Headscratchers / The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

New entries are added to the bottom of the page. Unmarked Spoilers, naturally.

Aragorn's age

• Thranduil references Aragorn, telling Legolas to go after him. Except that according to the timeline, Aragorn is supposed to be 10 and living in Rivendell at the moment.
  • Bad case of Writers Cannot Do Math.
  • There's some time alterations in the film adaptations. In the Extended Edition of The Two Towers, Aragorn reveals to Eowyn that he's 87. There's no Time Skip in the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring, and it is mentioned that Bilbo carried the One Ring for sixty years. That would make him 27 circa the Hobbit trilogy by the film series' reckoning.
  • My guess is that, after what Legolas said to him (refusing to obey, defying him), Thrandruil was a little pissed at him and sent him on a Snipe Hunt.
  • Regardless of his age, under what circumstances does Thranduil know Aragorn well enough to comment on his character, but Legolas doesn't know him at all?
  • He doesn't, necessarily. He says he knows/knew Arathorn, and it's an easy assumption that the son of a good man could be even better.
  • Given how crazy isolationist Thranduil acted, it does seem odd that he would particularly know Arathorn... However, he may have known him decades ago, before the Necromancer's influence began to really take hold in the forest. The absence of that threat would have made Thranduil less freaked, so he may have engaged in some kingly visitation to Men and Dúnedain (whom he's not really pissed off at), but perhaps left his son at home, not only to have someone in charge, but to keep his only child safe within Mirkwood's borders. Knowing Arathorn would make him aware of Aragorn's heir to the throne status and he probably sent Legolas off figuring that his son might be able to help Aragorn fulfill his destiny. It gives Legolas something meaningful to do, and, after Thranduil screwed up diplomatic relations with other races so badly in the last few months, gives the Prince of Mirkwood an opportunity to reach out and possibly help to fix his father's mistakes - or at least, not the make the same mistakes with the humans and Dúnedain that Thranduil made with the dwarves. Perhaps Thranduil really learned a few things by the end of the film.
  • It should be justified that Aragorn is of Numenorean descent. People gifted with extremely long life span as a result of them helping the Hosts of Valar against Melkor. What may look like a Numenorean of the age of 20s - late 30s may actually be older.
  • Also it's important to remember that while Thranduil may be something of a dick, he can still apparently recognize good character and acknowledge the truth of things even if he doesn't always make good decisions or act properly. He's willing to acknowledge the truth of Tauriel and Kili's love at the end, because it is the truth... it's entirely possible he met Arathorn at some point, and they walked away from that meeting with Arathorn thinking "Wow that guy is a dick" and Thranduil thinking "He was truly kingly... for a human."

The missing army

• Why, if the film is called Battle of the Five Armies, do they LEAVE OUT one of the armies? The Wargs don't make an appearance at all, except for maybe two or three.
  • They're counting the Eagles as one of the armies. They didn't play up the Wargs as a species of wolves in the movies (that I recall).
  • No, they are not counting the Eagles as an army. Instead there are two separate Orc armies, one from Dol Guldur led by Azog and one from Gundabad led by Bolg. Unfortunately there is little to no visual distinction between the two. They really should have gone with the Goblins from the Misty Mountains, instead.
  • Having read the book, I can safely say that, yes, the Eagles are the Fifth Army, Tolkien himself explicitly states, in the book, that it was a battle "fought between Men, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Eagles."
  • This is completely and patently untrue, not present in any version of the book, ever. The word "orc" doesn't even appear. I quote directly with the book in my hands:
    "So began the battle that none had expected; and it was called the Battle of Five Armies, and it was very terrible. Upon one side were the Goblins and the Wild Wolves, and upon the other were Elves and Men and Dwarves".
  • Admittedly, the term "Orc" was never used in the book, but in the context of Tolkien's writings, bear in mind that Orcs and Goblins are essentially two terms for the exact same species, "Orc" often reserved for the larger category of Goblin, in spite of the differences the movies attempt to portray. Consider also the fact that Wargs sparsely appear in the movie, and all that is left is one conclusion: That the Wargs were excised in favor of either the Eagles (which, in other adaptations of the Hobbit, are implied to be the Fifth Army), Trolls (The movie's version of the battle), or (barring the possibility that they're just reinforcements and not a separate army) the Gundabad Forces.
  • The word "orc" is used twice in The Hobbit, but never in the description of The Battle of the Five Armies, nor do the Eagles ever get described as one of the armies, so claiming Word of God on the matter can only be a result of flippant ignorance. As for the film, it make it explicit that there are two separate Orc armies, one headed by Azog from Dol Guldur and the second by Bolg from Gundabad to make up the five armies of the title, not a very good decision in my personal opinion due to their lack of visual distinction, but that is how Peter Jackson handled it. The Eagles still don't get described as an army at any point, and it would be a very bizarre way to describe a couple of dozen birds, regardless of their strategic significance.
  • As for the eagles, it has been argued that they're technically not an army, and neither are the bats. They're an air force. Tolkien was an infantryman who hated aerial warfare, would he count them as an army?
  • The wargs do play a more significant role in the Battle in the Extended Edition, FWIW, albeit more as light infantry/skirmishers attached to Azog's army than as an army of their own.

Smaug's fire

• When Bard kills Smaug, the fire in his eyes and throat die before he hits the water. Why was this done if the book specifically notes that his fires were quenched by the lake?
  • First off, it's not a strict adaptation of the book. Second, it's probably meant as a full-body Eye Lights Out - the absence of his fire symbolizing the absence of his life, dying midair and dropping as a result. Before that point, he was still clearly alive and struggling to remain so.
  • The idea of his fire being quenched was also done already in the previous film.
  • But then his fire had been quenched with molten gold, and fire cannot kill a dragon.
  • The book never actually said that the lake's water did quench Smaug's fires, only that it would have if he'd landed in Laketown when he initially attacked instead of strafing it from above. There's mention of a hissing sound and a rising cloud of steam after the arrow-shot dragon hits the water, but that's probably because the carcass would still be pretty hot from his previous fire-breathing.

Floating underwater

• How the heck did Azog float back up onto the ice if he was wearing metal armor?
  • Because Thorin needed to die so that continuity is maintained. *nods sagely*
  • Also, the trilogy simply renounces any claim to physical plausibility. In the first movie we had the wacky underground chase scenes with characters surviving multiple hundred-foot drops unscathed (Bilbo in particular bouncing off several rocks); in the second we have the wacky river chase scene with...everything; in the third we have a comparatively-plausible floating underwater armored giant orc.
  • A number of possibilities...
    1. The armour might not actually be made of metal. In games like The Elder Scrolls, for instance, you can have armour made from the carapaces of giant bugs, which may actually be buoyant. Given that there are were-worms in this universe, something like that might not be too much of a stretch.
    2. The armour is metal, but it has been magicked. Elves and dwarves imbue their weapons and armours with magic, so why not orcs as well? And if you're planning to fight in heavy metal armour in an area near a large river and lake, you might have the foresight to bring along armour that has been magicked not to sink you.
    3. The river was just not that deep right up near the falls. This is the most likely possibility, as Azog explodes out from under the ice to attack Thorin. Either the river must have been shallow enough to give him a solid jumping off point, or Azog is some kind of Olympic water-treader. He was probably just coasting along the river's shallow bed with just enough space between it and the ice to accommodate him. Thorin's idea of sinking him was great, he just didn't realise how shallow the river was at that point.
  • Even if the river weren't that deep, Azog is clearly shown floating against the surface. That requires a buoyant armor, regardless of river depth. A shallow river would explain how Azog was able to jump out like that, but not his ability to float underwater.
  • I don't recall him rising up suddenly to bump against the ice - just Thorin noticing that he was there. But even in that case, I'd say magic or armour made of a buoyant substance fairly easily explains that in a fantasy world.
  • IRL the natural buoyancy of the human body allows for a grown man wearing full steel plate armour over mail to be fully capable of floating on the surface of a body of water (albeit without being able to really move at all under his own power), in the movie Azog is wearing at most a layered breast plate with pauldrons, cuisses and greaves. Assuming that an orc's body follows the same basic principles of the human body, and doesn't have substantially more mass, and the laws of physics apply to Middle-Earth, Azog being capable of floating while wearing relatively light armour would be far from outlandish. Leaping through the ice and on top of Thorin without any kind of visible ground to push himself off of, on the other hand...

The Battle is over when the big bad dies?

• After Thorin and Azog kill each other, we don't see any of the eponymous battle anymore; it seems like all the fighting simply ceased after the orcs lost their leader. This is not a similar case as in The Return of the King, where the orcs ceased fighting after Sauron's death, because Sauron had magical control over them. Even if the loss of their leader would be despiriting to the orcs, it happened in a remote place with no witnesses, so it would take some time before all the orcs would even learn about Azog's death. Realistically, the battle should still have continued for days. Also, it's not even properly explained how the other armies ended up defeating the orcs. Before the eagles arrived, the orcs were winning. Even though the eagles caused some temporary panic, their number still seemed pretty limited compared to the giant bats, plus the orcs had all those other giant monsters on their side too. Once the initial surprise of the eagle attack was over, the orcs should've been able to regroup, use the terrain to their advantage and fight against the eagles and the other armies.
  • Azog was sending direct instructions to his army throughout the whole battle using those instruments on top of the mountain. It's likely that, without further orders, their forces started losing their discipline and ended up being routed by the remainder of better-trained elf and dwarf forces. Sure, this should at least be mentioned in passing, but maybe they had to cut it for time.
  • Except that Azog willingly left the instruments on top of the mountain to fight the dwarves, so clearly his armies had secondary leaders able to command them. Sure, at some point the orcs might've lost their discipline, but again, this should've taken a lot longer than seen in the movie. The scene with the dwarves and Gandalf mourning over Thorin's body take place during sunset, implying the whole battle was over the same day it began, which seems quite unlikely.
  • Orcs are known to be easily demoralized with the loss of their main leaders, and it's very likely that the eagles would go after the sub-commanders of each orc army first. Without their leaders to keep them in line through fear and intimidation, the orc ranks fell apart and the survivors simply fled back with the armies of Men, Elves, and Dwarves chasing after them.
  • Once Azog died, the Orc forces realized it was time to bug out.
  • So in summary:
    1. Orcs are a very tribal race, and it's established canon that they cannot form an army unless guided by strong hands (i.e Sauron's will and Azog's and Bolg's strength). Earlier in the movie their boss (Sauron) gets his ass royally kicked by Galadriel and banished, severely weakened, to Mordor. So now they no longer have Sauron's will to keep them strong (at least temporarily) and are solely guided by Azog and Bolg's authority. When both Bolg and Azog die, the Orcs descend into anarchy and chaos amongst their ranks and scramble.
    2. Azog's primary strategy was a divide and conquer tactic, using one army to soften up the Elvish-Dwarvish-Men force and then sweeping in with another army to crush them through Dale. The problem is that, from what we see, his second army is held off at Dale by Bard's army of men before the strategy (of surrounding Eerebor by both sides and crushing the armies into a meatgrinder) comes into fruition, thus negating Azog's whole stratagem.
    3. And the killing blow to the Orcish side comes by the arrival of the eagles (plus Beorn), wreaking general havoc amidst the (already leader-less and slowly descending into disarray) Orcish troops. So now the Orcs are leaderless, Azog's gambit failed to pay off (due Bard's army proving to be a lot tougher than expected), and they now have a One-Man Army bear cleaving through their ranks and giant eagles destroying hundreds with each passing second. Their morale is crushed, their troops being massacred, their strategy has failed. The Orcs are soundly beaten in every aspect and they either retreat in a disorganized disarray or die where they stand.
  • One of the first targets the Eagles went for, after their initial surprise attack on the second army, was bound to be that big mechanical banner-display atop the high peak. Any force that sees the apparatus they've been taking their cues from all day being ripped off the rocks and sent crashing by gigantic pissed-off birds of prey is going to be more than a little demoralized.

Wereworms

• In the last movie, Azog uses giant Wereworms to dig his way underground and have a surprise assault on Erebor. Why didn't he use the worms to actually get inside the mountain and have a surprise attack on Thorin and co., as well as take away Smaug's treasure? Or use the worms against the Human, Elven, and Dwarven armies by digging the ground from under their feet?
  • Presumably the worms can't dig through solid rock, so they can't get inside Erebor. As for the other question, it's not clear how much control the Orcs have over the Wereworms. It seems they can point the worms to a general direction and let them dig a tunnel, but digging the earth underneath a mobile army takes much more precision, and you have to be careful the worms won't hurt your own army in the process.
  • It's also probable that the Were-worms were not natural fighters, and thus would not take part in a melée against three different armies.
  • Dwarves and Orcs have had it in for one another for a very, very long time. If the latter have a history of employing Wereworms as sappers, then the former probably built their city to be Wereworm-proof.
  • If there's anything in all Middle Earth that Wereworms would instinctively fear and shy away from digging near, it's any place where the rock smells and tastes of dragon. If they're as near-mindless as actual worms and can't be told that Smaug is dead, no amount of goading or poking with spears by a bunch of Orcs behind them is going to get them to dig into a place where a huge cranky dragon's been snoozing for decades.

Saruman going after Sauron

• After Galadriel banishes Sauron from Dol Guldur, Saruman tells the White Council to leave Sauron to him, the implication being that he will got to Mordor and confront Sauron there. However, The Lord of the Rings suggests Saruman never did meet Sauron face to face, but rather was corrupted by having a remote connection to him via the palantír he had. So what exactly did Saruman do after the fight in Dol Guldur? If he never went to Mordor, or if he went to Mordor and was corrupted by Sauron, why didn't the other members of the White Council question him about his promise to deal with Sauron? And since he clearly wasn't able to get rid of Sauron, why didn't the others go to Mordor to confront Sauron, as they were about to do in this movie?
  • Since we see Gandalf getting tossed around by Sauron even in his weakened state, Saruman would wisely not engage a direct confrontation with the Enemy. It is implies by his words that he would handle the problem of Sauron's return by through monitoring and finding a way or a great power to stop him for good. Unfortunately, he became corrupted in between those sixty years.
  • The tone of voice and gleam in the eye seems to indicate that Saruman's fascination with Sauron, and the process of his corruption and fall, has already begun by this point.
  • In the books Saruman was already corrupt at this point, but fully intent on defeating Sauron and ruling Middle-Earth in his own name with the power of the One Ring, so he was probably sincere with his declaration, albeit in a way that none of the White Council would approve.
  • As mentioned, it'd be impossible for Saruman to face Sauron 1v1 and the White Council is likely quite aware of this (even Galadriel, elder Elf with a ring of power and packing the light of Eärendil, nearly got herself killed in the process of temporarily expelling a weakened Sauron). Elrond talks about how they must hunt down and destroy Sauron but Saruman counter-argues that without the Ring of Power he can never achieve full power (and likewise, it is fruitless to attack him because as as long as the Ring exists, so will Sauron). Elrond suggests that someone warn Gondor and keep an eye on Sauron, which is where Saruman's "Leave Sauron to me'" comes in, as he's the one with the best diplomatic relations with Gondor. What he's telling Elrond is that he will keep an eye on Sauron and make sure he doesn't regain his former strength, via helping Gondor and Rohan strengthen themselves, until they can finally find and destroy the One Ring (or just keep him at bay forever). During the interim between the two trilogies, everyone trusts Saruman is doing his job and keeping Sauron at bay (as Sauron generally becomes much less active, a few Orc incursions in Gondor aside). This is why Gandalf heads directly to Saruman in Fellowship (besides him being his superior); Saruman is the guy who was supposed to be keeping an eye on Sauron, so Gandalf brings him info so they can plan the destruction of the One Ring, as Saruman's supposed to be the Sauron expert who has spent all this time holding Sauron off and must know his strengths and weaknesses, as well as the optimal way to beat him. His betrayal is what sidesteps the entire White Council and throws the entire thing in disarray (as Saruman allows Sauron and his army to grow almost absurdly powerful in secrecy, while the White Council all firmly believe Sauron is no threat and are in no way expecting a second army of Orcs from Isengard). Really, if Saruman had done his job, Sauron would be fucked. The central reason the War of the Ring was the mess it was is because Saruman covered Sauron's ass and then joined his team.

Why does Bilbo hold onto the Arkenstone at first?

• At the start of BOFA, it's revealed that Bilbo had the Arkenstone all along—he grabbed it as he was fleeing from Smaug. And at the start of BOFA, it makes sense for Bilbo to hang onto the stone since Balin explicitly tells him it'll make Thorin's sickness worse. But why didn't Bilbo hand it over before then? He and Thorin are still on friendly terms. It's not just any shiny sentimental-value gem, it's the plot's MacGuffin. And Thorin's madness hasn't moved into full swing yet—he's getting edgy, sure, but he isn't sitting around staring at gold without eating or sleeping and threatening his family members.
  So why does Bilbo, quickly, readily and complete sincerity, lie about not having the Arkenstone before Thorin draws a sword on him? In the book, he's a little bit more of a jerk ("now I really am a burglar") who eventually does the right thing, but in the movie, Bilbo is friends with Thorin and he's a decent guy with some character growth—and here, with the Arkenstone, Thorin has a chance to rally the other Dwarven forces to help deal with Smaug on a rampage. If he'd found the Arkenstone at the beginning of BOFA in the aftermath of Smaug's death, it would've made sense, but the timing of the theft as it is is just weird.
  • In the very same scene, before Bilbo grabs the Arkenstone, Smaug tells him that he is tempted to let him take the stone, just to see it destroy Thorin. This probably made Bilbo wary, especially having seen Thorin become slightly obsessed with the thing.
  • In the book, Bilbo himself was mesmerised by the stone and, as he states he did in the film, took it as his fourteenth share, obviously not mentioning this for a while because he knew Thorin would be pissed off. By the time film Bilbo might have reconsidered this foolish and dishonourable scheme, Thorin was slowly coming unglued and Bilbo thought better of giving the Arkenstone to him. The film doesn't make this motivation clear though, so it may have simply been that Bilbo was shaken by Smaug's words, like the troper above suggested.
  • It's probably due to what Smaug was taunting him with, yeah. When Bilbo runs up the stairs to flee and runs into Thorin blocking the door in Desolation of Smaug, what does Thorin do? He very quickly pulls his sword on Bilbo when he doesn't reveal the stone immediately. If nothing else, that suggests to me at least that Bilbo did have doubts after what Smaug had been saying, hence his not revealing he had the Arkenstone at that time (plus he was somewhat understandably more focused on escaping Smaug at that moment as well), and Thorin effectively just confirmed that lust for the Arkenstone will drive him over the edge, as it's already begun.

Bard's Makeshift Rope

• How in Imladris did Bard make that rope he uses to escape from prison? Presumably his tearing up that cloak was supposed to be him "making" it, but not only would he have needed about a dozen more of those to make what he ended up with, he had about a twenty-fifth of the time required to create it! Is Bard secretly one of the blue wizards with a Rumpelstilksin-esque power to summon braided rope, or did I miss something?
  • Laketown is a town, not a big city, and its Master isn't the sort to spend money on infrastructure rather than on himself: it probably doesn't have a purpose-built prison. The room where Bard was locked up is probably just a storage room for trade goods, with bars to prevent pilferage. Luckily for Bard, it happened to be storing fabric or bales of wool when he was tossed in there.

Elven Supplies

• In the previous movie, we're shown that Mirkwood forest is a dark, inhospitable place where simply walking around can make you hallucinate from the poisonous air. In the book, it's further said that the plants and herbs there are poisonous and the game the dwarves shoot have poisonous meat. So how do the elves in BOtFA come up with wagons of fresh leafy greens that they supply the Laketowners? In fact, where would they even get food for themselves on a daily basis?
  • The forest outside the Elvish citadel is messed up due to the Necromancer's influence, but presumably the inside, where the Elves live, is rich and beautiful due to their benevolent magic. Rivendell and Lothlórien are both gorgeous places - I can't imagine the wood elves living in a crappy dive while everyone else has a glowing, wondrous pad of awesome. Given the big gates that they shut in Desolation, Thranduil probably rules over an area like a lord's castle, except much larger, with room for farmlands rather than just gardens. Mirkwood is established as a BIG place, and as the elves are innately magical beings with thousands of years to spend making where they live as perfect as they can, they probably have enough space and fertile earth to do whatever they need or desire.
  • There's no doubt they do get their lettuce from somewhere, but the headscratcher is how they do it. Rivendell and Lothlorien are beautiful, fertile places because Elrond and Galadriel both wear a ring of power, so their lands are magically protected. Thranduil, awesome as he is in other ways, doesn't have that. And I don't think it was ever mentioned that elves are innately magical in the sense that they can conjure up food or weather. They still have to hunt and grow. And Thranduil's "citadel" is pretty much a hole in the mountain with little or no access to sunlight. I don't think there would be any farmland in there. What are they using for their salads? Soylent Green?
  • It's probably because Mirkwood is in a slow, degenerative decline as the spread of Dol Guldur's evil increases. So there are likely still some places within or just outside the forest that the elves farm. Or perhaps they have supply trains, similar to the one in place for their wine, that caravan food right up to their door? It's not like they couldn't afford it.
  • I thought they traded with other places, hence the barrels in the previous movie. They received food in those barrels, then ferried them back to the lake town.
  • They've only been shown to trade with Laketown for their wine. But in this case, they're supplying the refugees of Laketown, so their supplies couldn't have come from there.
  • With other, more abundant, places then.
  • Elven communities in Tolkien are pretty generally placed in locations that don't seem capable of sustaining large-scale agriculture. Nevertheless, it's likely that their experience, affinity for nature and small numbers make for a quite secure food supply, with plenty to spare to stopgap a short-term crisis in a nearby city.

Bard trusting Gríma Wormtongue

• Yeah, his name is Alfred or something, but let's face it, it's Grima. Why the hell is Bard giving him important tasks, like keeping night watch or escorting civilians to safety? The guy goes out of his way to show what a cowardly self-serving slimeball he is, and I think it was rather obvious even before, when he was the Master's butt-kisser, so why is he assigned anything other than digging latrine pitches? And why isn't anyone trying to beat at least some sense and discipline into him?
  • Alfrid ain't Gríma. Gríma at least had some backbone at the end.
  • Bard probably realized that a life of butt-kissing and bureaucratic nonsense makes Alfrid unsuited for anything involving manual labor. He'd probably find a way to screw up latrine digging or foist it on some poor old granny. "Night's Watch" was probably just something to keep him out of the way. Everyone else was too busy tending to the wounded to even spare a night's watch, so what the hey.

Sudden mountain rams

• Where did they come from? Out of all the people present only the dwarf leader (Dane?) is riding a boar, elf leader is riding a stag, and Bard is riding a horse. Then the dwarves need to get to the mountaintop, and, boom, out of nowhere, they've got three mountain rams or goats, already tamed and trained for riding.
  • His name is Dain. I'd wager that the rams were either brought by Dain Ironfoot or they were remnants of the Dwarf cavalry from Erebor from before Smaug invaded that Thorin found.
  • This is mainly down to a Missing Trailer Scene, with one of the movie's trailers showing Dain's army charging down the hill on Rams. Presumably these Rams are a holdover from that part of the battle which was cut for what ever reason.
  • Actually.... for a moment the universe merged with World of Warcraft. There were Dwarves, Trolls, Orcs, Elves, Humans, and one Gnome fighting in front of Ironforge in Dun Morough. At that point, the Dwarves mounted on their racial mounts and rode to the bad guy.
  • No army travels without supply trains, so perhaps the rams had been drawing carts for Dain's forces. We just didn't see them because you don't bring your supply carts to the front line when you're forming up to confront an opposing army; we don't see any of the elven force's horse-drawn wagons on the battlefield either, even though we know the wood elves had traveled with enough of those to spare several loads for the human refugees.
  • In the Extended Edition, Dain's army includes several goat-drawn war chariots, one of which Thorin's strike force drives to the base of the peak in an extended action scene. The goats they're shown riding up the mountainside in the theatrical version were the last surviving members of the team that drew the chariot, which couldn't go any further after wargs and other attackers picked off the rest.

Elven bows

• Do the elves ever use their bows? They shoot one volley at that the dwarves who are behind the wall, so it doesn't make any sense, but when the orc armies approach, I don't recall even of them dying from an arrow (aside from Legolas' ones). Hell, I think the orcs actually shoot more than elves. What the hell? The most jarring is when the dwarven army forms a blockade, so it would make perfect sense for elves to rain arrows from behind their backs, and instead they... jump over the dwarves and engage orcs in melee... ... ... Da hell?
  • It's an unfortunate but consistent aspect of PJ's Middle Earth that orcs are smarter than other races. Yes, smarter. In all battles shown (beside the introduction to the first trilogy) the orcs use intelligent tactics, combined arms and siege equipment to great effect, while Men and Elves mostly just form a battle line, maybe shoot some arrows and then dive into the fray. Helm's Deep? the orcs bring crossbows to suppress fire from the wall, then set up tens of ladder to quickly storm the fortress. Pelennor Fields? they have trebuchets, siege towers pushed by trolls, armored trolls to use as shock troops, a giant purpose-made ram for the gate (meanwhile the army of Gondor is armed with 12-foot pikes while defending a wall). The battle before the Black Gate? The Orcs stream out and surround the enemy before engaging. So really, it stands to reason that in PJ's Battle of the Five Armies it's the Orcs that have an intelligent battle plan, while the good guys alliance throws away any advantage they might have had to start a chaotic melee.
  • Because, don't forget Orcs are essentially Elves that the shadow has corrupted. And in Tolkien's mind, "modern" i.e. machinery, wheels, etc. equals "corruption." It could be that modern military tactics hadn't yet occurred to the purer, uncorrupted races, whereas they came naturally to the spoiled orcs.
    • There is no canon origin for the Orcs. Tolkien never made up his mind about that matter, and later in his life he actually actively disliked the idea of Elves being able to be corrupted like that.
  • It's not as much that Orcs are smarter, but that Orcs are a race single-handedly focused on being brutal, war-like thugs, and always (in the movie's chronology) guided by the will of an ancient force of darkness. It stands to reason they know more about war than the elves. Particularly when it comes to Thranduil, who's been a Crazy Survivalist Shell-Shocked Veteran for a few centuries now and is probably out of tactical shape. All other commanders in the battle (Dain Ironfoot, Azog, Bolg, Thorin Oakenshield) have waged war much more recently than Thranduil (who hasn't warred since the War of the Last Alliance and is a tad off his rocker) and the fact is evident in the battle itself, where Dain, Thorin and Azog show much more tactical proficiency than Thranduil.

The Cenobite Troll

• What was up with that thing? Just... what? Blades instead of arms I can understand, but the rest... the chains hooked in it's eyes, some... maces?.. instead of legs. What was it's purpose?
  • Elsewhere on this site, it is theorized that the troll might have been born quadriplegic or legless, and the orcs just put the mace-things on its leg-stumps as a kind of brutal and poor prosthesis to get some use out of the troll.
  • And then kept replacing them with bigger and bigger maces as it was growing?
  • Or the troll was fine up until a certain point in its life, then got into a cave in or some other accident that took off its limbs. Rather than waste a useful Giant Mook, the able-bodied orcs fixed it up with some crude prosthetics.
  • As trolls are so often used as living tanks to bust up the battle lines of much smaller races, it makes sense that they'd often get their lower legs hacked up in combat, and likewise their arms if they're reaching down to grab smaller opponents who are carrying sharp steel. That particular troll may have suffered enough wounds to require multiple amputations, but not quite enough to die or to render it not worth patching up.
  • If you watch the chariot scene from the Extended Edition closely, you'll see a troll get both its lower legs reduced to chowder by a glancing strike from the rotating blades on the wheel-hubs. Perhaps the other troll with the prosthetic shins caught the worst of it in a previous battle with Dain's people.

Trolls and Sunlight

• It was established in the first movie that Trolls turn into stone when exposed to sunlight. So how can Trolls participate in the Battle of the Five Armies in broad daylight? Yes, I know that some of Sauron's Trolls, the Olog-hai, are immune to sunlight, but I thought Sauron created those during his time in Mordor. Was he already powerful enough during his time in Dol Guldur to create Olog-hai?
  • The Trolls seen in the battle can easily be Mountain Trolls, which were Olog-hai lite in the movies at least in that the sunlight didn't kill them and only irritated them. So it's likely that the Trolls that were used in the battle were Mountain Trolls and not Olog-hai.

The Black Arrow

• This only applies to the films, but why was the black arrow needed? They are the only things that can penetrate dragon scales but Smaug now has a bare patch, surely any arrow or sharp weapon can now kill him if he can make the shot. That's honestly how I expected the film to go, that Bain would find where he hid the arrow, tries the windlance but fails, then Bard having got out of prison would try a last desperate shot using only his normal bow but manage to hit the weak spot and kill Smaug.
  • Even if there's a bare patch, all the muscle underneath is going to be hard to penetrate for a plain wooden arrow. The shaft is likely to break, it might not penetrate at all if it doesn't have enough weight to it.
  • Remember that nobody knew about Smaug's weakness; Bard knew it just a second before firing. Bilbo discovered it at one point, but he had no chance to tell anyone who may make use of that info.
    • Bard and his family knew of the bare patch as Bain described it to Thorin, it's just that no one else believed it to be true.
  • Given the way Smaug's entire throat and chest glow red-hot just before he breathes fire, it may have left audiences wondering why a plain wooden arrow wouldn't just burn up before it could penetrate deeply enough to kill the blasted thing, had they played it out like the initial post describes.

The Finger of Suspicion

• Why does Thorin confide in Bilbo his suspicion about the Arkenstone being stolen? Why does he consider Bilbo above suspicion?
  • Maybe he thought that Bilbo, as a Hobbit, wouldn't care about the Dwarven gem symbolizing divine right of rulership over Dwarves?
  • Or Thorin continued to underestimate Bilbo, believing that the apologetic, unassuming Hobbit he hired wouldn't keep the Arkenstone from him.
  • Because Thorin loves Bilbo like a brother at that point. Even in the midst of his madness, some part of him understands that. Bilbo is the only one who has absolutely, certainly, and without question risked his life for Thorin's not because of familial duty, homage owed to a king, or for material gain, but because he cared about Thorin and wanted to protect him. And Thorin knows that Bilbo understands how important the Arkenstone is to him. He sincerely doesn't believe at that moment that Bilbo would ever take it from him.

Thorin Oakenshield?

• When Bilbo returns home from his adventure, he uses the contract he signed as proof that he really is Bilbo Baggins and thus the community has no authority to auction off his estate. At the end, the auctioneer asks who the Thorin Oakenshield he gave his service to was. One problem with this: AUJ clearly shows that Thorin didn't sign his name on that contact as Oakenshield. He signed it as Thorin son of Thrain. How'd the auctioneer know about the name Oakenshield?
  • It could easily have been from another part of the contract, and not necessarily from the signature at the bottom. For example, "I, Bilbo Baggins (hereinafter referred to as "the Burglar") do hereby pledge to offer my services to Thorin Oakenshield, Son of Thrain (hereinafter referred to as "the Leader") in the retaking of Erebor (hereinafter referred to as "the Quest")..."
  • Indeed, it would probably need to include Thorin's full series of titles and lineage, because dwarven naming conventions are such that there could easily be another "Thorin" in the world. Heck, there could be one or two Erebor-born refugees who were specifically named in honor of Thorin, back in the day: he was the second heir to the throne when Thror still ruled, after all.

Erebor and Dragon Sickness

• If Smaug's proximity to the gold of Erebor made it cursed, what happens to Dain, who becomes King after Thorin dies? What can they do with all this gold which turns the ruler into a raving, paranoid coward?
  • The gold isn't literally cursed, nor is it Smaug's doing — they're just being poetic about the fact that Dwarves really like gold and that that much of it will make them more likely to jealously guard it. As for what they can do? Spend it. Use it to rebuild Dale, etc.
  • Yes, a large part of the point is that the wealth should flow through Erebor, rather than being locked up there. Probably a lot of it was spent in rebuilding efforts, helping dwarves relocate, buying up resources to launch the next effort to reclaim Moria, etc.
  • Although it's called 'dragon sickness' in the movie, the curse did not appear to affect Thrór until the Arkenstone was unearthed, at which point he began hoarding gold instead of letting it flow, and it was the accumulation that brought the dragon. Thorin only threw off the sickness some hours after Bilbo took the Arkenstone away. As the gem was buried with Thorin, if it is the cause of the sickness, Dáin should be just fine.

Elven faces

• We've seen Thranduil hiding his scars with glamour, which slips only in small patches at a time when he loses his cool. So, how do elves actually look? Was Galadriel's Fair Folk mien during banishing Sauron her real face?
  • I don't think there's any indication that elves are generally glamouring their appearance. They tend to have a bit of an ethereal glow, especially when they're channeling their powers—Galadriel's "the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth", so her Dark Queen persona is that on steroids—but I don't think their faces or bodies are illusions, as it were. Thranduil was probably born looking like Lee Pace, grew up, tangled with a dragon, and is now using some sort of minor illusion magic to cover up the scars.

Missing weapons in Dale

• When the Lakemen are raiding Dale's armoury, we see plenty of well-crafted weapons, including shields and pikes. Yet when the Lakemen show up with the Elven army in front of Erebor, they're carrying makeshift spears and farming equipment. When the battle moves into Dale, only Bard, a couple of minor characters, and a handful of men are using swords; everybody else is using the improvised weapons and the shields and spears are nowhere to be seen. Why don't the Lakemen use them?
  • Maybe most of them were damaged in Smaug's attack? And even if they had survived fine, they might have had trouble getting to the armoury. And even if the weapons had survived and they could salvage them before the hurried relocation to Dale, there simply might not have had enough to go around.
  • The Master clearly had imposed weapons restrictions on the people of Laketown. The armory would've had enough weapons to equip the Master's own guards, but not the whole population.
  • Given what a creep Laketown's Master turned out to be, he might even have ordered his personal guards to dump whatever weapons they weren't bringing along on his boat into the lake, just to ensure any survivors of the dragon attack couldn't arm up and come after the treacherous "leader" who'd left them all to die.

Alfrid do this important thing!

• Why would anybody (and Bard in particular) keep trusting Alfrid seemingly important charges like night watch or keeping an eye on people, when he is a well-known useless wretch that will scurry away from his duties at the slightest chance?
  • Because everyone remotely competent and trustworthy is doing something even more important.

Did Dwalin just leave?

• We see most of the area during Thorin and Azog's fight, and the place where Bilbo got knocked out is empty, meanign Dwalin probably fought off the goblins and orcs, but, if he did so, where was he when his KING was fighting what is held to be one of the most dangerous Orcs in existence?
  • There was a scene where Dwalin is fighting his way through orcs trying to get to Thorin in time as his battle with Azog reaches is conclusion, but it was cut in order to have the focus on Bilbo and Thorin as Thorin died.

---