Bilbo’s Willing Executioners:
A note on this for the historically challenged: 99% of you will have never heard of Theodore Bilbo, Senator from Mississippi and ardent Klansman, and author of such ditties as “Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization“. This item from SHWI, sent in to me by the writer, plays off that and this book on German support for Hitler. And, of course, LOTR.
From: Rich Rostrom <rrostrom@21stcentury.net>
Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if
Subject: Re: WI “Bilbo’s Willing Executioners”
References: <1592-3ACE84AF-102@storefull-133.iap.bryant.webtv.net>
User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.0 (PPC)
Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2001 21:04:49 -0500
Message-ID: <rrostrom-E40248.21044907042001@news.21stcentury.net>
raystwo@webtv.net (Raymond Speer) wrote:
> {From an Alternative Time Line}
>
> Fred Saberhagen, _Bilbo’s Willing Executioners_, London & Toronto, 1998.
>
From yet a third time line (well, someone has to do this)…
Of all the shocking events that marked the end of the Third Age,
the most surprising was the ‘Scouring of the Shire’. In all the
previous history of the Shire, no Hobbit had ever killed another.
That this peaceful social order was disrupted by the meddling
of Saruman was no surprise. But no one anticipated the savagery
that erupted.
And of all instigators and leaders of communal violence, none
was more unlikely than the elderly bachelor of Hobbiton. But
here the malevolent influence of the Great Ring must be
considered. Bilbo held it for many years, before it was stolen
by Saruman’s agents. When the Ring betrayed Saruman and was
recovered, Bilbo was thoroughly corrupted by his lust for it
and wholly open to its influence and power.
Thus he became “Lord Bilbo”, with a peculiar charisma that
caused most Hobbits to obey him without question.
And there was a vast reservoir of resentment against the Hobbits
that had been Saruman’s tools.
But that this resentment should take the form of wholesale
massacres was beyond all expectation. Afterwards, when the
Ring had been destroyed, Bilbo’s erstwhile followers
insisted that while Bilbo held it, his commands were almost
irresistible.
This excuse, though suspiciously convenient, has been accepted
by the majority of historians ever since.
Saberhagen disagrees. In this carefully researched volume, he
shows that the roots of the ‘Scouring’ run very deep in Hobbit
tradition. He has uncovered long-forgotten records of pre-Shire
history, from Elvish and Numenorean archives, which show that
hostility and even violence between Hobbit kindreds were common
at one time.
He also shows that the seeming solidity of contemporary Hobbit
society is a product of the intense Hobbit drive for stability.
The Saruman episode disrupted that stability, terrifying the
Hobbits. The “Scouring” was as much a panic attack against
those who contributed to the instability as it was a bloody
sacrifice to the Dark Power that possessed Bilbo.
- | Rich Rostrom rrostrom.21stcentury@rcn.com |
| |
| A lot of organic chemistry would be pretty unspeakable |
| if molecules had feelings. - Derek Lowe |