Category: The Desolation of Smaug

The company has reached “safety”. Though they cannot see an Orc pack behind them does not mean they are out of immediate danger. They are wet, cold and unarmed, sitting ducks for the Orcs. 

While the Dwarves are busy floating around in their barrels, in hopes of outrunning the Orcs, Gandalf is facing an evil that if left untouched will take over Middle-Earth. The quest for Erebor would then be just a dream a company of Dwarves once had. In his capacity as quest instigator Gandalf had fallen short, leaving the Dwarves to their own devices, which have landed them in cells of the Woodland Realm.

Drinking Elves. For a race that holds itself above all others in grace, beauty, and wisdom, it is hard to imagine they would take to such worldly pleasures as drinking wine. The Feast of Starlight does not appear to be just a celebration of celestial wonders but of earthly as well. It is not that their power diminishes with our knowledge of their wine drinking, but their reputation cannot hold them as the infallible immortals they are.

Thorin has insulted King Thranduil with his style of rhetoric and simultaneously rejected his offer of freedom from subsequent incarceration in return for the White Gems of Lasgalen. Because of his pride and stubborn countenance his entire company has been incarcerated into the jail cells of the Woodland Realm. The one they have not captured and of whom they know nothing about, will soon become a thorn in their side. 

The Woodland Realm. Not the fairy tale place of graceful Elves that one would have imagined it to be. Somehow the atmosphere is much more tense, much darker and devoid of any kind of magic. Bilbo is not in the light yet to give his opinion of the place, but I’m sure Thorin would have one to share with anyone who would listen. While all the members of the company are locked in their cells, Thorin stands alone before King Thranduil.

After having been captured and wrapped up in spider webs, fighting the same spiders whose dinner they were meant to be, the Dwarves find themselves out of trouble, or so they thought.

Not only was the ground floor of the forest a peril to tread, but the creatures living in its branches make the canopy just as perilous, if not deadly. Bilbo falls into a cobweb and meets the owner of the one of the voices he had heard before but couldn’t place. The spider he meets is no ordinary spider, it is the spawn of the quintessential evil of Middle-Earth that destroyed all the light of the Two Trees of Valinor, along with the help of her cohort Melkor – Ungoliant. 

Mirkwood, once called Greenwood the Great or Wood of Greenleaves has now turned into a dark and menacing forest. There are no green leaves to be found. All the leaves that once decorated the trees have now turned brown and fallen onto the ground. The trees have become grey leaving one with the sense of not much life left in them.

Beorn had satiated their hunger and quenched their thirst as well as provided shelter and protection from their hunters. However, for them to reach the entrance to Mirkwood through the Elven Gate without getting killed in the process, they need his horses, well ponies. Before they even set off into what will prove a dangerous and almost quest ending journey, Gandalf needs answers only Beorn can provide him, and vice versa.

A cautionary introduction to the shape-shifter. Gandalf cannot but take every possible care of how he presents himself as well as Bilbo to this unpredictable man. He may be reasoned with as Gandalf said, but he still airs on the side of caution when around him.