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anipologist · 2 years

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Ok, I'm watching Rings of Power (in small doses)...first impressions below.

(Part 1)

Valinor is not Heaven anymore than Galadriel or Luthien are the Virgin Mary...does no one understand what subcreation is?

Bullying in Valinor...unlikely as portrayed. The elves are mostly unfallen at this point and most of the issues are between the adults and after Morgoth starts roaming freely spreading lies. Galadriel is also from a high position in society (a princess) she is hardly an outsider.

Noldor elves absolutely delighted in color and jewelry why is everyone wearing sheets? In fact the Noldor in general just loved making stuff...

To everyone that thinks that the mean elf children are her cousins, Artanis is the youngest child of the youngest son of Finwe...even Amrod and Amras are probably a fair bit older than her.

FINROD"S HAIR! I know it's been said before but wow...ugh. Suspension of disbelief shatters every time it shows up...

Also elves died in Middle Earth before they all moved to the undying lands...so yeah they definitely knew what death was. In fact Artanis and Finderato's uncle was among those presumed lost or dead. (He wasn't, but that's a whole story itself)

And yes, I am using Artanis/Nerwen and Findarato/Artafinde/Ingoldo because nobody is speaking Sindarin in Valinor...and Galadriel hasn't met Celeborn yet (and seems unlikely to at this point) so he hasn't given her the name Galadriel.

moving on....

Wow....that is the most heavily redacted account of the Flight of the Noldor ever...

Where do I start?

Artanis spoke out against Feanor and he personally led his people in an attack on her mother's people...on her grandparents! This is something deeply important to her...in some accounts Tolkien actually has her fighting her cousins and uncle in Alqualondë in defense of the Teleri.

This also makes it look like Finrod is swearing Feanor's oath!...there is one image that Tolkien gives of an oath sworn at this time alongside drawn swords and Finrod is another specifically mentioned by name as having opposed it!

(On a side note given that Finrod is later betrayed because of that oath this is rather sick...almost like releasing a bad Tolkien adaption on the anniversary of his death...)

Once again...Finrod and Galadriel along with Fingolfin and many others spent years crossing the Helcaraxë to get to Middle Earth, THEY DID NOT SAIL THERE.

So far the dialogue is consistently atrocious. The landscapes are pretty but feel cgi and the costumes are uninspired...this was the perfect opportunity to go full panoply of ancient kings...and they didn't. I am not seeing "most expensive tv show in history" anywhere.

NB: I fully intend to criticize blatant betrayals of what Tolkien actually wrote. Tolkien has been a huge part of my life and his writing and the world he created has been a light in many dark places. The characters he wrote have made me want to be a better person and seeing them diminished and twisted is just awful.

So yes, I take it somewhat personally when they are maligned and given that the Silm is my favorite of all Tolkien's writing so this hits very close to home.

That being said, I don't blame people for wanting to see Middle Earth again. I desperately wanted this to be good. And I don't blame the actors who were handed once in a lifetime roles and were clearly very let down by the production itself.

SO why do I feel the need to complain? Well, why do people complain about any bad adaption? Nobody thinks people are wrong to criticize the Percy Jackson movies or that Avatar: The Last Airbender movie that no one talks about about....

So no I am not going to attack people who watch it but I am going to plant my flag here and make my stand. Because this is something that means a great deal to me and I hate seeing to ruined.

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technoturian · 2 years

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I gave it a whole season with an open mind but Rings of Power is just... bad.

The writing is just bad. It’s all just so Intro To Creative Writing. I don’t even care about Middle Earth lore so I don’t mind any changes. What bothers me is if you’re going to adapt something and then change it, you’d better be changing it into something good. Instead, we got ALL the cliches. The fact that every episode I would guess the cliche line I was about to hear and then there it was, but I would still be stunned because I couldn’t believe they were THAT lazy, THAT obvious. I’m not exaggerating here, I literally made a joke several times and then one of the characters said the same thing but they were serious! The dialogue is flat. The characters are the most rote tropes. They think they have to spell everything out to their stupid audience (”You’re not Sauron! You’re the other one!”). They have the characters do random stuff or neglect to tell each other stuff not because it’s in character (lol) but because it makes a WHAM moment later (that falls flat because it’s so obvious).

Look, I’m pretty genre savvy, but I am not the only one who guessed how this all was going from several episodes ago. I knew it was Gandalf from episode one. I knew who was Sauron for several episodes. My mom is a big Tolkien nerd and kept saying “But that doesn’t make sense! Because in the lore-” and every week I had to remind her that these writers aren’t following lore and they don’t seem to care what makes sense, but they’re still easy to predict because of all the tropes and borrowed story beats.

The way they cut through travel made the world seem incredibly small. Then all the flip-flopping to drag things out because they’re bad at pacing; in Numenor, in the Southlands, with the dwarves, they decide things and then suddenly it’s undecided because they need more time. The absolutely garbage lines like “the elves are stealing your jobs” or “I’m GOOD”. The constant pulling of lines from the source material and putting them out of place, which is annoying for two reasons, first because it’s unearned but also because the stolen lines are the only good dialogue in this mess.

The casting of non-white actors in completely tokenistic roles. The fact that the harfoots are mostly white and are played by average sized actors. The fact that they have a few non-white actors and then cast white actors for their family members (Nori and her mom, the queen of Numenor and her dad) which just screams “we want it diverse, but not too diverse”.

And yes, Girlboss Galadriel who is peak perfomative feminism akin to W*nder Woman and She-H*lk, mass produced girl power with none of the depth or grit. Galadriel who is one-note in all of her motivation, who comes across as embarassingly stupid at times because it’s more important for her to be brash and stern. Writing out her husband in a random throwaway line because she couldn’t want to go out and fight while also being married or a mother (something so many weird defenders of this show seem to think means the opposite of what it is, like wanting her to be married and have a kid and still be out doing awesome things instead of becoming a tradwife is the ANTI-feminist view, and as if there’s a scarcity of single young action girls out there). The “I’ll never join you!” conversation with Sauron. Randomly just telling people to “trust her” instead of being like, “Yeah that was Sauron” so he can come back and screw stuff up later. Why? Why? Because they need her to, that’s why. But why, in-character would she do that? ~Don’t worry about it.~

Basically everything about badboy Halbrand, the Kylo Ren of Middle Earth. But especially his Jason Bourne moment in Numenor and the whole cringy “reluctant king” story. The one woman in town who wears color because she’s the Main Character. The sweet girl getting too close to Gandalf and he accidentally hurts her and she shies away. That may have been the worst one. Made me shout “I am not a gun!” because my goodness, these writers. They just steal everything. Every single twist was artlessly telegraphed and stolen from something better. A few times, this worked. The Stranger was predictable from the start, the dwarf storyline didn’t do anything particularly groundbreaking, Arondir’s star-crossed romance was incredibly bland. But the characters were fun to watch and the actors did well with the parts. It’s just unfortunate that, where a few of the characters managed to elevate the sea of cliches surrounding them, the majority just coasted on the surface.

This is giving me Star Wars Sequel vibes, even though I’m not a LotR fan like I am a Star Wars fan. It feels like plastic. It feels like they thought of everything but actually making a show worth watching. This show won’t be a classic, it’s just another revenue source. I don’t know if I would be this harsh if it were some small production and an original story. But for the money this cost, the fact that it’s so bland, so uninspired, so absolutely lazy is honestly insulting. I’ve seen so many lower budget fantasy stories with a hundred times more heart and brains than this. The bottom line is this: Amazon had all of the money to hire all the talent in the world and they’re giving us this??? The gall.

#Anti Rings of Power #Anti The Rings of Power #Anti TRoP #Anti RoP #Rings of Power Critical #The Rings of Power Critical #RoP Critical #Rings of Power Spoilers #The Rings of Power Spoilers

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fixing-bad-posts · 1 year

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From your tags: "if anyone wants to ask me about rings of power please do because i have thoughts™" This is me asking. (Also love your blog!)

i love you for asking, thank you 💛💛💛 this will be part three: parting thoughts & the funniest details from rings of power (part one; part two).

some parting thoughts:

i absolutely hate that all critics of the show are labelled as racists, misogynists, and anti-progressives, especially when the show’s treatment of women is tokenizing and pitiful, and it does nothing revolutionary nor makes a meaningful statement on issues of marginalized race. they don’t get to position themselves as champions of diversity just by doing the bare minimum and casting poc in side-roles, and having one original-character black elf whose plotline is tragically underwritten. they’re already taking vast liberties with the source material—why not a black galadriel? why not an asian elrond?

with that out of the way, some of my favourite* parts from rings of power:

* when i say "favourite" i mean i'm about to make fun of the show.

i love the part in the show where galadriel spends years of her life tracking down the ‘mark of sauron’—which looks like a little stylized pitchfork—only to discover it’s actually not a sigil. it’s a map, turned sideways, and sketched in modern minimalist style with the least helpful, least detailed, least interpretable shapes because apparently morgoth was really really bad at drawing mountains. and sauron, for some reason, is so forgetful that he carves this “map” into dead bodies and his tables and weapons and gloves so that he? won’t forget which mountain range he’s trying to conquer? wants to give his enemies fun clues about his favourite piece of real estate? unclear.

i love that one scene where galadriel and halbrand are on a raft and the set designers/director did not give morfydd clark enough stage business so she spends the whole scene pulling the same piece of rope tight, and then loosening it, and then pulling it tight again, on a random piece of wood.

in the same vein, i love the part where a conversation between nori and her mom happens except the stage business they were given for the scene was apparently… rub a rock on a piece of wood. and they just have to do that for the entire scene as if it’s normal.

i love the part where the writers seemingly forgot to actually go in and edit their placeholder dialogue and they have gandalf yell, “i’m good!” when he’s mistaken for sauron in the finale.

i love the part where galadriel discovers who sauron is and then goes inside and does not tell anyone what she learned for some reason. and elrond asks her what’s up and she’s just like, there’s no time to explain. and then never explains ever.

i think it’s really funny that the writers want sauron to be “like walter white, tony soprano and the joker,” when these characters have nothing in common except being well-written characters. i like to imagine they sit around the writers’ room examining every single piece of well-written television, marvelling over the very idea of multifaceted characters—a concept completely foreign to them.

and, for posterity—i have fun criticizing rings of power. i like to think i gave rop a fair shot—when i started watching it, i was fully hoping it would be well-done. when i heard the show was coming out, it gave me an excuse to re-read the silmarillion for the first time in years, and has connected me with the tolkien fandom on tumblr. i’m also a script writer irl and, so it’s been a fun exercise to pick apart why the show didn’t work for me both from a fan’s perspective and a writer’s perspective. a lot of tolkien fans are deeply hurt by this show and hate its existence and its fans—that’s not me. i would not be engaging with this material if i wasn’t having a good time doing it.

that's all for me, folks—thanks for tuning in; i'll shut up about this now haha.

#ask fbp #anon ask #fandom posting #rop critical #anti rop #anti amazon lotr #anti rings of power #amazon rings of power #rings of power #rings of power negative #anti trop #rings of power critical #rings of power analysis #rings of power meta

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itariilles · 2 years

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The Elves From Episodes 1 & 2 Of The Rings of Power

On the 30th I was lucky enough to attend the world premiere of The Rings of Power. This means that I've had some time to sit down and process some of my thoughts regarding how certain thematic elements were addressed in the show, from the adaptation of textual themes, to the altering of themes to better fit the narrative the show is attempting to portray.

Specifically, how the elven characters were portrayed. The breakdown of my thoughts have been included below the text break with commentary and context from various texts. I've limited myself to the published Silmarillion, LOTR and The Hobbit, and Unfinished Tales as I don't have the capacity at the moment to delve into additional contexts from Histories of Middle-earth.

Disclaimer: this is my opinion, and my opinion only. While I am trying my best to be fair in my critique, one has to remember that this is a show produced and streamed on Amazon with a 1 billion dollar budget — the highest of any TV production in history. I am also basing my critique on the first two episodes only, meaning that there is much more to come, but I still believe that there are themes worth talking about that were established in the first two episodes that will likely reoccur over the duration of Season 1 if not the whole show.

@silmarillionwritersguild makes an excellent statement on the ethics behind consuming Rings of Power, and the labour and human rights abuses by Amazon.

Galadriel's Motivations

"Finrod was with Turgon, his friend; but Galadriel, the only woman of the Noldor to stand that day tall and valiant among the contending princes, was eager to be gone. No oaths she swore, but the words of Fëanor concerning Middle-earth had kindled in her heart, for she yearned to see the wide unguarded lands and to rule there a realm at her own will." — Of The Flight of The Noldor, The Silmarillion

The prologue briefly depicts a two minute summary of the Darkening of Valinor, Flight of the Noldor, and War of Wrath. We are shown Galadriel presiding over Finrod's corpse which bears scratch marks and a brand of the eye of Sauron which can be assumed to be after his infamous duel with Sauron during their duel in Tol-in-Gaurhoth.

While it is extremely likely that Galadriel will bear personal animosity towards Sauron for the murder of her brother, it does feel odd to me that the choice was made to establish the avenging of her brother as her primary motive in remaining in Middle-earth.

Christopher Tolkien's note in Unfinished Tales on the passage above is interesting in that:

"Most notable however in the passage just cited is the explicit statement that Galadriel refused the pardon of the Valar at the end of the First Age." — History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Unfinished Tales

This seems to fall in line with her established motivations in text with her desire to rule over a realm herself, as up until this point she has only aligned herself with rulers of other realms (Thingol and Melian in Doriath, Círdan in the Falas, etc.)

In the context of Rings of Power, Galadriel is portrayed as being "rewarded" a return to Aman by Gil-Galad as an honour which she too refuses for the sake of continuing her altered show motivation of avenging Finrod and hunting Sauron.

"She did indeed wish to depart from Valinor and to go into the wide world of Middle-earth for the exercise of her talents... and she felt confined in the tutelage of Aman. This desire of Galadriel's was, it seems, known to Manwë, and he had not forbidden her; but nor had she been given formal leave to depart... Galadriel, despairing now of Valinor and horrified by the violence and cruelty of Fëanor, set sail into darkness without waiting for Manwë's leave, which would undoubtedly been withheld in that hour, however legitimate her desire in itself." — History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Unfinished Tales

The issue with this change of primary motivation is that it makes no sense with regards to her imperialist incentive in crossing over to Middle-earth which is something that is core to her character.

"Galadriel laughed with a sudden clear laugh. 'Wise the Lady Galadriel may be,' she said, 'yet here she has met her match in courtesy. Gently are you revenged for my testing of your heart at our first meeting. You begin to see with a keen eye. I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you offer[.']... She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. 'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'" — The Mirror of Galadriel, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The completion of her character arc is when she rejects the one ring when it is offered to her, and with it she relinquishes her desire to rule. It is only then she willingly makes the journey back to Aman as she rejects her ambition and rule, and when that happens Lothlórien begins to fade, and with it the last of Noldorin imperialism in Middle-earth.

I must reiterate that while I take no issue with the idea that pursuing Sauron as a means of avenging Finrod's death is a motivator for Galadriel, it should not be her primary motive as has been portrayed so far. It is unclear whether or not at this early stage in the show if she has come into contact with the elves of Lórien, but this is something to keep in mind when she interacts with Amdir and Amroth later on if they do appear in this adaptation.

It is also absolutely crucial to acknowledge the complexities and nuances of Galadriel's imperialist narrative, and the settler colonialism of it all. I could go on for literally an entire essay's worth of points, but I'm saving that for a paper later on.

"In the Second Age their king, Oropher... had withdrawn northward... he resented the intrusions of Celeborn and Galadriel into Lórien." — Appendix B: The Sindarin Princes of the Silvan Elves, History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Unfinished Tales

While the text does seem to portray her imperialist ambitions either positively or neutrally, there are also characters who are shown to be critical of Noldorin imperialism.

"'You are of the house of Eöl, Maeglin, my son.' he said, 'and not of the Golodhrim. All this land is the land of the Teleri, and I will not deal nor have my son deal with the slayers of my kin, the invaders and usurpers of our homes.[']"

"'I acknowledge not your law,' [Eöl] said. 'No right have you or any of your kin in this land to seize realms or to set bounds, either here or there. This is the land of the Teleri, to which you bring war and all unquiet, dealing ever proudly and unjustly... Your father commands you. Leave the house of his enemies and the slayers of his kin, or be accursed!'"

— Of Maeglin, The Silmarillion

@skyeventide has an excellent thread on Twitter analysing Tolkien's specific choice of Eöl as the narrator for his critical commentary on the Noldorin settlement of Beleriand and in-text bias favouring narratives of settler colonialism.

Additional links and sources:

Galadriel and Ayesha by William H. Stoddard

Fantasy Racism Against the Elves

The first time we are introduced to the fantasy racism element of the show is when a man from Tirharad launches a tirade against Arondir venting his frustrations over the elven presence in their lands, calling him "knife-ear" which is a slur taken straight out of Dragon Age. It feels cheap and delivers less commentary and insight into the power dynamics the show attempts to suggest with the elven garrison guarding Tirharad on orders from Gil-Galad.

When approaching racism as a concept, one must remember the dynamics of power and disenfranchisement, in which the group(s) that wield power exert and abuse their power over another group for gain and profit in one form or another.

Textually, there is an element of cultural hierarchy and supremacy judged by a Quendi group's proximity to the West with Calaquendi (most notably Noldorin in a Middle-earth context) hegemony on the top of that pyramid, closely followed by the Sindar. While this deserves its own essay, I think the fact that Arondir is a Silvan plays into the uncomfortable "lowly Silvan elf" narrative that was introduced in adaptation in Peter Jackson's Desolation of Smaug (2013). Any review that claims fantasy racism is a "new" element to Tolkien adaptation in Rings of Power is inaccurate in this regard.

This is also made all the more uncomfortable by the fact that Arondir is played by Ismael Cruz Córdova who is Black and Puerto Rican, and is so far the only elf to be portrayed by a non-white actor. This, coupled by the fact that he is also a Silvan OC highlights a bunch of in-universe, and productional issues with regards to the way in which racism and inclusion are handled.

“[Wood-elves] differed from the High Elves of the West, and they were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them… were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West. There the Light-elves and the Deep-elves, and the Sea-elves went and lived for ages, and are fairer and wiser and more learned, and invented their magic and their cunning craft in the making and of beautiful and marvellous things, before some came back into the Wide World… Still elves they were and remain, and that is Good People.”

— Flies and Spiders, The Hobbit

While there are definitely more nuanced ways to handle the element of inter-Quendi cultural dynamics, hierarchies, and conflicts, I don't think that establishing it using one-dimensional cheap commentary from a throwaway Tirharad man is the best way to go about it.

There are implications of Eldar holding power over men in the First Age, with men being portrayed as vassals in a feudalistic system under the Noldorin princes. In the Second Age there is less of this implication with the establishment of Númenor as the new mannish cultural centre, but it would have been better handled in the Tirharad context if there were points made about power dynamics with the Tirharad men treated as second-class citizens of their own lands or vassals of Eldar power and hegemony over their lands for the sake of their interests.

A line said by a Silvan soldier reasoning their station over the men of Tirharad as "descendants of those who served Morgoth" is uncomfortable as it plays into the established trope of South/Eastern men being inherently evil which links into Orientalist ideas of the East being percieved as fundamentally Other. This is an established trope in Tolkien which some of my links from my race in Tolkien masterpost linked below regarding the portrayal of Easterlings by Tolkien and in adaptation explain in more detail.

"The Silvan Elves had invented no forms of writing, and those who learned this art from the Sindar wrote in Sindarin as well as they could. By the end of the Third Age the Silvan tongues had probably ceased to be spoken in the two regions that had importance at the time of the War of the Ring: Lórien and the realm of Thranduil in northern Mirkwood."

— Appendix A: The Silvan Elves and Their Speech, History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Unfinished Tales

There is also a soft imperialism and cultural assimilation aspect to Sindarin settler colonialism in the Second Age, and while we have yet to meet the major Sindarin players of the Second Age (namely Oropher, Amdir, and Amroth), it may yet hold implications for Arondir down the line.

It feels rather strange that Gil-Galad is implied to hold dominion over Silvan elves, as it feels reductive of inter-Quendi dynamics from textual material. Unless Arondir and the other Silvans garrisoned at Tirharad are Silvan elves of Ered Luin or of the forests that fall within Lindon, there is no reason they should answer Gil-Galad's orders, much less recognise Gil-Galad's authority over them as a people group.

It is also strange that Gil-Galad appears to hold the more imperialistic narrative, rather than Galadriel who is explictly depicted as having imperialistic motives in Middle-earth. I question how this aspect of his character will be handled in the show, but I'm not holding my breath given how fantasy racism is often handled poorly and with little nuance in Tolkien fandom, adaptation, and fantasy as a genre.

The second instance in which we are shown the theme of fantasy racism is when Galadriel is rescued out of the water by human castaways. Halbrand reveals her ear, and the woman on board who had previously showed her kindness in offering water, turns on her and shrieks at the elf.

We do not know which people group(s) the castaways belong to, but Halbrand claims to be of the South.

The undertones of fantasy racism falls onto Galadriel's shoulder, who once again in adaptation is played by a white woman. I have written a thread on Twitter criticising fan responses to Morfyyd Clark's instagram posts, and how the Rings of Power fandom has ascribed to the actress the role of a white saviour in which it feels as if the conversation of racism is again being centred on whiteness.

Additional links and sources:

Please check out my Race in Tolkien masterpost for more links on the topic. I've last updated it 02/09/2022.

The Neoclassical Aesthetic Given to the Noldor and its Unfortunate Implications

Elves in their Roman mid-first century legionnaire-esque armour designs battle amongst the chaos against legions of orcs, and a mound of helmets as a symbol and testiment to the mighty dead. Galadriel adds a galea to the mound in sorrow and grief.

The scene shifts to Lindon in an unspecified time during the Second Age. A male elf crowned in golden laurels plays the lyre, and the female servants clad in their sleeveless Doric chitons linger in the background of shots.

As I mention above, the proscription of a neoclassical aesthetic to the Noldor exacerbates existing textual favourtism and cultural superiority, made all the more uncomfortable with recent discourses regarding the whiteness of the elves and the knowledge that real life facist and white supremacist groups have a habit of co-opting Classical Greek and Roman imagery. One need only look to Benito Mussolini and Identity Evropa as examples.

It feels less coincidental when considering the Classical Greek and Roman imagery and white actors the show has deliberately chosen for the Noldor.

This is a complicated and nuanced subject, with the popularisation of Ancient Greece and Rome as inherently white societies being a recent invention popularised in the 18th century by scholars such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann.

I brace myself and wince for the inevitable far-right white supremacist co-option of the neoclassical Noldor from the Rings of Power. It feels as if all my arguments against elves being inherently "white" are all for nothing, as in the past I have come face-to-face with white supremacists who have used the Peter Jackson film portrayals of Galadriel and Arwen as the pinnacle of white feminity to further their incentive to keep the elves in adaptation as white as possible.

Additional links and sources:

The whiteness of the Rings by Sean Redmond

Whitewashing Antiquity by Imara Ikhumen

Why the alt-right loves ancient Rome And Greece, too. by Sean Illing

#rings of power #the rings of power #lotr on prime #racism in tolkien #tolkien meta #tolkien adaptation #finrod #galadriel #arondir #gil galad #rings of power critical #not really a review per se but just some opinions and analysis

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the-elusive-soleil · 6 months

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...this is not unlike the experience of trying to explain the Silmarillion to someone who has only seen Rings of Power

#silmarillion #the book was better #rings of power critical #trop critical #in my defense this was sent to me by my rop-watching friend to whom i tried to explain the silmarillion #it's about the LORE #sheldon webcomic #dave kellett

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beginnerblueglass · 2 years

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💡 *sits up in bed* 💡

They completely rejected the Christian themes at the heart of Tolkien’s works. That’s one of the reasons why Rings of Power feels so soulless and disheartening and wrong.

#the lord of the rings is fundamentally a Christian work- jrr Tolkien #jrr tolkien #the lord of the rings #middle earth #anti rop #anti rings of power #rings of power critical #where’s the brotherhood???#where’s the faith???#where’s the sacrificial love???

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symphonyofsilence · 2 years

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Ok, let's talk about the last 3 episodes of TROP:

Uh...wtf did I just watch.

Well...what'd'y'know...turns out we had a fourth Silmaril? Was anybody going to tell the sons of Fëanor? Was anybody going tell FËANOR himself?!

And, you know, if Mithril contained the light of a Silmaril, which is enough to work as a star, anybody would know that Frodo was wearing a Mithril chainmail. And it would be really shit as armor or weapon 'cause it would immediately give away your place and draw eyes to you.

And since when do the elves need the light of the two trees to survive? How about the Avari? With that logic, they should have been dead by now. Why are we calling them immortal if they're going to die next Saturday? Everyone in ME is more immortal than them.

And does time mean nothing in this show? When they talked about compressing the timeline I didn't think they'd do it in every scene!

do people teleport in this show? How did the Numenoreans charge to Bronwyn's village JUST at the right moment? How did they know they should go there? How did the NUMENOREANS get to Bronwyn's village only one day after the orcs? How does it take more time for Arondir, a trained elven warrior to fight one orc (& he doesn't even defeat him) than a village of untrained peasants to defeat an army of orcs?

And...a watch tower fell just by an arrow?! Really?! This whole tower was kept together by only a rope? Who made that and why? And how's it been standing for so long? Even if it's only 1 day? Is that time compressed, too? And A lever broke a dam and that somehow activated a volcano?! And why couldn't the orcs break the dam with the grandfather of Grond? Why did they have to give so many orc casualties to take that sword back? Why did the villagers corner themselves in their village instead of fighting from the fucking tower and having the high ground? Is it because it was held together by a rope? What is this stupidity?

And it speaks volumes about the writing of this show that we both knew that there is no way that anybody could survive that eruption especially Galadriel should have been baked in her armor and that all the main characters would survive.

I mean...Bronwyn not only survives that wound but she also walks out just fine the next day and she's not even pale. Halbrand, mortaly wounded RODE to Eregion! What makes you think a volcanic eruption will kill them? Eru can't kill them.

THEY LEFT WHETHER ISILDUR WILL SURVIVE OR NOT AS A CLIFFHANGER!!!

And Adar is the only interesting character. I'm kinda rooting for him ngl.

And did Elendil even search for him before announcing him dead and crying?

Also, one would think that in a dangerous situation like this, the commander would rush in to protect the queen. And the other soldiers would protect the commander and the Queen. Except, in this case, the commander walked into volcanic ashes and started one of her famous staring contests with it.

Also, a little thing. But, how did Galadriel find Elrond when he was first orphaned alone, without friends or kin? I guess the first time Elrond was orphaned was after Elwing jumped into the sea. Well, at that time Elrond had both kin and friend. He had his twin brother Elros and then was found by Maglor & Maedhros who were both kin and later turned out to be friends. (And they are in and outside a cave). Why would Galadriel find Elrond alone without his twin and why would she hand them into the Fëanorians?

Now listen, having callbacks to certain LOTR scenes wouldn't have been so bad if they weren't blatant rip-off and a much, much lesser version and the scenes have been earned.

Like Arondir and Bronwyn promising each other that they'd grow a garden like Faramir and Eowyn did, doesn't have the same impact 'cause unlike Faramir and Eowyn, we haven't spent enough time with these characters and from what we've seen of them, both of them look bland. And we haven't seen their relationship develop. Also, the dialogue is not that good. And Galadriel and Theo hiding beneath a tree while the orcs start for them?...no. just no. And Theo saying that the sword can't be unmade by any crafts that they there possessed also doesn't work 'cause the threat of it is not explained. And giving the scene of Beren and Luthien's first meeting to Galadriel and Celeborn doesn't work cuz it's very OOC for Galadriel. And it was a special scene for Tolkien.

& now off to the big reveal I guess.

Listen...the 2nd age is not told in details like the first and third age are. there were few plotpoints that they had to meet and they WERE few! Like the Numenoreans being jealous of the Eldar's immprtality. And like Annatar coming to Eregion and deciving Celebrimbor after Galadriel, Gil-Galad and Elrond refused him cuz they didn't trust him.

THIS SEASON SHOULD HAVD WORKED ON ANATAR DECIEVING CELEBRIMBOR! HE SAW HIM FOR LIKE ONE SCENE AND HE WASN'T EVEN ANNATAR! AND THE RINGS ARE ALREADY MADE! AND THE SAURON REVEAL IS WASTED! AND THE ICONIC SAURON MAKING THE ONE RING AND LAUGHING TO HIMSELF AND CELEBRIMBOR OVERHEARING IT AND PANICING IS GONE!!

and the writers are probably congratulating themselves because we all knew that Annatar was Sauron and it wouldn't have been a shocking reveal for us. Well, guess what! It would have been for the people who haven't read the books and the people who had would have enjoyed the tension of well-written scenes between Celebrimbor and Annatar knowing who he was. And when Galadriel and Gil-Galad and Elrond warned Celebrimbor we would have sympathize with them and mourned and remorsed with them when it got too late. It's like if in HP movies the director said:"you know what, every book reader knows that Alastor Moody is Barty CrouchJr. Let's introduce a hot guy who will have a romantic relationship with Professor McGonagall who will turn out to be Barty Crouch.Jr.

They keep thinking they can write better than Tolkien, the father of modern fantasy, and they can't.

And remember when it was explicitly told that Galadriel knew Annatar was fishy from the get-go and NEVER trusted him? Because not only she was extremely intelligent and wise but also she had the gift of seeing into the minds of others and for that, Sauron was AFRAID of her? And returned her scorns with apparent curtsey? And he thought that he had found his match (as in, an enemy to be weary of) in Galadriel? And how becoming a powerful queen, stronger than the foundations of the earth was Galadriel's own ambition?

Who in all these years of reading tolkien have had thought of writing a Galadriel/Sauron fanfiction!

I'll tell you who. Mormons!

I can't help but think that how every male elf except Gil-Galad, even the extras have short hair has something to do with the showrunners being Mormons.

So does how Sauron can't be a hot twink elf with long luscious locks getting close to young Celebrimbor and seducing him over a long time until eventually Celebrimbor gets betrayed. because it may give gay vibes.

I think that elf servant being all veiled women who don't speak also has something to do with the showrunners being Mormons.

So does that Galadriel was bereft of all her tradirionally feminine traits, wise and mature personality, the reverence everyone had for her, and her ambition and desire to rule and her goal in life was given to her by her brother (keeping the oath he never had in the books) and her iconic lines in the show are told to her by Sauron and she wasn't the one with the desire to rule and she wasn't the one who knew her worth, and her husband had to be presumed dead and in the showrunners eyes, she couldn't be a mother AND a powerful woman and had to be deceived by Sauron and have romantic tension with her instead of Sauron being scared of her.

Good for you if you liked the show. Don't let random strangers on the internet ruin your enjoyment of tv shows.

But for my part, sometimes Fëanor spontanously combusting from inside sounds fantastical until I see the shits that TROP pulls and the blatant lies and or the narcissistic bullshits that the showrunners say.

#anti rop #anti trop #trop critical #anti rings of power #lotr #tolkien #galadriel #sauron #my two cents #rings of power critical #the silmarillion #jirt #jrrt

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thefollow-spot · 2 years

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I think the writers of Rings of Power really fucked up when they decided to make Galadriel the only elf with substantial trauma about the War of Wrath/the war in Beleriand in general. This was a long war in a culture with a long memory, and so much of the Second Age can be read as a direct (traumatically influenced) response to those wars. To make Galadriel out as not only unusual, but unreasonable for holding onto this trauma is a massive blunder.

#Now they've thrown out a huge thematic portion of their source material #Not to mention how little this makes sense logic-wise.#I can adaptation decisions that don't quite make sense if it's a sacrifice to strengthen other story elements #but this is a sacrifice for no reason.#It literally makes the story worse #This would all be fixed if they made Halbrand take his shirt off more of course #rop crit #rop critical #rings of power critical #rings of power tv show #amazon rings of power #rings of power #anti rings of power #anti rop

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lokittystuckinatree · 2 years

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Rings of power is going to make Sauron’s alligence to Morgoth out of fear and abuse instead of love and reverence isn’t it….

#rings of power critical #anti rings of power #angbang #if they do this I swear I’m actually gonna go pyromaniac on their ass

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nateofgreat · 4 months

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Alright, the ROP rumors have forced my hand. I'm going to give my thoughts on them.

"Season 2 will begin with a flashback to the creation of the universe."

Might I ask, why? Even if they nail the portrayal itself what narrative purpose could it serve at this stage in the show?

To show that Sauron was there? They already had Sauron confirm he was there for it in S1.

To introduce Melkor? They already did that in the opening of S1, more than that they explained Sauron's connection to him too.

I don't see a purpose other than it being a thing that people recognize. For that reason, I wouldn't be surprised if this rumor turned out to be true.

"Tom Bombadil and Goldberry will be confirmed to be Morgoth and Ungoliant serving out their sentence."

Yeah, no way. They don't even have the rights to use Ungoliant for one thing and I doubt even they'd go as far as to have Morgoth become a jolly hermit and claim it's punishment.

Now what I can see them doing is suggesting that Tom (if he does appear) used to be evil in some way. I can see them doing that under the misguided notion that it adds complexity and makes him "morally gray" when that's really not the point of his character. As far as I know he's supposed to represent the spirit of Tolkien's English countryside, so it'd be a bit weird to make him the ultimate evil in Middle Earth.

Also how the heck would Ungoliant end up as Goldberry? Last we heard of her she got so hungry she ate herself alive, lol.

"Sauron will go back to Eregion again, this time disguised as Celeborn."

This one I can unfortunately see happening. They've already hinted (after everyone complained) that they're going to have Sauron double-back to Eregion and repeat his entire infiltration plan to forge the other rings. Which in itself is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard but regardless...

They still don't have the rights to the story of Annatar, so Sauron will need another disguise. And if they don't want Galadriel to deliberately hide the truth from the elves again, it'll have to be a disguise that fools her. Hence, Celeborn.

This would serve their shipbait purposes as to appease the only fans they do have (the shippers). I know it sounds like something straight out of a soap opera but that's about at the level of Rings of Power anyways, so hey.

"Sauron has a son who was killed by Adar."

... Why?

#anti ROP #anti Rings of Power #anti Amazon lotr #anti Saurondriel #anti haladriel #ROP critical #Rings of Power critical #anti ROP Galadriel #anti ROP Sauron #Tom Bombadil #Goldberry

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anipologist · 2 years

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Wait Halbrand was Sauron? I would have never guessed...man was the least suspicious character in the entire show. Nothing at all about him screamed "I am a violent dark lord who likes metalsmithing."

Like...I'm flabbergasted. The person who was very obviously Sauron from the beginning of the show was....gasp Sauron. And the person who was very obviously Gandalf from the beginning of the show was....gasp Gandalf!

Such convincing plot twists…

I mean once the weird sisters turned up and told me Gandalf was Sauron all thoughts fled my mind and I found myself agreeing. Of course the stranger hanging out in grey rags with hobbits was Sauron. Obviously the show runners had given up hope that my puny mind could comprehend the depths of their convoluted and circumlocutory genius and felt I needed to be ordered to believe that Gandalf was Sauron.

But they tricks us precious! Who could have seen it coming? After telling us that the stranger is Sauron he is not….he is Good? What a twist! I couldn’t have seen that coming if I had a telescope.

And who could have foreseen all the years of working together and cultivating trust and working with Celebrimbor in ring making could all be summed up by a suggestion to use alloys. Who could have thought of such a blatantly obviously solution. Definitely not the grandson of the greatest elven smith to ever live…WHAT A GIFT.

(Currently ignoring the rest of the mithril storyline for my remaining sanity's sake).

Completely unrelated thought…mentioning something about alloys definitely deserves a whole epessë,…maybe we should call this generous character the Lord of Gifts…

Ok, yes I am being sarcastic and snarky but I am just so disgusted. I have had a lot of problems with this show. I didn’t trust Amazon once the first couple episodes started coming out. Apparently I still held onto an entirely undeserved sliver of hope. But for heavens sake this is a caricature of a parody of Tolkien. An entire season of a show literally titled THE RINGS OF POWER and the rings of power turn up for a tiny portion of the final episode.

Another thing....having actors not know who they are actually playing once they start filming is one of the stupidest things the movie/tv industry is currently obsessed with. It makes zero sense from a directorial and acting standpoint and has no payoff except for idiotic headlines like "Sauron actor didn't know he was Sauron". That's so grossly insulting to the actor and the audience.

#the rings of power #anti rings of power #anti rop #anti trop #rings of power critical #trop spoilers #trop critical #rings of power negativity #yes I am venting #i am this close to going up like stupid rube goldberg orodruin #there is so much else wrong with this whole show #but this post would never end if i kept going #particularly the gil-gilad slander #who wrote this show #curufin?#was this revenge after celebrimbor renounced him #the idiocy of galadriel telling halbrand to his face that he is the lost king when he assures her that he isn't #and then having the nerve to feel betrayed when it turns out he was telling the truth

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technoturian · 2 years

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I really, really wish they’d cast an unattractive actress for Bronwyn.

When men fall in love with elves it’s all about how beautiful they are but when an elf falls in love with a human woman it’s the one woman in town that looks drop dead gorgeous, clean and like she hasn’t seen a day’s work even though she runs a homestead as a single mother. Because if this guy’s going to turn down elf ladies it has to be for a runway model in a town full of raggedy, dirty rednecks, right?

What would’ve been a galaxy-brained move is if she was just played by a very average looking actress, or maybe even if she had scars and was basically looked down on by the town. If Arondir had been like, “I’ve spent hundreds of years around the most beautiful creatures in this world and beyond, external beauty is meaningless to me, but you are kind and you are interesting and that’s what attracts me.”

How much more interesting would that story be than “hot guy finds his one hot equal in this town of average dirt farmers”?

#Rings of Power Critical #Anti Rings of Power #The Rings of Power Critical #RoP Critical

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fixing-bad-posts · 1 year

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I haven't watched rop myself but I would absolutely like to hear your thoughts. Like, this is your cue to vent (if you wanna) :)

okay so i just got three asks about rings of power when i didn’t expect anyone to actually message me about this at all!!! as such, i’ll be giving my opinion in three parts with this being, part one: rings of power as a bad adaptation.

basically, the failure of rings of power is two-pronged: 1) it’s a bad adaptation, and 2) it’s a poor piece of writing. charitably, it’s a solid first-try for a pair of newbie showrunners who have never written a big project before. and following that, a bad adaptation is actually easier to forgive than a poorly written story—with a text so beloved, and without the proper rights to all the material (they only had access to the appendices of lotr), it was always going to be impossible to make a perfect text-to-screen translation. that said, it’s (imo) a pretty bad adaptation (although still not as bad as the artemis fowl movie lmao) for a few reasons: thematic interpretation, use of characters/characterization, justification of setting, and fidelity to canon lore.

on: themes—a good adaptation requires both an understanding and an appreciation of the source material, two things which rings of power lacks. in this promo article, the rop writers summarize tolkien’s works as about “friendship,” “brotherhood,” and, “underdogs overcoming great darkness,” and cannot imagine a tolkien story without hobbits. from this, it’s clear that they were first peter jackson movie fans, and then read all other book material as auxiliary support for what is inevitably peter jackson’s interpretation of tolkien’s writings on the third age. whether or not i agree with pj’s interpretation is irrelevant against the fact that the first and second ages of middle earth are stories with completely different themes than the third age. interpreting everything though the same thematic lens as the third age is a fundamentally flawed approach to telling a second age story.

the second age is permeated by arguably recent, memorable trauma from the war of wrath—the human characters are further removed via the mortal generations that have passed, but many of the elves were alive to see these events in (relatively) recent memory. this dissonance between elves and men regarding the events of the first age fuels some of the most interesting wider conflict throughout the second age (ex. the númenóreans being manipulated to become obsessed with/envious of elven immortality & the powers of the valar). furthermore, the world impact (i can’t say global impact because the world is not yet a globe) of the war of wrath fuels the setting (political reformation, social, cultural, and technical development). but rings of power ignores all of this because the showrunners don’t seem know what to do with any of it. they are trying to interpret second age events as if they have the same story elements/are painted in the same thematic palette as the events of the war of the ring. they relegate the events of the first age to ‘ancient history,’ instead of using its fallout as direct motivation for anyone except galadriel (more on this in the following section). the tension between elves and men is flattened into an allegory for contemporary immigration, which neither makes sense in-universe (there is a scene in which a group of men gather in the town square to protest the elves ‘stealing their jobs’ even though there is only one (1) elf on the island and she has not to date done any labor or craft associated with the people present), nor adapts the canon themes of anti-industrialization, anti-materialism, and fear of mortality.

on: character—whether the writers were/are incapable of doing their own analysis of the text, or their analysis is flawed, the result is that they struggle to write characters and conflicts who don’t fit into stock tropes. for example: galadriel—she’s the only elf who has any trauma about the war of wrath/the wars in beleriand, and this makes her seem like a poor communicator at best and paranoid/unreasonable at worst (she claims sauron is still at large but the writers never give the audience a reason to believe this, which implies that her crusade is fueled by dubiously exceptional trauma). this is especially egregious in a scene played opposite elrond where she tells him he can’t possibly understand her pain, and he just kind of lets this accusation stand despite the fact that he was functionally orphaned in a slaughter, and then adopted by two mass murderers before losing them too. but i digress.

on: canon lore—many creative decisions were ostensibly made to appeal to casual fans of the peter jackson movies. characters with recognizable names are given top billing in the storylines. galadriel. elrond. the pre-hobbits are given an entire section. meanwhile, key players of the second age like celebrimbor and gil-galad are made side characters in elrond plotline. why? because no one who has only seen the films recognizes their names, thus they wouldn’t be profitable to feature, and they wouldn’t sell a show. it’s only so transparent because the writers spend every episode contemplating how best to recreate memorable moments from the lord of the rings movies. galadriel is constantly shot with close ups on her eyes to mirror her film introduction in fellowship. shots of bronwyn (one of the rop original characters) at the elven outpost are framed, blocked, and even written in word-for-word monologue to recreate iconic éowyn-at-helms-deep scenes. various characters are constantly quoting the lord of the rings movies. the worst is when bronwyn practically quotes a section of sam’s iconic osgiliath speech to her frightened son, implying that sam’s speech is a collection of common idioms.

on a tangible level, the writers also fail at the monumental task of presenting a large map in a way that makes sense to people who don’t already know the world. they represent “the southlands,” as two villages, giving the sense that mordor as a whole is about fifteen kilometers wide. the timeline is fucked because they tried to condense it, while giving no clear indication of when anything is happening in relation to anything else, so it’s incredibly difficult to grasp the scope of any project or journey. for some reason they invented a fourth silmaril of dubious origin. they had elrond, raised by sons of fëanor, swear an oath only to break it in the following episode. they’ve made the choice to have all the elves speak quenya without acknowledging the history of sindarin vs. quenya and the politics of why certain elves speak it or don’t (i would love to see even one nod to thingol’s influence on elven language).

tl;dr—rings of power misreads, misunderstands, and miscommunicates the crucial themes of the second age. this leads to a complete misinterpretation of the pre-known movie characters they feature, as well as a sidelining of important book characters who aren’t movie-fan favourites. their attempt to properly explore a vast setting is clumsy, and the show invents lore out of a source material that already has arguably too much.

(i have to go run some errands but i have more to say on rop as a poor piece of writing regardless of its status as a so-called adaptation. i’ll be back.)

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cressida-jayoungr · 2 years

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Why the "Rings of Power" Costumes Fail to Reflect Their Source Material

Tolkien-geek nerdrant incoming.

I'm not currently watching The Rings of Power, but I have been seeing images of the costumes, and I just have to rant a little about them. Apart from their general attractiveness or lack thereof--mostly the latter, in my opinion--they are making me wonder whether Kate Hawley, the costume designer, has even read the source material. Or understood it, if she did read it.

I hear that she has done much better work on other projects. But I'm sorry, she really dropped the ball here, and it can't be chalked up just to not having enough money or time. There are fundamental problems at the concept level.

It's easy to guess the general thinking: "Since the LOTR movies were designed around a medieval look, the look of this series should be based on Greek and Roman styles, with simpler construction, in order to convey that it's an earlier time." This would make perfect sense for most fantasy series, but it's dead wrong for Tolkien.

In Middle-Earth, "progress" isn't really a thing that happens, unless you're talking about the Years of the Trees or maybe the First Age. After that, it's all downhill with a few small backtracks along the way. Each civilization is less grand than the one that came before it. Knowledge and techniques are lost. The costumes should reflect this. The clothing of the Second Age should be more intricate and decorative than that of the Third Age. They could go full Bollywood with the jewelry, for both Elves and Númenoreans: ropes of pearls, gem-studded belts, etc. (But also take a lesson from Bollywood on how to make lots of jewelry look tasteful and not over the top.)

Speaking of jewelry, there is far too much use of gold. In the source material, Dwarves like gold, but Elves are all about silver, or better yet, mithril. And pearls and white or clear gems such as diamonds. Stuff that makes them think of starlight. You're telling me Gil-Galad, whose name literally means "bright star," would dress entirely in gold from head to toe? I don't think so. Gold also has a slightly negative connotation in Tolkien's writing as being a little bit base and corrupting. That's why Ar-Pharazôn's title of "the Golden" isn't entirely a compliment; it's a hint at how he embodies the perverting of Númenor's society. Lana Marie put it well in her video on this show's costumes when she said, "It's almost poetic how Amazon seems to think that plastering gold on everything makes a garment look regal and expensive and classy."

This brings me to the show's idea that the symbol of Númenor should be a sun. It shouldn't; it should be a star. The island is shaped like a star. Its alternate name, Elenna, means "starward" because of the star that led the first people to it. (And before anyone wants to be cute and say the sun is also a star--no, in Tolkien's world, it's not. It's a fruit of the golden tree, Laurelin, carried through the sky by a maia on a flying ship.) I could buy the idea of Ar-Pharazôn introducing the sun as a new symbol or making it his personal royal banner, but the show starts before he becomes king and they're already using suns, so nope.

And finally, nobody should be wearing full plate armor. Nobody in Tolkien wears plate armor. It's always mail of one sort or another. Yes, I know Ngila Dickson had the Gondorian army wear plate armor in the ROTK movie, but she was also wrong. (Besides, she said it was supposed to make them look outdated and irrelevant.) Frankly, as wonderful as the design of the LOTR movie trilogy was, I feel that most of the stuff in Gondor wasn't up to their usual standard; maybe they were running short on time and/or energy by then. But that's a whole different rant.

I'll close out by recommending Lana Marie's redesign of Miriel's costume.

youtube

#the rings of power #tolkien #costume design #numenor #kate hawley #rant #rings of power #television costumes #tv costumes #fantasy costumes #rings of power critical #rop critical #anti rings of power #rings of power amazon #costumes #the lord of the rings: the rings of power #Youtube #rop amazon

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