Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week One

[sigridhr]

 *smashes a bottle of champagne over the post* And we're off!

Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week One (The Hobbit)
Chapter I: An Unexpected Party
Chapter II: Roast Mutton

Rules

I very much doubt we'll require much in the way of formal rules, but just for the sake of formality and clarity:

• Discussion is welcome and encouraged, as is disagreement. Name-calling and personal attacks will be punished by a barefoot gauntlet walk across a set of lego pieces. 
  
• There is no spoiler policy in place. Although we're reading the Hobbit, please feel free to bring in things from other Tolkien works, any of the films, the History of Middle Earth, the Letters of JRR Tolkien, and, if you should like, other literary sources. 
• There is no such thing as too nerdy. Or too excited. 
• If you have any concerns at any point, I'm the closest thing this gong show has to a mod, so feel free to get in touch. I can be reached either by PM through this site, or directly by email at sigridhr.lokidottir@gmail.com. 

Discussion on this post will officially run from Friday 11th January 2013 to Friday 18th January 2013. However, the post will remain open after that point, so you're more than welcome to continue discussions on. 

(I'm cheating a bit, as it's not quite the 11th here yet, but I want to get this up before I go to work tomorrow, and 6am posting is just asking for disaster). Have at it, guys! :) 

Comments

[sigridhr]

Aragorn does, I think. Except for the whole 'sorry I nicked your daughter and condemned her to death, foster dad, but we're quite happy, thanks' thing. It's more bittersweet than Sam's, I suppose. :P

[sigridhr]

Precisely.

Surely Thranduil will make him take his shoes off in his home? It would be rude to do otherwise! (Please oh please oh please).

[j_quadrifrons]

That's what I meant - everyone else gets, at best, a bittersweet ending. Sam gets to go home to the Shire, have a million children, be Mayor, write his books, and then, in the end, go west to the Undying Lands to be with Frodo. No one else gets it anywhere near that good (with the possible exception of Merry and Pippin, who get the same except for going west.)

[j_quadrifrons]

Or there's always Laketown, where they all get new clothes!

[sigridhr]

Can I just take this moment to say how very much I am looking forward to seeing some of those dwarves get really, really wet?

Because I am.

[sigridhr]

Mmm... very true.

[j_quadrifrons]

You are not the only one.

(Damn these hot Dwarves.)

[anki_koda]

I am so sorry to butt in but...did someone mention Hot-wet Dwarves?

[j_quadrifrons]

Sexy, wet Dwarves for everyone!

[sigridhr]

Haha! It's like a fangirl homing beacon.

Speak of hot, wet dwarves, and they will come...

(Read puns into that as you will).

[anki_koda]

That's what will keep me sane til December actually. That and sassy Thranduil I can't hardly wait to see him speak with Thorin

[anki_koda]

Oh, I am doing it don't worry. ;)

[sigridhr]

I feel like the conversation between Thranduil and Thorin where Thorin refuses to tell him why they're there will be hilarious. Lee Pace's Thranduil seems to have this odd, other-worldly detachment, and Thorin'll just be sitting there like a really furious, grumpy bulldog, refusing to budge.

[anki_koda]

hahaha, like a bulldog!! And Thranduil would have some cookies saying 'Donw, boy! Down! Tell me what I want to know and I give you a cookie!'

[sigridhr]

Thorin seems like he requires a lot of positive reinforcement, though. It took Bilbo throwing himself at an orc like a squirrel trying to take down an elephant to get him on his side. :P

[anki_koda]

Dwarves are very hard to train

[anki_koda]

Can I ask you guys something, why does everyone seem to hate the Arwen from the movies?

[sigridhr]

I was a bit young when the films came out (10 or 11, I think), so I missed a lot of the bruhaha, but from what I can recall people were concerned on two fronts: 1) they thought she was a little too warrior princess, because she replaced Glorfindel as the elf that met them on the road. I didn't have much of a problem with that scene, really, but some people did. The one thing I did have a bit of a problem with was criticism 2), her fate gets somehow bound up with the ring's (? this is never explained to my satisfaction), and her life depends on the ring being destroyed, apparently.

I thought that was nonsense. Aragorn was already fulfilling his role as the heir and didn't really need extra motivation, and I didn't understand why it was necessary, other than, presumably, to shoehorn Arwen in.

I thought the use of bits from the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen was much better shoehorning. I think some of the (often self-professed) 'purists' were annoyed that Arwen and Elrond were arguing over her fate, given she and Aragorn had been betrothed for (I think) 50ish years and everyone's mind was reasonably made up by that point, but anyone who hadn't read the books wasn't to know that, and I thought it did a reasonably good job of outlining the tale of Aragorn and Arwen, discussing the nature of Arwen's choice and why it was a big deal, and getting more girls into a film that was otherwise a total sausage fest.

So, I guess this is a long way of saying, I don't really know what people's problem is if they hate Arwen. Although, when I have heard people profess this opinion, I've occasionally been under the impression they don't like her because they ship themselves with Aragorn. But that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

[anki_koda]

A little bit? You were way too young! Compare to me. Now I'm feeling self-concious and old. :)

I agree with you on the Ring part. I think it takes the real significance behind Elrond being a half-elf and his children being bond to the fate of Elron and his brother. Would they go with their father and live in the Undying Lands or stayed in Middle Earth even after Elrond has sailed and succumb to their mortal fate. Aragorn was trying to recover his homeland and trying to destroy what Isildur couldn't so to have him all 'threaten' that if the Ring is not destroyed Arwen would die is just...I don't know.

About her role replacing Golrfindel, I can understand because I was dying to see Glorfindel and Erestor. But I thought her role as a part warrior was an introduction to those who haven't read the books. Which is why they decided to include the rest of the story behind Arwen and Aragorn. If you haven't read the book you would think Aragorn should have ended up with Eowyn instead of Arwen because we only got a glimpse of her in the dinner at Elrond's home.

So, it is logicall they showed something else regarding Aragorn and Arwen. Sorry, it's just I saw a so-called Tolkien purist talking trash about PJ's Arwen saying she was just there to steal the show.

[sigridhr]

Well, my dad read the books to me when I was about 6 or 7, so I started early. :P Plus, I'm pretty much a crotchety old 70 year-old on the inside, so...

Plus, Arwen's marriage to Aragorn was dependent on Aragorn becoming king – that was Elrond's condition, so, her fate was already dependent, to a certain extent, on the outcome of the quest.

Glorfindel and Erestor would've just been more characters they needed to cast in an already full film, though. Elladan and Elrohir were personal favourites of mine in the book, who never made it on to the screen for probably similar reasons. :P

Precisely – it's hard to get the audience to invest in the love story, if you never see it. Plus this let them play up the love-triangle angle with Eowyn – like it or not.

There'll always be people complaining about ever film adaptation of a book that it wasn't precisely right. And people always complain about female characters, too. So Arwen's kinda a double whammy in that regard. I'd ignore them. :P

[gallifaerie.livejournal.com]

Woah, it's good to see how much discussion's been going on!

I loved your intro post sigridhr - it was nice to have it to look back on as I was reading the chapters.

Is it strange that Dwalin has a blue beard, and Fili and Kili have yellow beards? Is that a common thing with dwarves, or is it never mentioned anywhere else?

Also, I had quite forgotten that trolls' purses talk!

[j_quadrifrons]

I think your last point is the biggest reason - of all the things to complain about in the movies, I do think Arwen was one of the better changes that they made. She gets to do something, you get to see their relationship instead of being told about it after the fact (the first time I read the books I was astounded when Aragorn got married at the end, who the hell was that?), and she didn't end up outrageously out of character. (They did take her out of Helm's Deep, thank goodness.) But there's a pretty strong misogynistic streak in fantasy fandom, and it tends to come out a lot in relation to Arwen.

[meinterrupted]

AH! I'm so late!

But yes, I finally finished chapters 1 & 2--not because they're hard or long, but because I've been writing smut, hee!

Anyway, I was really struck by the tone of the book, and having just seen the movie, how different it is from it and LOTR. It reads very much like a simple children's book (which it is, kind of) with very little political maneuvering etc.

I'm very glad that the movie complicated the dwarves' reason for the quest, because as I was reading, I was really struck by just how greedy the dwarves are. Thorin says they "have a good bit laid by and are not so badly off" -- here Thorin stroked the gold chain round his neck -- "we still mean to get it back, and to bring our curses home to Smaug -- if we can." Which makes me make annoyed, huffing sounds, because if you're doing very well (as it seems they are) how can you be so greedy that you'll risk life and limb for this treasure?

And oh my, I giggled my whole way through the Troll scene. Just giggled madly.

[meinterrupted]

Fascinating! I'll be sure to look for this as we go along. :D

[meinterrupted]

I feel exactly the same way. Just... oh lord. I am a pervy dwarf fancier.