I really couldn't care less about Lilly or the made up character of Tauriel. I think she is going to be, as Lilly herself put it, "a black mark", in the world of Tolkien. The whole concept of the character from what we have heard so far screams foul and goes against the source material itself. Even the supposed names meaning screams a bunch of crap. "Daughter of Mirkwood"... I thought it was Greenwood to the elves. and since Jackson felt the need to have it turning bad IN the Hobbit timeline. I'm sure the name didn't just change overnight. Some people are just optimistic about her, some are being realistic about her and her involvement in something she doesn't belong in. I guess it makes the changes easier to take for some people to see everything in a positive light. But for me once Jackson started making up characters and changing the plot of the whole story around. All the while trying to justify them, with answers that are in themselves vague and IMO side stepping the questions, he lost any respect I had for him from making LOTR. Sure there were character changes in LOTR BUT The character changes in those films were only minor(in comparison)and any made up characters were none with any real substantial plot deviations, which Tauriel surely creates since she is a totally made up, non Tolkien character. doing things that NEVER HAPPENED in the story. I do not consider the captain of the guard an actual developed character in the book since he was vague and had maybe a couple lines and was gone after a few paragraphs. Maybe if Lilly were there for a couple lines and gone after only a few minutes I could accept the character a whole lot more than i do.