Seeing how low-ranked Five Armies is compared to the prior two, I can't help feeling that people were angry it was a tragedy instead of triumphant: that Thorin became flawed and cruel; that the hot dwarves died; that the world wasn't fixed by a pointless battle.
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It came out in 2014, which honestly feels like a lifetime ago, both personally and politically. But in 2020, as much as I want us to get that happy LOTR ending in the real world, acknowledging that sometimes you just get repeatedly screwed by selfish leaders feels realer to me.
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Sometimes you put your faith in someone who fucks up awfully, and even when they walk it back in the end, there's still consequences. Sometimes the best you can do is rebuild and be glad of the opportunity. And sometimes you go home to find it's been stolen from you.
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Which is why it matters all the more that Bilbo's treasure, the most important thing he takes home, is an acorn: something small to plant for the future. The seed of the spreading oak we see him laugh beneath in his eventual old age.
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There's plenty of bad in the world right now, and lots of us are chasing after Arkenstones in the hope that they'll magically fix the future. But maybe we just need acorns. Acorns, and hope. Kindness, and the courage to speak truth to power. To know when to let go of grudges.
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Replying to @fozmeadows
Thanks for that brilliant breakdown. I couldn't get past the cinematic cut of the first film and so waivered about watching the rest but after this, I'll go back to it. I've always felt that Thorin is the heart of the story; his journey evokes the most grief and catharsis.
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Replying to @RevHappiness @fozmeadows
And now I can see your point about how it connects to the wider scope of LOTR and the foolishness of war. I remember seeing a puppet version of The Hobbit back in the 90s and Thorin's death was visceral to the audience, even though he was a puppet.
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Replying to @RevHappiness @fozmeadows
I understood from a cinema perspective that Thorin needed an external threat (the white orc) but it felt heavy-handed to me. Some great set pieces in the other films, and Smaug was very much to my delight.
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Replying to @RevHappiness
Visually, I liked making white orcs the bad guys here, after all the dark-skinned uruks in the original trilogy; just a little less colonially gross, you know? It also kind of felt like Azog was a way to have Thorn fight himself, a sort of literal metaphor for toxic obsession.
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Like, he's been hunting a white stone, which is his poisoned legacy, while thinking he's better than the greed - both literally and metaphorically Azog - that killed his grandfather. Azog is like the Arkenstone's curse on Thorin's family made into a fightable nemesis.
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Replying to @fozmeadows
Absolutely. I haven't read The Hobbit for years. Time to put it back on the list.
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