I watched the Battle of the Five Armies extended edition last night. Overall, I think it’s a pretty good movie, and the extended material was a great addition. But this time, I was especially struck by how little sense the Ravenhill sequence makes.
Here’s the thing: going after Azog with a handful of dwarves was a suicide mission from the start. If you only have four fighters, however, you must use them in the most strategic way possible. Which means, for the love of Eru, don’t split up the party.
It doesn’t make any sense for Thorin to send Fili and Kili into the ruined tower. There are almost certainly more orcs in there, and it is almost certainly a trap. It’s a far better tactical decision to keep everyone together and force Azog to come out to them. But Fili and Kili go in to scout, with orders from Thorin not to engage any enemies. When the brothers encounter what is clearly orcs ahead, Fili sends his brother off alone, saying “I’ve got this.” Is Fili meaning to disobey Thorin and engage the enemy after all? It’s ambiguous, but still a bad tactical decision to split up the party even further.
So Fili gets dead, and Kili gets mad. After Fili’s body falls at his feet, Kili charges up several flights of stairs to go after Azog--when Thorin was right in front of him. He should have rejoined his uncle. (Granted, he’s angry and not thinking clearly.) Thus the party is split a third time.
We later see Thorin holding his own really well alone against a bunch of orcs; it’s not till he faces Azog that he is in trouble. So, imagine what would have happened if everyone had stayed together from the beginning? Thorin, Dwalin, Fili and Kili would have faced Azog’s forces together. Tauriel and Legolas would eventually have joined them, and together they’d have been virtually unstoppable.
But no; the movie would have us believe Thorin, a trained and experienced warrior, ignores the rule that every armchair D&D warrior knows: you don’t split up the party. And then each of the fighters under him follows suit by splitting up further. Is that believable? Maybe. People make poor decisions under pressure. But is it satisfying storytelling here? No, no, no.
Therefore, in the name of a good story, I feel reasonably justified in substituting what I find a more satisfactory outcome for the scenario PJ et al. wanted to give us. Send ‘em to Ravenhill? Fine. But they’re gonna come out of it alive; they’ll keep the party together and work as a team. After all, this ain’t anybody’s first dungeon.
