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

[Cashless Society]

1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

A friend of mine has the theory that Arwen is actually Sauron’s granddaughter because that worked out so well for Star Wars. 

I'm pretty sure someone (jokingly) came up with this theory in this thread.

[slant]

1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

A friend of mine has the theory that Arwen is actually Sauron’s granddaughter because that worked out so well for Star Wars. 

I am jealous of your awesome friends 

[Darryk]

6 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I wonder what the Harfoots greater story will be going forward? As I said before, there is no Middle Earth without Hobbits, they are the crown jewel of the franchise and what draws people in the most. But I’m unsure right now what their purpose in this story will be.

I don't think there should have been hobbits in this story. I think the whole point is they're the surprise package, the ace up the sleeve, the ones who have no impact whatsoever on events until they suddenly show up in the Third Age and shake the world.

Gandalf being rescued by them is just antithetical to the story as well. In LOTR Gandalf discovers the hobbits during his travels and takes a liking to them cause he admires their inner strength and their way of life. This series makes out that he likes them because they helped him after he fell out of the sky. Not as powerful a reason.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 10/7/2022 at 3:31 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

Theory time! Elrond doesn’t marry Galadriel’s daughter (because that would be creepy and involve a huge time skip) but instead marries Isildur’s sister, who was invented for the show and has blue eyes and dark brown hair like Arwen. Granted, there’d still be a creepy incest angle with Aragorn, but at least this would give Elrond a more sympathetic reason for why he doesn’t want his daughter to marry a human, if he knew what it was like to outlive his own spouse.

Do I expect this to actually happen? Not really. But a little tinfoil never hurt anyone.

That’s already there.  Aragorn is a direct descendant of Elros… Elronds Brother.  The separation is about 30 generations but it’s there… cutting out 10 generations doesn’t make it any different in my view because the relation is really distant either way.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

The Elves extinction???  WTF?

[Corvinus85]

7 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I wonder what the Harfoots greater story will be going forward? As I said before, there is no Middle Earth without Hobbits, they are the crown jewel of the franchise and what draws people in the most. But I’m unsure right now what their purpose in this story will be.

So if someone finally manages to adapt the First Age stories, the War of the Silmarils, they'll have to include Hobbits just to have a large enough audience?

With so much fantasy on TV now I doubt that the audience wouldn't have turned up for this show if it didn't include Hobbits.

[Scott_N]

35 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

So if someone finally manages to adapt the First Age stories, the War of the Silmarils, they'll have to include Hobbits just to have a large enough audience?

With so much fantasy on TV now I doubt that the audience wouldn't have turned up for this show if it didn't include Hobbits.

I actually think the Bard of B is correct, commercially speaking. Most people who love the LoTR trilogy of films have not read the book. Even more so for The Hobbit. So, to an awful lot of people Hobbits are intimately associated with Tolkien and Middle-earth. Therefore to reach that large, casual audience - an audience that has already been infantalized by decades of superhero fare - Hobbits must be included. I understand why Amazon insisted on it. I just vehemently disagree with it.

Only Tolkien-nerds quite appreciate the volume of first and second age writing he did. Ages where there is no hint of Harfoot or Hobbit.

[Le Cygne]

8 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I wonder what the Harfoots greater story will be going forward? As I said before, there is no Middle Earth without Hobbits, they are the crown jewel of the franchise and what draws people in the most. But I’m unsure right now what their purpose in this story will be.

Maybe the Valar sent the Stranger (a la Gandalf) to help Middle Earth defeat Sauron. And it was no accident he landed near the Harfoots, who were most likely to receive him well. So their story will be tied to his, they will help him help!

I like the Harfoots (as well as the Hobbits). They are underestimated and overlooked, and removed from power/the political action, so we get to see simple kindness and a celebration of the good things in life, that will endure (we hope).

I think that's why Gandalf liked them, too. I like that they included them, I think they are necessary to balance the story.

[Farerb]

I didn't have a problem with their inclusion before it was revealed that they are willing to abandon their own people and that they are extremely opportunistic. I laughed when that Head of the tribe or whatever told his wife that she was always right as if she didn't want to murder Nori's family a minute ago.