QUESTIONS AND INFORMATION
QUESTION: Are melilot and adamanta hobbits?? it's so nice to see hobbits of color!
ANSWER: My favorite sister duo: Melilot and Adamanta Hornblower of Oatbarton. The northern Hornblowers are great friends with the Gamgees and Northcottons and together they administrate the Northcotton farm, the biggest farm of the entire Shire.
​
Melilot is quieter than most hobbits, indulging herself in the little tidbits of lore she can acquire on her people. She dreams of becoming a great scholar and bringing to light the merits of hobbits in history. (Imagine her surprise when she read about the hobbits who fought in the Battle of Fornost). Often her younger sister teases her, but Melilot need only ask, Adamanta would do anything for her.
​
Adamanta on the other hand, is loud and jolly and everything a hobbit can dream to be. She wants to become a Bounder and defend her people against the evil folk of tales she hears at night time about, around the fire. Upon her adulthood, she does become a Bounder, but her determination makes her seek the rangers and ask to join them. They teach her to take advantage of her inborn stealth and also how to wield a knife. She becomes so silent (good hobbit feet) that not even the most skilled of the dunedain can hear her anymore when she approaches.
​
Because Adamanta is still a hobbit her character arc is about her innocence. She might be a Bounder, she might be a honorary ranger, but never has she killed, but only tried to scare away the unfriendly big-folk. The first time she kills, a goblin it is, she does it out of necessity, she does it because otherwise she would have lost her life. It changes her. (just as Frodo’s innocence was lost when Boromir demanded the Ring and fought for it, so was hers).
​
She takes Melilot in the wilds of Evendim, protects her while her older sister rummages through ruins and consults her findings with those of the dunedain scholars. She goes with Melilot all the way to Michel Delving to the Mathom museum and recognizes artifacts invaluable, just stored aside to gather dust. She protects Melilot against Sharkey’s lackeys, and almost loses her life when fighting one. The Shire was theirs and they will not surrender it. The wish of both Melilot and Adamana to go against traditional hobbit roles costed them their innocence and care-free life, because once the two have seen just how much peril surrounded the Shire, they could never go back to simple merry-being and song.