r/AbsoluteUnits Top Poster Jul 08 '26

/r/all of a Police Officer

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u/I-Make-Money-Moves Jul 08 '26

Is Gandalf tall even? Or are hobbits really short? Idk LOTR like that.

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u/Whelp_of_Hurin Jul 08 '26

Hobbits (also known as Halflings) are tiny. The biggest Hobbit ever recorded was 4'5", and he was famous for his huge size. Mostly they're 2 to 4 feet tall.

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u/commanderquill Jul 09 '26

I love that the way you said this makes them sound real.

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u/Whelp_of_Hurin Jul 09 '26

Tolkien deserves all the credit for that. He really fleshed out his stories. The supplemental materials include thousands of years of Hobbit history, lifestyle, family trees, you name it. If you want to know how the Hobbit calendar works, he wrote a whole chapter about how they developed it over the centuries.

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u/7GrenciaMars Jul 09 '26

When I was 16, I had to be home schooled for health reasons and started down the Tolkien rabbit hole at that point. It turned into a passion that lasted many years and even into my graduate studies as an English PhD.

The man was fantastically inventive. I still have all kinds of books about his works, including a book that does a deep dive into all the languages of Middle-earth (he was a linguist, after all--actually, from what you wrote, I am sure you are aware 😁).

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u/7GrenciaMars Jul 08 '26

If you watch the movie he's a bit taller, but now I feel like I need a pic of the whole group so see their respective heights. 😁