fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2876 ]

[ SECRET POST #2876 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2876 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[The Boxtrolls]

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03.

[One Piece]

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[Hockey RPF, Patrick Kane]

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05.

[The Silmarillion]

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06.

[Meghan Trainor: All About That Bass]

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07.

[Radiant Historia]

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08.

[Twin Peaks]

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09.

[Meghan Trainor]

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10.

[Taylor Swift]

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11.

[Star Wars]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 051 secrets from Secret Submission Post #411.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

DA, but I agree on not liking what the movies are doing with Thranduil so far at all. The Silvan racism thing in particular, yes. It's just ... incredibly jarring. I've seen someone say that the movies have basically chopped out the compassionate bits of book!Thranduil's personality and given them to Tauriel instead, which isn't completely true but I think isn't completely un true either. In much the same way as the movie is exaggerating the gold-sickness with regards to Thorin, they're exaggerating Thranduil's temper and animosity, and I don't really like it.

I'm very nervous about the movieverse pre-BoFA negotiations now, for any number of reasons.

NA I'm ambivalent on the movies now but yeah he's really exaggerating both of them. I don't actually trust him to handle things well. It's been said before but I think PJ really loves forcing conflicts that weren't even there. Even criticism of parts of the last two LotR movies mentioned that. I doubt they'll be much nuance to them at all.

Yeah. Book!Thranduil was actually being pretty reasonable. Hell, book!Thorin was also being as reasonable as his circumstances allowed through the negoiations, considering that he was negotiating with a potentially hostile army for the home he'd just won back. Bard, really, was the person being most angry and unreasonable, and to be fair to him he'd just watched his home and his people being burned down around his ears because the stupid dwarves had to go poke a dragon and then point it at him, so I'll give him some leeway there. The worst thing about the run-up to the BoFA was that they were all kind of in the right and all kind of in the wrong, and it had to go through bloodshed before anyone realised it.

But the movies ... Thorin is obviously well past reasonable and into legitimately insane right now (the bit where he's arguing and semi-threatening Bilbo while Bilbo is hopping around because dragon, Thorin, can we talk about the shiny rocks later?), Thranduil is being weird and racist and generally belligerent, and Bard is actually being the most reasonable around now, but how long that will last when his town is slaughtered is another question.

Just ... subtlety. It is not the movieverse's thing.

Yeah, exactly. I read some decent meta talking about it and how the situation can be read in a complex way, and I'm really angry that the movie seems to be taking that away. I'm also not digging the insanity part at all, especially since I don't trust him to portray is well at all. After Denethor, I agree that he's not good at subtlety. The Hobbit isn't even that complex, why is he trying to make the films even less so?!

I've never considered Bard as angry and unreasonable. Considering what happened, I thought his "demands" were very reasonable and so was his position. I always thought the Dwarves were unreasonable (though I do understand their position too).

AYRT

Given that his people had twice been essentially collateral damage to Erebor's calamity, and given that he's just come from the smouldering ruins of Laketown, and given that he was the one forced to slay the damn dragon or watch all his people die, I do understand a lot of Bard's position. He also didn't go there looking for war (or, indeed, anyone alive), which stands in his favour. However, he did basically come to loot the place, giving no thought to the other dwarves who had claim to Erebor now that the dragon was gone, he came with an army that he then proceeded to use to lay siege until he got what he wanted, and he didn't even countenance any of Thorin's requests, some of which were pretty reasonable (come unarmed to parlay, don't bring the elves into it since they've no claim on the treasure). The last part was because Bard had a necessary alliance with Thranduil for the aid offered Laketown, yes, but still.

Bard basically came to the Mountain with an army-slash-angry-mob (who'd been stirred to it in part because the Master deliberately made them angry at the dwarves to get them off his back) with intent to loot it of treasure that belonged to dwarves and the families of dwarves that still lived, even if Thorin's group had been dead, and when he realised that wasn't an option, he still armoured up and threatened to starve the dwarves out of treasure. Instead of, for example, backing off a while, until the wounds weren't as fresh and he wasn't essentially threatening fourteen hungry and battered people with his army.

He was justifiably really angry and he had a legitimate claim on part of the treasure, and Thorin was the first to resort to actual violence by shooting an arrow at Bard's messenger. But Bard was also not in a very reasonable position to start with, having come armed with intent to loot, and he worsened that position rather than bettered it in the negotiations, despite the fact that he wasn't the one threatened or in a position of weakness. He presented himself as the belligerent, essentially, forcing Thorin into the position of defender, while the wounds and the triumphs were still fresh for everyone.

They just ... they were all wrong, and they were all right in the sense of legitimate claims and grievances, but Bard was the one who forced a siege situation after only a very brief period of negotiations, during which he gave Thorin no leeway at all. So I'm inclined to think of Bard as the most actively aggressive, in that sense?

I think Bard had a great claim to that treasure. When they went going there, they thought that the Dwarves were likely dead. Why should they care about the Dwarves far away? Possession in nine-tenths and all that, why shouldn't Bard take command of the treasure and then when the Dwarves come, give back what they demand later? It's pretty much the reverse of Thorin's position in the book.

And, Bard needs the money sooner than later. He can't wait. He has to rebuild. Thranduil may be able to help for a while but you have to think that the resources in Mirkwood are not as great as they once were. Thranduil cannot provide everything; they will need gold to trade with southern places like Dorwinion to get food and provisions for their people to last the winter. So, he can't wait to let cooler heads prevail. I agree that everyone is a little in the wrong and in the right but I will not accept that Bard must be accountable as chief aggressor.

And some of that treasure did belong to Dale so Bard did have some claim. Also, I think it's right to look at not only the destruction of Laketown but also the destruction of Dale. It's says in the book that the reason the dragon came was because it heard of Erebor's wealth, which means the reason Dale was destroyed is because of the Dwarves. I don't think it's unfair for Bard to think he's owed some compensation for that.

Also, I think Bard and Thranduil rightly saw that the treasure unguarded was a hornet's nest. They thought the Dwarves were dead and there was no one there to take charge of it. It's better leaders like Thranduil and Bard take command and keep people from fighting and killing over it in their greed. Once they saw that the Dwarves were there, naturally things changed. But you cannot argue that Bard was wrong to go to the mountain and try to take the gold. His people were going to do it anyway now that the dragon was gone; it's better that he kept things orderly and tried to use the gold for more beneficial things like rebuilding Dale and Laketown.

Possession in nine-tenths and all that, why shouldn't Bard take command of the treasure and then when the Dwarves come, give back what they demand later? It's pretty much the reverse of Thorin's position in the book.

He had claim to Dale's treasure, and to recompense for Dale and Laketown's destruction, definitely. But he didn't have claim to all of it, and him taking the Mountain, as you said, would have been little more than a reverse of Thorin's position, but worse because to the dwarves this is now an army of men occupying their home and taking their possessions. A dragon is one thing, but an ally-turned-enemy is another, and that's a war waiting to happen as soon as the Iron Hills and Ered Luin hear about it. They have no guarantee that Bard will return anything. Why should he, as soon as he's sitting pretty in a defensible fortress with a mountain of gold? The dwarves (and I don't mean just Thorin's group) can't take the risk of men's greed, and the men can't take the risk of the dwarves. The difference being, the dwarves genuinely do have the better right to what is, in fact, their home and their property, and Bard going there with an army for the purposes of taking and holding treasure that largely isn't his does NOT make any good statements regarding his willingness to negotiate. Even presuming that Thorin had in fact died, Bard wasn't going to make a happy impression on anyone by doing that. There are dwarves still living that know exactly what was theirs when Erebor was taken from them. They're going to want a reckoning regardless, and the point you make, why should they care about dwarves far away, is exactly why the dwarves far away will think Bard won't give them anything. And Bard is not a dragon. They will not accept from him what they would from a force of a destruction like Smaug. Taking Erebor by force is essentially close to a declaration of war for him, regardless of how much he earned a share of it by killing the dragon. It isn't his. Some of it, Dale's treasure, that belongs to him, and something is owed for killing the dragon and for the destruction that has twice been brought on them, but the mountain and the bulk of the treasure? No. They have owners, a lot of whom are still living or have relatives still living. Bard doesn't have a better right than they do to their home, and the fact that he's closer and has an army doesn't give him one.

Think of it as roughly analogous to Nazi loot, yes? If you find a Nazi treasure trove, you don't automatically have a better right to it than the people or relatives of the people it was taken from. It's not random gold, it came from somewhere, it was taken from people by force.

The fact that Bard is afraid that Thorin will give him nothing at all is much more justified, especially given Thorin's reaction at the gate. I'm saying, though, that Bard's approach at the head of an army set up a bad situation before words ever passed anyone's lips, and would have even if Thorin had been dead. Thorin does respond unreasonably, and Bard does actually NEED money and fairly fast, but Bard also keeps building on the initial unfavourable impression. If he had time to starve the dwarves to death, he had time to back off a little and try negotiating on a slightly more even footing. As in, not with an armed mob and elven allies in immediate range. But there's only one real attempt at negotiation at all, and when Thorin initially refuses on the grounds of you brought an army to loot my grave, Bard doesn't even come back to talk himself, but sends a messenger to say 'give up or we starve you to death, also the army stays'. It just ...

He's angry. He's very, very angry. His people have just been slaughtered and his town burned to the ground because the dwarves set a dragon on him, and it's the second time in history that they've done that, and his people need food and shelter and the money to pay for it, and he needs Thranduil's alliance and can't easily exclude him from negotiations even if he wanted to, and a massive unguarded treasure is enough to lure anyone even if they didn't have those pressing needs upon them, and he genuinely, legitimately is angry, but he also came with an army to occupy someone else's home, spend/take their treasure and their possessions, and when faced with that fact, with a living avatar of that fact, he armoured up and threatened to starve them to death instead of listening to them for more than ten minutes worth of negotiation.

Now, Thorin isn't being any better, Thorin is as angry and as stubborn and as unreasonable, and he's had less immediate loss than Bard has, but he's also standing in the home he's just reclaimed after centuries of exile, he has fourteen people to his name and all of them exhausted, and if he opens the gates to an angry army he has no guarantee that he will have anything left when they're through or even that he won't be killed the moment they come through the door. He has no options, because he's the one threatened, not Bard. Now, he could send Bard some gold. He could be less prideful and demanding in the negotiation. He could not shoot the messenger, that would probably help. But Bard is essentially demanding money on threat of death, of someone who is trying to reclaim his home and who has no resources left to resist, and who did not, at any point, actually intend Bard or his people harm.

In that sense, yes, I see Bard as the aggressor, in the sense that he's the reason the situation is happening now and also the reason it's as violent as it is. It might have come to that later anyway, and if Bard waits too long the tides could easily turn in the opposite direction and he'll be stuck with a crippled and homeless people trying to beg gold from a dwarven fortress that twice led a dragon to attack him and is possessed of gold-sickness, so I understand his urgency, but ...

He could have backed off, even a little. He could have tried for more than one attempt at negotiation before going 'screw you, starve to death, my army will rob your grave afterwards like we originally planned'. Which might not have been how he meant it, but it will be how the people pinned in front of him about to do said starving to death are going to feel about it. He escalated the situation from the second he showed up, is what I'm saying.

Wow. This is just dripping with your personal head canon. I never read anything in the book that suggested that Bard was angry, certainly not so angry that the Dwarves needed to fear for their lives. He seemed grim and very level-headed to me.

I reiterate that Bard has no reason to care about Dwarves who are not immediately there. His people are starving. This is an immediate issue. You cannot know what he would or would not do with the gold. That's true of Thorin as well. The fact that you will give Thorin the benefit of the doubt but not Bard shows your bias. I could just as easily read that Thorin had no intention whatsoever of giving Bard a dime, no matter what he said. I understand Thorin's POV but you cannot say that Bard was any more culpable of the situation than Thorin was. If Bard should've given Thorin a few days to cool off, then Thorin should've given Bard a few token pieces of treasure to prove his good will (something like the emeralds of Girion that are irrefutably Dale's). They are the same.

And no where does anyone say anything about Bard occupying the mountain. I can believe that his people might stay there that first winter if they have no other alternatives but I hardly believe any humans would want to live in an underground city. So, they are not depriving the Dwarves of their home. And, as I said, they have a claim to the treasure. Thorin is keeping that part of the treasure hostage. The same would be true if Bard had the whole treasure and was keeping it from the other Dwarves if Thorin's Company had been dead. It's the same thing. The other Dwarves abandoned the place. I'm not saying they don't have the right to ask for their treasure back or that Bard would be wrong to keep it, but Bard has every right and reason to go to the mountain and take that treasure. You would say it would start a war. But politically it would also give Bard a position of strength in any negotiating with the Dwarves. That is a power his people have not had in their dealings with them and look how it turned out for them.

As for letting the Dwarves starve, that is their own stubbornness and nothing more. Bard spoke to them and told them his demands. He then gave them several hours and it was his messenger who told them they could starve when they shot at him. Clearly, the Dwarves were not going to back down. Dwarves are known for their stubbornness. There's no reason for Bard to believe that if he gave them several days that they would be more amenable to negotiation. However, if they'd had no food . . .

This is a perfectly acceptable tactic to use. I think the people of Laketown had every right to besiege the Mountain and not to trust the Dwarves.

But whatever you think about that, the point is that Bard is not any more of a aggressor than Thorin is. He certainly isn't the chief aggressor. You cannot put all the blame on Bard. He's acting reasonably considering the circumstances. He did give Thorin some time to think about the situation and Thorin shot at his messenger (note: Bard gave him this time without any such threats of starvation at this point). Why should Bard have to give him any more time than that? The answer is he doesn't.

You cannot know what he would or would not do with the gold. That's true of Thorin as well.

I'm not arguing what I think Bard will do with the gold, I'm arguing what Thorin thinks Bard will do with the gold and/or what the dwarves back home will think when they hear the mountain is in his control. It's not a question of me giving anyone the benefit of the doubt, but of how much benefit they have reason to give each other. Bard is a fair man by what we've seen, and I'm actually pretty sure he would have given up what was owed once he controlled it, but Thorin can't know that, nor any other dwarf either. All they know about Bard so far is that he showed up with an army to take their treasure when he thought they were dead, and doesn't seem particularly inclined to back down now that he knows they're not. That's literally all they know, because in the book they never actually met him in Laketown (and neither did the audience: the first we see of him, Smaug is already mid-attack). So Thorin has no reason whatsoever to trust the man, or presume that he will treat them fairly, or even presume that he won't just kill them if they let him in with that nice army of angry people he went and brought along.

And yes, I'm presuming they are angry, given that they've just watched their town be ravaged and destroyed. I'm presuming that tempers are short in general, otherwise everybody involved has even less excuse for what they're doing. Bard is less so than the men he's leading, because he kept a level head and knows Thorin never set the dragon on the deliberately, which couldn't be said of some of the people under his command, but he's still being very cold and abrupt, and I'm guessing having watched his people burn is part of the reason for that. When he thought Thorin had died first, and the same way, he wasn't really angry at him at all, but when faced with Thorin sitting safe and sound in a mountain, I think that would have changed.

And no where does anyone say anything about Bard occupying the mountain.

Um. You kind of did? "Possession in nine-tenths and all that, why shouldn't Bard take command of the treasure and then when the Dwarves come, give back what they demand later?" To take command of the treasure, he's going to have to sit on it. I don't mean occupy the mountain as in live in it, I mean occupy the mountain as in control it with an armed force. Which he would have had to do, if he wanted to command the treasure had the dwarves been dead. The treasure is big enough for a dragon to curl up under it and be invisible. What's he going to do, take it out of the mountain chest by chest and stash it in the ruins of Dale? No. He'd have had to stay and protect it if he wanted to control it, and any dwarf force from the Iron Mountains would have arrived to find an army or guard of men standing between them and their home, for the purposes of taking their treasure. Which would not have inclined anyone to be even tempered, which we saw when Dain showed up anyway.

Bard should've given Thorin a few days to cool off, then Thorin should've given Bard a few token pieces of treasure to prove his good will (something like the emeralds of Girion that are irrefutably Dale's).

To an extent I agree. Thorin is a blockheaded prideful idiot of a dwarf who's already been affected by the goldlust, and he's doing basically everything wrong. However, he does have a a fair point about surrendering anything under threat of force. It was his main objection, and Bard never answered it. Thorin asked how much Bard would have given his people had Bard found him dead and the treasure unguarded, and Bard says the question is fair, and then just flat doesn't answer it. Thorin says he won't give anything while there's an armed threat at his door, which is pretty reasonable, and Bard just flat ignores it and says basically 'we'll go now and come back when you stop making objections'. Bard doesn't give an inch, and Bard is the one with the army. He's the one who CAN.

You would say it would start a war. But politically it would also give Bard a position of strength in any negotiating with the Dwarves. That is a power his people have not had in their dealings with them and look how it turned out for them.

But he doesn't need a position of strength right now. He has it. He has an army at the gates. It's Thorin who needs the treasure as leverage against his life and his people's lives. They're fourteen against an army. The treasure right now is the only leverage they have. Full stop, the end. If taking and holding the treasure as leverage is a reason you think Bard should want it, why not Thorin?

And historically has nothing to do with it. Dale never needed leverage against Erebor, by all accounts they had a pretty decent trade relationship, given they had mutual wealth sitting happily on top of each other. It was the dragon they would have need power against, and that went as badly for the dwarves as for them. Where do we see evidence of Dale ever needing leverage against dwarves? Maybe they would have done eventually, given that Thror's madness was in full swing by that stage, but there was no evidence of an armed threat between dwarves and men until basically Bard showed up with one.

There's no reason for Bard to believe that if he gave them several days that they would be more amenable to negotiation. However, if they'd had no food . . .

Except he isn't negotiating. Negotiation means things like compromise and assurances and codes of safe conduct. Bard didn't give those. Bard showed up, said what he wanted and why he believed it should be granted (all of which were genuinely reasonable, yes), and when Thorin said he wasn't going to hear anything until Bard lost the army, Bard just went away and flat refused. A request that people not come armed to a negotiation isn't unreasonable, and Thorin didn't say he wouldn't negotiate once it happened, he just said he wouldn't negotiate until it happened. And Bard ignored that. The only thing Thorin asked for was that Bard remove the threat of force before they talked, and Bard ... didn't. Instead, Bard besieged the mountain, and sat down to starve them out of it, instead of negotiating.

I am not saying Thorin was right. He patently wasn't, and he only got worse later on. But in the opening phases of negotiation, he was consistently the one under threat and Bard was consistently the one doing threatening, simply because Bard was the one able to. Thorin's request boiled down to "Back off the army and then we'll talk", and Bard's response boiled down to "No, give me what you owe me or else".

In the first negotiations, before the Arkenstone happened, there were exactly five exchanges before Bard first called a recess. Bard explained what he wanted and why he thought it fair, Thorin explained that he didn't agree with some of them and didn't trust a man who came with an army at his back and wanted to know what would have happened had he been dead, Bard says that's a fair question but doesn't answer it, Thorin flat says he won't negotiate with an army or with elves, come back when you haven't got any, and Bard says bugger that, they stay, but we'll give you a while to start being reasonable. Then, when his messenger comes back, not Bard himself, all the messenger does is reiterate demands without having listened to a single thing Thorin said and without giving any guarantees about things like losing the army and the threat of force. So Thorin shoots at him. Following which Bard's forces declare the mountain under siege and that Thorin can starve for all they care, they'll get what they want in the end.

Those aren't negotiations, on anyone's side. Those are demands. But Thorin's demand is primarily not to be threatened while they talk, and Bard's demand is to be given what he's owed before the threat gets a lot worse. Again, I'm sorry, but Bard looks the more aggressive because of it.

You keep arguing against Bard but nothing you've said makes him more of an aggressor than Thranduil or Thorin. Thranduil has an army too. Just because Thorin doesn't does not mitigate the wrong he's done or make him any less culpable. They are all equally at fault.

You've made a ton of assumptions to prove your point and keep drawing on stuff that has no bearing on the situation at present. None of those arguments are valid or relevant to the conversation. But, I can see you're just going to keep repeating them as if they are so there's obviously no point in trying to argue further. Clearly you've entrenched yourself too much to see reason.

+1 Maybe that's not how Tolkien wanted me to read it, but I still see it as the culmination of everyone, not just one person. Doesn't mean I think Character X is trash and so on, just that everyone is in desperate situations and it doesn't make anyone react well. It's possible to think both characters' feelings are valid.

It was a clusterfuck on all sides, it really was. Even Bilbo. Giving the Arkenstone away fatally damaged Thorin's ability to negotiate at all and put his entire people at risk, and Thorin kind of did have every right to see that as a terrible and potentially fatal betrayal. Bard and Thorin were equally right in their claims and equally wrong in how they dealt with each other, I'm mostly calling Bard the aggressor because he was the one with the actual power and the capacity to make threats. And Thranduil kind of had no real right to be there at all and was silently contributing to Thorin's sense of being threatened, although he was helping Bard who did need it, and he did at least have the sense not to stick his oar into the actual negotiations beyond the sheer fact of his presence. And then Dain arrives, and now we have the threat and soon enough the actuality of violence on both sides.

They just ... It says a lot about a situation when a massive attack by an army of orcs and goblins is honestly the best thing that could have happened for it.

I agree. There's a part of me that's still stupidly optimistic (very stupidly) that Thranduil will show some of his better sides in the third film. I've read some BTS stuff where PJ, Fran, and Lee (not that Lee would get a final say) have said stuff that's in line with Thranduil's position in the book -- that he doesn't want to go to war over jewels, etc.

And, from a film perspective, I feel like they've pushed the more negative character points in the first two films so that Thranduil has an obvious place to grow from. But I'm still so wary that they're going to fuck it all up. Either they do acknowledge Thranduil is good but they give him an after-school-special type of moment where he learns stuff from Legolas, etc. Or they don't acknowledge it and he continues to be a douche for no reason.

It's just manufactured drama, which is what PJ seems to love and what he fails at the hardest.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2876 ]

Re: Hobbit 3

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