Topic Challenge: The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings

Question

Coinciding with the release of The Lord of the Rings: Episode III The Hobbit - The Battle of the Five Armies and due to popular opinion we're starting a new biweekly topic challenge asking for any kind of question about the Lord of the Rings or Hobbit franchises. Here are the details:

• What: Everything tagged the-hobbit, the-hobbit-2, the-hobbit-3, lord-of-the-rings, fellowship-of-the-ring, the-two-towers, or the-return-of-the-king.¹
• When: From 2014-12-15 01:00 UTC to 2014-12-29 01:00 UTC.
• Why: For the fun of it and the honour of being listed here! What else did you come for, money?

Once the challenge is over, we'll tally the results and winners here. Also don't forget to suggest new topics for our next possible challenge.

1) _{You might also want to use the chance to clean up the hobbit tags a bit.}

Answer 1

The challenge is over and the top-voted question (with a score of 25 and ~5500 views) was asked by Faizan Rabbani, which makes him the winner of this challenge:

1. Why didn't Bilbo become a creature like Gollum?

The other questions asked, in order of votes are (the numbers are the votes and views):

2. What is the best order to watch LotR/Hobbit franchise? (17 / ~5760)

3. How much influence did the animated Lord of the Rings movie from 1978 have on Peter Jackson's trilogy? (5 / ~90)

4. Thranduil mentioning Strider (Aragorn) at the end of the third Hobbit movie (5 / ~880)

5. Was the Council of Elrond aware that destroying the ring would vanquish Sauron? (4 / ~50)

6. What are the five armies in Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies? (4 / ~110)

7. Why not use the wyrms to win? (1 / ~100)

Since it is hard to judge how much SE's "arbitrary hotness points" factor into this, the list ordered by votes-per-view would be: 5 - 3 - 6 - 7 - 4 - 1 - 2.

Overall, with a whole of 7 there weren't really so many questions asked. But I'm still looking forward to the next challenge and you're of course encouraged to propose and vote for new challenge ideas.