Of all Tolkien’s characters in the originalHobbitbook,Beorn the Skinchangeris arguably the most mysterious. He only features in the story for a short span of time, and the little information that is given to the reader is distilled through Gandalf. The wizard usually speaks in cryptic riddles anyway, which makes it even harder to understand where this beguiling bear-man came from. Peter Jackson and the creative team did spend some time fleshing out the character for the purpose of the movie trilogy, both in the visual concept design and in his back-story. During the scene in which the dwarves and Bilbo sit around his table breaking their fast on honey and milk, Beorn tells them of his past, and how all ofhis people were enslaved, tortured, and wiped outby Azog the defiler and his band of orcs.
As Azog hardly features at all in the books, this is a link and a back-story that was created solely for the movies, to make the audience more compassionate towards Beorn and to flesh out his character, which is very different from inTolkien’s original writing. However, there are still many perplexities about who he really is, why he hates dwarves so much, and where he originally comes from. The aforementioned scene describing the treatment of his people seems to suggest that the Skin Changers are an entirely different race of beings, much like many ofthe other peoples of Middle Earth, and that they were beaten and chased down from the mountains long ago. Interestingly though, one of the characters inThe Hobbitmovie seems to have a different theory about the origins of Beorn.
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In one of thefunniest dwarf scenesof the trilogy, the members of Thorin’s company are chased through the forest by a raiding pack of orcs. When they finally outrun them, and stop to rest at a safe place, Bilbo warns them of a creature that he has seen prowling at the top of the valley. Gandalf suddenly realizes that they have crossed into Beorn’s land, and all of them sprint straight towards his house, with the giant bear following hot on their heels. They make it inside, but only just, and all of them are terrified by the encounter with the creature at the door. Dori, who is known as the ‘mother-hen’ of the group, and feels his own particular responsibility of looking out for young Ori, is especially shaken, and quite convinced that Gandalf has led them into even further danger. He pulls Ori away from any surfaces in the house, into the center of the room and tells him not to touch anything: “Come away from there! It’s not natural, none of it! It’s obvious he’s under some dark spell.”
This is an interesting concept, and although it could just be chalked up to Dori’s overly-fussy, perhaps paranoid state at the time, it does beg the question: Was Beorn born a skin changer, or is it really some terrible curse like Dori fears? In response, Gandalf gives one of his usually cryptic answers “Nonsense. He is under no enchantment but his own.”
This doesn’t really offer any clarity on the matter, as it suggests that there may still be some magic involved, but that it definitely isn’t something that has been forced upon him. However, many fans took Gandalf’s unusual explanation to mean that Beorn was in fact born into this race, with the ability to change into a bear, but that the ‘enchantment of his own’ refers to his choice to be able to change or not. If he has enoughcontrol over this power, then he is able to change at will, or prevent himself from doing so. Therefore, he has chosen to spend more of his time as a bear than as a man, possibly because it helps him to protect all the animals of his lands from the orcs better, or possibly because he feels more comfortable in this skin, and feels as though he can be among them in a more natural and wild way with his bear skin.
Or perhaps this is a choice that he made when he was younger, that he could either embrace the bear or banish it forever, similar to the concept explored inDisney’s Turning Red. Perhaps the enchantment was placed on his family centuries ago, but it was his decision to continue on with the magic of his blood, rather than lose it forever. This is one of those questions that Tolkien never wrote the answer for, but in many ways, keeping this character and the secret of his shape-shifting abilities as a secret only makes Beorn all the more alluring.
