In Defense of Bilbo Baggins

For almost a year now I've been following a post on thorinoakenshield.net called, In Defense of Thorin Oakenshield. It's a wonderful, thorough, and thought provoking character analysis of the Dwarf Prince- Turned King in The Hobbit.

To many fans, Thorin is seen as the villian in the third act of The Hobbit. This article notes that Thorin's demands and requests are not unreasonable, and that it is difficult  not to find sympathy with his viewpoint.

"The same traits Thorin exhibited as a prisoner in the dungeons of the Elvenking, such as stubbornness and distrust, are now in conflict with the wishes of the chief protagonist, and he is no longer seen as the victim, but as a miser. In this way, he becomes the antagonist by opposing the goal of the hero, even though his own goals never change; he never makes a secret of his desires, nor a promise that he will be generous with the treasure. As it is, the original contract between the dwarves and Bilbo is very specific on the matter of shares. By being protective of the treasure, Thorin is safeguarding all of the Company’s interests. Looking at it from the standpoint of the dwarves, one could say Thorin remains true to his nature, and everyone else becomes antagonistic toward him."

The the site for this article has evolved into a conversation among fans about the character, primarily thanks to the comments section.

I haven't been a big contributor to the conversation, but reading other people's viewpoints has definitely been interesting for me. At a few points, I can tell people mixed up the events in the book with the event's in the movie (Events that haven't actually happened yet, because the movie has not yet been released!!).



(Note: Spoilers are to follow for the concluding chapters of "The Hobbit")

There seem to be two strains of thought regarding Thorin's actions preceding the battle and his subsequent death.

1) That his actions and demands were justified given his complex social and cultural history of the Dwarves, Elves, and Humans.

2) That his misdeeds contributed to the misery and death of thousands of people and that his own subsequent death was required for him to "redeem himself".

So, who's fault is the battle of five armies???

• Thorin, for not surrendering a portion of the gold to the former inhabitants of Dale in their time of need?
• Thrandull, for his unwarranted intervention and lack of respect of the Dwarve's authority?
• Bard, for refusing due process and insisting on access to gold that technically wasn't his?
• Gandalf-for not seeking out Thorin and Co. in confidence instead of immediately siding with their enemies?
• Or Bilbo for betraying his friends and giving the Elves and Humans a powerful bargaining chip that ultimately ignited the battle itself?

At first glance, it seems that everyone on this list was 'doing the right thing' and was completely justified in making a stand for which ever side he thought was right.

• Thorin agrees the Humans will get financial help in due process. But on his terms, because it is his mountain and his gold.
• Thranduill helped the Human's in the aftermath of the dragon attack, so he has a right to be there.
• Bard and the Laketowners need the money, like, now.
• Gandalf was so busy fighting the Necromancer he forgot that Thorin and Co. still existed. 
• And poor Bilbo just wanted the whole thing to be over without any more hurt or trouble to anyone.

Who was justified in their offence of the other parties?  Whose motives were "right" and whose were "wrong"? Who was "the enemy", and who "started it"?

Sometimes people are so concerned with finding the right side that they miss the most beautiful, the most poetic, the most hear-breaking truth that Tolkien communicated in any of his bodies of writing.

This message is not found in The Lord of The Rings, not in The Silmarillion, or in any of Tolkien's other writing projects: It is that good people can disagree, good people can do bad things, and good people can die at the hands of other good people.

(Although it never really comes to that...they get invaded by a fourth fifth party and the armies of Dwarves, Humans, and Elves join forces to defeat a common enemies. However, the powerful prelude to this battle has been a source of fascination for me ever since I first heard the story...These good people could have just have easily been killing each other instead of their true enemies.)

Sometimes the right thing won't in our best interests, sometimes even if we do act selflessly we can't avoid the negative consequences. I believe Bilbo illustrates this point best when he gives "The Heart of The Mountain" to the Elf king and still returns to Thorin's side. He's willing to take the fall-out for his actions.

One commenter to the thread observed that Bilbo's role and his choices in the battle were "maddening" and said, "he seems so undecided and wavers in his loyalties" as he (Bilbo) initially chooses to stay with the Dwarves, but then goes to fight with the Elf King. I pointed out in another comment that he did no leave Thorin and Co. of his own accord, he was dis-fellowshiped from them...and nearly thrown off a cliff!


Because I've been re-visiting this ongoing discussion for a while, I've come to another conclusion about Bilbo that I'd like to share: I do not think for one second that Bilbo was "undecided" in terms of knowing what the right thing to do was. He was the only member of the Company, and perhaps within the whole realm of Erador, with the clarity to see the destructive course that the pride and greed of both sides would bare.

Bilbo isn't pointing fingers, he knows that the answer to "Whose fault is it" is "It doesn't matter, I still have to do the right thing." He knows that there is no "bad" side, there is simply a "right" thing to do and a "wrong" thing to do. And because no one else is doing those things, he does it himself.



Since there are a ton of parallels between "The Battle of Five Armies and  World War I: I wanted to share this website I really like that helped me learn about the First World War.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/

It's really fascinating how the whole situation just got completely out of control because people over-reacted to a problem and started getting their friends involved in drama.

Salt Lake Comic Con: Day 3

When I saw the HUGE crowd surrounding the Salt Palace on Saturday morning, I felt completely overwhelmed.

We had tried to leave the motel early and we were still behind this whole horde of people! The sight was so discouraging, all I could think to myself was, “There is no way I'm going to get inside, let alone see anything today.”

I left my group for the solitude of Ensign Bookstore. It was nice, even though they didn't have anything really interesting for sale.

A while later I walked back. The line was still super-long, but I was able to get inside pretty quickly with the help of my sister.

We didn't feel like cramming ourselves into the workshops, so we went to the Center Stage.

• The Power Rangers were going to be there!

Unfortunately they were not the Power Rangers of my childhood, but the “Power Rangers Samurai”.

(WHICH ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT!!!)

Fortunately, these Power Rangers were still really cool! And the experience definitely had nostalgia value for me. I watched the original series as a kid, when you're small they are your Superheroes...the kind of person you want to be when you “grow up” and become a teenager.

The kids in the audience absolutely adored their Power Rangers. Multiple times, a little kid would come up to the microphone to talk to his/her heroes and say:

“I LOVE POWER RANGERS!!!” (Too loud!! But I guess you can't control the volume on a child.)

Without fail, the actors would say, “And we love you too.” Then one of them would run and give the kid a hug.

It was very touching, I could tell it meant a lot to the little kids to see their heroes.

(An added bonus: Steven Skylar looks very much like Alejandro Sanchez.)

• I went to the Vendor area and picked up my comic book

(I'm quite pleased with the way it came out, Edward even got one of his fangs knocked out!)

I got to briefly meet the mormonmovieguy and got an autographed copy of his book.

(Which is really good, btw. Gives a content overview, summary, discussion guide and applicable scripture for each of the 250 entries.)

• Manu Bennett
  
  
  
  
  

Going into the Q and A session all I knew about this actor was that he plays the White Orc (who should have been a Goblin), Azog (who should have been Blog) in The Hobbit Trilogy.

Almost soon as he sat down someone (I believe it was the announcer) said:

“I just want to address the elephant in the room. When are you going to take off your shirt?”

Mr Bennet obliged, removing his black, long-sleeved shirt and posing momentarily, displaying his ripped upper-body, before retreating behind a table/curtain set to put his shirt back on.

It was a surprisingly modest gesture and he explained, 'I did that because I'm a performer and it was for you. I'm not trying to be Magic Mike.'

OK...so that was the first surprise, a really hot guy who also demonstrates modesty (to some extent, at least). He's also really thoughtful and expressed his belief in the importance of cultural heritage. He gave a shout-out to the native peoples of Utah (the Utes) and the Mormon settlers of the area.

“I'm a Maori boy.” He explained, “Of course, I'm also Scottish and Irish..”

He even shared the traditional Maori greeting.

Mr Bennett discussed some of his roles. The most interesting sounding one is Crixius in Spartacus I hope that one isn't too violent, a lot of the people in the audience were very impressed by his performance in that role and I'd really like to check it out.

(He did a few character impressions of Crixius on stage, it was pretty funny.)

He also discussed his role in The Hobbit.

 "Azog has a son, and he's a really tough on him. And his son makes a lot of mistakes, so he's not a very good father."

I for one am very pleased at his confirmation that they have at least filmed this aspect of the story; it not only shows a side to the orcs/goblins that we haven't explored before, but it is also a concept that is original to Tolkien's work.

He also says he named the White Warg that Azog rides “Daisy”. ;)

“I wanted Azog to have a relationship with him; 'When I get those hobbits, I'm feeding them to My Warg!!'”

Then he started talking about his personal life, and why he became a performer.

I personally met a lot of people who have a “defining moment” in life, or an event that set them on course in life. For Manu Bennett it was the death of his mother, and subsequently his brother, in car accidents.

The interview got really intimate (in a psychological way!) it was evident that he felt that the performing arts were a way to connect to his mother and brother.

Afterward our whole group got together and sat on the floor and ate lunch.

Then waited in line....... ...................................................................................................................

(For a long time)

And then sat down in Center Stage. And waited some more....

• And then William Shatner came on stage!!

The whole performance was extremely awesome. Mr Shatner as a reputation for being conceited (He does sound like he was the practical joker on the Star Trek set...The Lenard Nimoy Bike Prank was pretty cruel XD.), but he was hilarious! And a lot of his insights on geek culture and humanity in general were really thoughtful. It really seems like he was puzzled with the geek culture and went to lengths to come to an understanding of it (even trying to go incognito to interact with geeks).

 He was able to articulate his growing understanding of the “geek movement and culture” in the most cohesive way I've ever heard. (I will never hear the phrase "Get A Life" in quite the same way again.)

If you want to watch what we saw, check out these youtube videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3J2iIddMcw (There are two of them.)

After the performance, we were about to leave the stage when the announcer told us to “Stay in your seats if you want to see Stan Lee” so of course I totally didn't need to use the bathroom any more!!

We waited for an hour, and Stan Lee was only on stage for twenty minutes. He didn't give a lot of insight or anything, it was just mostly sass. But it was electrifying to be in that packed room with so many enthusiastic people and Stan Lee being his sarcastic self.

Also, we got the most awesome picture:

(Me and Stan Lee!)

I also got to see Stan Lee up close; when he went to sign autographs, his go-cart stopped in front of me and walked behind the black curtain to his booth.

Later on, we got back together for a last hurrah!

Went out to eat and started a plot to invade the next comic con!

Conclusions on Comicon:

I had a lot of fun. I liked spending time with my brother, sisters and friends. I enjoyed meeting the Comicon attendees and looking at the cosplayers. A big part of the experience was the last day, and being able to see Will Shatner and Stan Lee.

You kind of have to got into the experience expecting that you will miss a lot of what you want to see, because you probably will. If I ever go to a Comic Con again, I will probably :binge" and buy the VIP tickets.

(His sign says it all)

Salt Lake Comic Con: Day 2

A large part of Day 2 is still a blurr. I dressed as a casual Radagast the Brown from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. In the books, he doesn't quite fit in with the social classes of organized society, and that's pretty much how I felt that day.

• It was so crowded when we got there, I just stood on the second floor of the building listening to the geek fest around me and looking at the people below. I got into conversation with a legit Wonder Woman cosplayer. It was nice just to stand there and watch people together, point out some of the interesting costumes and talk about the type of manga we liked.

• Then we waited in line for “The Hobbit-Desolation of Smaug” preview (The one that was advertised to be in the previous day's panel by theonering.net. The preview was filled to capacity and most of the people standing in the general admittance line did not get in. That was a big disappointment for me because it was a special event and I missed it not once, but twice.

Nice thing though; Tinkerbell recognized I was cosplaying as Radagast. :D

• We found a Steampunk workshop with Tracy Hickman (the same guy who did the lecture on “Four Stories in LOTR” He discussed the principles of the genre and ideas to get inspiration for writing. He suggested looking up old sci fiction and real-world science theories that didn't work, or didn't work the way they were intended to and “make them work”.

Heres' a few Notable Quotable's from this workshop:

“Steampunk is about imagining the future as it never was.” (Which is basically what I love about it. I'm not as enamored by the vivid descriptions of leather and lack of character development in some of the short stories though.)

“I get a lot of hate mail from Science Fiction crowd telling me, 'that couldn't really happen.' Guess what? I don't care!”

• I browsed through the vendors. Salt Lake City Strangers are a group of comic book Superheroes based out of Salt Lake and, apparently, the superheroes in the story are of the Mormon faith. The story starts out with something like a Bloody-Mary ritual in a graveyard that summons a zombie. It was pretty good. The vendor had a special offer: buy the comic book and get the cover illustrated for free. That sounded pretty good to me. I decided to have one of the “Strangers” punch Ed Cullen in the face.
• I tried to get into a workshop concept art for my favorite Disneyland attraction, “The Haunted Mansion”. Unfortunately, like the Hobbit preview, I ended up waiting in line only to be turned away at the door. :(

• I went to a workshop about design in movie sets and costumes. They discussed the importance of sharing the directors vision for the film in order to communicate the themes in the movie visually. They also discussed authenticity with period films.

“The worst culprit is Pirate movies.” One of the panelists said, “It can be set in the 1700 and cover 100 years of fashion.” Including designs that hadn't evolved yet.

• One workshop titled “How to Win Writers of the Future” (Which is an amateur writing competition) had a group of panelists who pretty much gave conflicting advice. One illustrator said he won by submitting stuff that was all similar (Dragons and girls...sur-prise, surprise, surprise) the one panelist who was an actual judge said that they look to see that the illustrator can do all different types of objects, humanoids, plants, environments.

The rest of their advice was common sense: “Don't submit porn”, “don't let your cat pee on your manuscript”, “do your research”...because we sure aren't going to give you any concrete information here.

What I learned most about this competition is that there is no “right” way to win. The judge either likes your work, or he doesn't. It was a nice place to sit, though.

• We also saw Ray Park, he's a stunt actor who played Darth Maul in Star Wars, Toad in X-Men, and Snake Eyes in G.I Joe (which I haven't seen yet). This was probably the best part of Comic Con so far. He was a really amiable guy and did a good job connecting with the audience, especially the kids.
  
  
  

I've always imagined it would be hard for a “James Bond” type character to explain to his kids why he's kissing all these girls in movies. Mr. Park had to do the same sort of thing with Darth Maul when his kids were young. (He is arguably the most frightening character in the prequel Star Wars series, apparently one of his kids saw a picture of Darth Maul's face and started screaming.)

“I never wanted to be the bad guy, the bad guys get beat up, and they lose.”

He did seem proud of his work, though. And fortunately for him, he did eventually get cast in GI Joe as a good guy. He says he likes sending his children to school in merchandise with characters he has portrayed on them. The best part? Because he's a stunt actor (and usually wears prosthetics and makeup), he can maintain anonymity as well.

I have to admit, that would be really, really cool.

At the end he brought all the kids up from the audience and taught them a power stance. Oh, how I wish my nephew was here!

• I went back to the vendors to see if my illustration for "Strangers" was done, it wasn't. I'll pick it up tomorrow.

• The last workshop I attended was with Anne Sterling, daughter of Rod Sterling: writer and host of “The Twilight Zone”. Anne Sterling wrote a book about her father in response to public opinion that her dad was this really morbid, tortured soul.

She explained, “My dad wasn't like that at all.”

Here's a link to the book on Amazon if your are interested.

From what she shared with us, it sounds like Rod Sterling was a really passionate and thoughtful guy...who wasn't above playing the occasional practical jokes on his fellow writers (The “Nightmare at 10,000 Feet” prank would have been HILARIOUS!!!! Oh! If only the airlines would let people do that today!!).

Anne's parent sheltered her from the show as a kid, so when a classmate teased her with “What are you?! Something out of the Twilight Zone?” she had no idea what it meant. She watched an episode of the show with her dad for the first time and was shocked to see her dad appearing at the beginning and end of this really freaky story.

Later in life, she got more and more interested in why her father would want to write using that show as a medium.

A part of it was to address his views on political and social issues that he thought were important:

“An alien can say things a Republican or Democrat never could.”

Another reason was to come to terms with unfulfilled dreams and unexplainable longings that really didn't have any other outlet. Anne pointed out that a re-occuring theme in his stories; a longing to return to simpler times, childhood, and a state of innocence.

Rod Sterling knew some of his work was controversial for his time, but felt like it was important for people to hear. I personally think that's kind of the magic of writing and reading. The messages in “The Twilight Zone” wouldn't be as intriguing if they were explored in a different genre. “The Twilight Zone” doesn't really explore answers or solutions as much as it offers questions.

After that event, me and my group went to Carl's Jr for dinner.

Comi Con Salt Lake: Day 1

After years of trying to get tickets to Comic Con/BlizzCon, we finally got to go to the very first Salt Lake Comic Con.

The event was held at the Salt Palace, which I'd been to before for a nursing convention. Its within walking distance of Temple Square, so I was able to stroll down there and see the Latter-Day Saint Temple. It was very nice, one of the most beautiful parts of one of the prettiest cities I've ever been to.

When we got to the convention enter, there wasn't a whole lot going on. Vendors and some events open up early for VIP ticket holders. (Which we weren't) And that the schedule of event's had been revised updated COMPLETELY CHANGED!!

So we had about two hours of leisure time before events even started up at 2pm.

We ate at a restaurant called the Blue Lemon. (It's one of my favorites, and it's right across the street from the Salt Lake Temple and adjacent to Ensign books. No one else I've been there with is crazy about it though.) If you ever go there, try the Butternut Squash Soup. I can't guarantee you'll love it, but I do. It's my favorite soup ever. Then we went back to the Salt Palace Convention Center.

I read that Salt-Lake Comicon was the most successful “First” comicon to date. And it was VERY crowded once the event's got started. It was hard to even find a place to sit down. Next year, they will probably have a five-day comicon instead of 3 days next year to accommodate those kind of crowds.

• I really love looking at costumes. So even just watching people walk by is a lot of fun at comicon.

The first day of Comicon, I dressed up as my favorite criminal, Light Yagami. And my friend dressed up as L, the detective out to capture me.

We would be standing right next to each other and people would come up and identify my friend instantly, make a geek connection, and sometimes take a picture.

Normally I don't mind not getting attention in social situations. But it hurt me in this instance. I mean, we would be standing RIGHT next to each other...IN HAND CUFFS!! The two most iconic character's of this series and only L got recognized.

When people did guess at my identity, they usually got it wrong.

Guy: “Are you Mello?”

Me: (hears are you Male, though?) “No, I'm female”

Friend: “She's Light.”

Guy: (Laughs) “Oh, well Mellow and Light look alike”

This is Mello.

(If by "alike" you mean "they are both anime characters" then yeah I kind of see what you mean. But no...not really.)

Another mis identification:

Lady: “Are you Near?”

Me: “No, I'm Light”

Lady: “Oh, Near and Light look alike”

(Now, Near and Light look nothing alike. Near is albino. AN ALBINO WHO WEARS WHITE!!!)

It's fun when you just dress up with the expectation of having a good time, no matter what someone else thinks. Its not fun when you have to compare your costume to someone else's. And its not fair that L got recognized and Light didn't.  It reminded me of how people see me. I felt like a piece of shit.

(Lost respect for my own body image.)

If there was one thing I could change about this day, it would be that I didn't dress up as this character. Or if I did, that I did it by myself, without a partner and without the expectation of being recognized at all. Being compared like that was painful. I never want to go through that again.

• There were some really disappointing panelists from theonring.net 

Disapointment #1 “I know we said we'd be showing a preview of “The Hobbit-Desolation of Smaug, but we're going to save that for tomorrow.”

Disapointment #2 (and this one is worse, really) “Peter Jackson is better then Tolkien because when I was 11 and first tried to read the book I couldn't get past the first 50 pages.” (They weren't joking about this...most of the people on the panel weren't at all interested in the literary aspect of LOTR at all. The moderator tried to get the Peter Jacksonists and the one (ONE???) Tolkienist on the panel to get in an argument with each other. Which was very irritating; a moderator should know better!)

(I really lost respect for theonering.net.)

• Ghost Hunting in Salt-Lake

This panel was pretty good. Not everyone agreed about the origin of ghosts, the focus was more on keeping an open mind. Some cool stories were shared,l and everyone on the panel respected each other. They were even comfortable poking fun at themselves.

(I have gained respect for crackpot ghost-hunters)

• At some point, I was able to walk about the vendor area with L. They didn't have anything really special and all of it was overpriced, but the Weta set up was awesome. I saw a guy at a booth in front of the Weta booth, and his picture blown up behind him. I recognized him from an Entertainment Magazine interview I read. He played Bifur! I got to shake his hand. He was very polite, and asked us how we managed the bathroom with our handcuffs ;)

• The last workshop was with Tracy Hickman deconstructing the “Four Stories” in LOTR using the Cambell Monomyth (which is something I've been studying on my own). Mr Hickman explained how each of the four main story arcs could be their own stories independently (and still be freaking awesome!)

The “Four Stories” he discussed were the stories of Frodo, Aragon, Faramir, and Eowyn.

He broke each “story” down from the literary perspective. The Objective Journey (The struggle of the Free People's of Middle Earth against the forces of Mordor) and the Subjective Journey (dealing with the emotional journey of the main character and his or her role in the struggle against the forces of Mordor). He explained that the emotional resonance of the story comes from the journey that the Main Character and Impact Character (the character who's life is most effected by the main character), take together.

I was surprised when Mr Hickman named Smeagol as the impact character in Frodo's arc (not Sam, which is what most of the audience...myself included...was expecting.)

“In Smeagol, Frodo sees what he will become, and in Frodo Smeagol sees who he might have become if not for the influence of The Ring.”

Although not an entirely new revelation (I wrote a research paper on Gollum in college and his relationship with Frodo is certainly an important aspect of the story) The level of significance was an eye-opener for me and makes me want to re-examine my own writing a bit more.