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


Werthead

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6 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

I still can't believe people don't think stranger is sauron given that the first image is long shot of him in the center of the crater which looks remarkably like a flaming eye.

But that could easily be a red herring. Plus episode 3 shows that the enemy apparently had a backup plan about re-establishing a power base. Are you telling me that Sauron waited in space while the Orcs started building a new hideout?

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11 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

But that could easily be a red herring. Plus episode 3 shows that the enemy apparently had a backup plan about re-establishing a power base. Are you telling me that Sauron waited in space while the Orcs started building a new hideout?

Yeah. Plus I think Meteor Man as Sauron doesn't work because it makes no sense to introduce your primary antagonist with bumbling humour like rolling down a hill in a cart asleep or accidentally burning the important papers and then getting tangled up in the tents and falling over. 

How can you fear somebody so adorable?

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9 minutes ago, Ser Drewy said:

Yeah. Plus I think Meteor Man as Sauron doesn't work because it makes no sense to introduce your primary antagonist with bumbling humour like rolling down a hill in a cart asleep or accidentally burning the important papers and then getting tangled up in the tents and falling over. 

How can you fear somebody so adorable?


Wait till they feed him after midnight.

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4 hours ago, Isis said:

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.

No, I don't mean that. Politicking as in GoT, to me, means overly gory, vicious politicking which is somehow supposed to be more "real". And when I say GoT, I mean the show, especially the later seasons, where politics is all mostly big betrayals and sudden shocking turnabouts. 

Agree with you completely that a conversation with chemistry between a man and a woman doesn't mean romance. I'm not ruling it out, but I'm not spending time catastrophizing and writing off all interactions with some kind of chemistry as destined for romance. That is just dumb.

As for Galadriel being a brat... I've changed my mind on this multiple times. I think I was only egregiously annoyed at her interaction with Miriel. Otherwise I'm fine with her being less than a diplomat in this stage of her life. As long as they take care to show that there's more layers to her character than "have sword will stab", I'm good. If they remember that she's not just a warrior but skilled with all kinds of crafts and knows a lot... I'm ok with her being less than wise to begin with. 

I do appreciate that Tolkien wrote her as distinct from Feanor, in having her wisdom direct her boldness and stubbornness. And that's what I find missing in the show, at this moment. But I don't think they've shut the door to it. Her interaction with Halbrand, for instance, showed us the first hints of the how she's good at building alliances and setting the stage for resistance. 

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6 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Is there anyone posting here that isn't a Tolkien fanboy whining about changes? Jesus Christ (or Aragorn/Frodo/whatever), you're worse than Star Wars fans about Episode VIII.

Just for the devilment, it would be fun if Galadriel had a child out of wedlock.

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If ROP continues as it has so far, I am very glad that I will have the whole series to re-watch as binge during one of the endless stretches of endless dreary winter ahead.  There is so much richness of detail in all the scenes – such as those that went by so briefly, the puppet show in one of the city’s public spaces, that I look forward to many rewatches of the entire show, when it is completed.  I don’t know about you guys, but one of the reasons for my own many re-reads of LOTR is that there is so much richness of detail and shading in the narrative and locations I couldn’t take in all of it, thus going back many times.  It seems the creators of this show are respectfully doing their best to do the same for the screen production.

And I could be wrong and deeply disappointed.  It's too early to know.

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5 hours ago, Isis said:

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?

I agree, it did seem surprisingly ruthless to threaten to leave them behind for an injury that would have a chance of healing in time, especially after Lenny Henry was willing to be flexible and overlook Nori's transgression and not expel her.

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I enjoyed the episode, but I found it the weakest of the three.

Numenor was incredibly designed, and I liked many of the scenes there. I'm also appreciating this depiction of Galadriel: yes, she should have some arrogance a la Feanor! A show full of Jackson's always-stoic elves would be quite boring. And this gives Galadriel a character arc.

(I also agree that there is some sexism at play in the criticisms that she's acting like a teenage girl or brat).

I enjoyed the Elendil and Halbrand stuff in general. The actors are good. The plan to steal a guild brooch was quite silly, though, and I'm less convinced by Elendil's kids. The hobbits continue to be fun.

Ranger elf... less so. His plotline is mainly tedious.

In general, I don't mind a slower pace in a show, especially when it's used to establish different peoples and characters. In this sense, I'm enjoying Rings of Power more than HOTD or WoT, shows that move at a faster pace but don't take the time to establish why you should care. Still, Rings of Power does need to pick it up. We're over three hours in- that's the length of Fellowship of the Ring. Scenes and episodes go on for too long. Now that all the main factions and characters have been established (I think), let's get moving a little.

And please, no more slow motion. Not for horse rides, and not for trying to make us care about the deaths of characters we met two seconds ago.

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It was nice to have Anarion at least get mentioned, after his complete absence from the films.

And to whoever said that Numenor looked like Minas Tirith - don’t you think Elendil would want to make his new city evoke his lost homeland?

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2 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Is there anyone posting here that isn't a Tolkien fanboy whining about changes? Jesus Christ (or Aragorn/Frodo/whatever), you're worse than Star Wars fans about Episode VIII.

I don't complain about this show because it defies my purist expectations. I complain because it's a pretty bad show with terrible writing and all the consideration for logic, character development, and narrative that one would expect from a lobotomy patient.

This show could be even worse with handling lore and I would still like it if the writing were better.

And I don't think complaining is that terrible in this thread. There's persistent, light mockery of all the bad writing, but it's not venomous, and has nothing on how bad complaining got with respect to Game of Thrones.

Which is remarkable because even Game of Thrones at its very worst (and it plumbed very low depths indeed) was somehow better and felt less intellectually insulting than what Amazon is trying to pass off as entertainment.

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17 minutes ago, Maltaran said:

And to whoever said that Numenor looked like Minas Tirith - don’t you think Elendil would want to make his new city evoke his lost homeland?

 a.) Elendil did not build Minas Tirith

b.) There is no reason to make this lazy justification for fanservice. The showrunners changed Numenor's geography from the source material to facilitate this. Please let me be annoyed by it. It did not make a big deal out of it.

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18 minutes ago, IFR said:

Which is remarkable because even Game of Thrones at its very worst (and it plumbed very low depths indeed) was somehow better and felt less intellectually insulting than what Amazon is trying to pass off as entertainment.

There are just as many who say the opposite.

Myself, I am liking them both a whole lot more than a whole of stuff -- maybe even most stuff, and I don't even watch most stuff and because I don't I don't complain about it either.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

By-the-bye: on his blog Phulish Fellow pointed out "Númenort feels less like something more Mediterranean, more based on trade, and more classical than medieval."

And that’s because it’s not – see again my comments above regarding the central palace’s architecture and the Haggia Sophia. It recalls though, the Eastern Roman Empire, that later historians called Byzantium, the Seljuks (and others) called Rûm, and the Ottomans themselves called the Ottoman Empire. (Not even so much of that pre-Raphaelite design either.)

 I.e. not Mediterranean, but looking to the Sea of Marmara, Anatolia, the Black Sea. and the long roll call of previous empires including the Persians, the Phoenician sea empires, the sun worshipping Assyrian empires,  reaching even further back, beyond even the Bronze Age into the prehistoric -- and generally, always looking east, not west at all, until the days of the Roman conquests.  The show did this beautifully with Númenor.  Additionally, Melkor brings to mind the Phoencian deity Melqart, also spelled Melkart or Melkarth, chief deity of Tyre and of two of its colonies, Carthage and Gadir (Cádiz, Spain).

This provides this viewer with great delight, while this viewer just doesn't care about what so many resent. I just don't care, I'm not a loremaster and never was.  It's the narrative that matters, and for the most part I'm liking it a very great deal.  I got to liking the Harfoots as a people -- i.e. found them more interesting than before -- a lot more in this episode, and finding Nori already more interesting too. She, as much as Galadriel is going to be growing.


 

 

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32 minutes ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

 a.) Elendil did not build Minas Tirith

b.) There is no reason to make this lazy justification for fanservice. The showrunners changed Numenor's geography from the source material to facilitate this. Please let me be annoyed by it. It did not make a big deal out of it.

I’m not saying you can’t be annoyed (and I wasn’t commenting on the geography, just the architecture). All I’m saying is there is an obvious in-universe justification for the similarity.

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17 minutes ago, Zorral said:

There are just as many who say the opposite.

I'm not sure how you would quantify that. I suppose you can say anecdotally that you've encountered many who like RoP; I can say anecdotally that almost everyone I know thinks it's not a good show.

We can cite the opinion of critics, or the general audience on IMDb, or acquaintances, but whether either of us will accept the source presented by the other as valid is a tangle in itself.

Ultimately, it's all just an opinion - a fact on which I think we both can agree. It doesn't matter what other people think, just how you think.

I'm glad for you that you found something you enjoy. I wish I could share your enthusiasm.

But I don't. And my response to the quote in my post was clearly my subjective viewpoint. However, the objection within the quote was that most of the criticism seemed to stem from purism, and hopefully my post corrected that impression.

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1 minute ago, Maltaran said:

I’m not saying you can’t be annoyed (and I wasn’t commenting on the geography, just the architecture). All I’m saying is there is an obvious in-universe justification for the similarity.

That justification does not work though precisely because the showrunners decided to change the geography of Numenor. The showrunners specifically chose the capital to look like this so that they could evoke Minas Tirith, not because of the source material.

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Haven't kept up on the thread but just finished the third ep.  I REALLY liked Elendil - whoever that actor is he definitely has the gravitas for the role, great casting.  And Galadriel/Morfydd Clark is really growing on me as well.  I hope Aragorn 2.0 ends up as one of the wraiths/9 kings instead of Sauron.  They're already setting up the former really well.

Still not a fan of the hobbits but I at least was more amused by their antics this episode (that may more reflect my mood than any objective difference).  Overall it's got me pretty well sucked in, definitely will keep watching.

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1 hour ago, IFR said:

t's all just an opinion - a fact on which I think we both can agree.

:agree: :cheers:

 

ETA -- I just remembered that guy -- be grateful I am not that guy! -- who came around a while ago who insisted that the Tolkien universe was real, and he provided maps showing it was in North and / or South America?  I can't remember as it was such demented stuff, one couldn't even read it.  Was it mostly in the Literature forum?  :rolleyes:

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