Slow work day.

I feel like PJ’s Middle Earth movies decreased quality over time, so Fellowship did new and very cool stuff with material I’ve read and reread; I was so burned out by Desolation of Smaug I’ve never seen Battle of Five Armies in its entirety and tbh it sounds so unappealing.

One of the cool things PJ did in Fellowship was give Arwen something to do. LotR women are usually really remote - I think that’s JRRT’s war experience speaking. So in the book

Arwen’s this remote if beautiful figure and Glorfindel, who’s an incredible badass and who never shows up again, defeats the Ringwraiths at the river. Two powerful but remote characters fit Tolkien’s world which is more expansive and less connected, but PJ gives you more interaction with one character - and yay, a woman too!

And then Arwen really does nothing for the rest of the movies.

Right before Aragorn travels the paths of the dead in Return of the King,

Elrond shows up; in the book he brings a banner Arwen made and his two sons, Aragorn’s old army buddies Jake and Elwood, or whatever (and they too are badasses you never get to see again).

Aha, I thought. This’d be the perfect time for a more active Arwen to show up instead of two characters in whom we have no investment, and lend her significant skills to the last big fights! I really wish PJ had done that instead of Elrond nagging and Arwen wasting away Gothily.