Thorin II Oakenshield

Lineage and early life

Thorin was born in T.A. 2746 at Erebor, eldest child of Thráin II and grandson of Thrór, King under the Mountain. Through them he descended from Durin the Deathless, which made him heir to the eldest line of all the Dwarves, the Longbeards. He had a younger brother, Frerin, and a sister, Dís, who became the mother of Fíli and Kíli. His childhood was spent in the richest Dwarf-kingdom of the age, when the toy-market of Dale was famous and the Mountain's halls rang with the noise of forges.

The coming of Smaug

That life ended in 2770, when Thorin was twenty-four. Smaug fell on the Mountain, burned Dale, and lay down on the hoard. Thorin was outside on the mountainside that day and so escaped the slaughter at the gate, and he met his father and grandfather where they had come out by the secret door on the western slope. The royal house of Durin became a band of wanderers, working as smiths and labourers among Men, and the memory of that humiliation never left Thorin.

Oakenshield

In 2790 Thrór went to Moria and was murdered by Azog. Thráin raised all the houses of the Dwarves to avenge him, and Thorin, then in his forties and young by Dwarvish reckoning, fought through the whole War of the Dwarves and Orcs. At the final battle in the Dimrill Dale beneath the East-gate of Moria in 2799 the Dwarves were driven back at first, and Thorin's shield was broken. He hewed a branch from an oak and used it as a shield in one hand and a club in the other, and from that day he was Oakenshield. His brother Frerin died in that battle, as did Náin of the Iron Hills and Fundin, father of Balin and Dwalin. The Dwarves won, but the cost was so great and the shadow within Moria so plain that they would not enter it, and the survivors went home. Thráin took Thorin west, first to Dunland and then, around 2802, to the Blue Mountains, where they built halls and worked iron.

King in exile

In 2841 Thráin, driven by his Ring, set out toward Erebor with Balin and Dwalin and a few others. He was lost in Mirkwood in 2845 and never seen by his people again. Thorin, not knowing his father's fate, became King of Durin's Folk in exile from 2850, when Thráin died in the dungeons of Dol Guldur. Thorin ruled the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains for ninety years. They prospered in a modest way, their numbers grew, and they traded along the roads of Eriador, but Thorin's thoughts turned always toward the Mountain, the hoard, and the wrong done to his house. He had no wife and no children; his heirs were his sister's sons.

The meeting with Gandalf

On the evening of March 15, 2941, on the road near Bree, Thorin met Gandalf, who was worried about Smaug as a weapon that Sauron might one day use against the North. Thorin invited the wizard to his halls, and there the two argued out a plan. Thorin wanted war; Gandalf told him that his people were too few and that stealth was the only road, and proposed a burglar, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Gandalf also gave Thorin the map and key of Erebor, which he had taken from the dying Thráin in Dol Guldur nearly a century before. Thorin accepted the hobbit with poor grace, and his doubts about Bilbo coloured the first half of the journey.

The quest of Erebor

The company of thirteen Dwarves and one hobbit set out from the Shire in late April 2941. Thorin led it through the troll-country of the Trollshaws, where he found the elven sword Orcrist in the trolls' hoard, and through Rivendell, where Elrond read the moon-letters on the map that told of the secret door and Durin's Day. In the Misty Mountains the company was captured by the goblins of the High Pass, and Thorin was brought before the Great Goblin, who recognised Orcrist and would have killed him had Gandalf not intervened. They escaped, were treed by Wargs and goblins, and were rescued by the Eagles. After rest at the house of Beorn they entered Mirkwood, where hunger and the spiders nearly finished them; Thorin was taken separately by the Wood-elves when he stepped into the light of their feast, and he sat in the dungeons of Thranduil refusing to tell the Elvenking where he was going or why. Bilbo freed him and the rest by hiding them in barrels floated down the Forest River to Lake-town, where Thorin strode into the Master's hall and named himself King under the Mountain returned.

The door and the dragon

In the autumn the company reached the Mountain, found the secret door, and opened it at sunset on Durin's Day when a thrush knocked and the last light showed the keyhole. Bilbo went down alone and took a cup from the sleeping dragon, and Smaug's rage drove the Dwarves inside the tunnel while he laid waste the mountainside. When the dragon flew off to punish Lake-town, Thorin led the company down into the hall of the hoard, where Bilbo found the Arkenstone and, having heard Thorin's longing for it, quietly kept it. Thorin armed his companions from the treasury and gave Bilbo a coat of mithril mail. They learned from the ravens that Bard had slain Smaug in the lake, and Thorin at once sent to his cousin Dáin in the Iron Hills for aid.

The siege

Bard and Thranduil came to the Mountain with an army and asked for a share of the treasure, for the dragon's ruin of Lake-town and for Girion's old wealth. Thorin, now with the hoard beneath his feet and the dragon-sickness working on him, refused to treat with an armed host at his gate and walled up the Front Gate. Bilbo, seeing no other way out, carried the Arkenstone to Bard by night to use as a bargaining piece. When Thorin learned it, he cursed the hobbit and drove him from the Mountain, and only Gandalf's presence kept him from worse. He agreed to buy back the stone with Bilbo's promised share, but he was already planning to take it by force when Dáin's five hundred arrived.

The Battle of Five Armies and death

The Dwarves of the Iron Hills were about to fall on the Elves and Men when Gandalf revealed that an army of goblins and Wargs under Bolg, son of Azog, was descending on the Mountain. Dwarves, Elves and Men joined against them on the spurs of Erebor. When the day was turning against the allies, Thorin threw down the wall he had built, came out with his company in the armour of the hoard, and led a charge that broke the goblin front. He cut his way toward Bolg's bodyguard, but the charge went too deep, the enemy closed round it, and Thorin fell with many wounds, while Fíli and Kíli died defending him. The arrival of the Eagles and of Beorn turned the battle, and it was Beorn who carried Thorin out of the fight. That night Thorin sent for Bilbo, took back his words, and made his peace with the hobbit, praising the things of ordinary life that he had undervalued. He died the next day.

Burial and legacy

Thorin was laid deep under the Mountain with the Arkenstone on his breast, and Orcrist upon his tomb, where the Elves said it would glow whenever an enemy approached. His cousin Dáin succeeded him as King under the Mountain and restored the kingdom that Thorin had reopened but never ruled. Thorin's story is a mixture of nobility and pride: he was courageous, tenacious and loyal to his companions, and he also came close to ruining everything he had achieved for the sake of gold. His quest, small as it looked beside the wars of the age, removed the dragon that Sauron might have used, secured the North, and put the One Ring in the hands of a hobbit.

Mortally wounded in the Battle of Five Armies in T.A. 2941; reconciled with Bilbo and died the following day, and was buried under the Mountain with the Arkenstone and Orcrist.