I’m Starting the Pink Umbrella Movement

Jared, Oriana and Ned discuss Jared’s choice of topic: Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. Introduced casually as a relative of Bilbo’s at the end of The Hobbit – one who Bilbo has a mutual unappreciation society with thanks to some missing spoons – Lobelia appears at the start of The Lord of the Rings as something of a chief antagonist, a status-obsessed hobbit eager to claim Bag-end first with her husband and then, after his death, their son Lotho. As part of Frodo’s plan to leave the Shire he happily sells Bag-end to her and departs on the eventual quest to destroy the One Ring, only to discover upon his return about both Lotho’s role as a puppet of Saruman slain by his orders as well as Lobelia’s reaction to Saruman’s ruffians that leads to her imprisonment, resulting in the end in her change of heart towards Frodo and the society she kicked against. At once a brilliantly memorable example of a pointed portrayal of the petty bourgeoisie and a surprisingly gentle moment of redemption after grave loss, Lobelia is a minor character on the one hand but one with surprising depths on the other. What does it mean to resist destructive forces in a society, and is Lobelia’s seeming to come around late in the game on that front both an example of privilege and finally reaching a breaking point? Can comparisons be made to some of Tolkien’s other older women characters in his works, in particular the Minas Tirith nurse Ioreth, in how such figures are generally portrayed in a generally male-focused society? What does it say about Lobelia that she arguably is one of the few people who could compare experiences with Frodo at being imprisoned without hope due to the forces that Sauron and Saruman seek to exploit for their gain? And did Wormtongue really make a meal out of Lotho in the end?