Rings of Power ( No Book Spoilers) - Will I ever care about the Harfoots?

[The Bard of Banefort]

I took Isildur’s sister’s wish to avoid war as a sign that she was worried he would die in combat. She knows that he’s reckless and a bit of a dope. Unfortunately, we haven’t really seen enough of her and Love Interest to really understand their characters yet.

I’ve found that people who haven’t read the books are enjoying this show more than people who have. I was listening to a break-down of episode five the other day, and they were all saying how Galadriel was patronizing the Numenorean boys during their training session and that they should hate her for humiliating them. But like. . . it’s so obvious that that was filmed as a playful scene where she’s having fun practicing with the boys. Or when she made that remark to Halbrand about how she’d never seen a smith do a sword trick before, they called that patronizing. Except that we’ve seen their banter plenty of times by now, and that’s just how they talk to each other. The internet has fried all our brains.

[mormont]

The Galadriel sword scene is, in retrospect, meant to contrast with the uglier fight scenes in the last episode, the glamour vs the reality. A sunlit sword fight with tricks and grace against the dark (literally) and more brutal fight against the orcs. I'm not sure it's completely successful but it works well enough.

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I took Isildur’s sister’s wish to avoid war as a sign that she was worried he would die in combat. She knows that he’s reckless and a bit of a dope. Unfortunately, we haven’t really seen enough of her and Love Interest to really understand their characters yet.

I’ve found that people who haven’t read the books are enjoying this show more than people who have. I was listening to a break-down of episode five the other day, and they were all saying how Galadriel was patronizing the Numenorean boys during their training session and that they should hate her for humiliating them. But like. . . it’s so obvious that that was filmed as a playful scene where she’s having fun practicing with the boys. Or when she made that remark to Halbrand about how she’d never seen a smith do a sword trick before, they called that patronizing. Except that we’ve seen their banter plenty of times by now, and that’s just how they talk to each other. The internet has fried all our brains.

 I'm not watching this very closely any more, but I really don't have a handle on whether the show wants me to see her as a badass whose rudeness, arrogance and violent tendencies are positive attributes or as someone starting out highly flawed  whose arc is going to leave her a different, nicer character.  What I do know is to me she's very, very unlikeable.

[The Bard of Banefort]

12 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

 I'm not watching this very closely any more, but I really don't have a handle on whether the show wants me to see her as a badass whose rudeness, arrogance and violent tendencies are positive attributes or as someone starting out highly flawed  whose arc is going to leave her a different, nicer character.  What I do know is to me she's very, very unlikeable.

Well, we know she’s going to have a very different personality in the end, so I assume they’ll portray her growing serenity as a good thing.

[Isis]

19 hours ago, Zorral said:

https://deadline.com/video/deadline-com-video-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-episode-6-after-show-spoilers-tolkien/

Again, one of the highlights of this aftershow is the composer talking about what they did in various scenes with a variety of surprising, but authentic instruments.  They use actual musicians played composed music; it isn't keyboarded digital special effects.  One can hear this difference.

Also recommend Bear's Blog where, over four posts, the composer explains how he created all of the music you hear in the show. An incredible labour of love for one person to achieve, especially considering the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. I hope he is going to reap all of the awards for his work and I hope that anyone who tweets at him that they do not like the show disappears into a sinkhole.

[Spockydog]

Pfft. He's not even an actual Bear. And while we're on the subject. I don't think I've ever heard of bears existing in Tolkien's universe. This show sucks so hard.

 

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Pfft. He's not even an actual Bear. And while we're on the subject. I don't think I've ever heard of bears existing in Tolkien's universe. This show sucks so hard.

 

Beorn exists.

[Heartofice]

16 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I’ve found that people who haven’t read the books are enjoying this show more than people who have. I was listening to a break-down of episode five the other day, and they were all saying how Galadriel was patronizing the Numenorean boys during their training session and that they should hate her for humiliating them. But like. . . it’s so obvious that that was filmed as a playful scene where she’s having fun practicing with the boys. Or when she made that remark to Halbrand about how she’d never seen a smith do a sword trick before, they called that patronizing. Except that we’ve seen their banter plenty of times by now, and that’s just how they talk to each other. The internet has fried all our brains.

It's pretty easy to make the assumption is being patronising in those scenes because her character is depicted as being arrogant and self important a number of times. I didn't notice her being patronising in the sword training scene, probably because my head was in my hands at how poorly executed it all was. 
 

14 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Well, we know she’s going to have a very different personality in the end, so I assume they’ll portray her growing serenity as a good thing.

Do we know that? 

[The Bard of Banefort]

4 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It's pretty easy to make the assumption is being patronising in those scenes because her character is depicted as being arrogant and self important a number of times. I didn't notice her being patronising in the sword training scene, probably because my head was in my hands at how poorly executed it all was. 
 

Do we know that? 

The actress mentioned it in an interview.

[Myrddin]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Beorn exists.

He's only mostly bear.

[Mexal]

I really enjoy this show. I know reading over on the spoiler thread, everyone hates everything about it but for me, a non-book reader who just wants to be transported to another place and see fantasy on the screen, it works well enough. I know there is a feeling of it being small scale but for me, it feels more epic than say HOTD, which I feel is so insulated, so grey, that it's impossible to feel any weight to the actions. At least here, I have a fairly good idea who the good guys are and who the bad guys are and I'm rooting for one to beat the other and learn something along the way. I'm glad it's on TV.

[Heartofice]

54 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I really enjoy this show. I know reading over on the spoiler thread, everyone hates everything about it but for me, a non-book reader who just wants to be transported to another place and see fantasy on the screen, it works well enough. I know there is a feeling of it being small scale but for me, it feels more epic than say HOTD, which I feel is so insulated, so grey, that it's impossible to feel any weight to the actions. At least here, I have a fairly good idea who the good guys are and who the bad guys are and I'm rooting for one to beat the other and learn something along the way. I'm glad it's on TV.

I'm not sure it's worth taking sides or pitting either show against each other but I kind of feel the exact opposite. HotD feels more epic and has more weight because it seems to have a solid foundation of place and location, everything feels far more realistic and characters are much more well rounded with believable and motivations you can understand and empathise with. 

Nothing feels epic to me in RoP because it all feels so artificial and staged, events cannot have consequence if I cannot even believe they are happening, if I can literally see the seams of production in every scene. I cannot care about what happens when there are almost no believable characters to whom events are happening. 

[Zorral]

A Tour of the Tolkien Lore in the Rings of Power Score

https://www.vulture.com/article/rings-of-power-how-bear-mccreary-wrote-musical-themes.html

Bear McCreary, the composer, speaks to Howard Shore's inflence -- input, we can legitimately say -- to his own scoring. 

One of the most interesting bits is this paragraph:

Quote

.... Many of the themes for the main characters on The Rings of Power are written to purposefully contrast with the context they come from. For the elves, for instance, McCreary rendered the music of Valinor, their homeland across the seas, with an ethereal choral ostinato. But Galadriel, who goes against the elven court’s wishes and continues her search for Sauron, has a theme built around a reaching minor seventh followed by a melody that descends, rises, and falls again. That gives her the sense of being a searcher, and to some audience member’s ears (okay, specifically mine), it might even sound a bit like the theme for the One Ring that Howard Shore wrote for the films, which has a similar turning rise and fall. “Legally, I cannot quote anything from the New Line films,” McCreary said. “But it makes me happy that you said that. Her arc in Rings of Power is about her becoming the presence she is in Fellowship of the Ring, and she is connected to Sauron in that way.” And if you’re on the hunt for Easter eggs within the Rings of Power score, McCreary adds that he did write an overt “ring theme” specifically for the show, and though it doesn’t have its own track on the soundtrack, “you have already heard it, several times.” ....

 

[Isis]

22 hours ago, Zorral said:

A Tour of the Tolkien Lore in the Rings of Power Score

https://www.vulture.com/article/rings-of-power-how-bear-mccreary-wrote-musical-themes.html

Bear McCreary, the composer, speaks to Howard Shore's inflence -- input, we can legitimately say -- to his own scoring. 

One of the most interesting bits is this paragraph:

 

Yes. That's exactly what I mentioned earlier in the thread.

I guess I must have been put on ignore by Zorral for some reason.  

[Zorral]

6 minutes ago, Isis said:

I must have been put on ignore by Zorral fo

You have not been put on ignore!    Sorry!

I just didn't see it, because sometimes I miss things while ignoring some others, so scroll quickly past wherever their handles show up.  Which is most in this thread since even in this one, as with the other one, the comments tend to gleeful pretentious-to-wit and malicious silliness -- there's no point to reading, as lacking  provocation to do so.  

[LynnS]

Looking forward to tonight's episode as well!  Hope to learn more about the Stranger.  It would be fantastic if he turns out to be Glorfindel re-embodied and sent back with some valar-ish type powers.  I really don't want him to turn out to be a villain.

Also the three creepy elves looking for him...  Is it my imagination or did the three wolf-ish type creatures, that attacked the Harfoots, have really weird faces?  Sort of human-like?  I don't think they looked quite like wargs.

[Isis]

On 10/6/2022 at 4:52 PM, Zorral said:

You have not been put on ignore!    Sorry!

I just didn't see it, because sometimes I miss things while ignoring some others, so scroll quickly past wherever their handles show up.  Which is most in this thread since even in this one, as with the other one, the comments tend to gleeful pretentious-to-wit and malicious silliness -- there's no point to reading, as lacking  provocation to do so.  

That's ok. Anyone is free to ignore anyone - I don't have a problem with that, but I had posted the same information earlier as I thought you'd be interested in it. So it's good you have seen it anyway. In light of ep7 it makes sense for both Nori and Durin IV to sound more balanced than the music of their people.

(NB I have put most of the nerdrotic disciples on ignore here and it has vastly improved my experience)

[Zorral]

“The Eye” opens with Galadriel’s eye opening to fire, ash, smoke and destruction. the volcano reflected in it.  In the middle we learn Queen Míriel’s lost her sight.  We conclude (nearly) with Disa and Durin essentially losing their moral sight as they claim the mithril for themselves, as well as Khazad-dûm, after Dwarf King Durin III disinherits Durin IV for disobeying him about the mithril, and locking Elrond out of the dwarf kingdom. The Balrog’s eyes are open to the dwarves, elves and mithril too. But the very end is Adar, seeing through the toxic smoke, to Orodum, claiming the burnt out, destroyed Southlands for himself and the orcs, renaming it, “Mordor.”

Again, our most likeable grouping is the triad of Durin IV, his princess Disa, and the half elf, Elron. These are the three with lives that allow for time that includes long development of friendship, marriage and perspective.  These three share highly developed sense of play, humor and appreciation of good things.

Galadriel shows compassion and more growth into what will become her notable wisdom and long view with Theo, the youngster who cannot find his mother, who feels a weight of guilt, believing the catastrophe of the volcano and tsunami of orcs that overwhelm the Southlands is his fault, that he caused it by giving that sword hilt-key to Wegfel.  She comforts him, she assures him that it isn’t his fault – as later, blind Queen Míriel assures Galadriel it is not her fault either – she protects him, and ultimately has him reunited with his mother Bronwyn and now, his surrogate father, the sylvan elf, Arondir. However, we also wonder, is it wise of her to be taking the Halbrand, the newly recognized king of the Southlands, to Linden so the elves can heal his wounds?

The Harfoots return, in their most interesting and arresting appearance so far in the series. Their scenes include the Big Stranger and the Weirdlings trio.  The Big Stranger does magical  good, before Sadoc sends him off with a star map to where other Big People are who may help him, while the Weirdlings do evil.  Nori, Poppy, their mother and Sadoc soon decide to follow the Big Stranger and help him, because that is what Harfoots do – they help each other out and don’t leave each other alone.  This is where I went, “So what happened to that business of leaving carts behind of the Harfoots that can’t keep up on the wandering trail emphasized in previous episodes?” ?”  However, thanks to Harfoots, we’re pretty sure we’ll be seeing ents, as Sadoc tells us that “trees can talk, at least some of them do.” We saw in the distance an ent when the Big Stranger’s transport from wherever to Middle Earth hit in an arc of fire. I, for one, am hoping we shall finally see entwives, at some point.

Two characters who are believed dead, Celeborn and Isildur, we know from LotR are not dead.  Their fates in the series won’t be revealed probably for some years? .  Happily, we learn Isildur’s bonded horse, Berek, survived and refused to board the ship back to Númenor.  Set free by Elendil, Berek gloriously gallops across the plain, tail flagged, nostrils wide, on the trail presumably of his rider.

Though his father, Durin III, disinherits Durin IV, we also know that it can’t be that long before mithril is mined, since there are weapons and armor made from it that remain in possession of elves in LotR’s Third Age’s ending. Though it ends in horror of the balrog some scenes later, the cavern into which the Tree sent its vast root system that had transformed at the end of the First Age into the magical mithril, was a sight worth seeing.

We have learned of the terrible things that occur at end the Second Age of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings via tales, song, poetry, memories and legendarium.  We never learned of any of it through the memories and accounts of those who were there and who participated in them. In Rings of Power we are receiving this past via those who were there, who suffered and died, who were the remembered heroes of the Light, and we see as they see, the recalled traitors and perpetrators of the Dark. Seeing the initiation of the horrors of the Second Age played out for our eyes, seeing the seeds of horrors that may need not have happened planted throughout this, as well as the previous episodes, adds dimensions to our responses that we couldn’t have only reading of them at the conclusion of Middle Earth’s Third Age, via the memories and descriptions long after, by a few who were there, and those who were not present in the Second Age.

It is important for the story and arcs Rings of Power are showing and telling us, that we be reminded that what we recall from a telescoped view, is now given to us in landscape – and it  often differs in significant ways, while providing compelling stories and characters that we can’t have known from our previous understanding, which enclosed within the halo of heroic history, shows us the events and characters without the nimbus of memory’s glory, including their own moral doubts, inter and intra rivalries, dislike and conflicts. As we know, even well documented, well researched history, leaves out a great deal, often revealed long after the canon histories are written.

It seems from the slagging outcry of many, just as with the more recently unearthed stories and events of, say, slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era, many do not wish the tarnish be brought into the poetry and histories, as well as glow on those halos and nimbi. This disinclination applies at least equally to the language in which ROP is told on screen presently. Though it mirrors that of the language employed by Tolkien in LotR, it is shouted out as ‘bad writing’.  One can’t help but speculate these have either never read LotR, or merely are determined to destroy the progress of RoP for reasons hidden deep within their own hearts.  Others though, probably really don’t like this progenitor of heroic fantasy and its legacies, honestly cannot related to its virtues, which dislike on its own, is perfectly legitimate.

Nevertheless there are watchers who do like these fractal changes in Rings of Power’s Second Age, from the original LotR’s Third Age perspectives of it. Some even find it more interesting, while it remains much the ‘feel’ of Tolkien, that it is at home within These Times in which we are viewing this legendary universe.

[Spockydog]

So I'm pretty sure Meteor Man is Sauron.

This is based on:

1. He first appeared, streaking across the sky, shortly after young Theo activated Sauron's hilt thingy.

2. The fire in his crater was cool to the touch - a nod to Galadriel's comment twenty minutes earlier about flames not giving off any warmth in the presence of Big Evil.

3. That funky elvish-looking trio who torched the Harfoot camp are searching for him, presumably to aid and assist. And these guys are clearly evil, right? Because if Meteor Man has been sent to Middle Earth to battle evil, it doesn't make sense that these weirdos would be hunting him.

 

[Caligula_K3]

52 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

 

3. That funky elvish-looking trio who torched the Harfoot camp are searching for him, presumably to aid and assist. And these guys are clearly evil, right? Because if Meteor Man has been sent to Middle Earth to battle evil, it doesn't make sense that these weirdos would be hunting him.

 

Couldn't they be hunting him to capture or kill him on behalf of Sauron?