THE MOVIE: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
THE PAIRING: Tauriel (Evangeline Lily) and Kili (Aidan Turner)
THE MOMENT: Tauriel and Kili are willing to die for each other in battle.
Major Spoilers – Read at your own peril
While many naysayers despised the “Tauriel and Kili” star-crossed romance, I found much to adore in this poetic tale of forbidden love. Sure, the romance didn’t exist in the original book. Heck, not even Tauriel existed in Tolkien’s The Hobbit. With three films to delve into the canon of Jackson’s own interpretation of Middle Earth, however, I appreciated the addition of not only a love story but a female character with heart. I was immediately swept into this love story between the beautiful elf Tauriel and the handsome young dwarf Kili, but how would their epic romance end?
RELATED Tauriel and Kili Romantic Moment Part 1
Coming into the final installment of The Hobbit trilogy, I knew Kili would meet his untimely demise. I dreaded this inevitability because Aidan Turner’s interpretation of Kili was just so darn adorable, charming, and likeable. I mean, there really was no way Tauriel could resist….But how would Kili actually die? And would Tauriel live?
When last seen in The Desolation of Smaug, we left our star-crossed pair with the dream or idea of the two of them, but that’s all it was then: an impossible and beautiful dream. In The Battle of the Five Armies, their love for one another becomes more defined and less of a fantasy. After they survive Smaug’s attack, the dwarves left behind decide to take a boat to the dragon’s mountain and find their other kin. Before leaving with the rest, Kili can’t help but speak his heart. He tells Tauriel goodbye, but not before pleading with her to come with him.
Kili: “I know how I feel; I’m not afraid. You make me feel alive.”
Tauriel turns around saying she can’t go with him, but he stops her speaking in a dwarfish tongue. “I don’t know what that means,” Tauriel claims but Kili knows she does. The meaning is clear: he loves her despite their differences, never mind the impossibilities of his or her love.
And just when she is about to return the sentiment, Legolas arrives on the scene to get in the way (poor Legolas in this film). Kili departs, but not before he returns to give her the special talisman his mother gave him (the one the two flirted over in the prior film), taking her hand to place it there.
Kili: “Keep it…as a promise.”
Tauriel stares at Kili as he gets in the boat and drifts away from her life. But this wasn’t the ending for this doomed pair just yet. When Tauriel soon learns of her banishment (for choosing to go after a dwarf), it doesn’t affect her like most elves would. She doesn’t seem upset, rather almost hopeful. Perhaps they can be together after all? This hope doesn’t last long even when they arrive eventually in the same place, a place arrived at by two very different journeys.
With unrequited love of his own for Tauriel, Legolas leaves with her when he learns of her banishment (as ruled by his own arrogant father Thranduil). Together, they witness the departure of an entire army led by Bolg. They must hurry back and warn all.
Meanwhile, Kili, Fili, and Thorin attempt to kill Azog without the knowledge of this same incoming army. They had fallen into a trap. The first to die is Fili, Kili’s beloved brother. With Rage, Kili seeks revenge but what can only a couple dwarves really do?
RELATED Why Legolas Belongs in the Hobbit
When Legolas and Tauriel arrive back in the battles, Thranduil is departing to prevent further bloodshed of his people. Tauriel attempts to stop him with a bow for she knows the dwarves (mainly Kili) would need their help. Thranduil doesn’t take her love for Kili seriously, saying that her love for the dwarf is not real.
Thranduil: Are you willing to die for it?
Legolas arrives to stop his father from harming the woman he loves (Legolas knowing at this point she loves another). While Thranduil attempts to say Tauriel doesn’t love Kili, at this point it’s clear she would do anything for him, even die. Learning he is in danger, she and Legolas go in search of the dwarves to aid them against Azog. It is in this battle for their lives, that we reach the romantic moment and star-crossed ending of Tauriel and Kili.
Tauriel and Kili: The Romantic Moment
Legolas and Tauriel arrive too late for army has arrived and Fili already dead. She sees Kili from afar and jumps into battle to save him. Kili fights her way through the orcs like Lancelot in King Arthur (a romantic battle scene for those who remember it in the midst of the mediocre movie) did to save Guinevere. She calls out his name. He calls her name back, but he is still fighting. While looking up, she gets attacked by Bolg. They fight and he throws her against a wall.
Just when she is about to lose, Kili arrives to save her this time, but neither one is strong enough to fight him, Kili dying to save Tauriel. It seems both were willing to die for their love. Tauriel screams at the sight of Kili getting stabbed by the Orc, but all they can do is stare at each other one last time.
A tear falls out of Kili’s eye and he dies.
Tauriel reaches out for him, but it’s over. It would have been over for Tauriel as well, but Legolas would also do anything for love, even when not returned and saves Tauriel from death. In the end, Tauriel cries over Kili’s body and gives him back the talisman. Thranduil arrives to see Tauriel with her dead love.
Tauriel: If this is love, I do not want it. Take it from me. Please.”
Tauriel wonders why it hurts so much, and Thranduil tells her: “Because it was real.” Knowing that it was real, Tauriel closes their love story with a kiss.
What happens next for Tauriel is a mystery. Kili is dead; Tauriel is banished from her people, Legolas left to go find Strider, etc. I like to imagine she becomes a tale told in starlight, a tale she tells as a storyteller that drifts from place to place until the time she becomes reunited with the one she loved.
What did you think of Tauriel and Kili’s end? Sound off in the comments…
Photo Credits: Warner Brothers/New Line
RELATED:
Our Tauriel and Kili Romantic Moment from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: HERE
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I have to beg pardon for my bad English.
I don’t think that Legolas loves Tauriel romantically, like Kili does. For me he seems more like the older brother , who is worried. Tauriel is much younger, so he watched her growing up and climbing the career ladder, maybe even trained her. And now he is just “What the hell are you doing? Why are you throwing away your life for a dwarf?”. And he tries to pull her back to “the right path”. He follows Tauriel into the banishment because he hopes, that it may change his fathers mind.
During the confrontation between Tauriel and Trandiul Legolas realizes, that there is no way back for Tauriel, she made her choice and it’s the right one. And he must painfully accept that his father is wrong. He already doubted Tranduil’s decisions in DoS and now he received the final blow – let someone, even dwarves, being slaughtered by orcs is absolutely against his moral sense. So he defends Tauriel against his father and follows her into the battle.
I understand where you are coming from and I agree that Legolas also has problems with Thranduil’s decisions on a moral level. Still, I think it is pretty clear he has feelings for Tauriel romantically. Even Thranduil warned Tauriel off in the second film because he recognized his son’s attraction. It is all in the subtext. I don’t see a brother/sister relationship between the two; certainly not on Legolas’ end.
Originally, Tauriel’s and Legolas’s relationship was going to be purely brother and sisterly. Evangeline specifically did NOT want a love triangle. But the press and everybody pressed it (no pun intended) on Peter Jackson.
I loved the story for Tauriel and Kili even though I knew it was going to end in tragedy, at least for Kili. Since Tauriel wasn’t in the books we’ll never know what happened to her after the battle but I was glad to see that she survived the film. I expected her to die in battle as well so I’m glad Film Kili was loved and has someone to carry his memory with her.
Yes, I liked that she lived and film Kili could be loved by someone still alive.
Tauriel turns around saying she can’t go with him, but he stops her speaking in a dwarfish tongue. “I don’t know what that means,” Tauriel claims but Kili knows she does. The meaning is clear: he loves her despite their differences, never mind the impossibilities of his or her love.
Do you happen to know exactly what he said to her and a direct translation? Would be helpful. Just curious
Translated to ” My love”
I figured the translation was something along those lines. Thanks.
I still hate Peter Jackson a little for killing of Kili. He dared to add Tauriel to the original male cast and what a wonderful storyline and beautiful actress he choose, but then he couldn’t decide to go futher and have at least one happy ending (Thorin dead, Fili dead, Kili dead, Legolas’ love unrequited, Tauriels one true love forever unreachable, that’s a bit much). Now the only hope for us is fanfiction based on alternate endings to ship Kili and Tauriel and give them the ending they really deserved.
Sadly as it is, this relationship is something that could very well happen in Tolkien’s storytelling as well. Even the first sight love, and its ever binding nature is the same he told as a story for Aragorn and Arwen, both also being different races. Mind you, all of the humanoid races that were part of the creation (that is, all except any of the orcish or trollish races) were only different in being created by different valar, but to the very same world, and with the very same harmony in mind, so their “children’s” love would be a welcome thing in the end. Also, as another sad thing, the theme of elves passing time until eternity, and litartally passing away to keep their memories forever in the farawayy shores, do seem to have had a carried meaning of loss to this world, and something they seemed to carry. Elves were the creation of the first among the Valar, who, upon the varal finished creating all of Middle-earth in its first beauty and prime, have placed them into the world first, and that meant, there were elves in all colonies and in most likely all scenes along these films too, who have seen the very first starts shining on the sky, and the very first sunrise of Middleearth; so them passing away from the slowly, and sometimes faster changing physical world is a very good and in the same time thouhtful message, that nothing will ever remain unchanged, and at certain times, even the most beautiful things will need to go…
Unless I’m mistaken, in Tolkien’s canon elves only love once and it’s forever. That makes their ending even more tragic.
Once and forever, and they can die from grief. 🙁
Poor Legolas.
I know it sounds cliche’… but as someone who, IRL, has found my true love (and almost lost him) I support the idea of Tauriel living for a little while longer – perhaps passing their story on, perhaps working as a healer in the lands of men, perhaps even teaching ‘man’ some of the elven (elfish?) ways so they may live in better harmony with each other and with nature… but ultimately dying from grief – leaving her free to be with the one she loves in the afterlife. I know from experience that, personally, unless I had small children or something that needed me to ‘stay’ – I would want to join the one I love in the next life. This is entirely my own perspective, though! I’m not even a ‘romantic’ in the sense one would normally expect and was actually quite cynical before finding my “soulmate” … but a strong enough love, I think, changes the soul – and to not be with them may just be too unbearable to live through. Especially for beings like elves, who can sort of consciously ‘choose’ to die.
Finally found someone who loves their story as much as I do! I love how the way it was delivered, even their theme song is so beautiful yet so tragic, wish they had a chance to be together while he was alive or wish there was an alternative ending for them. I really want to know what happens to her after the battle, hope they say somenthing in the movies appendices!
I don’t think she was banished. I like to think Thranduil lifted the banishment after he realised that she really was in love with Kili (after his death).
I also enjoyed this love story without actually meaning to, but damn if Aidan and Evangeline didn’t make it tragic as all hell. I wish they could have had a happy ending but what would happen if they did? Dain is supposed to be king. The only way for that to still happen is for Kili to give up his claim to the throne.
As for what happened to Tauriel after the battle, I’d like to think Thranduil lifted her banishment so that he might care for her in her grief until she’s recovered; thinking the love she felt for Kili though real was still young enough that she would eventually move on.
Actually, if you look closely, you can see that Kíli says “I love you” just before the tear escapes. Or at least, he tries. He might have just mouthed it. But you can see the recognition of the words in Tauriel’s eye.
*sigh* I really wish Kíli Fíli and Thorin didn’t have to die. Why, Tolkien? WHY?
Totally unnecessary and I didn’t pay at the cinema because of it. Am watching on tv now. Aidan Turner is so ridiculously gorgeous in this. Any female of any species would have killed and died for him. I imagine his horse being hopelessly in love with him.
I think the current theory is that Tauriel became one of the first elves in the Third Age to sail to Valinor (the Undying Lands) and left Middle-earth, never to return.
This one hit me just like Eowyn and Faramir – I turned into a crying puddle of goo.
I just rewatched everything from last week up to today.
Kili died in Rivendell.
Thranduill said yes, when she said she wants to bury him.
Where is Kili buried?
In LOTR, the elves are now living on Rivendell.
Is he buried in Rivendell, may Thranduill agreed to it, after all he should feel guilty that he didn’t help Tauriel and Legolas.
I understand that how it ends in the book.
I love Kili and Tauriel to be together, but as a writer, I also don’t want anyone to change the ending because it kills the purpose or the message of the book I’m writing.
So maybe Peter Jackson can create a new one where Kili can live and he didn’t take his claim of the throne so he can be with Tauriel considering she’s still banished. That works for me.
Is it truly impossible? Gandalf sort of died, but he came back as Gandalf The White.
I’m still rooting for the rune stone to have magical abilities like bring back someone to life after they do the ritual or many some incantations too. Just my suggestion of course.
Thank you btw for writing about Kili and Tauriel. I didn’t see it coming, but I was also entranced by their love story.
Since I grew up more and learned more now, I have a new perspective why they are meant to be together and I’m going to post it in my blog as soon as possible.
You have great shots of them, may I borrow some of them? I also have some of them, but I lack some photos or moments.
This is so funny. Until I read the comments, I sincerely believed Tauriel was Kili’s mother.
I loved it, but cried in the end. I walked out of that theater with an broken heart.
The question still hasn’t been answered – “What did Kili say – or try to say – to Tauriel when he died ?”
Their love story broke me. I wasn’t expecting it but right from the first film their chemistry was immediately endearing and their emotional and physical attraction was so clear. I thought they may let Kili live and was hopeful for awhile. But alas, a doomed love. One of my favorite fictional romances even if short lived. I will always love them. I’m hoping Tauriel was still able to find joy in starlight despite fate taking her love from her.