The Hobbit - The Battle of the Five Armies

Yes, I liked it.

*Contains spoilers*

With the first two, I didn't see a need for an extended edition, this third one however, could really benefit from having an extended edition, some things were not very well explained or concluded.

For all that it's called "The Battle of The Five Armies" they never really explain the title in the film.

Favorite part: when Bilbo appears in the camp and talks with Thranduil, Bard, and Gandalf. The scene where he returns home to find all his belongings being auctioned off was satisfactory too.

I was surprised with the scenes of Bilbo alone in his "ransacked" house. All that talk of going home to his armchair, and his furniture is all gone. It almost symbolizes that his life was changed by his adventure and the emptiness in his heart due to the death of Thorin and the separation from the rest of the company. That atleast is what it said to me. That's what it's like to come back from an adventure. You've lost things, you've gained things, there's a hole in your heart from knowing those days are over despite the pain that was in them that made you a stronger person, you can never relive those moments with your team, like a breeze it's over, but it leaves an imprint on your heart and gently stirs you to drop everything and fly to the other side of the world....err...ahem, that's not where I was going to go with this... I digress, and it doesn't say all that, just the first bit, anyhow.

I liked the theme of love, loyalty, and honor. Love between many different characters, loyalty between Thorin and family, and Bilbo and Thorin, and honor between Bilbo and Thorin, Thorin and the people of Laketown.

While Tauriel and Kili were "in love" with each other, yet it was Legolas who showed the most love. Despite the fact that he was cold and distant, Legolas showed more love to Tauriel than Kili.  While he never said, "I love you" or compliments her beauty: actions speak louder than words, He was always there like a shadow protecting her. He stood up to his father and refused to return to Mirkwood for her sake. He invited her to go to Gundabad with him and they rode off together on a horse --interesting date idea there.... He fought many fearsome creatures to defend her, and he knocked down a building to form a bridge to get there in time to face down the foe that's about to slay her. And yet...she was "in love" with Kili. When Thranduil said to her, "it hurts because it was real" it rings false. I don't have an issue with Kili and Tauriel falling in love, but it is a paltry love story compared to Legolas' love for her.

The One Lovely Blog Award

First of all, I would like to thank Marissa for nominating me for the One Lovely Blog Award. Make sure you check out her blog: http://marissabaker.wordpress.com/ 

Here's what it is and how it works: "The One Lovely Blog Award nominations are chosen by fellow bloggers for those newer and up-and-coming bloggers. The goal is to help give recognition and also to help the new blogger to reach more viewers. It also recognizes blogs that are considered to be “LOVELY” by the fellow bloggers who choose them. This award recognizes bloggers who share their story or thoughts in a beautiful manner to CONNECT with viewers and followers. In order to “accept” the award the nominated blogger must follow several guidelines:

Thank the person who nominated you for the award. 

Add the One Lovely Blog logo to your post.

Share 7 facts or things about yourself.

Nominate 15 or more bloggers you admire and inform the nominees by commenting on their blog."

Seven facts about me:

1. Jesus Christ the Son of God is my Savior.

2. I sometimes eat leafy greens with my ice cream.

3. I write poetry.

4. I received the French Honors Scholar award my senior year of college.

5. I have been to France, China,  Iceland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Spain, and Canada.
6. I don't like dry climates.
7. Green is my favorite color.

I'm not going to nominate 15, I'm just going to nominate two:
What Kady Did  -A beautiful and artistic take on life, marriage, and family. 
Twig and Toadstool  -Full of beautiful whimsical faerie-esque crafts along with a few insights on life. 

North and South - Mr. Thornton.

The BBC miniseries, North and South, exhibits some of the best casting I have ever seen. I am now reading the book on which it is based, bearing the same name, and written by Elizabeth Gaskill.

All the main characters fit very well with their descriptions from the book, Today I'm just going to focus on the remarkable similarities between the Mr. Thornton of the book, and Mr. Thornton as played by Richard Armitage.

The book describes Mr. Thornton thus,
"Now, in Mr. Thornton's face the straight brows fell low over the deep-set earnest eyes, which, without being unpleasantly sharp, seemed intent enough to penetrate into the very heart and core of what he was looking at. The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they were carved in marble, and lay principally about the lips, which were slightly compressed over a set of teeth so faultless and beautiful as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when the rare bright smile, coming in an instant and shining out of the eyes, changed the whole look from the severe and resolved expression of a man ready to do and dare everything, to the keen honest enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly and instantaneously except in children." (North and South, chapter 10)

In the movie, not only does Richard Armitage fit this description, but the way he played the character fits as well. His eyes were piercing, he looked severe, and at that moment when he smiled in the movie near the end, it was like the sun burst forth suddenly from behind clouds and it seemed as if he was entirely wrapped up in that moment.

Here is a set of pictures to illustrate this description and demonstrate how they coincide:

"The straight brows fell low over the deep-set earnest eyes...seemed intent enough to penetrate...The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they were carved in marble and lay principally about the lips...the severe and resolved expression of a man ready to do and dare everything."

"...when the rare bright smile, coming in an instant and shining out of the eyes, changed the whole look from the severe and resolved expression of a man ready to do and dare everything, to the keen honest enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly and instantaneously except in children."

One difference is that his teeth are hardly seen when he smiles, while in the book it seems they are visible when he smiles, although much of the smile comes from his eyes: "a set of teeth so faultless and beautiful as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when the rare bright smile, coming in an instant and shining out of the eyes."

All the same, I am amazed at how well he fits the description in the book in look and manner. 

The Hobbit, Battle of the Five Armies teaser trailer

I was in China when the teaser trailer came out and was able to watch it via an Australian news-site. Later, I learned how to work the big screen TV which connected to the internet that was in our room, and was able to watch it full screen! So exciting, I would not have been able to do that at home!

I love the trailer. I was disappointed in both The Desolation of Smaug trailer and movie. So since I loved this trailer and love An Unexpected Journey, I'm hoping Battle of the Five Armies will be stellar! Since I love this trailer so much, I'm embedding it here in my blog.

It was certainly epic, dramatic, and stirring. Bilbo's lines 'One day I will remember..." followed with Pippin's song were just beautiful! If you remember from An Unexpected Journey, Gandalf said to Bilbo, "Home is behind, the world ahead." This is the opening line from Pippin's song, which is now in this trailer. I like to think that Bilbo wrote this song because of this adventure and Pippin learned it from him. In the book, Bilbo did write songs that Pippin, Merry, and Frodo all learned and sang, and while this song is not in the book, it makes for a sort of blended fan-fiction/head-canon.

ISFJ and the agony of having extroverted intuition as your quaternary function

As I've said before, I'm an ISFJ.

This means that my fourth and least developed function is Extroverted Intuition. The websites I've read have said that as such, our intuition can steer us wrong. Joe Butt says, "ISFJs are easily undone by Extraverted iNtuition, their inferior function" (Humanmetrics.com: ISFJ).

Now, that's my weakest function. That's what I'm bad at. My intuition is a funny thing, and I'm only vaguely conscious of it. Sometimes I'm not sure if what I'm listening to is my extroverted intuition or my women's intuition, or something else entirely.

There are times when my intuition is spot on, and there are other times when I can't trust it. Is that all in my head? Do they actually not like me? I'll walk around with an uncomfortable feeling, it isn't right, how can we regain peace? Then I turn to prayer.

Sometimes I'll think of something to say in a situation and then I'll get a feeling: don't say that. If I do say it, sometimes I regret it, sometimes not.

One time though, a friend told me that he couldn't meet me as planned, his parent's wanted to talk to him about something. I could easily explain it away as not a big deal, but my gut wouldn't accept that. Whenever I thought about it, I began to shake. My legs trembled. I felt cold and my heart felt strange. The fear overwhelmed me, I could logically explain it away and make sense of it in my head and come up with some non-dire explanation. But I couldn't accept that. It turned out my intuition was correct. My friend admitted that something was wrong, and agreed to tell me in a few days. During those few days of anxious waiting, my brain pondered and I figured out what had happened ahead of time. I was calm when the blow fell. I felt almost nothing, my heart was a lump of dead flesh. Now, on Funky MBTI Fiction I read that the fourth and weakest function "often only turns up under extreme stress or anxiety." This was a case of extreme stress and anxiety and this issue that my intuition cued in on was not the only anxiety I was facing at the time. I remember hunching up in a boxed in corner of my bedroom sobbing on the phone to my best friend...

Another facet of having extroverted intuition as the fourth from your longest and strongest suite (to use a bridge term) is not always knowing what to say to people or being able to understand their meaning. ISFJs "aren't quite as good at reading others as their extroverted counterpart. The ISFJ needs external indicators to understand what is required from them and can sometimes get wrapped up in  their own internal world and forget to check their Ne." (ESFJ vs. ISFJ)As a side note on this: it also really stinks when you realize your world in your head isn't real, and the characters in your story aren't quite so pure and noble as you thought they were.... This has happened to me, and it seems to have also happened to Dr. John Watson (aslo an ISFJ) in BBC's Sherlock, 

When I'm in a conversation usually, feelings of warmth and support are there, but they stumble out of my mouth in awkward words, too deep, not deep enough, not quite what I meant to say or how I wanted it to sound. Or I keep quiet out of fear of saying the wrong thing. Later, my brain catches up to my heart and I think of a much better way to say it. (Guess why I like writing?)

I really don't understand my fourth function, I'm just trying to give some examples of what it's like to have extroverted intuition as your weakest function. Try performing brain surgery on yourself...it's like that...

The Middle-Kingdom and Middle-Earth

I just returned from a month in China. It was an amazing journey! It wasn't all a easy, we had work to do, but things like that draw you closer to people and I loved living with my wonderful room-mates and meeting lots of sweet people. It's hard being home now, with the wind out of my sails, my new friends dispersed, wondering what's next, playing over the past and asking, "what could I have done better?" I think I've learned a lot about myself, but I'm still processing. We'll put all that aside now and have a little fun!

While in China, I found a few things that reminded me of Middle-Earth.

My first weekend there, I visited The Temple of Heaven. I was excited to find a GREEN DRAGON. (Or at least, I assumed it was a dragon...)

Oh, wait, there's like a thousand of them! (And these are dragons beyond a doubt!)

Actually, there are dragons everywhere in Beijing!

This doorway reminded me of Hobbit architecture:

The gates had very large red doors with big gold studs. The door handles were placed so high, I felt like a tiny hobbit. Here I'm on tipy-toe.

And at Beihai Park, I spotted this round green door!

I also spent quite a bit of time in subterranean tunnels built by expert engineers. While it wasn't the Mines of Moria or the kingdom of Dale, but rather The Subway, the trains sped through the tunnels like fierce little dragons. It would be death to fall in their path...

That's all for now!

The Hobbit and Huntingtower

The Hobbit was written by J.R.R Tolkien and published in 1937. The first two installments of the film trilogy by Peter Jackson were released in 2012 and 2013.  Huntingtower was written by John Buchan and published in 1922.

The Hobbit (especially the film) and Huntingtower have a number of commonalities:

1. The main character from The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins is 50 years old while the main character of Huntingtower, Dickson McCunn is 55.

2. Both Bilbo and Dickson are well to do, respectable people.

3. Both suddenly and unexpectedly set off on adventures.

4. Both had small companions in strange garb.

5. Dickson is fond of books and brings some with him, while books are also important to movie Bilbo who says, "I miss my books, I miss my armchair..." (etc.)

6. Dickson was a grocer until he retired, and in The Hobbit film one of the dwarves remarks of Bilbo, "He looks more like a grocer than a burglar."

7. Dickson is an ISFJ and Bilbo is said to be an ESFJ.

8. Bilbo (in the movie, but not in the book) and Dickson set off with walking sticks.

9. Dickson was setting forth on a walking holiday, and Bilbo liked walks, "I got as far as Frogmorton once," (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey).

10. Bilbo said, "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet there's no knowing where you might be swept off to," (The Lord of the Rings). This accurately describes the adventures of Dickson, he set out on a holiday and was quickly swept up into an unexpected adventure.

11. Dickson and Bilbo (film) had sandy colored hair.

Bilbo Baggins, played by Martin Freeman