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Thorin Oakenshield
Sign in to saveAlso known as Thorin II, Thorin son of Thráin son of Thrór, Thorin
fictional character in The Hobbit
Key facts
- Race
- Dwarf
- Title s
- King under the Mountain , King of Durin's Folk
- Book s
- The Hobbit (1937), Unfinished Tales (1980)
via Wikipedia infobox
~11 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Thorin Oakenshield (Thorin II) is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit. Thorin is the leader of the Company of Dwarves who aim to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from Smaug the dragon. He is the son of Thráin II, grandson of Thrór, and becomes King of Durin's Folk during their exile from Erebor. Thorin's background is further elaborated in Appendix A of Tolkien's 1955 novel The Return of the King, and in Unfinished Tales.
Commentators have noted that Thorin is Old Norse both in name and character, being surly, illiberal, independent, proud, aristocratic, and like all Dwarves greedy for gold. Tolkien was a Roman Catholic; from a Christian perspective, Thorin exemplifies the deadly sin of avarice, but is able to free himself from it at the time of his death. This deathbed conversion has been compared to the moral transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Thorin Oakenshield” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.