There will be Hobbits in Amazon’s LotR series. Sir Lenny Henry spilled the beans in an interview on the BBC. Sir Lenny, who is casted as a hobbit, says they are called Harfoots and are a wandering people going westwards.
I took this quote from the Torn boards.
“For the last two years I’ve been working on Lord of The Rings and it’s an extraordinary thing, it’s the biggest television show that’s ever been made, in terms of money and head count. Literally, a hundred people on set glaring at you and trying to work out what you’ll look like four feet tall… I’m a Harfoot, because J.R.R. Tolkien, who was also from Birmingham, suddenly there were black hobbits, I’m a black hobbit, it’s brilliant, and what’s notable about this run of the books, it’s a prequel to the Age that we’ve seen in the films, it’s about the early days of the Shire and Tolkien’s environment, so we’re an indigenous population of Harfoots, we’re hobbits but we’re called Harfoots, we’re multi-cultural, we’re a tribe not a race, so we’re black, asian and brown, even Maori types within it. It’s a brand new set of adventures that seed some of the origins of different characters and it’s going to take at least ten years to tell the story. Because it’s based on “The Silmarillion” which was almost like a cheat-sheet for what happens next in this world in the Second and Third Ages. And the writers have a lot of fun in extrapolating it all out, and it’s going to be very exciting. There’s a very strong female presence in this, there’s going to be female heroes in this evocation of the story, there’s going to be little people as usual.”
– Lenny Henry, on BBC Radio
I did not expect to see Hobbits in the Amazon series. In LotR they are a hidden forgotten people who are only remembered in folk tales. Even Sauron does not know where they live. Gandalf and Aragorn go to great lengths to keep them safe from outside intruders.
The Shire and its inhabitants are my favourite in the book. Tolkien’s description of the Shire in FotR I read so often. It’s my happy place to go to.
Tolkien did write some bare bones on the early Hobbits and that seems to be what Amazon is using. I looked up pages 14 to 15 ‘Concerning Hobbits’. Here Tolkien writes they came from east of the Misty Mountains and journeyed west into Eriador.
Most likely I will view this tv series as a piece of fan- fiction on the little people and enjoy it as such, hoping it doesn’t cause problems for what is in LOTR. I expect Amazon wants to encourage audiences to their show, especially those who have only seen the films and now expect to see Hobbits everywhere.
To be honest I’m most excited for Howard Shore’s soundtrack for the series. He's such an inspiration.
Daisy
