There is a lot to this basic plot structure, of course, because it raises all sort of interesting questions (in The Lord of the Rings, is it perhaps more the case that the naive young hobbit leaves Hobbiton and changes the big bad world, rather than the other way round, while the big bad world comes and changes Hobbiton?) but not many of Tolkien's imitators were anything like as subtle. They have, however, shown a certain capacity to innovate in the type of Hobbiton which they have created. Here is a non-exhaustive list of Hobbiton variants, with Hobbiton here defined as "a nice, innocent homely place which the main character lives in before going off on his or her adventures":
1. The Unfinished Hobbiton - a Hobbiton to which the hobbit never actually returns; see e.g. Emond's Field in The Wheel of Time (I never got very far in the series, but I think I'm right anyway)
2. The Reverse Hobbiton - a Hobbiton which is the locus of the hobbit's adventures, rather than his original home; see e.g. Hogwarts, the USS Enterprise, and possibly Armada in The Scar
3. The Cold-Hearted Hobbiton - a Hobbiton from which the hero is, fairly or unfairly, exiled; see e.g. Potos in Secret of Mana
4. The Violated Hobbiton - a Hobbiton which is destroyed, generally early on in the plot; see e.g. Uncle Owen's farm in A New Hope, or that place with the treehouses in Dragons of Autumn Twilight
5. The Hobbiton by Numbers - a Hobbiton which effectively fulfils the role of the Hobbiton in The Hobbit, often complete with a bucolic quasi-English rural setting; see e.g. Aunt Pol's farm in The Belgariad
6. The Internal Hobbiton - a Hobbiton which the main character never leaves, because adventure comes there instead; see e.g. Redwall Abbey from Redwall
7. The False Hobbiton - a Hobbiton which is actually evil and from which the main character is happy to flee; see e.g. the Citadel in The Shadow of the Torturer, or the Dursleys' house in the Potter books
8. The Refused Hobbiton - a home that also generates its own adventures; see e.g. Gormenghast
9. The Mos Eisley Cantina Hobbiton - a Hobbiton which is a hub serving as a base for adventure; see e.g. Sigil, the Magic Faraway Tree
John Gardner said : There are really only two plots: “A stranger rides into town” and “A man goes on a journey.”
ReplyDeletealso don't forget the ubiquitous "people FUCK" but basically yes
DeleteWhich one is "Pride and Prejudice"?
DeletePride and Prejudice is "a stranger rides into town", because the inciting incident is the arrival of Mr. Bingham, Ms. Bingham, and Mr. Darcy.
DeletePeople take a long time and a lot of talking and money to Fuck.
DeleteOK - which one is "Bleak House"?
DeleteOr "Ethan Frome," or "No Exit," or, ya know, "The Iliad?" ;)
DeleteBut yeah, the maxim strains even in Gardner's original, more limited sense of "how [modern] novels usually begin," though at least his original claim is not so reductive or essentialist (though less memorable, to be sure).
I think you've undermined your definition of Hobbiton by offering all these variants. If those all get included, you're just talking about "a guy starts in one place and then goes elsewhere and has adventures", which predates Tolkien by a few millennia.
ReplyDeleteHell, the story of Gilgamesh could be called "There and Back Again". I think Joseph Campbell is at least 25% full of crap, but he's right that the basic story structure of "shaman-hero leaves village to visit the underworld, returns with wisdom to share with the people" is a pretty old trope. Like, maybe the oldest.
It's just a bit of fun!
DeleteSure sure, and I'm all about it.
DeleteBut I think it's worth looking at the more specific notion, as in The Hobbit, of the hero's home being bucolic and innocent and the world outside being bad and full of danger, such that the hero returns home to a place that's the same as it ever was but, seen through his changed eyes, subjectively different.
Sounds as if the plot you are describing is the "heroes journey".
ReplyDeleteAdoptive Hobbiton - The main character is actually not from Hobbiton at all, but part of some royal (or divine, or cursed, or alien) bloodline, who showed up in town one day and was nonetheless raised as one of the villagers' own. Eventually finds out where their true home is but it sucks. See: Superman, Goku, countless JRPGs.
ReplyDeleteI do have to echo the sentiment that it seems like an awfully broad categorization when you include hometowns that are actually not quaint, or are not re-visited by the protagonist after they change (does Luke ever go back to the farm in the original trilogy? I can't remember).
After finding his aunt and uncle's burned corpses, Luke doesn't return to the farm.
DeleteIt's worth noting that, because a good part of Last Jedi's plot happens on Tatooine, a return to the farm would have been very possible, though I'm not sure what one could have done with it. Now that I mention it, I have to wonder what happened to the bodies--did Luke and Kenobi bury them off-screen?
What happened to the bodies? Sandpeople or scavengers - probably looted the place and took the skeletons because... reasons.
DeleteLike "Adoptive Hobbiton" as another variant.
Delete