Post-Lenten Update

So... I decided kind of last minute this year to give up social media for Lent, which is why I haven't really been hanging around here for the past 40 days! Yesterday was a wonderful Easter day, and also the great feast day where I got to (finally) break my social media 'fast'. Hooray! School has been pretty insane. I'll be happy with just surviving this semester. But, in other news, I've finally finished the cross stitch I've been working on for the past year and a half. I don't have a great picture of it, but loooooooook:

It's one of those Thomas Kinkade Disney ones (Cinderella, obviously). In real life it sparkles because instead of using French Knots (which hate me. I was doing the form perfectly and could not get those dang things to work) I used shiny beads, which are prettier than french knots anyways. Yay! Now I just have to frame it and find some place to stick it on my walls. Any ways, I have some post ideas, but I don't know when I'll get to them. Summer is coming up quickly, which really means papers and finals are coming up more quickly. So, we'll see. 

Literary Heroine Blog - Late

It's time once again for the Literary Heroines Blog Party! Actually, that's not quite true. It's over, but I'm posting my answers to the questions just the same. These are the same questions from last year, so some of my answers are the same, but I've updated most of them. The link to the original post and information can be found here. 

~ The Questions ~

Introduce yourself!  Divulge your life's vision, likes, dislikes, aspirations, or something completely random!

I am a third year college student at Houston Baptists University. I'm enrolled in the wonderful Honors College at my school. I have the best friends in the world. I'm taking a full course load this semester, working two jobs and commuting. I'm usually very tired, but I'm taking awesome classes this semester so it's ok. I love to read, I build worlds for fun, I paint and draw when I feel like it. I love books and I constantly buy more even though I have no place to put them. My goal in life is to find a job that pays me to read books and watch movies that I like. Failing that and all other plans my friend and I plan to pack up our lives and hitchhike to Florida where we will spend the rest of our lives operating rides and working for minimum wage at Disney World. And I hate fruit. 

What, to you, forms the essence of a true heroine?

A well educated, strong woman who is wise enough to acknowledge her natural limitations and is not too proud to accept help when she needs it. A girl who isn't dependent on a man’s affections to serve as an evaluation of her self-worth, but isn't afraid or disdainful of love when it comes to her. And a woman who stands up for what she believes in and shows strong internal character.

Share (up to) four heroines of literature that you most admire and relate to. 

Only four? Ok, um Sophie Hatter (Howl's Moving Castle), Hermione Granger (Harry Potter), Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), and Luthien (The Silmarillion).

Five of your favorite historical novels? 

Hm, weird how that one word was scratched out mysteriously. So, five of my favorite novels? Howl's Moving Castle for certain (that's not even a question), The Hobbit, The Silmarillion (because this is just the best thing ever), The Lord of the Rings (I feel like there's a theme here), and The Wind in the Willows. 

Out of those five books who is your favorite major character and why? 

My favorite major character would be Howell Jenkins because he's just hilarious. He's so vain and ridiculous, and there were several scenes in that book that almost made me cry I was laughing to hard.  

Out of those five books who is your favorite secondary character and why? 

I really love Thingol from The Silmarillion. Tolkien kind of left a lot of gaps with his character and I filled them with my own head-cannon. Like this guy is the king of the Sindar elves and no one ever asks for his opinion on anything. He gets pretty irritated about it and starts taking his frustrations out on everyone passive-aggressively.  'Oh, no one wanted to know what I though we should do about the orcs? Fine, no army for you.' 'No one wanted to know what I thought we should do about humans? Fine, but if they wander in my forest they will get lost and starve' 'Oh, you want to marry my daughter? Fine, bring me a Silmarill. lolz jk. If you bring me a silmarill, I'll just take it and still keep Luthien!' 

If you were to plan out your dream vacation, where would you travel to - and what would you plan to do there? 

I would go to Oxford for two weeks. During that two weeks I would visit C.S. Lewis' house, go to the Eagle and Child, and make several excursions into London. In London I would take a boat down the Thames, go see Shakespeare in the Globe, visit the British Museum, see the Crown Jewels, go to the Sherlock Holmes museum, visit King's Cross, and ride in the Eye. I would also take a train over to Cardiff Wales and go to the Doctor Who experience. Oh wait, this isn't a dream, I GET TO DO THIS IN FIVE MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  

What is your favorite time period and culture to read about? 

I love the Medieval Era. The way that they thought about God and life were just stunningly beautiful. So much of what we have that's good comes from that time period. I love it.

You have been invited to perform at the local charity concert. Singing, comedy, recitation - what is your act comprised of? 

Easy, I would recite poetry. T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.

Jellicle Cats come out to-night
Jellicle Cats come one come all:
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright -
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.



Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats are rather small;
Jellicle Cats are merry and bright,
And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.
Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces,
Jellicle Cats have bright black eyes;
They like to practise their airs and graces
And wait for the Jellicle Moon to rise.



Jellicle Cats develop slowly,
Jellicle Cats are not too big;
Jellicle Cats are roly-poly,
They know how to dance a gavotte and a jig.
Until the Jellicle Moon appears
They make their toilette and take their repose:
Jellicle Cats wash behind their ears,
Jellicle dry between their toes.



Jellicle Cats are white and black,
Jellicle Cats are of moderate size;
Jellicle Cats jump like a jumping-jack,
Jellicle Cats have moonlit eyes.
They're quitet enough in the morning hours,
They're quitet enough in the afternoon,
Reserving their terpsichorean powers
To dance by the light of the Jellicle Moon.



Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats (as I said) are small;
If it happends to be a stormy night
They will practise a caper or two in the hall.
If it happens the sun is shining bright
You would say they had nothing to do at all:
They are resting and saving themselves to be right
For the Jellicle Moon and the Jellicle Ball.

If you were to attend a party where each guest was to portray a heroine of literature, who would you select to represent?

Sophie Hatter (from the movie) because I love her clothes.

What are your sentiments on the subject of chocolate? 

I’m in favor of all things chocolate and of those who produce such things. After all, who is it who makes the sun rise, and who sprinkles it with dew? The candy man. That sounds like a pretty important job to me.

Favorite author(s)? 

I'd have to go with J.R.R. Tolkien, Diana Wynn Jones, Bisco Hatori, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare.
Besides essentials, what would you take on a visiting voyage to a foreign land? 

(Like England which I'm going to?) I'll bring books, for sure, and a camera. Honestly I'm way more excited about what I'll be able to bring home from a foreign land! 

In which century were most of the books you read written? 

Also easy. 19th century. Unless, of course, you count all the philosophy I read, then it's like 'what time period are most of the books you read from' Um, actually I can't really answer  that either. All of them. This semester alone I've moved from the 5th century BC to the 20th century AD.
In your opinion, the ultimate hero in literature is… 

Well clearly Batman is the ideal hero in any genre, but since there has been, nor will there ever be, a decent novel written about him I will have to go with someone like Bilbo Baggins or Howl Jenkins. Neither of them is what you would expect a hero to be like, but there’s more to them than meets the eye, and when there’s really trouble they put aside their fear and other a sundry of character flaws and do the right thing. That makes them both incredibly human, and easy to sympathize with, and also incredibly admirable, and allows them to serve as an ideal to strive towards.

Describe your ideal dwelling place. 

The front of the house will be ivy covered brick. It shall have a round front door and round windows. There will be flowers all over the front yard. The back will not be fenced in, but shall have tons of wide open space and a tree to read under. I also want a wrap around porch and a turret. Inside there will be books everywhere. You'll trip over them. And that's where I want to live.
Sum up your fashion style in a short sentence.

I'd have to care about clothing to have a fashion style. I wear clothes I like. What I like is largely random and arbitrary. I do like things that actually fit which is not a lot since I', 5'10" and really skinny.

Have you ever wanted to change a character’s name? 

I guess, maybe.
In your opinion, the most dastardly villain of all literature is... 

Well, last year I said Satan from Paradise Lost, so that's been done. This year I'll say Mephistopheles, the demon in Faust. Let's be real, demons are the most evilest. I guess I could say Satan from The Inferno, but that would be like cheating, so I'll stick with  Mephistopheles.

Three favorite Non-fiction books? 

The Confessions by St. Augustine, Cur Deus Homo by St. Anselm, and Proslogion also by St. Anselm
Your duties met for the day, how would you choose to spend a carefree summer afternoon? 

If I'm being honest I would probably waste it by reading or watching things on netflix. 

Create a verbal sketch of your dream hat - in such a way as will best portray your true character. 

It has no brim and no cap, nor any adornments. It is made of neither straw, nor felt, nor of anything at all. It allows the wind to blow softly through my hair, which is bound up carelessly with a single ribbon. It allows the rain to fall on my head, making my hair clump in stiff wet locks, and will likely cause my head to chill which will likely be the cause of my catching consumption. I shall then grow gradually more pale and beautiful until I expire on a cruise ship, surrounded by a slew of male admirers,  laying on a bed of Rose petals at sunset.

Share the most significant event(s) that have marked your life in the past year. 

I found out that I'll be able to go to Oxford this summer. I entered the penultimate year of my undergraduate endeavors. I'm, pretty sure that's it. Oh, no wait. I was also confirmed in the Anglican Church this year, so there's that! :)
Share the Bible passage(s) that have been most inspiring to you recently.

1 Cor. 1-2

Book Recommendation: Dracula

     

     Really? You're recommending Dracula? The 'demonic' horror novel? The book that spawned so many horrifying and ridiculously seductive movies/t.v. shows?

     Yes - yes I am.

     Most people are familiar with Count Dracula, be it through movies, television, or Halloween specials, but most people, I find, have not read the book. I was with you, I hadn't read it, and didn't want to read it. For whatever reason vampires have scared the pants off me since I was a child. But, it was close to Halloween, I'd been listening to audio tapes on the drive to and from school, so I picked up the dreaded book. 'I'm an adult' I reasoned as I walked to the checkout counter. 'And really, at the very least it will just be like a cheap thrill novel - like the Goosebumps books I looked at but never actually dared to read'. So I got it, and I listened to it, and I loved it.

     It was absolutely nothing like what I thought it would be. All of those movies and things you've seen in the media - get that out of your head, because this book is nothing like that. Even the Keanau Reeves movie Bram Stoker's Dracula, which keeps almost all of the dialog from the book, manages to be nothing like it at all. The book was a little scary, but it was also Gothic Horror at its finest.

     The book is called Dracula, but actually the character of Dracula is barely in it. He's in the very first part of the novel, and then throughout the rest of the book, until more towards the end, he's mostly an implied presence - a shadow. You know what's going on, but none of the other characters really do. Instead the book follows the lives of his victims/ intended victims/ killers. It's mostly written in first person as a series of diary entries, letters, and recordings. I don't normally like first person point of view, but in this case it worked really well. The audience knew where this was all going, but the characters didn't. It served to heighten the suspense of the book to the point where you were like 'NO DON'T DO IT!!!11!1!!!! THERE'S A VAMPIRE TRYING TO EAT YOU DON'T YOU KNOW!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

     Which was the really great thing about the book - no, they didn't know, why would they know? This was nearing the turn of the century England in the throes of the Enlightenment. The last place their minds would go was to the thought of a scary supernatural being. And that was the whole point of the book. The Gothic Horror genre is part of the Romantic movement in literature which was a reaction against the Enlightenment. (For those of you who may be a bit rusty on those terms, the Enlightenment was a period of thought stemming from the works of the philosopher Rene Descartes. It emphasized the ability of human reason, or human senses, to discover absolute truth. It was obsessed with creating a unified system of knowledge that eliminated the need for God and set man up as the center of everything... this is actually a really bad definition, but shhhhhhh just accept the words that I'm saying. Anyways, needless to say Enlightenment thought kind of reduced human beings to tools that could be used to achieve the goals of lofty intellectual utopias, and the Romantics sought to fight against this by instilling a sense of dignity back into humans and into nature. Did they tend to be a little pantheistic? Sure, but you know... they made pretty things?). Sorry about that ridiculous parenthetical aside. If blogger would let you do footnotes I'd be all over that. So yes, Dracula is a horror novel and part of the Romantic movement. The really neat thing about this book was that it very consciously condemned Enlightenment thought and its rejection of the supernatural. However, despite the icky grossness of the count and its participation in the Romantic movement the book is, in fact, a Christian book.

     I know right!?! I was surprised too. The count is a symbol of violent lust and a sort of Nietzschian will to power blown up to supernatural proportions.  He's absolutely evil (there's no ambiguity about this, unlike in almost all of the film versions), he's incredibly clever, and eternally hungry. Mere human beings cannot overcome him. So we all know the stereotypes, you kill a vampire through a stake to the heart, he's allergic to garlic, he can't be in the sun, and he hates churches, holy water, and crucifixes. Most of those come from this book. And yes, now they're kind of cliche, but in the original they're incredibly powerful. What I loved most about this book is, it wasn't human beings who defeated the count. God did. Sure it was humans who stabbed him and whatever, but the power came from God. When one character held out a crucifix against the Count, he described a sensation of power that shot through his arm that was not from him. Holy communion is presented as a powerful symbol, and characters are constantly commending themselves to the protection of God, etc. Normally this wouldn't impress me so much, but in a book like this it really must be implicitly Christian to work. And it is, and it's wonderful, and Dr. Van Helsing is the best.

     I would recommend this book to everyone without reservation. I really didn't find it that scary, and there were several times I was listening to it while driving home alone in the dark, and it was (mostly) fine. The heroes are really great characters, the villain is wonderful, and Dr. Van Helsing is one of my favorite characters ever. He's the only one who's willing to consider that there might be a supernatural explanation to all the bad things that are happening (besides Jonathan Harker, but that's a completely different set of circumstances). He's the only one, at first, who's willing to humble himself to the point of admitting that the enlightenment worldview isn't big enough to hold the entire world, that there are forces bigger, older, and more powerful than man. I will say this about the women. It is a Gothic horror novel. All of the heroines are sweet and beautiful, and innocent, and sweet and innocent and beautiful and beautiful and innocent. All of those. Their function is to be a moral center in he plot, and stand as paragons of virtue for everyone to rally around. I have no problem with this, but it might irritate some people. (and to be fair, Mina is incredibly clever and capable in her own right - she just isn't a 'modern' heroine).

     So yes, go forth into the night and sink your teeth into this fantastic book (do you see what I did there?).

My (Real) Top 10 Favorite Fictional Couples

Ok, so yesterday was Valentines Day, and there were just so many things posted on facebook and tumblr and whatnot that were sappy and gross that I couldn't resist putting together a satirical list of my 'favorite' couples (because if Bella and Edward are every on this blog in an un-ironic way you will know I have lost my mind). It is true that I am, as a rule, not overly fond of romances and books that focus heavily on those sorts of relationships, but even I have my favorites. So, without further ado, and in celebration of the post valentines day season, here's my completely non-ironic list of favorite couples.

10.) Jonathan and Mina Harker

From the book Dracula (I couldn't find a suitable picture of the two of them) they're a married couple who work incredibly well together to defeat the monster. Both Jonathan and Mina are essential members of the anti-dracula team, and their love for each other and for God goes a long way toward saving everyone.

9.)Goliath and Elisa Maza

From the show Gargoyles these two at the very least had a strong friendship, with more than a little romantic tension. Unfortunately the show was cancelled in its third season, but I can only hope they would have resolved things between them a bit more. The two worked well together and cared about each other deeply. I don't think it would be too much to ask for a little magical resolution for everyone (it's not like magic wasn't a thing in this show).  

8.)Guido and Dora

From the Italian film Life is Beautiful, Guido and Dora love each other through the horrors of WW2, sacrificing everything for their love and family. 

7.)Belle and the Beast (Prince Adam)

 Sure the Beast had a lot to work through (you would too if a fairy had turned into a monster when you were 11), and sure he imprisons Belle, but in all seriousness, I've always had a soft spot for the Beast. He clearly is a kind person (deep down). His servants see it, and Belle learns to too. I also choose to believe that they read to each other all the time after they got married.

6.)Remus Lupin and Nymphadora (Tonks) Lupin

Gah, these were my favorites in the whole Harry Potter series. Lupin is just such an awesome person, and Tonks is so funny and nice, and he just didn't believe that she could love someone like him, but she did and it's super adorable.

5.)Sam Gamgee and Rose

I just don't feel like I should have to explain this. They're perfect. 

4.)Redcrosse Knight and Una

From Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. Because who better for the allegorical representation of England/ Holiness/ St. George to marry than the allegorical representation of Christian (protestant) Truth? Plus Una is a pretty awesome character in her own right.

3.)Haruhi and Tamaki

From Ouran Highschool Host Club. I know I mocked this in my satire post, but that's ok, because this show is itself a satire. It joyously mocks Shojo (girly romance) manga, while itself drawing you in to its own goofy love story. Tamaki is a bubbly idiot (albeit a rich and ridiculously good-looking, and strangely intelligent one), and Haruhi is an incredibly passive heroine, so needless to say their interactions are hilarious. But there's also a serious side to both characters that makes their budding relationship fun to watch.

2.)Shizuku and Seiji

Whisper of the Heart is probably one of my favorite movies, so it should be no surprise that these two are up here. I mostly love that, even though they're still really young, they encourage each other to grow to be the best people they can be (both form themselves and each other). In my opinion they have quite a future ahead of them. 

1.)Howl Jenkins and Sophie Hatter

From Howl's Moving Castle (The Book, not the movie). Howl and Sophie are my absolute favorites. Sophie is so feisty and practical, and Howl is an absolute drama queen. I love their characters in the book, and all the hilarious things they get into and how they help each other even when they argue. It's one of the best fairy stories I've ever read in terms of quality, and my personal favorite (ever). Love these two.

There you have it - my non-ironic favorite pairings!

Top 10 Fictional Couples (Satirical Edition)

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Since most of the world (and by world I mean America) is busy receiving gifts and foodstuffs from their significant others, and I'm sitting at home by myself eating birthday cake oreos, I thought I'd compile my 'Forever Alone Top 10 (INCREDIBLY tongue in cheek) Fictional Couples' Take a look at all this love and the beautiful relationships that you will never have everyone.  

10.) Usagi and Mamoru (Sailor Moon)

I can't think of anything more beautiful than the love between a middle school girl and a college aged boy. 

9.) Narcissus and Himself

You can't really love other people until you love yourself right?

8.) Ron Weasley and Lavender Brown

J.K. Rowling recently revealed that her pairing of Ron and Hermione was a mistake - and I couldn't agree more. Clearly Won-Won and Lav-Lav were meant to be.

7.) Haruhi X Everyone (Ouran High school Host Club)

Because who doesn't love a reverse Harem?

 6.) Wesley and Buttercup

What's worth living for? True Love. What does true love look like? A beautiful but flat princess character and a male Mary Sue. 

5.) Belle and Gaston

Gaston was a sincerely misunderstood character, and if Belle hadn't been blind to the oppression suffered by the proletariat class then she wouldn't have fallen for the bourgeois beast. 

4.) Humbert Humbert and Lolita

It's not Humbert's fault that he fell in love with a minor. Everyone should just leave him the heck alone to love who he loves.

3.) John Watson and Sherlock Holmes

John: "In case any one cares, I'm not actually gay."

Oh John, methinks the lady doth protest too much.

2.) Edward Cullen and Bella Swan

One of the most beautiful couples in all of literary history, the forbidden love between Bella and her stalker Edward gives hope to the rest of us lonely souls out there.

1.) Heathcliff and Catherine 

And finally, in the number one spot, the couple that taught us that if you really love someone you will verbally and physically abuse them in an intense and passionate way.

The link to my non-ironic post can be found here 

Two Sentence Movie Reviews January 2014

I suppose it's about time for another round of two sentence movie reviews - the game where I review movies I've seen recent(ish)ly and give my summarized opinion of them. The past couple months have been pretty good as far as films go for me. So, with that said, enjoy!

Thor 2: The Dark World

I did like this movie, but I thought that Thor was in it way to much. It would have been better if it had been called Loki. 31/2 gods of mischief out of 5

Desolation of Smaug

I'd been waiting for this movie all year - the dwarves, King Thranduil, THAT DRAGON! As a die hard fan I had high expectations and Peter Jackson (for the most part) did not disappoint me. 4 1/2 party elks out of 5

A Christmas Story

This was one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen in my life, and I'm really not sure exactly what I thought of it. There's a part of me that thought it was pretty funny, and another part of me that kept watching the screen in a horrified trance wondering what on earth was going on. 2 1/2 red rider bb guns out of 5????

Frozen

I think it's a testament to the power and strength of this movie that I literally (and I mean literally figuratively) have not stopped singing the songs since I first saw it. This film had such a good plot and great characters and a wonderful message that I can't even... 5 icicles out of 5

Spirited Away

My Christmas gift to myself was just as good as I remember it being, even if no one else in my family thinks so (what do they know). Powerful storytelling from one of my favorite directors/ screenwriters/ artists. 4 & 9/10 soot sprites out of 5 

Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger

Another strange an quirky Christmas movie from jolly old England. I'm not sure whether it was David Tennant, the adorable children, the 'A Dickens Christmas' song, or the English accents, but even though this was one of the strangest movies I've ever seen, I loved it. 4 ridiculous Christmas songs out of 5

The Day of the Doctor

Even though season 7 didn't live up to my expectations, the 50th anniversary did not disappoint. The show got a new direction and David Tennant got to be the Doctor again - I loved it. 4 awkward 'moments' (see what I did there) out of 5.

Ghostbusters 

I'm usually all for campy effects, ridiculous plot lines, and bad acting, but this cult classic was missing something for me. It just didn't have the same punch as The Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal or The Neverending Story, I could go on. 3 marshmallow puff men out of 5. 

Titus 

From the director of your childhood favorite The Lion King comes this bloody Shakespeare tragedy based on Ovid. It was so ridiculously brutal and sadistic that I was traumatized - but I loved it. *Warning* I know that it's Shakespeare, but it's early Shakespeare and it's super R rated for just about everything you can think of. There's murder and mutilation and sex and rape and incest (??) and everything. It's great (and I don't say that lightly given everything else), but watch at your own discretion. 4 bloody stumps out of 5.

The Taming of the Shrew

Was it misogynistic? - That's open for debate. Was I laughing almost the entire time? - Yes, yes I was. 4 shrill screeches out of 5.

Against the Purists: The Desolation of Smaug

   
     So, it's been a while since The Desolation of Smaug came out, and it seems to me that it's been a bit of a polarizing film. People I know who've seen it either loved it or hated it. Of the people I know who hated it almost all of them are die-hard book fans - Tolkien purists. So, seeing as how The Hobbit is one of my top two favorite books of all time, I thought I'd defend the new movie from the rabid purists. I really do love The Hobbit. I've read it nearly twenty times, so it's not like I'm only sort of familiar with the story. I quote this book, man. In addition to The Hobbit, I've also read The Lord of the Rings multiple times and I own nearly every work Tolkien ever wrote (and I've read most of them too). If there is a club for die-hard Tolkien fans I think I should be allowed to be a member. And yet, I still loved the movie. How on earth could I do that seeing as how Peter Jackson changed almost everything (I say almost everything, but that's not quite true. Almost every line from the book is used in the movie, and it's still amazingly different from it's source material).

    If you are a purist the first important thing to keep in mind when watching the new movies is that they will not be like the book. If it were, it would actually be a terrible movie. The book's plot structure is more episodic than it is streamlined. If this were a mini series you would probably be able to follow the events in the book pretty closely, but in a movie you have to make each installment able to stand on its own. Each installment must be able to stand on it's own as a story, but still be able to connect to the other films. This is incredibly difficult to achieve, and Jackson had to add some things in to make it work. Having Orcs chase the Dwarves literally pushes the plot forward. It also makes the threat of the Necromancer more urgent. The Necromancer is not in the book, but his being driven from Mirkwood by the White Council is concurrent with the events in The Hobbit. Purists may understand that the Necromancer needed to be taken care of, but viewers who haven't seen the books need a more obvious reason. If the Necromancer is sending orcs to chase our heroes, you bet Gandalf needs to take him down. I think once purists get over the fact that things happen in the movie that don't happen in the Tolkienverse, it's pretty easy to see that some of the changes were necessitated.

     In fact, one of the changes that Jackson made I believed actually made the story better. At the beginning of the first installment Bilbo tells the story of the fall of Erebor. The tale has a very Medieval feel to it. Sure the Dragon came and ruined everything, but he came in response to a sickness that had grown in the heart of Erebor's king - Greed. Dragons themselves are mythological symbols of Greed, so the story of The Hobbit in many ways is the tale of the destructive power of greed. This is all in the source material, but I thought that Jackson did a better job of bringing this element out. Thorin inherits his grandfather's sickness, and we see it start to poison him in The Desolation of Smaug. Some of the liberties that Jackson takes allow him to more fully develop some of the themes of the source material.

    Now, that doesn't mean that I agree with all of the changes. I didn't mind Legolas being included (and in fact I thought his presence added a lot), but Tauriel drove me insane. It might have been fine to include an OC (original character), but I didn't like the way that she was used to inject unnecessary romantic tension. Because never, ever, ever, ever, ever *spoiler* ever, ever, ever, ever EVER would there ever be a romantic relationship between an elf and a dwarf... ever. There are canon reasons for this. First of all, elves are the true children of Eru and the Dwarves are adopted. The elves hold themselves as being inherently better because of this. Tension right there. Second of all, Tauriel is a Sindar elf, and Sindar elves hated dwarves, because dwarves literally burned down their great kingdom in Doriath and murdered Thingol, one of the greatest elves ever, and the Sindar king. Sindar elves hated dwarves. The whole Legolas and Gimli friendship was a big freakin' deal. Third of all, Kili would have grown up his whole life thinking that elves were gross because they didn't help his great-grandfather Thror. So the whole Kili/Tauriel thing was a load of crap. *Spoiler* However, this was a minor aspect of the movie and shouldn't have ruined it for people.

     

     There were plenty of reasons to enjoy the latest Hobbit installment, and many things that Peter Jackson did a fantastic job with. Bard the Bowman was a great character. He and his family added a bit of a human element that was missing. And please, can we talk about that dragon? That was literally one of the best dragons I have ever seen in a movie. No, I take it back. That was THE best dragon that has ever graced the silver screen. Smaug was beautifully animated. Every scene that he was in was simply stunning, and his voice work was magnificent. The dragon alone is enough to atone for everything that may or may not be wrong with that movie. The barrel scene was a lot of fun. They added Beorn. How many other film makers would have included Beorn? Also Beorn was awesome. They added things from the appendices. Movie goers have the opportunity to see how the events of The Hobbit influence The Lord of the Rings aside from just the finding of the Ring. It's an important tie-in that most directors would leave out.

     Peter Jackson took on an incredibly difficult task when he decided to make The Hobbit. He was, in essence, working backwards. The Lord of the Rings trilogy are unquestionably fantastic movies. They are also epics, and they were made first. Jackson, then had to take The Hobbit, a children's book, and try and make it fit with the epic scope of the trilogy without making it not The Hobbit. It's not easy, and he does mess up sometimes. Ultimately, however, I think the purists should be thankful. At the end of the day one our favorite books is getting made into a movie by someone who loves the book as much as we do. He's careful to try and make it accessible to those who haven't read any Tolkien, while putting in content and references that should excite old fans. Are there some things I would do differently if I were making the movies? Absolutley - but that's the thing. I'm not making the movies. Purists need to understand that Peter Jackson's Hobbit is an adaptation. It's not like Tolkien himself is making the movies (if he were they would never get done), they're made by a fan. So, don't go in expecting the version of The Hobbit that you had in your head, because that's not what you're going to get. Instead, go in expecting what is essentially a big budget fan-tribute. I don't think that lessens the value of the movie, in fact I think it raises it. In the end, these movies were made by people like us, people that love these books and are doing their best to bring to a wider audience.