What I Learned from the Hobbit

This is my follow up blog post to What I Learned from the Lord of the Rings. Partly because my mom went to Hobbiton back in 2017 and took some pictures. However, since she has never seen the books and watched the movies, she asked me what I thought of the movies.

First of all, some light humor:

So what I have learned?

1. Don’t let Peter Jackson turn a short children’s book into three 3 hour long trilogies.
2. Don’t bring in Legolas just because you want to bring Orlando Bloom in. He wasn’t even in the book to begin with.
3. Don’t create Tauriel just because you want a female lead.

Seriously,

1. There is good and evil.
   Like the Lord of the Rings,  there is the problem of good and evil. That there is good and evil in the world. Not only that, but there are absolutes. For people who say good and evil are relative, or postmodernist redefinition, they’re wrong. Absolutely. Look at Smaug the Dragon. He is evil to the core. No amount of education, reasoning, or prison, rehabilitation, parole boards, or therapy…

2. You have to find your courage.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to rise above. Look at Bilbo. At the outside, he is the most unlikely hero. He would rather stay home, read a book, enjoy food, and walk around Hobbiton. Yet he must rise to meet the challenges.

3. Your Motivation Matters.
Tharanduil is an example of people who will do their right thing for their own reasons, not necessarily because it was the right thing to do. In the books, his only role was to imprison the Dwarves when they got lost in Mirkwood. There was no love between the Elves and the Dwarves before the events of the book began and the animosity continues well into Fellowship of the Rings. Later, Tharanduil shows up with an Elven army, initially to seize Smaug’s treasure hoard, but comes to defend the Mountain against the Orcs and Wargs. In the books, he is a 2-D character at best.

Tharanduil’s expanded role in the movies revealed a more complex character. He tries to be a father and a king but doing both poorly. Eventually, he comes through in the end – coming to the defense of his allies and giving up any special claims to the treasure. He counsels his son to seek Aragorn. Why? Hard to say, but probably a shamelessly tie-in with the movies.

4. Home
You fight for home. It gives you hope and a reason to fight. But when you come home, you are not the same person.