Bilbo’s underground riddle contest with Gollum became the archetypal Dungeons & Dragons scenario—a lone adventurer solving puzzles to escape danger. We also see Tolkien’s pre-scientific worldview with Lamarckian evolution (“the more you use it the bigger it gets”) and Platonic light-emitting vision.

Goblin Town mirrors the chaotic Victorian Birmingham of Tolkien’s youth—a dark maze where inhabitants love machines and inventive cleverness but create only weapons and torture devices. The bow-legged, squint-eyed goblins resemble rickets-ridden factory workers who rarely saw sunlight. Their rhythmic songs echo industrial machinery.

Rivendell introduces Elrond’s crucial moon-map revelation — divine intervention or “you create your own luck by taking action.” The dwarves started their quest without complete information, yet moving forward allowed essential details to emerge naturally.

Tolkien’s trolls speak in working-class dialect and defeat themselves through argumentative bickering—showing how evil lacks socialist cooperation.

The Hobbit begins in Tolkien’s unconscious socialist vision—Bilbo lives comfortably without employment or employers, free from government coercion. Gandalf organises a volunteer collective to restore stolen dwarf property. It’s perfectly democratic: equal opportunity quests with no compulsion to participate. This egalitarian environment brings out people’s best qualities, showing how freedom and choice enable personal growth and solidarity.

Tolkien unconsciously embedded socialist values in his work. He’s one of the twentieth century’s most socialist writers, despite his conservative beliefs.