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

[The Bard of Banefort]

Question about Sauron: is he a shape-shifter? Does he posses people like Voldemort? Or is it that no one has seen him in the flesh, and therefore they don’t recognize him?

[Lord Varys]

27 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Question about Sauron: is he a shape-shifter? Does he posses people like Voldemort? Or is it that no one has seen him in the flesh, and therefore they don’t recognize him?

Complex question. In early Sil takes (the Lays) Sauron does shift shape physically. For the SA we know he could appear fair and beautiful, but whether he actually transformed into a 'Dark Lord' form prior to Númenor's fall is unclear. He surrounded his seat with fire before that, but he could have been afair Dark Lord.

Post-Númenor he has a new body, and it is that body he also restores in the TA, sans a finger.

[Ran]

32 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Question about Sauron: is he a shape-shifter?

A shape-shifter. When Huan the wolfhound was prophesized to only be killed by the greatest wolf to ever live, Sauron took on the form of Wolf-Sauron and battled him. Unfortunately for him, Carcharoth, the Red Maw, was the greatest wolf and Huan with the help of Lúthien's magic defeated Sauron... who then turned into a vampire to fly away in fear.

After putting a lot of himself in the One Ring, the death of his corporeal form means he doesn't have the power to take a "fair" form anymore.

 

[GrimTuesday]

Well, i watched the latest episode and while there were some things I really disliked about it, but it ended up kind of alright.

Spoiler

I have no idea how that one little rope was holding up that beacon town, must have been some pretty special rope. That said, it was better than having the poorly armed peasants triumph of a substantially larger army of orcs.

I have no clue why they decided that it was better to abandon the security of the tower fortress and opt instead to defend an extremely exposed village that doesn't even have a wall.

one of the things I hate most in stories like this is the all too common surprise cavalry charge that everyone saw coming from a mile away. Where is their camp? where is their baggage train? How did they go from being on a ship and it supposedly taking at least a day to sail upriver to being pretty far inland in roughly 12 hours?

One thing I actually really liked is that Arondir knew who Galadriel was the second he saw her, gave her more legitimacy as a big deal in the elf world.

Not sure on the Adar stuff, but at least he isn't Galadriel's brother like some speculated. I guess if you assume that the original orcs were simply elves who were exposed to Morgoth's magic and they slowly devolved over many generations it could make some sense, but that wasn't entierly cleat how they were explaining it.

I'm 100% convinced that Halbrand is Sauron, that line where he asks Adar if he knowns who he is seemed to me to be liked to Adar's story which seems to indicate that he believes he killed Sauron.

Big mountain go boom, who doesn't enjoy a cheeky little eruption no and again.

I actually had a thought while watching the recap from last week, and the explination of the Elves seeking Mithril came up. Elrond specifically states that the tale that Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor have pinned their hopes on is largely considered to be apocryphal. I am hoping how things end up is Celebrimbor is a bit of an odd duck and has convinced Gil-Galad that this obscure and dubious tale was fact and this is the only way to preserve the elves. Once it proves to be ineffective, they decide to forge the three rings as a fall back. We know that Nenya's power was preservation and protection, which is the one made of Mithril. I'm probably grasping at straws thinking that the writers will be smarter than they really, but that is what I would go with.

[The Bard of Banefort]

I thought EP6 was the best so far. 
 

Spoiler

So if Halbrand is Sauron, why didn’t Adar recognize him?

Despite being a villainous orc-man, there’s something I like about Adar. He has depth.

[Raja]

Would honestly watch a show about Urak families just trying to live in a peaceful way

This new episode absolutely slaps, imo. I've really warmed to Arondir and I think that actor plays him really well. The set pieces were solid and I thought some action sequences were excellent, Arondir's battle with the troll being a particular favourite. It had stakes and actually mattered! HOTD should take notice.

[The Marquis de Leech]

First viewing impressions:

• So much better than Episode 5.
• Adar is who I always wanted him to be. I am so happy.
• Best handling of Orcs in a Tolkien adaptation.
• I can understand starting Galadriel off like that, but Dear Eru they are making her unlikeable.
• The battle tactics vaguely remind me of the Battle of Bywater in the Scouring of the Shire.
• Certain bits are very spectacular, but very silly. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

5 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Great call back to the good old days when the best thing in the internet was the totally convincing and absolutely true essays outlying that Tom Bombadil and the Witch-king of Angmar are, in fact and quite obviously, one and the same person.

Yep. I remember that too.

http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/theories/bombadil.htm

[GrimTuesday]

5 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Yep. I remember that too.

http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/theories/bombadil.htm

This one is better https://km-515.livejournal.com/1042.html

[Mithras]

RoP >>> .... >>> The O.C. > Hot D > Batwoman

[Corvinus85]

The Who is Sauron context is quickly drawing to a close. In this week, Adar is eliminated, while Halbrand takes pole position. Of course, The Stranger and Slim Shady were absent.

Orcs just want a home of their own, if only Elves and Men weren't so mean to them.

I suppose when you compress the timeline so much, creating Mordor in a day makes sense.

This episode had some strong Jackson's Two Towers vibe, between the mournful music as the villagers prepare for battle, a quick charge of the good guys cavalry, and a breaking of a dam and releasing a river moment, but with different consequences. It also went pretty much R rated, which was surprising.

All the silliness aside, this was a better episode mainly thanks to allowing one storyline to breathe and giving it an entire episode, uniting some characters, and allowing for some character development. Adar continues to be one of the better characters of the show. I am content with a having what was essentially a skirmish in a village, as I don't think the writers and production team could actually handle a Helm's Deep or Pelennor Fields just yet.

With only two episodes left, and still needing to see what The Stranger is about, who the cultists that are tracking him are, and a little more about Elrond, Celebrimbor, and the Dwarves, this season will end with the Sauron reveal + the name of the Southlands changing to Mordor, the Black Land. No rings this season.

[Mithras]

14 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Orcs just want a home of their own, if only Elves and Men weren't so mean to them.

To be fair, they wanted to be free from Sauron and his bloody experiments.

[The Bard of Banefort]

If Sauron is integral to the forging of the rings, then how can his identity be revealed this early on? Unless he’s just going to shapeshift into someone else and manage to go undetected again?

[The Marquis de Leech]

14 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

If Sauron is integral to the forging of the rings, then how can his identity be revealed this early on? Unless he’s just going to shapeshift into someone else and manage to go undetected again?

*We* will know he's Sauron. The characters themselves won't. Dramatic Irony and all that.

[Farerb]

32 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

If Sauron is integral to the forging of the rings, then how can his identity be revealed this early on? Unless he’s just going to shapeshift into someone else and manage to go undetected again?

I can see them doing the "who's Sauron" crap every season.

 

[Werthead]

An anticipated, Rings of Power smashed to the top of the streaming charts, becoming the first Amazon original series to land at #1.

[Scott_N]

4 hours ago, Raja said:

Would honestly watch a show about Urak families just trying to live in a peaceful way

This new episode absolutely slaps, imo. I've really warmed to Arondir and I think that actor plays him really well. The set pieces were solid and I thought some action sequences were excellent, Arondir's battle with the troll being a particular favourite. It had stakes and actually mattered! HOTD should take notice.

It's funny how we watch the very same things yet see them so differently. Arondir's battle had zero stakes as we all know, you too I'm sure, not only how it would end but *exactly* how. This show is so cliche-ridden I don't think the writers deserve a salary.

I have disliked the Southlands story from the start. It's basically a cheap romance (and a terribly poor use of Cruz-Cordova). Anyway, the subsequent cavalry charge that we've seen a thousand times before is so predictable and also so entirely implausible.

At this stage I cannot recognize anything Tolkien in this show, really, other than them using names from his works. It's a brash fantasy melodrama of mediocre quality. Quite where all the money has gone I don't understand either. Everything feels so small-scale.

[Farerb]

This battle reeks of late seasons GoT battles. A spectacle, but nothing about it makes sense.

It would have been more logical if the orcs had slaughtered everyone and the Númenorians had come days later to find the massacre and that they had come too late

[Corvinus85]

What didn't jive in the Numenorean battle for me was that we had gotten a brief view of their training in the previous episode, as silly as that was, and we know they're great sailors, but all of a sudden they're great mounted warriors. Sure, from a lore perspective it's fine, but the show didn't really do anything to indicate that they would be so successful.  

[Calibandar]

6 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I thought EP6 was the best so far. 
 

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So if Halbrand is Sauron, why didn’t Adar recognize him?

 

Because Halbrand is not Sauron, he is this show's Aragorn. Sauron has just been awakened, it seems.

5 hours ago, Raja said:

The set pieces were solid and I thought some action sequences were excellent, Arondir's battle with the troll being a particular favourite.

That was a big Orc, looks just like the Uruk Hai in Lord of the Rings films or Bolg in the Hobbit. Not a troll, which we have seen earlier when Galadriel fought one.

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

If Sauron is integral to the forging of the rings, then how can his identity be revealed this early on? Unless he’s just going to shapeshift into someone else and manage to go undetected again?

The whole " how on Earth does Sauron tie into the forging of the Rings" thing is completely unclear at this point.

This season seems to be all about " who is Sauron and his actual return" while season 2 will be into the forging of the Rings.

I was pretty much bored throughout the entire battle for the village, I think its all very bland. Much more interesting did it get when they started chasing Adar and the reveals that followed after ( note Adar has escaped btw). So he says that he split open Sauron, and also reveals a story that Sauron went to the North but that " a shadow of dark knowledge eluded him"  and while saying that, we see the face of a Balrog on screen. Curious what was meant by all of that.

On another note, we as the viewers are asked to take an enormous leap of faith here to believe that neither Galadriel, nor Halbrand, nor Arandir even looked at what was in the cloth package? No one is even curious to see whats in it? Only Theo when its too late? Galadriel interrogates but does not even take a look at the package she recovered from Adar, which Arondir told her must not stay in Adar's hands at all costs? 

I didnt like how the supposedly legendary Elendil was brought down by a few orcs and lay there defenseless to be slain until Halbrand saves him.