You’d think it’s an easy question. Ask anyone on the street, and they’ll probably bark "Bilbo Baggins" before you even finish the sentence. And yeah, they’re right. Sorta. But if you actually sit down with J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 masterpiece—or even the Peter Jackson film trilogy—you start to realize the spotlight isn’t always where you expect it to be.
Who is the main character of the Hobbit? On the surface, it’s the guy whose name is literally on the lease of the title. But once the Dwarves start singing about gold and dragons in Bag End, the narrative gravity begins to shift in ways that still keep literary nerds arguing at 2:00 AM.
The Case for Bilbo: The Reluctant Hero
Bilbo is the "point of view" character. That’s the technical way of saying we see Middle-earth through his furry-footed perspective. When he’s scared, we feel that cold knot in our stomachs. When he’s hungry for a second breakfast, we get it.
Tolkien didn’t just make him the protagonist; he made him the moral compass. Unlike Thorin Oakenshield, who is driven by ancestral trauma and a borderline obsessive-compulsive need for shiny rocks, Bilbo just wants to go home. That’s the hook. We aren't all exiled kings, but we’ve all felt out of our depth in a world that’s suddenly gotten too big and too loud.
His growth is the actual engine of the story. Think about it. He starts as a "respectable" hobbit who won't even run for a bus, and ends as a guy who outsmarts a dragon and literally steals from his friends to prevent a war. That transition from a sheltered homebody to a "burglar" with a conscience is what makes him the definitive lead. Without Bilbo’s internal change, the book is just a travelogue about some grumpy guys going to a mountain.
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Why Thorin Oakenshield Might Actually Own the Plot
Here is where things get messy. If you look at the stakes of the story, Bilbo is almost a bystander. The "Main Character" by definition is often the person whose goals drive the plot.
Thorin Oakenshield is the one with the goal.
It’s his mountain. It’s his gold. It’s his family legacy that got scorched by Smaug’s fire. In many ways, The Hobbit is a tragedy about a king trying to reclaim a lost paradise, only to realize he’s been poisoned by the very thing he sought. Thorin has the "hero’s journey" arc, but it’s inverted. He starts noble, becomes corrupted by greed (the "dragon-sickness"), and finds redemption only in death.
In the films, Peter Jackson leans heavily into this. Richard Armitage’s Thorin gets the sweeping orchestral themes and the slow-motion battle shots. If you stripped Bilbo out of the story, you’d still have a (very different) epic about a dwarf king. If you stripped Thorin out, Bilbo would just be sitting in the Shire eating cheese.
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Gandalf: The Puppet Master or Side Character?
Some folks argue Gandalf is the secret protagonist. I don’t buy it, honestly. Gandalf is a "catalyst."
He’s the guy who pushes the protagonist out the door. In the early 20th-century literature tradition Tolkien was working within, characters like Gandalf function as mentors. He knows too much. He’s too powerful. If the story was about him, it would be over in twenty pages because he’d just call the Eagles or use some Maia-level magic to solve the problem.
But he is essential to answering who is the main character of the Hobbit because he chooses the lead. He literally marks Bilbo’s door. He decides whose story we are following. He’s the director, but Bilbo is the star.
The Semantic Argument: Protagonist vs. Main Character
In literary circles, people like to split hairs between "Protagonist" and "Main Character."
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- The Protagonist: The person who drives the action and changes the most (Bilbo).
- The Main Character: The person through whose eyes we see the world (also Bilbo).
- The Focal Character: The person the story is actually about (arguably Thorin).
Usually, these are the same person. In The Hobbit, they diverge toward the end. During the Battle of the Five Armies, Bilbo is knocked unconscious. He literally misses the climax of the physical war. Why? Because Tolkien wanted to emphasize that the physical "winning" of the mountain wasn't the point. The internal winning of Bilbo’s soul was.
Why This Matters for Modern Readers
If you’re trying to understand the story’s impact, you have to look at the "Little Man" trope. Tolkien was a veteran of World War I. He saw "ordinary" people—the Bilbos of the world—thrust into horrific, epic circumstances they didn't ask for.
By making the main character a small, non-warrior hobbit instead of a mighty warrior like Bard or Thorin, Tolkien changed fantasy forever. He argued that the world isn't changed by the great and the powerful, but by the small people doing the right thing when no one is looking.
Key Takeaways for Your Next Re-read or Watch:
- Watch the Ring: Notice how the Ring doesn't control Bilbo the way it does others. This is the ultimate proof of his "main character" status—his personality is the only thing strong enough (or simple enough) to resist the ultimate evil.
- The Arkenstone Betrayal: This is the moment where Bilbo takes full agency. He stops being a follower and starts making history.
- The Return Journey: Most of the Dwarves’ stories end at the mountain. Bilbo’s story continues all the way back to his front door. That’s the mark of a true lead.
If you’re diving back into the lore, focus on the moments where Bilbo feels the most uncomfortable. That’s where the real story is happening. Don't just look at the dragon or the gold; look at the guy in the green tunic trying to figure out how he got there in the first place.
To truly grasp the nuance of Middle-earth, your next step is to compare the characterization of Bilbo in The Hobbit to Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. You’ll find that while Bilbo is a protagonist of a "fairytale," Frodo is the protagonist of an "epic," and that distinction changes everything about how they interact with the world. Go back and read the first chapter of The Hobbit alongside the "Shadow of the Past" chapter in Fellowship—the contrast in how the main characters handle Gandalf's arrival tells you everything you need to know about Tolkien’s evolving view of heroism.