Pipeweed and tobacco

Will smoking be cut from the movie? I won't be too sad if it isn't, since it's a filthy habit, but the hobbits do enjoy it. It doesn't really add anything to the story, except maybe the pipeweed at Isengard, but PJ might just cut the entire Scouring of the Shire scene in which case there's no need for that pipeweed to be found at all.

Somehow it doesn't seem appropriate in 2000 for the main characters to go and on about how good smoking is.

I've often thought that myself...

But it is, after all, a hobbit invention - and this is pipes we're talking about, not cigs. Pipes are classier.

Well, you have to admit, when they all talk about how good smoking is, they are probably speaking from the depths of nicotine deprivation. As I recall, the goodness goes something like this:
I sure need a smoke, I haven't had any in so long and it would sure be nice.
I wish I hadn't lost my pipe and weren't out of pipeweed, because I could sure use a toot right now.
I have better things to do with my time than provide you with smoking materials. You'll have to ask someone else for some (besides, I only have a small amount left, about which I will say nothing).
And so on and so forth. Other than pride in it as a product of the Shire, I never really hear anyone say that it is GOOD, just that they WANT it.

i think i read some months ago at Ian Mckellen site something about just having finished a scene in which he talk with a hobbit (Bilbo or Fodo) about the excellences of smoking.

i´m not sure now, but i also think that in one of the picts of the four hobbits we´ve seen one of them is handing a pipe.

so i´m almost sure there´ll be some weed smoking in the movies. hey, they´re hobbits, not americans

I also remember that interview

As I'm sure everyone here knows, Tolkien thought the Hobbits' cultivation of and lust for pipe weed important enough to merit special mention in the Prologue to LORT. Why's it important? Because it tells us something vital about the hobbit personality type.

In _Taste of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants_, Wolfgang Schivelbusch notes that there is a big psychological difference between cigarette and pipe smoking. Cigarettes burn very quickly and require practically no prep time -- they are symbolic, if you will, of the hustle and bustle modern living. Or to put it another way, cigarette smoking is a pleasure which can be indulged in during a 15 minute coffee break in a MacDonald's parking lot.

Pipe smoking, on the other hand, requires "an arsenal of equipment and manipulation before the pipe is ready to be smoked" - and the tobacco itself might burn for long as half and hour or more. That is to say that pipe-smoking is the slow-paced leisure activity of those who remain at home or who self-consciously reject the breakneck rhythm of modern life. It's the kind of activity one might expect from an indolent and conservative people more interested in creature comforts than in blazing trails in the wide world.

For instance, _The Hobbit_ opens with an image of Bilbo blowing smoke rings in front of his hole. Though he isn't aware of it, his feet are already on the road that will take him to the Lonely Mountain, indicating perhaps that the Took part of Bilbo's brain unconsciously longs for a bit of adventure. The pipe, however, represents the other part of Bilbo's brain -- the part the desires nothing better than safety and comfort. Appropriately, the book ends with Bilbo handing the tobacco jar to Gandalf safe inside his cozy parlour at Bag End -- and this is to say, his adventures are over and in the final analysis "there's no place like home."

Well put, easy.

At the risk of derision from the regulars, I'd like to make two (marginally amusing, I hope) observations:

1) Hobbits love smoking...hobbits are short...did smoking stunt their growth? And what's the legal smoking age in hobbit-years, anyway?

2) Do you think the author might have had an altogether different sort of "pipe-weed" in mind? Maybe that's why hobbits like to stay at home and eat a lot!

*ahem*

Sorry.

That's something you should submit to the Tolkien Sarcasm page...

I never pictured smoking pipeweed to be a bad or unhealthy habbit at all. I never similarized it to real-life tobacco.

Well I mean maybe it's more like actual weed and not tobacco. =) I mean heck after all the travelling and dangers they face thorought the story I'm sure a couple of bowls would calm their nerves. =)

Tolkien himself was a chain pipe smoker (have you ever seen a picture of him when he DIDN'T have a pipe?), which is probably one of the reason's he incorporated the element into his story. His fondness for different kinds of "pipe weed" is evident throughout LOTR. I agree that smoking isn't the most brilliant thing, but it's definitely a part of the world of Middle Earth, and so I believe Jackson should definitely keep it in.

Just because someone smokes a pipe doesn't necessarily mean they're idiots: Tolkien certainly wasn't. We're all going to die of something, so I believe it's very hypocritical of people to slam people who smoke into the ground when they themselves might be severe gluttons, have high cholesterol by their own hand, have heart trouble, or a number of other things. Just my two cents.

Just for the record I never have, and never intend to smoke.

David

Not only did Hobbits like pipeweed, they also liked food, beer, wine, food, brandy, miruvor, and food.

They distrusted foreigners. They didn't care for learning their letters. They prefered ignorance of the outside world.

Look out! Sooner or later, there will be a Politically Correct article denouncing the evil influences of this tale.

i just got this bizarre mental image of Frodo & Sam stoned out of their minds on the slopes of Mordor...
and with Gollum so gone on the Ring... what a trio!

forgive the sacriledge, please.

aryne *

Yeah but you know they would have blown Gollum a couple of guns so he would be on his back besides them making

Yeah... just think of Gollum

My preccccccious.... Wassssssssup?

Nasssssssssty hobbitsss won't give anymore of thosssse preccccious fumesss