DONZÉ IS NEVER ANNOYING, here you go!

Thank you for askingggg

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk?• I actually barely eat cereal but when I do I don’t even add milk heh

Somewhat of a random question, but hypothetically speaking, let's say that Tolkein's Hobbit/LOTR and PJ's Hobbit/LOTR takes place in two different parallel timelines, possibly existing as one at some point before branching off into two different paths. What would you say was the inciting incident that cause the divide into two divergent paths between the more innocent timeline and the darker timeline?

Been thinking about this one since I saw it, actually! I mean, obviously PJ took liberties, telescoping a lot of Middle Earth history and just plain altering it to better fit a cinematic medium. I kinda feel like the differences in the stories of LotR and The Hobbit aren’t so intertwined that it would be the same event for both? But here’s my theories:

1) In LotR: Elrond witnessing Isildur’s failure. At least, under those particular heartbreaking circumstances, Isildur’s nasty little smirk etc. I think he also saw it in the book, but in the movie he’s just way more salty about Men in general and it feels to me like he passed a lot of his distrust of Men onto Aragorn in the form of a sort of internalized racism. A lot of the biggest changes in the LotR movies are around Aragorn’s ancestry - his self doubt over Isildur manifesting as him NOT seeking to become king but in fact being a reluctant king, which creates tension between him and Boromir, perhaps even in some way informing Faramir’s “choice” to try to take the Ring rather than give it up, though that’s a stretch. I wanted to go for an event as far back as possible, but Elrond’s attitude towards Men and the possible repercussions of it strikes me as a strong potential “divergence point” between the books and the movies to explain their differences.

2) In The Hobbit trilogy I’d have to say it’s Azog surviving the Battle of Azanulbizar. Obviously that whole battle went way different than in Tolkien’s writings, since it was in itself revenge for Thror’s death, Thror died before the battle in the books. Maybe that could count as the divergence point. But let’s think of it this way: Thorin takes on Azog instead of Dain, wounding him instead of killing him. This makes Thorin immediately a more heroic figure, so he’s less of the foolish treasure hunter that we see in the book. He’s got more purpose as the bearer of his own heroic legacy and the burdens of it. Azog is alive, Dain never killed him, so you have all the nastiness that falls out in the trilogy because the Company is pursued by a persistent nemesis instead of a series of rather ridiculous circumstances. 

Furthermore, because Thorin’s experiences have made him a different person, Bilbo sees him differently, so he’s not snarking about this absurd windbag leading the party, he’s actually very respectful of this solemn and fairly quiet hero that Thorin has become. There’s a connection between them that in the book never really came to light until he saw Thorin’s heroic charge in the golden armor, just before their final parting. Perhaps Thorin himself had never known heroism until that charge, and it transforms him into someone Bilbo can respect in the final hour. Well, for having killed Azog, he becomes someone Bilbo can respect much sooner. The feel of persecution perhaps also exacerbates Thorin’s madness in a way that it’s not in the book, because he really has evidence of people out to get him (Azog) in a way that the book only had by chance. 

I'm unbelievably pleased to hear that you are giving Steven Universe a shot. What episode are you on right now?