Here are four lessons I learnt from the movie ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’:
1. A so-called Halfling (Hobbit) can be more complete in humanity than expected. Why discriminate by size?
2. From Gandalf, ‘True courage is not knowing when to take a life, but when it spare it.’ Then again, courage is about many other situations too – such as knowing when to save lives when you truly can do so.
3. Bilbo remarked that he would have doubted himself too, at first, if he was someone else, in terms of his abilities. Indeed, the only way to prove what you are able to do is to just do it.
4. Similar to ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (LOTR) trilogy, the movie begs the question of why not simply ride the giant eagles communicated to with magic to the destination, instead of going through the troubles along the way? Well, just as the summoned eagles’ ride was a sudden lifesaver, part of the unexpected journey, why can’t it be more unexpected – all the way? Then I realise whenever you throw fictitious magic in the mix, things tend to get ridiculous. Even if there are fictitious rules for the magic, we all know it’s all arbitrary, at the fancy of the writer. This is probably why the LOTR fantasy doesn’t fascinate me much. Reality is more fascinatingly real… and thus practical.