Bilbo Baggins


 * "Bilbo (Bilbo) Bilbo Baggins The bravest little hobbit of them all." &mdash;Leonard Nimoy, "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins"

Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit who went on an adventure with thirteen Dwarves and Gandalf to get rid of Smaug, a dragon Sauron could have used to defeat the Council. While on this journey, Bilbo found the One Ring.

He gave it to his first cousin once removed Frodo, and went to Rivendell. In the end, he and Frodo sailed with the Three Keepers to Valinor.

Bilbo's name in Westron is Bilba Labingi.

Character
While initially reluctant to go on anything resembling an adventure, and despite being accustomed to the easy living of the Shire, after Gandalf convinced him to go with Thorin's dwarves as their "burglar" (and lucky number fourteen), Bilbo soon discovered in himself a reservoir of resourcefulness and toughness that no one (except possibly Gandalf) ever suspected any hobbit to possess. He came away from the journey with a new, worldly perspective, and took up languages, poetry, and the writing of his memoir (the work we know as Tolkien's The Hobbit). Among hobbits, he is seen as odd or eccentric, but also kind and, more importantly, generous with his fabled hordes of dragon-gold.

Bilbo in Badfic
Bilbo is often overlooked by badficcers, since by the time of the Lord of the Rings movies he's too old to be of interest to the average fanbrat. When he does appear, it's usually just in ripped-off versions of the reunion scene and/or the Council of Elrond in Rivendell.

With the release of the Hobbit movie, this seems to have changed. Bilbo is now the victim of Mary Sues and Bad Slash. In slash, he is often shipped with Thorin Oakenshield and (more disturbingly) Smaug. The latter is most likely because Bilbo's actor in The Movies is Martin Freeman and Smaug's is Benedict Cumberbatch, and the two also play opposite each other in a modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.

Unless the story gives a plausible reason why Bilbo Baggins is doing it with dragons that doesn't involve shapeshifting or anything uncanonical, a typical Bilbo/Smaug smutfic should be regarded as NSFB and Bad Slash.