Sympathy for the Goblins - The Hobbit, Ch. IV-V

We learn that goblins “are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted.”  Yet, if goblins are that way by nature, can we really blame them for being true to themselves?  After all, these little fellows even have a natural aversion to sunlight: “it makes their legs wobble and their heads giddy.”

One of the goblins calls Thorin a liar – and in this, it is the goblin that is telling the truth, not the dwarf.  In the battle that follows, Gandalf’s elven sword “burned with a rage” and “was bright as blue flame for delight in the killing of the great lord of the cave.”  The blade sounds a bit bloodthirsty – even if we are dealing with nasty goblins carrying pointed armaments.

And, like the aliens in the film Mars Attacks, the sheer effusiveness of goblin malice is almost charming, as when they fill the caverns with “yells and yammering, croaking, jabbering and jabbing; howls, growls and curses.”  Aww, they’re angry and cute and ineffectually evil.

Image: Nakajima Kaho, Oni Senbei