In terms of what you said here,
Aaron:
In truth, it's the result of the whole ethos of the movie. The actress isn't to blame. They wanted to make The Hobbit into an action trilogy, and she got shoehorned into the love interest role. It's quite a shame. She would have made a good Orc.
What annoyed me so much was the seemingly endless publicity at the time of statements that the new female Elf
wasn't being introduced as a love interest...