“to me he was never that. to me he was… he was…”
*six months later*
“he… he was my friend.”
STILL not over this so let’s just break it down right now.
PJ and/or Fran and/or Philippa wrote these lines with all their obvious ambiguityÂ
Martin chose to/was directed to deliver these lines in that way; stuttered, with tears in his eyes, unsure, haltingly, painfully, like a half-truth, with plenty of empty silence in between his words
there was likely more than one take but this is the take that ended up in the final cut of the film
this is what the filmmakers chose to leave the audience with - this is the final word on bilbo and thorin’s relationship, and it’s ambiguous, awkward, open-ended, confusing, and presented in such a way that we are to understand that when bilbo says “friend” it doesn’t even come close to describing what thorin was to him, or what he could have been.