Classic_Result t1_ixpj4nd wrote
The tone of The Hobbit is definitely more that of a children's story where LOTR is an epic fantasy with a whole bunch of complex characters.
You'd be mistaken in thinking that The Hobbit had little depth, but finding it dull is very much a matter of taste. It's a story of the development of one particular character, whereas LOTR has wildly more complex character development.
Indeed, the plot of LOTR depends heavily on character development. You see characters pushed to their very limits, you see them break, and the day is only saved because they had friends.
The Hobbit is much lighter in tone. LOTR is much darker, very melancholy, but stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey with hope and faith in the possibility that just maybe good will win out in the end.
Maybe you'd like it. Knowing the story of The Hobbit makes the beginning of LOTR make a lot more sense. You appreciate better how odd for a hobbit that Bilbo had become.
Accomplished_Web1549 t1_ixpnt9h wrote
The difference in tone also works in-universe, and with the framing device of the stories only being translated by Tolkien (from the Red Book of Westmarch). The Hobbit is Bilbo's story, written down half a century after the events, a period of time in which he has probably bored the whole of the Shire retelling the tale of his adventure, so the willing audience becomes those who haven't heard it yet, young children. The Lord of the Rings is Frodo's story, an account of struggle and war written in the immediate aftermath of the events by someone with PTSD.
NextBigWriter t1_ixpsax8 wrote
I always say: what the hobbit lacks in depth it has in width
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