Gaubdûkhimâ gagin yâkùlib Mahal, King Thorin!*

* “May we meet again with the grace of Mahal, Thorin!”
(a formal goodbye in Khuzdul, the secret language of the dwarves of Middle-Earth)

“Roads go ever ever on,
Under cloud and under star.
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.”

 

(From ‘Roads go ever on’ by JRR Tolkien)

I’m sure you’re all aware that filming for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy has now completely wrapped. If not, take a look at Mr. Jackson’s official Facebook page, where he has been live blogging the last day of shooting on Friday.

Of course, this also means that Richard Armitage is now finally allowed to really let go of Thorin Oakenshield. As he’s lived with this character for about 2,5 years, that can’t be an easy thing to do.

There are a few things Richard could do to ease the Thorin/Richard break-up. I have a few suggestions:

1. I hate to say it, but he could get rid of the beard. Apparently, Dean O’Gorman couldn’t wait to shave off his beard after wrapping his scenes as Fili, he even posted a picture on Twitter!

"I'm wrapped, and so is the beard!" says Dean O'Gorman as he prepares to say goodbye to the Fili beard

Here's a scary thought: Could this really be the very last picture of Richard Armitage rocking the beard? (For the record: I hope it's not!)



Picture tweeted by Graham McTavish: "Some very tired and emotional dwarves last night..."
Left to right: Richard Armitage (Thorin), Mark Hadlow (Dori), Graham McTavish (Dwalin), Jed Brophy (Nori), Peter Hambleton (Gloin)

 2. Richard needs to get away from everything that reminds him of Thorin. In other words, he needs to get out of Middle-Earth/New-Zealand. Like Stephen Hunter, who has already left. He shared a lovely goodbye message on Vine:

A change of scenery is perfect for a new start, preferably somewhere that is completely different from New-Zealand. Well, how about New York City? It seems, Richard has just bought a very nice apartment in Greenwich Village. This could just be the perfect place to drop off the grid for a while…

http://realestalker.blogspot.in/2013/07/julian-casablancas-of-strokes-sells.html


3. The best way to step away from Thorin Oakenshield, must be to get involved in a new project. Batman? Some vampire? A King from days gone by? The new Doctor in Doctor Who? Rumours are flying and I’m sure Richard can now afford the luxury of picking the roles that he really believes in.

Well, my vote goes to none of the above. I’m crossing my fingers for the lead in a play in London’s West End. Now that would be a dream come true for me! So, Richard, I hope you’re paying attention!

Any more suggestions?

I love a naughty dwarf! :-)

Have you ever wondered why I am so fascinated by Richard Armitage?
Well, I guess some of you have questioned my sanity on a very regular basis...

The video below shows everything I love about him. This was filmed at a screening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey a few weeks ago which included a live Q&A with Richard.

I love his acting skills, his attention to detail, his lust for life, his love for his craft and so much more. If you watch it, you will understand (or maybe not, but I still love this man to death!)

I'm honestly amazed at how much of himself Richard is now willing to show in public. I guess, as long as he's talking about the characters and the craft, he's fine with just being himself, not necessarily always the dedicated professional. He's content, he's having fun, and I'm delighted to be able to see that!!

And... "Dwarves Illustrated 2012"? It was a present for Peter Jackson's 50th birthday.
Well, we know Richard was on the calendar for the month December.
We know he was sitting backwards on a chair throwing his long Thorin hair backwards.
There was a hairdryer involved. And I imagine that he had his eyes closed.
Not sure about wheter or not there was a strategically placed piece of oak! ;-)

So, it could have looked something like this: (notice the strategically placed Orcrist ;-))

Original image found here:
http://willowmansdaughter.tumblr.com/post/46803709584/badbalrog-so-i-added-orcrist

I'm sure you can imagine the rest :-)


Enjoy the interview:

FanstRA 4 - Dixit RA

I would like to share my 3 favourite quotes from Richard Armitage since the World Premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on 28 November 2012. I don't necessarily remember where or when he said this, but for some reason, I did remember what he said.

“I’m standing at a bus stop next to a massive flag of Thorin, and I’m standing there thinking, ‘Everyone’s looking at this flag and yeah, you don’t realize that the man on that flag is standing in the bus stop with you,’ ” he said with a grin.

Why I love this quote: Richard’s such a modest man. He’s not in this acting game for the fame, but simply because it’s the only thing that could ever really make him happy and satisfied. He’s still hoping that people will not recognize him as Thorin and that he can go on leading his anonymous life in the real world. I honestly hope he will succeed!! (I am secretly very protective of him and I’d love to just keep him to myself, although he absolutely deserves all of the acknowledgements that he’s been getting lately) Although with 3 films, people have time to get to know his face, so I sincerely doubt he’ll be able to remain anonymous for more than another year or so…

Your face on a flag, your face on a stamp? Nothing says "You've made it big" like your face on a plane!

“The fact that we’re on a New Zealand stamp, so someone’s licking the back of Thorin’s head and sticking on the back of an envelope. I think that’s amazing.”

Why I love this quote: When you’ve made it onto a stamp, you’ve really made it big!
When I read this quote, the first thought that went through my mind was: “Everyone will be thinking of licking the back of Richard’s head, not Thorin’s head…” ;-) Richard has said before that he believes that the fans really love the characters, not him as a person. But the more we know about this man behind the characters, this lovely, sweet, shy, caring man (with a propensity for a bad temper, but that’s what makes him human) we love him more and more. We support him because of the lovely work he has done and because of the wonderful characters he has portrayed so brilliantly, but it’s really the actor, the master of the craft whom we support, not his characters.

Walking in Dwarf boots. The heirs of Durin show us how it's done! (And not a diaper in sight!)

 

 “And also, when you have those big boots on, you sort of walk like you're wearing a diaper. So we had to de-diaperize ourselves.”

Why I love this quote: I just think it’s really funny. Richard seems to make links between the most random things, and the weird thing is that those comparisons actually work. Everyone understands exactly what he trying to say, how it feels to walk around in those big boots. The man has a great way with words and he proves himself to be a true storyteller in the way he describes the world around him. For a language addict like myself, there’s nothing sexier than an intelligent man who appreciates the art of storytelling.

 

What's your favourite RA quote?

 

Want to know more about FanstRAvaganza 4?
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Dwarven fun with the merry men

This is hilarious! IGN (www.ign.com) submits the dwarves to questions on all things Hobbit. So, have our dwarves done their homework? Have they checked the facts and checked them twice? Have they read and studied all things Middle Earth?
Well...not exactly :-)

Prepare yourself to meet the newest members of the company of dwarves: Milli and Vanilli. Also, we find out that there is a connection between Bilbo Baggins and Star Trek's Spock, that it's not easy to remember exact dates when you're travelling halfway around the world and that Cate Blanchett is actually a sword... :-)

But, most of all, we get to see how these 12 men from different countries, different backgrounds and different ages have really become a band of 'merry men', and friends for life, I'm sure!
It's a shame, though, that dwarf number 13 (or is that number 1?) is missing...

Thirty Days to Thorin (24) - Exclusive!

It's exactly 01:00 on Wednesday, 12 December 2012. It's officially Hobbit Day - I will only have to wait hours instead of days, weeks or months before I get to see Thorin, and the full film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The midnight screening here in Belgium is going on as we speak. At 20:45 today, I will be watching the film in high frame rate 3D and I can't wait! By the way: does that mean I will be watching the film at the exact same time that Richard will be watching it at the premiere in London? Well, that's almost as good as watching it together with him, right?! Oh, if only...

In the meantime, enjoy an exclusive scene from the film - The Misty Mountains song, delivered by Thorin and the company of dwarves in Bag End, while Bilbo and Gandalf contemplate the journey that lies ahead...

Thirty Days to Thorin (20) - 13 minutes of awe

"Whatever age you are, try to remember the sense of awe you had as a child... Hopefully you will leave with that awe firmly in place"

(James Nesbitt - Bofur)

A 13-minute Television Special has been made available. Careful, the video is full of spoilers, so if you're not ready for more details of the story, better not watch this...

If you are up for it, you will love this. I do. I can't believe that I'm only 1 week away from finally seeing this film, the first of 3, at least. *jumps up and down!*

I will mainly remember this:

Not only does Richard Armitage play a fierce warrior... he IS one! The proof is in this video :-)

Tolkien was a brilliant writer (not that there was ever any doubt!)

Philippa Boyens is a huge fan of Thorin Oakenshield (and, I suspect, also of Richard Armitage!)

This is how Richard describes Thorin:
"He's gone from prince to pauper and he's a battle-hardened warrior.He has a fierce sense of honour but he's been hardened by life, so his outer shell is pretty impenetrable."

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!



Update: The original video was removed from Youtube, but it seems it's now available again. I hope it remains here:

Thirty Days to Thorin (19) - Naughty dwarves!!

The dwarves exclusively reveal that they created a secret naked/naughty dwarves calendar as a birthday present for Peter Jackson. There's only one copy of it, unfortunately...

Watch the video to also see the special rings that the Hobbit stars all share, symbolizing their incredible Middle-earth bonding experience! Beautiful, and much less painful than a tattoo :-)

Thirty Days to Thorin (4) - The One Woman

I need to apologise to you. I promised you thirty days of countdown to the release of The Hobbit and I have not been very good at keeping my promise. You know how it goes: real life gets in the way: work, important life-changing decisions, busy times, family, etc. So I hope you're still with me and I promise I will make up for the lost time: I will publish all of the thirty blogposts before 12 December when The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey is released in Belgium. Today, on International Men's Day (19 November, by the time I publish this that will be yesterday), I thought I would talk about the women in Tolkien's story, and the Dwarf-women in particular.

Galadriel, as played by Cate Blanchett
Image courtesy of www.TheOneRing.net
 

With the exception of the Galadriel (who does not appear in the original story), the story of The Hobbit is quite a ‘boys club’, don’t you think? 13 male dwarves, a wizard, a hobbit, Bard the Bowman, The Master of Laketown, Beorn etc. So much so that Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh had to invent characters to inject some female energy into their films. They decided against creating more Dwarves, but went for Elves instead. That’s how the character Tauriel (played by Evangeline Lily) was born.

I guess it was a wise decision not to create female dwarves for the films: they are so elusive that their existence is even questioned. On page 411 of The Lord of the Rings - The Return Of the King, Tolkien speaks about female dwarves:

 

“It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other people cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves grow out of Stone.”
 

I don’t know if she will even be mentioned in the films (she’s only a reference in the book), but there is one important Dwarf woman – the company of dwarves would not have been complete without her - she is the One Woman.

The youngest members of Thorin’s company of dwarves are Fili and Kili, his nephews. They are the sons of Thorin’s only sister, Dís. In fact, Dís is the only female dwarf that J.R.R. Tolkien ever mentioned by name.

The last Heirs of Durin's Folk: Fili (Left - Dean O'Gorman), Kili (Right - Aiden Turner) and their uncle Thorin Oakenshield (Middle - Richard Armitage) 

 

Dís (born Third Age 2760) was the daughter of King Thráin II and sister of Thorin and Frerin. Like her brothers she was born in the Lonely Mountain and was driven into exile in T.A. 2770 when the dragon Smaug took control of the kingdom.

The name Dís was probably derived from Old Norse -dís ("sister of") which is found in many Nordic names. So Dís is simply named as the sister of her brothers – not very gender-friendly, Professor Tolkien!

On the other hand, although it is often believed that the name Frerin came from either the Old Norse Dwarf-name Frár ("Swift") in the Völuspá, or from the Old Norse word frérinn ("frozen"), to me, it simply sounds like “frère”, the French word for “brother”. That would mean that both Dís and Frerin were named as the siblings of the heir of Durin’s Folk, Thorin.

OK, Tolkien, listen up: your stories need more women!! Thank you. That's all.