Talk:Back Door

From Tolkien Gateway
Latest comment: 1 December 2013 by Mith

The name Back Door appears in the picture, yes, but not in the book - or in Thrór's Map. In The Hobbit the door is (several times) called Side-door (with capital S, n.b.):

That is why I settled on burglary-especially when I remembered the existence of a Side-door. (Gandalf, ch. 1)
I see now they must have had a private Side-door which only they knew about. (Thorin, ch. 1)
After all there is the Side-door, and dragons must sleep sometimes, I suppose. (Mr. Baggins, ch. 1)

The door is also called "secret door", "hidden door", "enchanted door" or simply "the door", but never "back door".

Actually, in The Hobbit there is a "back-door", but it is the goblin-gate through which Mr. Baggins (and before him Gandalf & the dwarves) escaped from the goblins' caves. Gollum, chasing the tricksy thief, says: "It's off to the back-door. To the back-door, that's it." (ch. 5) Later, counting openings in the tunnel, he says to himself: "This is it. This is the way to the back-door, yes. Here's the passage!" (ch. 5). The narrator uses the name, too: "The rest we all know - except that Gandalf knew all about the back-door, as the goblins called the lower gate, where Bilbo lost his buttons." (ch. 6). Here appears another designation of this particular goblin-gate, "the lower gate".

So, should we change the name of this article to "Side-door" preferring the text of The Hobbit? --Tik 20:04, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I think so. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 08:45, 1 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]