and 'slays six spiders in an instant before any of them could react.' every single adaption of this scene that has ever been put to film has utterly failed to capture the spirit of what the chapter was really about. bilbo's surge of confidence causes him to display a level of agency, tenacity, and ability that earns him the respect of the dwarves for decades to come.

chapter 17 also has some great moments. I hate when people say 'Bilbo immediately gets knocked out with a stone' it makes me think they haven't actually read the book in a long time and are remembering what happened in the cartoon adaptation. first of all this chapter has some amazing paragraphs describing the battle in straightforward but impactful text. the first charge of the goblins, then the charge of the elves, then the charge of the dwarves become increasingly epic as the battle builds up to its conclusion. when the goblin reinforcements appear it creates a minor speed bump before Thorin and the other dwarves finally emerge from Erebor. it really gives you a sense of how 13 extra bodies appearing on the battlefield could actually turn the tides of a large scale battle because of how epic the moment is. The text explicitly states that Thorin's leadership gave courage not to just the dwarves or even the men, but even the elves were inspired by him and joined in his charge. Lastly, Bilbo spends a good portion of the battle along with the elves, helping to protect Thranduil. While the text doesn't explicitly say 'and then he cut down a goblin with his sword!' you can pretty much infer that he helped with the fighting. he was "protecting Thranduil" and not "standing around doing nothing while a battle raged around him." Bilbo does not get knocked down until the very end of the battle, when the fighting is pretty much over.

I believe Thorin's funeral is at the beginning of the next chapter. if that was at the end of chapter 17 then it would have been the best chapter. both of those scenes are extremely high quality.