Doing It For The Right Reason

*Spoilers for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Siddhartha*

When I was 10 years old my father asked me if I wanted to go see a movie he had been waiting for for a long time with him. It was a prequel to a trilogy of movies that he had enjoyed when he was in college, a trilogy that I have still never seen to this day because I have no interest in them. This prequel was largely panned by critics as it was one book stretched out into three different movies that both included unnecessary storylines that weren't in the book and excluded rather crucial ones that were. Despite all this criticism, I still enjoyed the first movie in this prequel trilogy as it was one of the first movies I saw with my dad. That movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

I was recently reminded of The Hobbit when reading through Herman Heese story, Siddhartha. While on the surface the two have nothing in common, one being about a group of dwarves going to reclaim their castle after it was taken by a dragon and the other about a boy seeking enlightenment in his life, they actually have one similarity, the protagonist's inner struggle. Both Bilbo and Siddhartha struggle in their journey on finding out why they are going out of their comfort zone in the first place and both have similar conclusions.

The two stories follow a pretty standard hero's journey, albeit in slightly different ways. Bilbo's "Call to Adventure", "Refusal to Call", "Meeting with Mentor", and "Crossing the Threshold" all happen in the opening dinner scene when Gandalf invites the dwarves over to Bilbo's house where they show the difference between their adventuring lifestyle and Bilbo's homely life. Bilbo then refuses to be their thief, Gandalf talks to him, and he leaves with them the following morning. We are then in the "Tests, Allies, Enemies" phase until the next movie where they confront Smaug in the castle.

Siddhartha drags the Ordinary world out more and shrinks the time spent in the special world. Siddhartha's "Call to Adventure" happens when he feels discontented on not being able to find all the answers he seeks in the resources he has in his hometown, but his "Refusal to Call" is much more subtle than Bilbo flat out refusing to join the dwarves. Siddhartha spends the chapter "With the Samanas" following the Samanas and their way of teaching. He hasn't solved his discontent, he has just shifted it to another group of people, solidifying his "Refusal to Call". After meeting with Gotama, he decides to finally go out on his own into the world to search for his own answer to enlightenment, fulfilling the "Meeting with Mentor", "Crossing the Threshold", and "Tests, Enemies, Allies". This is where the fact that The Hobbit is a trilogy and Siddhartha is not start to come into play. While the orc cave is part of the "Tests, Enemies, Allies" for The Hobbit, and Siddhartha becoming a merchant is "The Ordeal" in Siddhartha, they both are the inciting incidents in their respective works and lead to the same result.

After escaping the orc cave with the One Ring, Bilbo uses its invisibility powers to attempt to escape. Before this incident, Bilbo already tried to leave because he felt he wasn't suited for the adventuring lifestyle, that "doing it so you can tell a future story" Gandalf convinced him on wasn't enough to keep him around. After the incident when Bilbo tried to slip away, Thorin became enraged at him leaving, believing he left cause he doesn't care about helping them. Bilbo then changes his mind, realizing that he should help them, not for the story, but so they can have a home, much like the one he loves so much. Siddhartha comes to a similar solution after trying to kill himself. After spending many years becoming a merchant, Siddhartha lost the "divine voice" in his head and became infatuated with the material world. What he realizes, when looking at the river, is that he never really left the Samanas behind him. He has always been carrying their mindset with him and thus has never truly gone out on his own for answers. This moment where he hits rock bottom is the moment when he loses everything, and from there, finally has the ability to go on and invent religion or whatever, I haven't finished the book yet. The similarity these two characters have, is not unlike my opinion of The Hobbit, don't worry about what others around you say, look at a situation and decide for yourself how you should go about accomplishing it, because nothing good has come from following in someone else's shoes.