Semantics

A Hobbit oneshot

By

EvilFuzzy9

Rating: K+

Genre: Humor/Friendship [...with a sprinkling of Suspense toward the end]

Characters/Pairings: Bilbo B., Balin, Gandalf, Thorin; [N/A]

Summary: Goblin, orch, rakhâs, uruk – no matter what you call them, it's really just a matter of semantics. [gen]

It was another day of quiet, tedious trekking through the wilderness for a party of fifteen questionably brave adventurers. What looked like an old man in gray, thirteen dwarves, and a hobbit were traveling north by north-east in a direction that might eventually take them from Eriador to Rhovanion.

The sun was hidden behind a cover of clouds, the sky overcast. No threat of rain was evident, but still the gloom was faintly disheartening. An unseasonable chill lingered in the air, a slight mist creeping over rocky moors.

A portly Hobbiton aristocrat was looking distinctly uncomfortable on his pony, knuckles clenching the reins with an iron grip. Beside him rode a fairly aged dwarf, Balin, who was old ("But still spry!" he insisted), with a long white beard and a particularly large, bulbous nose. Ahead of these two, at the front of the procession, were the uncannily wizened conjuror Gandalf and a noble, haughty dwarf: Thorin II, called also the Oakenshield, who tucked a richly braided silver beard into his belt.

Behind the hobbit, conversing with the ineffable cheer of eager youths, rode two stripling dwarves scarce grown into their beards. These were the sons of Thorin's sister, Dis: Fíli and Kíli, whose chins were yet practically bare by dwarven standards. The duo spoke of things strange to the hobbit's senses, and faintly disconcerting.

"...been spotting signs of it since yesterday, haven't we? Wolf tracks this far into the Trollshaws... and not just any wolves, mind you..."

"...wargs, right? Troublesome business, that, and right smelling of mischief... You know what rangers say."

"'Where the warg howls, the orc surely prowls.' Or something like that, at any rate. Still, though... do you really think we're being followed, brother?"

"As sure as mithril in Moria, I'd say."

"Ah. I see... do you think we should tell Thorin?"

"Saw that new sword of his glowing a bit just around the edges, the other night... and he was staring right at it, clear as day. Thorin knows already, and I reckon our wizard does, too."

Bilbo felt his stomach knot up, listening to the pair whisper. Balin, riding on his own pony beside the hobbit, let out a faintly irritable huff.

"So will everyone else from here to Rivendell, if the two of you keep talking so loud," he said.

Fíli and Kíli immediately broke from their discourse, realizing all at once that – aside from a faint rustling of wind through the leaves, and a bit of far off birdsong – their whispering had probably been the only sound for miles.

The brothers' faces went a dark shade of red.

"Oh," they said, looking appropriately chastised.

Bilbo gulped nervously, and he glanced sidelong at Balin.

"Um," he said. "That does not sound very good. Er."

Balin met Bilbo's eyes curiously.

"Yes?" he said. "You look like you've got something to say."

Bilbo blushed, sheepishly clearing his throat. He felt acutely conscious of how very audible this was in the quiet.

"Yes, well," he mumbled. "Um, not that I don't know my business or anything, but... just so we're all perfectly clear on the subject, ah..."

He coughed, momentarily looking away from Balin.

"...what is an orc, again?"

Balin stared at Bilbo for a long moment.

Bofur chose that moment to ride up alongside the hobbit and old Longbeard, and cheerfully remark:

"Very unpleasant folk. Not the sorts you'd invite to a dinner party."

Bilbo stared at Bofur for a moment, marveling at the quiet irony of this statement. Then Balin spoke up.

"Well, now, I'm sure that even in the Shire you've heard of orcs," he said. "I doubt there's anyone in Middle-earth who hasn't." He paused a moment, looking thoughtful. "...Although I suppose you Shirefolk would know them by other names. Does goblins ring a bell?"

Bilbo gulped.

"G-G-Goblins?" he squeaked. Those he HAD heard of.

"Yes, goblins," Bofur said. "Think like that, but bigger and meaner."

"Bigger?" Bilbo said. "Meaner?"

From what he'd heard about goblins, they weren't exactly nice to begin with. Or small.

(Not when compared to a hobbit, at least)

"Oh, don't go distressing the poor fellow," Balin interjected. "You make it sound like orcs and goblins are two different things. They're all basically the same, really."

Somehow, this didn't sound very reassuring to Bilbo.

"Goblins are smaller, though," said Bofur. "More skulking and less fighting."

"Oh, that's just semantics," Balin huffed, muttering. "Goblin. What kind of word is that, anyway? It doesn't even sound right. Rakhâs. Goblin, hobgoblin, orc or uruk, they're all just rakhâs in the end."

He descended into a string of irritable dwarvish, bemoaning perhaps how lightly youths took these things.

"Rukh!" Bifur loudly concurred from near the back. "Rakhâs!" The mildly brain-damaged dwarf proceeded to then go on a lengthy tirade in ancient dwarvish.

Bilbo looked around at the variously stirring and muttering dwarves around him.

"Um..." he said to Balin. "I'm sorry, but I'm still a little confused."

Thorin chose then to look imperiously over his shoulder at those who rode behind him.

"Goblin, my dear burglar, is a mannish loanword," he said. "It came to Eriador through you hobbits, who originally used it as a blanket term for all orcs. But hobbits and Breelanders really only have experience with the smaller breeds, so among dwarves who traded in Bree and the Shire, the word goblin was eventually coopted as a term to distinguish the smallest breeds of orc."

"And going further back, you will find that orc itself is but another loanword from the Elvish," said Gandalf, looking pointedly at Thorin. "Orch, as it is rendered in the Sindarin mode."

Thorin's beard bristled, and he gave Gandalf a dark look. The wizard seemed quite unperturbed by this bit of peevishness on part of Thráin's son, however and continued on.

"In addition, hobgoblin is used to further distinguish exceptionally large goblins and medium-sized orcs. It is a rather vulgar form, deriving from a colloquial use of hobbit among Ered Luin dwarves as a tongue-in-cheek standard of measurement, with the prefix hob- being used to denote something which is larger than the norm by an amount equal to or greater than a hobbit."

Bilbo looked mildly put off to hear this, and side-eyed Bofur suspiciously. The dwarf in question whistled innocently.

"Which leaves only the largest and nastiest of orcs as being still called orcs by these impudent, sparse-whiskered little beardlings," Balin said, giving Fíli and Kíli the evil eye. This subject was clearly a point of some contention for the usually mild-mannered old dwarf.

"Unless you count uruks," Thorin said, a cold glint in his eye.

Balin and Bofur, as well as most of the other members of the company, visibly flinched at this mention. Bilbo looked around at them, surprised and worried.

"Er...Uruks?" he said.

Even Gandalf had a dark expression at the sound of this word, and he shot Bilbo a piercing glare.

"That, my dear Bilbo, is a word from the Black Speech of Mordor... a language devised by the Dark Lord Sauron to be spoken by all who lived under his rule."

Bilbo paled. Even in the Shire, tales of the Dark Lord were known. And judging by how the others seemed to wince or droop at the mention of that name, it was clear that this particularly dread was not unique to hobbits.

He almost didn't want to ask.

"Azog..." Thorin growled. "Had I been only a little quicker up the steps of Dimrill Dale, that filth would have died by my hand."

"But he was still slain by a kinsman of Thrór," said Balin. "Dáin did right by the Longbeards, and all dwarves, on that day."

Thorin's hands tightened infinitesimally on the reins.

"Then let us hope he continues to do so," he said darkly.

A/N: It's not exactly love-hate, but I have a... complicated relationship with PJ's latest entries into cinematic interpretation of Tolkien's Legendarium. There are many things I like about what he's done with The Hobbit – a few of them even things that I'm sure might irk some of the more puritanical fans, like Tauriel, or the bits with Radagast – and I also understand the reasons for several of the things that I like less, and can accept why they were done for the sake of this movie adaptation.

Really, there is only one big change that I do not like, and that is Azog being alive. Not just because it's inaccurate, but because they missed a great chance to really push things narratively. If they had kept Azog's death at the Battle of Azanulbizar – hell, I wouldn't have even mind quite so much if they'd given that kill to Thorin just to keep things relatively simple for more casual viewers – they could have had Bolg as the one swearing vengeance on all Longbeards.

Azog's motivations have him as a cross between Captain Ahab and For Teh Evulz, but I really think that the idea of Bolg pursuing the company to the ends of the earth to settle a very personal grudge – to avenge the death of his own father – not only could have worked some wonders for greater dramatic investment, but could have also lent the movies a slight touch of moral ambiguity.

In fact, a small part of me wonders if that wasn't the original direction they'd wanted to go, only for the studio to nudge them toward a more watered-down exercise in good versus evil. I mean, considering the direction Thorin's character takes for a while in the last stretch of The Hobbit, it could have made viewers seriously stop and ask themselves:

"Wait... who ARE the bad guys, here?"

Even if they kept everything else as is, just that slight change could have taken the film from "Good, but no LOTR," to "MIND = BLOWN"

Updated: 10-12-14

TTFN and R&R!

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