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Foil Characters In The Hobbit

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The Hobbit Essay Study
Have you ever wondered why authors create certain characters? Each character has a specific task in a hero's journey. Some have the roles of friends, and some are mentors who teach and help the main character develop. Others are enemies whom the main character will battle in order to gain knowledge and strength. There are also characters whose main purpose in the story are to have contrast with the protagonist and help them develop. These characters don't necessarily have to be good or bad. They are called foils. Thorin Oakenshield is a foil in the Hobbit. Even though he’s perspective in the story is still questionable, but he plays one of the most important roles in Bilbo’s development of becoming a hero.
As a foil, …show more content…

With these traits, we are able to figure out how Thorin has changed Bilbo. Thorin’s transformation also highlighted. Bilbo’s heroic personality. Bilbo’s characteristics changed a lot through the whole story, and by comparing the before and after characteristics of Bilbo with Thorin’s , we’re able to figure out a pattern (Reword this). Lots of the good characteristics Bilbo gained during the journey are learned from Thorin. This helps us understand how Thorin guides Bilbo to become a hero. Bilbo starts off with as a boring character, but by comparing Thorin and Bilbo together, we will eventually pay more attention to Bilbo as a character. (Connnection between previous sentence and this)Thorin is the perfect model of an ancient hero. He was born into royalty, he is a subject of a prophecy, his parents are long gone, and he is going on a quest, and since the hobbit is set in a world where there’s magic, we assume Thorin is the hero. As for Bilbo, we do expect him to be a hero because he is the protagonist. So, it’s inevitable that we’re comparing Bilbo to Thorin. By comparing them, we can clearly see how Bilbo is slowly becoming braver and gaining confidence(parallel structure). The changes are also part of the 17 stages and it attracts more attention to Bilbo and to the book itself. Thorin also can be seen as a stepping stone the author gave to Bilbo. Bilbo learns good things from Thorin and uses him to transform into a complete hero. No matter what, without Thorin, Bilbo probably wouldn’t be as much of a hero as he is

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