While I understand how you feel about Tauriel (and I am female myself so I'm not detached from the situation), I kind of dislike how she just has to fall for one of the dwarves. It sort of feels like she's just the token pretty (though badass) female character that exists to fall for one of the guys in the necessary romance plot that is shoehorned into every story. I'd have been happier with her addition to the story if she'd just been there to be badass, honestly.

I agree, the dwarves of the book are rather bland. Thorin has his kingly haughtiness about him, but the other dwarves don't really have personalities aside from "get the gold!" and "maybe Bilbo isn't so bad... when he's helpful." I didn't realize how much I came to love Bofur's hat and happy attitude, Bifur's "disability" (which was done so well that I'd completely forgotten it wasn't canon), Bombur's large cheerful self, Ori's (mostly) mild temperament, etc. until that pretty much all disappeared in the book. Even Thorin doesn't seem as kingly as when Richard Armitage plays him. In the book there's really very little to differentiate between the different dwarves, and I'm not even sure all of them had distinct roles; I can't think of any instances where Nori, Oin, or Gloin speak off the top of my head - I'm sure they probably did at some point, but it wasn't memorable to me.

Oh, I've already seen all of The Hobbit movies! And unlike a lot of people, I absolutely adored them all. The only part I wasn't thrilled with was Tauriel, not because she's a bad character, but because I felt like Peter Jackson was submitting to the typical "we have to have a romance for the movie to be a hit!" mindset.

Honestly, though this will be a REALLY unpopular opinion... I might enjoy the movies more than the book. As this is my third time through The Hobbit, but the first time after seeing the movies, I'd forgotten how... I'm not sure, unnoticed?... most of the dwarves went. While Peter Jackson might have strayed from the feeling of the book somewhat, I really enjoyed how he and the actors gave each dwarf their own very distinct personality and how the characters were almost more developed in the movies than in the book. The book concerns itself mostly with the story of the adventure itself, while the movies show us the adventures and give us a look at the characters that we didn't have before. I still love the book dearly, but I can't pretend to hate the movies even a little.

Thanks! As much as I hate to part with that much money (especially since it feels like I didn't have it for long, as I just earned it working this summer), I can't deny that I'm excited to be building another computer. This new one is for my college apartment and is roughly equivalent to the gaming computer I built at my parents' house a few years ago (my time is split between the two places, and this is one of the few negatives of my living situation that I've found so far), but with a few upgrades that will let me use it for my CAD assignments for school.

I'm glad to hear that you've gotten seven years of use out of your computer! I hope to get between seven and ten years out of mine (goodness knows I don't want to be spending this much on a computer any more often than that), so that's encouraging. I'd guess that your motherboard is beginning to be the main problem at this point?