Clueless Northman

Exactly. It's not our world's history: they actually have the luxury of being able to split the show into 2 eras, separated by centuries, and still be able to keep half their main cast, since Elves were still the dominant power in Middle-Earth by the time of the forging of the Rings (Sauron obviously was still hiding his forces and Numenor was only beginning to get seriously involved).

Indeed, it's worth pointing out that pretty much nothing of what happens in the show comes from Tolkien, just some of the names and some vague ideas, and that's it. This is peak fan-fiction.

Yes, like Isildur having a sister, or Ar-Pharazon actually having kids - specially before force-wedding Miriel.

You can't be serious. That would be downright insulting. These buffoons are adapting works of a writer who actually fought at the Somme in WWI, and they can't even act and pretend fighting without breaking down?

Considering how it's going, any chance that this insult to Tolkien's intelligence will be cancelled after 2nd season?

That said, Ukraine's demographic decline has been even worse than Russia's and they have a way smaller starting population. I hope for Ukraine's sake that their losses are significantly lower and that they aren't exposing their men as much. Merely by considering the demographic situation of both countries, this whole war is a pointless criminal bloodbath.

Kadyrov is the last person I'd tell my secret war plans, even if he was on my team and a top military officer. I'd actually tell him shit, so that he could accidentally leak them to the world in one of his usual blustering bumbling declarations. Though I'm glad I'm not Putin when he'll actually have to tell Kadyrov the cold hard truth. Granted, he actually might be right about the sorry state of Russian military right now - stopped clock and all that.

Yeah, considering that Galadriel, Gil-Galad and Elrond saw right through Sauron's shtick as Annatar and told him to buzz off, and only Celebrimbor got taken in for a ride, that would be a glorious change. What was it? "subvert expectations" by making nonsense?

There were plenty of parts, periods, places, only mentioned in the Appendices, or at least who aren't more fleshed out in other writings. They picked specifically the most important parts of Second Age, which are way more detailed in other works, and they're basically going to make a lot of things occur specifically NOT like in the books, because they don't have the rights? How stupid can you be? Well, of course, it looks like a sizable part of the Tolkien Estate has also been utterly stupid, or rather greedy braindead. About Numenoreans, they were basically meant to be what Men were meant to be, had they not all fallen under Morgoth's power and worship early on. Basically, they're very close to Elves on all other points, except lifespan ang ageing, and their lifes aren't tied to Arda, so they don't resurrect and recreate their bodies, but they go outside of Arda to maybe be reborn somewhere else, meanwhile Elves are tied to Arda, can't escape, and are supposed to disappear when Arda is over - unless Eru remakes Arda entirely at the end.

Exactly. Euro leaders are incompetent idiots who had decades to prepare, yet never did, and take brash decisions without any consideration about the consequences - this goes as well first for Germany who shut down nuclear plants without any thought about replacement. Mind you, I'm not a rabid pro-nuclear, but if you shut them down all at once and then have to rely on coal plants, you're a complete moron who failed at leadership 101 and should end up working at the lowest job with the lowest responsibility possible. Plus this would ruin the whole narrative of "Kiev is ours, it's a core component of Russian history". Putin isn't going to nuke Novgorod or Moscow, he's not going to nuke Kiev. If it came to that, he'd nuke Washington or London first - because nuking a capital inhabited by mio of people isn't tactical anymore, it will lead to global nuclear exchange.

Except most of political goons have openly supported the "operation" and many are even more hardcore than Putin (and probably more delusional). Will be tough to achieve such an outcome. As for nukes, that's imho the one thing that can push Putin's inner circle or military brass to make a coup and remove him, whatever the way. I also suspect he's aware of that or at least assumes it would be an option. I don't think he'd seriously consider this unless Crimea were overrun and Sevastopol threatened, or Russia proper faced a genuine invasion.

Any good scriptwriter could pick Tolkien and make a 2 seasons out of the mid-Second Age stuff. As said numerous times, show Numenor, show Eregion, show the Elves, show Annatar, show the forging of the rings, and end season 1 with Sauron forging the One on his own, and the Elves freaking out. Season 2 will be the war. That's 2 seasons with the exact same cast without any time jump. The tricky part would be to show how Numenor evolves over the next 1500 years. If they're not even ending season 1 with the Rings, then they'll only be able to butcher it in the next 4 seasons, or will need more than that to come to the Last Alliance. You need at the very least 3 seasons to cover Ar-Pharazon and the War of the Last Alliance. Morgoth had millennia to develop his forces and breed bazillions of Orcs before the First Age even began. The bulk of Orcs were actually wiped out during the War of Wrath, and for centuries they were barely a threat anywhere in the Western half of the world - if not all of Arda. Basically no Orc in Mirkwood, no Orc in Misty Mountains. Only Orcs in the far East and a tiny few lost in the frozen North. It took many centuries to build back their numbers before they could become a threat once again - besides, Sauron was mostly acting undercover until he forged The One, so he had to be careful in building up Orc troops in the West of Middle-Earth. (when it comes to Orcs being nearly wiped out and ensuring peace for centuries, the same goes with the Third Age, the bulk of Sauron minions were killed during the War of the Last Alliance and the Siege)

*glances at UK and nods approvingly* Come on, oligarchs are only found in shady countries we don't like, say Russia.

Could be that they're retreating as fast as they can before they're cut off - and maybe are planning to regroup at the middle salient to try to stop Ukrainian advances? Of course, that or collapse, result on the ground and on maps is the same - where it differs is with further combat power and resistance of Russian troops.

Sadly, no human with the Ring can genuinely beat a ringless Sauron. Though Denethor probably doesn't realize it and the Ring would convince him he can easily destroy Sauron.