Bombur's fall into the water is not strong enough to be a neat and clean, very precise mythological allusion but it does resemble several scenes and motifs (a few of which are worth noting). Politically incorrect? Certainly. But Bombur's sleep, sluggishness and gluttony are not merely coincidental; Bombur is becoming a comic‹a specific type of character who plays a buffoon: he is overweight, he sleeps, he must be carried and he is semi-conscious yet quite hungry. In terms of character development, Bombur maybe "round" physically, but in literary terms he is still "flat." Realize though, that the food- and sleep-loving Hobbit is even more of a hero, when Bombur can take his place as the burdensome, lethargic, hungry character. Especially, when we consider that there are fourteen dwarves and not all of them have personalities, it seems we are not taking excessive license here; rather, we are drawing an insightful conclusion: the dwarves are plot-devices and the story is really about Bilbo and the ring. If Thorin were the hero, he would have proven it by now‹and not by getting himself lost. Tolkien's groups may travel in packs of fourteen and fifteen‹even the LOTR Trilogy begins with an awkwardly large pack of travelers‹but the heroes are only able to locate and develop their heroism, an inborn thing, when they are alone. The parallel between the lost hero, Thorin, and the lost hobbit, Bilbo, becomes interesting now. The alliteration of swords: "Beater," "Biter" may toss add a certain gleam to these blades, alternately called cleavers and hammers. And to their credit, these swords have slain many foes in battle. But Tolkien's presentation departs from the outmoded medieval fields of battle (so unfortunately resuscitated in WWI trench-style fighting), and quite rationally understands good vs. evil to be a war composed of skirmishes, nighttime ambushes, one-on-one fights and internal (personal) struggles. Bilbo is a hero who does not fight armies, yet he wins battles without seeking them. Bilbo does not fit the archetype of the epic hero on a quest, because even the medieval Christianized revisions produce questing hero who are more martial than Bilbo is. It is significant that Bilbo names his sword and that he names it: "Sting." And unlike Beater and Biter, Sting is treated as a metonym: it is only associated with Bilbo, but because Bilbo is invisible it is considered to be his body because this body part is all that can be seen. Here, the part becomes the whole (body).