King Richard and Thorin Oakenshield

CDoart already did an analysis and a comparison between King Richard III and Thorin Oakenshield, King of the dwarves in “The Hobbit”, in connection to our poll 1 here on the KingRichardArmitage website.

A comparison between fantasy and history is not so farfetched, when we hear the latest comment by Mr. Armitage about his preparations for “The Hobbit” with King Richard III in his interview with HitFix at the ComicCon in San Diego:

HitFix – Question by Katie Hasty (?)

Oakenshield was kind of this classical lord-figure of the books [“The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien]. How do you update this character for modern audiences?

You see, I’d never really thought of updating. I actually did the opposite. I thought of it as more kind of Greek tragedy. I looked at Shakespeare, you know, a lot of my preparation, I was looking at “Henry V” and bits of “Richard III” just to find roots in British literature that were kind of deeper. But I think […] making it feel contemporary that are the big themes of the story: Loyalty and honour and trust and camaraderie. I think those themes are contemporary.

The interview by Katie Hasty from HotFix at Comic-Con in San Diego, July 24th, 2012, is available on YouTube. The quote starts at about [1:07]: