[pnathan]

I'd have to see more to have a final thought.

As presented, Gollum is badly off, I reckon - missing the books textual description. The flowers are out of line.

The dragon scene is wonderful and captures the situation.

The dwarves are a bit dopy looking but I think could cohere with the early introduction in the Hobbit.

[A_D_E_P_T]

> As presented, Gollum is badly off, I reckon - missing the books textual description. The flowers are out of line.

This is addressed in the article. "Paul Gravett writes in his new book about Tove Jansson: ‘Her Gollum towered monstrously large, to the surprise of Tolkien himself, who realized that he had never clarified Gollum’s size and so amended the second edition to describe him as ‘a small, slimy creature’."

We have Jansson to thank for the clarification, it seems!

[jfengel]

Tolkien made significant changes to the Gollum chapter. In the first edition Gollum gives up the ring willingly. The ring was not yet the Ring, and Gollum was not yet a Hobbit.

The man took retcons as an intellectual challenge. Sometimes the retcon itself spun off a whole new story. But it makes The Hobbit really incompatible with its own sequel, even after his changes. (You have to read it as having a very unreliable narrator.)