I'm reading The Hobbit again, as I live-action roleplay as a Tolkien scholar in an attempt to understand Middle Earth, its lore, and its effect on modern gaming. I'm reviewing each chapter of the book as I read, and this is my review of Chapter 5: Riddles in the Dark.
This review contains spoilers.
Bilbo meets Gollum, who proposes that they have a duel of riddles. If Bilbo wins, Gollum promises to help him get un-lost. If Gollum wins, he gets to literally devour Bilbo for supper.
Bilbo's "sword" (actually a dagger, but to a hobbit it's functionally a sword) glows in the presence of goblins (orcs?)
Also, the ring Bilbo has found turns out to be a ring of invisibility. Most modern audiences know that the ring is the most significant magic item in Middle Earth, but in this book it's presented, at least for the most part, as just another magical artefact from long long ago. Reading this chapter, especially after reading about the magical swords that Bilbo and the dwarves found a few chapters back, it's reasonable to surmise that Middle Earth is meant to be [mostly] non-magical. Whether that's literally true within the legendarium or not, I do think that's the flavour Tolkien was going for. On modern Earth, we experience moments we want to be magic, but they never are. In Middle Earth, there are events and objects that really are magic, even though to most people in Middle Earth (just as on modern Earth) there is no magic.
This is a classic problem in fantasy and science fiction literature and games. If you want the audience to believe that the world is fantastic, then you have to show them. But if you show it to them too often, the fantastic becomes normal, and even mundane. As an RPG player, I always appreciate cantrips and spells and magical items, but I have to admit that I use them casually. There's no sense of wonder. There's often a sense of power, especially during a battle, but there's plainly an expectation that my character can cast a spell. I've had the spell in my back pocket all evening long. Of course I can cast it. Who doesn't carry around a Fireball spell, just in case?
In Tolkien's world, there are moments you think might be magical, and then there are moments that are blatantly break the laws of the world. Nobody else in the entirety of Middle Earth can become invisible at will, but now Bilbo can. It's a game changer, and yet somehow that's not even the half of it.
The fascinating thing about Riddles in the Dark is that it is presented as a life-changing event. Sure, it's understated but Tolkien (and maybe 1930s British culture?) excels at understatement. No matter what, Bilbo is on his own, in the dark, and his life is threatened in no uncertain terms by a creature of unknown origin and type. He plays a game for his very life. By the end of the chapter, he's discovered that he possesses the ability to turn invisible, which is obviously a huge advantage for someone who's been hired as a burglar.
We don't see Gollum again in this book. This is his single appearance. He's a minor character, no more significant than the trolls. After all, the trolls were just a vehicle for some magical swords, so it's not very surprising that there's a vehicle for a magical ring. In a parallel universe, the next trilogy is called Lord of the Blades and it's about a dark lord who forged a bunch of glowing swords that somehow managed to be plundered by a trio of idiot trolls in Gondolin.
In other words, Riddles in the Dark is possibly the most subtle and yet most believable story hook ever written. I know it's not hard to turn anything into a story hook. They did it (or so I've heard) with Han Solo's blaster, and the Wicked Witch's pointy hat. The list goes [ever ever] on. But Riddles in the Dark does come across, however understated, as strangely significant. The Ring may not be the only magical artefact in Middle Earth, but it sure seems like it was given a lot of time. We've come across an incidentally talking purse and some afterthought swords, but this ring took up a whole chapter all its own.
And yet you can still always imagine a world where the ring is just a minor convenience, and Gollum just a bit part. Maybe that's the genius of this as the story hook for the trilogy that followed. There was plausible deniability, both in-world and out.
I'm tracking Bilbo's reputation with the dwarves, and the dwarves' reputation with Bilbo, as the book progresses. There's no change to the score in this chapter, so Bilbo still has 1 Victory Point for pickpocketing a key from the trolls, and the dwarves are still at 0. However, I think it's fair to say that this ring is very obviously going to help Bilbo ramp up his score in future chapters.
This is a classic chapter. My parents have a vinyl record of Tolkien himself reading the chapter. It's the chapter that introduces the one Ring itself, and Gollum, and it establishes Gollum's hatred for the Bagginses. And appropriately, it's a really clever and entertaining piece of writing.