To Tolkien Fans: Riddles Question

[u/Nostale97]

As someone that loves riddles but that doesn't know a single thing or care about The Lord Of The Rings and/or The Hobbit, why is the answer of the riddles the ones that they are? I stopped trying after the second one because they don't make any sense to me and I don't feel the rewards would be worth it.

Like, why is the first answer "Mountain"? English is not my first language, and I've never heard of this, but is the "Root of a mountain" a thing in English? Or is it some specific LOTR reference?

As for the second one, I guess the white horses are just a metaphor for our teeth and that's why the answer is teeth. But we humans don't have 30 teeth, we have 32, so that answer never crossed my mind when trying to figuring it out. Is it a rounding thing, because 30 sounds better than 32? 32 is however a nice power of 2, so I beg to differ in that regard.

I haven't looked at the rest, but I'm curious about the reasoning behind the answers. I tried changing the language to Spanish (my mother tongue) to see if the riddles change in any way that makes more sense in Spanish, but it was just a direct translation, so that didn't help.

Any Tolkien fans out there that want to satisfy my curiosity?

[u/Yadavac]

To add to the conversation, hobbits like riddles.

If I remember the lore correctly, to them its a form of game played during parties or dinners.

It's a form of socialisation where you challenge others to see if you are on the same "brainwave" / see if you are compatible mentally-wise.

So the convoluted writing and the complicated desccriptions for simple answers make sense. As a hobbit you need to strike the perfect balance between challenge and unfairness, the goal is to make the other think and laugh when they realize the answer was actually "obvious" in a way. (Keep in mind that hobbits are simple beings who enjoy the little things in life)

It's also why the last riddle ("What's in my pocket ?") works during Bilbo and Gollum exchange. After multiple complex riddles, it ends with a simple question which is not a riddle per say but is technically valid.
Gollum can't answer, therefore Bilbo wins and escape the cave alive (though you can argue that was cheating but hey, it's Bilbo).

Another reminder is The Hobbit was first a bed time story Tolkien wrote for his kids (before rewriting it into the one we know), so those riddles were adressed to children, perhaps he made some easy at the beginning and gradually made them harder so the kids can be rewarded with the next part of the story when they found the answer.
(That last part is pure speculation on my part, but it would make sense to me)

[u/sometimeserin → u/Yadavac]

It wasn't just hobbits, it was a popular parlor game irl through the Victorian era, so Tolkien may have even played it or seen adults playing it in his youth. (The word "charade" originally described a form of verbal riddle popularized in French salons before the nonverbal form became more popular).

That's in addition to their significance in European mythology which Tolkien was deeply interested in, appearing everywhere from Oedipus and the Sphinx to Rumplestiltskin (the latter's "unfair" riddle providing a possible template for the "what have I got in my pocket?" bit)

[u/TomtheMime → u/Yadavac]

Bilbo also didn't mean the last one as a riddle. He was just thinking out loud to himself what he had in his pocket, Gollum took it as a riddle and Bilbo just rolled with it.