This quote, while not significant to the plot, tells the reader something about Bilbo Baggins’ character. Unfortunately for him, he is having to endure miserable weather on an adventure he isn 't even sure he wants to be on. Through the wording and adjectives used, one can clearly …show more content…
The author adds these for this very purpose. For example “Flickering fires leaped up and black rock-shadows danced,” uses personification to give the scene a sense of life and reality though inanimate objects.
When Balin said this, I was struck as I was unaware he was there with Thorin in “the old days”. He knows his way around the mountain as he was there. Up until this point, I thought only Thorin was only one of the dwarves that had been around in the “old days”. Additionally, I feel as though the author should have made this more obvious as the story progressed though the earlier chapters. It may have been mentioned, but I never picked up on that fact.
I find this ironic as the watchmen of Lake-town were completely oblivious to the coming horror. Even once one of the watchmen suggested it was the dragon, they “blew it off”, per se. Knowing what was about to happen, as it was mentioned earlier that the dragon was heading towards Lake-town, I found it very ironic that they told the one guard to stop “foreboding gloomy things,” even though he was right in the