The Hobbit

Who's excited for the film The Hobbit? I am, for sure, and I know many others are! Ever since he directed The Lord of the Rings, fans have been hoping that Peter Jackson would undertake The Hobbit.

Not only is Peter Jackson one of the directors, but Sir Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Andy Serkis, Ian Holm (as an older Bilbo), Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, and Christopher Lee all playing the same roles as they did in The Lord of the Rings. Wonderful news!

Bilbo, from The Hobbit

However, from the production videos and trailers I've seen, the film seems to diverge quite a bit from the book. Galadriel does not even appear in The Hobbit. All the wizard action (Involving Radagast the Brown and Saruman the White) happens simultaneously as the action of the story, but is off-set so to speak: Tolkien never takes us there. We don't see the defeat of the Necromancer, we just hear about it. 

Secondly, I never would have pictured the village of Dale as an Italian/southern France village. It's cute though.

Thirdly, they added to the dwarves' characters. Ok, fine. Sounds entertaining. 

Fourthly, they got the beards wrong for the most part. In the film some of them don't really have beards, they have glorified mustaches. However, they are dwarves, therefore they ought to have full beards. Thorin Oakenshield from the book would be ashamed to go about with as little a beard as they gave him in the movie.

Kili

Aragorn

Fili and Kili, being younger, can certainly have smaller beards (in my opinion), but I think they should be longer and fuller than men generally wear theirs. Kili and Thorin in the movie look rather like Rangers or Men of Gondor.  In this photo, Kili looks like he could be a brother to Aragorn.
Here are pictures for comparison's sake.


Full, long beards are part of what make dwarves, dwarves (see The Blog That Time Forgot if you don't believe me). In the book, The Hobbit, Dwalin at least was able to tuck his beard in his belt: "It was a dwarf with a blue beard tucked into a golden belt" (page 7). Once, when Thorin was very angry, he said to Gandalf, "May your beard wither." Thorin was furious, showing that this is one of the worst things he could possibly wish upon another. The state of one's beard was a matter of pride. To loose one's beard would be like losing one's "man-card,"  or in this case, one's "dwarf-card."

The Blog that Time Forgot 
This blog goes into a detailed textual analysis of the dwarves' beards in the book. You can skip down to the section about beards. Basically his argument agrees with my observations from the book: dwarves should have beards and that beards are a source of pride.

In a production (behind-the-scenes) video one of the people on set suggests that maybe Fili and Kili can't grow beards yet. The above blog mentions this, and in addition to that blogger's analysis, I'd like to point out that Fili and Kili, most certainly did have beards in the book, "It was two dwarves, both with blue hoods, silver belts, and yellow beards" (page 8).

Sources:
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Ballantine Books, published 1965.
The Hobbit (Official Site)
The Lord of the Rings (Official Site)
All photos come from the downloads sections.

Legends - a retelling of history

"Look to the past, learn for the future." This was our motto in American Girl's Club.

 "Legends are lessons. They ring with truth." -Queen Elinor, in Brave (a Pixar-Disney film)

"'Haflings!' laughed the Rider that stood beside Eomer. 'Haflings! But they are only a little people in old songs and children's tales out of the North. Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?'
'A man may do both,' said Aragorn. 'For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time.'" - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

Based on fact, legends reflect reality as it was, and sometimes as it is.

Learn from legends or else "History repeats itself." 

Healing in the hands of the King

"Alas! If he should die. Would that there were kings in Gondor, as there were once upon a time, they say! For it is said in old lore: The hands of the king are the hands of a healer. And so the rightful king could ever be known." -Ioreth, a woman from the Houses of Healing in The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R Tolkien.

Aragorn

Aragorn, the heir to the throne of Gondor came into the Houses of Healing and treated Faramir, Eowyn, and Merry so that they would not die. He was a skilled healer, using herbs and wisdom to cure his patients. Although he had not claimed the title of king yet, Faramir referred to him as a king. Ioreth heard and said, "King! Did you hear that? What did I say? The hands of a healer, I said." The passage continues by describing the spreading of the news: "And soon the word had gone out from the House that the king was indeed among them."

And so it was that Aragorn's power of healing testified that he was the rightful king of Gondor.

The kings of France justified their right to the throne by a concept called, "The Divine Right of Kings."  Basically, they claimed that God had given the Bourbon line the kingship of France and so their power must not be disputed because God said it was to be this way.   While the Bible does say to submit to governing authorities, it does not mean that a specific line has a right to the throne. God raises up rulers and God also deposes them (Read I-II Samuel, I-II Kings, and I-II Chronicles).  Because of King Saul's disobedience, God did not allow his dynasty to continue but brought David to the throne; he began a new royal line.

Because of the "Divine Right" in France, there was a tradition that the kings had miraculous healing powers. When Louis XVI was beheaded the people rushed forward to capture some of his blood, dipping cloth into it because they thought his blood would heal their sick.

That is some extreme irony right there.

It would seems that the French no longer believed in Divine Right. However, if they really did not believe in Divine Right, then they would not believe his blood had power.

While the blood of Louis held no healing power, and Aragorn is a fictional character, there is a King who can heal.  He healed thousands by the power of God while he was here on Earth.  He healed the lame, the blind, the deaf, the mute, the leprous, among other diseases. He even gave life to the dead.  The miracles he worked showed that he was, and is, the son of God, the King of the universe.
He was executed by the Romans for crimes he did not commit, and in dieing he was a sacrifice before God to cleanse all people from their sins. He rose from the dead and his healing work continues. He heals the scars on our hearts, breaks our addictions, and gives eternal life to those who are in his kingdom. His name is Jesus.

"Big as a house, gray as a mouse," and very loud!

The Song of Roland is an old French epic poem in which the knights of Charlemagne battle Saracen forces.
The leading knight, Roland, has a horn that they refer to as an "olifant."

Olifant

 "Olifant" is the Old French word for "elephant." In fact, the present day English word is derived from the French (The American Heritage Dictionary). What is an elephants tusk? Ivory. Roland's horn was probably made of ivory.

In The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien, there are some large elephant-like creatures called, "Oliphaunts."  (The title of this post comes from a poem about Oliphaunts in the book.)

Boromir also had an important horn.  It is mentioned in his first appearance in the book, "on a baldric he wore a great horn tipped in silver that now was laid upon his knees." He blew it as he defended Merry and Pippin from the Orcs, calling his companions: "Then suddenly with a deep-throated call a great horn blew, and the blasts of it smote the hills and echoed in the hollows, rising in a mighty shout above the roaring of the falls."  As Aragorn raced towards the scene, the horn sounded "desperately" and then ceased abruptly. He arrived too late: the Orcs had already run off with the hobbits. Aragorn found Boromir sitting against a tree, dieing. His horn, symbolic of his life, lay broken at his side. "But Aragorn saw that he was pierced with many black-feathered arrows; his sword was still in his hand, but it was broken near the hilt; his horn cloven in two was at his side. Many Orcs lay slain, piled all around him and at his feet."

As Roland fought the attacking Saracens, his friend Olivier told him to blow the horn and call for the help of Charlemagne's army.  Roland refused, and as a result the entire rear guard was wiped out, including himself and Olivier. However, before the battle was completely over, Roland blew the horn long and loud and called the army back after there was no more hope of survival. Before they arrived, Roland blew his horn again, but much weaker this time and Charlemagne knew that Roland was scarcely alive. Before he died, the warrior placed his sword and horn beneath him lest they fall into enemy hands. Charlemagne and his knights found the battlefield covered in bodies.