The Crutch of Invisibility

Throughout The Hobbit, Bilbo performs brave and sometimes foolish actions, often after becoming invisible via the magic ring. Do you think Bilbo's use of the ring was necessary in every case? Whom do we admire more, the person who wields a powerful object or the person who grows and uses his/her natural gifts? Finally, which of Bilbo's actions would you categorize as brave, which would be somewhat disturbing or "foggy"?

The invisible ring is one of the most significant magical weapon throughout the story. Bilbo gain the ring when he is in danger (almost eaten by Golemn), the ring later creates a eucatastrophy in the story. With the ring, Bilbo become more courageous in the journey. He uses the ring to escape from the Goblins, slay the spiders, free his friends out and get into the Dragon’s caste. The ring brings him power physically and mentally. Most of the time, the ring is a useful tool that helps Bilbo to play tricks and actually overthrown his enemies. In the case of the Dragon, it is mentioned that the Dragon can “smell” him. Instead of working as a tool, the ring is a token which Bilbo believes would bring him luck. At the end of the story I think Bilbo starts to rely (too much) on the ring. He is knock out by a rock. Since he is invisible his friends could not find him. This time the ring may work as a lucky item to Bilbo but we can also see the dependency to the ring also brings him trouble (I believed this could be an allegory…). In our life, one grow one’s given talent is highly valued but I do believe people who work hard to get rewards should be admired. For me, to make used of one’s gift is more likely to be an obligation. On the other hand, work for sth one want is more of a challenge.

With the development of the plot, we can see that Bilbo is start getting stronger and stronger than before, the ring, which provide him protection, makes him hard to leave without it. In the story, Bilbo always mention that the goal he wants to achieve is to get back to the Hobbit hole and have a comfort life. Unlike Gandalf, have some spirt of adventure, Bilbo has been safe and comfortable for too long. The ring, in my opinion, consider as the tool to achieve his goal and provide protection. In the ordinary world, we mankind always define people who use their own power to achieve a goal, we consider it as success, but people who achieve their goal by using power from outside is the one we don’t admire. Even though Bilbo have the ring as his protection, we can still find that the way how he think, his action are keep changing as the adventure keep going, with the ring, he have more courage to confront the challenge, get to the inner most cave by himself, escape from the goblins, kill the spiders, save his friends. Even he has the power from the ring, he still doesn’t want to confront the dragon, that’s why he shows extreme bravery when he gets to the inner most cave and get the Arkenstone and find the weak spot of the dragon without dangerous.

We can obviously see what the ‘’One Ring’’ brought to Bilbo,which was the bravery or courage.I think the reason why Bilbo can get through all the test and did not even hurt was due to the gift of the ring. The One Ring has the power to rule and feel every ring,but the much of the power it gives upon the user is all depend on its user original ability.Bilbo in the story was just too weak to wield all the power of the ring. The invisible power was more likely an additional gift.In my opinion,if Bilbo did not use the ring’s ability,he could not slay spiders like that easy,or get into the dragon hole but not be killed by the dragon thought he had the special bloodline.We could notice that the dragon could easily detect Bilbo by smelling. So why he could get out of the cave was with the help of the ring.In our world,we would definitely admire the people who are hard working and doing their best based on their capability even they didn’t achieve or finish their goal finally.Because the reward you get from doing tasks is not that value compares to the process which you really concentrated and devote yourself in.So people who use the their natural ability would be admired more than those thought get the same result but now experience the process.In the story,the most foggy action i think was when Bilbo jumped over Gollum.He could kill Gollum when he was invisible.However,he chose to escape.The most bravely moments were when he stole the Arkenstone from Throin.He believed in himself and believed in justice though he betrayed his friend.

In my opinion, I think Bilbo is necessary to use the ring for every cases. Bilbo is not a hero, at least not a hero at the beginning of the Journey. He is not similar as the dwarves who have strong body and also not powerful as Gandolf who has magic. Bilbo is only an ordinary hobbit who hates adventure. The ring and the skill brought by it is the only thing Bilbo has besides cunning. Cunning is not enough to save you under the spiders’ fang nor Dragon’s fire. He has to use the power of the ring to defeat his enemies or protect himself. And I don’t think use everything you have from the beginning to defeat your enemies is something your should be shamed on. It’s a respect to your enemies and also yourself.
To talk about which I admire more, the person who wields a powerful object or the person who grows and uses his/her natural gifts, I think I will admire more on the person who wields a powerful object. Because in our world, it’s not the case that gifted people versus armed people, but these gifted people use their developed talent to take everything in the world. Therefore, if there is still someone who is not born with any talent can still take the powerful object out of these talent people, he is definitely more hard working than everyone.
In the whole journey of Bilbo, I believe he shows his most courage in front of the trolls. Because at that time, he has nothing to protect himself, not even the dagger made by ancient elf. But although facing the deathly threat from the trolls, he is still calm enough to trick them around until Gandolf finally comes.