I think the goblin king should have been played a little more subtly, but as jonny_eh points out, it's a children's story. While The Hobbit takes place in the l

I think the goblin king should have been played a little more subtly, but as jonny_eh points out, it's a children's story. While The Hobbit takes place in the larger world of Middle Earth, it is also significantly lighter in tone than LotR. It was silly in places, and some silliness is appropriate. Consider the trolls they find early on. Do any of Tolkien's other works ever mention them being more than mute beasts? Yet in the Hobbit, they're dumb but capable of making tools, etc., and they turn to stone in sunlight, a weakness never mentioned elsewhere. This is much more in line with traditional fairy stories, down to Gandalf tricking the trolls until they're caught in sunlight and turn to stone.