THERE is a certain amount of creative license that enters into any film adaptation of a book. And history teaches us that no matter how faithful (or unfaithful) a film adaptation is with respect to its original source, someone will complain about the movie’s (un)faithfulness to the books.

For example, I loved the first two “Harry Potter” movies, which I felt were extremely imaginative and creative. I had never seen children’s movies before where the actors were actually called upon to ACT. Compare the lively, engaged performances of the adults in “Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone” with the wooden performances of otherwise perfectly good actors in classic children’s films like “Mio in the Land of Faraway”, “The Witches”, “The Neverending Story”, and so on. You almost have to go back to Edmund Guinn in “Miracle on 34th Street” to see anything like an adult actor taking a children’s story seriously enough to treat it with respect (well, “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” were pretty good).

But I digress from the main point. Movies can be very faithful to the book, and one of the criticisms that my Harry Potter fan friends who had read the books before watching the movies complained about was that the movies were boring and predictable. They followed the books very closely (even while cutting out a bit of material).

But then along came “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”, which Alfonso Cuarón directed — totally changing the tone and character of the film franchise — and people complained that his film was too UNLIKE the book. Talk about injecting a Goldilocks Syndrome into a fanbase, you just cannot find people agreeing on when the “Harry Potter” movies are just right even up to the last film (which some people hate for all sorts of reasons — but I loved it).

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In this feature, Ringer Captain Salt assembles what we know already form various actor blog posts, video logs and magazine articles and tries to tie it all together.

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Analysing the role of The Necromancer in The Hobbit

By Ringer Captain Salt

The Dol Guldur storyline was only a minor portion of the first Hobbit film. Yet it set in motion things which will expand into a major story thread in The Desolation of Smaug after Gandalf leaves the company early on to deal with “some pressing business away south”.

Just how will the Necromancer story play out in the second film? It appears this depends on how many of the other story lines are tied into that which most serves as a direct prequel to The Lord of the Rings.

The widespread rise of evil

As Gandalf establishes in An Unexpected Journey, the rise of evil preceding The War of the Ring is not localized to Dol Guldur or Mirkwood; trolls and orcs on the move seem to spark concern that the watchful peace may be coming a close. Certainly, it seems that Azog is connected to the Necromancer, at the very least through his son/wretched offspring, Bolg. According to leaked Bridge Direct descriptions from last year:

It was said that Azog the Desecrator fell many years ago in the great battle between the Orcs and the Dwarves. But now he appears again at the top of a deadly horde of killer orcs. For Gandalf begins a race against time because he has to figure out the connection between the most dangerous orc commander and the growing evil, which takes shape in the ruins of the fortress of Dol Guldur. One thing is totally clear: no one will deter Azog from his intention to destroy Thorin Oakenshield’s companions to the last dwarf.

Bolg is the offspring of Azog the Desecrator — like his father, he is huge pale orc. He is the overseer in the dungeons of Dol Guldur — torturing is his hobby. He garnishes his armor with the bones and the blood of his victims. This husky Orc fears nothing and nobody — until he suddenly meets an unexpected opponent.

Azog — Sauron’s newest undead minion?

Azog the Defiler

Also as some have noted, during the final confrontation with the Gundabad Orcs Sting gleams brightly until Bilbo lands across the head of Azog’s warg, at which point the blade dims. Why? Because Sting recognizes that Azog is not a “living” Orc? And why is Bolg, himself a formidable Orc chieftain of the north in Tolkien’s writings, serving as Sauron’s interrogator? Does he owe the Dark Lord a debt for raising a slain Azog from the abyss?

Despite many fans’ probable preference that Azog and Smaug remain independent agents rather than thralls of Sauron, the Bridge Direct description would not mention a connection between Azog and Sauron if there were not one. Additionally, in An Unexpected Journey Gandalf makes mention that he fears “the enemy” — meaning Sauron — could use Smaug “to terrible effect”.

(As an aside, this actually ties closely with Gandalf’s thoughts on the importance of Thorin’s mission and the northern theater in Tolkien’s The Quest for Erebor as published in Unfinished Tales).

And keep in mind that even before he had signed on to the project, but apparently after he had read the then-in-progress scripts, Ian McKellen mentioned that Peter Jackson and Co. had been quite clever about tying the various elements in The Hobbit together. The implication is that we would get a more cohesive narrative than the seemingly largely unrelated linear plot-lines that played out separately in An Unexpected Journey.

Since I had so little direct linguistic information about Black Speech to go on other than what could be gleaned from the Ring-inscription (object suffixes -ul, -ulûk; verbal infinitive (perhaps) ending -at; abstract ending -um in burzum “darkness”, containing the same burz element seen in Lugbúrz “Dark Tower”; postposition -ishi “in”) I had to go on à priori notions of what a language such as Black Speech might be like — I had to get inside the mind of Sauron, and try to figure out what somebody like the Dark Lord of Mordor might put into his language.

As a matter of fact, this is something I had thought about some years before. As an undergraduate in college, I had contributed to a set of ongoing stories, where each participant wrote additional chapters and introduced characters and events as he or she pleased. Into one of these stories I introduced the character (played partly for humor, partly tragically) of a misfit Orc who, sometime after the fall of Mordor, had found himself transported through time and space into a new environment. On introducing this Orc, I thought it would add a touch of realism to let him speak in his own language; so I sketched the outline of what I imagined Black Speech might be like, and wrote a couple of paragraphs in it.

I have no idea if any copy of this text survives somewhere in my files. At any rate, I made no direct use of it, except for one small element that I retained in memory, the first person pronoun za — possibly suggested by Avestan azəm.

What I did retain, however, was the overall notion of Black Speech as a complex but consistent language, rich in affixation and inflection, but with a wholly transparent morphology. Indeed, the transparency of the morphology, the lack of any phonetic alterations between morphemes that could obscure the structure, would help explain the prevalence of clashing consonant clusters; morphemes ending in one consonant were jammed up against morphemes beginning in another, with nothing to ease the transition.

Sauron, I imagined, was an enormously practical person, who would have made the Black Speech as “perfect” (according to his notions of perfection) as he could make it, with a rigorous consistency and logic, but without making any allowance for æsthetics. It would not eschew borrowings from other languages of Middle-earth, but it would adapt them to its own style. It would in fact have been, as my friend Helge Fauskanger terms it, Sauron’s Esperanto.

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I’ve also been reading other what others have had to say in the media. This piece, by Tolkien scholar John Garth, is a good place to start if you’re interested.

Early in The Fall of Arthur, long awaited by fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and now edited for publication by his son Christopher, an army rides to Mirkwood where they see in a storm above it, Ringwraith-like:

wan horsemen     wild in windy clouds
grey and monstrous     grimly riding
shadow-helmed to war,     shapes disastrous.

But this isn’t Middle-earth: it is Europe on the brink of the Dark Ages, and the army is led by Arthur and Gawain. Mirkwood is simply the old name for Germany’s eastern forests, which Tolkien borrowed for the children’s story he was writing in the same period in the early 1930s, The Hobbit.

Tolkien was a writer of endless stories. And as with most of them, The Fall of Arthur is literally endless: unfinished. It’s been lying among his vast legacy of papers, almost unknown but for a paragraph in Humphrey Carpenter’s 1976 biography and a single reference in Tolkien’s published letters. Publication follows that of the more difficult The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún in 2009, which Christopher Tolkien probably elected to publish first because it was complete. Like Sigurd and Gudrún, The Fall of Arthur is in alliterative verse, a mode last fashionable in the 14th century.

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Here, Ringer Captain Salt from the TORn messageboards attempts to put string together all the teasing hints that we’ve seen make their way onto the internet over the past 12-18 months.

Needless to say, this really is SPOILER country. If you don’t even want to know what the plot might be, don’t go here!

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ABSOLUTE LAST CHANCE!

An attempt to decipher The Desolation of Smaug plot

A guest feature by Ringer Captain Salt

The Prologue

Will we make an unexpected return to Bree at the start of DOS?

Act One

Most likely will open with Thorin & Co. heading for Beorn’s house, probably with Azog (or the threat of Azog) still hot on their heels. Perhaps we might have an exchange between Bilbo and Gandy here, as reported from Cinema-Con 2012:

Gandalf: You’re not the same Hobbit who set out from the Shire…what did you find down there, in the Goblin tunnels?
Bilbo (pausing, fingering the Ring): My courage.
Gandalf: Good…you’re going to need it.

Thorin & Co. arrive at Beorn’s house, apparently enraging Beorn who attacks the Company as they try to keep him out of his house. Mikeal Persbrandt has mentioned being strapped to the ceiling for a “difficult torture scene”; his Bridge Direct action figure mentions that he is “the last of his kind”; and the (possible) bear paws used a Bolg’s shoulder pauldrons have led to speculation that there may be a subplot where Bolg or the Necromancer’s minions have a personal animosity with Beorn (perhaps we might have a flashback.

Or Beorn will be introduced to the audience prior to the Company a-la the Rohirrim in TTT). There will also apparently be a scene where Beorn questions/slays at least one Orc himself.

How will the company meet Beorn?

Thorin & Co. will enter Mirkwood, while Gandy will leave them to investigate the growing shadow of the Necromancer; he seems to be departing with some urgency in the bit of this scene from one of the vlogs:

Gandalf: Give me a horse!
Ori: Why, where are you going?!
Gandalf: In search of answers!

Perhaps information given to Gandy by Beorn will spark his side-quest, but for whatever reason, he evidently will leave the Company in a flurry here. Bilbo and the Dwarves enter Mirkwood where many of the events from the novel are (or at one point were) included, such as: Bombur falling into the enchanted stream and being carried by the other dwarves; Thorin’s stag; and Bilbo’s tree/the butterflies (some of this may end up in the EE, or in my opinion, it’s likely to play-out as a rather brief montage).

Somewhere along here, Ori may find a pouch witch will elicit an alarmed (or excited?) response from Dori.

Meanwhile, Gandy investigates the King’s Tomb (crypts of the Nazgul) along with Radagast, only to find that they are empty. There was mention of Gandalf and Elrond scouting out Dol Guldur, but this seems to have been replaced with Raddy as Gandy’s sidekick.

Bilbo and the Dwarves will encounter the spiders; the dwarves will be “webbed” by the spiders, but will apparently be given chase by the beasts before they’re captured – Bilbo evidently escapes and has a confrontation with the spiders here, where Sting will most likely be named. The Wood-elves including Legolas and Tauriel are involved in fighting off the spiders in the film. The dwarves are captured, and Thorin will have a rather tense encounter with Thranduil (Thrandy: It has been a long time since Thorin Oakenshield ventured north…for what purpose?) after which the Dwarves are imprisoned.

Thranduil and Thorin will not get on.

A subplot will involve Tauriel, a young Silvan elf who is a Captain of the Elvenking’s guard and who feels strongly about intervention in the “rise of evil” (potentially a response to the growing power of the Necromancer) while Legolas, apparently taking a cue from his father, is initially isolationist. There is rumored to be a romantic subplot involving Tauriel as well; supposedly Kili will become attracted to her (though for all we know, this is one-sided and a Gimli/Galadriel type-thing); there are pursistant rumors of a Legolas/Tauriel romance; and (IMO most intriguingly) rumors that Tauriel will have an unrequited thing for Thranduil.

Craig Hall has been cast as Galion, the King’s butler, while Eli Kent is playing an Elf named “Lethuin”. (?!?) Robin Kerr also plays an Elf named “Elros” (probably of Rivendell), but obviously we don’t know how he fits into the film.

At one or more point(s), the Elves will battle ranks or Orcs — either on the parapets of the Woodland Realm, on Dol Guldur, somewhere along the River Running, or some combination of these options. At least one Orc will be captured and interrogated by the Elves.

Legolas: There was more the Orc could have told us.
Thranduil: There was NOT more he could have told me!

Azog and his hunters will continue to track Thorin’s Company into DoS; presumbably, Fimbul — who was originally intended to be Azog’s lieutenant, and who appears on the DoS Annual — probably plays a larger role reminiscent of Yazneg in the first film. Ben Mitchell also plays “Narzug” who it doesn’t seem was in AUJ. Conan Stevens as Bolg will also have a part to play amongst the Orcs, probably not only in relation to Azog but in the Necromancer story as well.

Azog will stalk the dwarves across Mirkwood.

Among them them was this interesting piece by Arandir analysing the Battle of the Five Armies. We felt it was deserving of a wider audience and are delighted to — with Arandir’s permission — reproduce it for you as a TORn Library piece.

How many fought at the Battle of the Five Armies?

by TORn staffer Arandir

It is well known that in his stories, especially concerning battles, Tolkien does not give his readers much information about the size of the armies involved. This is the case with the Battle of Five Armies, as described in The Hobbit. This article shall lay out all findings regarding the battle -– focusing on the statistics, quoting passages from the text and providing speculative remarks.

There is no question that from its name, we can make out that the five armies involved are: elves, dwarves, men, goblins and wargs (but also including eagles – to which I refer later on). In The Hobbit the battle is described in the chapter ‘The Clouds Burst’ but in the previous chapters leading to it (and the one that follows after) contain some hints and information about all armies involved.

Before the battle

Taking into consideration the fourteenth chapter from the book, ‘Fire and Water’, during Smaug’s attack on Lake-town, we are presented with the following quotes:

“… every warrior was armed, every arrow and dart was ready.”
“… a hail of dark arrows leaped up and snapped and rattled on his scales and jewels …”
“… cheering on the archers” – Bard
“… there was still a company of archers.”

There is no doubt that Lake-town had some form of army as words like warrior, archers and company are clear references to such a military structure. Regarding numbers, we are not told at this point but one can only guess that since during the town’s destruction many had died or fled (but some remained to fight the Battle of the Five Armies alongside the Elves) a few hundred would have certainly been present.

After the death of Smaug, in the same chapter, we are told about the Wood Elves’ army coming to the men’s rescue.

“He [the Elvenking] had not boats or rafts enough for his host, and they were forced to go the slower way by foot.”

The word host here implies quite a large number of infantry. In fact, if one looks it up in the dictionary, it is described as: “a great multitude, a muster” – just like the mustering of Rohan at the time of the War of the Ring. It can only be assumed that in order to help the men of Lake-town, and carry the large supplies we are told of in the book, the Elvenking would have needed as many elves as he could gather.

“… all the men of arms who were still able, and the most of the Elvenking’s array, got ready to march …”

So now we know that the remaining men who had survived the attack on Lake-town and the majority of the Elf army headed towards the Mountain. Once again array is used to describe the Elven force.

Proceeding towards the next chapter, ‘The Gathering of the Clouds’, the events set in motion by the death of Smaug start to unfold and the strategies of each army will slowly be laid out as the narrative continues. At this point, Thorin and the Company are hiding on top of Ravenhill, but soon receive word of the dragon’s demise by Roäc — along with the following statement:

“… many are gathering hither beside the birds … Already a host of the elves is on the way …”

Smaug Destroys Lake Town – John Howe

With the progression of the chapter, the dwarves find themselves captives inside Erebor as the Mountain is besieged. Yet again, we find further ambiguous references to the size of the armies:

“There came a night when suddenly there were many lights as of fires and torches away south in Dale before them [...] ‘They have come!’ said Balin. ‘And their camp is very great.’”

The next chapter, ‘A Thief in the Night’, contains only one relevant quote -– it is, ironically, one out of two in all The Hobbit that gives any reference to the size of the armies. Thorin soon receives information that a dwarf host has been dispatch to aid in his struggle:

“… Dáin and more than five hundred dwarves, hurrying from the Iron Hills …”

The idea that five hundred dwarves participated in the Battle of Five Armies is something that almost every reader of the book is aware of.

But this is still unclear since it cleverly uses the words more than. How much more than that figure they could have been is impossible to state, but what is definitive is that by including Thorin, his company, Dáin and possibly dwarf scouts and other military workforce, between 525 and 550 might have been present that day of the battle.

The day-to-day operation of the website, and the events we host, require a lot more resources than when we first started nearly 15 years ago. We sometimes find it hard to ask our readers for the help we need to keep running, so we began discussing what it is that makes TheOneRing.net worth helping out. It started out as a search for the Top Ten Moments of TORn, but the list got so long because each staff member had their own idea of important moments in TORn history. Here, instead, is something more encompassing: Ten Ways TORn helps serve Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fandom (listed in no specific order).

And, if you enjoy what we do, consider a donation (no amount too small, because every bit does help!) to keep us running!

If you can’t, that’s fine as well — keep reading, commenting and contributing. Because TORn is as much you as it is us!

If you’ve ever sent in an article, submitted a photo or report, posted on our messageboards, visited our chat, or commented on our twitter, facebook or g+, you’re the reason TheOneRing.net is among the largest and most-respected pillars of the Tolkien community on the web.

• Spy Reports

• Spy reports were a big part of our content when the website first started. From casting announcements to secret location pictures to leaked images of important plot points, spy reports were our bread and butter stories. Some of the reports were from random, anonymous sources, while others were official leaks from cast and crew. In fact, there were many production members who said they used TheOneRing.net to keep track of what some of the other filming units were doing. Other spy reports were just someone stumbling upon a film location and sending in a story or images and then we’d all try and guess what location it actually was. Some of our biggest spy reports were of Arwen at Helm’s Deep (which subsequently didn’t happen), Saruman’s prone body on a spiky wheel (which did happen), and TheOneRing.net was given the honor of introducing Thorin to the world. And very soon, we will be seeing stories from MrCere’s visit to the set from his Production Embed last year.

• Hall of Fire Chats and the Message Boards

• Literary discussions on the message boards and Hall of Fire chats – From the very beginning of TheOneRing.net, discussions of the books, chapter by chapter, has been a hallmark. After all, while we waited for news on who would be cast, where filming would take place, and rumors of what might be cut out, we had the books to talk about. Discussions worked by talking about one chapter at a time, and luckily, there are enough books with enough chapters, to keep those discussions going on for a long while. Since the beginning, we’ve looped through the books several times, but luckily, there are always new readers joining the discussion, and new interpretations to be had. And for something a little more dynamic, there are the Hall of Fire chats in Barlimans. Sometimes the talk is about a specific chapter, or a certain character, and sometimes it is about current events, such as new character images or reviews of a recently released trailer. No matter which forum you use, there is always someone to talk to about some aspect of Tolkien, the books or our fandom.

• TORns Live Videos

• We began with TORn Live, which consisted of Red Carpet interviews at premieres, awards ceremonies and special events like Cannes 2001 and SDCC. These would be recorded, edited and released online a few days or weeks later. But technology now allows for live streaming interviews and vlogs and the like. Quickbeam hosts a weekly TORn Tuesday event with interviews and discussions, while he interacts with a live chatroom. The Happy Hobbit ladies record and post their vlogs and post them within a day or two of their recordings, for a much quicker turnaround on video content. And right now we have the Road to DragonCon in full swing with live streaming from across the country.

• Conventions

• Convention appearances – Calisuri and Quickbeam hosted a panel at San Diego Comic Con in 2001, before the release of FOTR, and since then barely a year has gone by that TORn hasn’t had a presence at at least one convention. At many of the conventions we appear at we also have a presence on the exhibit hall floor where we have sold some of our classic TORn shirts. We love it when we get up on stage for a panel and half the people in the audience are wearing some of our older shirts.

•  

  

  Baggins Birthday Party sign

  Line Parties and Fan Events

• Line Parties and other fan hosted events – TheOneRing.net has always been a grass roots type of fan-site and that is no more apparent then looking at the Line Parties of years past. Whether it is just a few friends, or some hundreds of people signing up on the website to attend, fans like you all over the world hosted Line Parties. A few even took place over several days, and included costume contests and trivia games for prizes. Other fan hosted events over the years have been the Hobbit Day/Baggins Birthday Bash events on Sept. 22, the Tolkien Toast on Jan. 3 and the Tolkien Reading Day on March 25. TORn staff in Los Angeles have been hosting a Baggins Birthday Bash party for 11 years now, but there are fan groups around the world that have hosted similar events. Smaller moots happen around the world all the time, there is a very active group in Wellington and one in Croatia. If you are hosting a fan event in the next year or two, please feel free to tell us about it.

• The Oscar Parties

• Originally conceived as a fan event to help raise funds to buy TORn a new server, who could have imagined the Cast and Crew actually showing up to the FOTR oscar party? Even more surprising, who could have imagined the ROTK sweep and all those Oscars on stage at a fan hosted party?

• O.R.C and E.L.F.

• TheOneRing.net hosted conventions – The One Ring Celebration on the West Coast (O.R.C.) and the Eastern Lord of the Rings Festival on the East Coast (E.L.F.) were co-productions with a professional convention company, but they definitely had a TORn stamp on them. The conventions allowed us to combine our love of the films by interacting with cast and crew with our love of the books through academic discussions, the art shows and costume displays. We really did break the mold on how a commercial scifi convention is run and hope everyone who attended had a blast.

• Academic essays and editorials

• TORn has long standing relationships with many in the academic community who have posted guest essays and editorials. Over the year several staffers have posted in depth analysis to fan questions on the site as well. In fact, we have a whole section on the ‘old TORn’ (pre-crash) called Green Books for academic posts. This section had so much good stuff in it, we published a book called “The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien” and a sequel book as well.

• Driving fan initiatives

• After Return of the King was done and Peter Jackson moved on to do King Kong, the fans waited to see what would happen with The Hobbit afterwards. Months turned to years and still no word while studios went bankrupt, copyrights issues got tangled up and various lawsuits were filed for missing payments. Finally, a few fans decided they had had enough and started a petition to ‘Make the Hobbit Happen’. They brought it to TORn and we got thousands of you to sign so that a big pile of names was delivered to TPTB. A similar thing happened when there was talk that the production would be moved out of New Zealand. The fans could see no where else as Middle-earth, so the ‘Keep the Hobbit in NZ’ campaign was born, but this time on Social Media. And most recently, there was an explosion of Tolkien fan love over the #Votebilbo twitter event prompted by an MTV Audience Award.

• TORn Community

• This list compiles many of the things that TheOneRing.net does to keep you informed, entertained and engaged, but there is really just one thing that makes TheOneRing.net so important to keep around. And that is the community of fans that convene on our message boards, in Barliman’s chat, on Facebook and Twitter.

This site was built by fans getting together to discuss what they hoped for from Peter Jackson long before FOTR ever saw the light of day. The fact that a long existing fan-base gathered here meant engaged and informed discussion began from day one, including analyzing all the spy reports about casting and location details. We didn’t have to wait for the release of the films, or for several episodes of a new show to take off before we could discuss the minutia of every detail because our fan base was already well established.

And what is ‘fandom’ if not a community of like minded people passionate about the same thing. Sure, everyone has their own opinions, so every time a new image was released, or a new trailer appeared, the message boards and chatroom erupted into heated discussions. But as the years wore on friendships were made, some turning into marriage, and we all began meeting up at various moots, conventions, concerts, premiere events, trips to New Zealand or just coffee and a movie. How many of you newer fans were galvanized by the #Votebilbo campaign and now have a wider array of Twitter friends because of it? The fact that TORn was able to continue to exist during all those lean years between film productions is due mostly to you, the readers, sticking around to discuss anything and everything to do with Tolkien, and sometimes other bits of pop culture. We know that after the release of The Hobbit: There and Back Again we will see another decline of readership, but we also know that the community is strong, the friendships have been forged and all of you take that fandom with you where ever you go next.

So again, if you are so inclined to help support us and keep the website going, please do make a pledge or bid on one of the many cool auction items we’ve been posting about the past few days. On behalf of the All Volunteer Staff at TheOneRing.net, you have our deepest gratitude for all the support over the years.

Like the dwarves of Erebor, the Celts were a group of people renowned for their warriors who were forced to flee their mountainous homeland in the east due to unknown strife around 1600 BCE (the Bronze Age). Spilling into Europe, the Celts wandered for generations, making their way west to the British Isles. It is worth noting that the term “Celts” applies to several groups of un-unified peoples who, much like the dwarves, were prone to both fighting against each other and in turn, banding together to unite against a common enemy, such as the Roman legions.

When comparing the Celts to dwarves, it is important to focus on one of the northern tribes (in modern Scotland): the Picts. They were given their name by the Romans, who found the animal shapes and designs they painted on their bodies with blue woad to be curious pictures. The Celts were also in the habit of shaping their hair before battle – using a mixture of lime and urine as a sort of styling clay that caked white onto their tresses and made their hair stand on end. For a cinematic example of these ancient warriors, check out the trailer for Kevin MacDonald’s adaptation of The Eagle (2011).

The Eagle (2011)

If the interviews with Billy Connolly from last summer are still accurate, then we can expect Dáin Ironfoot to “have a Mohawk and tattoos on my head…I arrive riding a wild pig.” Sound familiar?

It should also be noted that as a Scot, Connolly himself is a Celt. In fact, many of the actors portraying dwarves in The Hobbit are of Celtic descent, and several were allowed to keep their respective accents. James Nesbit’s Bofur speaks in his Northern Irish brogue, and Graham McTavish’ Dwalin (who also bears war-paint like tattoos) sounds like the Scot he is. Aidan Turner, Kili, is an Irishman, Dean O’Gorman, playing his brother Fili, is a Kiwi of Irish descent, and Ken Stott (Balin) is another Scotsman.

As an interesting side note, belonging to the Order of Fili (wisemen and poets) was required for a warrior to enter Ireland’s elite Fenian ranks. Kili, similarly, could be argued as an alternate spelling/pronunciation of the common Irish surname Kelly, which means warrior (and is coincidentally why I was given my TORn nickname, since it is my birth name).  Naming the two youngest of Durin’s heirs names that invoke a warrior heritage makes sense, however, it is unknown if Tolkien was aware of these linguistic connections.

Any listener of The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey Special Edition soundtrack will know that the track “Erebor” begins with a proud bagpipe solo: a clear nod to the Scottish. Artist John Howe makes several references to Celtic inspiration in the first Hobbit Chronicles book, citing references to both Kili’s flip knife and Ori’s board game as being based on Celtic artifacts.

Even Celtic dress sounds similar to that of the dwarves: “In terms of clothing, the Celtic women wore a simple long garment with a cloak. The men wore trousers (sometimes knee length), a sleeved tunic reaching the thigh, a cloak, and sandals or boots. A metal piece of jewelry for around the neck called a torc (torques) was quite popular. Clothing dyed in bright colors was common. Men wore droopy mustaches, sometimes beards, and often long hair, all of this in contrast to the contemporary Romans.”

An artist’s rendition of male Celtic dress

However, the Celtic link to the dwarves in Tolkien’s writing isn’t as obvious as the Nordic influences, so why did the filmmakers take this route?

The easy answer is because it hasn’t been done yet. None of the races previously explored in Jackson’s Middle-earth had a Celtic slant, and identifying the dwarves with the proud warriors of the Celts distinguishes them as a race and culture apart from the rest, especially where the Picts are concerned.

The dwarves are from the north, just as Scotland is north of England, the nation that is conceivably Tolkien’s main inspiration for Middle-earth. More than any other race, Tolkien’s dwarves link their existence with the mountains, very much like Highlanders. Also like the Highlanders, Dáin and his people are renowned for their endurance, running for days to come to Thorin’s aid.

Similarly to the Dwarves, the land of the Picts was under constant threat. While such a military force may seem unimpressive by today’s standards, imagine yourself back at the dawn of the Common Era when the world was a much quieter place. The roar of a Roman cavalry charge echoing across the land like earthen thunder would have been much like the advance of Smaug. The armor of the legionnaires glinted in the sunlight like so many serpentine scales. Such a monstrous force was hitherto unknown to the indigenous Britons and was, understandably, often likened to a dragon.

Smaug the Terrible is very much a metaphor for warfare and greed. Just as the Roman invaders laid waste to villages and scattered tribal peoples, so did the dragon. The Romans modified Britain’s landscape and scoured the land for natural resources, just as Smaug scorched the earth and hoarded the treasure of the dwarves.

Scotland in the Roman era

The Picts, like Durin’s folk, stood strong against the Roman dragon and slaughtered entire legions and then some. Unable to subdue the northern tribes, Emperor Hadrian began construction on a massive wall to keep the tribes out of the fertile lands of England in 122 CE. This wall is known as Hadrian’s Wall and its remnants remain near the modern Scottish-English border. Had the dwarves ever turned on the race of Men, such a measure would have probably been taken!

Ruins of Hadrian’s Wall

Tolkien would have been well-aware of this history, and in fact, even his beloved Anglo-Saxons found the Celts to be formidable opponents. The Icelandic sagas written in the 13th century warn their people not to go to Scotland if they wished to live. One Scot in the saga, said to be Grjotgard, a kinsman of Melkolf (the king of Scotland), was quoted as saying to the Saxons: “You have two choices. You can go ashore and we will take all your property, or we’ll attack you and kill every man we lay our hands on.”

Given that the tale survives, it’s not difficult to tell which option the Icelandic warriors chose. It also isn’t difficult to imagine Thorin Oakenshield issuing such an ultimatum to invaders.

We must await the next two films to see what further Celtic traits will be shown through the dwarves. But as a Celt myself, I applaud Jackson and Weta’s decision to explore a facet of British culture that was previously understated in Tolkien.

Staffer Kili is one-half of the TORn Happy Hobbit crew. The views and opinions presented in this article are her own, and do not necessarily represent those of TheOneRing.net or its staff.

Azog the Defiler

In particular, he examines whether persistent criticism of this key villain might be a result of flaws inadvertently introduced by the relatively late switch from two films to three.

Did Azog defile An Unexpected Journey?

By Rud the Spud

Azog is an aspect of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey that has perturbed me for some time now.

Did he or didn’t he work in An Unexpected Journey? And, if not, was he the victim of the late change from two to three films?

I don’t know if it was the massive hype (which I’m glad there is less of for Desolation of Smaug), the huge expectations off the back of The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy or whether it was simply the basic love for the book itself, but I found An Unexpected Journey mildly disappointing.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it and I loved so many aspects of it but there remains an uneasy feeling that I’ve only recently been able to define.

And that is Azog.

AZOG IN THE TOLKIEN’S LEGENDARIUM

The Battle of Azanulbizar.

In Tolkien’s Legendarium, the Battle of Azanulbizar was fought in retaliation for this dishonour.

In An Unexpected Journey, the battle is condensed into Thrór’s large-scale attempt to retake Moria. It is during this battle that Azog decapitates him in the film. Events are altered: in the book it was Náin, father of Dáin Ironfoot, who Azog slew. And it was Dáin (who will be played by Billy Connolly in There and Back Again) who leapt after Azog and hewed off his head before Moria’s East Gate.

At Azanulbizar, Thorin did fight off several orcs with an oak branch, but Tolkien does not report that he went near Azog. But the upshot is that Azog was truly slain in the battle. He does not return; it is his son, Bolg, who nurses the grudge against Dáin and the dwarves. And it is Bolg who leads the wargs and goblins into the Battle of the Five Armies. Bolg’s role in the movies is yet to unfold.

The alteration of events for the sake of making a concise screenplay is understandable and acceptable. The filmmakers instead use the Azanulbizar to emphasise the heroism of our central character Thorin and establish back stories for Balin and Dwalin. Even the survival of Azog wasn’t a major issue for me initially. It was a little contrived how Thorin believed him to be dead (doesn’t he know how movies work?) but even that was acceptable.

It was the depiction of Azog that irks me the most.

Also, this weekend (Saturday August 24 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be returning to our Lord of the Rings book chats. This week we begin the first chapter of book four — The Taming of Smeagol — so be sure to join us for this exciting topic!

Also, this weekend (Saturday August 17 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be focusing on a movie topic — Beorn. That’s right, the shapeshifter of the Vales of the Anduin and hero of the Battle of the Five Armies. What do you think of Mikael Persbrandt, what are your thoughts on Beorn’s demense and hall so far, and what do you think of the spy image that we revealed last Friday? Those are just a few of the questions we’ll touch on, so don’t miss it!

High Goblin Activity by William Puck.

TheOneRing.net chatted with the mysterious Mr Puck to find out more about himself and his work. Read on, and discover what he had to say — and see some of the examples of his guerilla-style, street art as well.

TORn: Tell us a little bit about yourself. The cliff notes version, I guess, although I am sure you don’t want to give away too much!

I grew up in Connecticut and came to New York City to go to art school back in the mid ’80s. I studied illustration and animation. I’ve been here ever since.

TORn: Why “William Puck”?

I needed a street name for the work I was about to do. The MTA has a strict policy against anyone putting posters in the subways, so using my real name would have been unwise. I wanted a name that was short, identifiable and had a little bit of mischief to it.

I chose the name “Puck” from my favorite William Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I was about to misdirect and baffle viewers just like Puck did. And for fun, I added William as my first name.

TORn: How long have you been working as a graphic artist?

I’ve been making art professionally for around 25 years or so.

TORn: How did you become interested in Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit? What drew you to them and what do you like about them?

For your safety... Watch our for Smaug! by William Puck.

My love for the books stems from Bilbo’s and Frodo’s journeys. These two unassuming, gentle people are thrown into the biggest threat facing the world. By all logic, they should have been trampled and killed by the forces of evil. But their inner strength, compassion and friendship carry them through to the end, changing the course of the world for good. They give us the greatest gift there is — hope.