There are several characters in Tolkien's works whose defining characteristic is their girth. Perhaps the best known is Forlong the Fat, the Lord of Lossarnach who met his fate in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. There were also two Hobbits who shared the title, Otto Boffin and Lalia Clayhanger. Otto the Fat was an important patriarch of the Boffins, and the ancestor of most of the members of that family named in The Lord of the Rings. Lalia the Fat (or, more politely, Lalia the Great) was the widow of Thain Fortinbras Took II of the Shire.
Though only two Hobbits were explicitly given the title 'the Fat', Hobbits in general were given to a degree of portliness. This is reflected in other Hobbit-names and titles that express the notion of fatness in a rather less direct way, such as 'Bracegirdle' or 'Broadbelt'.
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- Updated 13 April 2013
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