@@PraetorianG2004 the human mortality has often been depicted as what allows them to create such grand works. Generations of humans can accomplish significantly more than a single elf
The anti-immigration allegory taken from our times did not work in this setting and context. That is the moment where the suspension of disbelief was completely lifted for me at least. The real "beef" between men and elves during this time was one of jealousy, for the humans did not understand what was so special about the "Gift of Man" (mortality and what lies beyond) and desired immortality and eternal youth instead. The people of Numenor were simply envious of their Elven neighbours and felt like they had been handed the short end of the stick. Sauron used that to his advantage to manipulate them and drive them towards their downfall. Tolkien really drilled that point down, I really am amazed that the showrunners missed it.
@@ogieogie then that is the steamiest, wettest, most disgusting shit that they could have made up, imagine if Jackson was so incompetent to only buy the rights to 2 out of the 3 books to make his movies, a fucking circus man
The "they didn´t have the rights t *insert*" argument is of no validity. If Amazon couldn´t get the whole thing, than they shouldn´t have made the show. Plain and simple. Everyone was bitching about PJ making three films out of the short Hobbit book, Amazon is making a whole show out of even less material.
I don't think they missed it. I think they were simply not interested in the wonderful story Tolkien wrote and instead wanted to push their political views in everyones throats.
Everyone begins their journey inexperienced, forced to learn many things along the way. Even Galadriel was once young and immature, and had to learn the paths required to become the one we know and respect.
When I moved abroad I had to learn a new language basically from zero while at the same time going to highschool. It was extremely hard because I was expected to write at the same level as the natives. My teacher who taught me the language couldn't give me more than 60% (the barely passing grade) for most of my writing simply because while the ideas within were thought through, the language was choppy and unpolished. Why this backstory? Well. I don't have many fond memories of said teacher. But one thing did stuck with me: After one of my assignments she told me: "Good writing flows like a river. Yours feels full of dams and waterfalls." This is how I feel about this series. No matter how great the material if the form is choppy and ragged it just won't work; and considering we are talking about Tolkien...the material is superb. Tolkien's writing always felt to me like this metaphorical river. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster but it always flows. Same with other great fantasy authors. Their story maybe a dark bog or cold mountain stream but the water always flows. Rings of Power feels like someone trying to change the course of that river. To build numerous dams. Drying up the valleys and killing the woods. Never looking down the river. Sorry for that wall of text but this series countinues to pierce me with volleys of growing apathy.
@@pazuzu126 Well. Thank you very much but actually no. It was italian. The only positive of the high school I've chosen was the linguistic profile which let me learn quite a few different languages and among them there was alsoenglish. It also became this kind of passion project of mine to learn at least 10 languages and now nearing 9 I really gained great appreciation for native fluid speech. Something that even after years of learning and studying the culture can evade you. To put in a little jab since we are talking about Rings of Power; the writing within this series does sometimes feel like something a foreigner trying to sound english might write.
Honestly the most unforgivable aspect of this show for me is the fact that most of these storylines have loose threads that require you to have knowledge of some deep lore and yet when you have that knowledge then the story lines stop making sense.
@@unkemptjargon91 See your problem is you are going to bring lore into it where as the show is not doing that. As far as I can tell the reason in the show and books are very different but that's not important to this conversation. I'm saying the show does not try to connect to the lore in a way where I can't understand why these people would hate Elves. No, the show makes it simple, they hate Elves because they want to take their jobs and such. Is this shallow and poor writing? No doubt. Do I understand it? Yeah, how couldn't you?
@@upg5147 that the fucking problem, Tolkien work isn’t generic fantasy, he is the father of modern fantasy, so successful that everything else that came after him was a hair away form being plagerism, the reason every fantasy setting created after the 1950s is so damn repetitive and has become generic, and to have ROP fall into that generic fantasy is so disgusting, THIS UNIVERSE IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST FANTASY has to offer, not a copy of a copy
@@upg5147 it's not just poor writing it's nonsensical even with the show logic. What had been shown that gives you the idea that they have anything to fear with the elves? They turned away elven ships and the elves stopped coming. They aren't competing for the same resources or trades and they have a common history, enemy and ancestors.
About the Numenoreans, the point of them is that they were quite literally better than other men of Middle Earth. They were blessed after all the shit they suffered helping Eldar fighting Morgoth. They were given longer lifespan, they were taller, stronger, more resilient to diseases etc. They also got great elven artifacts (like 7 Palantir, which were made by Feanor in Valinor), and great teachings from high elves that lived in Valinor. The unbreakable stone of Orthanc in Isengard was made by Numenoreans, which not even ents managed to scratch. And Minas Tirith was a mere guard post to protect Gondor's capital city after the Fall of Numenor, not during the hight of its power. But the thing is, regardless of their blessings, it wasn't enough for them. The great island Valar gave to them wasn't good enough, so at one point they started to sail east to establish colonies in Middle Earth, some of them becoming Dark Numenoreans. They were also jealous of elf's immortality, and unhappy of their Ban of Valar, which forbid them sailing too far west and going to Valinor. In the end their downfall wasn't because they thought they were better than other men, but their greed and hubris. No matter what they got, it wasn't enough for them. And I believe there's a lesson for us too with over consumption of our planet's resources. If we keep on demanding more and more, at some point we might get a ban hammer as a species. The whole "taking our jobs" misses the whole point of Numenor.
It was a copy paste of -Aristotle’s- Plato’s telling of the downfall of Atlantis. In the beginning Atlantis is ruled by a demigod but as time goes on the divinity is watered down further and further and Atlantis becomes greedy. They attempt to conquer the rest of the world and Poseidon strikes them down for their hubris and greed.
I agree that the taking our jobs thing doesn't work. I'm not sure Tolkien's original lore re Numenor would play all that well either though (or at least, I think I can see why the writers would be wary of it). If the story focused on the fact that one race of people was granted immortality and another wasn't and this second race was punished for challenging that status quo...well, it could easily read like the story (or at least this story's gods) are saying that there's meant to be a certain level of inequality in this world (and I don't think mortality being viewed as a 'gift' in some way would quite overcome that. Maybe if they really play up the idea that elves don't really enjoy their immortality and are generally envious of humans?). Either way, I would agree that RoP's alternative to the original Numenorean psychology is worse, thus far.
I really hope they don't figure out the best allegory for Numenor sinking is global warming🤞😣🤞 please let it be allegory for white privilege or something 🤞😣🤞
@@wrongdavey1019 natural unequally being ok is definitely a Tolkien idea though. Elves were better at everything than men and numenorians were better than the rest of mankind.
I dont think thats the lesson Tolkien want to tell us about Numenor, its more about humans accepting their fate (death) and believing in something after (as he would being a catholic) but still more than that is about not giving in into corruption, greedness and vile actions and bad behaviors that we as humans are led to because our understanding that our life is short and therefore we need things for "now" and we need them fast. I do understand the point of ecology that can be made but I think the deeper meaning is about humans confronting (and accepting) their own nature. But yeah the jobs stuff in the show was non sense lol
I think at the end of the day The Rings of Power is a show that is spending far too much of its time living in the shadow of Game of Thrones. The moment you view it as Amazon’s attempt to recreate Warner Brothers/HBO’s success with their own property a lot of this show’s problems start to make sense. The reason Galadriel doesn’t feel right is because at the end of the day she isn’t Galadriel, she’s Amazon’s attempt at Daenerys Targaryen. It’s the reason there’s so much petty personal drama, it’s the reason nothing feels right. It doesn’t make you feel like you’re in Middle Earth because it’s not meant to. It’s meant to make you feel like you’re in Westeros. (Edited for spelling)
Not sure where you’re getting the GOT comparisons from. The two shows couldn’t more different in terms of tone. The politics that exist in Numenor were part of the lore including their resentment of the elves.
@@duyvtran1 I think it’s important to note that I’m not actually comparing the shows. Game of Thrones was great, and its political themes are intricate and move with purpose. What I’m saying here is that Boardroom Executives, the stupidest, most ungracious race of people ever to walk the planet, saw the success of that show, and with absolutely no understanding of what made that show successful rushed headlong to try to cash in using their own property. Also, while there were certainly politics in Numenor, they in no way resembled what has been occurring in Rings of Power. Numenor resented the elves, yes, because they were fearful of death and envious of the elves’ immortality. This is all talked about in the video. This whole DEY TERK ER JERBS schtick is pulled basically from nowhere. And it isn’t narratively satisfying. They wanted politics, they wanted Game of Thrones style intrigues, but they didn’t want to put in the work.
11:06 An interesting thing (although a little bit unrelated to the video itself) is that we always think of "yeah" as very modern because it's a more casual form. But as it turns out, "yeah" is actually older than "yes". You can see this if you compare the English word "yea(h)" to the German "ja", Swedish "ja", Icelandic "já", or even Latin "jam" (meaning already). The form "yes" probably comes from Old English speakers appending "sīe", which means something like "may it be" or "so be it" (once again, compare Icelandic "sé", and Latin "sit" which both mean the same thing).
One correction on the dwarf lore: they don't "think" of Durin as reincarnation, he actually is and there can't be more than one Durin at a time. Tolkien described how they kept the body of the "first" Durin save in a special location so that his mind / soul could be reincarnated into it again. That's why I found it odd when they talked about two durins which is not possible :)
Would you mind giving a source for that? Because i haven't read anything that said that this actually happened with Durin. Rather i read it as the dwarves believing that he reincarnated.
@@odysseus3006 "Durin would not actually reincarnate in the sense of him being born and reborn in a new body. Rather, his original body was preserved, and his spirit would return to it and be granted life again." J.R.R. Tolkien, Carl F. Hostetter (ed.), The Nature of Middle-earth, "Part Two. Body, Mind and Spirit: XV. Elvish Reincarnation"p. 264-265
An addition after I reread it for @Odysseus: how it is depicted it should be possible, as it seems that after the first Durin the dwarves used the name "Durin" as a sort of name for their King similar to how the Numenorians added "Tar" before their name when they became king. So the naming is still off as there should only be one dwarf at a time named durin, but they both can just be normal dwarfes that became kings
“So, what was your favourite part of this episode of the High Fantasy TV show that takes place within Tolkien’s timeless universe?” “The MAGA rally, of course.” “… The what?”
I felt the Numenor plot was especially blunt. Tolkien's work gives to me a feel of religious schism in Numenor between the faithful who are humbled and thankful for the Elves and the Gods, and those who demand more. It's a darkness that corrupts and gives rise to "Dark Numenoreans". If all that it takes to push a civilisation to darkness in this show is a lack of jobs and a weak economy then we all have a lot to be worried about 😄 I still couldn't care less about the Harfoots though. More Dwarves, more Elves, more Men of the West and less proto-hobbit shoe ins.
I think the problem here is that the virtues of the Faithful (Humbleness, faith, the aceptance of death) are not something contemporary audiences particulary value. The bad guys argument "Why do we have to die when those people don't", meanwhile, is at first glance somewhat resonable. That's why they fell pray to the seductions of Sauron, after all. So to make things clear, they instead turn the conflict into a matter of petty xenophobia, even to the point of nonsense. So the audience has no doubts about who to cheer for. Or in other words, the writters thing than the audience are idiots incapable of understanding the nuances of the issue.
It feels like love, creativity and thought was poured into Elrond and Arondir’s settings, less so but still a little with the harfoots and then like a board of executives directed and wrote Numenor.
It's foundation situation all over again. One half feels like it belongs in completely different show. In that show, emperor part was awesome, colony part felt like a CW show.
My friends and I literally quote that South Park episode all the time and we about died when they pulled that same thing about taking their jobs 😂 I don’t know if they even realize what they did there. It was odd. I’ve been enjoying it well enough. It’s… fine. But watching it alongside of House of Dragon and the contrast in writing and dialogue is very apparent. I do love the Dwarves and the Orcs tho. The money spent is definitely working on that end. But it’s proving more and more than more money does not buy you good writing like it can but you good VFX/Costume Design. It could just be a personal taste thing for me but the constant use of slow motion is taking me out of it all the time
It keeps happening where lines and phrases are pulled from other places in this series, to the point I can absolutely believe they would put in "terkin our jerbs" for the hell of it.
It was utterly ridiculous even if you knew nothing about the lore. She's ONE elf. Since when does ONE foreigner precipitate fears of job loss and invasion? It was laughable.
@@IshtarNike ya like an immortal elf who has been alive forever needs to become a blacksmith on this island she doesn’t even want to be at 😂 It was so not believable as real problem at all.
@@IshtarNike And it's not even like this elf arrived with a bunch of fanfare on her own ship or anything. She's literally just a random person that they found drifting in the ocean, and the first freaking thing she did after being brought to their land was try to get a boat to take her home. I know that beliefs and reactions aren't always rational when there are strong feelings involved, but it's a hard sell to convince me that anything beyond perhaps the most genuinely unstable, radical xenophobe alive would hear "A ship's crew found a foreigner drifting in a life raft twenty miles off the coast, and after they brought her back she asked if anyone could take her home" and think "OMG TER HARR FER UR JEBS!"
The funny thing about running into the light that Orcs fear in order to survive is that we were shown in the last episode that their eyesight and marksmanship are just as good in the light as in the dark, as that one Elf got hit in the chest, twice, by Orcs obove ground in the middle of the day. And not a couple of hits out of a volley, but two direct shots. 100% accuracy.
Honestly, as a fairly casual Tolkien fan, I don't really care if they play around somewhat with established lore as long as it's something that works better in a TV show, and adaptations always have to do that to some extent. It's why it's called "adapting." Even the LOTR trilogy did that quite a lot, and people still love them, as they are amazing movies on their own. But what does bother me is that even when completely removed from the context of the source material, the show just isn't that well written in many of the ways you point out in this video. And while I feel like some criticisms of Galadriel's character boil down to a loud minority of people thinking that having her be a warrior is somehow "woke" or that she's a "Mary Sue", even I kind of find her unbearable to watch in many scenes. I understand that not every character needs to be likeable all the time (see: Jaime's arc in GoT), and that they're probably intending on doing an arc for her where she learns to become more humble or something, but she has absolutely no likeable traits to her at this point, which is pretty bad for a lead character. Not to mention the show insisting on her being a badass by making everyone else around her an unbelievably incompetent fool is laughable (e.g. all other elves in ep.1 getting instantly wrecked by the troll while she takes it down without a sweat + the four guards in this episode.) It's just not earned. Even with actually characters like John Wick or Geralt from the Witcher, they still get hurt and struggle believably when fighting, and they take threats seriously. They can be vulnerable, and that makes them both human and relatable, even if they possess ridiculous skills. It also helps that both are in some ways charismatic or have a sense of humor, instead of being one-note voids of personality like Galadriel is shown to be. She had *one* more lighthearted moment with Elrond in ep 1 until that scene also turned into her just being angry and self-righteous after a few lines of dialogue.
Bruh if you as a casual dont like Galadriel imagine people like me that was expecting Galadriel to be at least close to how she is described in the books lol
stlll i viscerally resent them for how they made Galdriel from a mystique , wise, prideful and powerful princess of elves to a childish, whiny, STUPID who behaves like a spoiled teen even though she is one of the eldest elves
I’m really not a fan of this time compression. I understand why they had to do it because a series can’t span 2000 years but it makes the fall of numenor feel rushed. It feels like Sauron and the rings have to be present and corrupting everything for much longer in order for it to feel right. For numenor to fall so immediately after the forging of the rings devalues the slow methodical process of Sauron ripping the country apart. It makes it seem more like the rings led it to destruction than he did.
They missed the opportunity to reinterpret the non-normative narrative structure the silmarillion already presents into a cinematic form in favour of more mid and generic narrative writing. Same thing that handicapped the Hobbit movies.
Puh-leeeze...just because these idiot writers couldn't come up with a way to show a span of 2k doesn't mean it couldn't have been done...geez, just see any of "The Time Machine" movies for a way to show long time jumps....
They didn’t have to do it, though. A 3000 yrs timespan spread out over a few years here and there would have been cool, it would have opened narrative possibilities. The time compression is dumb, an it forces them into further bad creative decisions.
Eh... It would’ve been so awesome to have a character like Elrond or Galadriel experience the whole 3000-year disaster unfolding in front of their eyes. And for us, viewers, to feel a bit like one of the timeless elves who saw history advance slowly and inexorably like a glacier, growing ever more dire. Perhaps I would have even empathised with Galadriel if we were to see through her eyes how, for hundreds of years, she fought the threat (perhaps more politically than physically) but kept losing.
I would say that the dwarves singing to the stones is a good scene, however it is undercut by the entrance of Durin to say all the dwarves are fine. It is simply too quick of a payoff as it takes place IN LITERALLY THE SAME SCENE that the element of the song is introduced (something which I have seen described as checkov's quick scope). I believe a better use of the song as a plot device would to be having a sperate scene where Durin and a group of dwarves are busy pulling the trapped miners out and as they pull out the last one, he looks dead. But then we hear faintly the song of the stones and he arises to the celebration of the rescue party.
I AGREE. I liked the scene of singing to the stones, but it was a little jarring to understand how we even got from the collapse to there, until the dwarf lady/wife explained it. (I initially thought maybe it was a funeral rite, mourning the lost/dead, or something?) I think we should have seen some desperate attempts to get through the collapse to look for the bodies, not knowing if anyone had survived or not, seemingly making no headway until the song clears the dust or moves the stones or something. Showing it alongside the desperate flight by Arondir and his human-healer-lady & her son away from the orcs still could have worked fine, with that, I think. (But, as it was, I actually didn't mind the timing of the pay-off from after the song to when it was revealed that a rescue had been successful..I mean, we had a whole conversation before that reveal swooped in?. ..idk.? 😅🤔😅) But maybe that's just me.
I think you should apply to Amazon as a scriptwriter. You're already better than their current scriptwriting committee. And as you know, they don't require prior experience. ;)
Not to take credit for something another commenter said but episode after episode I just get this notion that Tolkien's lore has been reduced to easter eggs. It's a simple yet true statement. No longer is this a true, lived-in world with actual history and landmarks and such, now it's just generic fantasy-land 101. Characters mention important stuff not because its actually relevant to where they are right now or if it even makes sense, they say it because fans recognize it! see: we're talking about the Silmarils! Mordor! You know this stuff! All the mystery elements are there not because it naturally creates a sense of tension and suspense, it's to keep those who know about the lore playing a game of which is which (is Theo a Nazgul? Is he the Witch king? is Hallbrand Sauron? Is the Stranger Saruman or the Balrog?). What makes it intersting is not what they are, is what they *could* *_potentially_* be... which I don't like to clarify but a reference to other things doesn't make something deep or enthrawling. Same thing happenned to netflix's the Witcher. It's a visual problem as well: everything looks overly polished, cheap and/or digital, the clothes lack any kind of surface or details, the sets seem overly lavish yet simplistic and barren, and there's no sense of true scale or geography because everything is either done in VFX, composited by green screen or is overly lit (this last thing has more to do with the production side than anything else: usually it's a mix of a poor shooting schedule which many of this high-budget fantasy shows have and poor production design, where they take a cost-effective approach so the sets and clothes are all done as quickly as possible)
I appreciated Disa's singing to the mountain.... but.... I'm pretty sure that 'singing power' would have been a nice touch that should have been used by Galadrial. Elves have an extremely well known history of using songs for magic, dwarves do not. How cool would it have been if instead of Galadrial using her fist to smash the ice plug in episiode 1, she had sung it open. BAM! Awesome Galadrial and elven demonstration! Sigh.
It is indeed turning into quite a loaded topic, to be sure. At the same time, neither "Reasonable" nor "Nuanced" are words that I would use to describe the Rings of Power.
I liked the scene between the Orc and Adar. Since Adar showed the dying orc some mercy probably the only mercy the Orc would have seen from anyone or anything in middle earth. So it makes sense that the Orc will fight and die for someone who can give them something one else even other orc will give them.
My two biggest problems with this episode were the scenes where Elrond swears an oath and the conversation between Adar and Arondir. I enjoyed both of the scenes within this contained story, but taking a step back they don't make sense. First, Elrond was raised by two sons of Feanor: Maglor and Maedhros, elves under the constant affliction of an oath. He knows from experience how much oaths matter and how they destroy someone. With this in mind, it feels very out of character for him to swear such a serious oath even if he cares deeply for Durin. Second, the problem with Arondir's scene is when Adar asks him where he was born. Arondir says Beleriand. This is a cool reference on the surface, but Arondir is a Silvan elf, a subgroup of the Nandor that didn't go over the Blue Mountains to Beleriand. If he was born in Beleriand he could be a Laiquendi or Sindar elf but not a Silvan elf as the show runners have stated.
@Ezor Raven the sub sets of the Elves are in the Silmarillion that Amazon don’t have the rights to. Also outside of Tolkien nerds it’s head scratching stuff.
Wow you are way more generous than I would be. The problem with this show is writing, writing, writing! Then all the lore breaking. Tolkien has been reduced to Easter eggs at best. Then making everything a modern day allegory, they outright lied about that. To redeem this show it needs to be twice as good as it is now, getting back to watchable won't be enough.
Even if the resurrect Tolkien to write the rest of the show, with a foundation this crooked it will make the Leaning Tower of Pisa look like like a perfect 90 degree angle.
The Hobbit was never the worst addition though. But it is absolutely insane how Amazon managed to make “sexy Shelob” look lore accurate in comparison to their disaster…
@@politereminder6284 lol you obviously have not seem RoP. I would rather watch The Hobbit on loop then one more slow mo scene of Guyladriel taking ad advantage of a poor defenceless horse.
As a elf with centuries of experience it makes sense she could beat them. What doesn’t make sense is that in that fight scene 2 of them walk into the cell off screen as Soon as the fight starts and another mimicks drawing a. Sword, doesn’t , and then makes a stabbing motion with his empty hand as if he didn’t resized that he failed to draw his sword
I agree with you that the rabble rouser scene is ham-handed. I do think it was made to be a scene set up by the Queen's advisor with the rouser working for him to set up a power play for the throne, but it still wasn't done well. The Durin/Elrond story was very well done.
I think they could have used you in the writer's room because you absolutely nailed this and why and how it feels so slow. But I love seeing some of the negative and positive in the same review.
Another thing that struck me as odd: the palantir at that time were many and not only 7 and they are only capable of see ling what is going on on the other end, like a big zoom call -> they cannot show you visions or the like
After ep4, my wife was kind enough to let me talk to her about the Legendarium for an hour this morning. Via a meandering discussion, I was mentioning what the Palantir are and what other Numenorean artifacts we know of. I saw an axe on display in the episode, and mentioned the Tuor axe Dramborleg, because I figured someone in the production said we gotta have an axe in the trophy room. Then I was mentioning the Stone of Erech that Isildur owns, and I had an epiphany! Halbrand is the King of the Mountains! A late-2nd Age pre-Numenorean king of middle Men in south lands! Someone who is powerful, skilled, influential, good-aligned, but not honorable to a fault. He was a contemporary of Isildur. We have no lore on him including his name. He’s in the LOTR proper, which means he’s in the rights, and general audiences know him as that ghost king guy from the movie.
@ Patrick Damiani Durin’s Axe is a thing. It’s briefly mentioned in the Moria chapters of LOTR. It would require a seismic shift in the plot to move Halbrand from proto Mordor to the White Mountains as the King of the latter. And then spend three millennia as a ghost zombie.
@@ianpatterson6552 Seismic shift? Not really, it would only take his people migrating a moderate distance, which seems perfectly factible given than Mordor is soon going to be, well, mordor. That said i still think is most likely than Harbrand is Sauron, because the writters are hacks.
@@ianpatterson6552 I’m not going to defend the show and the decisions they’ve made. I disagree that it is a “seismic shift” when compared to everything else they’ve changed. The White Mountains are in Gondor, and Gondor is called the Southern Kingdom. And yes, Durin’s Axe is a thing, but it wasn’t an heirloom of Numenor. Tuor’s Axe is specifically mentioned as a Numenorean heirloom in the Unfinished tales.
Loved also seeing the SchemaMonk Dwarfs in the singing to the mountain scene, the monks the the hooded robes were wearing the Great Schema, which is the highest form of monasticism in Orthodoxy
You're hitting the nail on the head. I so wanted this series to be a success but I'm still flinching with each episode, invariably the Numenor storyline
The overarching issue I'm feeling is that nothing feels earned in this show. For example they had this slow-mo, pretty-music escape with Arondir and Theo, but there was nothing behind it. The music cue indicated to me someone was about to die and this was supposed to be epic, but there wasn't enough build-up to earn that music. This wasn't Boromir's sacrifice. Numenor coming to the aid of the Southlands doesn't feel earned because we haven't experienced much struggle with them. The immigration thing just plain doesn't work because *the Elves are not there*. They aren't coming into Numenor as refugees, their craft isn't competing with Numenorean guilds. They have their own kingdoms and concerns. So trying to highlight that modern issue here just doesn't work, because the surrounding context doesn't exist. The Dwarf story is definitely the strongest, but I can't shake the bitterness that it should be Celebrimbor doing all of that relationship building with Durin. I just don't understand why he isn't one of the focal characters given the show is named after his most famous inventions. 😕 Also...does anyone know how much time has passed? Disa's singing though...💯
It's funny that people see the "the Elves will take our trades" as a modern-day allegory, when it really is a historic human fear, and a great representation how the jealousy of the Elves' immortality would be rationalized to win over a crowd. You can see how in the architecture of Numenor elvish buildings are getting replaced by Numneorian ones, the great bridge gets elvish decorations covered up. Numenor, a society once dependent on theirrelationship with the Elves, now seeks an independent identity. "Stealing our trades" will definitely not be the central reason for the downfall of Numenor, and the blacksmith guy is immediately shut down by Pharazon.
Appreciate the technical analysis. I think the problem is deeper than form though. The symbolic structure that Tolkien built his stories atop has been altered beyond recognition.
I think you’re being a little generous with the dwarf singing really feels like a “Tolkien” scene… when I saw that scene start I got up to take a piss and grab another beer.
I think Theo could be a ring wraith but he can't be like the witch king or whatever the second one is named, he would have to be one of the lesser/weaker ones like 7, 8, or 9.
11:54 sums up my feelings about the scene where Elrond stays for dinner at Durin's place. This show feels like it was written by people who have never stepped outside of LA.
The whole damn scene where he was getting ready to show the grand secret I was literally muttering ‘please not a silmaril’ and said ‘oh thank God’ out loud when it wasn’t lol
Interesting you centred on the “high school crush” chat here. I felt like the scene the other week with Isildur & fam felt like something from Party of Five with the kids talking about taking a year out and getting into college sort of chat only dressed up as Tolkien. I do worry that some of the aim or the tone here literally is aimed at an audience that isn’t actually watching the show.
Betting Sauron is fractured at this time, maybe as a result of experiments into infusing power into objects as Morgoth suffused Arda with his malevolence. So the Stranger is a piece, as are Halbrand, Adar, the Sword… and he will need the Tower to forge himself back together to reveal Annatar.
The arrival of Annatar the Lord of Gifts should have been the inciting incident. Personally, I believe Celebrimbor should have been the central focus of the show, with much of the story exploring the reasons he fell for Annatar's counsel when so many others did not. Instead we have a basic revenge story that is terribly shallow and bereft of any real urgency or tension. A revenge story that does not exist in Tolkien's lore, might I add. What are the stakes here? It seems like the battle of the Southlands and trying to save its people will be the climax of the season, but aside from a small tower of people being under siege and a few hundred orcs going there, I don't buy the threat.
This is my favorite type of content you do. I could listen to you talk about sections of a story for hours. I dont agree with you on this series, cause so far I think this is one of the most well done and in depth stories told on screen, but I could listen to you critique just about anything. A+ dude, I cant like these videos enough.
My biggest issue is that no one really seems to be making any difficult decisions, which is related to few characters* having well defined goals. Thus, no one is in a position to sacrifice/grow to achieve their goals. Galadriel has the strongest objective, which is why so much is focused on her. However, she faces no internal struggle with her goal. This makes it so that any external obstacle she faces we always know that she will try to and ultimately overcome it. There are no stakes. There have to be stakes. That's why it is boring. It would be great to see Galadriel lacking some important skill she needs to train or put in a situation where she's forced to compromise her values or someone she loves to achieve her goal. So far not really. In the first episode it seemed she might struggle with her relationship to the elves, but that tension quickly evaporated when she didn't really seem to care and also landed on Numenor and didn't have to think about them anymore. Sad to see such a great investment in a series with such bad writing. Characters that have nothing to do except to explain each plot point. This can still be salvaged, but it shouldn't take 4 episodes to explain everyone's desires. *Nori is a notable exception. She was going against her tribe's culture and tradition to satisfy her own curiosity and desire for exploration. And she did this at risk to her own family, which ultimately led to some, if not so compelling, consequences. But this is miles ahead of any other character.
I agree with everything you say. I sometimes feel that this show is more interested in propelling theories about who is who with random clues here and there than it is in actually developing its characters. They're planting so many clues that I'm sure many of them will be completely dishonest misdirections. The script is very reiterative. Galadriel has been stuck in a cycle of defying authority, facing some sort of silly surveillance, escaping, and "discovering" something that is supposed to be interesting but it's not. Nori has had the same dialogue a thousand times with everyone around her: "I want adventure", "oh no, adventure is dangerous". There is some sort of childish manage of tension that reminds me of the action sequences in The Hobbit movies: we are introduced to a problem that very quickly resolves and then we're off to the next conflict. The show runners don't seem to understand that we need to see heroes struggle in order to appreciate their greatness. Everything seems super easy for Galadriel. I'm also unsure as to what was the point of showing and mentioning Tar-Palantir to the audience if he has played no role so far in the story. I also think that this show is very confusing at times. I wonder if the people who haven't read the books feel the same way. Like, who is calling Isildur? If he wants to go west why is he volunteering to go East? Did the dwarves subplot have a time jump while the rest didn't? 🤔Who is Pharazôn in this series and why does he have a son?
I thoroughly enjoy the use of music by The Dwarves as a form of soft Magic especially since I'm also a fan of the Elder Scrolls universe and in that universe the dwarves have an understanding that all magic and science can be manipulated through tonal architecture or music. In the Elder Scrolls Universe the very laws of reality itself can be bent using music and that is how the dwarves are so Advanced compared to the other races prior to their extermination
Each storyline has its own inciting incident: Harfoots: meteor man Galadriel: being sent to the homeland while not ready and discovery of Sauron's plan (The map wasn't for us, it was for her) The Numenorians: falling leaves of the white tree. Elves: Sauron incites Celembrembor's defining project (appealing to his vanity) inciting the need for mithril, perhaps? Dwarves: perhaps Elrond breaking his word? Southlanders: invasion of the orcs and the message from Adar Orcs and Sauron: conditions are right; Sauron's plan is falling together perfectly The dwarven story is the one with THE least impact right now. That point is only being overlooked because we know that ultimately they are responsible for building the forges. A story with a uniting incident is exciting, but hardly realistic and not really that good as far as writing is concerned. This story, on the other hand is complex. I know that bends the brains of some who like popcorn fair, but they don't have to watch if thinking in entertainment is too much for them. Yes, the Numenorian grievance is the weakest part of the story, but it was only to demonstrate the guild magistrate's power, which will come into play later. So far I have found no one with a legitimate grievance, even though I have seen legitimate reasons that no one is mentioning. It blows my mind. This show is knowingly weaving a tapestry and pulling together the disperate threads because it is Sauron's plan bringing everything together.
I had this idea that the best way to show off Numenor's wealth and flaws was to include a small plotline of Halbrand meeting a group of Southlander migrants who have been brought to Numenor as workers for jobs which ordinary Numenoreans deem too demeaning. The Southland workers live in their own community separated from the Numenoreans and it is dirtier and unplanned. They give Halbrand some exposition on how the Numenoreans used to be kind to the Southlanders but now treat them as lesser humans. They try to recruit Halbrand and then take him to their worksite, which is a massive tomb being built by a Numenorean lord. It has taken a decade to build cos the Numenorean lord wants to spare no expense in ensuring that his legacy lives on after his death.
I see two problems with the show: The first one was the decision to do the downfall of Numenor in medias res. I can understand the instinct behind this (writer's love to say that action is good!), but the sheer scale of the story won't allow for it to be used effectively. Either the story would have to go at a snail's pace so exposition could be sprinkled in (imagine an extended focus on Numenor building up to the main action) and that pace would negate the medias res. Or, they have write it as it currently is: cramming in lore whether effective or not. When I think back to reading about the downfall of Numenor, I remember the Silmarillion basically went "and there were many great kings with long lives, and then-" The action, the story of Numenor, starts at the height of their power, not when they are already in decline. At first it seemed like a weird decision for the show to skip to events already happening. I assume they wanted their expected audience's lack of knowledge about the island to make it seem mysterious, and have that mystery engage the viewers. However, the way they have to deliver exposition after the fact means it mainly comes off as momentarily confusing, clunky. Another reason behind this is with the time compressions needed for a character drama it doesn't make sense to start the story at the beginning, even if that means they have to backtrack later on. The majority of this issue could have been resolved if they used the prologue effectively. Imagine instead that Galadriel seems more deep/mysterious since her motivations are unclear (that's the part I'd cut from the prologue) and you go into the show with a knowledge of the great Island of Numenor, gifted by the Valar at the end of the first age (The mystery about why it's in decline would work since the audience has a context to judge against). The second problem I see with the show: The second age is not the third age. There's an over-arching sense of dread during the War of the Ring about how the darkness keeps getting darker, magic is fading and civilization is a shadow of it's former glory oh however can it stand up against Sauron? This is also why it's so hopeful, and cheerful. While this atmosphere is quintessential Middle-Earth, it doesn't translate well when magic is present and civilization is at it's peak. They're trying to sell a show about third age Middle-Earth set in the completely different setting of second age Middle-Earth. This is how you end up with the Harfoots and Halbrand, the uncrowned king of the Southlands. This is part of the reason why Numenor had to be in decline not at its peak. This is why a primary plot-line is watching a society without culture for the sole reason of seeing the darkness of Mordor loom. So, how are the two ages different? While the heroes of the third age inspire us to have hope in dark times, the heroes of the second age inspire us by being totally legendary and badass. Ambition, hubris, the world during the second age is full of people who leave their mark and inspire us to do the same. Remember that time they captured Sauron? A retcon while fleshing out the lore to make everyone who read Lord of the Rings go "woah, that's totally badass!" The fantasy of the third age is about reluctant heroes doing great labors, the fantasy of the second age is about regular heroes whose work doesn't seem that entirely difficult for them. The second age is a power fantasy, like superheroes or a hyper-fixation on the lives of the wealthy. it's a power fantasy like Icarus dreamt of the power of flight. It's not bad, it's just different from the Middle-Earth most fans have come to love. I think the show would have worked a lot better if they tried to make it based off of what the story is rather than what they expected the audience wanted it to be.
Well don't worry. It's not the 2nd Age. It's 2nd Age 2.0 a new, better version. One in which we already see the Fall of Numenor in a dream in episode 4 of the 1st season. So that we.... emm... well there must be a solid reason, hidden from me.
The Bad Reboot playbook is to use Mystery boxes instead of plot, and Easter Eggs instead of lore. I'm impressed with your generosity regarding the 'three broad plots'. The dwarves aren't too bad. It was a bold move to put Disa's beard on top of her head. I think you're lapsing into hyperbole when you speak of the 'poetry of the scenes' in RoP.
I am enjoying thoroughly your analysis of the show and couldn't agree more! Moria > Southlands > Hobbits > Numenor One positive from Numenor in this episode though: Galadriels arrogant and self-righteousness snob behavior finally being called out by Hellbrand
I'm kind of surprised you didn't touch on or at least acknowledge the "There's a tempest inside" line from Galadriel. It almost seemed like the the show runners were banking on that being the highlight of the episode. So much time/effort/energy was put into that line yet it was confusing AF to me.
I think the LOTR movies were guilty of this, too, but Oh My those bridges in Khazad-Dum would not last very long using beam instead of arch construction. Wood is for beams. Stone is for arches. I guess you could say the dwarves hid some metal reinforcement in the stone or something...
What you said right at the end is what I’m expecting. That right at the end of S1, to get us excited and invested in a S2, js that someone will be introduced at the last scene, and they’ll call him Annatar. At least, thats what I’m hoping 😂 As for the show in general. It’s very slow, though I’m enjoying it way more than I expected. I expected a car crash but it’s alright. Not great, not amazing, but it’s not awful. Galadriel is annoying which I understand for a growth standpoint, she can change over the show to become the wise Galadriel we know. The only issue with that is that she’s already old enough to be wise and she shouldn’t be portrayed as a bratty teenager. Ah well. Least favourite character is the Numenorean queen or whatever she is. I hate the Harfoots, they don’t need to be in this I feel. Love Elrond. Though it was cool we’re seeing Elendil. Arondir is alright. I’m still jsut patiently waiting for the end to assess whether I think they’re gonna pull off any sort of story. Bht 4 episodes in not much has happened.
I liked that the pace was picking up and it felt like they were completing a story thought before moving on so that was nice. And I wish they had developed Galadriel much better because although her behavior makes a little more sense, i needed that prior development to exist. I’m starting to care a little, but i had always thought of Galadriel as wise more than anything. I want to see more of that wisdom. But everything felt like it made a little more sense. That was one thing I loved about The Lord Of the Rings. Peter Jackson’s team was able to help me understand a complex story I had not read before. I need that from this show lol (Or I could just read in my spare time lol)
Signing to the mountain would have had more significance if we actually saw the miners who were trapped by the cave in, rather than merely being told about them and their escape. Without that, we don't have a connection to the stakes for why that song is meaningful, instead of just loud.
If we're following with the concept of elves=inmigrants, just the idea of elves working in an underpaid dead-end job like a drugstore clerk is hilarious to me.
Pharazon is portrayed as some politician and advisor to the queen. Whereas in fact he is her first cousin, which was so scandalous when he later married her, against her will, to take the scepter for himself. He has no need to whip up the masses, he is a mighty lord already. His beard also raises questions. All the members of the house of Elros were unbearded, they could not grow any because their elven heritage.Numenor was an island continent near to the immortal lands (paradise), a ship would travel only a few days to Tol Eressea or onwards to Aman. Middle earth on the other hand was much farther. And yet the numenoreans were forbidden to sail there. The story elements concerning Numenor are a mess. There is much time compression, about 1500 years are missing, but then Sauron is missing as well. The second age is a time of almost constant warfare. Sauron considered himself King of the world, and he very nearly was that. Except for the small part in the northwest, Lindon, Ost in Edhil and Lorien his rule in Middle Earth was absolute. So much so that the Valar sent two wizards (blue wizards) to offer succor to the human peoples under his rule. The show makes not mention of this, except for some trenches in Mordor. I cannot fathom why they payed a huge sum for rights to a story they do not tell!
I think the relation with Elrond and the dwarves is cute. Maybe a little awkward, like someone removed scenes they didn't think were needed. Good writing is any writing that works, but I see Galadriel's side full of errors and contradictions.
I still think the harfoots could have been nixed. Leaving us with three major focuses and storylines. Galadriel, the elf/dwarf collaboration, and the southlands. The harfoots might still work, but they really have to convince me
It is fitting that it began with the destruction of Numenor because this episode was an absolute god-damned disaster. The beating HEART of JRR Tolkien’s world is about men’s desire for deathlessness, and they tore that heart out to replace with a tremendously ill-conceived immigration allegory (this is coming from someone who supports immigrants btw). And they somehow managed to make Numenor, the height of mankind’s civilisation, an absolute bore. Tolkien’s Numenor isn’t just a city with some fields…there are solemn dancing bears, Elven birds that sing with the women there, seabirds that cry out in joy when they see ships incoming…and this series has condensed all of that down to a city and a few fields. All that magic and wonder, down the drain. I was sceptical from the outset, but this episode solidified the total failure of the Rings of Power. I just hope they cancel this series early, let some other studio take a crack at Tolkien, because this is not going anywhere.
The sad thing is that apparently Amazon has pretty much confirmed that if this show fails, it will basically wreck their streaming platform because it was so expensive to produce. Which... yeah. They're putting all of their eggs in one basket and this is what the result is.
@@bavariancarenthusiast2722 Did some googling to check (I did say "apparently", as I couldn't say it as a 100% fact), and apparently it's a rumour that comes from Business Insider article that's mostly hidden behind a paywall sadly. But some other site quoted it and it seems it's just an unnamed "insider" that claims that to be the case, so not necessarily believable. But honestly seeing as how the show is so insanely expensive, I wouldn't be surprised. I would only question what Amazon considers a success.
I kind of have to disagree with your take of the conversation between Durin III and Durin IV. As you said it was well written, I really liked it in that it didn't seem cheesy and it was quite heartfelt. or it could've been if I had any sense of the conflict between Durin and his father... Basically all we know of this conflict is them saying that the mine is now closed and Durin shouting into an empty cave to then immediately go to his dad and make up with him. If they gave this conflict more (screen)time and more consequence to it the conversation could have been really moving. They did it well with Elrond and Durin before, where ELrond thinks he is Durin's friend and then is confronted with him being angry with him for quite a while before they reveal why. And because of that the reveal works well and we also believe the emotions that Durin feels there.
Why would they change the lore around the palantiri? It’s not a huge thing but she says that the one they are using is the last stone... but the faithful take like 7 of them to middle earth and place them in Gondor and Arnor, we know there are at least 3 around during the war of the ring, it’s literally how Saruman is corrupted (maybe when this version of the story reaches the war Saruman will remain true and not join Sauron since he doesn’t have a seeing stone?). They also change what they do, they make it seem more like Galadriel’s well in Lorien which show potential futures as opposed to what the stones are, communication devices. Again it’s not a huge change and that’s why it’s so confusing, it almost certainly will not matter that the one we see is the last one so why make it so? I just found it odd and it took me completely out of that scene
So far what I am getting from all these reviews is that in order for the story to work. Each character and or group of people needs to take turns holding the idiot ball.
I think the writers decided to pick up on some parts of Tolkien’s lore, change some and discard others, replacing them with their own. But Tolkien‘s world is so well thought through, so detailed and makes so much self within itself, you can’t just rip out what you like and change or discard the rest. Maybe they felt like „elves will take our jobs“ is more in-line with modern problems, but it makes no sense, there’s literally just one elb who doesn’t even want to stay, and, what else, if not the fear of death and mortality, is more relatable for human kind? Who does not know or understand that fear? Poor choice. And Galadriel feels like a teenage girl thrown into a court at times. The writers obviously wanted to make her different from the later Galadriel, a bit more rough, fierce, young. But I think they overdid it. This becomes especially clear as we see Elrond, who is many times younger than Galadriel, being so much more mature. Making Galadriel fierce, angry and arrogant is totally fine, but she was rather clumsy and stupid with her behaviour. Like, she’s too far away from the Galadriel we know.
Giving it some thought, it seems rather clear that the writers wanted to put Galadriel into the "underdog protagonist role". The problem is, Galadriel was never an underdog in the original material. The furthest thing from it.
Indifferent. That’s how I feel about this show. If they cancelled the show today I wouldn’t care. On the other hand I will continue to watch it to see where it’s going. With how much money they’ve put into this and being someone who enjoys LOTR, but wouldn’t call themself a fan, that’s a big yikes.
I do agree that the background stuff with character extras or whatever don't feel as deep or complex as stuff with the main/focal/ characters. Like the city-folk getting all riled up, versus Galadriel and the King's daughter. But I liked the stuff between Galadriel and the queen/regent/whoever enough that I largely ignored the more peripheral things myself, even though they kinda made me side-eye or roll my eyes too. (I think the difference between Elrond's story versus Galadriel's story, is that we meet basically zero other dwarves up-close or personal, but in Numenor we're seeing a lot more of the other people like we're trying to make the city actively 'lived-in' around them or something? Except ..it's too surface.)
What’s hilarious is everyone is trying so hard to not be too critical because the mob will come for them with all the basic name calling you’d expect. If there wasn’t a stigma to disliking this how the reviewers would be WAYYYY more harsh
If you are in the opinion that Halbrand is Sauron. What does that mean for the star guy? His magic is presented as evil, killing the fire flies and twisting the ankle of Nori's father. He even described himself as peril. I do agree with the points you made about Halbrand and it would be far more interesting if he is Sauron.
Кино
thE eLVeS wIlL tAkE oUr jOBs
BUT WhEn teh ELF ReTUrN afTer 5min, WE WELcOMe HeR
ThE eLf iS WhISpErInG LiES iNTo OUr QwEeEeeEn
"DEY TOOK ER JERBS!"
@@PraetorianG2004 the human mortality has often been depicted as what allows them to create such grand works. Generations of humans can accomplish significantly more than a single elf
@@zealousdoggo good philosophical point - me like it! Never thought about this that way.
The anti-immigration allegory taken from our times did not work in this setting and context. That is the moment where the suspension of disbelief was completely lifted for me at least. The real "beef" between men and elves during this time was one of jealousy, for the humans did not understand what was so special about the "Gift of Man" (mortality and what lies beyond) and desired immortality and eternal youth instead. The people of Numenor were simply envious of their Elven neighbours and felt like they had been handed the short end of the stick. Sauron used that to his advantage to manipulate them and drive them towards their downfall. Tolkien really drilled that point down, I really am amazed that the showrunners missed it.
They didn't buy the rights to Akallabeth, so they can't use it. They had to make up some shit instead.
@@ogieogie then that is the steamiest, wettest, most disgusting shit that they could have made up, imagine if Jackson was so incompetent to only buy the rights to 2 out of the 3 books to make his movies, a fucking circus man
@@pabloarellano5485 doubtless they were blocked from buying them completely. But yeah, it's stupid.
The "they didn´t have the rights t *insert*" argument is of no validity. If Amazon couldn´t get the whole thing, than they shouldn´t have made the show. Plain and simple. Everyone was bitching about PJ making three films out of the short Hobbit book, Amazon is making a whole show out of even less material.
I don't think they missed it.
I think they were simply not interested in the wonderful story Tolkien wrote and instead wanted to push their political views in everyones throats.
"Galadriel is so stupid" isn't a phrase I ever thought would come to my mind.
tHeRe is An SToRM wITHin mE
Powerful and terrible as the dawn
Everyone begins their journey inexperienced, forced to learn many things along the way. Even Galadriel was once young and immature, and had to learn the paths required to become the one we know and respect.
@@DanCreaMundos She's several millenia old already.
Look how they massacred my girl
When I moved abroad I had to learn a new language basically from zero while at the same time going to highschool. It was extremely hard because I was expected to write at the same level as the natives. My teacher who taught me the language couldn't give me more than 60% (the barely passing grade) for most of my writing simply because while the ideas within were thought through, the language was choppy and unpolished. Why this backstory?
Well. I don't have many fond memories of said teacher. But one thing did stuck with me: After one of my assignments she told me: "Good writing flows like a river. Yours feels full of dams and waterfalls." This is how I feel about this series. No matter how great the material if the form is choppy and ragged it just won't work; and considering we are talking about Tolkien...the material is superb.
Tolkien's writing always felt to me like this metaphorical river. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster but it always flows. Same with other great fantasy authors. Their story maybe a dark bog or cold mountain stream but the water always flows.
Rings of Power feels like someone trying to change the course of that river. To build numerous dams. Drying up the valleys and killing the woods. Never looking down the river.
Sorry for that wall of text but this series countinues to pierce me with volleys of growing apathy.
Is English the new language you were learning? If so, you appear to have mastered it!
@@pazuzu126 Well. Thank you very much but actually no. It was italian. The only positive of the high school I've chosen was the linguistic profile which let me learn quite a few different languages and among them there was alsoenglish.
It also became this kind of passion project of mine to learn at least 10 languages and now nearing 9 I really gained great appreciation for native fluid speech. Something that even after years of learning and studying the culture can evade you.
To put in a little jab since we are talking about Rings of Power; the writing within this series does sometimes feel like something a foreigner trying to sound english might write.
@@WaywardHex The Italian language usually flows a little better with a little push with your hands
Your comment reads more like poetry than anything in the show.
My problem with Galadriel is that she is too human. She reminds me of my rebellious teen niece.
I think that's what they're going for. Sad.
Honestly the most unforgivable aspect of this show for me is the fact that most of these storylines have loose threads that require you to have knowledge of some deep lore and yet when you have that knowledge then the story lines stop making sense.
I can't agree. I know next to nothing about LOTR but I can follow this show just fine, it's very much basic fantasy stuff, nothing I find confusing.
@@upg5147 can you say why the elves are distrusted? It's very important to the fall of numinor. And it has nothing to do with them stealing jobs.
@@unkemptjargon91 See your problem is you are going to bring lore into it where as the show is not doing that. As far as I can tell the reason in the show and books are very different but that's not important to this conversation. I'm saying the show does not try to connect to the lore in a way where I can't understand why these people would hate Elves. No, the show makes it simple, they hate Elves because they want to take their jobs and such. Is this shallow and poor writing? No doubt. Do I understand it? Yeah, how couldn't you?
@@upg5147 that the fucking problem, Tolkien work isn’t generic fantasy, he is the father of modern fantasy, so successful that everything else that came after him was a hair away form being plagerism, the reason every fantasy setting created after the 1950s is so damn repetitive and has become generic, and to have ROP fall into that generic fantasy is so disgusting, THIS UNIVERSE IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST FANTASY has to offer, not a copy of a copy
@@upg5147 it's not just poor writing it's nonsensical even with the show logic. What had been shown that gives you the idea that they have anything to fear with the elves? They turned away elven ships and the elves stopped coming. They aren't competing for the same resources or trades and they have a common history, enemy and ancestors.
About the Numenoreans, the point of them is that they were quite literally better than other men of Middle Earth. They were blessed after all the shit they suffered helping Eldar fighting Morgoth. They were given longer lifespan, they were taller, stronger, more resilient to diseases etc. They also got great elven artifacts (like 7 Palantir, which were made by Feanor in Valinor), and great teachings from high elves that lived in Valinor. The unbreakable stone of Orthanc in Isengard was made by Numenoreans, which not even ents managed to scratch. And Minas Tirith was a mere guard post to protect Gondor's capital city after the Fall of Numenor, not during the hight of its power.
But the thing is, regardless of their blessings, it wasn't enough for them. The great island Valar gave to them wasn't good enough, so at one point they started to sail east to establish colonies in Middle Earth, some of them becoming Dark Numenoreans. They were also jealous of elf's immortality, and unhappy of their Ban of Valar, which forbid them sailing too far west and going to Valinor. In the end their downfall wasn't because they thought they were better than other men, but their greed and hubris. No matter what they got, it wasn't enough for them.
And I believe there's a lesson for us too with over consumption of our planet's resources. If we keep on demanding more and more, at some point we might get a ban hammer as a species. The whole "taking our jobs" misses the whole point of Numenor.
It was a copy paste of -Aristotle’s- Plato’s telling of the downfall of Atlantis. In the beginning Atlantis is ruled by a demigod but as time goes on the divinity is watered down further and further and Atlantis becomes greedy. They attempt to conquer the rest of the world and Poseidon strikes them down for their hubris and greed.
I agree that the taking our jobs thing doesn't work. I'm not sure Tolkien's original lore re Numenor would play all that well either though (or at least, I think I can see why the writers would be wary of it). If the story focused on the fact that one race of people was granted immortality and another wasn't and this second race was punished for challenging that status quo...well, it could easily read like the story (or at least this story's gods) are saying that there's meant to be a certain level of inequality in this world (and I don't think mortality being viewed as a 'gift' in some way would quite overcome that. Maybe if they really play up the idea that elves don't really enjoy their immortality and are generally envious of humans?).
Either way, I would agree that RoP's alternative to the original Numenorean psychology is worse, thus far.
I really hope they don't figure out the best allegory for Numenor sinking is global warming🤞😣🤞 please let it be allegory for white privilege or something 🤞😣🤞
@@wrongdavey1019 natural unequally being ok is definitely a Tolkien idea though. Elves were better at everything than men and numenorians were better than the rest of mankind.
I dont think thats the lesson Tolkien want to tell us about Numenor, its more about humans accepting their fate (death) and believing in something after (as he would being a catholic) but still more than that is about not giving in into corruption, greedness and vile actions and bad behaviors that we as humans are led to because our understanding that our life is short and therefore we need things for "now" and we need them fast. I do understand the point of ecology that can be made but I think the deeper meaning is about humans confronting (and accepting) their own nature.
But yeah the jobs stuff in the show was non sense lol
I think at the end of the day The Rings of Power is a show that is spending far too much of its time living in the shadow of Game of Thrones. The moment you view it as Amazon’s attempt to recreate Warner Brothers/HBO’s success with their own property a lot of this show’s problems start to make sense. The reason Galadriel doesn’t feel right is because at the end of the day she isn’t Galadriel, she’s Amazon’s attempt at Daenerys Targaryen. It’s the reason there’s so much petty personal drama, it’s the reason nothing feels right. It doesn’t make you feel like you’re in Middle Earth because it’s not meant to. It’s meant to make you feel like you’re in Westeros.
(Edited for spelling)
With House of the Dragon doing so well, it makes this reality that much more hilarious.
Not sure where you’re getting the GOT comparisons from. The two shows couldn’t more different in terms of tone. The politics that exist in Numenor were part of the lore including their resentment of the elves.
@@duyvtran1 I think it’s important to note that I’m not actually comparing the shows. Game of Thrones was great, and its political themes are intricate and move with purpose. What I’m saying here is that Boardroom Executives, the stupidest, most ungracious race of people ever to walk the planet, saw the success of that show, and with absolutely no understanding of what made that show successful rushed headlong to try to cash in using their own property.
Also, while there were certainly politics in Numenor, they in no way resembled what has been occurring in Rings of Power. Numenor resented the elves, yes, because they were fearful of death and envious of the elves’ immortality. This is all talked about in the video. This whole DEY TERK ER JERBS schtick is pulled basically from nowhere. And it isn’t narratively satisfying. They wanted politics, they wanted Game of Thrones style intrigues, but they didn’t want to put in the work.
Well said! Makes sense to me 👏
Honestly fantastic point
11:06 An interesting thing (although a little bit unrelated to the video itself) is that we always think of "yeah" as very modern because it's a more casual form. But as it turns out, "yeah" is actually older than "yes". You can see this if you compare the English word "yea(h)" to the German "ja", Swedish "ja", Icelandic "já", or even Latin "jam" (meaning already). The form "yes" probably comes from Old English speakers appending "sīe", which means something like "may it be" or "so be it" (once again, compare Icelandic "sé", and Latin "sit" which both mean the same thing).
Thank you!
Why are they even worrying about Elves? What Elven population exists in Numenor, and what elf would even leave their kingdom to live with Men?
well g-lad is now the boss of numenor
Galadriel is going to take all of their jobs
One correction on the dwarf lore: they don't "think" of Durin as reincarnation, he actually is and there can't be more than one Durin at a time. Tolkien described how they kept the body of the "first" Durin save in a special location so that his mind / soul could be reincarnated into it again.
That's why I found it odd when they talked about two durins which is not possible :)
Would you mind giving a source for that? Because i haven't read anything that said that this actually happened with Durin. Rather i read it as the dwarves believing that he reincarnated.
@@odysseus3006 "Durin would not actually reincarnate in the sense of him being born and reborn in a new body. Rather, his original body was preserved, and his spirit would return to it and be granted life again." J.R.R. Tolkien, Carl F. Hostetter (ed.), The Nature of Middle-earth, "Part Two. Body, Mind and Spirit: XV. Elvish Reincarnation"p. 264-265
An addition after I reread it for @Odysseus: how it is depicted it should be possible, as it seems that after the first Durin the dwarves used the name "Durin" as a sort of name for their King similar to how the Numenorians added "Tar" before their name when they became king.
So the naming is still off as there should only be one dwarf at a time named durin, but they both can just be normal dwarfes that became kings
Thank you
The change of mood from maganoreans elf lover to let’s fight with the elves is such a sudden swing.
Miriel sells it very well. She doesn't say they will fight with the elves, but help the humans in the Southlands. It's quite cleverly written.
“So, what was your favourite part of this episode of the High Fantasy TV show that takes place within Tolkien’s timeless universe?”
“The MAGA rally, of course.”
“… The what?”
Yah the show runners outright lied about that but now days that's sadly expected.
Yeah a MAGA rally is kinda the worst place on earth right now - without getting shelled by artillerie I mean
I felt the Numenor plot was especially blunt. Tolkien's work gives to me a feel of religious schism in Numenor between the faithful who are humbled and thankful for the Elves and the Gods, and those who demand more. It's a darkness that corrupts and gives rise to "Dark Numenoreans". If all that it takes to push a civilisation to darkness in this show is a lack of jobs and a weak economy then we all have a lot to be worried about 😄
I still couldn't care less about the Harfoots though. More Dwarves, more Elves, more Men of the West and less proto-hobbit shoe ins.
I mean.. I care about Nori, specifically, and dude who fell from the sky. But ..other than that? I think I'm basically with you, honestly. 😅😅
I mean, have you seen the news recently?
I think the problem here is that the virtues of the Faithful (Humbleness, faith, the aceptance of death) are not something contemporary audiences particulary value. The bad guys argument "Why do we have to die when those people don't", meanwhile, is at first glance somewhat resonable. That's why they fell pray to the seductions of Sauron, after all.
So to make things clear, they instead turn the conflict into a matter of petty xenophobia, even to the point of nonsense. So the audience has no doubts about who to cheer for.
Or in other words, the writters thing than the audience are idiots incapable of understanding the nuances of the issue.
Yes but real men of the West not this high school theatre.
It feels like love, creativity and thought was poured into Elrond and Arondir’s settings,
less so but still a little with the harfoots
and then like a board of executives directed and wrote Numenor.
It's foundation situation all over again. One half feels like it belongs in completely different show. In that show, emperor part was awesome, colony part felt like a CW show.
I'm starting to like Elrond and Durin's friendship it's quite wholesome and warming. i like Elrond speech about his father it's really nice.
My friends and I literally quote that South Park episode all the time and we about died when they pulled that same thing about taking their jobs 😂 I don’t know if they even realize what they did there. It was odd.
I’ve been enjoying it well enough. It’s… fine. But watching it alongside of House of Dragon and the contrast in writing and dialogue is very apparent.
I do love the Dwarves and the Orcs tho. The money spent is definitely working on that end. But it’s proving more and more than more money does not buy you good writing like it can but you good VFX/Costume Design.
It could just be a personal taste thing for me but the constant use of slow motion is taking me out of it all the time
I literally said "They took our jobs!"
It keeps happening where lines and phrases are pulled from other places in this series, to the point I can absolutely believe they would put in "terkin our jerbs" for the hell of it.
It was utterly ridiculous even if you knew nothing about the lore. She's ONE elf. Since when does ONE foreigner precipitate fears of job loss and invasion? It was laughable.
@@IshtarNike ya like an immortal elf who has been alive forever needs to become a blacksmith on this island she doesn’t even want to be at 😂 It was so not believable as real problem at all.
@@IshtarNike And it's not even like this elf arrived with a bunch of fanfare on her own ship or anything. She's literally just a random person that they found drifting in the ocean, and the first freaking thing she did after being brought to their land was try to get a boat to take her home.
I know that beliefs and reactions aren't always rational when there are strong feelings involved, but it's a hard sell to convince me that anything beyond perhaps the most genuinely unstable, radical xenophobe alive would hear "A ship's crew found a foreigner drifting in a life raft twenty miles off the coast, and after they brought her back she asked if anyone could take her home" and think "OMG TER HARR FER UR JEBS!"
The funny thing about running into the light that Orcs fear in order to survive is that we were shown in the last episode that their eyesight and marksmanship are just as good in the light as in the dark, as that one Elf got hit in the chest, twice, by Orcs obove ground in the middle of the day. And not a couple of hits out of a volley, but two direct shots. 100% accuracy.
The problem with rop is that it tries to be giant, but It's a dwarf standing on the back of a giant, and it spits upon that giant.
And it's slips on it's own spit. Slowly falling off the giant's back.
Honestly, as a fairly casual Tolkien fan, I don't really care if they play around somewhat with established lore as long as it's something that works better in a TV show, and adaptations always have to do that to some extent. It's why it's called "adapting." Even the LOTR trilogy did that quite a lot, and people still love them, as they are amazing movies on their own. But what does bother me is that even when completely removed from the context of the source material, the show just isn't that well written in many of the ways you point out in this video.
And while I feel like some criticisms of Galadriel's character boil down to a loud minority of people thinking that having her be a warrior is somehow "woke" or that she's a "Mary Sue", even I kind of find her unbearable to watch in many scenes. I understand that not every character needs to be likeable all the time (see: Jaime's arc in GoT), and that they're probably intending on doing an arc for her where she learns to become more humble or something, but she has absolutely no likeable traits to her at this point, which is pretty bad for a lead character.
Not to mention the show insisting on her being a badass by making everyone else around her an unbelievably incompetent fool is laughable (e.g. all other elves in ep.1 getting instantly wrecked by the troll while she takes it down without a sweat + the four guards in this episode.) It's just not earned. Even with actually characters like John Wick or Geralt from the Witcher, they still get hurt and struggle believably when fighting, and they take threats seriously. They can be vulnerable, and that makes them both human and relatable, even if they possess ridiculous skills. It also helps that both are in some ways charismatic or have a sense of humor, instead of being one-note voids of personality like Galadriel is shown to be. She had *one* more lighthearted moment with Elrond in ep 1 until that scene also turned into her just being angry and self-righteous after a few lines of dialogue.
Bruh if you as a casual dont like Galadriel imagine people like me that was expecting Galadriel to be at least close to how she is described in the books lol
@@aesir1ases64 How is she described in the books? Not in Lord of the Rings, but Silmarillion.
stlll i viscerally resent them for how they made Galdriel
from a mystique , wise, prideful and powerful princess of elves to a childish, whiny, STUPID who behaves like a spoiled teen even though she is one of the eldest elves
I’m really not a fan of this time compression. I understand why they had to do it because a series can’t span 2000 years but it makes the fall of numenor feel rushed. It feels like Sauron and the rings have to be present and corrupting everything for much longer in order for it to feel right. For numenor to fall so immediately after the forging of the rings devalues the slow methodical process of Sauron ripping the country apart. It makes it seem more like the rings led it to destruction than he did.
They missed the opportunity to reinterpret the non-normative narrative structure the silmarillion already presents into a cinematic form in favour of more mid and generic narrative writing. Same thing that handicapped the Hobbit movies.
Puh-leeeze...just because these idiot writers couldn't come up with a way to show a span of 2k doesn't mean it couldn't have been done...geez, just see any of "The Time Machine" movies for a way to show long time jumps....
They didn’t have to do it, though. A 3000 yrs timespan spread out over a few years here and there would have been cool, it would have opened narrative possibilities. The time compression is dumb, an it forces them into further bad creative decisions.
That is another key feature about the Dark Lords of Middle Earth, they can wait things out unlike Men and Dwarves.
Eh... It would’ve been so awesome to have a character like Elrond or Galadriel experience the whole 3000-year disaster unfolding in front of their eyes. And for us, viewers, to feel a bit like one of the timeless elves who saw history advance slowly and inexorably like a glacier, growing ever more dire.
Perhaps I would have even empathised with Galadriel if we were to see through her eyes how, for hundreds of years, she fought the threat (perhaps more politically than physically) but kept losing.
I would say that the dwarves singing to the stones is a good scene, however it is undercut by the entrance of Durin to say all the dwarves are fine. It is simply too quick of a payoff as it takes place IN LITERALLY THE SAME SCENE that the element of the song is introduced (something which I have seen described as checkov's quick scope).
I believe a better use of the song as a plot device would to be having a sperate scene where Durin and a group of dwarves are busy pulling the trapped miners out and as they pull out the last one, he looks dead. But then we hear faintly the song of the stones and he arises to the celebration of the rescue party.
I AGREE. I liked the scene of singing to the stones, but it was a little jarring to understand how we even got from the collapse to there, until the dwarf lady/wife explained it. (I initially thought maybe it was a funeral rite, mourning the lost/dead, or something?)
I think we should have seen some desperate attempts to get through the collapse to look for the bodies, not knowing if anyone had survived or not, seemingly making no headway until the song clears the dust or moves the stones or something. Showing it alongside the desperate flight by Arondir and his human-healer-lady & her son away from the orcs still could have worked fine, with that, I think.
(But, as it was, I actually didn't mind the timing of the pay-off from after the song to when it was revealed that a rescue had been successful..I mean, we had a whole conversation before that reveal swooped in?. ..idk.? 😅🤔😅)
But maybe that's just me.
I think you should apply to Amazon as a scriptwriter. You're already better than their current scriptwriting committee. And as you know, they don't require prior experience. ;)
Not to take credit for something another commenter said but episode after episode I just get this notion that Tolkien's lore has been reduced to easter eggs. It's a simple yet true statement.
No longer is this a true, lived-in world with actual history and landmarks and such, now it's just generic fantasy-land 101. Characters mention important stuff not because its actually relevant to where they are right now or if it even makes sense, they say it because fans recognize it! see: we're talking about the Silmarils! Mordor! You know this stuff! All the mystery elements are there not because it naturally creates a sense of tension and suspense, it's to keep those who know about the lore playing a game of which is which (is Theo a Nazgul? Is he the Witch king? is Hallbrand Sauron? Is the Stranger Saruman or the Balrog?). What makes it intersting is not what they are, is what they *could* *_potentially_* be... which I don't like to clarify but a reference to other things doesn't make something deep or enthrawling.
Same thing happenned to netflix's the Witcher. It's a visual problem as well: everything looks overly polished, cheap and/or digital, the clothes lack any kind of surface or details, the sets seem overly lavish yet simplistic and barren, and there's no sense of true scale or geography because everything is either done in VFX, composited by green screen or is overly lit (this last thing has more to do with the production side than anything else: usually it's a mix of a poor shooting schedule which many of this high-budget fantasy shows have and poor production design, where they take a cost-effective approach so the sets and clothes are all done as quickly as possible)
Very good point, could explain some of the shortcomings
Elrond, Durin, Nori and Disa are my favourite characters so far.
I appreciated Disa's singing to the mountain.... but.... I'm pretty sure that 'singing power' would have been a nice touch that should have been used by Galadrial. Elves have an extremely well known history of using songs for magic, dwarves do not. How cool would it have been if instead of Galadrial using her fist to smash the ice plug in episiode 1, she had sung it open. BAM! Awesome Galadrial and elven demonstration! Sigh.
Disa singing was actually moving. Beautifully done
Ooh yay, was waiting for your video. Finding reasonable, nuanced reviews of this series is way harder than it should be.
It is good to find sane reviews, but all those qualities you state are missing in RoP.
Its all sugarcoated. Greene is so annoying with this shit.
It is indeed turning into quite a loaded topic, to be sure. At the same time, neither "Reasonable" nor "Nuanced" are words that I would use to describe the Rings of Power.
I liked the scene between the Orc and Adar. Since Adar showed the dying orc some mercy probably the only mercy the Orc would have seen from anyone or anything in middle earth. So it makes sense that the Orc will fight and die for someone who can give them something one else even other orc will give them.
right. the orcs are the good guys in this show. G-lad treats her soldiers like garbage.
My two biggest problems with this episode were the scenes where Elrond swears an oath and the conversation between Adar and Arondir. I enjoyed both of the scenes within this contained story, but taking a step back they don't make sense. First, Elrond was raised by two sons of Feanor: Maglor and Maedhros, elves under the constant affliction of an oath. He knows from experience how much oaths matter and how they destroy someone. With this in mind, it feels very out of character for him to swear such a serious oath even if he cares deeply for Durin. Second, the problem with Arondir's scene is when Adar asks him where he was born. Arondir says Beleriand. This is a cool reference on the surface, but Arondir is a Silvan elf, a subgroup of the Nandor that didn't go over the Blue Mountains to Beleriand. If he was born in Beleriand he could be a Laiquendi or Sindar elf but not a Silvan elf as the show runners have stated.
This, thanks also notice it 🙏
@Ezor Raven the sub sets of the Elves are in the Silmarillion that Amazon don’t have the rights to. Also outside of Tolkien nerds it’s head scratching stuff.
Wow you are way more generous than I would be. The problem with this show is writing, writing, writing!
Then all the lore breaking. Tolkien has been reduced to Easter eggs at best.
Then making everything a modern day allegory, they outright lied about that.
To redeem this show it needs to be twice as good as it is now, getting back to watchable won't be enough.
Even if the resurrect Tolkien to write the rest of the show, with a foundation this crooked it will make the Leaning Tower of Pisa look like like a perfect 90 degree angle.
The Hobbit and Shadow Of War fans realising their media are no longer the worst additions to the franchise: 😁😁😁
The Hobbit was never the worst addition though. But it is absolutely insane how Amazon managed to make “sexy Shelob” look lore accurate in comparison to their disaster…
Nothing is worse than the Hobbit.
@@politereminder6284 lol you obviously have not seem RoP. I would rather watch The Hobbit on loop then one more slow mo scene of Guyladriel taking ad advantage of a poor defenceless horse.
I thought that LOTR fans generally liked Shadow of War?
I may be wrong, but I thought Rings of Power is it’s own universe and not part of the Jackson world
how she overpowered 4 NUMENORIANS
it was a pinnacle of the show
truly
That scene! Cringe worthy.
She could honestly overpower dozends of them, she is one of the most powerful beings in Arda.
@@feconisb.3067 Not in this show tho.
As a elf with centuries of experience it makes sense she could beat them. What doesn’t make sense is that in that fight scene 2 of them walk into the cell off screen as Soon as the fight starts and another mimicks drawing a. Sword, doesn’t , and then makes a stabbing motion with his empty hand as if he didn’t resized that he failed to draw his sword
THEY'RE TAKIN URR JEEEEERRRRBBBBSS
I agree with you that the rabble rouser scene is ham-handed. I do think it was made to be a scene set up by the Queen's advisor with the rouser working for him to set up a power play for the throne, but it still wasn't done well. The Durin/Elrond story was very well done.
ironically, g-lad has now taken over numenor, and will be more insufferable than ever. so the rouser was right.
I think they could have used you in the writer's room because you absolutely nailed this and why and how it feels so slow. But I love seeing some of the negative and positive in the same review.
Good point about the fact that no one has mentioned or asked why the forge needs to be done by spring! I really hope they do reveal Annatar.
The impetus for Numenor to fight for the Southlands feels lacking, but at this point I'm just glad we're moving forward.
I thought the same thing!!
That's not something one says in a healthy relationship
the impetus was their tree losing all its blossoms. that's the only part of this show I liked.
Another thing that struck me as odd: the palantir at that time were many and not only 7 and they are only capable of see ling what is going on on the other end, like a big zoom call -> they cannot show you visions or the like
If Sauron yells "Make Mordor Great Again" then I'm declaring war on Amazon.
* Middle Earthers of South Park: "THEY TAKE OUR JOBS!!!!!!"
After ep4, my wife was kind enough to let me talk to her about the Legendarium for an hour this morning. Via a meandering discussion, I was mentioning what the Palantir are and what other Numenorean artifacts we know of. I saw an axe on display in the episode, and mentioned the Tuor axe Dramborleg, because I figured someone in the production said we gotta have an axe in the trophy room. Then I was mentioning the Stone of Erech that Isildur owns, and I had an epiphany! Halbrand is the King of the Mountains! A late-2nd Age pre-Numenorean king of middle Men in south lands! Someone who is powerful, skilled, influential, good-aligned, but not honorable to a fault. He was a contemporary of Isildur. We have no lore on him including his name. He’s in the LOTR proper, which means he’s in the rights, and general audiences know him as that ghost king guy from the movie.
@ Patrick Damiani Durin’s Axe is a thing. It’s briefly mentioned in the Moria chapters of LOTR. It would require a seismic shift in the plot to move Halbrand from proto Mordor to the White Mountains as the King of the latter. And then spend three millennia as a ghost zombie.
@@ianpatterson6552 Seismic shift? Not really, it would only take his people migrating a moderate distance, which seems perfectly factible given than Mordor is soon going to be, well, mordor.
That said i still think is most likely than Harbrand is Sauron, because the writters are hacks.
@@ianpatterson6552 I’m not going to defend the show and the decisions they’ve made. I disagree that it is a “seismic shift” when compared to everything else they’ve changed. The White Mountains are in Gondor, and Gondor is called the Southern Kingdom. And yes, Durin’s Axe is a thing, but it wasn’t an heirloom of Numenor. Tuor’s Axe is specifically mentioned as a Numenorean heirloom in the Unfinished tales.
I get your point
Loved also seeing the SchemaMonk Dwarfs in the singing to the mountain scene, the monks the the hooded robes were wearing the Great Schema, which is the highest form of monasticism in Orthodoxy
You're hitting the nail on the head. I so wanted this series to be a success but I'm still flinching with each episode, invariably the Numenor storyline
The overarching issue I'm feeling is that nothing feels earned in this show. For example they had this slow-mo, pretty-music escape with Arondir and Theo, but there was nothing behind it. The music cue indicated to me someone was about to die and this was supposed to be epic, but there wasn't enough build-up to earn that music. This wasn't Boromir's sacrifice. Numenor coming to the aid of the Southlands doesn't feel earned because we haven't experienced much struggle with them.
The immigration thing just plain doesn't work because *the Elves are not there*. They aren't coming into Numenor as refugees, their craft isn't competing with Numenorean guilds. They have their own kingdoms and concerns. So trying to highlight that modern issue here just doesn't work, because the surrounding context doesn't exist.
The Dwarf story is definitely the strongest, but I can't shake the bitterness that it should be Celebrimbor doing all of that relationship building with Durin. I just don't understand why he isn't one of the focal characters given the show is named after his most famous inventions. 😕
Also...does anyone know how much time has passed?
Disa's singing though...💯
I noticed in this last ep, Waldreg at the end says the starfall, a sign of Sauron, was a “few weeks back”
It's funny that people see the "the Elves will take our trades" as a modern-day allegory, when it really is a historic human fear, and a great representation how the jealousy of the Elves' immortality would be rationalized to win over a crowd. You can see how in the architecture of Numenor elvish buildings are getting replaced by Numneorian ones, the great bridge gets elvish decorations covered up. Numenor, a society once dependent on theirrelationship with the Elves, now seeks an independent identity. "Stealing our trades" will definitely not be the central reason for the downfall of Numenor, and the blacksmith guy is immediately shut down by Pharazon.
Appreciate the technical analysis. I think the problem is deeper than form though. The symbolic structure that Tolkien built his stories atop has been altered beyond recognition.
I think you’re being a little generous with the dwarf singing really feels like a “Tolkien” scene… when I saw that scene start I got up to take a piss and grab another beer.
The single elf who isn’t working is gonna steal all ur jerbs!
I think Theo could be a ring wraith but he can't be like the witch king or whatever the second one is named, he would have to be one of the lesser/weaker ones like 7, 8, or 9.
I'd imagine he can't be the second one, given that the second one's name is Khamûl, not Theo. :P
@@Ithirahad thanks for finding the name
11:54 sums up my feelings about the scene where Elrond stays for dinner at Durin's place. This show feels like it was written by people who have never stepped outside of LA.
numenor = so cal
I was relieved that what the dwarves found was not a silmaril, that would have been disastrous
The whole damn scene where he was getting ready to show the grand secret I was literally muttering ‘please not a silmaril’ and said ‘oh thank God’ out loud when it wasn’t lol
Interesting you centred on the “high school crush” chat here. I felt like the scene the other week with Isildur & fam felt like something from Party of Five with the kids talking about taking a year out and getting into college sort of chat only dressed up as Tolkien.
I do worry that some of the aim or the tone here literally is aimed at an audience that isn’t actually watching the show.
Exactly
Betting Sauron is fractured at this time, maybe as a result of experiments into infusing power into objects as Morgoth suffused Arda with his malevolence. So the Stranger is a piece, as are Halbrand, Adar, the Sword… and he will need the Tower to forge himself back together to reveal Annatar.
Imagine Legolas stole your job.
The arrival of Annatar the Lord of Gifts should have been the inciting incident. Personally, I believe Celebrimbor should have been the central focus of the show, with much of the story exploring the reasons he fell for Annatar's counsel when so many others did not. Instead we have a basic revenge story that is terribly shallow and bereft of any real urgency or tension. A revenge story that does not exist in Tolkien's lore, might I add. What are the stakes here? It seems like the battle of the Southlands and trying to save its people will be the climax of the season, but aside from a small tower of people being under siege and a few hundred orcs going there, I don't buy the threat.
Yeah, but that would only make sense if the show was called The Rings of Pow.... w8 a sec
This is my favorite type of content you do.
I could listen to you talk about sections of a story for hours.
I dont agree with you on this series, cause so far I think this is one of the most well done and in depth stories told on screen, but I could listen to you critique just about anything.
A+ dude, I cant like these videos enough.
My biggest issue is that no one really seems to be making any difficult decisions, which is related to few characters* having well defined goals. Thus, no one is in a position to sacrifice/grow to achieve their goals. Galadriel has the strongest objective, which is why so much is focused on her. However, she faces no internal struggle with her goal. This makes it so that any external obstacle she faces we always know that she will try to and ultimately overcome it. There are no stakes. There have to be stakes. That's why it is boring. It would be great to see Galadriel lacking some important skill she needs to train or put in a situation where she's forced to compromise her values or someone she loves to achieve her goal. So far not really. In the first episode it seemed she might struggle with her relationship to the elves, but that tension quickly evaporated when she didn't really seem to care and also landed on Numenor and didn't have to think about them anymore.
Sad to see such a great investment in a series with such bad writing. Characters that have nothing to do except to explain each plot point. This can still be salvaged, but it shouldn't take 4 episodes to explain everyone's desires.
*Nori is a notable exception. She was going against her tribe's culture and tradition to satisfy her own curiosity and desire for exploration. And she did this at risk to her own family, which ultimately led to some, if not so compelling, consequences. But this is miles ahead of any other character.
"HAVE YOU HEARD OF HIM LAD?!" That's the peak of this show, gents!
It's almost like different writers are handling the different storylines
Galardiel's brother dying was the inciting accident for her to go on a journey
I agree with everything you say. I sometimes feel that this show is more interested in propelling theories about who is who with random clues here and there than it is in actually developing its characters. They're planting so many clues that I'm sure many of them will be completely dishonest misdirections.
The script is very reiterative. Galadriel has been stuck in a cycle of defying authority, facing some sort of silly surveillance, escaping, and "discovering" something that is supposed to be interesting but it's not. Nori has had the same dialogue a thousand times with everyone around her: "I want adventure", "oh no, adventure is dangerous".
There is some sort of childish manage of tension that reminds me of the action sequences in The Hobbit movies: we are introduced to a problem that very quickly resolves and then we're off to the next conflict. The show runners don't seem to understand that we need to see heroes struggle in order to appreciate their greatness. Everything seems super easy for Galadriel. I'm also unsure as to what was the point of showing and mentioning Tar-Palantir to the audience if he has played no role so far in the story.
I also think that this show is very confusing at times. I wonder if the people who haven't read the books feel the same way. Like, who is calling Isildur? If he wants to go west why is he volunteering to go East? Did the dwarves subplot have a time jump while the rest didn't? 🤔Who is Pharazôn in this series and why does he have a son?
That's Jar Jar Abrams apprentices applying tried and tested mystery box BS. I am surprised people still fall for it
I thoroughly enjoy the use of music by The Dwarves as a form of soft Magic especially since I'm also a fan of the Elder Scrolls universe and in that universe the dwarves have an understanding that all magic and science can be manipulated through tonal architecture or music. In the Elder Scrolls Universe the very laws of reality itself can be bent using music and that is how the dwarves are so Advanced compared to the other races prior to their extermination
Each storyline has its own inciting incident:
Harfoots: meteor man
Galadriel: being sent to the homeland while not ready and discovery of Sauron's plan (The map wasn't for us, it was for her)
The Numenorians: falling leaves of the white tree.
Elves: Sauron incites Celembrembor's defining project (appealing to his vanity) inciting the need for mithril, perhaps?
Dwarves: perhaps Elrond breaking his word?
Southlanders: invasion of the orcs and the message from Adar
Orcs and Sauron: conditions are right; Sauron's plan is falling together perfectly
The dwarven story is the one with THE least impact right now. That point is only being overlooked because we know that ultimately they are responsible for building the forges.
A story with a uniting incident is exciting, but hardly realistic and not really that good as far as writing is concerned. This story, on the other hand is complex. I know that bends the brains of some who like popcorn fair, but they don't have to watch if thinking in entertainment is too much for them.
Yes, the Numenorian grievance is the weakest part of the story, but it was only to demonstrate the guild magistrate's power, which will come into play later.
So far I have found no one with a legitimate grievance, even though I have seen legitimate reasons that no one is mentioning. It blows my mind.
This show is knowingly weaving a tapestry and pulling together the disperate threads because it is Sauron's plan bringing everything together.
💀
I had this idea that the best way to show off Numenor's wealth and flaws was to include a small plotline of Halbrand meeting a group of Southlander migrants who have been brought to Numenor as workers for jobs which ordinary Numenoreans deem too demeaning. The Southland workers live in their own community separated from the Numenoreans and it is dirtier and unplanned. They give Halbrand some exposition on how the Numenoreans used to be kind to the Southlanders but now treat them as lesser humans. They try to recruit Halbrand and then take him to their worksite, which is a massive tomb being built by a Numenorean lord. It has taken a decade to build cos the Numenorean lord wants to spare no expense in ensuring that his legacy lives on after his death.
I see two problems with the show: The first one was the decision to do the downfall of Numenor in medias res. I can understand the instinct behind this (writer's love to say that action is good!), but the sheer scale of the story won't allow for it to be used effectively. Either the story would have to go at a snail's pace so exposition could be sprinkled in (imagine an extended focus on Numenor building up to the main action) and that pace would negate the medias res. Or, they have write it as it currently is: cramming in lore whether effective or not.
When I think back to reading about the downfall of Numenor, I remember the Silmarillion basically went "and there were many great kings with long lives, and then-" The action, the story of Numenor, starts at the height of their power, not when they are already in decline. At first it seemed like a weird decision for the show to skip to events already happening. I assume they wanted their expected audience's lack of knowledge about the island to make it seem mysterious, and have that mystery engage the viewers. However, the way they have to deliver exposition after the fact means it mainly comes off as momentarily confusing, clunky. Another reason behind this is with the time compressions needed for a character drama it doesn't make sense to start the story at the beginning, even if that means they have to backtrack later on.
The majority of this issue could have been resolved if they used the prologue effectively. Imagine instead that Galadriel seems more deep/mysterious since her motivations are unclear (that's the part I'd cut from the prologue) and you go into the show with a knowledge of the great Island of Numenor, gifted by the Valar at the end of the first age (The mystery about why it's in decline would work since the audience has a context to judge against).
The second problem I see with the show: The second age is not the third age. There's an over-arching sense of dread during the War of the Ring about how the darkness keeps getting darker, magic is fading and civilization is a shadow of it's former glory oh however can it stand up against Sauron? This is also why it's so hopeful, and cheerful. While this atmosphere is quintessential Middle-Earth, it doesn't translate well when magic is present and civilization is at it's peak. They're trying to sell a show about third age Middle-Earth set in the completely different setting of second age Middle-Earth. This is how you end up with the Harfoots and Halbrand, the uncrowned king of the Southlands. This is part of the reason why Numenor had to be in decline not at its peak. This is why a primary plot-line is watching a society without culture for the sole reason of seeing the darkness of Mordor loom.
So, how are the two ages different? While the heroes of the third age inspire us to have hope in dark times, the heroes of the second age inspire us by being totally legendary and badass. Ambition, hubris, the world during the second age is full of people who leave their mark and inspire us to do the same. Remember that time they captured Sauron? A retcon while fleshing out the lore to make everyone who read Lord of the Rings go "woah, that's totally badass!" The fantasy of the third age is about reluctant heroes doing great labors, the fantasy of the second age is about regular heroes whose work doesn't seem that entirely difficult for them. The second age is a power fantasy, like superheroes or a hyper-fixation on the lives of the wealthy. it's a power fantasy like Icarus dreamt of the power of flight. It's not bad, it's just different from the Middle-Earth most fans have come to love. I think the show would have worked a lot better if they tried to make it based off of what the story is rather than what they expected the audience wanted it to be.
Well don't worry. It's not the 2nd Age. It's 2nd Age 2.0 a new, better version. One in which we already see the Fall of Numenor in a dream in episode 4 of the 1st season. So that we.... emm... well there must be a solid reason, hidden from me.
Just got your first book on world building, really enjoying it so far.
The Bad Reboot playbook is to use Mystery boxes instead of plot, and Easter Eggs instead of lore. I'm impressed with your generosity regarding the 'three broad plots'.
The dwarves aren't too bad. It was a bold move to put Disa's beard on top of her head.
I think you're lapsing into hyperbole when you speak of the 'poetry of the scenes' in RoP.
I am enjoying thoroughly your analysis of the show and couldn't agree more!
Moria > Southlands > Hobbits > Numenor
One positive from Numenor in this episode though: Galadriels arrogant and self-righteousness snob behavior finally being called out by Hellbrand
I'm kind of surprised you didn't touch on or at least acknowledge the "There's a tempest inside" line from Galadriel. It almost seemed like the the show runners were banking on that being the highlight of the episode. So much time/effort/energy was put into that line yet it was confusing AF to me.
I think the LOTR movies were guilty of this, too, but Oh My those bridges in Khazad-Dum would not last very long using beam instead of arch construction.
Wood is for beams. Stone is for arches. I guess you could say the dwarves hid some metal reinforcement in the stone or something...
What you said right at the end is what I’m expecting. That right at the end of S1, to get us excited and invested in a S2, js that someone will be introduced at the last scene, and they’ll call him Annatar. At least, thats what I’m hoping 😂
As for the show in general. It’s very slow, though I’m enjoying it way more than I expected. I expected a car crash but it’s alright. Not great, not amazing, but it’s not awful. Galadriel is annoying which I understand for a growth standpoint, she can change over the show to become the wise Galadriel we know. The only issue with that is that she’s already old enough to be wise and she shouldn’t be portrayed as a bratty teenager. Ah well.
Least favourite character is the Numenorean queen or whatever she is.
I hate the Harfoots, they don’t need to be in this I feel.
Love Elrond. Though it was cool we’re seeing Elendil. Arondir is alright.
I’m still jsut patiently waiting for the end to assess whether I think they’re gonna pull off any sort of story. Bht 4 episodes in not much has happened.
I liked that the pace was picking up and it felt like they were completing a story thought before moving on so that was nice. And I wish they had developed Galadriel much better because although her behavior makes a little more sense, i needed that prior development to exist. I’m starting to care a little, but i had always thought of Galadriel as wise more than anything. I want to see more of that wisdom. But everything felt like it made a little more sense.
That was one thing I loved about The Lord Of the Rings. Peter Jackson’s team was able to help me understand a complex story I had not read before. I need that from this show lol
(Or I could just read in my spare time lol)
These damn knife ears took our jobs!
Galadriel's original reason to come to Middle-Earth was her desire to colonize it
Of course the white guy is Sauron, your not allowed to have a leading white guys who isn’t evil anymore
What the hell are you talking about
My wife and I are enjoying the show and I also enjoy your review. It's interesting to see it from your/little different perspective.
Signing to the mountain would have had more significance if we actually saw the miners who were trapped by the cave in, rather than merely being told about them and their escape. Without that, we don't have a connection to the stakes for why that song is meaningful, instead of just loud.
If we're following with the concept of elves=inmigrants, just the idea of elves working in an underpaid dead-end job like a drugstore clerk is hilarious to me.
Just a 1000 year old cashier working at Tesco.
"They never tire, they could jockey a cash register 24/7!"
Wait, was this supposed to be a reference to automation AND immigration the whole time?
@@Dave0G Yeah, my immediate thought (after cringing) was that they made elves soud like robots.
Pharazon is portrayed as some politician and advisor to the queen. Whereas in fact he is her first cousin, which was so scandalous when he later married her, against her will, to take the scepter for himself. He has no need to whip up the masses, he is a mighty lord already. His beard also raises questions. All the members of the house of Elros were unbearded, they could not grow any because their elven heritage.Numenor was an island continent near to the immortal lands (paradise), a ship would travel only a few days to Tol Eressea or onwards to Aman. Middle earth on the other hand was much farther. And yet the numenoreans were forbidden to sail there. The story elements concerning Numenor are a mess. There is much time compression, about 1500 years are missing, but then Sauron is missing as well. The second age is a time of almost constant warfare. Sauron considered himself King of the world, and he very nearly was that. Except for the small part in the northwest, Lindon, Ost in Edhil and Lorien his rule in Middle Earth was absolute. So much so that the Valar sent two wizards (blue wizards) to offer succor to the human peoples under his rule. The show makes not mention of this, except for some trenches in Mordor. I cannot fathom why they payed a huge sum for rights to a story they do not tell!
I think the relation with Elrond and the dwarves is cute. Maybe a little awkward, like someone removed scenes they didn't think were needed. Good writing is any writing that works, but I see Galadriel's side full of errors and contradictions.
I still think the harfoots could have been nixed. Leaving us with three major focuses and storylines. Galadriel, the elf/dwarf collaboration, and the southlands. The harfoots might still work, but they really have to convince me
It is fitting that it began with the destruction of Numenor because this episode was an absolute god-damned disaster. The beating HEART of JRR Tolkien’s world is about men’s desire for deathlessness, and they tore that heart out to replace with a tremendously ill-conceived immigration allegory (this is coming from someone who supports immigrants btw).
And they somehow managed to make Numenor, the height of mankind’s civilisation, an absolute bore. Tolkien’s Numenor isn’t just a city with some fields…there are solemn dancing bears, Elven birds that sing with the women there, seabirds that cry out in joy when they see ships incoming…and this series has condensed all of that down to a city and a few fields. All that magic and wonder, down the drain.
I was sceptical from the outset, but this episode solidified the total failure of the Rings of Power. I just hope they cancel this series early, let some other studio take a crack at Tolkien, because this is not going anywhere.
Did you watch the show? Didn't happen mate.
The sad thing is that apparently Amazon has pretty much confirmed that if this show fails, it will basically wreck their streaming platform because it was so expensive to produce. Which... yeah. They're putting all of their eggs in one basket and this is what the result is.
@@nezfromhki do you have a source for that? Would like to read (I mean really interested not trolling)
@@bavariancarenthusiast2722 Did some googling to check (I did say "apparently", as I couldn't say it as a 100% fact), and apparently it's a rumour that comes from Business Insider article that's mostly hidden behind a paywall sadly. But some other site quoted it and it seems it's just an unnamed "insider" that claims that to be the case, so not necessarily believable. But honestly seeing as how the show is so insanely expensive, I wouldn't be surprised. I would only question what Amazon considers a success.
@@nezfromhki Ok anyway thank you :)
8:50 YES! Exactly this. A juvenile level of understanding/writing.
I kind of have to disagree with your take of the conversation between Durin III and Durin IV.
As you said it was well written, I really liked it in that it didn't seem cheesy and it was quite heartfelt.
or it could've been if I had any sense of the conflict between Durin and his father...
Basically all we know of this conflict is them saying that the mine is now closed and Durin shouting into an empty cave to then immediately go to his dad and make up with him.
If they gave this conflict more (screen)time and more consequence to it the conversation could have been really moving.
They did it well with Elrond and Durin before, where ELrond thinks he is Durin's friend and then is confronted with him being angry with him for quite a while before they reveal why. And because of that the reveal works well and we also believe the emotions that Durin feels there.
I do love the characters in Khazad-dum the most. Though Kemen flirting with Aearien actually got a chuckle out of me. Maybe I just like chick flicks.
Why would they change the lore around the palantiri? It’s not a huge thing but she says that the one they are using is the last stone... but the faithful take like 7 of them to middle earth and place them in Gondor and Arnor, we know there are at least 3 around during the war of the ring, it’s literally how Saruman is corrupted (maybe when this version of the story reaches the war Saruman will remain true and not join Sauron since he doesn’t have a seeing stone?). They also change what they do, they make it seem more like Galadriel’s well in Lorien which show potential futures as opposed to what the stones are, communication devices. Again it’s not a huge change and that’s why it’s so confusing, it almost certainly will not matter that the one we see is the last one so why make it so? I just found it odd and it took me completely out of that scene
So far what I am getting from all these reviews is that in order for the story to work. Each character and or group of people needs to take turns holding the idiot ball.
I have such a prominent Hugh Grant vibe from Kemen. It makes me chuckle every time I see him 🙈
I think the writers decided to pick up on some parts of Tolkien’s lore, change some and discard others, replacing them with their own. But Tolkien‘s world is so well thought through, so detailed and makes so much self within itself, you can’t just rip out what you like and change or discard the rest.
Maybe they felt like „elves will take our jobs“ is more in-line with modern problems, but it makes no sense, there’s literally just one elb who doesn’t even want to stay, and, what else, if not the fear of death and mortality, is more relatable for human kind? Who does not know or understand that fear? Poor choice.
And Galadriel feels like a teenage girl thrown into a court at times. The writers obviously wanted to make her different from the later Galadriel, a bit more rough, fierce, young. But I think they overdid it. This becomes especially clear as we see Elrond, who is many times younger than Galadriel, being so much more mature. Making Galadriel fierce, angry and arrogant is totally fine, but she was rather clumsy and stupid with her behaviour. Like, she’s too far away from the Galadriel we know.
I feel like Halbrand is way too obvious. He's definitely a red herring and most likely a Ringwraith. Maybe even the Witch King, who knows...
Giving it some thought, it seems rather clear that the writers wanted to put Galadriel into the "underdog protagonist role".
The problem is, Galadriel was never an underdog in the original material. The furthest thing from it.
Indifferent. That’s how I feel about this show.
If they cancelled the show today I wouldn’t care. On the other hand I will continue to watch it to see where it’s going.
With how much money they’ve put into this and being someone who enjoys LOTR, but wouldn’t call themself a fan, that’s a big yikes.
I do agree that the background stuff with character extras or whatever don't feel as deep or complex as stuff with the main/focal/ characters. Like the city-folk getting all riled up, versus Galadriel and the King's daughter. But I liked the stuff between Galadriel and the queen/regent/whoever enough that I largely ignored the more peripheral things myself, even though they kinda made me side-eye or roll my eyes too. (I think the difference between Elrond's story versus Galadriel's story, is that we meet basically zero other dwarves up-close or personal, but in Numenor we're seeing a lot more of the other people like we're trying to make the city actively 'lived-in' around them or something? Except ..it's too surface.)
i really appreciate the way you critique this series
What’s hilarious is everyone is trying so hard to not be too critical because the mob will come for them with all the basic name calling you’d expect. If there wasn’t a stigma to disliking this how the reviewers would be WAYYYY more harsh
I love this show!! Beautiful, intriguing amd funny. 9/10 so far. This will be a epic last couple of episodes. Enjoy!!!
15:17 I genuinely laughed out loud! good one!
If you are in the opinion that Halbrand is Sauron. What does that mean for the star guy? His magic is presented as evil, killing the fire flies and twisting the ankle of Nori's father. He even described himself as peril. I do agree with the points you made about Halbrand and it would be far more interesting if he is Sauron.
I will say it is growing on me, but like, mold grows on bread sometimes.
When they said the elves would take their jobs, my boyfriend and I had to pause to laugh