#the Harfoots are my favorite part so far | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sweetteaanddragons · 2 years

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Rings of Power Thoughts

Not particularly spoilery, but under a cut, just in case. Highly disorganized.

Visuals are beautiful.

The Elves

"We had no word for death." Highly poetic Galadriel, but your step-grandmother is rolling in her grave. And your uncle is presumably about ready to rise from his and fight you about it.

So Sauron's history is going to be really different, huh. And so is Finrod's.

. . . Not sure I like that. Give me Beren and Finrod's heroic shenanigans, people.

But we did get cool First Age flashbacks, which was nice.

(Oath flashback! YES!)

"You will not be permitted to attend the meeting. Elf Lords only."

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, what?

If Elrond - heir to just about every elvish house they've got left - isn't elf lord enough for this meeting, then I assume Gil-Galad is just. Talking into the mirror, because if Elrond isn't lord enough for this meeting, then no one short of the high king is going to be.

I do love that Elrond's Gil-Galad's speechwriter, though.

"You're my friend, Galadriel!"

Cousin. The word you are looking for is cousin.

(I am aware that with the rights situation, how much of this they can reference is up in the air, but I do not actually care.)

"Are you familiar with the works of Lord Celebrimbor?"

His cousin, Celebrimbor? Last heir to the house that was, uh. Instrumental to shaping his childhood? That Celebrimbor?

Yeah, I think Elrond's familiar.

I do like this Celebrimbor's ambition, though. Even if he does talk about Feanor like it's not his grandfather he's talking about.

That is not how sailing West works. Not even a little.

(Galadriel: The only thing keeping me from sailing West is my duty.)

(The Valar: Uh. Sure. Also that ban we put on you, but we can call it your duty if you like.)

(Gil-Galad: I'm giving you an unparalleled honor: you're sailing West!)

(The Valar: Like we explicitly asked everyone but the leaders of the rebellion to do?)

(Elrond: I can't imagine the honor of being called to go!)

(Elrond. Elrond, darling. Everyone in the west would have loved it if you sailed at the end of the First Age. You stayed quite deliberately. Elrond. Elrond, please.)

Galadriel, I support your desire to stay, but I think abandoning ship that far out is actually just a great way to get to Aman the hard way.

The Harfoots

I love the Harfoots so far, especially Nori and Poppy!

If meteor man is Gandalf, I think that's a great introduction to the hobbits. If meteor man is Sauron, then I desperately need Bilbo to somehow find out about the wheelbarrow scene and immortalize it in song.

Easily my favorite part of the show so far.

The Dwarves

Durin's children are adorable.

I - hm. Durin himself is complicated. I like the character as a dwarvish prince, but I'm not sure I like him as Durin.

Also, his whole thing with Elrond is . . . kind of weird. I like the emphasis on the elves' different perceptions of time, but it feels weird to do that with ELROND of all people. Half-elven Elrond. Brother chose to be mortal Elrond.

Speaking of which, given Elrond's canonical brother and what canonically happened to him, I feel like "practically a brother to me" is a phrase Elrond wouldn't throw around lightly.

(And speaking of weird phrasing, Celebrimbor's metaphor about aging parents feels weird from an elf. Not impossible, given he's met mortals, but jarring.)

And going back to Durin . . . it feels very odd that if he wanted Elrond at his wedding or to meet his children, that he wouldn't have, like. Sent a letter? And if he did, it seems like Elrond would have had a much clearer idea going in what Durin was upset about. Communication seems to have broken down on both sides there.

Although given the ending of the episode, maybe there's more to it than that?

Arondir and Bronwyn

I like Arondir a lot, and I'm very intrigued by that storyline in general. Except . . .

I'm concerned about Bronwyn's son. I hate corruption/possession arcs.

Conclusion:

I am definitely intrigued enough to keep watching, but their treatment of the lore occasionally had me screaming into a pillow. I almost want to write a scene where book!elves pull some of that dialogue on each other so that the other person in that conversation can have the appropriate reaction.

In general with the elves I get the feeling that I would like it a lot a more if I knew a lot less about the Silmarillion. The dynamics between the Finweans aren't bad, they're just . . . hard to justify with the lore as I know it.

#rings of power #first thoughts #tentatively positive thoughts but with a whole lot of indignant criticism about their handling of the lore

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rivalsforlife · 2 years

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was going to do a proper writeup on that lotr show after rewatching a ton of cast interviews from sdcc but I got lazy and my headphones are running out of battery fast so I'm just going to go over the few things that I remember that stuck out to me.

-I do believe the showrunners do understand tolkien or at the very least are very passionate about tolkien. not like "oh I love the lotr movies" but more like "I put elvish on the birth announcement for my child". which I think is promising. It comes down I think to how much their vision of tolkien aligns with my vision of tolkien or how much liberties they're taking with it, which is a thing that's always going to happen in adaptations especially in an adaptation when you have so many blanks to fill in. they really need to make an interview with those guys public, hearing them speak restored quite a bit of confidence with me.

-when they were speaking about parts they were excited to adapt and talked about the part where sauron puts the one ring on his finger for the first time and recites the poem and all the elves know at once they've been betrayed I was very interested to see how they'll tackle that. if they're passionate about it, they'll be able to bring those big moments to justice, which I am very much looking forward to.

-the actors were also very knowledgeable about tolkien to varying degrees - the actor for gil-galad could recite most of the gil-galad poem with only minor prompting. the actor for elrond is my favorite since he said his favorite age is the first age. he said something about how he's approaching second-age elrond primarily as an orphan, with huge expectations given his dad saved the world and is always looking down on him literally from the night sky, and how his complicated past ties into it, and it being so soon after having made his decision to live as an elf rather than as a mortal, and how that's influencing how he sees the world. which is incredible. he also made a comment at one point about the power of oaths in tolkien's universe which made me have to stop the video and hyperventilate for a few seconds because IF ONE PERSON KNOWS. IT'S ELROND. so I'm super looking forward to however much of that they'll portray of him when it comes down to it. (literally if we get a reference to the whole elrond being raised by sons of feanor thing I'm going to lose my mind.) uhh other than him, celebrimbor's actor was apparently a huge fan of lotr as a kid and he practiced writing with elvish script and wrote a play based off of it, which is very cute. elendil's actor could come up with a good amount of numenorean lore on the spot. all good things so far.

-bear mccreary who is doing most of the soundtrack talked about howard shore's influence, the example he gave was using some of the tones shore used with dwarves in a generally lost/grim setting given their position in the third age and bringing it to its full majesty in the second age with khazad-dum, which was very cool.

-I wasn't super satisfied with the answers the showrunners had during some of the q&a stuff primarily with why they're including harfoots, which was basically a "tolkien said hobbits didn't do anything but never said harfoots didn't", which, isn't the point. but as long as they don't make the hobbits tie in to all the other canonical stories and catch the attention of elves and men too much then I'll let it slide. someone also asked very indignantly why the star of feanor was on galadriel's armor which nobody really knew how to answer for a while, some stuff about how it wasn't necessarily the star of feanor, eventually the producer said it was a gift from someone else. I still don't think Galadriel would wear a star of feanor, but I do like the idea of celebrimbor gifting her armor (who, I assume, would be one of the few people still wanting to be associated with the feanorian star at this point).

-both the actors for theo and bronwyn (original human characters in tir-harad which is allegedly pre-mordor) discussed that part of their roles were dealing with being the descendants of the humans who originally betrayed the elves to side with morgoth. which. NIRNAETH ARNOEDIAD REFERENCE??? honestly I think that's very interesting if we're seeing the later ramifications of ulfang that fucker that got fingon killed. though again it's an issue of how much they'd actually be allowed to go into depth with the nirnaeth (probably not at all).

-overall mainly my opinions on the show remain about the same (very excited about some stuff, a lot more hesitant about some other stuff) it kind of mostly confirmed stuff I already knew but gave me a new reason to be interested in tir-harad and definitely gave me more reasons to be super invested in elrond I want to see that I want to see that incredible first age ramifications. anyways. that's all from me for now unless new news comes out

#lotrop #sorry about how much of this there's been lately. probably will be a break now though

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senselessconjuration · 2 years

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Very long thoughts on RoP below. Mild spoilers. Tl;dr I was surprised by how much I liked It and will definitely keep watching.

I enjoyed it FAR more than I expected to. It mostly has the feel of leaving out without erasing details that the original trilogy managed, and honestly it’s too early to judge a lot of changes they made on any basis beyond “that happened differently.” My gut reaction to the opening was that either they threw out a lot of lore or Galadriel’s being an very unreliable narrator here and after finishing both episodes it seems like the second might turn out to be true which is a Very interesting direction to go imo.

I like Nori and Poppy so much already (Megan Richards is the most Hobbit-looking actor in the entire franchise and I love it). I’m pretty firmly in the Stranger as Gandalf camp and even though it’s not Tolkien canon him meeting the Harfoots first is a change I fully support, love how that informs his relations with their Hobbit descendants. The firefly lanterns made me go “adorable!” out loud and then turned into great foreshadowing (“when his tools have done their task he drops them”)

I’m absolutely shocked at how much I like young Elrond, he was the character I expected to be most frustrated about based on what we heard about him pre-release. He feels like a more likely proprietor of the last homely house than the film incarnation. (Also the show continues the canon tradition of people casually discussing the events of his super traumatic past with him like it’s nothing)

Durin and Disa were also very lovable and I’m a sucker for elf/dwarf friendships. Unspoiled Moira was my favorite location so far. Very excite for this plot line and hoping to see Durin get his doors.

The Bronwyn/Arondir storyline is another thing I expected to dislike and was pleasantly surprised. I want to see how the show handles the humans who sided with Morgoth angle because it has the potential to be really interesting or really terrible depending on how it’s done. Also her “there are some good people there,” felt exactly like how people talk about the embarrassingly conservative small town they grew up in. I need that old guy who runs the pub to wear a shirt though.

Galadriel’s story is thus far my least favorite. Right note I’m not sure why the “elvish warrior maiden on a self-destructive Revenge quest” character needed to be Galadriel at all when they could’ve created a new character entirely. It does seem like they’re taking some elements of her actual story (difficulties on ice, rebellious journey to ME) and recontextualizing them, but I’m finding that more frustrating than satisfying.

Aestheticly there were some really really beautiful moments and some that seemed lazy. Gil-Galad for example was very meh (not even close to the Majesty of lee pace as Thranduil, when if anything he should have MORE). The short- haired elf men and beardless dwarf women were disappointments but not deal breakers. There were some good creepy bits (honesty the creepy bits were one of the weakest parts of the original trilogy so this is an improvement). Liked that they threw in a cheesy cross fade transition in PJ’s honor, missed the dreamy-fuzzy vibes of the OG (there’s such a thing as too much definition tbh).

I’ve been a Tolkien fan for just about 30yrs now. I remember when the Fellowship of the Ring came out how sure I was that I would hate it, and how transformative it turned out to be. This show, I expected to be disappointed And/Or indifferent and ended up pleasantly surprised And optimistic.

There were enough good things to look at and enough intriguing seeds planted that I am excited to keep watching. While I really hope they manage to achieve the emotional depth that really makes all the details of the world building sing, I’m not sold they they will. It’s not clear yet exactly what kind of story they are telling. But they have my attention and more goodwill than I had going in.

#this is long af

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