Itaril

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

Oh, for crying out loud! Peter Jackson and Company just had to do it! I mean, just when I thought we had driven a wooden stake through undead heart of this ludicrous elf-chick-in-The-Hobbit idea, that awful, queasy feeling in the pit of the stomach returns:

"... the biggest news is LOST star Evangeline Lilly will be Tauriel. PJ describes Tauriel as a Woodland Elf, ‘Her name means ‘daughter of Mirkwood’ and, beyond that, we must leave you guessing! (No, there is no romantic connection to Legolas.)‘ "

Just for starters, the calendar entry in Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings for the year 1050 states:

"About this time a shadow falls on Greenwood, and men begin to call it Mirkwood"

So I must inquire why any elf of Greenwood Forest would have a name derived from what men only began to call the same forest after it became infected by the "evil power" that had "made a stronghold at Dol Guldur." I mean, wouldn't a real (and really old) elf have a name like "Daughter of Greenwood" and not something that -- etymologically -- sounds more like "Daughter of the Necromancer" or "Daughter of Sauron"? Wouldn't all of the other elves just call her "Mirky" for short, because of the shadow that seems to follow her everywhere she goes?

Come to think of it, if this newly-relabeled Itaril (I mean "Tauriel") has a name derived from what men called the forest after it became evil, then wouldn't that make the newly-relabeled elf-chick less than 1050 years old (assuming that elves get their names at birth) and a mere child among that immortal race? Just think about this for a minute -- and it shouldn't take much longer than that -- and you can see the sloppy thinking and disregard for Tolkien's created world that went into this bogus "name."

Furthermore, putting purely linguistic considerations aside (which Professor Tolkien would never have done), the forcible injecting of an unnecessary elf-chick into an adolescent English schoolboy story like The Hobbit sounds as heretical as letting Vicky Vale into the Bat Cave or Lois Lane into the Fortress of Solitude. Some things you just don't do without undermining the entire foundation of the genre.

The whole idea sounds stupid, and the stupid new name for "stupid" -- i.e., "idiotic" -- sounds just as dumb. A pseudonym by any other misnomer would stlll stink as badly.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by TheMisfortuneTeller

So I must inquire why any elf of Greenwood Forest would have a name derived from what men only began to call the same forest after it became infected by the "evil power" that had "made a stronghold at Dol Guldur." I mean, wouldn't a real (and really old) elf have a name like "Daughter of Greenwood" and not something that -- etymologically -- sounds more like "Daughter of the Necromancer" or "Daughter of Sauron"?

That's a valid point, but you don't really expect small details like that to get in the way of the Powers That Be, do you?

Originally Posted by TheMisfortuneTeller

Furthermore, putting purely linguistic considerations aside (which Professor Tolkien would never have done), the forcible injecting of an unnecessary elf-chick into an adolescent English schoolboy story like The Hobbit sounds as heretical as letting Vicky Vale into the Bat Cave or Lois Lane into the Fortress of Solitude. Some things you just don't do without undermining the entire foundation of the genre.

Like having Faramir do in the Two Towers movie the opposite of what he did in the book?

[Galin]

Tauriel would mean 'forest-daughter', not really green or mirk.

Not to defend such a possible addition...

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

Originally Posted by Galin

Tauriel would mean 'forest-daughter', not really green or mirk.

Not to defend such a possible addition...

Linguistic point taken. Too bad Peter Jackson and company couldn't have considered that. Something about "Mirk" -- or "murk" -- seems completely un-elvish, to say the least. Legolas Greenleaf, on the other hand, seems like an appropriate elf name, not that I especially want to see any more slashing and hacking and stabbing and shooting by You-Know-Him, any more than I want to see such mindless crap from You-Know-Her, either.

Of Pseudonyms for Misnomers

They tried to name her "Itaril"
But when that wouldn't stick,
They changed her name to something that
They thought would do the trick:
A pseudonym called "Tauriel"
Which sounded just as sick

They found an actress for a part
That Tolkien never wrote
In hopes that elf-chick T-and-A
Would cause fans to emote
And blindly purchase products
That a brain would scarcely note

[Inziladun]

Pfft. They might as well just call her Arwen. The motives for greatly exaggerating her part in LOTR and making up a female elf character for The Hobbit would appear to be the same.

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

... you don't really expect small details like that to get in the way of the Powers That Be, do you?

To paraphrase Inspector Clouseau: "I expect nothing [good] and I expect everything [bad]." Therefore, I occasionally find life a pleasant surprise. Optimists, on the other hand, have little to look forward to but perpetual disappointment.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Like having Faramir do in the Two Towers movie the opposite of what he did in the book?

Regarding Faramir's behavior towards the Ring and the Ring-bearer: the movie did deviate markedly from the book -- pretty much to drag out the Ring-bearer story line so as to better inter-cut it with the Helm's Deep and Isengard thread endings. Otherwise, the book's consolation-prize pairing of Faramir and Lady Eowyn does get a brief nod in the film at the King Aragorn coronation. Regardless, none of this Faramir meddling -- and much else besides -- can compensate for losing The Scouring of the Shire and the proper demise of Saruman at the hands of the Hobbits whom he victimized. The inflated romance between Aragorn and Arwen -- which Tolkien relegated to the Appendices -- adds nothing to compensate for this loss in the films. And I have every suspicion that this whole-cloth elf-chick invention of Peter Jackson's will do equally nothing but detract from the story of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, ostensibly the [anti-] hero of these films.

If nothing else, though, I now know when to get up and take a bladder break during the films.

[Galadriel55]

I don't care what they call her: she remains the same nauseatingly-obnoxious detestable story-ruining -...you-name-it...- extra useless character that has no business in the real TH.

[LadyBrooke]

I think PJ is prejudiced against elves, and wants to make everyone else hate them too. That's the only explanation for all of this, unless he believes that people are so shallow that women only go to movies with strong female characters (I've never understood this idea...) and that guys have to be tempted by hot female actors to go see a movie.

Also, I'm more scared now then I was when I thought Itaril/Tauriel was Legolas's love interest...if she isn't his love interest, then she's likely someone else's. Which quite frankly scares me. If she ends up being Thranduil/Bilbo/Bard's love interest, I'm taking a knife to the screen. Same if she ends up being the one to slay Smaug/sneak the dwarves out of the dungeons/rescue them from the goblins.

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

It seems clear to me that this re-branded demographic loss-leader of a "character" suffers from Popeye's Existential Conundrum:

"If I'm not me, who am I? And if I'm somebody else, then why do I look like me?"

Recruiting this actress from the cast of the TV-movie "Lost" does seem rather appropriate, though, if one has a taste for unintended irony.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by LadyBrooke

Also, I'm more scared now then I was when I thought Itaril/Tauriel was Legolas's love interest...if she isn't his love interest, then she's likely someone else's. Which quite frankly scares me. If she ends up being Thranduil/Bilbo/Bard's love interest, I'm taking a knife to the screen. Same if she ends up being the one to slay Smaug/sneak the dwarves out of the dungeons/rescue them from the goblins.

The only comfort is that Bard is now cast - so maybe that is significant that maybe Itaril was going to take Bard's role but this creature isn't? However I note that Galion and the Gaoler haven't been which is concerning.

When I heard the new name I thought of the geometrical shape a toros (like a ring doughnut) . Is maybe not inappropriate - a shape without proper substance and a heart and torus being Latin for cushion - I mean this is part of the padding needed to turn a short book into two long films. KERching!!!

[Morthoron]

Tauriel? Tauriel!
No elven name can hide the smell.
That sulfur stench from fan-fic wells
Up from Jackson's scripting Hell.