The Hobbit Reread 1: Of Dwarves and Men

The History of Middle-earth Vol. 12: The Peoples of Middle-earth - Of Dwarves and Men

Okay, before I jump into the first of many rereads, I thought I'd explain the format. Each week I'll present a summary of the chapter or essay I'll be discussing, and then move into my 'discussion' of the piece. If the piece I'm rereading is not part of the main body of the Hobbit I'll give a bit of background on it as well (mainly applicable for the first couple of weeks). In each section I'll try to include any incredibly important quotations as necessary. Here we go!

Video Blog #8: What did we learn?

Ok, so I'm a little late getting the production video up, but there's good reason for that: first, as you can see . . . the old blog has been undergoing some renovations; second, well . . . life is busy; and third, has to be my favorite production video so far, and there is a lot of info to glean from it.

So, if you haven't seen the video yet, go ahead and watch it, then jump past the break to take a look at some screen shots (courtesy of DarkJackal) and we'll talk a bit about the new hints/clues/revelations we get in this little reel!

Catching Up with The Hobbit

Ok, still playing catch-up here . . . I found two things over at The Heirs of Durin (great website which you should check out) that I couldn't resist posting:

Balin's End


First, some of the best Tolkien artwork I've ever seen, featuring the final moments of Balin. The artwork is by David Gaillet who has a gallery on Deviantart.

Pretty crazy stuff, right? I especially like the way the small like Mirrormere lives up to it's name . . . your really are looking into a mirror!

Sweet, sweet music . . .

Last but not least, DarkJackal gives us a ton of fascinating links to the complete soundtrack (including the Misty Mountains song) from The Hobbit trailer, plus more links to various discussions about the trailer music and Howard Shore's Hobbit work.