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[Spoilers] Rings of Power: Adar, can you hear me?


Ser Drewy

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26 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

She's supposed to be the hero.  When Im happy to see the Queen of Numenor slap her down, something has gone wrong with the characterization.  Galadriel is not supposed to be Tony Soprano.  I'm sure this is supposed to be her learning her way to the wisdom of LOTR, but I mostly feel like she needs to be sent to her room without supper until she can learn some manner.s

I’m working under the assumption that she will become a more likeable person as the show goes on and she learns from her mistakes. I’m not saying that makes any sense for her character , but it’s how these things are done in lazy writing land.

I can never tell if it’s a conscious choice to make characters like this irritating and unlikable or that was an unintended consequence of the writing.

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Just now, Heartofice said:

I’m working under the assumption that she will become a more likeable person as the show goes on and she learns from her mistakes. I’m not saying that makes any sense for her character , but it’s how these things are done in lazy writing land.

I can never tell if it’s a conscious choice to make characters like this irritating and unlikable or that was an unintended consequence of the writing.

My guess is that she is not supposed to be unlikable, just impulsive. And I'm sure a lot of people see her rudeness as empowerment. 

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45 minutes ago, Raja said:

Still going to stick with this as there is plenty I like and I'm interested in - I think the dwarves stuff is good. I think there are some emotional beats that work and make me want to keep watching - these include Elrond & Durin & Isil's family, Halbrand ( he might be an aragorn look alike, but his character is not that at all and I think reducing him to 'aragorn lookalike' is a bit of lazy criticism) - these are characters I actually care about so I'm invested.

The dwarves are all really cool too. Khazad Dum looks awesome, and that singing to stone scene was so well done. I still wish the dwarf women had beards tho. 

 

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4 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

My guess is that she is not supposed to be unlikable, just impulsive. And I'm sure a lot of people see her rudeness as empowerment. 

I think that’s true in other shows and movies, bad examples of girl boss writing. Here however other characters recognise it when Galadriel says something snotty or entitled and have negative reactions to it. So I guess it’s on purpose, rather than some empowerment fantasy. 
 

Maybe they just turned the dial up too far though and haven’t balanced her out with any likeable qualities 

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Yea, just … don’t understand how so many people are going to bat for this show. Still just so bored by it all. Did we just have a five episode build up to the discovery of Mithril? Am I missing something? 

I wonder if this new guy who’s chasing the girl who’s the sister of that guy who’s dad was the guy who found Galadriel will get anywhere. Tune in next week to find out! Hopefully we’ll learn a little about what his sibling does for a living too.

Meanwhile, Sauron is around. We know this, but our characters don’t! And it very much seems like they’ve padded out a whole season of basically them finding out.

Possibly Tolkien didn’t write a novel around all this because there isn’t a story here?

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1 minute ago, DaveSumm said:

Yea, just … don’t understand how so many people are going to bat for this show. Still just so bored by it all. Did we just have a five episode build up to the discovery of Mithril? Am I missing something? 

I wonder if this new guy who’s chasing the girl who’s the sister of that guy who’s dad was the guy who found Galadriel will get anywhere. Tune in next week to find out! Hopefully we’ll learn a little about what his sibling does for a living to.

Meanwhile, Sauron is around. We know this, but our characters don’t! And it very much seems like they’ve padded out a whole season of basically them finding out.

Possibly Tolkien didn’t write a novel around all this because there isn’t a story here?

Right?  I read some reviews of the latest episode, most were glowing.  Are they watching the same boring poorly plotted show I am?  

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I think this episode was better than last weeks. Adar is intriguing so far. I think the Khazad-Dum stuff remains the strongest storyline, though "dwarven girlfriend" felt really out of place. Good background on Earendil. I'm not really sure what the timeline is meant to be - how long have they been working on Celebrimbor's project? The Southlands was okay for the most part although Theo in the village and the Orc chase felt like it was leaning a bit too heavy on contrivance. 

I really don't care for Numenor. Don't know what they're doing with the palantiri. Why did they show images of the downfall this early? The sensibility seems all wrong, I don't know what the thinking is. Galadriel continues to grate. I don't mind her having Feanorian haughtiness at times, I do mind her being a screaming buffoon with zero negotiation abilities. Halbrand has even more Sauron vibes and how'd he get out of prison? The Elendil family isn't working for me. It feels so... off? Pharazon was okay. 

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The immigration plot is utter nonsense. How stupid can those people be, really, to assume that immortal dudes with serious fertility issues would ever want to (1) travel to their small island kingdom at the end of the world, and (2) actually bother to do manual labor there? After all, the only Elves who regularly visited Númenor in its non-colonial era (and they never colonized anything in the show, apparently) were from Tol Eressea. And they sure as hell had better things to do to settle on Starfish Island...

Also, is this Númenor a monarchy or a democracy? 'The'people' kind of deposing Tar-Palantir and installing his daughter as regent kind of undermines the whole, you know, monarchy thing. Would have been infinitely better to, you know, portray this as a struggle between various factions in the nobility and, especially, the various branches of the House of Elros. And I'm sure some humble chancellor (so far there is no indication he is actually Miriel's first cousin) would go by the royal name of Pharazôn.

And, blast, I really loathe and hate those stupid bearded Dúnedain. I hated the Argonath and Aragorn in the Jackson movies for this, and I hate Pharazôn and Tar-Palantir for that. It is just such a silly thing to do when it is clear that these people are not supposed to have beards.

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Oh, and I must say I also hate the whole 'old Elves' and 'homely Elves' look. If the Jackson movies got something right then the ageless look of the Elves. But Celebrimbor looks like an old, done man (although the actor is not bad at all) ... kind of odd considering that Galadriel who is about his age or older looks like a very young woman.

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They showed Adar with the voice "Sauron was said to have many names in days of old, perhaps this is one of them", it is a lot of misdirection if Meteor Man or Halbrand are Sauron after that. IDK why Adar has pointy ears though. I hope that if he is Sauron, they don't show him actually disguised as one of the elves. Why the orcs call him father is a pointed question, and a good clue about his nature. The way he talks about rocks and roots makes him look like a very old creature. Arondir takes the place of the audience when wondering what Adar is. 

So, think this episode provides more evidence in support of Sauron being Adar. Meteor Man is not shown at all, and I am thinking who else they could possibly be apart from Gandalf... 

It was jarringly American for Adar to use miles as a unit of measuring distance, they could have gone with leagues. 

The scene with about the elves taking over jobs... sure it is about immigrants taking over jobs, but think they packed in another layer about the fear of computers or robots taking over human jobs with the whole 'elves don't tire, don't age' thingy. Anyway, Pharazon hugs the guy in the end with too much understanding, it does not look like a reconciliation after an argument, making him look like a stooge.

Would be fun to see Tom Bombadil on this show, especially considering they cut him out in LOTR. 

 

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47 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Yea, just … don’t understand how so many people are going to bat for this show. Still just so bored by it all. Did we just have a five episode build up to the discovery of Mithril? Am I missing something? 

I wonder if this new guy who’s chasing the girl who’s the sister of that guy who’s dad was the guy who found Galadriel will get anywhere. Tune in next week to find out! Hopefully we’ll learn a little about what his sibling does for a living too.

Meanwhile, Sauron is around. We know this, but our characters don’t! And it very much seems like they’ve padded out a whole season of basically them finding out.

Possibly Tolkien didn’t write a novel around all this because there isn’t a story here?

Is anyone really doing that? Outside of some shill reviews online I’ve mostly seen a lot of very mixed reactions. I get the sense a lot of people think it’s ok, but not much better than that. 
 

I do agree that it is just far too boring however, im really only watching to see if it’s going to get better and so I can join in the bants about it! 

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1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

My guess is that she is not supposed to be unlikable, just impulsive. And I'm sure a lot of people see her rudeness as empowerment. 

No, because the calls it out, when she's being unlikable and dense. 

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

Right?  I read some reviews of the latest episode, most were glowing.  Are they watching the same boring poorly plotted show I am?  

Maybe... Not? You seem to have had your expectations disappointed to the extent that the good aspects/scenes don't land. That's not true for a lot of people, so we're able to see that while it is far from faithful, it is at least reasonably interesting, and getting more so. 

The negatives still exist for me, but I'm not longer certain they cannot be recovered from. The plot certainly hasn't mined as deeply for stupid like WoT did, for instance. 

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7 minutes ago, Maltaran said:

Interesting theory here about Adar’s identity

 

Nah. Tolkien accuracy aside, explaining Maeglin's backstory would require so much more additional context  to be provided it would just confuse the casuals. It is more likely that he is something like Galadriel's brother's best friend whom Finrod left for dead and who is now back for revenge. Granted they might call him "Maeglin" in the hopes that Tolkien fans would appreciate that reference.

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1 minute ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

Nah. Tolkien accuracy aside, explaining Maeglin's backstory would require so much more additional context  to be provided it would just confuse the casuals. It is more like that he is something like Galadriel's brother's best friend whom Finrod left for dead and who is now back for revenge. Granted they might call him "Maeglin" in the hopes that Tolkien fans would appreciate that reference.

Hardly. Gondolin is mentioned in LotR. All Elrond has to do is say this was his grand-uncle who betrayed his grandparents, and we're set. This isn't particularly complex. 

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And yet what does it add to the character or the story? So he has a different name that only people who read the Silmarillion would recognize.

I don't understand why everybody needs to be somebody. All those mystery boxes are not "Tolkien", they are "JJ Abrams".

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12 minutes ago, Maltaran said:

Interesting theory here about Adar’s identity

 

Interesting, because if they want the audience to believe that Adar = Sauron, then the "river" ought to be Sirion. I think in the episode he said he lived by the river for a time, which Sauron did. But Gelion makes more sense for the reasons I gave in a previous post about Arondir being one of the Nandor.

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3 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Interesting, because if they want the audience to believe that Adar = Sauron, then the "river" ought to be Sirion. I think in the episode he said he lived by the river for a time, which Sauron did. But Gelion makes more sense for the reasons I gave in a previous post about Arondir being one of the Nandor.

Arondir could also be one of Thingol’s people from Doriath

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