How did an intended children’s story become a series of violent tales of war? I have read that Tolkien placed his horrifying experiences as a British soldier in WWI into the stories. I don’t see that. He began writing The Hobbit 12 years after WWI ended and before WWII began. My theory is that The Hobbit had to contain action and tales of human misery in order to appeal to adults. After all, the adults who would purchase the book would see that it contained way too much detail for children to comprehend or to sit still and have it read to them. The horror in the book seemed to work for those who read it (Many adults could not sit still to read it either). But, there was a low hum of public interest in the story that Tolkien wrote, a measure of its success through constant badgering that Tolkien endured, driving him to continue the tale in one or more additional books.