Unpopular opinion but I can’t buy the Hobbit as a good metaphor of the evils of capitalism or that it says anything about how bad rich people are when the end has Bilbo going home rich. I just don’t get why I’m supposed to agree that the Dwarves are a metaphor for rich greedy people and the Jewish connection makes me dislike it. I know the canon hints they deserve their misfortune but I don’t agree with how it’s written.

I don’t agree with it, either.

I like Bilbo, but as I’ve said before, he’s the audience surrogate – that is, if the audience is a clueless white man. Bagginshield (unfortunately) isn’t canon, so we can’t say he spends the rest of his life grieving for Thorin as Thorin was meant to be grieved. It’s arguable that his time with the Ring affected him very deeply and negatively, but I don’t like that he never faced any clear consequences for what he did to Thorin. Thorin DIED. Bilbo…well, as you said, he went home rich, and in the books, there was never a single apology.