Dear people who don’t think they could be a hero,
My name is Camila Koch, I am a foreign exchange student from Germany and within a project in my British Literature class I had to write an open letter about “the Hobbit” from J. R. R. Tolkien. For this project I was supposed to talk about an issue that I can relate to so I chose being an unlikely hero.
For everyone who did not read the Hobbit, here is a little summary of the plot:
The Hobbit is about a little Hobbit and 13 dwarves who are on an adventure to a mountain to fight the dragon who stole all of their belongings a long time ago. On their way the company gets help from multiple people, animals and creatures, but they also have to flee from a bunch of evil creatures. In the end they are able to kill the dragon with a lot of help from someone else who actually killed the dragon but they have to go in a big fight against the goblins. Bilbo then finally seems to have found his purpose whenever he comes back to his hobbit hole.
In the book Bilbo is very insecure about his skills that already is very clear in the first chapter, whenever Gandalf asks Bilbo to go on an adventure with him and the dwarves, Bilbo doesn’t want to and doesn’t believe in himself. The dwarves also don’t believe in his skills, only Gandalf does. (chapter 1; page 4 to 5, page 19, page 22) The story then goes on and Bilbo has the first opportunity to show what he can do, and he wants to prove himself to the dwarves and to himself, he needs to gain more confidence in what he is doing and he needs to learn how to react to certain things. You can see this when the dwarves want him to be a spy and check out the trolls around the bonfire. (chapter 2; page 35)
Because of the support of the dwarves and his successes Bilbo finally understands how important he is and what his purpose is. It took him a long time to realize it but at the end he is fine with being a hero. (chapter 19; page 298)
Bilbo was on a journey to find himself and he had to deal with multiple situations where nobody trusted him or believed him, not even himself (troll scene) but he still tried to solve problems or make the best out of a situation. That reminded me a lot of myself. I know I can’t deal with some situations perfectly because of a language or cultural barrier but I still try everything I can to solve a problem or just clear a situation for myself, so the reason I chose this issue was my personal connection. To go more into detail, I will explain how I can relate to Bilbo: I am my own unlikely hero in my life right now. Being an exchange student makes you grow up very fast and maybe a little bit unwanted but you find out about your purpose and prove yourself what you can do if you at least try something new and maybe even something that brings you out of your comfort zone. I also can see that there are a lot of (mostly) teenagers that struggle with finding their purpose in life, they are their own unwanted heroes.
As I said I am an exchange student on my own journey through a new country with a different culture, a different language and different people. There are a lot of ways in which I can relate to Bilbo’s feelings and his actions. He and I both didn’t know anyone at the beginning of the journey but while you learn how to react in different situations and get involved, you also get to know people who are doing specific things with you and whenever you are alone to accomplish the same things again, you know how it works, know how to feel and know to do it. Bilbo and I understand how important it is to try new things and not be afraid of failure.
I know how hard it was for myself to come in a new country and live in a complete new area but I am pretty sure I am not the only one who feels lost sometimes. Whether it is because of puberty and your hormones go crazy or you lost a very important part in life like a family member or a friend died, there is a point in everyone’s life where you don’t know what to do, how to react in specific situations and how to feel. I want to talk to the people who need to hear that they aren’t the only ones who feel like that and it is okay to try things again because they didn’t work in the first place. I have to do it all the time, whether it is starting a sentence again or having to explain why I said something like I said it. It is oaky. People understand that not everything goes perfect the first time you try and you start learning that being confident is something very important in life. You can still be a hero because it is defined “a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble” and everyone can be like that, you don’t need to achieve something big to be a hero, heroes act every day, we just don’t see it the way we should. Sometimes you see tough people in your environment (work or school) and then they do something very nice to someone who needs help. They are heroes. This happened to me once, a guy in my class who is very tough and doesn’t show emotions at all acted very nice to a homeless person. It was at a train station and he didn’t know that I saw him but I saw him giving a homeless person a sandwich and a few coins. I was never expecting him being this nice to a person that he doesn’t know. I never talked to him about the situation but I looked at him with different eyes. And sometimes heroes really save lives. In 2009 an airplane was about to crash because they lost all engine power. The plane was about to crash and all passengers would’ve died but the pilot could land the plane in the Hudson river and saved 155 lives. This is a heroic action but he was an unlikely hero because he didn’t wake up the morning before the tragedy happened and thought “today I will save 155 lives”, no he handled because of the situation and he had to.
But sometimes you fail in what you try and that is okay. When you fail confidently there is a higher chance to still be appreciated and you will be more willing to try again (and again).
So I came to the conclusion that being an unwanted hero isn’t something bad. You still are a hero. I think the biggest issue here is to not believe in yourself.
Bilbo always thought about what the other dwarves thought about him but he started being successful whenever he started being confident in what he was doing. So was I. Before I came here, I never cared about what others thought of me but whenever I arrived my confidence almost didn’t exist anymore. I cared more about what people thought about me than I ever did before, but as soon as I stopped thinking about how people see me and my actions, everything was easier and people started liking me for what I am or what I was doing. I want people to realize that being yourself is a superpower and it is the most important thing is being confident in what you are doing and believing in yourself because if you do, others will and then being an unwanted hero becomes being a hero for others and even if you are an unwanted hero as long as you are yourself there is nothing to be afraid or ashamed of.
This open letter is a typical school moral. But it is true. When I realized being myself is not a bad thing, everything was easier to accomplish. And when Bilbo finally realized that being Bilbo is great and being Bilbo is the best thing he can do, everyone else believed in him and they started to appreciate what he was doing and how he was doing it – in that very adorable and smart Bilbo-way.
C. Camila Koch
