Bilbo has a last chance to see Thorin, wounded fatally in battle. Bilbo himself does not suffer such a fate, but neither will he be commemorated as a hero. Thorin is buried as a hero, with his treasured jewel and his sword, accompanied in death as he was in life by his loyal companions Kili and Fili. There is a sense that an entire way of living in the world is buried with him.
Justice is served when Bard is granted a share of the dwarves’ treasure, as Thorin had promised him, and when Bilbo is given some of the treasure, as well, for Bilbo has proven absolutely essential to the recovery of that treasure.
But it is with a sense of relief and some weariness after the battle that Bilbo turns toward home in the company of Gandalf.
