Subject: About Smaug
Author:
Posted on: 2013-09-01 22:13:00 UTC
I forget if he's supposed to be red or green. It's been many years since I read the book and so I'm really not sure as to what exactly his appearance is supposed to be. In the film and in some of the various book illustrations, he's red.
I know it's early for me to be talking about this, but I would like to know what people would like to see in the next installation of "The Hobbit".
I personally am hoping for a Tempting Fate moment where either Legolas says he will never be friends with a Dwarf, or Gloin says that neither he nor anyone in his family will be friends with an Elf.
What are you hoping to see in the movie?
I can't wait to see Lake-town, particularly since I'm writing a fic centering on the city. I'm especially curious about how Azog and Co. will fit into the second installment, since neither Orcs nor goblins showed up at all between Beorn's house and the Battle of Five Armies.
...I'm just going to answer the question and say that I can't wait to see Smaug. *chortles in glee*
I suspect that we'll see the battle at Dol Guldur at the end of the second movie. It was where Gandalf went afterall when the dwarves were in Mirkwood. The Battle of Five Armies won't happen until the third movie, so to make a climatic ending for Part 2? Battle with the Witchking and evicting the Necromancer out of Dol Guldur.
And I agree with the inserted line somewhere that Legolas would never be friends with a dwarf.
~AW~
You still exist?!
Why do these things always surprise me?
Surely the ending of Part 2 will be the death of Smaug and the burning of Lake Town. That leaves Part 3 with only the Arkenstone bickering, B5A, and the 'and back again'.
I'm guessing they either run the battle of Dol Guldur in the first half of Part 3, or after B5A so Bilbo can be there. Otherwise there's not a lot left for Part 3.
(Also, hi! I remember you being Elrond)
hS
There we disagree. The title is The Desolation of Smaug, not the death of. We see the damage a dragon has on the environment including the ruined city of Dale. There is plenty of plot to fill in movie two: Beorn, Mirkwood, Lake Town, getting to the Mountain and meeting up with the dragon, not to mention the side plot with the Necromancer. I don't think they're get to the battle with Smaug. That seems too close to the ending of the book, plot wise, imo. Maybe mid-movie 3, then have all the bickering and the back again.
We all know PJ can flesh out plot and move bits around, IE moving Shelob to Return of the King because of timeline match ups.
Just my theory.
~AW~
Yes, I was Elrond as well as Sam and Gandalf if memory serves me right. Long time no see! I'm still around.... sort of.
... that would make it more likely for them to shunt the battle with the Necromancer into Part 3, since otherwise Gandalf would be absent for the first 2/3 of Part 3.
Let's see... of the 19 chapters in the book, Part 1 covered chapters 1-6, roughly. I'd actually forgotten they were covering Beorn, but since he's in the trailers... you're suggesting Part 2 covers chapters 7-12, leaving 7 chapters for Part 3. I'm suggesting Part 2 is 7-14, leaving the last 5 for Part 3. Although, looking at the way it breaks down, Chapter 13 could be pushed forward to after 14 - it covers the finding of the Arkenstone and the absence of Smaug, while 14 covers Smaug's death and doesn't set foot in the Mountain. I think the Arkenstone should definitely be found in Part 3, since it fits better thematically with the B5A leadup.
... you know what? There's an easier way to do this: painstaking analysis! I've just run through the trailer scene by scene. Excluding the text-only sections, we have 38 or so scenes:
-View of the Lake and Mountain (with a boat)
-Statue on the Mountain
-Dwarves looking at ?Dale
-Thranduil's Halls
-Thranduil & Thorin
-Falling barrels
-Bilbo's butterflies
-Elves shooting at barrels
-'The Hobbit: Part 2 - On A Path In Mirkwood'
-Legolas aiming an arrow at Thorin
-Dwarves shutting out ?Beorn
-Tauriel by prison bars
-Tauriel with a bow
-A boat in Lake Town
-Legolas and Tauriel
-Bilbo on a pile of gold
-Gandalf and Radagast at Dol Guldur
-Woodland Halls
-Thranduil's eyebrows
-Legolas walking
-Gandalf looking down a hole
-Elves fighting the White Orc
-Bilbo and spiders
-The hidden door opening
-Someone I'd swear is Legolas in human costume, but is probably Bard, warning Thorin about Smaug
-Gandalf fighting... something
-Legolas and Tauriel fighting orcs
-?Bilbo in the water (this could be Bombur)
-A boot on stone
-A barrel being thrown
-Legolas and Tauriel fighting orcs
-Gandalf fighting
-Tauriel fighting
-Bilbo falling out of a tree
-A jumping orc
-Fighting dwarves in barrels
-Hearing Smaug from the doorstep
-Bilbo meeting Smaug
Running through those and tentatively connecting them to chapters, I get:
7: Queer Lodgings: 1
8: Flies & Spiders: 6
9: Barrels Out of Bond: 16
10: A Warm Welcome: 2
11: On the Doorstep: 5
12: Inside Information: 2
13: Not At Home: 0
14: Fire and Water: 0
Dol Guldur: 4
Unknown: 2
The massive count for 'Barrels Out of Bond' is because I've put all the scenes of Elves in there. I suspect we'll have a whole subplot of Legolas, Tauriel and ?Thranduil bickering about whether to fight Smaug. Or maybe a lot of it's flashback to when they decided not to.
Anyway, it seems you're probably right. ;) They definitely meet Smaug, but there's no evidence of him dying (other than the fact that I remember reading in the mythical Somewhere that Cumberbatch isn't in Part 3). But equally, there's no evidence of a major battle in Dol Guldur - just Gandalf fighting a few half-seen things. Hardly what I'd expect of a concerted White Council effort to drive Sauron out.
hS
(Wait, I was Gandalf! ... and then I died, so I suspect you took over as Gandalf the Blue White)
You can argue that they used some of Lake Town burning scenes in the most recent HobbitVlog, meeting up with Bard, equals battle with Smaug, but they had shown the Dwarves in barrels before when they thought that there was only going to be two movies, but then moved that back. PJ does hold a tight grip on what gets released and what doesn't (or at least the studio does). They don't want to have too many spoilers out too far in advance.
BUT, Benedict is showing up on IMDB as being in both the Desolation of Smaug and To There and Back again. So there are arguments for both.
I am getting some information from a Hobbit podcast that they really analyse a LOT of plot and they've been doing it for over a year. If you're interested, have a look. It's on iTunes under The Tolkien Professor, or Riddles in the Dark:
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-tolkien-professor/id320513707
~AW~
(Yes, you had to leave, so I picked up as Gandalf after you left. I had three chat windows open at the end for all three roles.)
As I recall the plot, Bilbo only meets Smaug once. He goes into the mountain three times - once to get the cup, the second time to talk, and the third time to eventually find the Arkenstone. It's that second meeting that leads directly to Smaug attacking Lake Town.
I don't know. Maybe they've put Smaug into the first trip inside, but not let him see Bilbo. Or maybe they're going to end the film on Smaug saying hello. ;) Or maybe or maybe or maybe... I'unno. Maybe if we wait three months we'll all know the answer?
Also, I seem to recall Cumberbatch being credited for Unexpected Journey, when Smaug's two lines were 'Roar' and 'Growl'. I suspect he's in all the creditses.
I may take a look at that when I get home. And... this is fun! Seriously, pointlessly in-depth analysis of every detail about a film that'll be out soon anyway? That is /exactly/ what I expect from the PPC Board.
hS
(Now that's dedication. And a good memory, for that matter...)
I forget if he's supposed to be red or green. It's been many years since I read the book and so I'm really not sure as to what exactly his appearance is supposed to be. In the film and in some of the various book illustrations, he's red.
It was high school since I read it. And yes, that was a very long time ago for me as well. T_T
"There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep; a thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and huge coil tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gens and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light.
"Smaug lay, with wings folded like an immeasurable bat, turned partly on one side, so that the hobbit could see his underparts and his long pale belly crusted with gems and fragments of gold from his long lying on his costly bed." - Inside Information, The Hobbit, Tolkien.
Al's Waiter
That's because Benedict also did the voice and motion capture (for what it was) for the Necromancer.
He gets two paycheques... so to speak. lol
I would also like a Tempting Fate moment, and by the looks of the Trailer, I think it might happen.
I also hope that Legolas's screen time is limited, because 1. the book is about the 13+1 company, and 2. he is not mentioned in the books.
I would also enjoy seeing the lair of Smaug (and Smaug himself)
Now, what I would absolutely hate (with a burning passion) is if Tauriel goes off and gets married to Legolas (or has a relationship with him - most elvish lovers get married, it seems). I am not a Legolas-lover, but I think it would be a too big of a change from the books. If he gets married to a canon character, fine with me, but an OC (basically, Tauriel is PJ's OC)....
I'm not a Tolkien purest by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think that Tauriel's is totally unnecessary. I think they just wanted an excuse to put a woman into a fighting role.
I think that Legolas's part was somewhat if not entirely inevitable. At the very least I expected him to make a brief cameo appearance.
Tauriel is not going to have a romantic relationship with Legolas. They are fellow warriors who know each other well - she's the captain of the king's guard and he's the prince, it's not so extraordinary that they'd spend a fair bit of time around each other. As friends. Which is totally possible between a male and a female without Teh Romance butting in.
In the original written lore of Tolkien, it was not out of the question for Elven women to be warriors - it was just that the majority of them chose not to be, in favour of healing or the like, just as many men chose to be warriors but some went into healing instead. Galadriel was apparently a decent warrior herself for some time, back in the Silmarillion era. Not to mention, Elves live long enough lives that they can retrain any time they want, if they choose to. For example, Elrond has been a warrior - he was raised during the last years of the First Age, saw the destruction of Eregion, and was Gil-galad's standard-bearer in the Last Alliance - and still took to healing and study with enough dedication that by the end of the Third Age he's one of the most renowned physicians in Middle-earth and considered to be Frodo's only chance after the hobbit got stabbed with a Morgul-blade.
I do agree with the fact that Legolas should show up - as others have said, the Woodland Realm is his home and he's quite involved with the running of it, being a warrior and the king's son and responsible enough to be sent with the Fellowship several decades later.
Apologies for the wall o'text. I get verbose about LOTR.
Given that they were always going to be fleshing out Mirkwood (because people like Elves ;)), I have no objections to a female warrior. As Cassie says, the Lady Artanis was an excellent fighter - and one of the only Noldor to fight against Feanor at the Kinslaying in Alqualonde. Aredhel, Turgon's sister, was also a fighter. The divide isn't between male and female - it's between fighter and healer, since the Elves had a notion that killing actually reduced your skill/power/capacity for healing. Of course, Tolkien was a Victorian-Edwardian, so yeah, he wrote the fighters as men and the healers as women (mostly) - but the idea of equality is entirely there.
I do have two objections to Tauriel, though...
1/ She's a redhead. Not only is that cheap shorthand for 'feisty', which Peter Jackson should know better than, it's also incredibly rare among the Eldar. The only known line of redheads is the descendents of Mahtan - specifically his daughter Nerdanel, and at least one of her children, Maedhros. And if Tauriel is a Feanorian, I'm a Dwarf.
2/ That name. Oh, that name. Shall I go on? I shall.
--It means 'Daughter of the Forest'. That's not a name you give to a normal Silvan child, because they are all children of the forest. So there's no way it's her Father-name. Since there are presumably a fair number of elves involved in fighting/guarding, it also doesn't work as a Mother-name, since it's still uninformative. (For the unfamiliar with Elven naming - fathers gave a name they liked. Mothers gave a name with prophetic overtones)
--That leaves it being either an after-name or self-name. Again, why would anyone give her the name 'Forest-girl', and have her keep it? It's a silly name for a Woodland Elf.
--And as a self-name... well, it's possible. But unbelievably arrogant, once you recall that 'Tauron' (Forest-Lord) is the Sindarin name for the Vala of the Hunt, Orome. It would be kind of like naming yourself 'Godette'.
--The alternative is the one suggested by Philosopher at Large for Mablung of Doriath - that she's an orphan. If her parents were killed in the woods (by spiders?), she could be a literal 'daughter of the forest' - a child whose true name is unknown, so she grows up with a fairly generic one (with pious overtones - after all, who would have preserved her but the Lord of Forests?). Only... in the film, Greenwood only became Mirkwood, and the spiders only showed up, while the Fourteen+Gandalf were on their way to Rivendell. So that doesn't work either. There is literally no way that name makes sense for a character.
(In contrast, Legolas is named 'Green leaf'. Yes, it's a woodland name - but recall that Thranduil (apparently 'vigorous spring') is not a Silvan elf. He's Sindar, and probably from Doriath. Giving his son a name that evokes the name of his (or his father's) realm - the 'Green' component - but also spring, and the promise of rebirth (calen/galen, as in Eryn Galen 'Greenwood the Great', comes from 'bright', whereas Sindarin 'laeg', Silvan 'leg', comes from 'fresh') is a brilliant political move (as is naming him in the local dialect, rather than using Sindarin 'Laegolas'), and also potentially personally meaningful. But 'Daughter of the Forest'? No)
3/ I know, I said there were two... but she also has a romantic arc, according to Wikipedia. What, the only female simply has to fall in love, because she's a flighty emotional creature who needs a strong hand to give her direction? That's wildly sexist.
(I'm guessing either Kili or Bard, by the way. Her actress says not Legolas)
hS
Apart from the redhead one, which has been belaboured to death by a certain friend of mine. I'll summarise, though: just because there is only one known line of redheads doesn't mean it should be the only one ever. There's nothing that says red hair can't have cropped up elsewhere, particularly amongst brunettes with reddish overtones. (Also, Nerdanel's youngest, Amrod and Amras, were both nicknamed Ambarussa for their red hair.)
We could probably go back and forth all day talking over what was stated in canon as opposed to accepting possibilities, so let's not do that. I'll concede that even if we go with the possibility of red hair turning up elsewhere in Elven families, PJ pushed things somewhat by putting it on the named, combative lady.
That said, it is at least demonstrably rare. One wouldn't expect it to randomly show up in the path of the primary plot. But okay, it's at least possible. But in this case, it's also a raging cliche.
(Darn, I'd forgotten the twins. More accurately, I wasn't sure about the twins. See - not even I know everything!)
hS
I totally agree with the rare/cliche thing. I'd buy red hair being more common on the Rohirrim, though, with their Viking-y aspects.
I only really recall the twins specifically because I've spent so long role-playing in Arda, and looking up all the different names, Sindarin and Quenya, for the House of Finwe's descendants; "Ambarussa" shares a common element with one of Maedhros's names, "Russandol" which refers to his red hair, being translated as "copper-top".
...Sorry for the etymology lesson, I just get so excited at any opportunity to talk about geeky things I actually know anything about. XD
... and unlike most of the other Exilic Noldor, Maedhros didn't form his Sindarin name by (badly) translating just one of his names; he actually compounded 'Matimo' (well-formed one) with 'Russandol' to make 'Matiruss', or in the Sindarin pronunciation, 'Maedhros'.
And Curufin is the only one to use his Father-name in Sindarin, which says a lot about him...
hS also enjoys talking about this
Psst, it's "Maitimo", not "Matimo".
Most Exiles tended to translate their names into Sindarin as far as "okay, that sounds all right" as opposed to exact translation, because I think some of the direct translations sounded a little bit silly, and Elves are alllll about "sounds nicer" rather than exact meanings. :p
For example, one of my OCs is named Telperossë in Quenya, which translates to "silver dew"; a direct translation would be "Celemídh" or maybe "Celemídhon", which doesn't look or sound especially pretty, and definitely doesn't sound much like his, so a partway translation that still keeps a close sound would be "Celebrost", which is what I use as his Exilic name.
And yeah, Curufin's the closest to his father out of the seven of them, given they share a name, so it makes sense that he'd choose his father-name over his mother-name. :D
- Cassie is a happy happy Tolkien geek
Oh, Curufin is the closest in temperament to his psychotic father (as far as we know - we don't hear a lot about 'Caranthir the Dark', other than that Haleth thought it was better to take her people through the giant-spider-infested Nan Dungortheb than hang around him), but Feanor wasn't (I can't believe I'm saying this) always, or even primarily, a psychopath. First and foremost, he was a craftsman - and the only son of his we know to be skilled at anything other than mayhem is Maglor. I think there's a comment to that effect somewhere in Silm, but I don't know where...
Yeah, they kind of mangled their names when they crossed the Sea... that's pretty weird, given how the Eldar were tied up with language. A whole heap of them weren't even translations, just sound-alikes - and given how many of the House(s) of Finwe began using epessi instead of their given names, (like, six of seven Feanorions, Ar-Feiniel, Felagund, Galadriel, Gil-Galad...), I wonder whether there was some undisclosed purpose behind it all...
hS
(PS: I'm being corrected on my Quenya spelling. This? This is a new low for me. My only excuse is that I don't like House Feanaro anyway. ;))
I've kind of always assumed Curufin was the closest to his father and that was why he chose to Sindarinise his father-name instead. And hey, Feanor has some good points... they're just kind of overshadowed by the impressive tantrum he threw that plunged a large amount of Arda into war for half a millennium. (And you could probably use that as a way to point out that at least he didn't do anything by halves.)
The name thing is kind of the point I was trying to make - they were going for "sound-alikes" rather than "direct translation" purely because the sound-alikes were more pleasant to the ear, in their opinion. And I've come to the conclusion that name-collecting was a shared hobby for them when they weren't fighting Morgoth or bickering amongst themselves, although the epessi seem to be "as well as" as often as "instead of" given names, given I've usually seen certain of them referred to as Aredhel Ar-Feiniel, Finrod Felagund, etc. - full titles, kinda thing.
- Cassie
P.S. It's okay, we all slip up. *pats* :P (And if I'm honest, I've always liked Feanor's two oldest boys better than all the others in that section of the family.)
The White Lady of Gondolin is something of a special case. As I recall, the reason she has two names is because Tolkien wrote her story twice - using a single name each time. I may be wrong, but I don't believe they were ever used together. We just assume she used both.
hS
That's "purist" not "purest". Sorry about that.
Why are some people surprised that Legolas is in the Hobbit? If they checked his LotR bio, he's age is in the thousands.
I was hoping for at least a cameo. I'm fine with his role being slightly bigger. The dwarves are in his home after all.
I'm not going to watch it (not a movies guy, and I kinda dislike how PJ adapted Lord of the Rings), but I'm pretty sure we're going to get another badfic explosion.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
:3
~AW
Lord of the Mst
Think of them, the poor guys, girls and indeterminates, being swamped with awful Dwarf-lusting Sues...
Also, nice to meet you.
For a MSTer, it's our bread and butter. Not that we couldn't work with good fiction, cause I have in the past, but tradition dictates that we work with something bad.
Nice to meet you too! I was never a PPC agent. I like to say that I was adopted into the PPC for having mutual enemies and upholding canon with my MSTings, but never was an agent. I also attended the original OFUM for two years. I guess I got a degree in fanfiction. Or at the very least a diploma. ;)
I think I'd like to see both Mirkwood and Lake Town fleshed out a little. As the book stands, they're both basically semi-villainous obstacles.
I get the impression Mirkwood has been expanded - very much so - and that's good. Yes, even though they do have a foundling as their only identified female elf in the trailers. But Laketown... well, I'm pretty sure I've seen Stephen Fry waxing lyrical about how slimy he gets to play the Master of Lake Town; if so, that's a real pity, because it would have been great to see him as a decent(ish) person whose goals just conflict wildly with the Fourteen's. Yes, canonically he's rather self-important - but I worry he's going to be a cartoon villain.
hS
(Also I'd like to see them not claim the Witch-King is dead again, but I doubt I'll be that lucky...)