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[SPOILERS] Rings of Power: Ah, Mithril, that's the good stuff!


Corvinus85

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13 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

So did the show make Elrond’s father a human, or do elves need to earn their immortality? I’m referring to what Celebrimbor said about Elrond’s father being mortal.

There is good canonical basis for thinking Earendil was mortal prior to his choice.

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I guess the thing with mithril is that they can’t give elven people mithril infusions, but the point of the creation of the rings of power is to bind this silmaril essence from mithril, and thus preventing the elves from fading by infusing the reality with this mithrilness, which will make middle earth valinorish.

If the showrunners are more clever than I credit them to be, the black rot that GilGalad sees in the tree is an effect created by Sauron in order to make the elven leadership panic and jump into the ring project without thinking it through. Galadriel will the be the only one who asks questions and sees through it (but nobody but possible Elrond will believe her).

And I still say that the stranger is Tilion (but unnamed for copyright reasons), and the origin of the song Frodo sang at the Prancing Pony. See him and the moon while the harfoot girl sang. And ice magic seems to fit with a cold moon to.

And if he’s not Tilion, he is probably Saruman, but through a misunderstanding still the origin of the man in the moon story of hobbit lore. (And the man in the moon in Roverandom is quite Sarumanish, but kind of a good Saruman. Like Artaxerxes was an evil Gandalf).

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Maybe they're going to turn Lindon into a spa resort where if you're an Elf in the club of the right bloodlines you get to hang out and bathe in a jacuzzi where mithril are like bath salts, but I don't think so.

Maybe it was a leap of mine trying to connect the dots and I wasn't paying attention enough, but I don't understand why people think Gilgalad and Celebrimbor are seeking mithril to infuse the light of the simarils into every Elf.   I was pretty sure watching it they just wanted mithril to heal the tree.  When Celebrimbor said he tested it, I believe healing the tree was what he meant.

Speaking of that tree, was it meant to be the same tree that Glorfindal fought the Balrog way back in the First Age in Gondolin?  Because if so how did it teleport to Lindon?

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2 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

There is good canonical basis for thinking Earendil was mortal prior to his choice.

Mortal yes, human no. And mortal only in the sense that the soul is going to pass on one day, like it was with Elros. And since those providential unions were, well, providential, something Eru wanted to happen, it stands to reason that he would have allowed them to live as long as they had to live for their destiny to be fulfilled.

And the backstory nonsense of him being apparently some, well, human dude who felt like it was his duty to do this is ... not exactly what happened there at all.

Eärendil isn't just some dude, he is the most semi-divine figure in all those stories. And in the end he and Elwing both are no longer Elves or Men but something else since they quite literally live in the sky.

I really enjoyed the Proto-Hobbit song and the walking-map montage. Created some Tolkienesque feelings. But then I realized how I may have wept with joy seeing Galadriel, Celeborn, and Celebrimbor singing and leading a procession to found Ost-in-Edhil ... if that had been adapted in a way that would really channel the feeling of the source material.

Regardless of my Tolkien criticism over the years ... this stuff is very close to my heart, especially the era they bumble through there.

I was actually kind of thankful that Pharazôn (why didn't they keep the regal name thing there, by the way? To dumb things down?) was confirmed to be Miriel's cousin. I was starting to wonder whether he was of the House of Elros at all. I sure as hell hope they keep not just the usurpation but also the forced marriage and all that implies - and don't fly with Miriel dying a heroic death in Middle-earth or a martyr's death in Númenor. Also pretty good to see that the guy has a plan.

I'm also realizing how pretty close to the source material some of this stuff could have been if they hadn't dragged Elendil and Isildur into the mix. Just put it into the proper timeframe, include, you know, the ruling queen of the era, Tar-Telperien, and her nephew and eventual successor, Minastir, and create an interesting conflict from that dynamic.

And then eventually jump ahead to the Akallabêth storyline and use the established characters for that conflict.

They cannot possibly depict Númenor's transformation from a pretty decent, isolated society to a colonialist empire to a bunch of Satanists in the thrall of Sauron. That is too much. What could have worked very well would have been to depict a pretty great human society, going to Middle-earth with the best intentions at heart ... only to then jump ahead and depict their descendants as the British Empire at its worst.

The mithril plot feels like utter nonsense ripped off from World of Warcraft (the Blood Elves there have this addicition to magic and get considerable problems without it). Why did they have to play up that shit so much? Just go with the tragedy of natural Elvish decline in the fallen world, and have mithril be a substance Celebrimbor would like to work with to halt that ... rather than turn the Elves into, well, would-be light vampires.

I also must say that the general spin on the story seems to be about badly written character arcs and not, you know, (the) themes (of the source material). There are two big themes there in this setting - temptation and the resistance to temptation, hubris, the fall to temptation (from the outside and the inside), and the fight against evil.

That's the Second Age in a nutshell. So far nothing of that is to be seen. The personal journeys of most of the characters are not really interesting aside from those who are going to end up at very different places (Elendil, Isildur, Pharazôn in a sense).

I'm still flabbergasted that Annatar just doesn't want to show up. The guy could have been at the heart of the story - he, not Sauron. And he could have made gifts and done (seemingly) good things long before they start to forge the Rings of Power.

If they honestly have the Aragorn lookalike as Sauron I will likely lose my mind. Why would Sauron in this disguise kill random Númenóreans? Why would he pretend to be some mortal king in exile? Why would he steal some guild sign? That just doesn't make any sense at all. Sauron in disguise would actually try to influence people to do what he wants them to do ... he would not appear to be conflicted all the time - especially not about his role as a mortal king (which really channels the silly depiction of PJ Aragorn).

But then - Sauron would likely also not incarnate in the not exactly seductive form of Star Guy, nor would he forget who he was since he was never actually cast out of Arda or did lose his body permanently - and even the latter happened, Sauron did remember who the hell he was after he went down with Númenor and after Elendil and Gil-galad killed him.

Shady Elves really start to annoy me. Gil-galad should not appear a more unsympathetic character than Celebrimbor. The latter is the guy who is really tempted and in his hubris believes he can go through with his project ... the former just isn't. If the show flies with the 'Elves need Silmaril light to live' plot then there will likely be no viable alternative to the creation of the Rings of Power, meaning Celebrimbor won't actually fall prey to stuff Annatar tells or sells to him ... but rather there will be no other choice unless they all agree that disappearing or dying in a couple of years will be the right thing to do.

The Númenórean issue with the Elves is also not really properly elaborated so far. Elves as job-thieves was a silly notion, and Pharazôn seems to be pretty secure in his job, anyway. So what's his deal? Or the general deal. They clearly had no contact with them for ages, and don't seem to envy them their immortality at all.

Hell, they didn't even established the long lives of the Númenóreans so far, and also not really their superior technology or fighting skills. Sure enough, we do buy they can butcher some Orcs, but that's not all they were good for.

6 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Speaking of that tree, was it meant to be the same tree that Glorfindal fought the Balrog way back in the First Age in Gondolin?  Because if so how did it teleport to Lindon?

Glorfindel and the Balrog fought atop a rock and died falling into a chasm. There was no tree in the vicinity that Tolkien was aware of.

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Having read the spoilers:

Spoiler

I'd really hate it if the Adar character was Finrod. Him being one of the first Orcs would fit with the fact that the others revere him and call him father. If the Aragorn lookalike truly is Sauron then, well, this show won't make any sense to me. That's just complete silliness. In that role he could never actually advise the Elven-smith on Rings business and so on. And if he were to suddenly say: 'Fooled you! I'm actually some kind of very powerful belevolent Maia sent to you by the Valar for reasons ... then, well, not only Galadriel would have justified questions about why the hell he posed as some mortal king in exile...

 

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3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Shady Elves really start to annoy me. Gil-galad should not appear a more unsympathetic character than Celebrimbor.

Well, Elves in this show appear to me as wholly human, just with added pointy ears. They do seem impoverished, the poor bastards, only having one set of clothes each, so I suppose some allowances need to be made.

And when it comes to Gil-galad, I just don't know what to say. We have junior supervisors at my firm with more gravitas than he has. Though that goes for most Amazon Elves.

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2 minutes ago, Scott_N said:

Well, Elves in this show appear to me as wholly human, just with added pointy ears. They do seem impoverished, the poor bastards, only having one set of clothes each, so I suppose some allowances need to be made.

Yes, the worst part is that they look somewhat shabby, comely even, and old. Celebrimbor especially - the actor is good, but he looks far to old.

At times they look more like Vulcans than Elves. And funnily enough, once I actually looked for pointy ears on Matt Smith in HotD thanks to the wigs there -

2 minutes ago, Scott_N said:

And when it comes to Gil-galad, I just don't know what to say. We have junior supervisors at my firm with more gravitas than he has. Though that goes for most Amazon Elves.

Gil-galad is really a paragon of virtue. The last light of the Eldar, a great tragic hero about who Sam even gets to mumble a couple of verses in the book.

Celebrimbor is the guy with a potentially shady agenda, and there could be room for other misguided Elves, to be sure. But making Gil-galad look bad so Elrond and Galadriel could look is just cheap.

And, yes, the actor doesn't really do a great job.

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8 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Thanks! Halbrand being Sauron is such a dumb decision. I think that the actor will pull it off well, but that doesn’t explain why he wanted to stay in Numenor, saved Galadriel from drowning (maybe he wanted to recruit her, but then that doesn’t explain why he wanted to stay behind while she went on to Middle Earth), or pretty much any of his other actions. It seems like they wanted to shock the audience so much that they made the twist nonsensical.

His interest (or whatever it is) in Númenor is something Sauron would actually not have. Back at that time his goal was to seduce and dominate the Elves - who were the most powerful race in Middle-earth. And Middle-earth is what he wanted to rule, anyway, it was his kingdom, the reason why he called himself 'Lord of the Earth' and not 'Lord of Starfish Island'.

Númenor only enters into his plan as a distraction, a nuisance, and eventually a rival more powerful than his own empire. That's why they have to go.

Him trying to mess with them this early just makes little sense. Not that his disguise as this guy makes any sense at all.

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10 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

His interest (or whatever it is) in Númenor is something Sauron would actually not have. Back at that time his goal was to seduce and dominate the Elves - who were the most powerful race in Middle-earth. And Middle-earth is what he wanted to rule, anyway, it was his kingdom, the reason why he called himself 'Lord of the Earth' and not 'Lord of Starfish Island'.

Númenor only enters into his plan as a distraction, a nuisance, and eventually a rival more powerful than his own empire. That's why they have to go.

Him trying to mess with them this early just makes little sense. Not that his disguise as this guy makes any sense at all.

Yeah, why would Sauron pose as a long-lost king? That just draws attention to him.

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Sauron is probably aware of the fact that the elves are doomed to die if they stay. So he wanted to dominate the next best race, hence Numenor. After learning the discovery of mithril and the elvish plans to forge the rings, he will reconsider.

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I can’t even tell if a plot is dumb or not any more on this show, I’m mostly so completely unengaged when watching it, that it barely registers if Mithril suddenly becomes a Macguffin for the elves survival. I can barely understand what anyone is trying to do in any of the other plots because I’m too bored by any of it to really concentrate.
 

This is the epitome of a ‘looking at my phone’ tv show, when it really shouldn’t be. 

I did work out this week that what is really irritating me about this show is how artificial and staged everything feels. After watching Andor and buying into that world in seconds I understood what’s bothering me about RoP. 
 

I cannot lose myself in this experience because it all feels like a production of a tv show , it doesn’t even attempt to create something believable. For instance

- the CGI is epic but it’s too epic and obviously cgi. Everything that’s not a sweeping CGI landscape is a medium or close shot that locks the viewer into a narrow point of view and makes everything feel small and claustrophobic.

- The costumes are cheap looking, don’t look lived in or real, they look like Star Trek outfits made for tv rather than something people would actually wear. Those Numenor ‘soldiers’ outfits just were awful. That whole scene of Galadriel training them was awful. 

- Most of the extras and even main characters just look and act like drama school students. They are all so clean, with modern haircuts and looks, so pretty and young. Nobody looks like they inhabit this world, they look like actors. I can’t buy that any of them are who they say they are because they don’t look the part. That’s not even talking about old looking elves with bad hair.

- All the sets.. look like obvious sets. The watchtower set is an embarrassment for instance. I can see the joins! 

Everything about this show just have a layer of artificiality about it. 
 

 

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Seeing clips in isolation of Galadriel fighting, including this latest training scene, gives me a very upscale Xena vibe. Bear McCreary's scoring, right? The music was fun and humorous in the training scene.

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I didn't know there were leaks - and still don't care about reading them - but gotta say I've always tended to think Halbrand as Sauron is a red herring.  It's just so obvious.  Frankly, that was the only thing I liked about episode 5 - it made me think NONE of the characters we've met are Sauron.  Which..actually would be pretty cool.

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