After it was announced that “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson intended to divide “The Hobbit” into three parts, a sense of confusion and apprehension was felt amongst the nerd community. Upon hearing the news, Jackson’s avid followers were forced to ask a difficult question: why would the shortest book of the “Lord of the Rings” affiliated series be split into three separate movies when its longer predecessors could fit into one?

“May your worries now be laid to rest,” Jackson wrote on his blog. “The answers behind these questions will be revealed to you in time.”

As Jackson stated in a public address yesterday, the decision is related to the popular conspiracy that Dec. 21, 2012, will be the end of the world. The first “Hobbit” movie is due to be released on Dec. 14 of this year, “a mere week before Frodo drops the one ring of the world into the fiery pits of Mount Doom,” Jackson points out.

Wanting to find a way out of this unfortunate ending of the world, Jackson decided to take a page out of another highly successful book series to prolong “his Legolas-y.”

British author J.K. Rowling has revealed through her popular “Harry Potter” book series that through the usage of mythical ‘horcruxes,’ as they are called, an individual can protect portions of their soul from death within seemingly normal objects.

“Rowling has–quite literally–accomplished this same feat, successfully splitting her soul into each of her seven books, eight movies and even a theme park,” said Rowling’s agent.

Jackson’s innovative approach, splitting “The Hobbit” into three parts, may just be his sorcerer’s stone. And as doomsday prophet and pop culture expert John Robberts put it, “as long as we ‘hobbit’ onto the bandwagon – he he he — and sell our souls to the movie theatre corporations via admission, we might be able to keep our lives as well.”