The Lord Of The Rings: 8 Confusing Plot Holes The Movies Never Explained
6. Why Did Trolls Lose The Ability To Speak In Just Sixty Years?
More a side effect of Tolkien changing audience between his two Middle Earth novels, this is something pushed to the fore by The Hobbit Trilogy and its attempt to Rings-up the more modest original. In The Lord Of The Rings even the smartest animals tend to keep their communication to a series of grunts because talking animals reduces the tension in any encounter immediately. The Hobbit book, being aimed at a much younger audience and happily have a less epic feel never have this concern; many of its key sequences (the trolls, Smaug) thrive off this technicality. And while no one will bemoan the opportunity to hear a dragon voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, its a little harder to swallow for other creatures. Jackson smartly kept the eagles mute (Well help you now, and once more Gandalf, but after that even if Middle Earth is on the brink of destruction you can jog on), but in giving the trolls voices he creates a massive issue. Across both trilogies theyre set up as dumb hulks used for their brute force and little else. Allowing them to speak suddenly means that even if they aren't incredibly intelligent, they are much more advanced than the barely sentient beings led us to believe before. It may be in the book, but The Hobbit is heavy with dramatic licence, so few would have begrudged Bilbo tricking mute trolls.
