Tash (4ft 11 until she was 17. Doesn’t make her biased.):

Hobbits are brilliant. First of all, all their doors are round – a child-friendly alternative to our own horribly pointy linear entrances. Apple Mac only WISH they had that level of innate ergonomic understanding. Secondly, they throw great parties – drinks, hair and pie abound it seems, and thirdly, what did Hobbits do again, what was it they – oh yeah that’s right, they DELIVERED THE MOTHERBLUFFING RING TO MORDOR and saved the whole bloody world. You can say what you like, everything else that went down (quite a lot of stuff, as it happens) was a distraction to the central cause – Frodo and Samwise were the only ones just bloody well gritting their teeth and getting on with it. No glorious sword fun for them, no wet-lipped maidens or burly man-chat. All they had was a really, really, really rubbish, boring and difficult task. And they did it. Cos that’s just what Hobbits do.

John (could fit perhaps three quarters of one leg in Bag End):

This is nonsense – of all the myriad races and tribes tooling around Middle Earth, the Hobbits are unquestionably the most pointless and suspicious. They’re gratuitously undersized, which I suspect is simply a ploy to disenfranchise elves and Men hoping to move into the Shire, and their profligate living habits show little or no consideration for the scant resources of a world riven by war, terror and massive trees stopping everyone from picking apples. Bilbo Baggins was 131 when he finally cleared off to the Undying Lands – given that Hobbits like to enjoy seven meals a day, that means Bilbo was well on the way to enjoying his three hundred and thirty thousandth plate of bread and bloody mushrooms. No wonder the men of Harad turned to the East in search of a new master – the Hobbits had probably eaten them out of house and home like the inconsiderate ecological vandals they are.

Tash:

It’s going to be rather difficult to worry about where your next mushroom is coming from when you’re under the FIRE-BASED reign of Sauron though, isn’t it? And anyway, if anything, Hobbiton is a perfect example of a self-regulating society; they make their own wares, farm their own land and don’t ask nothing from nobody. I think you’ll find their carbon footprint is a lot smaller than their actual, rather large footprints. And anyway, if we’re getting onto reckless living, I think you’ll find the age of stupid old Man did rather more damage then the poor old Hobbits can ever hope to do. If anything, the Hobbits are simply clearing up the mess we made with our massive legs and pride and hands.

John:

And well they should! Look at the bloody nuisance they made of themselves – first that nasty Sméagol bugger chokes his poor brother and charges off into a cave with that cheap tawdry ring, then Bilbo ‘look what a big pipe I’ve got’ Baggins nicks it and more or less single-handedly starts a war. Loose morals, that’s what’s wrong with the Hobbits – Hobbiton’s probably a den of incest as well, it’s so like Devon that I’m amazed they don’t all have webbed feet (not that you’d know underneath the lice-ridden mops atop their horrible prehensile feet, of course). If Saruman had had any sense he’d have marched into the Shire and laid waste to every Hobbit-hole before they had a chance to cock the rest of the world up.

Tash:

Lets look at the evidence in a proper (not utterly ridiculous) way. The characters responsible for getting the rings to Mordor: two hobbits. Characters responsible for getting The Big Trees on-side and destroying Saruman’s Orc-machine: two Hobbits. The character responsible for saving of Faramir and consequently Minis Tirith: A Hobbit (and a bit Gandalf, but whatever). The character responsible for the destruction of the Witch-King: a Hobbit and a chick. The only ones who bothered to actually WRITE ABOUT IT AT ALL: Hobbits. Hobbits Hobbits Hobbits, it’s HOBBITS ALL THE WAY DOWN.

John:

I think Tolkien had a bit of a thing for Hobbits and they played him like an elf-flute to get the exposure – they bought all that juicy pro-Hobbit publicity with their innocent, sweetly hairy Hobbit arses.

Tash:

What? Oh, you’re just being ridiculous now. Why would a Hobbit do that? Mind you, they’d barely have to kneel down…

John:

*international sign language for ‘blowjob’, then some other weird thing*

Tash:

Hang on, what was that?

John:

Oh, that’s just the Hobbit lighting a pipe to take the taste away.

By Natasha Hodgson and John Underwood