A Hobbit chosen by the wizard Gandalf to accompany thirteen Dwarves on a quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and its treasure from the dragon Smaug.

See The Lord of the Rings character sheet for tropes that apply to him in that work.

• Alliterative Name: Bilbo Baggins.
• Audience Surrogate: He's totally unfamiliar with all the lore and geography outside of the Shire, requiring its explanation.
• The Baby of the Bunch: At the youthful age of 50, he's by a good margin the youngest member of the party.
• Badass Normal: He starts the story as a homebody living a comfortable life as essentially a minor country gentleman, without any personal experience in anything more strenuous than preparing his dinner or keeping home. Nonetheless, despite a very rough start, he's able to keep up with the far more world-wise and combat-experience dwarves through their dangerous journey and get the group out of several close calls, including with elves and dragons.
• Big Eater: It's a hobbit trait. Bilbo loves good food, especially if there is plenty of it. His main gripe with being out on an adventure is that he doesn't get to eat as often, or as much, as he would like to.
• British Stuffiness: Bilbo is very much modeled on a country squire of Tolkien's era or slightly before: shackled by manners and a code of propriety from expressing himself (even when facing a home invasion by thirteen uninvited guests). Through the story, Bilbo slowly loses those inhibitions via his exposure to the forthright dwarves and learns to speak his mind but tempered with the tact and subtlety of his upbringing. In his conversation with Smaug, he's able to amuse the dragon with his riddling speak and yet land a number of solid blows against Smaug's overpowering ego.
• Character Development: At first he's more or less useless. Starting when he picks up the Ring, he becomes a lot more brave and competent, and he notices this shift in himself after fighting the spiders. By the time he gets the dwarves out of the Elvenking's dungeon, he's the de facto leader of the company.
• The Chosen Zero: Gandalf is the only one who has faith in him in the beginning; the dwarves and Bilbo himself think he's unfit for the journey.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Bilbo starts out as a rather bumbling homebody who's really not cut out for fighting, sneaking, or hiking in the wilderness, and tends to be more of a burden on the company than anything. He evolves into a more heroic figure over time.
• Conservation of Competence: Bilbo eventually is revealed to be the most competent member of the company, and is the only one who doesn't lose hope in Mirkwood, the Elvenking's dungeons, and at the Lonely Mountain.
• Cool Sword: Sting, an elven long knife that glows when orcs are near.
• Cool Uncle: After his adventure, he is regarded as weird rather than respectable in Hobbiton by his neighbors, but his nieces and nephews on his mother's side like him all the more. Part of this is because they're Tooks and part of it is because he regularly gives them useful and/or extravagant gifts funded by dragon (and troll) gold.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: When captured by the goblins, he lets out a yell which is surprisingly loud for his size. This is lampshaded by the narrator.
• Eastward Endeavor: Bilbo gets dragged into the Dwarves' quest to get Smaug's treasure in the east. He's more or less useless at the beginning, but some incidents later (including getting the One Ring and saving the party from huge spiders) he becomes much more competent. In the end, his experiences turned him into a full Gentleman Adventurer.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Bilbo's already a gentleman and is implied to be living quite comfortably even before he runs into Gandalf. His status as a hobbit also gives him prime stealth, nearly-impossible throwing accuracy, and surprising health and tenacity; he just never had a need to use it before. And that's all before he obtains the Elven-knife Sting and the magic ring, chases off the spiders, escapes the Elvenking's dungeons, taunts a fully-grown dragon, and burgles one of the most treasured objects of the Dwarves of Erebor to broker a peace bargain. While he settles down again at the end, he's still got Sting, the ring, and enough dwarven treasure to make him outright one of the richest men in Hobbiton if not the Shire entirely.
• Fire-Forged Friends: His relationship with the rest of the Company.
• Gentleman Adventurer: Actually appears as dueling influences from his heritage: his father's Baggins side is the Gentleman, while his mother's Took side is the Adventurer.
• Gentleman Thief: Lampshaded. When he's offended, the dwarves assume that he's the kind who prefers to be called "expert treasure-hunter" or the like. Later on, Smaug remarks that he has "nice manners for a thief and a liar".
• Giant's Knife; Human's Greatsword: When the party is arming themselves from the trolls' hoard, Bilbo grabs a blade that fits him well as a one-handed sword. Elven and Mannish swords are normally far too large for a Hobbit to wield — but to the Elves who originally made it this one was just a simple knife.
• Guile Hero: Unlike his dwarven companions, Bilbo prefers to use his words and brain to get him out of tight situations. His tiny size and dislike of battle also makes this trope necessary to his survival throughout the quest. Note that even during the more hard-action portions of the quest (like Mirkwood) Bilbo tends to lean heavily on distraction over combat, and guts and determination over outright strength.
• Hard Head: Knocked unconscious twice without serious consequence. The Lord of the Rings has characters remarking many times about how quick hobbits are in recovering from injuries that would probably have killed a dwarf or human.
• Heroic Lineage: His mother's side of family, the Tooks, underwent many adventures and did amazing and unexpected things, which is why they were never as respectable in hobbit society as his father's side, the Baggins.
  • His great-great-grand-uncle Bandobras "Bullroarer" Took rode into battle against a mob of goblins and took the head of their chieftain clean off, and incidentally invented the sport of Golf at the same moment.
  • His own mother is implied to have gotten herself into a quest or two, given Gandalf's disappointment in his distaste for adventures; "To think I should have lived to be goodmorninged by Belladonna Took's son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!".
• Hero Protagonist: He's the central hero of the quest for Erebor, and thus the book.
• Hobbits: Considering that he was the first one ever created, Bilbo Baggins is the hobbit of all hobbits.
• Home Sweet Home: Conflicting with his desire for the quest, Bilbo is often afflicted with homesickness for his comfortable, warm, rain-proof Hobbit-hole and its nice well-stocked larder.
• Horrifying the Horror: Manages to terrorize a colony of Giant Spiders in Mirkwood, thanks to his trusty sword Sting, devastatingly good aim and a strong throwing arm, and the ability to appear and disappear at will.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Along with I Just Want to Be Badass. Bilbo is torn between the conflicting sides of his personality: his Baggins side just wants to have a normal, comfortable life, and his Tookish side wants to have adventures.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Along with Interspecies Friendship. He's considerably younger than the dwarves and especially Gandalf (whose age is not directly discussed in the Hobbit, but he was known for leading adventures before Bilbo was born), but he becomes fast friends with them.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: The books establish early on that Bilbo is impossibly accurate when throwing stones, to the point that he could knock birds out of the air. (Note that there are plenty of claims that credit slings with this kind of accuracy in the hands of expert practitioners.)
• I Should Write a Book About This: He was not only the trope picture, but he's also the original author of the book. Too bad he's also an Unreliable Narrator.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: Subverted, since it's his mother Belladonna's Took lineage that's significant to his joining the quest when his father Bungo's Baggins lineage would have him stay at home.
• The Load: Until he saves the dwarves from the spiders, he isn't much of a burglar or much help for anything really. After that point, he's pretty much carrying the team.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When Bilbo locates and pockets the Arkenstone, he knows what it is, what it means to Thorin, and that it was almost certainly meant to be excluded from the "pick your own share" clause of his contract. He nicks it anyway, admitting that "Now I truly am a burglar", apparently simply because it is such a uniquely beautiful gemstone that he can't resist taking it. It's only later that he tries to make good of his action by handing it over to Bard and Thranduil to use as a bargaining chip with Thorin, which in itself is a pretty dodgy action but done for the purest of motives.
• Never Accepted in His Hometown: Bilbo's actions throughout the story bring him great renown from various peoples — except his own. It's even more bitter in that he was previously a respectable gentlehobbit, and he loses his reputation forever — or at least it would be bitter, except that he couldn't care less.
  It is true that for ever after he remained an elf-friend, and had the honour of dwarves, wizards, and all such folk as ever passed that way; but he was no longer quite respectable. He was in fact held by all the hobbits of the neighbourhood to be “queer” — except by his nephews and nieces on the Took side, but even they were not encouraged in their friendship by their elders.
• Odd-One-Out Protagonist: Bilbo is a hobbit who lacks any of the other members' grand plans or ideals of serving a real or perceived greater good, and as the company's hired token burglar (which he in actuality has no true prior experience at), he specializes more than the others at using trickery, cunning and sneaking around to get himself and/or his fellow company-men out of tight spots, not least after he acquires the One Ring which enables him to secretly turn invisible.
• Only Sane Man: After the dragon has been killed, Bilbo is the only one of the company who complains about Thorin's refusal to even negotiate with the army at their doorstep. He's also the only one who decides to do something about it. All the more noticeable with the reveal in the sequel that he's got the One Ring; Bilbo spends a good amount of the quest with it on and is none the worse for wear mentally.
• Stealth Expert: He mutters about "all this dwarvish racket" even though they were doing their best to be silent. When Bilbo goes quiet, the narrator informs the reader they'd never notice him even if he crossed by in front of them.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: After a long and exciting adventure, Bilbo returns to the Shire safe and rich(er)... only to discover that his fellow hobbits have declared him legally dead and are in the midst of auctioning off his home and belongings. He also finds out that no one believes the stories of his adventures, and that, added to his mysterious disappearance, makes him lose his reputation. He still lives comfortably and happily for a long time in the Shire.
• Supreme Chef: Bilbo is a good cook, even by hobbit standards. In The Lord of the Rings it's mentioned that after perfecting his cooking for sixty years, even hobbits who normally hate him will accept dinner invitations from him because the food is just that good.
• Took a Level in Badass: Bilbo goes from an ordinary hobbit, who, as a responsible adult, shows disdain for adventures, to facing down a dragon.
• Unfazed Everyman: It takes a long time and even at the end there are many things he finds awkward and frightening, but he does get there.

• Anti-Hero: While he's a leader on a fairly epic quest, and often shows genuine concern for his loyal followers, he's also choleric and greedy.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Throws one at Bard, questioning what Thorin's kinsmen would have got if Bard had found the treasure unguarded and the Company slain. Bard admits this is, "A just question," but says it doesn't really answer his claims.
• Best Served Cold: He spends decades plotting against Smaug the dragon for destroying his people's kingdom.
• Byronic Hero: A charismatic leader with a Dark and Troubled Past and a talent for music, who obsessively tries to reclaim his birthright and refuses to give up even a shred of it for any reason, including his own survival, and whose fatal flaws are Greed and Pride? Yep, he qualifies.
• Captain Obvious: "This was Thorin's style. He was an important dwarf. If he had been allowed, he would probably have gone on like this until he was out of breath, without telling any one there anything that was not known already." Special mention goes to when he's sending Fili and Kili ahead as lookouts, telling them "There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something."
• Character Development: Thorin on his deathbed finally manages to bring his greed under control.
• Celibate Hero: He never married or had kids, which is not unusual for a dwarf.
• The Comically Serious: A good number of jokes in the story involving him spring from the fact that he's a pretty serious and humorless character — making it all the sillier when he gets dumped to the bottom of a pile of dwarves.
• Cool Sword: Orcrist, an elven sword. Although it's confiscated by the Wood-elves and never returned while he is alive; he later uses a dwarven axe from the Lonely Mountain's armories.
• Conservation of Competence: Along with Bilbo, he is the only one who is not immediately jumped by the trolls, the only one who is watchful and keeps his bow out in the forest when the dwarves are crossing the enchanted stream, and he is the one who spurs the dwarves into action to save Bombur and their supplies when Smaug goes on a rampage. During the Battle of Five Armies, he nearly manages to turn the tide of battle all by himself. All this makes him the most competent of the dwarves, by far.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Poor Thorin had a pretty rough life. His kingdom, Erebor, was taken over by a dragon who either killed most of its inhabitants in the initial attack or forced them to flee to distant lands, when he was just a youth (age 24 - very young for a dwarf). Much of Thorin's life was spent working in menial, dead-end jobs that brought little respect from the humans around him. His grandfather Thrór was brutally murdered by Azog for daring to set foot inside the gate of Moria, the Longbeards' original stronghold. Then, Thorin had to fight in a war of vengeance against the orcs, climaxing in the Battle of Azanulbizar, which cost his people a huge percentage of their fighting strength (essentially every dwarven male of fighting age fought in the battle), including his brother. Not long after that, his father Thráin embarked on an attempt to take back the Mountain. After several years of getting nowhere, Thráin disappeared and was presumed dead, and Thorin spent the next hundred years burdened with the fact he'd have to do likewise or be a failure of a king, 'an heir, but an heir without hope'. Very little seems to ever go right or come easy to the poor guy.
• Determinator: Despite his many flaws, including oncoming age, Thorin is determined to reclaim his clan's rightful ancestral homeland and treasure.
• Deuteragonist: Thorin is the second protagonist of the book after Bilbo because the quest is to restore Thorin as King under the Mountain.
• Disappeared Dad: His father Thráin disappeared attempting to reclaim the Mountain when Thorin was ninety-five (a hundred years ago), leaving Thorin to care for and guide the exiled Dwarves of Erebor alone.
• Doomed Hometown: The Lonely Mountain, which was attacked and occupied by Smaug.
• Dub Name Change: Known as Thorin Pavéza (pavise shield) in the Czech translation.
• Enemy Mine: Thorin is forced to team up with the Elves and the people of Lake-town after learning that the Goblins and Wargs are marching an army to try to take the treasure. Ironically, this team up is what prevents Thorin from becoming a Fallen Hero.
• Establishing Character Moment: He's the only dwarf not to greet Bilbo with "at your service." He is also the only one not to help clean the dishes (the narrator describes him as too important a dwarf to do this sort of work). He's also on the bottom of a pile of dwarves when the door is opened too fast. Gandalf chuckles at this.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Thorin is usually extremely loyal to his followers, but he has this reaction after Bilbo betrays him by giving the Arkenstone to Bard and the Elves to use as a bargaining chip.
• The Exile: Of the Noble Fugitive variety.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride, Greed and Revenge, which are big influences on his desire to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and his subsequent Tragic Mistake. Possibly Wrath where Bilbo was concerned, after he discovers Bilbo's theft of the Arkensone.
• Greed: His quest has an undercurrent of this, since it's not just to take Revenge on the dragon and reclaim his ancestral realm but also to reclaim its hoard of treasure, despite not exactly living in poverty anymore — though he does have a valid claim to it, more than the invading dragon who drove his people out. Comes to the fore when the lingering "dragon-sickness" effect of the treasure affects his judgment, increasing his gold-lust.
• Grumpy Old Man: For most of the book — until he becomes King and he dresses up in armor, revealing his inner soldier.
• Heel Realization: On his death bed, Thorin comes to regret his own greed and pride, and seeks reconciliation with Bilbo. After his death Dain honors his original agreement to give one-fourteenth of the hoard to Bard in exchange for the Arkenstone, which is buried with Thorin.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: This is presumably how he was killed, as the text mentions that he fell pierced with spears.
• Impoverished Patrician: Reduced to blacksmithing for a living, as well as residing in what he describes as his "poor lodgings in exile" — although it's downplayed by the beginning of the story, as he mentions that "we have a good bit laid by and are not so badly off" while stroking a gold chain around his neck.
• Improvised Armour: How he got his epithet "Oakenshield," per The Lord of the Rings Appendix A: during the battle of Azanulbizar, Thorin's shield broke, so he chopped an oak branch to use as a makeshift shield and club.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Although he grumps and complains about Bilbo being The Load, he will go rescue him from the trolls, or go back into the goblin mines after him. And after Bilbo's Character Development, he comes to have quite a bit of respect for the hobbit. He also makes it clear that he will make sure Bilbo gets his share of the treasure.
  • He tends to pick Bombur last for everything and makes unkind remarks about his weight, but when the dwarves all think Bombur is doomed because he's still down in the camp and Smaug is coming to find the entrance to the secret door, Thorin quickly organizes them to save Bombur.
• The Leader: Of the dwarves.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Downplayed as it is a direct threat, but Thorin declares that he "will be avenged on anyone who finds [the Arkenstone] and withholds it" — which frightens Bilbo, who of course has done just that.
• Odd Name Out: The only dwarf with an epithet regularly attached to his name, and the only one whose name doesn't rhyme with or otherwise sound similar to that of at least one other dwarf in the company^note It does rhyme with his great-great-uncle Borin (great-grandfather of Balin, Dwalin, Óin, and Glóin), but Borin doesn't appear in the story.
• Old Soldier: At one hundred and ninety-five, one of the oldest out there (at the end of middle-age, verging on elderly for a dwarf), and a veteran of the Goblin Wars.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Along with Gimli in The Lord of the Rings, he is the Trope Codifier.
• The Patriarch: The dwarves are fiercely patriarchal, considering themselves all descended from the original seven 'Fathers' of the dwarves. Thorin, as king of the eldest clan (the Longbeards or Durin's Folk) is the symbolic father of the entire race. In The Hobbit, he displays all the qualities of a more literal patriarch among his company, including the tragically late expression of his respect for the black sheep, Bilbo.
• Pride: Causes issues quite a few times and is an influence on his Tragic Mistake.
• Prince Charmless:
  • Thorin's introduction to Bilbo includes some tactless moments on Thorin's behalf. After an undignified entrance he fumes silently until Bilbo apologizes so much that he finally lets it go. He believes himself too important to help with the dishes, as the other dwarves do. He also hums loudly to himself to the point that Bilbo hears him through the wall and it keeps him awake for some time. When Bilbo suggests that they all have breakfast before leaving on the quest. Thorin agrees, except he takes it for granted that Bilbo will make the breakfast (and then all the dwarves follow his royal lead and order them, leaving Bilbo royally peeved).
  Thorin: I like six eggs with my ham, when starting on a journey: fried not poached, and mind you don't break 'em.
  • The Quest of Erebor in Unfinished Tales reveals that Thorin thought the idea of bringing along a hobbit and especially this hobbit was a ridiculous waste of his time that he only agreed to because Gandalf would otherwise have refused his help. He eventually warms up to Bilbo later on.
  • Thorin is also very impolite to the king of Mirkwood, but of course elves and dwarves have a long history of enmity, and he was treated rather roughly by the elves first.
• Rags to Riches: Reclaims his kingdom and his wealth. But only for a few days.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Thorin is most definitely this for the dwarves, who all look up to him both because of his leadership and his prowess in combat.
• Real Men Wear Pink: His badassery isn't undermined by him playing a golden harp extremely well.
• Redemption Equals Death: When he finally gets his throne and gold, he almost goes off the deep end, refusing to hear any claim to his treasure, no matter how just, and even if it means war. He exiles Bilbo and declares his share of the treasure forfeit after the latter attempts to resolve the conflict by giving the Arkenstone to Bard. Later, Thorin leads his dwarves into the Battle of the Five Armies and dies from his wounds shortly after. On his deathbed he apologizes to Bilbo for his unkind words.
• Revenge: This is another main motivator in his quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from Smaug.
• Riches to Rags: The heir to an immensely wealthy kingdom, but his people were driven out by Smaug the dragon when Thorin was a very young dwarf. The Kingdom of Erebor in turn was an inferior kingdom to Moria, from which Thorin's ancestors had been driven centuries before.
• Rightful King Returns: The goal of his quest, apart from killing Smaug and regaining his family's treasure, is to restore himself to Erebor's throne.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Taking back Erebor is no easy task, but Thorin firmly believes that it is his responsibility as the king of the Longbeard Dwarves to reclaim their ancestral home and riches. And (as revealed in later books) despite his sometimes arrogant behavior, Thorin is also willing to do the same work and menial jobs as his fellow dwarves in exile.
• Sanity Slippage: Starts to lose it when he finally gets his throne and gold.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: More like "screw politeness, I'm important" according to the narrator. Thorin specifically does not introduce himself to Bilbo by declaring to be "at your service", nor does he assist the other dwarves in doing the washing-up after they eat, and throughout the rest of the book, his manners are rather brusque and business-like, when he's not giving lengthy speeches.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He can be very long-winded and rather pompous, especially on important occasions.
• The Social Expert: Despite being a Prince Charmless up close, he reveals himself to be quite a shrewd politician when dealing with the Lake-men: he invokes his family name, insists on speaking to the Master, and effortlessly sways public opinion in his favor. He then makes sure to depart before the Company overstays its welcome, ensuring that he milks Lake-town's generosity for all it's worth.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: The quest for Erebor ultimately comes down to this. They couldn't defeat Smaug when they had an entire dwarven kingdom at their backs. Thorin plans to do so with only a dozen companions (plus Bilbo being added on at Gandalf's insistence), who start off the journey with no weapons, no armor, and no real plan of how to actually defeat Smaug. They don't even have the map to the secret door until Gandalf supplies it at the Unexpected Party, after Thorin has already gathered his Company. How much of this is him genuinely thinking he'll pull it off versus thinking he at least has to try is unclear.
• Surrounded by Idiots: His Company is composed mainly of dwarves... well... generally less than totally competent.
• Tragic Hero: It's generally believed his fate to be this is sealed because of his fatal flaws of Greed and Pride. He gets his treasure and kingdom back, but he only has it for less than a month before his demise.
• Tragic Mistake: After reclaiming the Lonely Mountain, Thorin starts repeatedly making mistakes due to his Fatal Flaws (likely further exacerbated by Gold Fever): faced with an army of Lakemen and elves from Mirkwood he refuses to negotiate. When Bilbo steals the Arkenstone and gives it to Bard, Thorin labels him a traitor. At fist he agrees with Bard to exchange one-fourteenth share of the gold and silver of the treasure ('setting aside the gems') for the Arkenstone, but then he reneges, hoping that the arrival of his cousin Dain's army will allow him to obtain the Arkenstone and keep all of the treasure. It's not until he's on his deathbed that he recognizes how mistaken he was to spurn alliances and alienate friends in favor of treasure.
• The Unchosen One: The prophecy of Laketown, when the rightful mountain king comes, the streams shall run in gladness (the journey upriver) the like will shine and burn (Smaug's attack) sorrow shall fail and sadness (this means that when the true king returns, sorrow shall fail, as in there will be no more sorrow for a while). Thorin's brief reign didn't see any of this happen. But after Dáin is crowned and sorts everything out responsibly things around the Mountain truly become happier for the next sixty years.
  Bilbo: Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!
  Gandalf: Of course! And why should not they prove true? Surely you don't disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don't really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!
  Bilbo: (Laughing) Thank goodness!
• Warrior Prince: He's unquestionably the most skilled warrior in the Company and charges into battle alongside his fellows without a second thought.

• Color-Coded Characters: Balin is shown wearing a scarlet hood.
• Bus Crash: He, Óin, and Ori die years after the events of the book, during an effort to reclaim another lost dwarf-realm: Moria.
• Conservation of Competence: Balin is depicted as having good judgment and being an excellent watchman.
• Cool Old Guy: Balin, while not especially old for a dwarf, looks the part and is one of the closest to Bilbo. He is also the only member of the party to come back to Hobbiton to visit Bilbo after the events of The Hobbit.
• Old Soldier: Balin is a veteran of Azanulbizar.

• Amnesiac Hero: He forgets the last (very eventful) four months when he takes a dip in the enchanted stream of Mirkwood. It's not made clear if he ever recovered those memories.
• Big Eater: By the time of the Council of Elrond in The Lord of the Rings, seventy-seven years later, he's gotten so fat that he can no longer move around on his own and requires six young dwarves to move him "from couch to table".
• The Big Guy: Bombur is the company’s sole percussion when they make music, puts up one of the best fights against the trolls alongside his cousin Bifur (only Thorin does better), and is the literal big guy, though not all of it is fat (see Stout Strength below).
• Butt-Monkey: Of all the dwarves, Bombur has the worst things happen to him, seemingly just because he's Bombur. He is nearly always chosen to go last, in the Mirkwood chapter he's the one who falls into the enchanted river and loses his memories, he is nearly killed by Smaug when the dragon comes looking for the secret door and he is still down in the camp guarding the horses, and he's the one on guard duty when Bilbo sneaks out to give the Arkenstone to Bard and the elf king. He does survive the book and becomes fabulously wealthy by the time of The Lord of the Rings.
• Despair Speech: After awakening from a magical slumber with the last few months of adventures forgotten and finding that he's stuck in a dark forest with no more food to eat, Bombur decides that there's no hope of getting out of the forest and refuses to be arm-twisted into struggling any further. He lies down and declares that if he's not going to get food in any other way he'll try to dream and get it that way, and that he never wants to wake up again. He gets right up again when Balin spots a light in the distance, though.
• The Load: Spends almost a week as a literal load thanks to getting knocked out by Mirkwood's enchanted stream, forcing his companions to lug his unconscious body around on dwindling rations. Then, upon waking up, he immediately begins moaning about the wonderful food in his dreams and how he wants to go back to sleep, while never uttering a word of thanks to his companions for their efforts. It's not entirely his fault, as he's forgotten everything that happened since the Unexpected Party at Bag End and he's just learned that the Company has completely run out of food, but his incessant whining really comes across as childish. Even worse, he's the one who goads the Company into abandoning the path against Gandalf's and Beorn's advice, as he simply refuses to shut up about all the food from his dreams.
• Meaningful Name: Bombur's name means "The Swollen One" in Old Norse.
• No Sympathy: The dwarves have little sympathy for Bombur when he wakes up in Mirkwood and complains that he doesn't want to go any further. They had just spent the last six days carrying his sleeping body through the woods on short rations themselves, and had eaten the last few crumbs of their stores the night before. Thorin even threatens to leave him behind if he won't stop complaining about how weak he is and talking about all of the wonderful things he was eating in his dreams, though this is obviously an empty threat.
• Personal Horror: His dip in the enchanted stream of Mirkwood causes him to lose several months of memories. He wakes up in the horrible place that is Mirkwood with no idea how he got there, and he loses heart completely when he finds that there is no food left and the dwarves don't know how far it is until they can get out of the forest.
• Running Gag: Almost every single one of Bombur's appearances includes a reminder that he's fat^note Although nearly all of them are inserted by the Lemony Narrator — given the sheer number of occurrences throughout the narrative, it may come as a surprise that only three characters actually call him fat: Gandalf, Thorin, and Bombur himself. This even gets a Brick Joke in The Lord of the Rings, where Bombur doesn't even show up, and the reader is still informed that he's even fatter than ever!
• Stout Strength: Despite often being referred to as fat, Bombur pulls his own weight through the Company's considerable trials, including taking his turn hauling Bilbo around while the Company is fleeing through the goblin tunnels.
• Unconscious Objector: He manages to resist the enchanted stream's enchantment long enough to grab a rope and clutch it to be pulled ashore. Even in his sleep, he's clenching it so hard "in spite of all they could do" they can't get it away from them.

• Big Eater: More an Informed Attribute than anything else, as it doesn't really come up in the text, but he and Nori are mentioned to share Bilbo's view on regular meals, which should be "plenty and often."
• The Big Guy: Dori is the strongest of the dwarves. He often ends up carrying Bilbo.
• The Eeyore: Dori. It's justifiable since Dori's often put-upon carrying Bilbo.
• Human Pack Mule: Dori.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Dori gets irritated when upon being saddled with saving Bilbo from the wargs but doesn't hesitate to buckle down and do it. "Dori really was a decent fellow despite his grumbling", said the narrator.
• The Reliable One: Dori is often the last person to escape a tough situation, and also often the one to risk himself to help out Bilbo.

• Color-Coded Characters: Blue, showing their connection to Thorin, but at the same time distinct from him — Fili and Kili are repeatedly shown as helpful and friendly and have cloaks simply referred to as blue with no decorations. Thorin, on the other hand, is established arrogant and haughty and is singled out as specifically having a sky blue cloak (with a silver tassel).
• Heroic Sacrifice: They died defending their mortally-wounded uncle Thorin at the Battle of the Five Armies.
• Killed Offscreen: Unlike Thorin, their deaths are not shown onpage.
• The Pollyanna: Fíli and Kíli are shown as happy and energetic even when all the rest are exhausted, this is implied to them being much younger than the others.
• Sibling Team: Fíli and Kíli are almost never seen apart, and this often includes them taking on tasks that they would be better suited for than the older dwarves.

• Ascended Extra:
  • Has a more prominent role in The Lord of the Rings than in The Hobbit, although it's downplayed in that it's still fairly minor.
  • Also, in one version of The Quest of Erebor (in Unfinished Tales), he's one of the only named dwarves in Gandalf's pre-Hobbit conference with Thorin, alongside Balin (Thorin's right-hand dwarf) and Fíli (Thorin's heir-apparent).
• The Cameo: His appearance in The Lord of the Rings can be considered an extended cameo, as he only appears at the Rivendell banquet honoring Frodo and the next day's Council of Elrond.
• Color-Coded Characters: Glóin is described as wearing a white cloak.
• Cool Old Guy: Becomes this by the time of The Lord of the Rings.
• Flat Character: In The Hobbit.
• Mr. Exposition: Brings Frodo, the Council of Elrond, and the reader up to speed on current events in Dale and Erebor at the time of The Lord of the Rings. Notably, he's the first recorded speaker in the Council of Elrond, although the narration notes that not everything said during the Council was written down.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Is a bit too eager to remind Legolas of the incident where he and his fellow Company members were imprisoned by Legolas's father Thranduil (Gandalf dismisses it as "a regrettable misunderstanding, long set right").
• Pretender Diss: Notes he thought Bilbo more a grocer than a burglar.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Age, wealth, and experience has made Glóin considerably more polite and kindly in The Lord of the Rings than the Dwarves appear to be in The Hobbit.

• Band of Relatives: About half of the dwarves ^*Thorin, Fíli, Kíli, Balin, Dwalin, Óin, and Glóin are fairly close kinsmen. All of them play instruments.
• Bus Crash: Óin and Ori die following Balin to reclaim Moria.
• Catchphrase: "[X], at your service."
• Color-Coded Characters: Tolkien lists the colors of the Dwarves' hooded cloaks as if that would help you keep them straight. If you pair up colors and names in the orders they are both listed, you should get:
  • Dwalin — Dark green
  • Nori — Purple^note Along with Dori
  • Ori — Grey
  • Óin — Brown
  • Bifur and Bofur — Yellow
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: They're mostly Played for Laughs until they reclaim the Lonely Mountain and they show they're of a warrior race.
• Disappeared Dad: Balin and Dwalin's father Fundin fell at Azanulbizar and so became one of the Burned Dwarves — the casualties of the battle were too numerous to be buried according to dwarven custom.
• Doomed Home Town: The Lonely Mountain, which was attacked and occupied by Smaug.
• Flat Character: Most of the dwarves do nothing to distinguish themselves.
• Grumpy Old Man: Most of the dwarves.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: According to the narrator most of the Dwarves could be considered to be this.
  ...Dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don't expect too much.
• The Load: For much of the book their main purpose is to be saved by Bilbo, since he proves far more lucky and clever than they are.
• Old Soldier: Dwalin and Óin were also probably at Azanulbizar since they're both older than Glóin, [who's directly stated to have fought there], but they're not confirmed as being there by Tolkien.
• Rhyme Theme Naming: All of the fraternal pairs have rhyming (or at least similar) names. Tolkien took the names of his dwarves (and Gandalf) from the Old Norse Völuspá, which had a long list of dwarf names paired in rhymes.
• Sibling Team:
  • Balin and Dwalin are described as talking "like old friends" when they meet up at Bilbo's house, before the narration shoots in that in fact they're brothers.
  • Óin and Glóin, they are seen working together to light a fire but their teamwork has a vitriolic flavor as they bicker and fight when they have a hard time lighting the fire. They also go against the trolls as a duo.
  • Bofur and Bombur stay down at the lower camp together at the doorstep. Bifur can count as an honorary "sibling", as he and Bofur are seen helping Bombur after Thorin gets separated from the rest of the group and the spider incident occurs, they battle the trolls as a trio, and Bofur chooses to stay down with Bombur, who is sleeping when the secret door is opened
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Though it's justified, concerning how miserable the conditions often are for them.

• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Apparently he's named King of All Birds and given a sizable portion of the Dwarves' treasure (presumably for his pivotal role in the Battle of Five Armies).
• Back for the Finale: He brings an entire host of eagles to the Battle of Five Armies.
• The Cavalry: As the Battle of Five Armies is turning against the Dwarves, Elves and Lake-men, he leads the other Eagles into battle and manages to lead his followers into driving the Goblins and Wargs away from the slopes of the Lonely Mountain.
• Ethnicity Monarch: He's the ruler of the Great Eagles of the Misty Mountains. This is exaggerated in the epilogue, which says he becomes King of All Birds due to his part in the Battle of Five Armies.
• Giant Flyer: He's a giant eagle large enough to carry people around in his talons with ease.
• No Name Given: Tolkien said that this Lord of the Eagles is not Gwaihir (who features prominently in the sequel), but an earlier holder of the "crown".
• Talking Animal: Unlike most animals in The Hobbit, he can speak Westron, the language used by Bilbo and company.
• Warrior Prince: Leads his people directly both in rescuing the dwarves from the goblins and fighting in the Battle of Five Armies at the end of the book.

• Ambiguously Human: Gandalf speculates that Beorn is either a descendant of the bears who lived in the Misty Mountains before the Stone-giants arrived or a descendant of the men who lived in the region before the arrival of foul beings and beasts from the north.^note Word of God later said that Beorn was a Man.
• Anti-Hero: He's a very dangerous individual and Gandalf warns that meeting him at night, while he's in bear form, would be a bad idea. He's also not fond of dwarves — but he also hates goblins more, and will help if talked around in the right way.
• Back for the Finale: Shows up late in the Battle of Five Armies to kill Bolg, the Goblin King: only then is the tide turned (even with the Eagles already there).
• Bears Are Bad News: He can transform into a big black bear. However, he only harms the villains.
• The Berserker: It's strongly implied that in bear form he's indiscriminately violent. Subverted at the climax, when it turns out he's sane enough to retrieve the fallen Thorin in battle.
• Big Damn Heroes: Doesn't get much bigger than a giant bear tossing goblins left and right.
• Big Eater: He eats enough honey to need very large beehives.
• Big Fun: If you get on his good side, he's extremely jolly, such as poking Bilbo in his stomach, asking if the little rabbit (Bilbo) had his fill. Killing the Goblin King is a very good way to get on his good side.
• The Big Guy: He is of immense size and strength for a man. If necessary he can use an even bigger, stronger form.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Because bears are big and hairy.
• Boisterous Bruiser: He's a big laugher and pokes fun at his guests.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: He might not like strangers and is a terror for goblins and wargs, but he loves his animal friends dearly and treats them like his children.
• The Cavalry: At the Battle of Five Armies, he crushes Bolg and more-or-less singlehandedly saves the day.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Sinister and perilous — not somebody you want to make into an enemy. But not a villain.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: This is how he makes his entrance in the Final Battle.
• Good Is Not Soft: Hunts and skins a wolf and a goblin and then leaves them on display as a warning.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Forces information out of a Goblin and a Warg, then kills them.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Is disdainful of the dwarves at first, but then helps them on their journey by supplying them with provisions and shows up to fight the goblins at the end.
• Meaningful Name: "Beorn" ("warrior") is an Anglo-Saxon cognate of bjørn, Danish/Norwegian for "bear", which itself is a composite of "bee" and "wolf" (which is where "Beowulf" comes from too). Beorn also has hives with giant bees.
• Mysterious Past: Gandalf states that no one knows where Beorn came from, but notes that sometimes Beorn will stare at the Misty Mountains and sigh, "Someday I will go back there."
• One-Man Army: The eagles weren't enough to turn the tide of the battle against the goblin army. Beorn was.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: Tolkien drew on Slavic myth, not necessarily the more recent forms of shape-shifter myth. Beorn's ability is under his conscious control, and he retains at least enough human mentality to rescue Thorin after he falls in battle. The power seems to run in his bloodline, since some of the Beornings after his time share the ability.
• Papa Wolf: Gandalf warns the dwarves that his ponies and the rest of his retinue are his children, and while he likes Thorin and company, he still follows the group making sure the borrowed ponies aren't mistreated or kidnapped.
• Primal Polymorphs: Either a man who becomes a bear, or a bear who becomes a man. He lives alone, off the land, mostly subsiding on honey while lovingly treating his ponies and other animals like his children. He tolerates visitors but prefers solitude in the wilderness... and when provoked, he's not above shifting to his black bear form and killing anyone who dares to threaten himself or his animal friends.
• Scheherezade Gambit: Gandalf gets the Company into his house in a two-part gambit. Beorn would have turned them away if they'd all shown up at once, but when they come two at a time while Gandalf tells the story of their adventures, it's easier for him to say "hello, sit down, shut up" than to interrupt the story by chasing them off.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: Beorn's bees are gigantic, and make Bilbo nervous.
• Shapeshifter: Known as a "skin-changer" in-universe, Beorn can assume the form of a giant black bear.
• Skin Walker: Beorn's "skin-swapping" ability to changing into bear and back into human is a rare heroic example.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Keeps animals as his friends, rather than eating them.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Switches from being a man and a giant black bear.

• Anti-Hero: Easily the greyest character out of all the Third Age Elves. For most of the book he's a Hero Antagonist with the emphasis on "antagonist" and is racist towards Dwarves. However, him helping the people of Lake-Town and forming an Enemy Mine with Dwarves to defeat Bolg's Goblin army showcases that despite his flaws, he's ultimately a good person. The fact that he took part in the War of the Last Alliance against Sauron before the events of the story also shows him to be firmly on the side of the Free People.
• Break the Haughty: Three-fold, not enough to count as a Humiliation Conga but enough to take him down a peg: seeing the destruction of Lake-town, being told about the Arkenstone by Bilbo, and being told about Bilbo's own hidden stay in his cave. It both gives him perspective on the dwarves' own tribulations, and opens the cautious and close-minded king to events happening outside of Mirkwood. When told of the last by Bilbo, he's even able to mix in a joke with his warnings ("And may your shadow never get shorter, or else stealing would be too easy!")
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He's always referred to as "the Elvenking". He only gets a name in The Lord of the Rings.
• The Fair Folk: The king of Mirkwood's fair folk. More fey and mischievous here; the dwarves find them partying in the woods in a way similar to fairy rings and the king himself wearing a crown of flowers. Toned down once leaving Mirkwood, as they have a fair working relationship with Lake-town but don't hesitate to stop and help the survivors of Smaug's attack without asking for much in return even by their own standards. Unlike most examples of fair folk, the Elvenking is also a reasonable judge of people (if they're not dwarves) and drops most of his fey leanings entirely once he's face-to-face with Bilbo.
• Fantastic Racism: Towards dwarves, rooted deeply within the common history of their peoples and further fueled by the actions the dwarves take during their time under his "care".
• Good Is Not Nice: His pride and caution make him a Hero Antagonist, although later in the book he turns out to be an elf of compassion and principle.
• Greed: He sets out to claim the treasure of Smaug, with no intention to share it with others — like Thorin and the dwarves or the men of Laketown.
• Hero Antagonist: He's unequivocally on the side of good, what with fighting in the Last Alliance against Sauron and siding with Thorin and Bard against the goblins, but he's also arrogant, greedy, and bigoted toward dwarves, and stands firmly in the way of their quest. He learns his lesson by the end, though.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He holds the dwarves prisoner, but also provides aid to the people of Laketown after it's destroyed by Smaug. He also may be bigoted towards the dwarves, but when Bilbo hands him over the Arkenstone to help with parley, his concern with Bilbo's safety is not out of bigotry but out of awe at Bilbo's courage and timing.
• Pet the Dog: Offers to let Bilbo stay with the Elves and Men after he's handed over the Arkenstone, correctly guessing that Bilbo won't be too popular with Thorin once this gets out.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: He shows up personally on Erebor's doorstep, leading an army to claim what he feels is his share of the gold. It's noted during the Battle of the Five Armies that Bilbo joins up with his army because he seems like the safest bet.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Ultimately.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Initially set out to capture the treasures of Erebor for himself, but turned aside to help the people of Laketown when he learned about the disaster that struck them.
  • Considering this is Thranduil, he goes from being a mostly closed-off elven king who only cares about Mirkwood and Long Lake to sending his son Legolas to take part in the larger-scale events of the Ring and taking part in the defense of Erebor along with Dáin.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Became this after witnessing his father and most of his folk die during the Battle of the Last Alliance.

• Death by Irony: Steals a bunch of gold and ends up starving to death.
• Dirty Coward: He tries fleeing the city in his boat when Smaug attacks Lake-town, rather than doing anything to assist in the town's defense. The survivors call him out on this.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": No name is given for him — he's either referred to by his title or called "Moneybags" by the people.
• Foil: To the Elvenking, who is the undisputed leader of his people, imprisons and antagonizes the dwarves (to the point that Bilbo has to organize an escape under his nose), but ultimately proves himself to be a benevolent individual who controls his greed. The Master is a Slave to PR, which causes him to help the dwarves although he'd really rather not, and he's only too happy to send them on their way as their presence is ruining Lake-town's economy; also, he turns out to be quite greedy, which ultimately dooms him.
• Greed: His Fatal Flaw. He's the only person other than Thorin who's shown to be vulnerable to dragon-sickness, which causes him to abscond with the Lake-town relief funds and eventually leads to his death.
• It's All About Me: In the immediate aftermath of Smaug's destruction of Lake-town, with many sick and wounded, the Master...calls for men to bring him fire and food.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His attempt to run away with his people's gold leads to his Karmic Death.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While this is done in an attempt to shift blame from his own cowardice, he's not incorrect in claiming that it was the dwarves' poking around that woke up Smaug in the first place.
• My God, You Are Serious!: Has this reaction when Thorin announces that the Company is preparing to head to the Lonely Mountain, as he privately believed them to be frauds. That being said, he absolutely doesn't mind being rid of them, as they've been a huge drain on Lake-town's economy.
• Nominal Hero: He helps Thorin and Company, but only to save face with the Lake-men.
• Put on a Bus: After Smaug destroys Lake-town, the Master assumes leadership of a group of Lake-men and Wood-elves to plan for a new town. As such, he's not present for the events at Erebor and misses the Battle of Five Armies.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Mostly an Informed Attribute since we never see what he's like under normal circumstances, but even while his people are berating him for his cowardice, they still acknowledge that he has "a good head for business." And he's apparently competent enough to retain his title and authority by the time Bilbo heads home — although the epilogue reveals that his greed finally gets the better of him.
• Slave to PR: Gets caught in the conflict between Thorin and Company (popular among the denizens of Lake-town) and representatives of the Elvenking (whom he does not want to offend). Unfortunately for him, the people don't care about such politics, so he has no choice but to bow to their will and give the dwarves a hero's welcome.
• Sleazy Politician: When the people of Lake-town berate him for fleeing the scene too soon when Smaug attacks, he successfully shifts the blame on the dwarves for rousing the dragon in the first place (and he's not half wrong either).

• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He is acclaimed king by many in Lake-town because he kills Smaug and he leads the contingent of Men in the Battle of Five Armies because of this also. But since Smaug had just destroyed Lake-town he still submitted to Lake-town's Master until it was finally rebuilt.
• Badass Bystander: Effectively how he is introduced. Smaug is setting Laketown ablaze and everyone is running for their lives. A random man decides to stay and fight, and that man turns out to be Bard the Bowman.
• Badass Normal: Even the Dwarves are said to use spells (albeit to ward treasure rather than any battle magic). Bard is an ordinary foot soldier with no special powers.
• The Cassandra: Warns that the Dwarves will bring trouble and that Smaug is coming for them. No one listens.
• Chekhov's Gunman: First appears unnamed, musing about the dwarves' arrival. He is later named and described in more detail.
• Cold Sniper: Bard is quite cool-headed and quite the marksman, though he's not evil.
• The Cynic: Known throughout Lake-town for his pessimism.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Kills Smaug, the last of the great dragons.
• Doomed Hometown: Lake-town itself, which is destroyed by Smaug after he awakens.
• The Dragonslayer: He is the one who successfully manages to kill Smaug, by firing his Black Arrow into the tiniest of weak points on the Dragon's otherwise invulnerable hide. He goes on to be hailed as a legendary hero in Lake-town and Dale ever after.
• The Exile: A Noble Fugitive whose home city is destroyed.
• Good Is Not Soft: Everyone knows him as a cranky bastard; after Smaug, he joins the people camping outside Erebor hoping for some Dwarf treasure. But he's also a fair and just man.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Bard can speak to birds. This helps when a thrush overhears Bilbo's explanation of the weak spot in Smaug's armor, then lets Bard know exactly where to shoot when the dragon comes to Lake-town. Smaug's rampage would have been much more devastating and eventually re-trapped the dwarves if Bard didn't have this ability.
• Hero of Another Story: The story suggests that Bard is a man with a long and dramatic history, between his rivalry with the Master, his high position, and his signature black arrow, which he suggests he's used on many prior adventures. It's very easy to imagine a story with Bard as the protagonist where his slaying of Smaug was the climax of his arc, as opposed to his first appearance.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Towards the Master of Lake-Town. When the latter flees during Smaug's assault on the town, Bard fights to the last and ultimately kills Smaug. It reaches the point where the town wants to dispose of the Master and make Bard their new leader.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: He kills Smaug with one shot, through a tiny hole in the armour of gems that had embedded into the dragon's soft underbelly over decades.
• Impoverished Patrician: His grandfather was Girion, Lord of Dale. After Smaug's attack, his family was left with nothing and he's a simple bowman by the time we meet him.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: Bard never looks on the bright side and generally expects the worst. He's also suspicious and distrustful and ready to believe the worst of people; even Bilbo comments on it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Bard isn't the friendliest of people; he's gruff and suspicious and generally suspects foul play. He's also one of the most unambiguously heroic characters in the book; not only does he kill Smaug but he works tirelessly for his people.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Dishes it out in the end — when Smaug devastated Dale, devoured its king Girion and plundered its treasures, the king's wife fled with her child to the neighboring town of Esgaroth. Bard is the son of that child, and decades later, he's the one to face off against (and ultimately kill) his grandfather's murderer.
• Mirror Character: To Thorin — both are kings in exile who wouldn't mind some gold.
• Perpetual Frowner: Is described as a grim-faced man, with a grim voice.
• Rightful King Returns: He reestablishes the kingdom of Dale after the events of The Hobbit, though not before Lake-town is rebuilt and restored to stability.
• Royal Blood: Of the line of Girion.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: The royal line of Girion has one incredibly lame supernatural ability: they understand the speech of birds.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Once he appears, Bilbo is pushed to the sidelines, up until Bard actually departs from the story.
• The Stoic: His grim and gruff nature doesn't allow for a vast repertoire of emotions.

• Cool Old Guy: A bird version, he is 153 years old at the time of The Hobbit, and is described as being half-blind and balding; he is so old and decrepit that he can barely fly. But he is extremely intelligent as well as friendly to the dwarves, as his father told him of the great years when the dwarves ruled Erebor.
• Clever Crows: Ravens are historically pals with Dwarves. Roäc's father Carc was friend and counselor to Thorin's granddad Thror, and Roäc's family keep themselves busy acting as messengers between Thorin and Dáin.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Ravens are, of course, black-feathered carrion birds and thus usually symbols of death. Roäc is considered a respectable and eminent figure. Then again, Thorin makes sure to note that ravens are not crows; the latter are employed by Sauron.
• The Mentor: He actually refrains from advising the Dwarves since their decisions are their own, but the Dwarves greatly respect him.
• Talking Animal: He's a talking bird.

• All There in the Manual: Pretty much everything about we know about him aside from his involvement in the Battle of Five Armies comes from Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings.
• Elite Mooks: His troops are said to be this.
  The dwarves are exceedingly strong for their height, but most of these were strong even for dwarves.
• Enemy Mine: He arrives at the Lonely Mountain to support Thorin against the coalition of Lake-men and Wood-elves (to the point of actually launching an attack against them), only to join them when the Goblins and Wargs show up. After all, while he may not get along with Elves or Men, he doesn't hate them like he does Goblins and Wargs (and, for that matter, neither does Thorin).
• Hero of Another Story: Has quite an impressive combat résumé that we only see glimpses of (mostly in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings), such as killing the orc-chieftan Azog at Azanulbizar at the age of 31 or 32 (incredibly young by dwarf standards) and his eventual death in battle during the War of the Ring at age 251 or 252 (even Gandalf is amazed that his combat prowess at such an advanced age). Justified in that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are hobbit-centric works, and he usually doesn't cross paths with hobbits — the Battle of Five Armies is a notable exception.
• Horrifying the Horror: Downplayed since he's not particularly horrifying, but he's mentioned as being "full of wrath" after slaying Azog (the fact that Azog had just killed Dáin's father Náin probably had something to do with that) — but whatever he sees in the Gate of Khazad-dûm (implied to be Durin's Bane, although he probably doesn't know exactly what it is) terrifies him, to the point that he flat-out tells Thráin (leader of the victorious Dwarven coalition army) that they have zero chance of retaking Khazad-dûm until "some other power than ours" deals with Durin's Bane.
• I Gave My Word: A variant, in that he honors the late Thorin's agreement to surrender a fourteenth of the Dwarven treasure-hoard's gold and silver to Bard in exchange for the Arkenstone. However, it should be noted that Bard takes the initiative to return the Arkenstone as a show of good faith.
  Dáin: We will honour the agreement of the dead, and [Thorin] has now the Arkenstone in his keeping.
• Last Stand: The Appendices of The Lord of the Rings reveal that he dies in the War of the Ring, two days after the siege of Minas Tirith, defending the corpse of his ally and friend King Brand of Dale — grandson of Bard the Dragonslayer.
• Old Soldier: Exaggerated — he's still incredibly deadly with his axe at the advanced age of 251. (It's In the Blood — his father Náin was still a formidable fighter when he fell at Azanulbizar at the age of 246.)
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Dáin — far more than Thorin and his companions — is like the prototype for every Dwarven warrior since.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Lord of the Iron Hills (and later King under the Mountain) and a supreme badass who's a force to be reckoned with.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • He only comes into conflict with the Lake-men and Wood-elves on behalf of his cousin Thorin is being attacked, and he very quickly drops any antagonism once Goblins and Wargs enter the picture.
  • Unlike Thorin, he's not shown to be affected by dragon-sickness, and he doesn't hesitate to divvy up Erebor's treasure hoard per the original agreements. Interestingly, he doesn't give any treasure to Bilbo or the Elvenking (per Thorin's bargain for the Arkenstone, the fourteenth share of gold and silver given to Bard is considered to be Bilbo's promised share), but he does restore the emeralds of Girion to Girion's descendant Bard, and he gives Bilbo a necklace of silver and pearls as a parting gift. Both items are given to the Elvenking.
  • As King under the Mountain for almost eighty years, he's one of the chief players in bringing the region into a new golden age of peace, prosperity, and friendship between Elves, Dwarves, and Men.
  • Faced with a Sadistic Choice — help Sauron (a known enemy of the Dwarves) track down the hobbit (a known friend of the Dwarves) and take his ring, or plunge Erebor into a war with Mordor that they will almost certainly lose — Dáin instead stalls for time while dispatching Glóin and Gimli to Rivendell to seek Elrond's counsel and to warn Bilbo that the Enemy is searching for him. He then leads his people to fight against Sauron — an effort that ultimately succeeds, although he does not live to see it.
• Rightful King Returns: As Thorin's closest surviving relative, he inherits the kingship of the Lonely Mountain after Thorin (and Fíli, and Kíli) perished.
• Royal Blood: Grandson of Grór, the youngest brother of Thrór II.
• Say My Name: His troops use his name as a Battle Cry.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Downplayed, as they're only cousins but also the only family either has left. While Thorin is brusque, reckless, avaricious, and vindictive, Dáin is reserved, wise, generous, and willing to forgive. While Thorin's attempt to be King Under the Mountain tragically ends within a matter of days, Dáin's reign lasts long, and he accomplishes all the things Thorin set out to do.
• Sixth Ranger: He and his troops are absent for most of the book, but they answer Thorin's call to reinforce the Lonely Mountain after Smaug's death, and they wind up being one of the factions in the Battle of Five Armies.
• Warrior Prince: Killed Azog while he was (by Dwarven standards) a young regal teenager.
• You Killed My Father: Decapitated Azog as a boy after the orc slew his father Náin during the Battle of Azanulbizar.

• Cold-Blooded Torture: He was captured by Sauron and tortured mercilessly in order to make him give up his Ring.
• Disappeared Dad: To Thorin. He set out to reclaim Lonely Mountain, but — unbeknownst to Thorin — was captured by Sauron en route.
• Doomed Hometown: The Lonely Mountain, which was attacked and occupied by Smaug.
• The Exile: As the Lonely Mountain was claimed by Smaug, he and his people went into exile.
• Eye Scream: He lost one eye in the Battle of Azanulbizar.
• Handicapped Badass: Despite missing an eye, he remained an effective warrior.
• Memento MacGuffin: He inherited the last of the seven Dwarven Rings from his father Thrór before the latter set out to recapture Moria. Sauron took it from him, with torment, in Dol Guldur.
• Noble Fugitive: He was always on the run, trying to make a living after the loss of his throne.
• Posthumous Character: He's dead before the story starts.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Thráin won the War of the Dwarves and the Orcs. The Dwarven losses were staggering.
  If this is victory, then our hands are too small to hold it.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: He fought proudly in the wars of Dwarves and Orcs.
• Riches to Rags: Once the crown prince of Erebor, he lost his fortune, home and throne to Smaug.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: He emerged from his tortures in Dol Guldur bereft of his memory.
• Warrior Prince: He was already fighting in the frontlines even before Thrór perished.

• Doomed Hometown: The Lonely Mountain, which was attacked and occupied by Smaug.
• The Exile: Smaug took his kingdom, so he wanders.
• Fearless Fool: He walked alone into the orc-infested Moria against advice, and was killed for his trouble.
• Memento MacGuffin: He inherited the last of the seven Dwarven rings from his father and, before setting out to recapture Moria, gave it to his son Thraín.
• Noble Fugitive: A king on the run.
• Off with His Head!: Azog cut off his head.
• Posthumous Character: He's dead before the books start.
• Riches to Rags: He was once the king of the wealthy and prosperous realm of Erebor, before being reduced to a penniless wanderer by Smaug's attack.
• Theme Naming: He had two younger brothers named Frór and Grór.

• Achilles' Heel: He's functionally invulnerable to damage outside of a single weak point in his armour.
• The Ageless: Tolkien originally wrote that Smaug and dragons generally will live "practically forever" unless killed, and this is what it says in the published book. However, in Tolkien's revisions of The Hobbit that were never completed, he changed it so that Thorin states dragons are Long-Lived with a lifespan of 5000 or 1000 years.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: He attacked and conquered the Lonely Mountain from the dwarves, driving an entire kingdom's survivors into poverty and exile in the wilds for years while he held the mountain and its treasure as the de facto king. Taking the Lonely Mountain (and the goodies inside) back from him is the Dwarves' motivation in their quest.
• Attack Its Weak Point: His otherwise-tough scales are soft on his underside, and to make up for this he's allowed Erebor's treasure to stick to it and form a makeshift waistcoat — but Bilbo spots a bare patch on the upper-left side where his chest's exposed. Bilbo reports it to the Dwarves and is overheard by a bird who takes the vital information to the one bowman in Esgaroth who could talk to birds.
• Awaken the Sleeping Giant: By the time Bilbo gets to him, Smaug is just snoozing at the top of his giant pile of treasures and has been doing nothing but that for the past several decades. All his evil deeds are in the past, and it did not seem like he was planning to go out and commit more any time soon. But Bilbo entering his lair to steal his prized possessions really, really pisses him off, and the dragon rises to wreak havoc once more.
• Badass Boast: When Bilbo tries to make a comment that he and the company came for revenge on Smaug for everyone he's killed, he responds with a very lengthy one that practically descends into a speech on how awesome he is.
  "Revenge! Revenge! The King under the Mountain is dead and where are his kin that dare seek revenge? Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep, and where are his sons' sons that dare approach me? I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then I was but young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows! My armor is like tenfold shields. My teeth are like swords. My claws, spears. The shock of my tail, a thunderbolt. My wings, a hurricane. And my breath, death!"
• Battle Trophy: His treasure hoard in Erebor including the Arkenstone can be seen as this, especially since the Manual indicates dragons relish not just in possessing treasure but in the act of stripping it from others. More literally, his hoard includes the weapons and armor of the dwarves as these are themselves valuable. At least some of these were presumably stripped from the corpses of their previous owners.
• Berserk Button: To put it lightly, it's really not a good idea to steal from him, no matter how small the theft, or even think about it or even imply that you could possibly think about it at a later date. And it's an absolutely terrible idea to mock him or speak to him with any perceived disrespect with the result usually being getting barbequed.
• Big Bad: He's undeniably big and definitely bad, but he does not fulfil the trope. While he is the motivation behind the hero's journey, he is not responsible for any of the problems encountered on the way, nor is he aware of the dwarves' intentions until Bilbo rather foolishly states it to his face. He has (and needs) no minions, and his strategy when he realizes he's dealing with thieves is a straightforward, but hardly brilliant "kill them, then kill anybody who helped them."
• Big Entrance: His arrival at Dale and the Lonely Mountain was heralded by "a noise like a hurricane" and a hot gale which made pines creak and crack, before he started burning Dale.
• Blow You Away: The hot wind which preceded his physical arrival during his Big Entrance (see above). Implied to be Wind from Beneath My Wings specifically.
• Break Them by Talking: In a sense, his entire conversation with Bilbo is this, but in particular when he spreads doubt in Bilbo's mind about the dwarves and how (or whether) they actually intend to pay him his fourteenth share- there being nothing in the agreement about providing transport or guards for his journey home, and it would take longer than he has to live to even steal it all.
• Breath Weapon: He can breathe fire, per being a dragon.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He's extremely powerful and intelligent but seems content to just sleep under his enormous pile of money and leave the conquering of Middle Earth to Sauron. Given the damage he does every time he awakens, this is definitely a case of this trope being a positive.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He goes on at great length about what a terrifying, unstoppable force of destruction he is.
  I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep, and where are his sons' sons that dare approach me? I kill where I wish and none dare resist. [...] My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!
• Catlike Dragons: In the Rankin/Bass adaptation, he's depicted as very mammalian◊, with a distinctly catlike face sporting a short muzzle, prominent triangular ears, bushy cheek fur, and slit-pupiled feline eyes.
• Creative Sterility: Thorin mentions that Dragons can't make or repair anything for themselves, not even the scales on their body, hence why they feel an overwhelming avaricious compulsion to steal things (particularly treasure) from other people and then hoard them for their entire life.
• Disproportionate Retribution: His reaction to Bilbo's theft of a single cup. Also a Take That! from Tolkien against people who are both rich and greedy.
  His rage passed description — the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but never before used or wanted. His fire belched forth, the hall smoked, he shook the mountain...
  To hunt the whole mountain till he had caught the thief and had torn and trampled him was his one thought.
  He would not forget or forgive the theft, not if a thousand years turned him to smouldering stone, but he could afford to wait.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: When conversing with Smaug (or another dragon), it's strictly considered seriously unwise to speak in a way that'll make him angry and thus provoke him to violence. Bilbo for the most part adheres to this rule during their conversation, but then breaks it at their conversation's end and nearly gets turned to charbroil for it.
• Don't Wake the Sleeper: Because if Bilbo does wake him while he's inside the Lonely Mountain stealing a goblet from the hoard, Smaug will almost certainly kill him and then likely also the dwarves for the theft. Unfortunately, Smaug wakes up between the end of Bilbo's first trip and his return trip, and notices a thief has stolen a piece of his treasure. Avoiding waking Smaug is even a mission in the 2003 video game adaptation.
• Dragons Are Demonic: An intelligent, charismatic and psychopathic dragon, who can psychically lull and bend an unprepared hero into telling him everything, and whose species are related to the Satan of Middle-earth.
• The Dreaded: No-one even went near him for decades after he claimed Erebor. The Dwarfs, even Thorin, are too afraid to enter the Mountain when they know he's there. It's stated that many of the people defending Lake-Town would've just fled from Smaug without a fight when he attacked, if not for Bard's orders and constant encouragement.
• Evil Counterpart: To Thorin. They're both Kings under the Mountain according to their respective selves — Smaug is The Usurper to Thorin's Rightful King Returns. Thorin and Smaug have the same Fatal Flaws of Pride, and Greed (for the same freaking treasure no less), and both their goals and motivations are pretty self-centred. They also both blockade themselves and their treasure inside the same mountain and wish for others to leave them alone with it or otherwise face Disproportionate Retribution. Furthermore, both take a more active role in the plot in the present time frame for revenge. Both of them expect others to treat them like nobility... but Thorin is definitely more tolerant of not getting this than Smaug is, whilst Smaug has a lot more charm when he's talking to others than Thorin does. Smaug is a formidable One-Man Army and is seemingly alone in the world, whereas Thorin operates with (and often relies on) other dwarves and Bilbo Baggins. Smaug is huge whereas Thorin is a dwarf. Smaug is a Genius Bruiser whereas Thorin makes some bad decisions. Smaug is red and gold, while Thorin wears blue and silver colors. Thorin commands the loyalty of the other Company dwarves to the point his nephews die defending him and he makes a Heel–Face Turn out of his Sanity Slippage; Smaug has no such redeeming qualities.
• Evil Is Hammy: When drawn into conversation, he's boastful, gloating, and melodramatic. There are plenty of ways he could have called Bilbo's bluff about the dwarfs coming after him for revenge, but he choice to the route of lengthy Badass Boast about how nobody dared to challenge him in decades despite all the enemies he's made and brags about all the ways he can kill.
• Evil Is Petty: A mild taunt or taking any of his treasure from him, no matter how insignificant, is enough to provoke him to violence.
• Evil Laugh: In the book, his laughter is enough to floor Bilbo and shake the mountain.
• Evil Takes a Nap: After he conquers the Lonely Mountain, whilst he's left alone with his treasure, he presents no active threat to anyone and spends most of his time hibernating atop his plunder. But once he stirs long enough to recognize a thief has stolen a piece of his treasure, neither the thieves nor Lake-town are safe from Smaug's wrath.
• Evil Virtues: Ambition (specifically Greed, for the greatest wealth in Middle-earth), Determination (once awoken, he won't go back to rest while he thinks there's still a chance that people don't fear him enough to not dare coming near his treasure), Passion (has a Hair-Trigger Temper which makes him extremely volatile), Resourcefulness (he's highly cunning), Vigilance (how he guards his treasure), and Wisdom (his attacks are quite tactical with what he prioritizes destroying).
• Faux Affably Evil: Despite being a megalomaniac, a murderer and a thief, he enjoys a good conversation, even with his enemies, and compliments Bilbo on his courtesy.
  Smaug: You have nice manners for a thief and a liar.
• Fiction 500: Forbes has done extensive research on the question of just how rich he really is. The final official tally has him richer than Bill Gates, but not quite as rich as Carlos Slim Helu. Smaug was once considered to be the wealthiest character in fiction until dethroned by Scrooge McDuck. ^note However, this list specifically excludes sci-fi, where characters frequently own entire planets.
• Genius Bruiser: He easily deduces the situation from Bilbo's riddling, has memorised every single piece of treasure in his hoard, and the book goes into detail about how crafty he is.
• Giant Eye of Doom: Narrowly subverted. The second time Bilbo approaches Smaug, he catches sight of a ray peeking out from one of Smaug's eyes (indicating that the dragon is now only feigning sleep), and he recoils just in time to avoid being seen.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: From the description, it comes close to Eye Beams. Literally Eye Beams in the animated 1970s movie.
• Greed: Smaug, like all dragons is obsessed with treasure, and will hoard as much as he can during his lifetime (which is forever unless killed), and knows immediately that a small goblet is missing. Yet he never enjoys a single brass ring of it.
• Hot-Blooded: He'll maintain civility so long as his mood remains placated or at least even during a conversation, but any blemish to his ego will cause him to explode with rage. He also has a bit of a theatrical flair.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Smaug's one passion beyond his treasure is hunting. If available, people are his favorite quarry. Livestock are a close second, as he can take pleasure in depriving others of them and provoke a possible confrontation.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Alongside a Compelling Voice. Looking into Smaug's eyes causes Bilbo to fall under the "dragon spell" and feel an immediate urge to spill everything to the dragon.
• Hypnotic Snake: ^note Dragons are considered no different than snakes through the Elven language which makes no distinction between them When Bilbo converses with Smaug under cover of invisibility, Bilbo is seized with an "unaccountable desire" to come out of his cover and tell Smaug everything he wants to know whenever "Smaug's roving eye, seeking for him in the shadows, flashed across him".
• Hypocrite: Flies into a murderous rage when he sees something to have been taken from his hoard, and he scornfully refers to the apparent perpetrator as a "thief". Yet, Smaug himself took the hoard from the Dwarves of Erebor, who mined and fashioned every item themselves long ago, and he is currently squatting in the ruins of their kingdom with no intent to return it.
• Knight of Cerebus: His appearance causes a big case of a massive enemy turning the story around. The company is helpless against him, and even after his death, they still have to face the consequences of his rampage.
• Large Ham: Quite possibly the single hammiest character in Tolkien's works.
• Last of His Kind: Smaug is stated to be the last of the Great Dragons of Middle Earth, as opposed to "lesser dragons" such as those of the Withered Heath, which were implied to be much lesser in power than Smaug's kind. Although dragonkind as a whole persisted, the race of the Great Dragons died with Smaug.
• Lazy Dragon: Smaug appears to have simply been sitting on his gold for an exceedingly long time, until he is enraged by Bilbo stealing from him and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. As he awakens for the first time, he reflects that he'd always had concerns about the passage leading into the treasure room, and intended to block it up. He just never got around to it during the many decades he spent lying in that room.
• Light Is Not Good: Due to the fire inside him, he radiates light.
• Living Lie Detector: A mild example. He's so intimidating that conversing at all with him is likely to end up with the person folding and letting the truth come out. Bilbo does a good job at stalling and hiding his exact identity but still spills the beans about Thorin's quest.
• MacGuffin Guardian: The Arken Stone was among Erebor's many fortunes when Smaug invaded and it's central to The Hobbit's plot.
• Meaningful Name: His means "to squeeze through a hole" in Old Germanic, befitting how he is deft at moving through the tunnels of the Lonely Mountain once he is awake.
• Mysterious Past: Virtually nothing is known about Smaug's past before he attacked the Lonely Mountain except that he came from the north. It's however likely that he's no more than a few centuries old, since he's explicitly identified multiple times in the book as having been young and not yet fully grown when he attacked Erebor 171 years before his death.
• Orcus on His Throne: Smaug will always be a threat since he's a huge, flying, fire-breathing monster. However, his life's ambition was to win a treasure hoard to sit on and a quiet place to sleep on it, which he accomplished years before. He hasn't been actively terrorizing anybody in decades and as far as we can tell had no plans to do so — unless someone were to provoke him. (Although in later books is it is noted that he would probably have fought for Sauron in the War of the Ring if not for Bard's well-placed arrow.)
• Our Dragons Are Different: They talk, for one — Smaug was one of the first Western dragons to be depicted as talkative and intelligent, rather than a ravening beast. Tolkien, who was a fan of Norse Mythology, drew his inspiration for Smaug from Fafnir and the unnamed dragon who fought Beowulf. Among Smaug's original characteristics are a fondness for riddles and Hypnotic Eyes. While animated and live-action movies go for a saurian appearance — with a wolf head in the former case — Tolkien made a painting of Smaug himself and depicted him as more narrow and serpentine (Smaug is called a "worm"; the Old English form wyrm connoted both "snake" and "dragon"), with proportionally small limbs, a tail ending in a fleur-de-lis shape and a hornless, eared, mammalian head. They also don't seem to need to eat or drink, since he doesn't seem to have left the mountain even once in all the decades he's been living there (although they can apparently eat for enjoyment, as Smaug eats the company's ponies and comments that no-one knows the "smell (and taste) of Dwarf" better than he does).
• Pooled Funds: Smaug just loves to wallow in gold. He has a lot of it, considering he can burrow in and be completely covered, despite his vast size. Invoked Trope of Money Fetish; it's his, even though he doesn't spend it.
• Pride: Appealing to it is the only thing that saves Bilbo.
• Red Baron: Aside from "the Golden" above, Bilbo reels off a whole list of titles for Smaug at one point. The most common is "the Magnificent".
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He's described as having red eyes.
• Reminiscing About Your Victims: He does this quite a bit regarding his past evil accomplishments when boasting to Bilbo.
• Smug Snake: Despite his cunning and crafty mind, Smaug is absolutely sure of his invincibility, showing off his gem-encrusted armor to Bilbo and never once considers the possibility of the hobbit actually finding a weak spot to exploit.
  Bilbo: Old fool! Why there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!
• Smug Super: He's very arrogant, but he has plenty of physical might, a nigh-penetrable skin that no weapons can pierce outside of his one narrow Achilles' Heel and enough literal firepower to lay waste to entire kingdoms to back up his ego.
• Stronger with Age: Provides the page quote.
  I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then I was but young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows!
• Unknown Rival: Although he clearly knows in general that the dwarfs would like revenge on him and to recover their city and treasure, he isn't aware of any of the events of this particular quest until it shows up right on his doorstep. Even then, he doesn't care about any specific details about the dwarfs; he just figures he'll kill whoever they are and anyone who helped them, then go back to sleep.
• The Usurper: Declares himself King Under the Mountain after forcibly evicting the dwarves including the rightful king and his heir from their home, which is what prompts Thrain and later Thorin's intents to take the Lonely Mountain and its treasure back from Smaug.
• Villain Cred: He takes a devious amount of pride in his past acts of destruction and conquest and the infamy they've earned him, and he's considered the greatest dragon of the Third Age.
• Villain Has a Point: He deconstructs Thorin's entire quest, pointing out how it would be impossible to steal the gold piece by piece and get down the mountain even without his interference. He also deduces that Bilbo was promised a share of the treasure, but no transportation or guards for it, making it impossible to get it back home. While Bilbo recognizes that Smaug's trying to play mind games with him, he's still troubled to realize that there's truth in what he says.
• Villainous Legacy: Notable aversion. The narration, and later some of the elves, comment that, for all of Smaug's might, he is only a individual who's strength is entirely physical. Thus all the considerable power he wields dies at the same moment he does. Nothing prevents people from gawking at his skeleton or writing mocking poems about the once mighty Smaug. If anything, the plot of the book after his death is driven by the vacuum he left behind.

• Aerith and Bob: They're the only characters in the novel- and Tolkien's works in general- with modern English names.
• Affably Evil: They're quite friendly for monstrous trolls. And, to be fair, Bilbo was trying to steal from them when they caught him, so it's not entirely their fault for being upset with him and the company, even if it doesn't excuse them from trying to eat them. William even seems to sympathize with Bilbo and asks Bert to let the "poor little blighter" go, though the narrator notes that "He had already had as much supper as he could hold; also he had had lots of beer."
• All Trolls Are Different: These are rather traditional, excepting their surprising degree of intelligence and affability.
• The Cameo: Their petrified forms are stumbled upon by Frodo and company in The Lord of the Rings.
• The Ditz: None of them are particularly bright, being easily fooled by Bilbo and Gandalf.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: All other Tolkien trolls seen afterward, while just as big and stupid, are decidedly uncomedic and not terribly interested in talking. Their oddly mundane Hayseed Names also feel very out of place in the rest of Middle-earth (even if the pretense is that Tolkien is translating characters' names from far more archaic and fantastical-sounding ones, they still normally sound very un-contemporary). This strangeness can be attributed to how The Hobbit was not originally written as being part of the Legendarium, and thus these three trolls incorporate more aspects from, say, English and Norse folklore (where trolls can be argued with and tricked) than the more fully-codified trolls unique to Tolkien's world later on.
• Pet the Dog: William was willing to let Bilbo go considering that he (William) had already eaten enough for the night and Bilbo wouldn't make much of a meal by himself. He even refers to Bilbo as a "poor little blighter". It is especially notable since it was William's wallet that Bilbo tried to steal and thus he had the most reason to be angry with and want to kill him. It's only after the trolls learn that there are a bunch of dwarves as well that could make a good meal that he agrees to kill anyone. On the other hand, the narrator notes that "He had already had as much supper as he could hold; also he had had lots of beer."
• Psychopathic Manchild: Rather childlike in their cruelty.
• Riddle for the Ages: How in the name of Eru Illuvatar did three nobody trolls in the middle of nowhere end up with not only Orcrist, a legendary sword in its own right, but Glamdring, the sword of King Turgon of Gondolin, one of the greatest elven kings of the First Age? Even Elrond isn’t sure, only supposing that it went through the hands and hoards of many plunderers and thieves, its true worth and heritage being lost along the way.
• Taken for Granite: They turn to stone (or rather, back to stone) when exposed to sunlight — as the book says, "trolls, as you probably know, must be underground before dawn, or they go back to the stuff of the mountains they are made of, and never move again." Gandalf defeats them this way by tricking them into arguing with each other until the sun comes up.
• To Serve Man: They'd eat anything, really, so they're not above eating Men, Elves, Dwarves or Hobbits.
• Villainous Glutton: Eating is what they live for and what puts them against the heroes. William complains that the other two have cumulatively eaten half a village of people since they came down to the mountains.
• Villain Has a Point: Bert comes off as less sympathetic than the other trolls in how he refuses to release Bilbo after William takes pity on him and suggests they let him go. However, he was understandably suspicious after Bilbo let slip that he had company, even saying he doesn't want to have his throat cut in his sleep.
• Villains Out Shopping: Before they're even aware of the company, Bilbo spies them through the brush simply cooking their dinner and bickering with each other over said dinner. This actually becomes relevant later, when Gandalf uses mimicry to trick them into arguing until sunrise.
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: They only appear as a brief obstacle. Their primary role in the narrative is to give the company a lead to find their hoard after the encounter itself, from which Bilbo, Gandalf and Thorin retrieve their swords. Had the company never encountered the trolls, Glamdring, Orcrist and Sting would likely still be gathering dust to this day.

• Berserk Button: When he sees the dwarves' elven swords, he launches himself at Thorin in anger.
• Evil Overlord: He's the chief of the goblins of the Misty Mountains. A lesser one compared to Sauron, but still.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He remains relatively civil until he sees Thorin's sword. While his reaction to that is somewhat over the top, it's not that unreasonable for a goblin to get upset on learning that his uninvited guests brought with them Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver.
• Large and in Charge: He's much larger than the other goblins.
• Orcus on His Throne: His goblins are mainly threats to travellers.
• Revenge: The Battle of Five Armies is caused in part by the Misty Mountain goblins wanting to avenge him, along with all the spoils for the taking. They stir up other clans of goblins and they all converge on the Lonely Mountain.

• Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: He carries a mace, apparently forged from a spinal column.
• Evil Overlord: He leads the goblins of Mt. Gundabad.
• Large and in Charge: He's larger than most other Orcs.
• Praetorian Guard: Has a bodyguard of similarly large goblins.
• We Hardly Knew You: He's introduced and killed in the same chapter and singled out on the same page he is killed. Other than that, he and his bodyguard are treated as one unit in the battle.
• Revenge: His forces join up with the Misty Mountains goblins wanting to avenge their leader, along with all the spoils for the taking, but Bolg also has a prior beef with the dwarves due to them killing his father Azog.

• Arch-Enemy: He is this to Thráin, Thorin and all of Durin's Folk after Azog killed Thrór, the chief of the clan and Durin's Heir.
• Cryptic Background Reference: He's only briefly mentioned in the text of The Hobbit. His role is expanded in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings.
• Off with His Head!: He was decapitated by Dáin.
• Evil Overlord: He was king of the goblins of Moria.
• Karmic Death: He started a war with the dwarves after beheading Thrór, where he was himself beheaded. Also, he taunted Thrór's companion by throwing a bag of coins at him. Years later, the dwarves put Azog's own head on a pike and stuffed that same bag into his mouth.
• Large and in Charge: He's bigger than his kin and is in charge.
• Lightning Bruiser: He's said to have been large and yet quite agile. He may have murdered a defenseless Thrór but also slew the lord Náin in single combat.
• Orcus on His Throne: He moved into Moria after the dwarves abandoned it years before.
• Posthumous Character: We only hear about him after his death.
• Smug Snake: He arrogantly killed King Thror. Which didn't end well for him when the Dwarves went into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Tin Tyrant: He is described as being clad in full-body armor, even having an iron-clad head.

• Horse of a Different Color: The Goblins often use them as mounts, in the same manner that Men or Elves would use horses.
• Non-Humanoid Sapient Race: Wargs are a race of evil sapient wolves created by Morgoth who, despite being used as steeds by goblins, are stated to have their own society and language.
• Sapient Steed: The Goblins ride them when they work together, but they also have their own society and speak their own language.
• Savage Wolves: Like their Goblin allies, Wargs are inherently creatures of evil and enemies to the free peoples of Middle Earth. That said, a line is explicitly drawn between the evil Wargs and normal wolves, which are stated to be regular animals, and thus neither good nor evil.
• Talking Animal: They have their own distinct language, although only Gandalf and the Goblins are known to understand them.

• Casting a Shadow: The webs they produce are extremely dark, thanks to being descended from Ungoliant.
• Giant Spider: They're big-ass spiders.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: The company sees "glowing eyes, in the dark" watching them, before the spiders reveal themselves.
• Lovecraft Lite: A fraction of their ancestry is demonic in nature, due to being the children of Shelob, and thus the grandchildren of Ungoliant. However, the demonic traits they inherited from their mother and grandmother are not as prominent (apart from the abilities to speak and produce webs of darkness), making them less like demigods and more like semi-sentient beasts.
• Spiders Are Scary: They are attempting to kill and eat the dwarves, after all.
• Talking Animal: They can talk just as well as dwarves or hobbits. Justified by the fact that they're the offspring of the half-spider demigoddess Shelob, who was in turn the child of the primal creature Ungoliant.

• Ambiguous Situation: They are only mentioned once, by Bilbo and during a Badass Boast. Given the rich folklore of Hobbits, they might be real enemies or just legendary creatures. Similarly, the word worm doesn't allow to know whether we are talking about dragons (as in the Tolkienian usage of the word, which comes from the Old Engish wyrm, meaning dragon or serpent) or literal worms (as in earthworms).
• Cryptic Background Reference: Bilbo speaks of them when he says "Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert." That's all we will ever know about them.
• The Ghost: Don't appear in the book, presumably because the characters don't travel far enough east.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: Possibly, or possibly not. The suffix were implies shapeshifting such as of werewolves, but then again, Tolkien used the word werewolf to mean bodies of wolves possessed by evil spirits instead of men who changed into wolves.