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


Corvinus85

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32 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

I thought it more that the Dance of the Dragons was deliberately written as a foil to ASOIAF.  The latter has foils within it already, notably Theon being a foil of Jon.  The Dance is a foil for a situation, which in the main hasn't happened yet:  fAegon, Dany, and maybe others, re-enacting the Targaryen civil war, to show a different way things could turn out.  This is more than archetypes.   It's not meant to turn out the same way.

GRRM clearly loves the notion that “history is a wheel,” and uses it to foreshadow what will happen in the main series. By I wasn’t really referring to how the books were written so much as to how the material was adapted for the screen.

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1 hour ago, RumHam said:

Is it fair to call this a mystery box though? I don't recall the show posing the question "which established character is Sauron?" This feels more like viewers trying to head off a more traditional plot twist.

 

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Yeah, nothing in the show to date is saying to viewers 'Sauron is in disguise at this point' let alone 'which of these established characters is secretly Sauron?'

 

51 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

That's a good point. The mystery box aspect technically is only for the book readers. 

I will say that friends of mine who don't read fantasy have said they find the show entertaining, and not unlike the Witcher but better shot. 

I don't quite believe that was Amazon's goal, but the show is far from a failure. Nor is it only for us readers, so it's worth keeping that in mind.

But like with WoT, the show is quickly reaching the point where it's going to stop working for me. My quest for a good fantasy adaptation shall continue, I suppose.

 

 

Every single one of the trailers has someone going "Sauron" in a breathy voice at the end while a gauntleted hand walks past some people. 

It's not literally the deep voiced man on ABC saying "What's in the hatch???

But it's near

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6 minutes ago, Firebrand Jace said:

 

 

Every single one of the trailers has someone going "Sauron" in a breathy voice at the end while a gauntleted hand walks past some people. 

It's not literally the deep voiced man on ABC saying "What's in the hatch???

But it's near

I haven't seen the trailer, but doesn't that just suggest that Sauron will eventually show up and walk past some people wearing a gauntlet? 

I'm not saying there won't be a twist, or even that none of these people will turn out to be Sauron. I just think a mystery box is something more like the hatch on lost. A murder mystery where you're trying to figure out who the killer is is not a mystery box, in my understanding. 

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11 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I haven't seen the trailer, but doesn't that just suggest that Sauron will eventually show up and walk past some people wearing a gauntlet? 

I'm not saying there won't be a twist, or even that none of these people will turn out to be Sauron. I just think a mystery box is something more like the hatch on lost. A murder mystery where you're trying to figure out who the killer is is not a mystery box, in my understanding. 

Yo I watch Thursday night football. Every. Single. Time. They come back from commercial you get this little spot about Sauron.

Now I ain't watching the show, but coupled with all the talk y'all're'll having I'm certifying this a mystery box. Because of course it is. C'mon dawg. 

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13 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I haven't seen the trailer, but doesn't that just suggest that Sauron will eventually show up and walk past some people wearing a gauntlet? 

I'm not saying there won't be a twist, or even that none of these people will turn out to be Sauron. I just think a mystery box is something more like the hatch on lost. A murder mystery where you're trying to figure out who the killer is is not a mystery box, in my understanding. 

Adar is the black gauntlet guy. 

I never watched Lost so don't know any references.

It's true that the show didn't establish a who is Sauron mystery, but it did establish a where is Sauron and what is he up to narrative, plus it gave us the mystery of The Stranger and briefly the mystery of the orc machinations. 

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1 hour ago, Firebrand Jace said:

Yo I watch Thursday night football. Every. Single. Time. They come back from commercial you get this little spot about Sauron.

Now I ain't watching the show, but coupled with all the talk y'all're'll having I'm certifying this a mystery box. Because of course it is. C'mon dawg. 

Right, because Sauron is the big bad guy, that's not exactly a secret. "Sauron is coming" is not a mystery, let alone a mystery box. Like I said above even a show going "which one of the characters is the bad guy?" isn't really a mystery box. It's just a mystery. This show isn't even really doing that. It's more "when/how will Sauron show up?" 

It's pretty ridiculous that you haven't watched any of the show and are arguing with someone who has about what it is based on a commercial. 

The Stranger you could argue is an example of mystery box storytelling, because he's this wtf? thing that hopefully gets your imagination going and hooks you into the story. That Sauron has not yet appeared on screen even though we know he's going to is not a mystery box. 

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I arguing that Mystery Box format extends to marketing (because it's a marketing gimmick first and foremost) and every time I wanna watch football on Thursdays I have to see eleventy-five of these things. It's a mystery box. 

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11 minutes ago, Firebrand Jace said:

I arguing that Mystery Box format extends to marketing (because it's a marketing gimmick first and foremost) and every time I wanna watch football on Thursdays I have to see eleventy-five of these things. It's a mystery box. 

No, it's a storytelling gimmick first and foremost. Abrams is not a marketing guy. Even if mystery is used to market the show, that doesn't effect what show itself is. Lots of movies and shows are have misleading ads and trailers.  Also could you link the ad in question by any chance? I'm curious to see it now.

I think we're just using different definitions of the phrase mystery box. It's hard for me to define without using examples. But I get the impression you think any mystery is a "mystery box" and that can't be right. 

 

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18 minutes ago, RumHam said:

No, it's a storytelling gimmick first and foremost. Abrams is not a marketing guy. Even if mystery is used to market the show, that doesn't effect what show itself is. Lots of movies and shows are have misleading ads and trailers.  Also could you link the ad in question by any chance? I'm curious to see it now.

I think we're just using different definitions of the phrase mystery box. It's hard for me to define without using examples. But I get the impression you think any mystery is a "mystery box" and that can't be right. 

 

:rofl:

Yo, Abrams is not a storyteller so if he ain't a marketeer I don't know what his relation to film is. 

Mystery Box garbage is not a storytelling gimmick, because there is no story. There is only the mystery to entrap viewers. A mystery that is always plastered everywhere on the marketing material.

Hence, mystery boxes being a marketing gimmick.

 

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Mystery Box: defined as whatever it needs to be to support a posters claim.

Preview of the next post: a brand new spin on the concept of a mystery box. But from whom? What will this mysterious poster say about mystery boxes? Open this box... Oops, watch this thread next week to find out! Only on Westeros.org!

Brought to you by: nerdy book readers who love to theorize and shit. 

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5 hours ago, RumHam said:

Is it fair to call this a mystery box though? I don't recall the show posing the question "which established character is Sauron?" This feels more like viewers trying to head off a more traditional plot twist.

I was going to mention this too. I honestly don't get that "who is Sauron" mystery from the show itself. Halbrand is mysterious, yes, but why should that mean he's Sauron? If I wasn't online, I wouldn't even be thinking about this mystery.

Until... episode 6. Only here did I get a sense of it. But at this point I don't know if it's because I was already predisposed to make that connection from what I've read online.

(Probably should mention I'm not a book reader; maybe that's the difference)

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4 minutes ago, Lady Anna said:

(Probably should mention I'm not a book reader; maybe that's the difference)

Yeah me neither. Though I knew enough to expect that Sauron has to appear to forge the titular rings. Had it not been for this forum I never would have suspected the southern king guy. 

If he's anyone I kind of like the theory that Adar literally split him in two and he's two people now. 

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8 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Yeah me neither. Though I knew enough to expect that Sauron has to appear to forge the titular rings. Had it not been for this forum I never would have suspected the southern king guy.

Yeah. Also because it was only recently that I found out that Sauron had another appearance than the one we see in the LOTR movies and that he's a shapeshifter. So Halbrand wouldn't really be my guess as being Sauron on that alone :D

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For what it's worth, in my circle of Rings watchers, only those who know the lore of The Second Age are really into the "who is Sauron" guessing game. Otherwise, everyone just assumed it was Adar until it became clear he wasn't. So if a large number of viewers don't even know it's a mystery (but just assume Sauron will show up sooner or later), that definitely ain't a mystery box.

But for this knower of some second age lore... I'm 100% on board the Halbrand train. It's only a matter of time until Galadriel finds out and has to deliver a Chuck McGill style rant to the rest of the elves.

"You think these rings are something, you think this is bad, this chicanery? He's done worse. That mountain! Are you telling me a volcano just happens to go off like that? No! He orchestrated it! Halbrand! He defecated in a Numenorian guildhouse!" Etc...

 

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One criticism of this show that I agree with is that, except for Galadriel, there’s been very little progression. The Harfoots found Meteor Man, taught him a few words, and are now walking somewhere. Elrond goes back and forth between talking to elves and talking to dwarves. Durin talks to Elrond and mines off-screen. I guess Arondir and Bronwyn have had some progression with trying to rouse the village against the orcs, but even that’s been pretty monotonous (it’s my least favorite subplot). They’ve devoted so much time to Galadriel monologuing that there hasn’t been room for much else.

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13 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

One criticism of this show that I agree with is that, except for Galadriel, there’s been very little progression. The Harfoots found Meteor Man, taught him a few words, and are now walking somewhere. Elrond goes back and forth between talking to elves and talking to dwarves. Durin talks to Elrond and mines off-screen. I guess Arondir and Bronwyn have had some progression with trying to rouse the village against the orcs, but even that’s been pretty monotonous (it’s my least favorite subplot). They’ve devoted so much time to Galadriel monologuing that there hasn’t been room for much else.

I was really surprised by this when I caught up, there was so little actual plot movement. Though part of that may have been me comparing it to Hot D where like 20 years have passed in the same amount of episodes. 

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Disa is Sauron.

In this week's Who is Sauron contest, The Stranger is eliminated. And really Slim Shady for all the fiery magic is likely out, too. I will from now on refer to those three sorcerers/cultists as the 3 Magi. By all rights Halbrand should be eliminated, too, but he can't be, and by default, he wins.

90% of the people in the village survived a volcano blast and its hot ash. The people of Pompeii and Herculaneum were a bunch of panzies. 

Why is this episode called "The Eye"? 

A bit of pointless drama with faking out Isildur's death. Though the scene with his horse and Elendil was the most Tolkien-esque moment of the episode, possibly the entire show.

Harfoots love reminding themselves they're Harfoots.

Celeborn namedrop, yay. Oh he's dead? No, not really. Galadriel believes he is. So for now he is Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Movie.

Elrond and Durin continue to be the best duo, and the Dwarves the most fun to watch. Peter Mulan also brings great gravitas and the scenes between his character and his son were the strongest. I guess they're going all in with the mithril being the holy cure against darkness narrative. Nice tease at the end. Probably next season stuff, though I would hope they push it further back than that.

None of the writers could come up with any characters saying Mordor for the first time without sounding super cringy, so they resolved themselves to just change the title card of the Southlands to Mordor. Sigh. By the way, what are the rest of the lands south of the White Mountains called, if the Southlands were just Mordor?

One more episode to go. What to expect?

  • Sauron reveal.
  • The Stranger's purpose reveal, and maybe his identity.
  • A coup in Moria?
  • A coup in Numenor?
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9 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Disa is Sauron.

DUDE. I was thinking the same thing there at the end :rofl:

She sounded kind of evil, talking about how they would conquer all the mountains, especially with those glowing eyes. Are they trying to retcon the dwarves’ greed by having their excavations be for an altruistic reason now?

I don’t know how they’re going to pull off the Sauron reveal. It’s weird that the show has been teasing a romantic connection between Galadriel and Halbrand, considering that now we know she’s already married and—having seen the OT—Celeborn is alive out there somewhere. I guess they figure it doesn’t matter if he’s going to turn out to be evil anyway?

Theo is growing on me. How many fake-out deaths has Bronwyn had now though?

I really like both Durin and Elrond, although I thought Durin’s clash with his father kind of came out of nowhere. They keep alluding to the fact that Elrond descends from humans—mentioning that his father was mortal, proudly calling himself “half-elf”—but the show refuses to take ten seconds to explain that. 

I got really excited for a moment that we were seeing the founding of the Shire, but—nope, never mind. Friggin Nori had to open her mouth.

I’m a pretty firm believer that Stranger=Gandalf, if for no other reason than that he looks like him. (I also think he looks like Hugh Jackman, but that might just be me).

I think I missed Isildur going missing, although I’m guessing the horse will find him.

What city were Galadriel and Halbrand riding towards in the preview for next week’s episode?

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Well after this last episode at least managed to rise to unprecedented heights of mindless action. This episode returns to being boring.

- The Southlands storyline has ruined any and all suspense left. You can not show characters being engulfed in a cloud of hot smoke and ash and let them come out basically fine. The only "named" character who dies is friend #2 who dies from falling debris. Oh and I guess Miriel is blind now.

- Galadriel advising Theo against being consumed by vengeance is utterly hilarious.  Did the writers think we just forgot the last episode where she was threatening to brutally torture the orcs and genocide them? Apparently yes. 

- The explanation for Celeborn is just insulting. The writers probably just forgot about him until episode 6 was written

- The Harfoots have yet to justify their existence in this show. The whole thing is getting old. It's funny though that after Nori's actions lead to the destruction of their camp by teleporting cultists, they are on her side when MM antics were enough for them to consider letting her and her family die.

- The parts between Durin, Durin, Disa, and Elrond are the only bearable bits in this show, but so much on the conflict hinges on the showrunners inventions that I find myself not caring. Oh and Durin IV being the comic relief dwarf with the overdone Scottish accent does not help.

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14 hours ago, mormont said:

Yeah, nothing in the show to date is saying to viewers 'Sauron is in disguise at this point' let alone 'which of these established characters is secretly Sauron?'

The showrunners clearly intended it. From that THP article:

"Fans have eagerly speculated certain characters might be Sauron in disguise, which is precisely the sort of engagement the writers hoped to see."

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