Summary: Chapter 16
As Thorin continues to search for the Arkenstone and as
the rest of the dwarves worry about the armies camped on their doorstep, Bilbo
decides that he must take matters into his own hands. With the help
of the ring, he sneaks away from the mountain at night and into the
camp of the lake men and the wood elves. There, he reveals himself
and is brought before the leaders, Bard and the Elvenking. They are
suspicious of him, of course, but they relax when Bilbo reveals his
secret weapon: the Arkenstone. He gives it freely to Bard to be used
as a bargaining chip against Thorin. Bard and the Elvenking are
amazed that the hobbit would risk inciting the anger of the dwarves
in order to prevent a war. They ask him to stay in the camp for
his safety, but Bilbo decides to return to the mountain. On his way
out of the camp, he runs into Gandalf, who pats him on the shoulder
for his brave deeds. Gandalf has just arrived from his other affairs
to see the end of this touchy matter. Newly hopeful, Bilbo sneaks
back to the mountain unnoticed.
Summary: Chapter 17
In the morning, Bard returns with two messengers to entreat
Thorin to accept a peaceable agreement. When the dwarf again refuses, Bard
reveals the Arkenstone, the one part of the treasure that Thorin values
above all the rest. Thorin is crushed, and he turns to Bilbo in rage
when the hobbit reveals that he is the one who gave Bard the treasure.
Thorin is about to turn violent, but then one of the messengers
throws off his cloak and reveals himself to be Gandalf.
The wizard commands Thorin to let Bilbo speak. The hobbit claims
that, in taking the Arkenstone, he only took his fair share of the
treasure, as his contract as burglar had specified. Thorin has no choice
but to agree, and he angrily offers to pay a fourteenth part of the
treasure to regain the stone. The men and elves are satisfied with this. Thorin,
however, secretly hopes that before they make the exchange, his
relatives, who are marching toward the battlefield with an army
under the leadership of Dain, will be able to capture the stone
by force.
The new dwarf army threatens the elves and men, and they
are about to engage in battle when darkness takes over the sky from
the west. Gandalf tells them that a new danger has come: an army
of goblins and Wargs who intend to take the treasure for themselves. The
dwarves, elves, and humans are thus united against the goblins and
Wargs in what is called the Battle of the Five Armies.
The forces of good fight fiercely, but the goblins and
Wargs are just as fierce. Bilbo stays on the mountain, a bit removed
from the fighting, and watches as the elves and dwarves first send
the goblins fleeing but then are forced to retreat from the vicious
Wargs. Thorin fights alongside the lake men as mightily as any.
However, the goblins slowly gain ground, and Bilbo is forced to
retreat to the elves’ camp, which is nearly surrounded. The end
seems close at hand when the hobbit’s keen eyes spy something in
the distant skies: the great eagles are flying toward the battlefield.
At that moment, however, a stone falls from the mountain and hits
Bilbo on the head, and he loses consciousness.
Analysis: Chapters 16–17
In this section, the idea Tolkien began developing in
Chapter 15—that the dwarves are in the wrong
and that the truly heroic path is the one that ends in peace—comes
to fruition with Bilbo’s moral choice to leave the dwarves. Bilbo’s
motivations for defecting to the enemy camp are twofold. First,
he realizes that the best way out of the conflict is a peaceful
one. Second, despite his friendship with the dwarves, Bilbo feels
more of a natural camaraderie with elves (and, to a lesser extent,
with men) than with dwarves. Though this second motivation may be
questioned, Bilbo’s defection is nevertheless one of the most courageous
acts of his short career as a burglar, since without Gandalf’s intervention
he may easily have been killed by Thorin for giving away the Arkenstone.
