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boldog
Rohan
May 5 2015, 9:25am
Post #1 of 26
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How would the story have shaped out if Azog was replaced by Bolg?
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The existence of Azog as one of the major villains is one of the most controversial moves made by PJ for the Hobbit trilogy. Many people argue as to why he was even put in, saying that Bolg could easily have taken his role.
But what I want to know is how it would have worked in the story, and mainly what Bolgs motif against the dwarves would have been.
The most likely way that I can see it, is Bolg seeking revenge for his dead father, likely at the hands of Thorin. But this arises the problem of the father/son dynamic. Orcs are evil beings incapable of love, and to me, avenging a dead father has to be done out of the slightest love/respect for him.
I think why PJ kept Azog alive was because of the confusion that would arise in the Azanulbizar flashback if he was killed there.
They would have had to introduce Azog, show Thrors beheading, show Thorin killing Azog ( who would have been a much more scrawnier, easy to kill orc in this situation) in revenge, introducing Bolg, and then showing Bolg somehow being injured and taken off the battlefield.
Now this is where some problems come into play.
For Thorin to kill Azog as well as injure Bolg is just too much for one character to do in a scene. So Bolg might have been pierced with many arrows as he charged towards Thorin, or something like that.
Also, it would establish Bolgs personal vendetta towards Thorin for slaying his father, but it doesnt establish anything for Thorin to hate Bolg about. The Orc who killed his grandfather, he killed, so his death has been avenged.
Could they have just flowed the story with Bolg wanting vengeance without any returned personal hate by Thorin? To me that doesnt really give as much depth, and it wouldnt make the final showdown as epic.
But tell me your thoughts on this.
How do you reckon the story would have been if Bolg was in the place of Azog?
Azog and Bolg. That is all I can say.............
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QuackingTroll
Valinor
May 5 2015, 12:50pm
Post #2 of 26
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Dain could have killed Azog...
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Thorin and Bolg fight. **Oakenshield**
Azog Cuts Thror's head off. **Father!!**
Thorin injures distracted Bolg. **Cuts arm off**
Azog steps in to aid/avenge injured Bolg.
Dain jumps in and kills Azog, Bolg runs away.
Thrain vanishes.
Why is that too complicated? It makes more sense than the mess we got:
Thorin could have killed Azog, but doesn't?
Azog cuts Thrain's finger off sometime before his fight with Thorin, but doesn't kill him? And then something confusing happens and he attacks Thorin?
Azog is dragged into the mines by other orcs who also were somehow not killed.
Balin says the battle was won "but there was no song". But how could the battle be won, when the orcs are still apparently inside Moria?? And if it was won why are the dwarves not living there?  The movie version is more complicated than any alternative I've seen.
(This post was edited by QuackingTroll on May 5 2015, 12:54pm)
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dormouse
Half-elven
May 5 2015, 1:22pm
Post #3 of 26
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They would have had to invent another orc...
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..to lead the army from Dol Guldur, or not have an orc army from Dol Guldur. Or change that round and say Gundabad instead of Dol Guldur - in either case, if they were having two orc armies approaching the mountain from different directions they would have needed two lead orcs, whatever names they gave them.
And if they had dispensed with one of the orc armies and had one army only, led by Bolg, they would have found themselves in difficulty at Ravenhill. Say Bolg kills Fili - how is he then to cope with Fili and Thorin? I don't think they could have told the story the way they wanted to tell it without a second lead orc.
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Kilidoescartwheels
Valinor
May 5 2015, 1:56pm
Post #4 of 26
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It's got its pluses and minuses
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I personally would have liked it better if Azog had drown at the end of BOT5A, and THEN Bolg jumped out and stabbed Thorin, mortally wounding him - especially with the scenario they gave us, the whole setup of Azog killing Thror, Thorin cutting his arm off, Azog killing Fili, etc. Bolg could still have skewered Kili and then done this, with Legolas trying to help Tauriel. I don't care really whether Legolas or Beorn kills Bolg, but I guess they had to give Orlando something to do.
Well I don't know that Bolg needed to be wounded, he would only have needed to see Thorin kill Azog at Azanulbizar. Perhaps then Bolg could be the one that takes Thrain captive. Why not kill Thrain? Because Sauron told Bolg to keep him alive, same as (I assume) he told Azog. As far as the Orc father/son dynamic, I don't even know how that would work since there are no female Orcs, LOL! I don't know that it HAS to be love, they are Orcs and their brains work differently. People can want revenge over perceived slights and insults, perhaps Bolg was personally offended by Thorin??? And Thorin can just hate Orcs in general the way Beorn does, because of what happened to his father & grandfather. I'm not saying this would be BETTER, just that it would be doable. I think the real reason we ended up with both Azog and Bolg was because there were supposed to be two armies of Orcs, and the easiest way to differentiate them would be to have two leaders and two separate areas: Dol Goldur and Gundabad. However, I'm not sure that worked out as well as PJ thought, since some people don't know who the five armies are. Some think it's Elves, Men, Dwarves, Orcs and Eagles.
Proud member of the BOFA Denial Association
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
May 5 2015, 2:31pm
Post #5 of 26
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If Azog had died at Azanulbizar
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Bolg could indeed have fulfilled Azog's role in the films if the latter had perished in the Battle of Moria--either at Dain's hand as in the book or by Thorin's doing. Bolg's motive for wanting revenge against Thorin does not have to be familial love (although I find the notion that an evil being must be incapable of love to be overly simplistic and naive; good villains are more complicated than that). It could be that Azog's death is seen as an insult to Bolg and disrespect to his line. Even Orcs can have pride.
Of course if there is still to be a second Orc army then we need someone new to lead that force. Some of Azog's Hunters were named and one of them could take that role; however, a couple of more interesting candidates could be created. The Heart of the Wild, a Wilderland supplement for The One Ring Roleplaying Game, posited that Bolg also had a son (named Gorgol in the book). The same volume also introduced a new Great Goblin (the Greater Goblin), the successor to the previous Goblin King, who led the folk of Goblin-town to the Lonely Mountain only to be torn apart by Beorn. Either one of these ideas could have worked in the context of the Hobbit films, or they could have been combined: The son of Bolg could seize control of all the Goblins of the Misty Mountains following the murder of the Great Goblin.
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." - Phantom F. Harlock
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Spriggan
Tol Eressea
May 5 2015, 5:21pm
Post #6 of 26
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I would reply more fully but I am weeping
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Quietly in a corner at the degree of conservatism implied by the suggestion that people would be happier with an Orc playing the role Azog did, simply on the basis he was called Bolg.
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tattooed_dwarf
Rivendell
May 5 2015, 5:40pm
Post #7 of 26
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Well they could have included goblin army there.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
May 5 2015, 5:49pm
Post #8 of 26
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Quietly in a corner at the degree of conservatism implied by the suggestion that people would be happier with an Orc playing the role Azog did, simply on the basis he was called Bolg.
This is because Bolg is already a character in the novel and we are assuming that Peter Jackson's story-beats would stay pretty much the same. Tolkien did have Thorin and Company traverse Eriador at a snail's pace (averaging abour 10.5 miles per day or so); most people could have traveled faster without ponies than the company did with mounts. I do think that the Hunter-Orcs did not need to be inserted in such a heavy-handed manner. A little of them could have gone a long way.
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." - Phantom F. Harlock
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on May 5 2015, 5:55pm)
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Spriggan
Tol Eressea
May 5 2015, 6:26pm
Post #9 of 26
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Well Bolg is a name in the book.
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He isn't a character that plays anything like the role of Azog in the film. It's a completely alien game of snap, it seems to me, to say that the name makes a difference to whether one likes it or not.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
May 5 2015, 6:49pm
Post #10 of 26
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He isn't a character that plays anything like the role of Azog in the film. It's a completely alien game of snap, it seems to me, to say that the name makes a difference to whether one likes it or not.
Jackson does have Azog assume Bolg's role from the book as leader of the Orc/Goblin forces. I think that it is only natural that we imagine Bolg taking over as the lead villain of An Unexpected Journey if we remove Azog from the film's present, rather than replacing Azog with another newly made-up character. Not that my earlier suggestion wouldn't ultimately do that anyway, but it could be done in a more narratively organic manner. And the son-of-Bolg idea would preserve the father/son dynamic that Jackson professed to be so fond of.
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." - Phantom F. Harlock
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on May 5 2015, 6:50pm)
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Spriggan
Tol Eressea
May 5 2015, 7:10pm
Post #11 of 26
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I think we may be at cross purposes.
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What I mean is, and I think this is genuinely the case, that if everything remained the same in the films, except Azog's character were called Bolg and Bolg's character were called something else, they would have liked the films more.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
May 5 2015, 8:07pm
Post #12 of 26
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I wouldn't read too much into that, though. My simplest solution is almost exactly that: The films' Azog becomes Bolg, and Bolg becomes someone else (Son of Bolg). However, my impression is that you were hoping for something else--perhaps dropping the Hunter-Orcs altogether for something more faithful to the book.
I will admit that, even after I had learned of the two Orc armies, I was hoping that the northern one would be more like the one that Tolkien described: Made up of the Goblins (and their Wargs) that had been riled up by the slaying of the Great Goblin, led by Bolg. I could well imagine Sauron taking advantage of the situation and putting his own man (Orc) in charge of the host. In the book the death of the Goblin King was a significant event; I'm surprised that Jackson actually down-played it to such an extent.
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." - Phantom F. Harlock
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on May 5 2015, 8:09pm)
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AshNazg
Gondor
May 5 2015, 8:27pm
Post #13 of 26
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Well, the second orc army wasn't necessary and didn't make a great deal of sense
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I don't see why we needed two orc armies? The second army did literally nothing in the battle anyway. They turn up and then they just stand there watching while Azog and Bolg get killed and then get wiped out by eagles before they even move. couldn't they have, you know, protected their leader?
However, if there was one leader with one army it would make sense that Bolg would not have much protection up on Ravenhill, because his forces would be busy fighting below.
Who's to say Bolg needed to kill Kili, Fili or Thorin? It's never specified in the books who kills these characters. But if you wanted Bolg to do it, why not have him take on Fili and Kili at once? The book says they died trying to protect Thorin, so that would fit.
Also, they didn't have to die one-by-one in succession like they did. In fact it's slightly jarring that we have two an a half films of no-body dying then three go one after another. I think it would have been more interesting if Kili slowly died from that poisoned arrow.
(This post was edited by AshNazg on May 5 2015, 8:41pm)
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Spriggan
Tol Eressea
May 5 2015, 8:40pm
Post #14 of 26
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I don't think I was hoping for anything.
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Though it's a novelty to have someone assume I was hankering after faithfulness for the sake of faithfulness!
I was just despairing of the idea that the wine tastes better if you change the label.
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AshNazg
Gondor
May 5 2015, 8:59pm
Post #15 of 26
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I do prefer the names to be canon. I recently had a discussion online about how I wouldn't mind a black actor for the new Spider-man, but I don't want them to call him Miles Morales, because I want it to be Peter Parker - You may not understand that example, but even though it's just a name, it is important to me.
On the other hand if the names were different, and Thorin cut Bolg's arm off at Azanulbizar and didn't kill him and then he was still alive etc. It still wouldn't make any sense whatever his name is. I also wouldn't be happy if Bolg beheaded Thror instead of Azog.
The problem is much deeper than the name, PJ has taken what is a relatively simple back-story and changed it to the point that it just feels convoluted and confusing, with no real benefit to the narrative.
The main purpose of this sub-plot in the book (to explain what happened to Thror & Thrain, and how Gandalf got the map and key) is completely ignored, leaving the flashbacks feeling like nothing but invented character motivation.
Aside from the Flashbacks. There's still the problem of Azog travelling from Beorn's to Dol Guldur in less than a night and the two switching places here for no apparent reason. These orcs' plot is just messy. The names are important but that's a small issue compared to the other problems.
(This post was edited by AshNazg on May 5 2015, 9:04pm)
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Spriggan
Tol Eressea
May 5 2015, 9:19pm
Post #16 of 26
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I tend to think the former probably drives the latter.
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I'm vaguely aware of the Spider-Man thing but, as I understood it, they were actually different characters, with different stories? A closer example would be, perhaps, Game of Thrones changing Asha to Yara. I can't see what difference it could make to me liking the character or not, personally.
I think we have different senses of the narrative overall, mind you from the rest of the post but I do always wonder about the idea that Bolg summoning Azog to DG is confusing. I rather suspect this view is taken from observing the production process rather than the finished article.
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dormouse
Half-elven
May 5 2015, 10:22pm
Post #17 of 26
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Well, I suppose the two orc armies....
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... are a direct result of the Dol Guldur storyline. Bolg's army from Gundabad as in the book; Orc X - let's call him Azog - leading the new army from Dol Guldur.
I don't think it's quite true to say that Bolg's army just stand there - I was watching that part again just an hour or so ago. Bolg seems to go on ahead with a company of large white-eyed orcs - presumably these are 'the bodyguard of Bolg'. They're the ones who are fought off first by Dwalin and Bilbo - one of them knocks Bilbo out - then we see some of them fighting Thorin on the ice. It's one of them that Legolas kills with Orcrist (it struck me tonight that that was a reciprocal gesture for Thorin's long-distance killing of an orc to save Legolas during the barrel escape. I expect that's been discussed a million times already, but it takes me a while!)
But all this time Bolg's main army hasn't even reached the battle. They appear on the horizon behind Azog when all the bodyguard are dead and Azog and Thorin are alone on the ice. They appear in the distance, Azog looks very pleased with himself and then his expression changes and we see the first glimpse of the eagles behind Thorin's head. So Bolg's army couldn't protect him because they were still on the way when the eagles arrived. He shouldn't have gone so far ahead of them (an interesting inversion of the actual story, where Thorin goes too far ahead and is cut off and killed....)
As for who was to kill Fili, Kili and Thorin, I don't have any strong feelings about who should have done it - as you say, the book leaves that open. But I would have been surprised if the film had given the task to a random orc.
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Salmacis81
Tol Eressea
May 5 2015, 10:43pm
Post #18 of 26
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Well that's exactly how I felt about it...
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...because contradicting Tolkien by keeping Azog around was pointless and COULD have been handled differently, and in a relatively simple fashion. I don't buy the whole argument that audiences would have been too confused if Bolg were the one chasing Thorin instead of Azog, would have taken no more than 2 minutes to explain.
At the end of the day, I didn't much care for the whole diverting attention away from the battle in order to focus on Ravenhill, however had it not contradicted Tolkien's legendarium so much by keeping a 150 years-dead Orc around, I might have found it a bit more palatable.
A character that was not even in the original story ended up becoming the main villain in Jackson's fan-fiction, excuse me, adaptation. Sorry, but this was not the story I wanted to see.
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Spriggan
Tol Eressea
May 5 2015, 11:01pm
Post #19 of 26
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Jolly good - it's nice to have the confirmation
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That this is a school of thought and I wasn't weeping without cause. We could even call it the "contradicting the legendarium" school.
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Salmacis81
Tol Eressea
May 5 2015, 11:23pm
Post #20 of 26
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Sure, you could call it that...
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...and I could call yours the "accept whatever Jackson puts onscreen because I don't much care for the original story" school.
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Spriggan
Tol Eressea
May 5 2015, 11:33pm
Post #21 of 26
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I'm not sure I've ever said that, which would seem a slight difference.
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But I'm pleased by the idea of any sort of school sharing my ideas, so there would be some plusses, I guess.
I think if we struggling for a title, however, you could probably pick almost any school of thought on literary criticism from the last hundred years or so, mind you, if you wanted to find a contrast to the "legendarium contradiction" concerns.
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AshNazg
Gondor
May 5 2015, 11:45pm
Post #22 of 26
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I think we all have different opinions...
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It's not as black and white as "Purists" and "Jackson Fans". I think we all know that changes need to be made to adapt a book into a film and we all have different opinions on what changes are good or bad.
The way I see it, Tolkien's version of events regarding Azog and Bolg are far superior to what Jackson gave us - and that's not just because I love the book, it's because the film version is confusing, messy and involves mad Legolas stunts.
I also remember when we first got hints that Moria and Thrain were going to be included as a sub-plot, I got really excited because I loved reading all that stuff in Lord of the Rings - I'm a big dwarf fan - and never thought I'd see the battle of Azanulbizar on screen. But lots of people don't even remember Azog or Bolg in the books, and don't see them as important to the story, so for them it was probably easier to see this material changed.
I remember discussions way back when I argued that Moria had to be included in the films in some way, because it explains the history of Thror and Thrain, and people just couldn't understand how any of that was relevant to the story. We all prioritise different aspects of the story, I guess.
(This post was edited by AshNazg on May 5 2015, 11:49pm)
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lionoferebor
Rohan
May 6 2015, 1:09pm
Post #23 of 26
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....as it stands in TE the second orc army does not make much sense. Probably because it was another arc that went somewhat unfinished. There's a great shot of the army leaving Gundabad and aside from Bolg and a few of his men showing up at Ravenhill sometime later, the fate of the remaing umpteen thousand orcs is unknown. Maybe they went to fight before the Mountain, or possible had gone on to Dale. Perhaps the invasion of Ravenhill was greater than what was shown in the TE.  I don't know...but hopefully, like so many other things, this too will be resolved in the EE.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
May 6 2015, 1:22pm
Post #24 of 26
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Orcs seem to be a lot like the Sand People of Star Wars. Without a strong leader their ranks are easily broken. "But they will soon be back; and in greater numbers!"
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." - Phantom F. Harlock
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lionoferebor
Rohan
May 6 2015, 1:31pm
Post #25 of 26
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As for who was to kill Fili, Kili and Thorin, I don't have any strong feelings about who should have done it - as you say, the book leaves that open. But I would have been surprised if the film had given the task to a random orc.
...but in terms of the movies it makes sense who kills Thorin, Fili, and Kili.
Azog kills Thorin - and simutamously Thorin kills Azog - finishing their dual that started decades ago at the Battle of Azanulbizar. Bolg was the one who shot Kili with the poisoned arrow and later kills him at Ravenhill. I guess you could say Bolg "finished what he started". Though Azog and Fili never had a direct encounter prior to Ravenhill, when considering Azog killed all the Kings and would-be kings - i.e. Thror and Thorin (and if you want to add Thrain since Azog took him captive and he later died) - it makes sense he would slay Fili.
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