5 December 2021

Have you ever been in a situation where someone is talking about a topic as if they were an expert, but in reality they are far from it. This happened to me today. I listened to someone talk about Lord of the Rings and it soon became clear that all their knowledge came from the marvellous Peter Jackson trilogy. They had obviously never read the actual books!

How would you feel in this situation? What would you do? For me, whilst they were in mid-flight telling the story of the films I asked a question. I asked "regarding the changes that Peter Jackson made to the film compared to the books, which would you have preferred that he didn't change?" The response was silence, then bluster, and finally he simply turned the question back onto me. Hopefully he learned a life lesson from the experience.

My response, in case you're interested, was removing Glorfindel. It was Glorfindel that rode out to meet Frodo and ensure he made it to Rivendell. Glorfindel played a role at the scene where the the river rose up and it was here that the reader understand the awesome power of this elite elf. An elf that stood toe to toe with a Balrog and defeated it at the cost of his own life to save his people. His heroism was go great that the Valar resurrected him with enhanced power as their emissary in middle Earth. Why was he replaced? Feminism basically, Peter Jackson wanted to raise the profile of Arwen to have an early strong female character.