Describe the character and importance of Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkein.

Bilbo Baggins has played a very important role in this novel by being the rescuer of the dwarves at several different occasions, and has undergone a drastic change in his personality and inner being from a hobbit content in his comfortable hobbit hole having good food and blowing smoke rings, to someone who experiences all many difficulties of life and turns out to be brave hero for the dwarves. This hobbit, though at the starting was thought to be not worth much by the dwarves, eventually turned out to be the most important member of the team that was on a long and perilous journey to retrieve their lost treasure. Firstly, he finds a ring in the Misty Mountains that makes one invisible, and with the help of that, he saves all the dwarves from being eaten by the great spiders of Mirkwood Forest. Then he again gets the dwarves out of the prisons of Elvenking, the king of the elves.

Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The L...

Open Day at Sarehole Mill - JRR Tolkien - The Hobb...

Smaug as he appears in the animated film.

And lastly, he is the one who secures peace between the stuck up dwarves who refuse to divide the treasure between the people of Dale and the elves. Besides playing an important role in the novel, Bilbo changes from a timid unadventurous hobbit to a hobbit experiencing thrills, kills, and all sorts of unexpected things. At the start of the novel, Bilbo was a wealthy hobbit respected by his neighbors because of his non-adventurous qualities, and because he never did or say anything unexpected. But one night, a group of dwarves and a wizard lured him into an adventure which completely changed him from a hobbit who always wished to be at home having a late breakfast in his lawn, to one who is up to any challenge, including daring to go close enough to Smaug, the deadly dragon...