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Rings of Power: Three Threads for the Elven Lords (book spoilers)


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On 9/9/2022 at 7:23 AM, fionwe1987 said:

Yeah I'm not sure exactly what they were going for, there. But I guess the political situation isn't too different. You have Faithful-sympathizing King and Queen Reagent, and Ar-Pharzon wielding real power. I guess we will see some attempts at GoT like politicking in Numenor. Le sigh. 

You mean different factions vying for political power as has happened throughout history and also happened in Numenor before GOT existed? I mean, that is part of the Numenor storyline. It was obviously going to feature in a show about the downfall of Numenor.

I cannot believe that people are still wetting themselves about Galbrand. omg. Nothing romantic is going to happen between them. They are having an antagonistic interaction. They are attractive people with good chemistry on screen. Trailers made it look as if they were being flirty because that is what trailers do - to snag the interest of viewers. I literally saw someone on Twitter this morning say that if they see Galadriel kiss anyone who isn't Celeborn they will riot. :rolleyes: Whilst on the topic - they people who think they saw Galadriel and Elrond being 'too close' (i.e. having a conversation) have clearly never experienced a platonic friendship between a man and a woman before and it shows. It's all really quite disturbing, bit like those dudes who aren't allowed to eat lunch with anyone who isn't their wife. :rofl:

The Harfoots really surprised me this episode with how interesting and primal their culture is. Very dark of them to say 'WE WAIT FOR YOU!' when actually they don't wait for anyone. Stubbed your toe? We won't wait for you. Got the flu? Bye then, we'll raise a cup for you next time we remember the dead! What doesn't make sense to me is, when the caravan left there were quite a few able-looking people who were walking without pulling any carts, surely one of them could have helped out Nori's family? If a worthy, contributing member of the community has a temporary injury surely it is a waste of resources to discard that person from the community permanently? 

How long is the Stranger going to tag along with them? I've always thought he was a blue wizard, so I guess he needs to go east (where the stars are strange), will this be the same way as the Harfoots?

I liked the part where Marigold tells Nori that the tallest milkweed gets cut down, when the phrase we would usually say is 'cut down the tallest poppy' - wonder if that means anything for Poppy. ;)

My almost 30 year wait to see Numenor was largely worth it. Looks beautiful. The score is fantastic. Re Miriel and Elendilf not knowing each other, I suspect that to be a sham, as hinted at by Miriel's last scene. I think we may get a reveal in time to show that the faithful are working together (obviously in secret). 

The orcs were great and I enjoyed the stop-motion proto-baby-warg. Cool to see Jed Brophy again. Seeing Beforedor as a land of noxious fumes and pits also felt right.

Finally, I wish people didn't feel the need to have a competition between this show is HOTD. I have chosen not to watch the latter and I don't feel any need to comment on it anywhere, go into threads about it and slag it off etc. 

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Poor Celeborn, cucked by a mere human, and not even a Numenorian. So cucked in fact, that it appears thousands of years ago Galadriel foresaw that she would have a dalliance with a dashingly roguish, would-be king with an Aragorn-like reluctance to take up the crown because of his bad blood, she refused his suit of marriage and didn't have a daughter to marry to Elrond and give birth to Arwyn.

What's the lifespan of Numenorians? 200-300 years? I'm guessing Isildur, being but a petulant youth we're about 100 odd years from the War of the Last Alliance?

Have we met anyone who's going to be a Nazgul yet? According to the wiki three of the Nazgul are Numenorian lords. Indeed I wonder if Halbrand is destined to become one.

2 hours ago, mormont said:

It's interesting to see the common trope of dismissing Galadriel as being like a 'teenager' because she acts like, well, a whole range of male protagonists in TV.

When male characters are written like that on TV shows they get a hard eye-roll from me. So, if I'm to be not gender biased I should roll my eyes when Galadriel is written the same way. Bad writing isn't made better simply by changing the sex of the character.

I am enjoying the Harfoots. I am working on the assumption the stranger is either Gandalf or Saruman, given the state of the hair I am leaning towards Gandalf.

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Aren’t there “blue” wizards too? It would be cool to meet one of those. I can’t believe I’m the only one who apparently thinks Meteor Man looks like an old, emaciated Hugh Jackman :lol:

Speaking of Celeborn, is it possible that he hasn’t been born yet? This is thousands of years in the past, after all. 

This will upset book fans, but I’m willing to bet they’ll change Elrond’s wife’s lineage. I think modern day people would find him falling in love with his friend’s daughter creepy, and they probably will want to show the beginning of their relationship on the show. (Question: Is Elrond the only half-human elf left?)

I think this show is a lot easier to enjoy if you haven’t read the books haha

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2 hours ago, mormont said:

It's interesting to see the common trope of dismissing Galadriel as being like a 'teenager' because she acts like, well, a whole range of male protagonists in TV.

I'm not sure what her gender has to do with it although I suppose you are free to make it about that.

Do you think she has the demeanor and likely behavior of a centuries-old being? I think she comes across as astonishingly immature for her age. And I'd say the same if it were a 50-year old human - male or female.

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7 minutes ago, Scott_N said:

I'm not sure what her gender has to do with it although I suppose you are free to make it about that.

Do you think she has the demeanor and likely behavior of a centuries-old being? I think she comes across as astonishingly immature for her age. And I'd say the same if it were a 50-year old human - male or female.

Some people online have taken to calling her “Guy-aldriel.”

14 minutes ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

His father is still arround as is his mother

So it’s just his family then?

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OK. I don't do social media so don't really pick up on those things.

I just mean that Galadriel should be an enormously impressive character. How old is she here? Several thousand years at least. I expect immense gravitas and wisdom from her and none of that is on offer.

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12 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Some people online have taken to calling her “Guy-aldriel.”

According to actual Tolkein canon her mother called her Nerwen, which means man-maiden, so...

25 minutes ago, Ser Drewy said:

Theo is probably the main candidate. 

He's got quite the journey ahead of him to become a king worthy enough for Sauron to give him a ring. But I guess keeping an evil, broken sword and having orc contaminated blood is a good start.

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3 hours ago, Ser Drewy said:

I think I liked this episode less than the other two. 

Khazad-Dum was missed.

Really, really don't care for Bratdriel. Her aggressiveness doesn't maker her seem impassioned or hot-headed; it makes her look stupid more often than not. I get arrogance is quite common of the Noldor... but eh, I feel their depiction makes her look like a pouting teenager (and not a particularly bright one) rather than someone with a few thousands years of life under her belt. 

Bratdriel is the perfect nickname for her so far. And no, it has nothing to do with her being a woman, I really dislike male characters of this type too. 

At this point I really won't be surprised if she hooks up with Harbrand and then he turns out to be Sauron, at least this will be hilarious in a "so bad it's good" way, that would be an improvement on her current borefest of a story. 

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I think the changes they did to Galadriel came from the popularity of characters like Katniss Everdeen or Rey "Skywalker", and stems from a lack of understanding of what Tolkien fans would think about those changes, and hoping they can bring younger audience to watch the show.

I don't think this show is the most awful thing out there, but I find it bland and generic. Almost like it's a high budgeted CW show.

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37 minutes ago, David Selig said:

Bratdriel is the perfect nickname for her so far. And no, it has nothing to do with her being a woman, I really dislike male characters of this type too.

Which type?

Do you call them brats too? Do you say they're behaving like teenagers? If so, that would be highly unusual to say the least.

All I'm seeing here (ETA - not just from you, David, the rest of the post is not directed specifically at you) is the usual reaction to any suggestion of cultural or unconscious bias in fiction, which is a litany of people saying 'Impossible! I for one am absolutely immune to such things.'

The whole point about cultural biases is that you can't escape them. It isn't a personal insult to suggest that your reactions are coloured by them. If you take it as such and really believe that you're immune to them, you're suggesting that you somehow exist outside of the culture that these stories are manifestations of. That's not a defence, it's a delusion. 

I said above I dislike Nori and am very well aware that I'd have a different reaction to the same character if she were male. But I do like Galadriel and the idea that she is behaving like a 'brat' is sexist nonsense.

She's also not behaving like the Galadriel of the films, I agree, but that would not have worked story-wise. We need to see that her personality was different in the past because she acts differently in the past.

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The impatience of the viewers (at least many on these threads) rather astonishes me.  This is story telling.  There is no actual narrative fiction, structured, organized, and finished up for either plotting or characters from which it is adapted -- even less than from what HotD was adapted.  It takes time all the way through a big narrative arc to build out all the elements, as anyone who has written and studied these matters has experienced.  You guys want everything right this minute and you want it the way you have decided what is what.  This show is planned for many, many episodes from the git go.  It takes time, it should take time, it NEEDS to take time.

The only sensible action then is to create something yourselves, from start to finish, publication/release and then deal with the criticism your work has received because it isn't what somebody else believes you Must Have Done Instead -- or demand that you not have done at all.

As for myself, with this episode I'm coming to admire how at least one theme is beginning to emerge: that of building and making (which is quite related to the expressed outrage here), paired with destruction.  We see it coming through even with the orcs and whoever is animating them for these enormous building projects which are made out of destruction, but are made.  We certainly see it in Númenor, with both the man Halbrand, desperate to start smithing, and the Elendil's daughter, Eärien, who finally gets accepted into the Builders Guild. *

Look at the title: this show is about the making of the rings, fer pete's sake, and even in the second episode we got a whole bottle of Maker's Mark with what the Dwarves have done in Khazad-dûm.  It's the pushing of the making of things too far, via someone's intentional dark intent, that spells the doom of Middle Earth.  It's the confluence of certain figures out of each group -- excluding Harfoots -- that are responsible.  Even the elves, for the drive to make is always paired with the drive to destroy, as we see in the very opening scenes of the first episode, with other elf children destroying Galadriel's paper swan ship.  These peoples go from the utter glory of Númenor that we get to see with our own eyes on the screen thanks to the incredible efforts of the show and the people who come together to make it the very best they could -- and that they really tried is shown right there -- to Ragnarok's smoking ruin, the end of a world. 

Not to mention the endless streams about "MM" from the moment it appeared in a trailer -- gads.  And no, whoever the fellow found by Nori is, he's not Sauron, and the fellow did not break her father's ankle.  I can't see at all how you all see that! unless so eager to see stuff that you look at, notice the wrong things, or don't see what it is there, can't wait to see more.

OK.  Here endth mine own rant, since I comprehend (without understanding!) that putting down are major privileges and delight for so many, right along with desire to maim, at the very least, those who disagree. :P

And there are legitimate criticisms for sure -- the choice of cliff hangers and so on, the length of battle/fight scenes, the filler scenes of beautiful horses on a beautiful shore against a beautiful sea**, and so on.

*  His family and its dynamics were one of the other primary developments in this episode, and again it will be about the making or the destruction of something, yes?  Plus, yes, interesting, and relatable, not cringey or smarmy either.

** Edited to add that even there though, we see the sheer joy of making by the production teams come through: There is a beat when the camera is close-up of only the head in profile of Galadriel's mount, and I swear it is a vein perfect reproduction we're seeing of horse heads from the Elgin Marbles freizes -- which are indeed astoundingly beautiful, breathtaking beautiful, and it is one of the greatest privileges of my life that once I got to see them at the British Museum. So ya, in the end I liked it, and appreciated it for just what it was, but also for the thoughts of time and creation and destruction that beat provided within the context of the episode and show.  IOW, in many ways the show shows itself more than thoughtful of the subject matter and what it is doing, and does it creatively and thoughtfully.  But too slowly for too many, evidently.  It's not throw away quip.

 

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My full review of episode three. When the episode is good, it is very, very good. When it is bad, it is meh. Nothing truly awful this week.

And no, Bratdriel is not an appropriate name. Not unless you're willing to attach the label to the entire House of Feanor (which Galadriel seems to be admittedly imitating right now).

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