Talk:On the Doorstep

Cheap trick
The Hobbit was an early work by Tolkien and in some respects was published more as a fairy-story for children than as a serious mythological work (as was the case with The Lord of the Rings), and as such he used some simplistic and fantastical plot elements that he probably wouldn't have done otherwise. One of these was the "magic rock" mechanism by which the last light of Durin's Day – and not just of any Durin's Day but the particular one during which the dwarves showed up – made a flake of rock fall off with a loud cracking sound on cue from the thrush's call, revealing the keyhole. This doesn't make much sense (it's as if the thrush were an official gatekeeper whose job it was to command the keyhole to be revealed when the right astronomical conditions and presence of dwarves coincided), and is certainly not how one would expect a hidden Dwarven door to work. It would've been better had there been many tiny cracks in the wall, and the last light of the sun on that day had fallen only on the particular crack that held the keyhole. - Gradivus (Talk) 14:04, January 15, 2014 (UTC)