#do three rings allude to celebrimbor's three
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Is Halbrand Sauron? Probably.
Spoilers ahead!
TL;DR: it’s too lazy for him to be Aragorn 2.0- they want us so badly to come to the conclusion that he’s a lost king, it is too easy for that to be the truth. He’s in the right place at the right time to fill the role of Sauron in Numenor and he is of the right, charming, slippery, calculating disposition.
My main reason is they’re laying on this idea of him being Aragorn 2.0 way too thick and it’s the biggest red herring out there. We’ve seen the ‘lost king fulfilling his fate’ story already in the Lord of the Rings and in the Hobbit and it’s tired and lazy and boring.
So what does Sauron want to do in the books? He wants to infiltrate Numenor and recruit the people there to his side and he successfully does that over years of lies and manipulation when the majority of Numenoreans are poisoned against elves, Valar, and each other because of him. Sauron’s end goal in Numenor is ultimate control.
Now let’s look at the evidence in the first three episodes.
Episode 1:
Gil Galad says that he and Elrond foresaw that if Galadriel had continued trying to stop Sauron, she would inadvertently help him
Episode 2:
When the sea monster comes towards the raft, Halbrand advises to stand still to avoid detection when no one else suggests it and it initially works as it doesnt attack them - how would someone from a landlocked region have any knowledge of an ancient sea monster?
Galadriel asked why he separated his raft from the main one to save himself and he said ‘why be part of the larger target?’ - this could be alluding to the fact that Sauron’s forces are in central middle earth while he’s in the middle of the ocean
He talks about suffering and losing his home - Sauron served Morgoth in the First Age and their home was in Angband which was destroyed by the Valar in the War of Wrath. Sauron lost his home and he lost his master
Galadriel tells Halbrand to bind himself to her which is pretty loaded language when she could have just told him to tie himself to her. It’s at this point that he could have let Galadriel die, but he may already know that she could provide him with leverage in the future.
Episode 3 is where it gets way more obvious
Sauron is a charmer - in the books, Celebrimbor is all but in love with him when he’s in disguise. Halbrand flirts with Galadriel and charms her and goes above and beyond for her, like taking Finrod’s dagger from Elendil to give back to her
The moment he gets a bit of freedom, Halbrand goes to a blacksmith and asks for work and says his work is the best the blacksmith will have ever seen. Sauron is a mighty smith who learned under Aule, the god of smithery. Why’s he so set on having access to a smithy? He goes so far as theft to enable his pathway to work
Sauron took the name of Lord of Gifts when he was disguised with the elves, and what does he do in the tavern? Orders rounds of drinks for everyone
When he’s cornered in the alleyway he fights off 5 strong Numenorians with barely a scratch - Sauron was skilled in hand-to-hand combat
He’s eager to appease Tar-Miriel the queen and be seen as trustworthy. Yes, he is captive at the moment, but he has an easy charm even with great lords and ladies that do not befit his station
The figure at the end of the episode is another red herring - it’s not Sauron himself, but a commander of his, perhaps even the Witch-King of Angmar?
It makes sense that Sauron himself would be far away from the Southlands and the centre of his power when he knows that the elves keep watch - whether that be Gil-Galad from afar, or the Silvan elves who are now withdrawing.
His current location of Numenor where Sauron wants to be, and he is developing his relationship with Galadriel who is key to the entire race of elves. If he can manipulate her, he has an easy journey ahead of him. Remember, she ends up being a ring-bearer herself and although her ring is not made by Sauron, her fate is tied to the One Ring and to Sauron.
He’s also wanting to start crafting whatever and promises his work will be the best. He’s already privy to the two factions in Numenor - those who follow the old king and those who follow the queen - and is beginning to learn more about them.
As already said, he’s a charmer, he’s likeable, he has some sense of destiny about him, and he’s good-looking to boot. That’s Sauron’s go-to disguise. To many people familiar with the lore, it seems obvious that Halbrand is not the good guy Galadriel wants him to be. I think this will also lead into conflict between Gil Galad, Elrond, and Galadriel and a decline in her confidence and place in the world over the coming seasons, along with her rising from the ashes.
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I guess this is what a billion dollar budget gets...
Spy Report: Incredible details from Amazon’s Lord of the Rings! Characters, Sexless Nudity & Halflings too?
Men, Elves and Dwarves have their own sequestered production units for the different Free Peoples [this intriguing bit rather suggests the narrative might be constructed across wide time jumps or told from pockets of different historical viewpoints, perhaps even an anthology approach rotating characters from the various Free Peoples all reacting to the same thing, or just not cooperating with each other in Season 1: but over what timelines we still do not know].
Scripts are only digitally shared among actors and crew under draconian control mechanisms to track any persons who could access them
There is a fake production team shooting decoy footage on fake sets unrelated to the real Production – [thus making some “reports of location sightings” false leads by tricksy hobbitses and we must admit this is very clever indeed! Peter Jackson never used decoys!]
Main unit wrapped shooting in April 2021; while many actors are back in the U.K. or are now on other productions
J.A. Bayona’s episodes are a standalone entry point to the series [like a feature film]
There are more incredible directors and big stars yet to be announced
They are aiming for a mid-2022 release [that is only one short year away and must mean the pressure on Post Production must be remarkable
Some Halflings are dark skin precursors to Shire-hobbits quite possibly “one of three somewhat different breeds” maybe Harfoots; [described by Tolkien in the Prologue to LOTR ‘Concerning Hobbits’ pg. 12: “they were browner of skin,” and also “they moved westward early,” alluding to a time in their Wandering Days, or perhaps earlier when they kept no records of their journeys over the Misty Mountains westward (which may explain a little of why any early antecedents of pre-Shire migration hobbits would appear here in the Second Age instead of Third Age narrative)]
Sir Lenny Henry portrays one such early halfling [Harfoot]
Celebrimbor the ringmaker has been recast
Tom Budge was in that role [this feels like a twenty year-old analogy to the original recasting of Stuart Townsend replaced by Viggo Mortensen in the LOTR Trilogy]
Certain creatures are referred to as Ice Trolls because they can’t be called Cave Trolls (Warner Bros. licensing restriction)
Nudity is sparse and not sexualized— contrary to earlier concerns: but rather this artistic choice represents very dark thematic material suggestive of concentration camp-type visuals of victims, a harrowing portrayal of the corruption of the Elves by dark powers to ultimately become Orcs [if this plays out fully it will may well be one of the most ambitious things undertaken by this production and perhaps by anyone attempting to adapt Tolkien]
Elves will have short/ shorter hairstyles [cue the Twitter threads, both pro and con, and the voting polls, and endless constellations of lovely fan art, so please bring it fans; I’m here for it]
Sauron/Annatar will not be revealed in Season One [going with the oldest axiom of show business “Always leave them wanting more.”
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I posted 2,100 times in 2022
That's 1,284 more posts than 2021!
230 posts created (11%)
1,870 posts reblogged (89%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@frodo-baggins
@alethiometry
@klngfili
@westenra
@haleths
I tagged 2,089 of my posts in 2022
Only 1% of my posts had no tags
#rings of power - 352 posts
#elrond - 282 posts
#lotr - 208 posts
#fanart - 186 posts
#ask - 132 posts
#house of the dragon - 97 posts
#bridgerton - 93 posts
#silm - 92 posts
#anon - 92 posts
#galadriel - 83 posts
Longest Tag: 133 characters
#‘bilbo this is fingon felagund you may have heard of-‘ ‘love what you did with the caves i used to live in somewhat of a cave myself’
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
In early notes by Tolkien the marriage of Elrond and Celebrian was 2500 Third Age and he originally planned to have Celebrian travel to Lothlorien in 2600 Third Age when she was actually killed, a mere hundred years after her marriage to Elrond so anyway thanks Tolkien for revising that but also fuck him for giving her that fate anyway when it adds nothing to the story and she could have been the ruling lady of Rivendell during LotR 😭😭😭
188 notes - Posted November 21, 2022
#4
The fact that they didn't even give new Elrond the sexy long locks he deserves we really are getting robbed 🤧
Literally not to be a bitch but who the fuck is that skinny twink, Hugo didn’t put his whole Weavussy into 5 films as Elrond for this wisp of a tween to come in and not even give us 22” of lace front
288 notes - Posted February 10, 2022
#3
Galadriel and Elrond in Vanity Fair’s First Look at the Rings of Power
344 notes - Posted February 10, 2022
#2
Is Halbrand Sauron? Probably.
Spoilers ahead!
TL;DR: it’s too lazy for him to be Aragorn 2.0- they want us so badly to come to the conclusion that he’s a lost king, it is too easy for that to be the truth. He’s in the right place at the right time to fill the role of Sauron in Numenor and he is of the right, charming, slippery, calculating disposition.
My main reason is they’re laying on this idea of him being Aragorn 2.0 way too thick and it’s the biggest red herring out there. We’ve seen the ‘lost king fulfilling his fate’ story already in the Lord of the Rings and in the Hobbit and it’s tired and lazy and boring.
So what does Sauron want to do in the books? He wants to infiltrate Numenor and recruit the people there to his side and he successfully does that over years of lies and manipulation when the majority of Numenoreans are poisoned against elves, Valar, and each other because of him. Sauron’s end goal in Numenor is ultimate control.
Now let’s look at the evidence in the first three episodes.
Episode 1:
Gil Galad says that he and Elrond foresaw that if Galadriel had continued trying to stop Sauron, she would inadvertently help him
Episode 2:
When the sea monster comes towards the raft, Halbrand advises to stand still to avoid detection when no one else suggests it and it initially works as it doesnt attack them - how would someone from a landlocked region have any knowledge of an ancient sea monster?
Galadriel asked why he separated his raft from the main one to save himself and he said ‘why be part of the larger target?’ - this could be alluding to the fact that Sauron’s forces are in central middle earth while he’s in the middle of the ocean
He talks about suffering and losing his home - Sauron served Morgoth in the First Age and their home was in Angband which was destroyed by the Valar in the War of Wrath. Sauron lost his home and he lost his master
Galadriel tells Halbrand to bind himself to her which is pretty loaded language when she could have just told him to tie himself to her. It’s at this point that he could have let Galadriel die, but he may already know that she could provide him with leverage in the future.
Episode 3 is where it gets way more obvious
Sauron is a charmer - in the books, Celebrimbor is all but in love with him when he’s in disguise. Halbrand flirts with Galadriel and charms her and goes above and beyond for her, like taking Finrod’s dagger from Elendil to give back to her
The moment he gets a bit of freedom, Halbrand goes to a blacksmith and asks for work and says his work is the best the blacksmith will have ever seen. Sauron is a mighty smith who learned under Aule, the god of smithery. Why’s he so set on having access to a smithy? He goes so far as theft to enable his pathway to work
Sauron took the name of Lord of Gifts when he was disguised with the elves, and what does he do in the tavern? Orders rounds of drinks for everyone
When he’s cornered in the alleyway he fights off 5 strong Numenorians with barely a scratch - Sauron was skilled in hand-to-hand combat
He’s eager to appease Tar-Miriel the queen and be seen as trustworthy. Yes, he is captive at the moment, but he has an easy charm even with great lords and ladies that do not befit his station
The figure at the end of the episode is another red herring - it’s not Sauron himself, but a commander of his, perhaps even the Witch-King of Angmar?
It makes sense that Sauron himself would be far away from the Southlands and the centre of his power when he knows that the elves keep watch - whether that be Gil-Galad from afar, or the Silvan elves who are now withdrawing.
His current location of Numenor where Sauron wants to be, and he is developing his relationship with Galadriel who is key to the entire race of elves. If he can manipulate her, he has an easy journey ahead of him. Remember, she ends up being a ring-bearer herself and although her ring is not made by Sauron, her fate is tied to the One Ring and to Sauron.
He’s also wanting to start crafting whatever and promises his work will be the best. He’s already privy to the two factions in Numenor - those who follow the old king and those who follow the queen - and is beginning to learn more about them.
As already said, he’s a charmer, he’s likeable, he has some sense of destiny about him, and he’s good-looking to boot. That’s Sauron’s go-to disguise. To many people familiar with the lore, it seems obvious that Halbrand is not the good guy Galadriel wants him to be. I think this will also lead into conflict between Gil Galad, Elrond, and Galadriel and a decline in her confidence and place in the world over the coming seasons, along with her rising from the ashes.
376 notes - Posted September 10, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
obsessed with how tidy he keeps his hair around Gil Galad versus the floppy hair in Khazad Dum. look at this
Gil Galad is like that grandmother who pulls kids close and combs their hair until they yell
690 notes - Posted September 28, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
#tumblr2022#Personal#reference#AHHHHH not elrond being my second most used tag byeeeee#long post#the fact that one of my top posts was hating Rob Aramayo…… now look at me#that’s GROWTH#sorry I was a hater. now I’m a lover again
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