I don't read Azog's presence as being entirely about the manpain, actually. He also makes certain plot events of The Hobbit less random.

Not being deeply familiar with the Appendices, I can't say how much of what I noticed during the film was drawn from them -- but the novel, when taken on its own terms, reads like a D&D campaign: the GM is rolling on the Random Encounter Table to see what happens to the PCs next. Making Azog into an ongoing antagonist gave a through-line to several of those obstacles, making them feel more like a continuous story than disconnected set-pieces.


swan_tower (OpenID isn't working right now.)