Lobelia Sack-ville Baggins is renowned as being a pushy, entitled, and self-indulgent character who likes to go around causing trouble for others. Her prim and argumentative nature has made her a key antagonist for the Bagginses who live in Bag End, and she has wanted ownership of their hobbit hole for years, which made her very angry when Bilbo decided to adopt Frodo as his heir, and scarpered her plans to inherit the house.

But what do Lobelia and her privileged demands have to do with Bilbo’s decision to accept the job of Burglar, and accompany the dwarves on their quest to reclaim the kingdom of Erebor under the Lonely Mountains? Some fans of The Hobbit have come up with the theory that Bilbo is far more willing to go with the dwarves and help them get their home back, because he is so used to being hounded and pushed out of his.

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For years Bilbo has had to listen to the insufferable complaints of Lobelia and her husband Otho, and their claims that the house should rightfully be theirs. In this sense, Lobelia Sack-ville Baggins is essentially Bilbo’s own version of the dragon that is trying to steal his property from him.

Smaug

Of course, Lobelia is not a fire-breathing creature that has murdered half of his family to get what she wants, like Smaug is, but audiences of The Hobbit films have suggested that she is the reason Bilbo is so compassionate and sensitive towards the dwarves cause. There are several times throughout Peter Jackson’s film adaptation in which Bilbo explains that he misses his home, and ‘That’s why I came back. Because you don’t have one. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can.’

As someone who knows how it feels to be constantly berated and bossed around, Bilbo understands the empty feeling that being away from home gives the dwarves, and the desire to return to this place where so much of their history and their heart remains. Perhaps it is this that also allows him to spare Gollum, because he feels some of the pain and trouble of Gollum's own life, and also helps him to speak with the spiders of Mirkwood, not wishing to kill even these ugly creatures.

Indeed, by the time the readers reach the Lord of the Rings, and Frodo has decided to give Lobelia what she wants so that he can undertake the quest to Mordor to destroy the ring, it is shown just how rude and grabbing she has been all along. Not only is she pounding on the door before Bilbo’s birthday party, which prompts him to hang his ‘No admittance, except for Party Business’ on the gate, she is also thrilled and not at all courteous when she is finally given into. She arrives early, kicking Frodo out as quickly as possible.“'Ours at last!' said Lobelia. It was not polite; nor strictly true, for the sale of Bag End did not go through until midnight. But Lobelia can perhaps be forgiven: she had been obliged to wait about seventy seven years longer for Bag End than she once hoped and she was now a hundred years old." She is greedy, and covetous, and doesn’t care what damage she does in her untamable desire for Bag End, as well as the wealth that is rumored to exist within its halls.

Sackville-Bagginses

This wealth is believed to be Bilbo’s 14th share of the treasure, as his reward for being the burglar despite Thorin not wanting him to go on the quest in the first place. But the signs of Lobelia wanting Bilbo’s treasures and wealth are seen long before Frodo gives her the house. When Bilbo arrives home from his adventure, he finds an auction at his house, selling off his belongings because he has been away for so long that he was presumed dead by the other hobbits in The Shire.

When he returns mid-auction, he is able to reclaim most of his furniture and put his house to rights, but "Many of his silver spoons mysteriously disappeared, and were never accounted for. Personally he suspected the Sackville Bagginses. On their side, they never admitted that the returned Baggins was genuine, and they were not on friendly terms with Bilbo ever after. They really had wanted to live in his nice hobbit hole very much." This furthers the perception of Lobelia as being very akin to Smaug, as she craves Bilbo’s treasured possessions in the same way that Smaug has been lording over the dwarven treasure for years, and in the same way that dwarves themselves covet fine jems and gold.

Luckily all is set right, and the kingdom of Erebor is returned to the rightful hands of the dwarves, after Smaug is killed, and Bag End is also eventually returned to the rightful hands of Frodo, who then passes it on to his brave companion Sam and Rosie, and their noble steed Bill the Pony, and all of their children thereafter. Interestingly, right at the end of the Lord of the Rings, Lobelia donates the rest of her money to rebuilding The Shire, and to looking after the hobbits that were hurt by the actions of her son Lotho, so her character does find some redemption after all.

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