It has been three years since I began this blog, back in December of 2011, and I have chosen to officially end updates to the website with the premiere of the final film (the site will remain up as an archive for the next year at least). My main purpose for the site was to gather all the Hobbit news and resources I could find, to engage in discussion of the text and films, and perhaps, most importantly, to promote and celebrate one of Tolkien’s most under-appreciated races – The Khazad. Since then, Dwarven pride has become lodged in many hearts, and for that I am glad.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the contributors to Heirs of Durin:ArchedCory, Kingfisher, Iduna, Ori’s Quill, Ewelina the Wonderer, DanielLB, Michelle Nevins, Anjy Roemelt, Susan Messer Chan, and Dwalin. These are the folks who wrote essays, convention reports, gathered images and interviews, or translated articles. Also thanks to my unseen, and very humble co-admin. I would not have made it this long without your support. Lastly, I must thank our readers for your insightful comments and passion. The blood of Durin flows in you all!
As my final duty, I have updated the Photo Gallery with the latest Battle of the Five Armies images, and I might as well share with you my “ode to the Hobbit” video which I made before seeing the last film. The lyrics struck me as being fitting for these particular characters.
But sad or merry, I must leave you now.
Farewell,
-DarkJackal (D.J.)
The following are some of the interviews from the Hobbit special in Empire magazine. Includes quotes from Richard Armitage, Dean O’Gorman, Ian McKellen, Luke Evans, Martin Freeman, Lee Pace, Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom, Peter Jackson, and Cate Blanchett.
[German article in the October 2014 issue of CINEMA magazine translated by ArchedCory]
On December 10th the last journey to Middle-earth starts. CINEMA was on set and saw destroyed cities and elves covered in blood.
Thick snowflakes silently fall onto Dale’s crumbling city walls. Richly decorated wells and gates were in the meantime grown over by grass and thickets and give evidence of the former wealth of the kingdom in Middle-earth’s North. Houses, muddy paths, a row of decayed trees provide the impression of the disaster that must have taken place here. 171 years ago the dragon Smaug had opened the fire on Dale and laid the city in ruins.
Now the metropolis on Erebor’s mountainside is again becoming the scene for death and destruction. Men from Esgaroth that fled into Dale’s ruins are being chased by gruesome orcs. With drawn axes and swords they fight screaming through the narrow streets of the ruined city. And are finally defeated by the Mirkwood elves.
At the end of the massacre, Thranduil (Lee Pace), king of the wood elves, at the same time angry and sad looks at his fallen companions and the dead bodies of the orcs as he is torn out of thoughts by Gandalf (Ian McKellen). The wizard is clad in grey and pleads to Thranduil for help in the fight against the powers of darkness. He however only replies: “The elves have already shed enough blood in this land.”
“Thanks!”, shouts director Peter Jackson, and makes the orcs jump over elvish blades a few more times this day.
So Middle-earth will become sinister. For the end of his trilogy, covering the fantasy world invented by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1937, Peter Jackson lets hell come down over Middle-earth. Just like in his last “Lord of the Rings” adventure “Return of the King”, he ends his epic with massive battle scenes, tragic losses and emotional chasms. For this the kiwi gathered his actors once more for six weeks in June 2013 in his home, the idyllic Wellington. It was very challenging for the actors. “It was already two and a half years ago when I first played Bilbo”, says Martin Freeman. “Since then I have worked on lots of other projects. So in the beginning I needed some time to empathize with the role of a hobbit again.”
The shiny chain mail (mithril shirt) which he’ll wear in his next scene has probably helped him with this, just like Jackson’s perfectionism. “Peter already knows how to cut a scene before he has even shot it”, explains Ian McKellen who has the number 9 in elvish tattooed on his upper arm as reference to the nine members of the fellowship in the first “Lord of the Rings” film.
When the word “pick up shooting” is uttered in film industry usually alarm bells start to ring. After all, under normal circumstances they are the studio’s reaction to bad test screenings. It’s different here. Due to e.g. bad weather conditions certain scenes couldn’t be finished. Further Peter Jackson is constantly haunted by new ideas on how to end the final chapter in Middle-earth. This means he has written some sequences already two years ago and others as late as last night. “I still don’t believe that we are done”, Ian McKellen jokes. “I have said goodbye to Tolkien’s world already a lot of times.”
Despite Jackson’s passion for the topic, many fans remained skeptical about the director’s intention to expand a book with 300 pages into three films. Many feared an overblown fantasy spectacle. Jackson answered with two emotional 3D-epics for which he used the appendices of “Return of the King” amongst others, invented characters like ninja-elf Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) or let known characters like Legolas (Orlando Bloom) return despite not appearing in the book. This way Jackson designed his own vision of Tolkien’s world – without raising himself above the mastermind.
Even after all these years in Middle-earth the 54-year-old still doesn’t seem to believe what his team lines up for him. To turn the city of Dale into a ruin it first had to be destroyed. Over the span of six weeks approximately 130 craftsmen prepared statues, pillars and houses out of plaster, cement and wood at Mount Crawford to demonstrate the destructive power of dragon Smaug.
And another set has to suffer from the monster: Esgaroth. Over three months the Venice of Middle-earth was erected in the Stone Tree Studios in Wellington’s district Miramar – including 54 houses, boats and canals. In the end the largest set for this production fell victim to Smaug’s flames.
Next to a series of sets built solely for this production, Peter Jackson also counts on CGI effects, especially in the Battle of Five Armies which make up the core of this film.
“After this battle”, he says, “the idea of shooting a small drama sounds really tempting.”
Text in one of the boxes: The plot of the film: While Smaug destroys Esgaroth the dwarves under the lead of a slowly going mad Thorin entrench inside Erebor. While the wargs and orcs head for the mountain, elves, men and dwarves form an alliance in the “Battle of Five Armies” against enemies that act under the influence of the Necromancer.
The trailer for the Extended Edition of DOS features a glimpse of several new scenes including more of Beorn and Thorin’s father Thrain in Dol Guldur.
You can view it on Yahoo movies here, or watch a French version (in English) on Youtube [edit: this video was removed. I’ve replaced it with the WB version released this week]:
Screencaps of the new scenes below (minus the Mirkwood scene which was shown previously):
This is the seventh part in a series highlighting the various weapons used by the dwarves in the Company of Thorin, including speculation on their form and function. The essay concentrates on the original weapons as shown in the first movie “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”, and doesn’t cover additional concept weapons that were never actually used – or weapons from the following films. References are drawn from the films, tie-ins and supporting materials.
Along with his brother Glóin, Óin is a distant cousin of Thorin Oakenshield. A brave Northern Dwarf, Óin joins The Company of Thorin Oakenshield out of a sense of loyalty to his kin, and also because he has a substantial sum of money invested in the venture. Well read, with an inquiring mind, Óin is the healer of the group and carries with him a considerable collection of plants and herbal remedies.
Despite his age, he can still lay about him to brutal effect with his iron-shod staff, and he has picked up many cunning fighting tricks in his time, so don’t mess with this dwarf either.
Óin’s staff
Óin carries a long, two-handed staff and – as with Glóin and his battle axe – Óin can use his staff to support his steps in rough terrain, and to lean on when he needs a rest.
A staff in general is a close combat weapon which extends the fighter’s effective range considerably and therefore increases the momentum of his blow when the weapon is swung. Range and force of impact make it an effective weapon against armored enemies on horseback, or very tall enemies like trolls. It gives the fighter the ability to keep the enemy horse and rider at a distance and strike or stab the rider up in the saddle (or the troll in the eye).
Source: P. H. Ditchfield: Old English Sports, Pastimes and Customs. England, 1891.
Staff weapons are known to have existed throughout history in both Western and Asian cultures. They have been called by many names – for example, the quarter-staff in European cultures, the Gun in China, or the Bō in Japan. They all developed and practiced techniques for staff-like weapons that ranged from 4 to 12 feet in length. Offensive and defensive techniques usually consist of striking, levering, thrusting and blocking.
The quarter-staff is – as mentioned – a traditional European pole weapon. Mostly it refers to a shaft of hardwood from 6 to 9 feet (1.8 to 2.7m) long, often with a metal tip, ferrule or spike at one or both ends. The name derives supposedly from the way the staff is held, when you imagine it being divided into four quarters: the right hand grasping it one-quarter of the distance from the lower end.
Source: Dwight C. McLemore: The Fighting Staff. Paladin Press, 2010, p. 3.
The Chinese Gun refers to a long staff used in Chinese martial arts. It is known as one of the four major weapons, along with the Qiang (spear), Dao (sabre), and the Jian (sword), called in this group “The Grandfather of all Weapons”. A bō (Korea: bong, Chinese: kon) is also a very tall and long staff used in Okinawa and feudal Japan. Bō are typically around 1.8 m (5.9 ft) long and used in Japanese martial arts.
Here are some examples on typical fighting moves with above mentioned asian staff types.
Variation of Chinese staff fighting in Wing Chun (mainly from 0:56 onwards):
How to spin a bō staff:
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Óin’s staff seems to be made from a thick piece of hard-wood just like a quarter-staff, reinforced with beefy steel knobs on both ends, somewhat resembling the head of a mace with protruding sharp flanges (see here details on maces). The most common types of wood for quarter-staffs are oak, hazel, ash, hawthorn, and wax wood (a white wood from China that has been used for centuries for staffs and polearms). Hazel and ash saplings make light, flexible staffs, but ash has a tendency to flake and split. Hawthorn and oak are probably the toughest and most durable staff material, but they tend to be a bit rigid. So as Óin’s staff looks considerably sturdy we could assume that it is made of one of the latter woods – hawthorn or oak.
Concept Art by Frank Victoria, Weta Workshop. Click for full size.
The shaft of his staff can be used to deflect hostile attacks, while the thickened ends allow bone-crushing blows. And even though Óin’s staff cannot penetrate any armor (because it has no blade), the power generated while thrusting the long shaft can deliver severe injuries and is capable of overwhelming any opponent with its blunt damage and speed.
The knobs at the ends are even a bit pointy with sharp edges, and if you’re something bigger than a dwarf (such as a troll) that’s the one thing you don’t want to have jabbed in your eye or any other sensitive parts of your anatomy.
In general, staff fighting techniques involve slashing, swinging and stabbing, and include a wide variety of blocks, strikes, sweeps, and entrapments. Óin’s staff also has some leather straps attached, most probably to provide additional aid while swinging it, as we will see later when he fights his way through Goblin Town.
John Callen, Oin’s actor, says himself in the book “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Chronicles: Cloaks & Daggers” on his “fighting stick”:
Putting a leather strap on it meant I could lean on it or rest it on the ground and hang on to the strap. It could be used for lifting, carrying or whacking. It turned out to be a wonderful weapon.
He might, for example, wield it very similarly to a bō, which is gripped in thirds, and held horizontally in front, the right palm facing away from the body while the left hand is facing the body, enabling the staff to rotate. The power is generated by the back hand pulling the staff, while the front hand is used for guidance. When striking, the wrist is twisted, as if turning the hand over when punching.
Staff techniques require as much great skill as swinging an axe or a sword, and the staff may even be used to sweep sand into an attacker’s eyes. And as master of his weapon, Óin handles it almost as an extension of his limbs, as we can see looking at his wicked fighting moves in Goblin town, where he whirls it around on the wrist strap.
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References
Chris McNab: Swords, a Visual History. London, 2010.
Rupert Matthews: Weapons of War: From Axes to War Hammers, Weapons from the Age of Hand-to-hand Fighting. London, 2009.
Dorling Kindersley: Arms and Armour. London, 2011.
Harvey J.S. Withers: The Illustrated Directory of Swords & Sabres. London, 2011.
Ken Mondschein/J.Paul Getty Museum: The Knightly Art of Battle. Los Angeles, 2011.
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Peoples of Middle Earth. London, 2002.
Daniel Falconer: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: Art & Design, 2012.
Brian Sibley: Official Movie Guide (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey), 2012.
Jude Fisher: Visual Companion (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey), 2012.