5 Reasons Why Tauriel Is The Best Addition To The Hobbit

3. We Get A Serious Look At Racism In Middle Earth

This is where Tauriel's love triangle is a really, really great choice from the writers. It's far from a typical love triangle because there's no socially sanctioned choice for Tauriel - no way out. There are no happy endings, a situation extremely unusual in Middle Earth, and unheard of in Middle Earth romance. Tauriel is not good enough for Legolas, even though she is a great warrior, a good soul, and a clever mind. She's the wrong blood. We haven't seen something like this before: Aragorn and Arwen were fine as far as blood went, because Aragorn was a descendant of Númenor (I still don't know what that actually means, so feel free to scream at me in the comments). Racism is something that Middle Earth has skimmed over. There are very strict racial boundaries, and until now a lot of us didn't realize they were so deep that they divided societies up within themselves as well. An intermarriage almost never happens unless kingships are involved. You live in your territory, and you may trade with neighbours... but that's about it. Tauriel shows us the effect this racism has on the individuals trapped in it. The look on her face when she calls herself "a lowly Silvan elf" is heartbreaking, and when Thranduil basically says "yeah, you suck," it's all the worse. When Kili is delirious, and he asks "do you think she could have loved me?", it's painful because you become aware of just how wide the gap between these two people is. They are literally next to each other, but the racial lines between them are so powerful, so unbreakable, that it's as if she walks in another world. We haven't seen these things before. All we've seen is an elf-dwarf friendship (Legolas and Gimli), a pretty minor subplot that nudged racial lines without coming close to breaking them. With this triangle, we've got a crazy collision of racial taboos and divisions, and it's both great drama and great storytelling.