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.
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.