The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

Stars: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage

Rated PG 13 (for extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images)

The second installment in The Hobbit trilogy, the Desolation of Smaug takes the story of The Hobbit from the first serious direction change to the edge of the big drop. 

 (You can find my review of An Unexpected Journey in this blog as well.)

Gandalf: You've changed, Bilbo Baggins. You're not the same Hobbit as the one who left the Shire...

A brief synopsis:

  At the end of An Unexpected Journey, we left Bilbo with the dwarf company gazing at The Lonely Mountain with great hope and anticipation.  Unbeknownst to the company, Smaug is stirring in the mountain, like a giant premonition.  We begin this movie with a flashback conversation between Gandalf and Thorin, wherein Gandalf convinces Thorin to begin his quest.  We jump from that conversation to the journey of the dwarves (and Bilbo).  From that point on, the dwarves step from one perilous, confusing, dangerous stretch of their journey to another.   (Bilbo comes, too.)  By the time they arrive at their destination, the entire company has been completely redefined.  They find that their task is not only much more difficult than they anticipated, but that it carries with it consequences they were not ready to face.

Spoilers follow

This installment begins with a mistaken identity. 

Gandalf: I ran into some unsavory characters whilst traveling along the Greenway. They mistook me for a vagabond.

Immediately after the flashback of Thorin’s conversation with Gandalf, the dwarves are running from a creature that looks like a giant bear, only to find out that he is an acquaintance of Gandalf’s, a shapechanger named Beorn.  From that moment forward, every step of the dwarves’ journey to the Lonely Mountain, and Gandalf’s journey to discover the truth of what is happening in Dol Guldor is shrouded in confusion and mistake and misunderstanding. 

Beorn helps the dwarf company to reach the entrance to Mirkwood Forest.  Gandalf takes one more look at Bilbo before sending him into the forest an remarks that something has changed.  Bilbo knows that he is carrying a strange burden, a ring that gives him invisibility, but also carries a germ of deceptiveness into his spirit.  He cannot bring himself to tell Gandalf this. 

In truth, no one in the story is what they seem.  Nothing happens the way it is expected.  No perception can be trusted.  No vision is completely clear. 

Each character that the dwarves meet has a secondary story that forces us to adjust our perception. 

The beautiful, flawless face of Thranduil, the Elven King, hides terrible dragon-fire scars that give power to his uncooperative attitude. 

Thranduil: Do not speak to ME of dragon fire! I know its wrath and ruin! I have faced the great serpents of the north!...

The cold, calculating Elven captain of the guard, Tauriel, reveals a warm heart, moved to compassion by Kili’s bravery and impending death. 

Kili: You cannot be her. She is far away. She is far, far away from me. She walks in starlight in another world. It's just a dream. Do you think she could have loved me?

Legolas, who stands with pride and arrogance, is put in his place by a “lowly sylvan elf”

Legolas: It is not our fight.

Tauriel: It is our fight. It will not end here. With every victory this evil will grow. If your father has his way, we will do nothing. We will hide within our walls, live our lives away from the light and let darkness descend. Are we are not part of this world? Tell me, Mellon, when did we let evil become stronger than us?

Bard is a character that inspires suspicion in the dwarves, but on whom they must rely.

Dwalin: I don't care what he calls himself, I don't like him.

He reveals himself to be the hero of his people, stepping forward in an unpopular way to protect his people from the worst harm imaginable.

Bard: Dragonfire and ruin! That is what he will bring upon us! He cannot see beyond his own desire!

Even Smaug is not as Bilbo expected.  He is a creature of insatiable vanity, toying with Bilbo until he is motivated to kill him.  But his vanity reveals a surprising insecurity in the face of his own self-proclaimed invincibility.

Bilbo Baggins: I did not come to steal from you, O Smaug the Unassessably Wealthy. I merely wanted to gaze upon your magnificence, to see if you were as great as the old tales say. I did not believe them.

Smaug: And do you, NOW?

Bilbo Baggins: Truly songs and tales fall utterly short of your enormity, O Smaug the Stupendous...

As we follow the story from place to place, the locations are deceptive as well. As the dwarves enter Mirkwood Forest, they become lost an confused, paranoid and argumentative.Bilbo realizes that they have been moving in circles, and that the forest in which they travel is sick. 

Bilbo: “The sun…  we have to find the sun.”

He reaches toward heaven for clarity. 

He climbs a tall tree so that he can reach the sun and the fresh air. He’s able to see danger coming in the form of giant spiders, and has the clarity of mind to help free his friends from that danger, only to watch them fall into another.

The expansive kingdom of the elves is revealed to be a place of dark isolation.

Thranduil: Other lands are not my concern. The fortunes of the world will rise and fall, but here in this kingdom, we will endure.

The broken city of Laketown holds a history of rich commerce and trade, smothered to death by an incompetent leader. Dol Guldor, an abandoned empty fortress, turns out to be teeming with a thriving orc army, hidden by dark magic.  Even the doorway to Erebor behaves differently than the dwarves expected.

  

It’s the problem of prophecy

Bard the Bowman:

The Lord of Silver Fountains, The King of Carven Stone

The King Beneath the Mountain shall come into his own.

And the bells shall ring in gladness at the Mountain King's return.

But all shall fail in sadness, and the Lake will shine and burn...

The problem with prophecy is that it is made of words.  Words are flawed.  Words are incomplete.  When words are unclear, you have to use more words to explain them. 

The problem with people is that we observe them with our earthly senses.  Our senses are flawed.  Our senses are incomplete.  When our senses are unclear, we have to use words to explain them. 

The dwarves on their quest to reclaim their homeland and their heritage are in possession of a few key pieces of information:  They know a little about their past, a little about their destination, a little about each other.  They believe they know a lot more than they do, and are constantly being thrown off by what they see and understand. 

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.”  1 Corinthians 13:12

          This sketchy understanding of things is the playground of evil.  In certainty, we make ourselves willing victims of deception. 

Thranduil: Such is the nature of evil, in time all foul things come forth!

          Evil sees us in this place of false solidity and safety and is overjoyed. Like Azog the Defiler appearing suddenly to Gandalf, it gleefully knocks us off our feet. 

Smaug: You have been used, Thief in the Shadows. You were only ever a means to an end. The coward Oakenshield has measured your life and found it to be worth nothing...

          So what do we do when we find our certainty shaken?  When we feel that all that we thought we understood is wrong?  Do we keep calling ourselves sure?  Right? Certain?  

Smaug: Impressive titles. What else do you claim to be?

Or do we admit that we are lost, confused, mistaken in someone we thought we knew, or mistaken in ourselves? 

In this world, we will never see a full picture of anything or anyone.  Our eyes only perceive a narrow part of the light spectrum.  Our ears only hear a tiny portion of all sound that is made.  Our souls can only contemplate so much as long as we are burdened by the physical limitations of our bodies. 

So how do we find our way?  If we can’t rely on anything that we know, how do we take one step after another and reach the destination that God has in mind for us?  

“He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you… your eyes shall see your Teacher.”  Isaiah 30:20

Perhaps we take a cue from Bilbo.  We need to reach for heaven, to lift ourselves above Mirkwood and breathe fresh air. 

And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”  Isaiah 30:21

As long as we live in this world, we will never see clearly.  But we live in the promise that in the end, we will understand.  Like the old hymn says “I will understand it better by and by.” 

And the same goes for those who fail to understand us fully.  We cannot explain ourselves with any completeness in words.  No correct picture can be formed of us by others.  But the time will come when we will be seen clearly.

 “Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12

          As this second story in a series of three comes to a breathless conclusion, Bilbo looks with horror on where his efforts have led.  He has awoken the dragon, he has doomed Laketown to a fiery vengeful death.  He asks the question that we will all probably ask at least once in our lost, stumbling lives… 

          Bilbo: What have we done?

 Check back for a review of The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies