Ethos Education

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: Home Sweet Home

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Assembly Objective:

  • Why is the experience of ‘being home’, in its various forms, so important? This assembly explores the Bible teaching about ‘belonging’.

Film: 

  • The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Warner Bros, 2013, certificate 12). Click here to buy the DVD online.

Bible:

Supporting Values Education:

  • The values of Democracy and Rule of Law are based on a shared community where people feel that they belong. This assembly helps pupils begin to think about the nature of ‘home’ which, in its various and diverse forms, is a place where we feel we belong.

OPENING ACTIVITY

Whose home? (quiz)

Download the Whose Home? PowerPoint with this activity.

  • [PowerPoint slide 1]
    • Ask for two volunteers to take part in a quiz (or divide the room into two halves to play against each other). Ask questions alternately, and see which contestant/team can correctly identify which people, teams or organisations have their homes at the following buildings or addresses.
  • [PowerPoint slide 2]
    • Question 1: Whose home is 221B Baker Street?
    • [click to reveal answer: Sherlock Holmes]
  • [PowerPoint slide 3]
    • Question 2: Whose home is 11 Downing Street?
    • [click to reveal answer: The Chancellor of the Exchequer]
  • [PowerPoint slide 4] 
    • Question 3: Whose home is the original Stadium of Light?
    • [click to reveal answer: Benfica Football Club] Don’t accept the answer Sunderland Football Club, they moved to their own ‘Stadium of Light’ in 1997, but Benfica have played at a ground with that name since 1954. Benfica’s current ground, also called Estadio da Luz (the Stadium of Light) opened in 2003.
  • [PowerPoint slide 5]
    • Question 4: Whose home is the Roland Garros stadium?
    • [click to reveal answer: the French Open Tennis Tournament]
  • [PowerPoint slide 6] 
    • Question 5: Whose home is Chequers?
  • [click to reveal answer: The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]
    • Chequers is a grace-and-favour country retreat in Buckinghamshire which is gifted to the Prime Minister for the duration of his time in office.
  • [PowerPoint slide 7]
    • Question 6: Whose home is Clarence House?
    • [click to reveal answer: The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall]
    • Clarence House was the home of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother until her death in 2002.
  • [PowerPoint slide 8]
    • Question 7: Whose home is Craven Cottage?
    • [click to reveal answer: Fulham Football Club]
  • [PowerPoint slide 9]
    • Question 8: Whose home is Bag End?
    • [click to reveal answer: Bilbo Baggins or Frodo Baggins]
    • Either answer is acceptable. Bilbo lives there in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, but he leaves it to his nephew Frodo in The Lord of the Rings.
  • [PowerPoint slide 10] 
    • Question 9: Whose home is Wrigley Field?
    • [click to reveal answer: Chicago Cubs baseball team]
  • [PowerPoint slide 11]
    • Question 10: Whose home is Balmoral Castle?
    • [click to reveal answer: The Queen]
    • Balmoral is the Queen’s estate in the Scottish Highlands.
  • [PowerPoint slide 12]
    • Question 11: Whose home is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
    • [click to reveal answer: The President of the United States of America]
    • 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC is the postal address of the Whitehouse.
  • [PowerPoint Slide 13]
    • Question 12: Whose home is 62 West Wallaby Street?
    • [click to reveal answer: Wallace and Gromit]

After completing the quiz, and (if you like) giving a small prize to the winner, explain that in today’s assembly you are going to be thinking more about what home means to us.

Home thoughts from a broad range of people (something to think about)

Download the Home Thoughts PowerPoint with this presentation.

  • Play the PowerPoint containing thought-provoking quotes about home. You could use the PowerPoint as students arrive in the assembly hall, or as a separate feature of the assembly itself. Once started, the PowerPoint will move through all the slides without you having to do anything. To move through the slides at a faster pace, just click the mouse to go on to the next slide. You might like to play it with a suitable accompanying soundtrack. We suggest Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkel, which is available on Simon and Garfunkel: Greatest Hits (Sony, 2011). Click here to buy the CD online.
  • Here are the quotes displayed on the PowerPoint:
    • Home is any four walls that enclose the right person. (Helen Rowland)
    • The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home. (Confucius)
    • Home should be the treasure chest of living. (Le Corbusier)
    • A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the belly. (Benjamin Franklin)
    • Strength of character may be learned at work, but beauty of character is learned at home. (Henry Drummond)
    • Home is the place we love best and grumble the most. (Billy Sunday)
    • Home is the place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to. (John Ed Pearce)
    • Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. (Robert Frost)
    • It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart. But the welcome I receive at this restart. (by Mumford and Sons)
    • At the end of the day, it isn’t where I came from. Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never have been before. (Warsan Shire)

FILM CLIP

  • Play the clip from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Warner Bros, 2013, certificate 12).
    • Start time:       1.35.31 (in chapter 26 of the DVD)
    • End time:         1.37.44
    • Clip length:      2 minutes and 13 seconds
  • The clip starts with Thorin (Richard Armitage) putting the key into the lock of the secret mountain door. It ends with Thorin telling Bilbo (Martin Freeman), ‘That, Master Burglar, is why you are here.’ The clip shows the dwarves re-entering the ancient halls of their people and having a strong emotional response to the experience.

TALK

Download the Community Hobbit Smaug Talk PowerPoint for use with this presentation.

Scripted Talk

  • [PowerPoint slide 1]
    • When you were younger, at some time or other, you probably played the game ‘It’ with your friends. [Replace ‘It’ with a regionally appropriate variation – such as tig, tag, or whatever the game is most commonly known as in your area]. One of the best feelings in a game of It was the moment when you swerved round the person trying to catch you and made it safely back to the bench, the tree, or whatever it was that you were using as ‘home’. In It, home is a place of refuge, a place where you can safely rest up before trying your luck against the people trying to catch you.
  • [PowerPoint slide 2]
    • What else does home mean? Home can mean different things to different people. Perhaps home is the place where you feel you belong. Maybe home is where you find the people who know you and accept you for who you are. Home may well be the house that you live in, but it’s so much more than just bricks and mortar.
    • We’re going to watch a film clip now, with a group of people who have had a long, long wait to come home. The clip is from the second Hobbit film, The Desolation of Smaug. In this scene Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves, aided and abetted by Bilbo Baggins the hobbit-turned-burglar, have finally worked out how to open the secret door into the ancient dwarven kingdom of Erebor. Watch out for how the dwarves react to their surroundings.
  • Play the clip from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug:
    • Start time:       1.35.31 (in chapter 26 of the DVD)
    • End time:         1.37.11
    • Clip length:      1 minute and 40 seconds
    • The clip starts with Thorin (Richard Armitage) putting the key into the lock of the secret mountain door. It ends with Balin (Ken Stott) saying, ‘The throne of the King.’
    • If you are unable to play the clip, say:
      • ‘When the dwarves find themselves within the ancient walls of Erebor, their leader Thorin says, ‘I know these walls, these halls, this stone’ and reminisces about the days where he lived in Erebor with his people.
  • [PowerPoint slide 3]
    • For the dwarves, Erebor wasn’t just a place to stay, it was a place that could unite their people and provide safety and refuge for an exiled people. It was home.
    • The previous Hobbit film explored the misery of the dwarves at being denied their home, having been driven out by the dragon Smaug decades earlier. They knew that wherever they settled instead of Erebor, it wasn’t where they belonged, and they longed to find themselves back in their true home. This was a big moment for Thorin and his followers.
    • The Bible tells us that people who follow Jesus are also exiles. The letter to the Hebrews includes this telling comment:
  • [PowerPoint slide 4]
    • For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.
    • Hebrews 13:14 (New Living Translation)
    • Like the dwarves, God’s people are waiting to enter into their true home. That isn’t to say that they suffer the despair of the dwarves, but it does mean that they have a different perspective on this life and this world. Elsewhere, the Bible describes Christians as ambassadors for God – his representatives in a foreign land, standing up for him and speaking out in his name until the time comes when they are called home.
  • [PowerPoint slide 5]
    • Home is a powerful concept. It may well be that some of us here don’t feel that our homes are particularly happy ones. That’s tough. But home doesn’t have to be located in a building. It’s just as likely to be located in a group of people or a community. And all of us should see ourselves as ambassadors for whatever community we call our home. We should look to demonstrate the values of that community, to live them out in our daily lives, [click] and we should look to include others in our community, to welcome them and help them to feel that they can call it home too.

Headings and Bullets

Download the Community Hobbit Smaug Talk PowerPoint for use with this presentation.

  • [PowerPoint slide 1]
    • When younger, playing ‘It’ with friends.
      • Great feeling when you made it safely back to ‘home’.
      • A place of refuge and safety.
  • [PowerPoint slide 2]
    • What else does home mean?
      • A place where you feel you belong?
      • Where people know you and accept you?
      • It may be the house you live in, but it’s more than bricks and mortar.
    • Introduce film clip.
      • People who have had a long wait to come home.
      • From The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
      • Thorin and the dwarves finally enter their ancient kingdom, Erebor.
    • Play the clip from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug:
      • Start time:       1.35.31 (in chapter 26 of the DVD)
      • End time:         1.37.11
      • Clip length:      1 minute and 40 seconds
    • The clip starts with Thorin (Richard Armitage) putting the key into the lock of the secret mountain door. It ends with Balin (Ken Stott) saying, ‘The throne of the King.’
  • [PowerPoint slide 3]
    • Erebor wasn’t just a place for the dwarves to stay:
      • A place to unite their people.
      • A place of safety and refuge for exiles.
      • Home.
    • Previous Hobbit film showed how miserable the dwarves were to have lost their home.
      • They knew Erebor was where they belonged.
      • They longed to be back home.
      • This scene is a big moment for Thorin and his followers.
    • Bible says that Jesus’ followers are also exiles:
  • [PowerPoint slide 4]
    • For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.
    • Hebrews 13:14 (New Living Translation)
    • Like the dwarves, God’s people are waiting to enter their true home.
      • Not to say they suffer despair like the dwarves.
      • It does give a different perspective on life.
      • Bible describes Christians as ambassadors for God –  his representatives in a foreign land.
  • [PowerPoint slide 5]
    • Home is a powerful concept.
      • Some of us may not feel we have happy homes – that’s tough.
      • Home doesn’t have to be located in a building.
      • Home can be a group of people, or a community.
      • We should be ambassadors for whatever community we call home.
      • [click] We should look to include others and welcome them.

RESPOND

Prayer

  • Dear God, thank you for our homes, for the people who make us feel that we belong somewhere. Help us to extend that sense of belonging to other people, to be welcoming and supportive and to share your love with the world. Amen.

Reflection

  • What places and people do you think of as ‘home’? What do those communities mean to you? What can you do to make them just as valuable for other people?

YOU WILL NEED:

  1. A copy of the film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Warner Bros, 2013, certificate 12). Click here to buy the DVD online.
  2. Whose Home? PowerPoint.
  3. Home Thoughts PowerPoint.
  4. Community Hobbit Smaug Talk PowerPoint.
  5. Optional, Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkel, which is available on Simon and Garfunkel: Greatest Hits (Sony, 2011).

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