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

[ASOIAFrelatedusername]

So rewatching the last seconds: Pretty much all of the main characters currently in the Southlands should either be dead or at least horribly injured. Who wants to take bets on whether or not the showrunners have them more or less fine next time we see them?

Well actually looking at the preview for episode 7: Galadriel is fine even though the village arround here is completely destroyed and on fire. How dumb do these hacks think the viewers are?

[Darryk]

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Huh, you would think that would have come up by now. I guess Elrond hasn’t really been involved with Numenor yet, but that’s a pretty big elephant in the room.

When has Amazon shown the slightest interest in the lore? Galadriel is supposed to have a husband.

[The Bard of Banefort]

I’m just trying to figure out if Elrond is currently the last of the half-elves (at least until he has his own children).  It’s just so funny since he’s the anti-human elf in LOTR.

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

So rewatching the last seconds: Pretty much all of the main characters currently in the Southlands should either be dead or at least horribly injured. Who wants to take bets on whether or not the showrunners have them more or less fine next time we see them?

Well actually looking at the preview for episode 7: Galadriel is fine even though the village arround here is completely destroyed and on fire. How dumb do these hacks think the viewers are?

Tempest inside Galadriel > Mount Doom

[Caligula_K3]

3 hours ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

So rewatching the last seconds: Pretty much all of the main characters currently in the Southlands should either be dead or at least horribly injured. Who wants to take bets on whether or not the showrunners have them more or less fine next time we see them?

Well actually looking at the preview for episode 7: Galadriel is fine even though the village arround here is completely destroyed and on fire. How dumb do these hacks think the viewers are?

Were you this upset that Frodo and Sam (not to mention Eagles) weren't incinerated by Mount Doom? Tolkien, what a hack!

[karaddin]

Yeah I just want to be clear that while I had some criticisms of this last episode, I'm not in the blindly hating it camp. I'm still watching it with the intention of enjoying it, and my objections to the existence of the sword key mechanism don't mean I can't enjoy the spectacle of the eruption. And I'm definitely not going to be surprised or bothered by Galadriel not being harmed by it, even the regular humans can just be wrapped up in suspension of disbelief for watching a fantasy show.

Mt Doom is a magic volcano as far as I'm concerned so I'm also not bothered by whether the water would actually trigger an eruption. I probably also could have lived with Arondir trying to throw the sword into it and having Walgren do a gollum though. We might need to stay our hand out of pity but that volcano doesn't have to.

 

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I’m just trying to figure out if Elrond is currently the last of the half-elves (at least until he has his own children).  It’s just so funny since he’s the anti-human elf in LOTR.

That was one of the most ridiculous aspects of the Jackson movies. I wanted to throw something at the screen when Elrond was going on about the weakness of Men. That movie just completely ruined Elrond's backstory and character, and that just for the cheap and quite inaccurate plot device of having increased friction and fake tensions between Elves and Men.

The entire Arwen plot is also completely botched in those movies, although Tolkien made that one pretty weird, too. Elrond refuses to grant Arwen's hand to Aragorn unless he becomes the King of Arnor and Gondor. That is why they haven't married yet (and also because of the whole 'Sauron might win' thing). Arwen's immortality is connected to the choice of her father, so when Elrond decides to sail West after the war is over she would have to go, too, or eventually die like a mortal.

This is also kind of botched in Tolkien's writings, to be sure, since Elrond's twin sons Elladan and Elrohir also don't accompany Elrond - they just postpone their decision. So technically Arwen should have been able to do this as well - and it is indeed implicated that she could have sailed West still after Aragorn's death since she was still who she always were ... but the grief and the feeling of loss was too much. Elros also didn't die of old age but rather of his own free will (like many of the succeeding Kings of Númenor with Aragorn being the last one to give up his life of his own free will) because his spirit, unlike that of an Elf, wanted to move on. Tolkien is very clear on the matter that Elrond and Elros had the same strength of body and the same spiritual potential - but one wanted to live the mortal lands and the other didn't.

In that sense, one has to assume that there were effectively three Half-Elven generations granted the right of choice - Eärendil and Elwing, Elrond and Elros, and their respective children. Elros' children apparently never regretted their father's choice, never decided they wanted to return to Middle-earth to live there as Elves or sail to Eressea or Valinor to live among their kin there.

But Elrond's children still have that choice thousands of years later.

[Mithras]

I don't see why people are bothered with the collapse of the dam. It is no different than the magic gates of the dwarves that we see in Hobbit and LotR, except being on a grander scale because Sauron's skill >> dwarves.

[Scott_N]

14 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Slim Shady refers to that guy in white who looks like Eminem. He hasn’t done much yet but he caused quite a buzz when he appeared in the trailers.

Not a guy though. Or the actor isn't at least. 'The Dweller' is played by actress Bridie Sisson.

[Scott_N]

15 hours ago, Isis said:

At this point it is just so boringly predictable that people who have decided in advance to hate the show seem to find plenty of spare time not only to tune in on time every week but to repeatedly (multiple times per week) argue about it on the internet. It is ridiculous. 

What is ridiculous is you constantly repeating this even though I'm sure you know it's not true. Plenty of people have turned against the show because they think it's a poor one.

I resent this implication that the only people who could possibly dislike RoP do so due to nefarious, ulterior motives.

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

My review of episode 6.

I view it broadly positively. Silliness of Ostirith and Orodruin an issue, and while Galadriel versus Adar was great thematically, it is not so great at the character level for Galadriel.

[ASOIAFrelatedusername]

6 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Were you this upset that Frodo and Sam (not to mention Eagles) weren't incinerated by Mount Doom? Tolkien, what a hack!

Tolkien never had them directly get hit by a cloud of hot smoke and ash. There was no need for that.

[Raja]

10 hours ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

So rewatching the last seconds: Pretty much all of the main characters currently in the Southlands should either be dead or at least horribly injured. 

I'm all for people having their takes on this show, but your posts really come across as someone who has completely erased from your mind all sorts of similar stuff & situations that happened in the Jackson movies.

[ASOIAFrelatedusername]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

I'm all for people having their takes on this show, but your posts really come across as someone who has completely erased from your mind all sorts of similar stuff & situations that happened in the Jackson movies.

Are you a mind reader? If so you are a pretty bad one.

Or were you just guessing my opinions on the Jackson movies even though my comments had nothing to do with them?

[Veltigar]

This was absolutely embarrassing on pretty much all levels. It seems like every episode, they do their best to move closer to PJ's Hobbit trilogy and it's just so terribly stupid. I'm not gong to list all the dumb contrivances this writing room throws at us, but I will harp on about the fact that this series has no sense of scale or geography whatsoever. 

I was enjoying it in the beginning in that sort of BBC The Adventures of Merlin or Dr. Who kind of way. It's quickly wasting its potential however and given the budget that these people get to work with, it almost beggars belief. 

I also have some serious questions about most of the acting and other creative aspects of the show (like the fight choreography and the Numénorean armor that seems almost as bad as the ball sack armor from The Witcher), but it all flows down from the writing.

You can't blame the actress for Galadriel-Hitler, no one could make that purple dialogue work imo. And if these writers decide to waste budget on a sequence of water flowing in a volcano and causing an eruption (like WTF? Even the professor in the article linked up thread seems to find it implausible), instead of cutting out the middleman and just have the volcano erupt through magic than can you blame the other creative departments for having to take shortcuts elsewhere?

This is now actively discouraging me from rereading The Silmarillion. It has been many years for me, so I don't remember much, but if I read it and fully realize how much potential is being wasted I would probably go bonkers. 

[Farerb]

So the "Southlands" are basically one village with three hovels?

[Isis]

7 hours ago, Scott_N said:

What is ridiculous is you constantly repeating this even though I'm sure you know it's not true. Plenty of people have turned against the show because they think it's a poor one.

I resent this implication that the only people who could possibly dislike RoP do so due to nefarious, ulterior motives.

 

Cool. That's not what I said though. Genuine critiques are fine. I read some of that here and I have no problem with them. I don't find it necessary to argue with everyone who dislikes the show (for reasons they can explain in a coherent, non-foaming at the mouth fashion) or to refute their reasonings.

What I do have an issue with is those who rage against the show for ideological reasons (whether they are aware that that is what they are doing or not) and the fact that we STILL have to see them here gleefully spewing hate-by-numbers every week like clockwork. But I'm grateful for the ignore button. 

7 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

My review of episode 6.

I view it broadly positively. Silliness of Ostirith and Orodruin an issue, and while Galadriel versus Adar was great thematically, it is not so great at the character level for Galadriel.

The whole 'do orcs have free will' discussion is really interesting (as Tolkien never truly made his mind up about it) and I say hats off to the show for putting that on screen and for putting Galadriel on the 'wrong' side of the debate. 

2 hours ago, Veltigar said:

This is now actively discouraging me from rereading The Silmarillion. It has been many years for me, so I don't remember much, but if I read it and fully realize how much potential is being wasted I would probably go bonkers. 

A bold claim! The show does not have the rights to The Sil, so it's not like we were ever going to see Feanor, Beren and Luthien, Turin, Glaurung etc etc., in this series, so you should be fine.

[Arakan]

19 minutes ago, Isis said:

What I do have an issue with is those who rage against the show for ideological reasons (whether they are aware that that is what they are doing or not) and the fact that we STILL have to see them here gleefully spewing hate-by-numbers every week like clockwork. But I'm grateful for the ignore button. 

Maybe you should stop fighting windmills then because no one here is doing what you are accusing people of. 
The thing is actually quite simple: expectations define the relativity of judgements and evaluation. I don’t expect my Sunday league footballer mate to win the champions league, his performances will be naturally judged on a different metric compared to Lionel Messi. 
 

This show on its own is „ok“, no worse than say The Witcher, and better than Xenia or Hercules. But neither of these shows had even close to the ressources what RoP has, and that’s not even taking into account that Tolkien‘s creation is one of the most iconic and valuable IPs in the entertainment world out there. 

The narrative is at best generic and resembles „cheap TV SFF“, the writing is - given the Ressources - extremely subpar. The acting is (with few exceptions) not even close to prime quality. 

I was watching Vikings, The Witcher, See, Foundation, The Mandalorian in SFF TV and all of these shows have more engaging characters than RoP. 

Vikings Charakters like Björn Ironside, Ragnar, Ivar the Boneless, Gudrun, Lagerta, etc would eat the RoP cast as midnight snack. That show even had a legend like Gabriel Byrne in its first season. Compared to that RoP is not only not the same ballpark, it’s not even the same game. 

[Calibandar]

 

On 10/1/2022 at 5:18 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

So, what are the theories for who not-Slim Shady is?

These 3 characters are said to be from the Far East and one of them wears a necklacer with the Eye of Sauron on it.

Seems to be Priests of Sauron. The interesting thing is that they are tracking the Stranger, rather than Sauron. TBD as to why that is exactly.

23 hours ago, LynnS said:

Wow! Last nights episode just got really interesting!

Meteor Man is a balrog?  Schmalrog!

Arondir mentions that one of the valar is responsible for the care of all living things.  So I think Meteor Man was sent as a response to Sauron's return and the poisoning of the land as Gil-galad sees with the veins of the leaf turning black.  He is not the cause of it methinks.

He doesn't know who he is just yet or what his powers are or how to control them.  But he has power over all the elements:  earth (levitates rocks); water (turns it to ice); fire (makes it burn brighter); air (knocks down a pack of wargs).  Plus he can bend trees..

He is a creation of the "blessed fire" from the Eye of Illuvatar.  The meteor crater looks something like Sauron's eye but Sauron's fiery eye is a perversion of the blessed fire of creation.  The fire in the crater does not harm a living thing and so Nori is not burned.  https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Valar

It would be very appropriate if the Valar responsible for the care of growing things teams up withe progenitors of the Hobbits, since they have a great care for growing things.

So I wonder if Meteor Man will be responsible for transitioning the Harfoots from a nomadic lifestyle to a pastoral lifestyle - so nobody is left behind.

And I wonder if he will be responsible for the destruction of Numenor since we don't know the extent of his powers just yet.

So I don't know who Slim Shady refers to:  Lord/King Halbrand aka Sauron?

 

Its interesting that he could be sent by Yavanna specifically, but of course can also be sent by the Valar in general.

He does control the elements but of course we have yet to see if that is specifically because he has control over elements or because he is an Istar and has more abilities than that.

The meteor crater looking like the Eye of Sauron was a red herring it seems because as with Halbrand, they are doing everything they can to mislead the audience and keep the identity a secret.

23 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I took a look at Elrond’s family tree and woof, does my head hurt. Is this how other people feel when they look at the Targaryen family tree?

So Elendil descends from Elrond’s brother, but it’s been so long that there’s no longer any elf in him? Is Elrond the only half-elf left?

Yes he is. Elrond Peredhel is how he is known, means half elven. His brother Elros is the first King of Numenor and lived about 400 years. After him the Elvish line in the Kings of Numenor became naturally more diluted by breeding and the lifespan of the Kings, though still very long compared to normal Middle Earth men, got increasingly shorter.

 

[The Bard of Banefort]

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That was one of the most ridiculous aspects of the Jackson movies. I wanted to throw something at the screen when Elrond was going on about the weakness of Men. That movie just completely ruined Elrond's backstory and character, and that just for the cheap and quite inaccurate plot device of having increased friction and fake tensions between Elves and Men.

The entire Arwen plot is also completely botched in those movies, although Tolkien made that one pretty weird, too. Elrond refuses to grant Arwen's hand to Aragorn unless he becomes the King of Arnor and Gondor. That is why they haven't married yet (and also because of the whole 'Sauron might win' thing). Arwen's immortality is connected to the choice of her father, so when Elrond decides to sail West after the war is over she would have to go, too, or eventually die like a mortal.

This is also kind of botched in Tolkien's writings, to be sure, since Elrond's twin sons Elladan and Elrohir also don't accompany Elrond - they just postpone their decision. So technically Arwen should have been able to do this as well - and it is indeed implicated that she could have sailed West still after Aragorn's death since she was still who she always were ... but the grief and the feeling of loss was too much. Elros also didn't die of old age but rather of his own free will (like many of the succeeding Kings of Númenor with Aragorn being the last one to give up his life of his own free will) because his spirit, unlike that of an Elf, wanted to move on. Tolkien is very clear on the matter that Elrond and Elros had the same strength of body and the same spiritual potential - but one wanted to live the mortal lands and the other didn't.

In that sense, one has to assume that there were effectively three Half-Elven generations granted the right of choice - Eärendil and Elwing, Elrond and Elros, and their respective children. Elros' children apparently never regretted their father's choice, never decided they wanted to return to Middle-earth to live there as Elves or sail to Eressea or Valinor to live among their kin there.

But Elrond's children still have that choice thousands of years later.

In the movie Elrond stays behind with Arwen though, doesn’t he? Maybe I’ve just forgotten, but I think she was an only child in the movies too.

I think her choosing mortality would be so that she and Aragorn could grow old together and not end up like Viserys and Alicent