What is Tauriel Heading Towards? Beorn, Possibly--or Bard

I mention on Votaries that Jackson really needed to pay off Tauriel in The Hobbit trilogy. The issue isn't about romance. It's about storytelling. 

Set something up--pay something off.

I suggested a few pay-offs (I took keeping Kili alive off the table, though that was certainly a possible pay-off!):

• She goes to Moria with Balin to honor Kili's memory. 
• She takes Kili's stone back to his mum. 
• She carries Kili's stone with her to the Undying Lands.
• She marries Beorn. 
• She marries Bard since they have both lost someone and she gets along with his kids. She becomes the de facto queen of Dale.

I go back and forth between Tauriel marrying Bard (hey, she's a great role model for his kids!) and Tauriel marrying Beorn, the latter in large part because the novels never mention where all his Beornings come from. 

The Beornings are mentioned quite often in The Lord of the Rings novels. They are either a group that gathered around Beorn or they are his descendants. They are largely responsible for keeping passes open between East Middle Earth and West Middle Earth. Bilbo's ability (in the books) to visit the Lonely Mountain before he settles in Rivendell is due to the Beornings. 

And yet, in The Hobbit, the book, Beorn's wife is unmentioned. In Jackson's movies, she is dead.

Why not Tauriel as the co-founder of a dynasty? She's fierce!

And she's looking for something. As John Howe states about Kili and Tauriel:

 

The relationship between Tauriel and Kili is like one of those love stories where people think they are falling in love when, in fact, they are actually falling out of love with everything else around them, and the only sympathetic face is someone who they would never choose in any other circumstances...

 

Thranduil's sudden about-face at the end of the trilogy--his statement to Tauriel, "[It hurts so much] because it was real"--is not only not enough of a pay-off, it utterly misses the point. 

Tauriel and Kili's relationship was never about whether they REALLY loved each other or, for that matter, about family support. It was about the answers they found in each other that were lacking in their own cultures. "Love" was about what the other person had to offer (in a positive sense, not in a "you have to make up for my deficiencies" sense). 

Tauriel is looking for a purpose. "I'm going to save him" is an epiphany moment for her, a realization that she can expand beyond her slated role. 

I think Beorn is about as outside what she is used to as a person can get. He is powerful in his own right. An protector of the human dwellers in his area. A wilderness supporter (give the guy a state park!). A wise man. Fair in his dealings. A shapeshifter. A man with a yearning for family. 

I think Tauriel would find a home and a purpose with him. 

She could also help keep Sauron's forces at bay alongside Bard's grandson in The Lord of the Rings. 

Lots of possibilities!