Rings of What Could Have Been | finale ep 8 review!
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
- I really am enjoying some bits of Rings, but a lot of it is just very meh for me. READ MY PUBLISHED WORK + GET ON WRITING AND WORLDBUILDING VOL II I linktr.ee/timhickson
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My main big complaint is that elf characters don't seem timeless, they seem like regular dudes for the most part. Galadriel is older than the sun and the moon and all characters talk to her like she's just someone. Just imagine meeting someone that old and how you would feel.
Yes, and also none of the elves seem to have any innate magic whatsoever. None of them have visions of the future or the ability to communicate telepathically, etc. I was under the impression that the 3 rings simply amplified their extant abilities, but we have been given no indication that any of them have any abilities. Which comes back around to the fact that they're just humans with pointy ears.
This plus the fact that everyone treats Gil Galad like he’s one of the first born and literally an emissary of Valar or something… he’s half Galadriel’s age (at the end of the age) and I feel like he would have some reverence for her, everything she’s been through and what she represents for the elves, rather than treating her like she’s a bratty teenager the whole time. Gil Galad is a good king, and Tolkiens good kings are humble
@@mythic_snake to further that point, I was underwhelmed by how they portrayed Celebrimbors craft. He seems more like a discount Leonardo DaVinci then a magical elven smith.
@@mythic_snake i loved how the original lotr movies portrayed them. They showed some of their magic abilites, but only to some extent, and there was this pervasive feeling that elves operated on a completely different mental state, almost as if they are inherently unkowable. Loved how galadriel goes back and forth on her own in front of frodo, as if she is having an entire confrontation in her own mind
i think you're right on the money, they feel like humans with pointy ears. You'd think a being older than the sun would be a bit quirkier, and a society made of such beings would have an entire own way of talking and interacting. They've been together for so long yet they talk like casual humans
Especially the hair style
I felt that Halbrand could have EASILY brushed off Galadriel's suspicions by simply saying "You're right, I'm not a true king, but I told you that from the very beginning. It was YOU who insisted. You were so certain, and the Southlands needed a king, so I stepped into that role." There was nothing in the documents she found that would lead to the giant leap from "not the real king" to "he must be Sauron." There was NO reason to reveal himself in that moment. I am absolutely baffled at this rushed story progression. They destroyed the timeline of the rings in order to push this through in one episode. The entire season felt both rushed and painfully slow. Things that should have been given room to breathe were cut short, while entire blocks of time were wasted on goodbye scenes and spinning shots of rings on a table. Despite the shocking budget, the show still feels cheap and amateurish, and it makes me sad because as you say, it COULD have been so good.
Yeah, the nine and the seven should've been created by Celebrimbor and his smiths with the help of Annatar over a few years (really, centuries, but I get that they're compressing the timeline), while Celebrimbor worked on the three in secret.
It's like the writers were so up their own asses with their southlands story that they forgot they were making a show about Sauron and something called the Rings of Power.
power over flesh is a dead giveaway imo
Exactly! it was sloppy AF!
I agree except for your last statement. With these people making it, it could never have been good.
But we had to wait for a season's worth of evidence to find out for sure. Now we know.
The writers were so focused on the destination that was their predictable reveal that they forgot about the journey that should have been the rest of the show. Tolkien's works are all about the journey--the friends, the lessons, the adventures. To make an adaptation, or even something "based on" his work, the journey cannot be forgotten or it is no longer anything related to Tolkien.
Journey before destination, Radiant
Join us for Exsurge Tolkien and let your spirits rise back once, for ROP is a heresy and we define why, while defending Professor Tolkien. Peace be to you.
Yes...it seemed like answers just fell into their lap over and over again. I kept feeling like they jumped to the conclusions without working through anything....To the point that it felt illogical!
Judging by the shows logic concerning the "circular metal things" bilbos mithril chainmail would make him ALL POWERFULL considering its made up out of THOUSANDS of circular metal things each and every one of them consisting of mithril
I had to laugh at this way too much than I'm ready to admit :D
Dwarven craft versus elven craft - it sort of makes sense. The real problem was turning mithril into a plot device that it's not.
@@fluorotoluene yeah, but where do they establish how that is different? If the Elves are not shown as magical and they do not know how to work with mithril, then the dwarves are better smiths and the innate magic of their version of mithril would make Bilbo or any other wearer of mithril beyond OP and like a god. By changing it from just the most durable metal to a magical mystery box, it's now created inconsistencies they did not address. If this was not "LotR" then there would be no inconsistencies as the show does not show whole suits of mithril armor.
I assume mithril is only for preventing the fading, and the other powers come from fucky Sauron magic (they said something about the Unseen world blah blah), though they really didn't demonstrate that well. Mithril being able to stop the fading is stupid anyway, since yeah the elves don't even need the three rings to stay in Middle Earth, just grab Bilbo/Frodo's shirt, or mine in Khazad-dum after the Balrog gets Gandalf'd. The elves leaving after the One is destroyed now makes no sense unless Sauron bound the ring to all the mithril in the world somehow, so that it loses its magic too when he dies. And what happens to the other elf realms after the Spring extinction deadline? Do they have their own mithril or what? Is the Lindon tree literally bound to the lifeforce of every elf in Middle-earth? If so why did Celebrimbor say they needed to "saturate every last elf in the light of the Valar"? Just a bizarre plotline.
@@saulgoneman well what is even more bizarre is Sauron is imbuing no power into the rings, it seems to be implied the power is innate to the mithril. So why are the dwarves not the leading rulers of Middle Earth since they are sitting atop the largest vein of mithril and have it scattered about most of their strongholds(Bilbo's shirt came from Erebor where they had a bunch of mithril items). Does this mean a mithril sword is like a lightsaber? Does a mithril shirt give the wearer super strength or keep them from getting sick?
It just really screws with the nature and metaphysics of the universe that is heavily connected to Catholicism since it is supposed to be the mythic era of our world for England. They even have a prophesy of Eru Illuvatar becoming a man. "Magic" is tied to the Maia that are lesser angels and is innate to their being which Sauron pours into the rings which is why when his ring is destroyed he becomes a powerless spirit because it contained his power.
I don't know what everyone else thinks, but I think that Celebrimbor should have been a more important character. It could have been that he's relationship to the dwarves could be explored with them sharing a love of crafting but being too different to each other that it could have caused conflict.
Also, I don't think the mystery of Sauron was that compelling. For one, it's confusing to viewers who didn't already know and some of the fake outs felt to me like a waste of time. I think it could have been interesting if we saw Sauron behind the scenes planning and watching as characters become deeper and deeper in to, he's schemes until Galadriel finally discovers the truth.
I agree with this comment. Furthermore, I feel like the story around Sauron in disguise, which the show created is far inferior to the one that was canonically there with Sauron living amongst the elves for centuries and deceiving them, forcing a rift between Galadriel and Celebrimbor. I understand that the show wanted to condense the timeline, but I don’t think it was their best choice. Something about every important event taking place in the space of a week cheapens the world and removes the awe-inspiring epic feel that Tolkien’s writing possesses.
I personally would have pushed the harfoot storyline to next season and replaced it with one for Celebrimbor. The man is essentially the catalyst for the story to come, and I think exploring him as a character and his motivations for wanting to create the rings is important. We also never saw the progress on this grand tower that the dwarves were helping with, so they probably could have covered that too with the extra time.
@@silverscion2144 Yeah I feel like Celebrimbor would have been a better protagonist since he's the one who makes the rings of power and now it feels like he barely had a role to play in the show. I also think that the Harthfoot story line was completely unnecessary to this series. What they do doesn't really feel like it adds much to the story the most of what it does is set up a wizard and gives us another red herring. Basically, it feels like filler.
@@iconicnzz6414 I didn't think about the Feanor angle, that would have interesting to see parallels between the two best craftsmen in Middle Earth.
Right! And where's Narvi? Feels like Elrond/DurinIV have been given the friendship between Celebrimbor and him.
From a narrative POV; I got the impression the writers became married to the idea of A) Keeping up the 'mystery' of who Sauron is through the series and B) Revealing that mystery in the final episode. I can sort of see large portions of the narrative construction being pulled around maintaining both the mystery and the dueling possibilities (plus Adar for a bit) throughout the first season. It felt like in places they could've told a better story (or the story they wanted to tell, better) if they let go of trying to keep up those two tenets until the final episode. I know the main LOTRs story, but I didn't know enough of the deeper lore to feel anything 'ruined' or 'lacking' in that regard. But the pacing and overall construction just felt forced, which felt like the main cause of it coming off as 'boring' or 'disjointed'. There are a lot of elements I feel like I can forgive given the complexity of the story and lore they are trying to establish, but the mystery and the gimmick of 'who is Sauron' comes off as more of a marketing choice rather than a narrative one, and so I found myself less forgiving of that and the narrative ramifications it seems to have caused.
I watched another video from another channel that mentioned the term "Mystery Box", which as I understand is a storytelling style that JJ Abrams uses a lot. And apparently the showrunners of RoP were recommended by JJ Abrams...
Anyway, an example of this 'mystery box' style is the show Lost, which, I have to admit, I found so confusing... 😵
I think what you described above more or less describes that style, and it might be one reason why this show does not connect with a lot of viewers.
I mean, sure, there's probably a number of people who would like the challenge of figuring out the mysteries. But while most people do probably like a show that makes them think, I doubt a lot would want to put too much time and effort figuring out supposed "mysteries", especially for a show that one would expect to be more just an adaptation of an already established story.
I agree they should have dropped the mystery at least for the viewers let the viewers know who Sauron is but leave the mystery for the characters to discover I think that could have been more narratively interesting I honestly expected to see hellbrand manipulate and sweet talk galadria into believing he was doing good and even though he wasn't the true king he was trying to be worthy of it and that he would still be there to help Forge the Rings In the end having manipulated and tricked everybody but no they just did that
@@KalikaRoo31 I totally agree that dramatic irony would've been more of the way to go. I realized that there is actually very little mystery for the characters within the story itself - Hal is thought of as the Southland's King and Big Boy is assumed to be 'good' by Nori most of the time. The mystery was just for the viewers which really hamstrings the depth you can explore for the characters without giving it away
@@opsatr Yeah, it's gotten to be a very popular narrative device in media and can be done well but just wasn't enough to sustain this already crowded story. It can be a great source of tension and narrative direction when it's focused, but tips over into a 'gimmick' with decreasing returns easily when you don't have an end-point or enough character development to surround it. lol 'Lost' absolutely fell into that trap - that's a good example for it
@@alousnamer Yeah if they had made the mystery of Sauron something integral to the story it might have worked better. But everyone just assumed he was off somewhere else gathering his forces, so the mystery had to act as a layer on top of the story. And that’s totally something that can be done, but not when you are trying to juggle five different plot lines and make all of them interesting and weave together into a cohesive whole. Adding more complexity on top of that was just a bad idea.
Something that really annoys me, is that we've got an almost meanningless participation of sauron in the making of the 3 rings and his political plot to have celebrimbor make them and even worse is the feeling that sauron was lucky the dwarves didn't help the elves which undermines his planning, wits and intelligence, feels like he stumbled upon middle-earth and everything worked out the way he wanted out of luck, including mount doom.
True, and worse he didn't EVEN participate in that. The Lucky Lord Sauron
Exactly this
That is a huge issue in my opinion... And im kinda at a loss for several reasons. First, i don't really see why using mythril to save the elves had to be crafted into something circular, let alone explaining how a few items would stop their power frome waning. Second, why it seemingly went from 1,2, to 3 by trial and error. Third, as you said, basically making him a passenger in this process! Then even if they were to make the need for & forging of dwarves and mens rings later... How would this influence them? Ya and the whole mt doom part too...Ughh idk, i might just have to let it sink in more before i can figure out the issues lol
He's a guy, so...
As for Galadriel - her character arc is not convincing for me because her laying down her weapon was NOT because she realised that she can't continue with the violence. Just in this episode she tried to use it for violence twice (and she told Míriel the Elves would be ready when the Númenoréans return for war in the previous episode). Instead, she puts the dagger down for reasons entirely unconnected with her own arc: because the Elves are dying, if she doesn't give it up. It's something she didn't even know before this episode, and something we don't even see her react to (which is a big mistake, imo). So there is no arc where she learns to put her sword down. She has to, because Elrond's plot has developed in a way that demands it from her, but it's not connected to her own arc.
I disagree that this isn’t a natural extentention of her arc. Obviously there’s a lot more violence on the way for her but it’s not aimless vengeance but for the preservation of her people. Her giving up her personal grief and vengeance for a higher purpose as symbolized by giving up the dagger for the rings is very natural if a bit on the nose.
Can I disagree with both of you? I may be wrong, but I don’t think she gave up her quest for vengeance. The dagger isn’t gone, it just changed forms. Look at her face as she gazes upon the rings: complete lust for power-perhaps for the sake of revenge. The forging of these rings is a moral failure, and Galadriel could have stopped it by letting Elrond and Celebrimbor know about Sauron, but she chose not to. That makes her the one responsible for their creation, and her personal reason is that she still wants revenge. So she doesn’t have her dagger anymore, but she’ll soon be wearing it on her finger.
As I like to put it: the character arc falls flat in execution.
She doesn't even have the time for introspection because the writers are too busy giving her scenes where she antagonizes people or threatens to commit genocide
@@josephsheehan6079 I am sure she did not give up her personal vendetta but I couldn't be bothered to watch season 2 to find out
I mean.. the dagger was something that she essentially had a panic attack anytime someone touched or it left her side even for a second. Her being willing to let it change forms I think was still progress in her arc, I just can't tell if it's because she's legit ready to let anything go yet or if it's merely that she considers it somehow pressing or 'worth it' enough to do so.
I couldn’t agree more about how you felt about the Harfoot story. When it was over I literally turned to my wife and asked if she thought the only reason it existed was to be a red herring for who Sauron is and she totally agreed. Like maybe that could have been interesting if the cultists had caught up to The Stanger in episode seven to tell him he’s Sauron, but the fact that they told him that and then twenty minutes later had the reveal that it’s actually Halbrand just undercut that plotline so much. They never even tried to explore the possible implications before revealing the truth, so it just felt cheap.
they shot themselves on the foot with everyother decision. i have thought that the stranger is gandalf since he first appeared. but if the plot had tried to make me think for more than 20 minutes that he was sauron, maybe it would have worked. idk. this first season felt to me like the first idea one would have. a draft. it needed more work. it needed better pacing.
yeah, imagine a version where the cultists are here to corrupt gandalf instead of somehow mistaking him for Sauron, preying on his power and ambition and thirst for knowledge, and because he's interacted with the harfoot he's too kind and cares too much about the little things to be fooled: now you get an actual arc and the villains don't look completely stupid. And obviously it lasts more than 20mn - And We get to know Halbrand is Sauron from the jump and he gets to interact more with Celebrimbor.
Also how does a cult dedicated to a fallen Angel confuse him with with a wizard sent by Angels? Just Make them all human, including the harfoots lol. It’s just dumb if know even a little of Tolkiens world building
@@nmg6248 It was the Valar who sent the wizards, and the wizards are Maiar just like Sauron. So I don’t think it’s actually that ridiculous that the cultists couldn’t immediately differentiate two Maiar.
Under current RoP rules for mithril, Bilbo/Frodo's chain shirt would be more powerful than the elven rings, lol. Think about it. It's circles made up of circles! And it's pure mithril! There was no mention of using magic to activate properties or enhance them, it was just, "As long as the mithril is in a circle, it'll create a feedback loop to provide endless Eldar amplification!!!"
I was pretty disappointed that the story arc with Meteor Man and the not-hobbits didn't feel connected with everything else that was going on. It's like 2 people in the office were carrying scripts for 2 completely different shows and ran into each other, dropped the scripts, and the pages got mixed up.
I wish they had been secure enough to let the tension be that the audience knows pretty early on who Sauron is, but Galadriel doesn't, the Numenorians don't and neither Celebrimbor nor Elrond figure it out until it is too late. I have seen that be a great source of tension, the kind where you yell at the screen because you know what the characters don't yet. Also! minor gripe; Elrond is a healer, I wanted to see him heal Halbrand. Then he could share those complicated emotions with Galadriel once the reveal happened. Just personal wish there. No biggie.
I have to say, you explain your thoughts with such clarity and precision. It is a skill I am hoping rubs off on me. Thanks for the awesome content!
Celebrimbor and Elrond _still_ don't know who Halbrand really is, there was no reason for Galadriel to not tell them other than her own arrogance and incapacity to be wrong.
@@lotsofspots I don't think it was her arrogance, so much as it was her guilt/shame and possibly fear. I mean, she only JUST got accepted back "in" with cool-crowd. She probably is afraid the others will not accept her and sideline her cast to the outskirts of what's going on by the others again if they knew rather than being allowed to remain a decision-influencing party right in the midst of whatever is and isn't happening. I mean Halbrand/Sauron himself planted that question or seed of doubt in her about what the others might think of her if they knew that she had brought Sauron there or whatever. But possibly they are trying to set her up to still be on the fence about whether or not Halbrand/Sauron has any genuinely good-intentions in him or not in the next season too, like maybe they want to wrestle a while longer with whether he truly is irredeemable or perhaps could indeed be saved and reformed or something. idekk. (Also, one of them[ I think it was Elrond? if I remember it right?] actually went back and _found_ the scroll after she didn't tell them that part, so I think he does actually know now too-and has reason to suspect that Galadriel intentionally withheld that information. But, we'll see.)
Sadoc was hit in the chest with a knife and fell over then later he suddenly appeared out of hiding several feet away to stab the cultist in the foot. When I saw that I had assumed that actually the wound wasn’t fatal. Then it turned out that actually it was a mortal wound and he had exactly enough time left to see the sunrise even though it was the middle of the night just a few minutes prior. I felt a little twinge at his death but mostly it was bewilderment at how they constructed that fight.
Given how the Harfoots have behaved so far, he probably had a suicide pill ready as they seem happy to leave anyone with any sort of injury behind.
As he was dying my dad ( who is a fan of the show ) said “ wait didn’t he get stabbed ?” And I said “ yeah he’s dying right now, it’s just he’s not good at acting”
@@Spiceodog I will defend the actor and place the blame on the director and writers. They are the ones who really screwed up here
@@annieh8741 fair point. I 80% agree with you. One problem is that his dying scene was pretty poorly done. My dad actually said “ wait shouldn’t he be dying? He got hit with a knife right” not knowing that he was dying because he was speaking pretty casually.
Copied Pippen stabbing witch king with the powerful Numenorean blade from the Barrow Downs!
The biggest thing that is stuck in my mind is how small the world feels. Like if you asked me what I thought the population of the world was in this show I would probably guess like 5000 people, and I mean including all the good and evil races of the world added together. And I also mean the physical size of the world and how far apart things are.
Like how the entirety of the Southlands appears to be two small villages and an unstable tower!
For your autopsy, I want to know from a writing standpoint why they failed to get us to care about Numenor and the Southlands. They invested time and tried to give us endearing characters with all the tricks in the book (Elf and Human love story, Father and Son relationship, political intrigue, etc). So, why do you think it failed this hard?
Underrated comment. What's the difference between following the rules and good writing? Not an easy answer.
@@mycaleb8 Pablo Picasso once said (possibly in Spanish), that one should "learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an *artist*".
I would argue that it's because this writing team knew all of the tricks but not how to actually pull them off. Imagine an illusionist who knows the trick is to make the bird disappear and reappear but isn't actually good enough at slight of hand that the audience doesn't see the trick being done. Everything that copies what worked in the movies is done only at a surface level (except for the father son bit, that was done well and we should have had more of it).
This is a great question and one in which the answer is necessary to diagnose the issues surrounding the show. I would say a large problem of Numinor is that its characters and the things that happen to them dont feel organic. Elendils daughter is hit on by the politicians son and now she's super against them going to war. Isildur let's a rope go about a metre and him and his friends immediately get kicked off their apprenticeships.
These and many more things that happen feel constructed because the writers know they need to move the story on, but don't know how to move their characters into a position where they would be there more naturally.
@@mycaleb8 talent. Showrunners have none. Where was the romance in the romance, or the intrigue in the politics?
My biggest issue is, at the end of it, Halbrands introduction. Random schmoe sailing on a raft that Galadriel happens to run into turns out to be Southlands Royalty. A stretch, but can buy it. But Sauron, in disguise, doing so? All it would take is a single line about him trying to get to Numenor, and plot hole gone, but just too much a stretch currently.
I want Vizzini (from princess bride) at some point edited into the show making the comment "Maybe it's the dark lord, out for a pleasure cruise, at night, through eel infested waters"
“Do you remember the Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy, Mr Tim? It’ll be the 20th anniversary of ROTK soon. And the fanbase will cheer. And we’ll remember seeing those characters created by a visionary genius all those years ago represented as well as they possibly could have been. And the battle scenes that defined a generation of cinema will still stand up to scrutiny and be as impressive now as they were in the early 2000s. And the writing quality of one of the most dramatic and powerful stories in the history of fiction will still be as resonant because of the love and care Jackson put into those films to the best of his ability… and the good, good writing will just shine from every part of the script from the plot to the characters to the overall themes of the story…
Do you remember the feeling of good writing, Mr Tim?”
I remember Elves at Helm's Deep where they did not belong and Legolas doing all sort of cringe ninja shit. The movies were exceptional but they were not without fault.
@@pierrez8570 Wouldn’t you argue that the proof is in the pudding, so to speak? Despite the film trilogy’s departures from lore and liberties with physics, the films were massive successes. They made billions at the box office, ushering in an overnight worldwide phenomenon of large budget fantasy book adaptations in the process, went on to garner over a dozen Oscar’s during its three years, and inspired a generation of filmmakers by setting such an impassioned standard.
The show - beyond the admittedly exhausting Twitter/RUclips/outlet media fueled “culture war” - has an honestly disappointing viewership for its price tag, horrible ratings across multiple platforms regardless of ‘review bombing’, and worst of all is not being discussed by the masses anywhere near the level of the films twenty years earlier, despite having Lord of the Rings in the shows title and being backed by one of the largest corporations in the world with a mammoth advertising campaign.
Look at HotD reactions and discussions in comparison to RoP reactions and discussions as a great example. The viewership difference is absolutely clear, as is the lack of discourse in the comment sections, and HotD was just as ‘controversial’ during its production and promotion. Quality - regardless of politics for or against - will out, always.
"No, Ed, I can't recall the taste of effective character work, nor the sound of good dialogue, nor the touch of a master writer. Instead I'm...naked. In the dark. There's nothing. No veil between me and the bad writing decisions! I can see them... with my waking eyes!"
EDIT: I don't hate it or want to overly criticize the people who spent a lot of time working on this, I just couldn't let the modified quote go unanswered.
@@pierrez8570
Lol these things don't even compare. Don't even try to pretend.
He said the movies are exceptional, the point is that "represented as well as they possibly could have been" is a stretch. The show being kind of mediocre isn't because its more unfaithful than Jackson, its because of shoddy plot and character work.
"The I am Good" line was a good way to troll people thinking he was Gandalf by starting with a G
My wife who has not consumed anything apart from the trilogy movies commented, "Why is this the last episode i'm finally interested" and i think that sums up a lot of my feelings about it too. I feel this season was almost a.. pre season? And they felt the need to set up so much for a season 2 that they really didn't tell the best story. As many have said i feel like the Durin & Elrond story moved the plot forward without it feeling "set up"-ish.
Been waiting for your take on this all day! haha... This show was unearned moment after unearned moment, would love seeing you dissect that aspect specifically. I felt like there was so many times where the music would swell and you could tell the writers/directors/editors/composers were trying to make a moment land - but the issue really came down to all of the setup prior to those moments not servicing them. That and maybe you can break down how many times they revealed locations by having the camera fly over a hill to reveal it.... Oy....
I think it's the feeling of 'unearned' that really makes me look at the references to the shows and movies (and I could swear when that other Harfoot asks why everyone she knows always goes away is a reference to Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, or Johnny Cash's version) as cynical memberberries.
Why did Galadriel agree to the forging to the rings, despite knowing that it is exactly what Sauron wants? She was define by her hatred for him all the way until that point. She only asked for one more ring to be made after realizing Halbrand was Sauron, that was it.
Maybe because without any rings, the elves couldn't stay and continue the fight.
It was so funny watching the writers of this show believing they were subtle when it was right in the viewers' faces - Halbrand looking at the forge for quite a long time in Numenor and then begging the guy who runs it to hire him, or him saying ' looks can be deceiving', or using the same effect Peter Jackson used for Gandalf when he said to Bilbo '"Do not take me for a conjurer of cheap tricks" for the stranger when he screams, Halbrand saying "Call it a gift", Celebrimbor suggesting to forge a circular object. For Tolkien's sake, the level of incompetence on all fronts in this show is baffling, especially in the writing department.
Also, did you notice that Sauron's desire to rule over Middle Earth was reignited by our beloved Galadriel? He was on the raft in the middle of the bloody sea, God knows what were his plans. And when they reached Numenor, she insisted that he was the lost king of the southlands when he told her that he found that medalion on a dead man. Then she proceeded to use his name behind his back to manipulate the Queen to send forces to Middle Earth when Halbrand insisted on staying and starting anew in Numenor but she managed to manipulate him as well. And then she brought him to Eregion and introduced him to Celembrimbor, who is aparantly an absolute moron who doen't know how to mix different metals. She is an evil, manipulating hypocrate. It's all started because of her.
The thing is, Galadriel's opening monologue already set the tone for the inconsistancy and the constant contradictions the show willl bring. She said that the orcs spread fast and vast througout Middle Earth after Morgoth's defeat and Sauron's disappearance, but then she goes on saying that she searched the whole of Middle Earth for CENTURIES but found no trace of them. Maybe visit specsavers?
Once again this show proved that no matter how much money you throw at something, it will not guarantee quality. They had 60 million dollars per episode where Game Of Thrones had 6 mil per episode on their earlier seasons and then it went up to 15 mil per episode in 8th season. And also the quality when it comes to everything was on another level. House of Dragon has 20 mil per episode if you want to bring in inflation for GOT.
As a lover for professor Tolkien's detailed and deep world and complex characters and just a lover of fantasy genre I'm genuenly so dissapointed and sad because had Amazon hired competent writers, experienced actors, better costume, set and armour designers, a composer who is original and doen't try ro imitate the great Howard Shore, it could have been absolutely phenomenal. But alas, here we are.
Thank you for literally the only nuanced take that I can find on this series that acknowledges it's flatness and the undercutting of its own narrative potential while also highlighting the glimpses of what good have been a much better story that we saw in the finale. One thing that I would add is that when the stranger finally has the veil lifted and is able to basically be the wizard that we knew he was going to be (dear god I hope not Gandalf though...) the actor was amazing and the dynamic between him and Nori instantly became so much more enjoyable. I would have loved more time with these two building a relationship and adventuring together as wizard and hobbit in this season but, as you mentioned, they didn't do that simply to hold on to the "mystery box" style of storytelling that is ultimately so uninteresting. If this "veil" had been lifted in episode 2 or 3 we could have gotten so much more out of a character that this show desperately needed.
I didnt see any leaks and I called Halbrand being Sauron almost from the moment he was introduced, but certainly as soon as they said he was the rightful king of the southlands and he was transfixed by the smiths in numenor.
You put eloquent words to most of my feelings about this season. I'm looking forward to your full-season breakdown. I wish we got more of Halbrand and Galadriel talking about the best way to help/fix the land. Could have been before she knew, and he could have had some indecision, only to become convinced of the wrong way in spite of, or because of, his interactions with her.
I think one major issue with how this first season is being written, is that it's narratively all set-up for the next 4 seasons at the expense of having a compelling arc contained within the season. Because they want to introduce all the main players and locations in this season, it means that we only spend like 15-20 minutes on each arc per episode, which results in the feeling like the plot is moving at a glacial pace.
The directors and Charlie Vickers did say that we'll still see the remaining 16 rings being forged and that Sauron's deception as Annatar will be covered. How they'll go about it, having deviated from the order of events in the lore, will be.... something.
I’m not sure why the makers of this show want me to be as sympathetic to Sauron as possible and want me to see him succeed over the absolutely wretched cast of characters he’s going up against but if that was their goal, then by Eru they’ve succeeded. 😂
Cause Sauron's motivations are on itself "good", the mending and healing of Middle Earth in penitence
You explore that POV during this season IMO, but we'll see the other side, his methods and cold nature that was hinted by Adar and Finrod
Congratulations! You (and many others, I suspect) are showing distinct symptoms of John Milton Syndrome.
I think that the idea of sauron thinking on if he should or not redeem himself interesting, but it's not well done in the series.
Halbrand is established as a somewhat likeable character and is clearly ashamed of his past when we first met him, but in my opinion a character like him should have momments of him facing moral choices and show the audience and he judges as good or bad and a breaking point where he 'returns' to the path of evil.
But the show doesn't presents anything like that. Halbrand has no agency, and everything we know about him is shallow as a pond, so his big reveal as sauron falls flat
When showrunners want to blend into the grey area.... Mega cringe too when wizard boy says "I'm good" ZAP, best writing evar lol
Why are you sympathetic to Sauron? Why are the other characters wretched?
Definitely agreed that this should’ve been a longer story point. I honestly didn’t expect Sauron’s full reveal (to the characters at least) until late season 2. I think I just expected more slow burn deception from the “Anatar” persona of Sauron. That way we really feel it deeply when he turn on Galadriel.
As things plays out, it seems that Sauron really has no master plan. Its more like a vast number of random events that leads up to this episode where ”the opportunity makes the thief”. That beat doesnt really work for me. I would rather hope im missing something here.
One thing I thought was interesting, my wife believed the Stranger is Sauron reveal at first. I also am curious why they didn't let that stew for a week by sticking it on episode 7
That whole, you get to choose/I am good crap I was getting major Iron Giant vibes. Half expected Gandalf to look at Nory and say, "You stay. I go. No following."
To me they did what they did with wheel of Time. Literally the exact same formula for the story was used. They were married to the idea of having a mystery about the dragon (where there is no mystery) and obsessed with making some of the characters have so much more of a center of attention in a story where they are not the center of attention that…the real story was lost.
The showrunners apparently stated somewhere that they were working in a "mystery box" style for the show and I wonder how much of the dedication to that style was what hampered the structure of writing and characterization.
Brooooo they made a 500 MILLION DOLLAR FANFICTION!
I'm cackling.
I agree that changing the story isn't necessarily the same thing as bad writing but when you say you're doing an adaptation of something it's assumed that you will stick to the general canon more or less accurately, making changes only when necessary and justified. The forging of the rings could have been an entire season. Sauron (even if they can't use the name Annatar) could drive a wedge between Galadriel/Celeborn and Celebrimbor in Eregion, and Gil Galad and Elrond make alliance with Numenor to ensure military help when needed, the ensuring war could either be at the end of the season or the following, etc. thereby giving all the main characters story arcs that actually tie in together which is exactly how Tolkien wrote it. Point is there are multiple multiple ways in which a story can be adapted but the show doesn't fit any of this.
The show has changed so much that the themes of Tolkien are totally absent. AND it's not even a good show in and of itself.
Might be worth touching upon the connection that's made between Galadriel and Sauron\Halbrand, it ended up being a good thread through the season, and I was thinking recently that there is actually something to this connection in the lore (in a way that's not present the same way in the show). Important to note that there are quite a few variations on Galadriel so hard to say what is "canon", but in one of the major versions they are they only two characters who denied the forgiveness of the Valar out of pride at the end of the 1st age: Sauron after he initially repented, and Galadriel because she felt she shouldn't need to ask forgiveness in the first place.
In the last episode her mentioning she leapt from the boat without a plan and did so because she felt she wasn't worthy, this doesn't square totally with the details in my last paragraph but at least ties that moment in with something a lot more sensible. There are other intepretations of her history where she would have faced no actual ban on returning so not the craziest idea for them to have.
You’re not alone. My wife also hated the song at the end enough to speak up and turn it off after a bit lol.
Yeah, that song was really bad. The lyrics didn't fit with the tune. It just felt like a very cheap mash together of lyrics, that someone who only read the wiki article of LotR, and some gerneric tune.
The mixture of alloys has to be precise, exactly the amount in your dagger.
as if LotR isn't riddled with coincidences. Gandalf died only to come back stronger EXACTLY when he was needed. Bilbo had the ring and then his nephew happened to be the PERFECT person to take it to Mordor. Tolkien was a genious but his reliance on Deus Ex Machina is often and known.
what got me with the dagger was that the mixture had to be perfect BUT the steel blade was not plucked out when the gold and silver first melted. made me laugh.
@@erikdevries8686 or the fact Sauron educated the elves on making a precise mix of other metals, and they just use steel, gold and silver. No extra effort to make them magical, Mithril is good enough with uncut gemstones.
@@dresdenwarlock7978 the difference is the examples make a good story. The dagger is eye rolling
@@Rayray-db6rz why?
Tim, I would love to hear your opinion on them including one of the Istari, and other things from the third age in the show. Because I understand that they want to put all of the events from the second age into a few years so they don't have to do time skips and stuff, but I think they should've left stuff from the third age alone. There's so much stuff from the second age they can show us, and adding characters like Gandalf into the mix just takes away from it. I too am curious and interested what Rhún will be like. But I don't think it's something the show should spend their time on. I think they need to use their time to show us what Sauron did in the second age. Him laying waste to Ost-In-Edhil and Eregion, Show how Númenor grows desperate for immortality, and how Sauron manipulates them into sailing to Valinor. Show him growing in strenght, and show us The Battle of the Last Aliance in greater detail.
I'll also share my opinion of the show now. It had it's good moments. Some of the things Amazon added to the lore I was really happy with. I loved what they did with the dwarves singing to the stone. There is magic in song. I really loved Adar. To me he was a more interesting character than half the cast. Those things felt like they fit into the world.
But there's a lot of things I'm not a big fan of. Celebrimbor looks way older than Galadriel, while he can at most be like 1300 years older than her. Elves not having long hair. And a lot of things that annoy me so much, because it's so easy to do, but could change a lot of things for big fans.
Like naming the character Pharazôn instead of Ar-Pharazôn, since the Ar- prefix means king. Once he rises to power, they could've given him the prefix, showing us some more of the culture of númenor.
Elrond calling Celebrimbor "One of the greatest Elven-smiths", instead of "The greatest of Elven-smiths" as he was one of the greatest, but not the greatest, as that title clearly goes to Feänor.
And I'm sure there's a lot of other small things that I just missed that could've been done in a better way to respect the lore some more.
I do agree that the show could've been a lot better than it is. For me, they're changing the lore too much to fit the story they want to tell, instead of telling a story that fits in the lore. They already have so much freedom, and yet it didn't seem enough.
Cannot wait until your autopsy! Some ideas to maybe discuss:
- I would love an entire video on what you would have done in adapting a Second Age show!
- Why this show failed for so many to “enchant”. How they made Middle-earth feel small, or inauthentic. Where was the magic?
- Why so many of us failed to connect with the characters, and what they could have done to change that
- Why this show felt like an AI wrote it after scraping Tolkien’s works
- All of the plot holes and odd character decisions
- The quality and style of the dialogue. It seemed like the show was trying overly hard to mimic Tolkien’s language but fell short and ended up feeding us empty platitudes and awkward metaphors.
- How a writers room with some genuinely talented writers (like Gennifer Hutchinson) could be responsible for something like this?
- WHY certain lore changes negatively impacted the show
- How trying to convert Tolkien’s soft magic to hard magic system made the show feel less Tolkien
There's so much in TLotR that could have still been mined, so many events in the book that never made it onto the screen. I firmly believe that an Anthology Series to fill in the gaps would have been an ideal opportunity to enrich the film trilogy far more than what it already is.
We could finally see Tom Bombadil and Goldberry along with the Barrow Wights subplot and the Hobbits could have been rescued from Old Man Willow too.
There could be 'What If' sequences which could show Glorfindel riding the Fords with Frodo to Rivendell instead of Arwen or a full-fledged Scouring of the Shire multi-episode arc.
We could even return to Erebor, Dale and Moria showing us that the War of the Ring didn't only take place on the Pelennor Fields. Heck, I'd love to see Balin with Ori taking Moria back for the Dwarves later resulting in their tragic deaths...
Such a missed opportunity, I say. I know that past actors will not be able to return to reprise their roles, so they may as well recast certain actors. And it would be nice if Peter Jackson could at least be a consultant for people who actually give a damn about the property!
A huge problem for me as that they had all these moments that seemed like it was supposed to be immense payoff. The scene where sadoc dies, for example, had such good potential and you could see the writers wanted you to feel something, but it was just a beautifully shot scene, with no emotional release or ties, it was just another scene. Same with so much of what was happening in Eregion, it was so beautiful there, but I didn't feel anything watching it (in fact, this show has been so non-memorable, I didn't even remember it being built a few episodes earlier). I just dont know what the showrunners are thinking with the decisions they are making.
Also, I think it's safe to say that the tree's corruption was mabe by Sauron (since he told Galadriel that the best way to make enemies listen to her would be to discover what they needed and exploit that need - which is exactly what happen with the tree and the elves needing another way to stay alive) and that the wound on his stomach was ALSO made by him, no one saw him getting hit, "men found him on the road like this" they said. Either that wound was not as bad as he made them believe or it wasn't even bad/real/infected/needing of elven healing.
I am sorry but the Halbrand being Sauron reveal was the "Looks can be deceiving" line in episode 2
You do not give that line to a good character unless that character is questioning another character, so him just saying that already proved that he is up to no good and with the "Find Sauron" craze like he is Wally/Waldo, it was kinda obvious even with the misdirections
Honestly I think my biggest complaint was just the dialog/writing. Characters didn't react or respond during conversations in ways that seemed realistic to me (especially in situations where one person was talking to a crowd). In the movies and in the original books, the overly-fancy, poetic language gave a sense of grandeur and importance, even if it was unrealistic, but for whatever reason here it just reminded me of when students use big words on an essay to try and sound important.
I watched this show and I still don't understand why the rings have so much power. Because mithril is magic?
I've even watched videos explaining the rings from the books and I still don't get it.😅
Just like the silmarils, people can just *make* these rings? I don't think the books details how the rings were made or what they were made out of.
But from what I've understood from the show, a combination of pure materials from Valinor (the metals and the gems) with Mithril amplifies the magical properties of Mithril. And like we saw with the leaf in Kazad-dum, it keeps away the fading of the elves by "bathing" everything in the light of the Valar.
Yeah the idea is because the Mithril saturates the Elves In the light of Valinor; preventing the fading
Tolkien’s magic system is very loose and nebulous, the only actual “rule” is that only Eru Illuvatar can grant true sentience. Pretty much everything else is just wand waved away as “because I said so”. The rings are powerful because Tolkien said they are powerful, something about the way they were crafted involved magic spells and a kind of science that is beyond our understanding. There really isn’t a deeper answer because Tolkien didn’t care about how the rings actually worked he just wanted to explore how their inclusion impacted the plot and to have a metaphor he can use to weave a lot of symbolism with.
@@fakjbf3129 interesting, I guess rings of power couldn't have that luxury. I do believe we at least needed a vague explanation on how the rings aquire their power.
@@__Oku__ No one can just make the silmarils. Only Feanor could do that during the Years of the Trees. That's why they were sometimes nicknamed "Feanor's Gems". Once the Trees died, no one could make them anymore.
I'm a bit annoyed that they try to portray Sauron both as The Atoner with an redemption arc that fails, and as The Liar who has somehow manipulated Galadriel and has been planning things. Both things can't be true, because Sauron-Halbrand is either honest with his desire to be redeemed, or he is already manipulating people with his words. Some scenes make no sense if he's the Atoner, some scenes make no sense if he's the Liar. if he's the Atoner, he hasn't really accomplished anything and has just been there, somehow. If he's the Liar, all of Halbrand's story is useless. If he is the Atoner, he should have tried to come up with better excuses when Galadriel found out he's not a king - he had already told her he's not. But instead he's smiling when she founds out. If he's the Liar, some scenes in Númenor don't make any sense, and all this emotional build-up is wasted.
While I was ultimately fine with Halbrand as Secret Sauron, I found myself pleasantly surprised when the cultists called the Stranger Sauron, as I thought the show was going to lead in a more interesting direction than it ultimately did.
In the final three or four episodes, I started seeing a clear theme of "good people with good intentions taking actions that the audience knows will cause ruin." Durin trying to save his friend will ultimately lead to the Balrog unleashed on Khazad-Dum, Arondir and the Southland crew fighting Adar only to do exactly what he needs, Galadriel and the Elves trying to heal their race leading to the creation of the rings, and Nori trying to distract the cultists and getting her whole caravan utterly wrecked.
I think it would have cemented that theme if even the Harfoots, who just want to live in peace and be left alone, were partially to blame for Sauron's return. But that's not what they did, so... meh. Maybe he's Saruman and they can still pull a similar twist. And 100% agree on the "I... A... GOOOOOOD!" line.
The thing I don’t get: why Sauron stole money from some random dudes in Numenor and got in to fight with them
Hi Tim!
I liked this vid!
I'd be interested in you talking about how the differences of philosophy in this series compared to Middle Earth by Tolkien's hand ended up affecting how Evil is portrayed.
(That touches on how kinda weird the changes to Mythril are, like "it had all the epicness of good, but was as edgy and thus eternal as bad")
Thanks for the video!
The Sauron reveal was super evil. He really came off as a deceiver.
I’m just really upset about the mithril retcon. These rings’ only power is that they’re made with mithril
Love the first as well.
Terribly hate the mithril retcon
I think we're meant to believe Sauron or Celebrimbor imbued the mithril/rings with magic of some kind, they just communicated it really poorly. Otherwise what was that talking about power over flesh and the Unseen World? If its just that they're made of mithril and Valinor gold and steel, then yeah thats even dumber.
@@saulgoneman maybe they did, but idk I’m pretty sure the mithril alone was what was doing the magix, like all it had to do to heal the leaf was sit next to it. And I think celebrimbor’s line about power over flesh and everything was purely put there to make galadriel suspicious and move the plot along :/
I wanna imagine there’s more going on but with the abundance of plot holes that can only be answered by filling in gaps, I don’t really wanna be that charitable lol but who knows perhaps they’ll go into the details of it in future seasons. But it seems to me, the only problem they had in crafting them was making the metals stick. The “aha” moment was for the sake of metallurgy lol idk. Like annatar was supposed to teach them about the cool stuff like pouring your being into them, hopefully at the very least they show Sauron pouring himself into his ring. It just bothers me so much lol. Idk. Imma laugh so hard if Sauron makes his out of mithril too.
Tim, I always appreciated your honesty and integrity. I think that you knowing the lore prompts you to ask yourself "is this thing they changed better or worse than what Tolkien wrote"
I generally tend to have rule around that goes smth like this "I will abstain from statements like 'it violates the lore ergo bad writing' every time I evaluate my opinion about this difference"
Now bout Sauron. I said multiple times, I became very suspicious of the guy in ep. 2 when he lies about his reasons to leave Middle-earth. Then he does some superhuman feats when he was saving Galadriel from drowning. And then in ep. 3 Halbrand looks at the forge IN A VERY SUBTLE way, manipulates and lies to people and proceeds to beat up 5 numenorean men. I was quite sure he's Sauron at that point (mostly because of the showrunners desperate attempts to fake out with the wizard). Then his pep talk to Galadriel in the dungeon basically seals the deal. I did read the books though. I think writers's attempts to fake out Sauron that basically jumpstarted this whole "search for Sauron" quest were detrimental. I might have not looked for clues that intently if I didn't know the writers want me to think that some character is definitely Sauron. I find his reveal to be a character assassination for Galadriel. There is only one moment, mentioned pep talk, where one could argue he is attempting to influence her directly. Everything else is him "let me chill out woman and leave me alone"
This means that a) Sauron became evil because a woman rejected him and I find it cliché and immature, unbefitting demigod creature and b) everything Sauron does from this point onward is Galadriel's fault.
And about the line reference. I am sure it is just writers being creatively bankrupt. Several references would be fine, but the show shamelessly steals entire scenes from previous works and copy pastes lines over lines of dialogue. When would reference become plagiarism?
About the episode I think I'm the wrong person to ask because I was pretty underwhelmed by the show and it feels that even the most brilliant finale would not have mended that. And the finale was far from brilliant.
the middle finger thumbnail image cracked me up
Whatever you think of Mauler, his standard of internal consistency really does matter. You need consistency for the audience to form hopes & expectations about what's coming next, and you need these to have stakes.
Every time you notice a plot hole or annoying plot contrivance it does reduce immersion and make it more into watching the pretty fireworks. This doesn't matter so much for casual audiences and first viewings, but if you expect people to watch something multiple times, and you're making a show whose primary fanbase is gigantic nerds, it seriously undermines the depth of viewer engagement.
The other problem of course, is that Tolkien himself was a huge nerd, and spent a ludicrous amount of effort trying to maintain internal consistency in everything he did.
I know 'It'S RuINIng mY ImMeRsIOn' is a meme, but it's a meme about nerds, who happen to be people too.
Awesome video! very valid points! I love your impressions of injured Halbrand on a horse
and The Stranger saying I'm gooood! lol
We did not spend much time delving into Celebrimbor's ambition and their (the Smith's) drive to create wondrful things. So, this finale falls woefully short.
I like your analyses, always objective and incisive.
Edit: the show just utterly failed in immersing us into the different themes that drive their story.
They were quite on the nose with referencing future moments like Galadriel getting offered the One Ring.
I have feelings about Elrond's motions and acting when he pulls Galadriel out of the river. I have so many feelings about it. (I remind you she is trying to stab him at the time.) He 1: talks. He's a diplomat, he trusts his words, to an honestly inordinate degree. 2: he does this little motion where he reaches for her shoulder, like to comfort her, it's a tiny movement but it's also to the side of her body that is *not holding the knife*=he's trying to help her. 3: he finally puts his hand on the hand holding the knife and that combined with the fact that he looks more confused and concerned then alarmed and that little: "You gave me water," breaks my heart every time. Rewatch it. It's amazing. Honestly if someone edited out everything save Halbrand and Galadriel's banter dynamic/arc, the hobbits and Elrond and Durin being bros+just enough for those things to make even a modicum of sence, I would've been happy.
The Sauron reveal honestly had me rolling with laughter. In my head I saw the test of Galadriel from Fellowship of the ring, and I kept giggling because they took this singular notion of a dark Galadriel and built her whole character off of it. "You shall have a QUEEN!!!! 🤣 NOT DARK BUT BEAUTIFUL AND MOST TERRIBLE OF THEM ALL!!!!"
I feel the same way you described at the beginning of the video. I feel like most of the season was like a waiting game where things happen supposedly leading up to what we actually wanted to see and then it finally happens and it's rushed, underdeveloped and has little connection with everything else that happened before
RoP was very odd for lack of a better term. The pacing was all over the place and there was a disconnect between what the writers wanted the audience to feel and what was actually shown. Like with the Harfoots. We're clearly supposed to like them but the fact that they were completely willing to abandon people who were injured made them horrible.
I don't understand how you can lean toward the idea of the stranger being a blue wizard instead of Gandalf. Because at this point, either you trust the tons of hints that the writers decided to lay on the table that shout "it's gandalf", or you follow the idea that the writers followed the lore (based only on the destination of the trip). I think it is pretty clear from these writers' work on this season that the good answer is the first. If the blue wizards are kept in the series, I expect Nory and Gandalf to meet them in Rhun, and maybe have some confrontation there.
I also think it would be an aweful idea to make the stranger a blue wizard after what they've done in ep 8. Using Gandalf's quote and esthetics proves that they expect the average viewer to believe it's gandalf. So if they go toward the blue wizard idea afterwards, you have two possibilies for the viewer : either you like that it was (supposedly) gandalf in season 1 and so you'll be disappointed, or you don't like that it was gandalf and so you may not even watch season 2. In both cases you lose.
Of course there's also the possibility that they wanted to keep the question open, waiting for the fans reaction to decide on season 2, but I want to believe that Amazon is not as bad as that...
A blue wizard would be too unexpected and clever. The writers would never do such a thing.
If the Southlanders haven’t had a king for 1000 years and the line of kings had ended, then why were the Southlanders so quick to accept Halbrand as their king? Surely they would know that their line of kings had ended?
One of at least a dozen plot holes dug by a style of storytelling relying on far too much contrivance and coincidence.
So during the livestream I asked a question "Do you consider Rings of Power canon" because my boyfriend and I had been having a discussion about it (me having read the books obviously thinking it's not and sorta really disliking the show). I guess one thing I'd appreciate you talking about, as a follow up to my previous question, is how we as Tolkien fans deal with bad adaptations; how we as a community of fans can encourage people to love Tolkien, and how to encourage hollywood to keep trying to make a good adaptation of Tolkiens work without sanctioning bad adaptations nor giving new fans the idea that adaptations like Amazon's are canon or even good.
Thanks for being so awesome please keep doing lotr stuff!
They turn Finrod into a sidenote, Elendil into a spineless pushover, Isildur and Gil-Galad did nothing in 8 episodes.
And the worst offender... the mighty Celebrimbor turned into a clueless grandpa...
This show is a parody, maybe a satire, of Tolkien characters.
Am i missing something, or was the mithril nugget exactly the same size & shape when they added it to the dagger metal as when they first began working? They didn’t chip any bits off to ascertain melting point? What exploded earlier if the nugget wasn’t affected? I’m not a metalworker, but those scenes seemed really slapdash to me
My things is if the elves are dying in the show how are three elves having rings gonna save all of them
Also in the lore Sauron spent years just to gain the trust of the elves and then making the rings
I found it to be very dreading that the elves just let a random stranger walk into their most sacred workshop and let him help working on the pieces their fate depended on, no questions asked, no credentials needed.
Would be interesting if the next season has Sauron taking multiple forms to manipulate the world. In Mordor, he's King Halbrand and he convinces the locals that he's got the best of intentions with the Orcs (and in a really cool twist... maybe he does?) And then he takes the form of Annatar in the West to forge the remaining 16 rings with Celebrimbor.
The writing was the biggest issue in my opinion. As an example: Halbrand buying everyone drinks at the Numenorean tavern to try and steal someone's guild badge. I thought while watching this scene "where did he get money to pay for this??".
But there are lots of scenes where things conveniently appeared out of nowhere, or basic logistics weren't taken into account. Like Pharazon's speech in the town square where prepared drinks trays magically appeared at the end of his speech, or hundreds of soldiers and horses and supplies fitting on 3 small Numenorean boats, or ppl fleeing to the Southlands tower but not bringing food with them, or Galadriel jumping into the middle of the ocean to swim hundreds of miles back to Middle Earth, or riding 5 days straight with a mortally wonded person for "elven healing", or the fact that Arondir stated to Bronwyn that "the elves don't develop healing skills cause their injuries heal naturally".
So it was hard to figure out what a "clue" was vs bad/illogical writing.
The best parts of this episode are an indictment on the showrunners choices. Halbrand and Celebrimbor only having moments together and the rings being made in a few minutes, when I had to endure the southlands and harfoots for HOURS, was inexcusable. The Galadriel and Sauron confrontation was well done but watching it left me so frustrated that the build to it was so nonsensical and dependent on convenience instead of true manipulation.
Sigh, I wanted to like this show but it saddens me to come to the conclusion that this show is just not for me. The creators behind it have a different vision to what I hoped for and that ending resigned me to that fact. For them to plot this season the way they did, emphasise certain plots at the expense of what I assumed would be the more critical story beats, I don't think this is an off-season but rather an indication of their style. So, as a consequence, I don't think I'll be able to handle a season 2. Good luck to all who do enjoy the show, though, I hope you have a fun ride.
It seems appropriately Tolkienian that all the money and industry in the world can neither buy nor craft good writing - it's as if Jeff Bezos fell into Saruman's trap and crafted Uruk-hai writers instead of just nurturing good writers naturally. But then that's ridiculous, because Jeff Bezos is clearly Sauron.
Yes, underwhelming is a good way to describe this season. I'd be interested on your thoughts on which of the original characters worked for you and which didn't and why? Some of them were interesting to me (such as Adar) while others (such as Isilduir's sister) didn't seem to add much to the plot.
Yeah,, Adar's character was quite interesting
I haven't read the books and I didn't know about the leaks. But I do have both an academic and practical background in film and narrative so I was pretty sure that he was Sauron and the the Stranger was Gandalf. It was the most obvious direction to take the story in which made it quite predictable. And that's my biggest issue with the series, it's so paint-by-numbers. It's like a first general draft that should've never gone into production.
about where they are going, knowing that there are so many rings that still need to be made, i see a few options:
1. they could paint it as a fault of Galadriel's pride. she's unwilling to acknowledge that she was fooled by sauron, that she saved his life, so she doesn't tell anyone. even on this las episode, she was unwilling to explain it to Elrond.
2. they could change the lore (again) and sauron could go to the dwarves directly. letting them know that the elves already have the rings, so they too should have rings. but then who would make the rings for men? this one doesn't really works (but then again, there are many things that don't work)
3. they could make it Calebrimbor's fault. If he thought he was too smart to be outwitted by sauron, or if his ambition blinded him, maybe. maybe he makes Calebrimbor think that if he gives the rings to the dwarves, he'll be able to control them and that way obtain all of the Mithril he could possibly want. This is the one i see as more likely.
I think Galadriel was fundamentally the wrong choice for a protagonist. Celebrimbor simply makes more sense. He should have been the one building the friendship with the dwarves, making rings, making the Doors of Durin, being corrupted by Sauron, and his eventual end would have been all the more tragic that way.
I think one of the main reasons he was so good on pretending not to be sauron while acting is because he actually didn't knew. Some people don't know that they didn't tell the actors who would play sauron until late in the filming of the episodes, mostly to prevent the secret to be leaked, but that also made him act ad a normal person, not as someone hiding a secret.
About the stranger, I'm kinda having some doubts. I mean, they did use Gandalf's phrase to make us think it is actually him, but the 3 rings were forged in the second age and Olórin was sent to middle earth in the third age. So I'm not sure. But he does control fire too, something the bearer of the flame of Anor should be able to do. So it's kinda complicated. It's either fan service or a red herring.
I have to admit that I’m looking forward to seeing Rhun. One thing I have to give this show is the world design is amazing and I’m curious to how they’ll depict it.
Yep, I think you nailed it. The pacing of the show is out of sync with the story the writers want to tell. The season should have been extended to 10 episodes at the least to tell the story in Eregion properly. Galadriel should have been suspicious a lot sooner(she had Feanor’s number). Celebrimbor should have been a younger, more arrogant type who was easily deceived by Halluron (or Saurbrand). He’s younger than Galadriel. Why is he a middle aged unattractive elf? The mystery should have been why was everyone but Galadriel falling for this dude.
I would have liked to see who was at the elf-lord conference that Elrond couldn’t attend. Also, how did Gil-Galad et al lose their ability to think given that Sindarin elves didn’t seem to be freaking out about fading before the next quarterly earnings report.
Why did it have to take forever for Nori to say goodbye? What happened to Sadoc’s body? Did they just prop him up on that big fluffy rock?
Where were Arondir, Bronwyn and Theo? Why is Isildur missing from the season finale? We all know he’s not dead. Why not show him lost without his cell phone in Mordor or siting his future cities? Taking in the refreshment of Ithilien? The whole Numenor thing confuses me. The sets and production are amazing. The story and people are not. There seems to be little noble or heroic about them.
In all, I get the impression that episode 8 was as far as they got because someone took a look at what was already shot and said, “ok, something’s not working here. Let’s wrap this season, bring in a head writer who doesn’t want to turn this into a whodunit and can tell a coherent story and won’t rush the important bits. Let’s fix this ridiculous pacing and editing problem before season 2. Oh, and delete half the writers. Too many cooks are demanding unnecessary air time for their characters”.
I belong in the “I wouldn’t have done it this way camp. I don’t like the idea that a lifelong Tolkien fan needs to listen to a podcast by other Tolkien fans who have had screening access prior to the episode to explain to me what the show runners were thinking and where all the Easter eggs are that I missed. So, much wrong here and so much potential. It’s maddening.
"Well he's SAURON so of course he could make the journey wounded"
How stupid are the elves then not noticing that dying dude is not dying?
The song at the end was trying to replicate "Gollums Song" From the Two Tower's ending. They basically saw that the imagery of Sauron walking into Mordor was the same as the end of TWO TOWERS and mindlessly thought.... well let's replicate that !
I didn’t like Gollum’s Song at first but its haunting melody grew on me. This is reminiscent of it but worse
I feel like Halbrand/Sauron's words really did work and affected Galadriel and her decision to not tell anybody about him, and also not stop the creation of the rings. He says "you don't need to tell them, just let them continue the work" and in the end that's exactly what she does.
Also, about the other rings, either they already made them (when Celebrimbor tells Galadriel "not of the flesh but over flesh" and she asks where has he heard that, he replies that he was with the other smiths, and she asks if Halbrand was there). I think there's a chance they already trained in doing the rings, as they did the other 18 rings of power, that will later be divided between men and dwarfs, so those might be in the possesion of Halbrand. Either that OR Sauron will be back as the elf Anatar to continue the work on the other rings.
PS: My comments are only on the show's story, since I have only read The Hobbit.
I was very much expecting the show to pull a switcheroo with all the foreshadowing about Sauron and Gandalf's identities. "We know we built up these characters to look like the ones you were expecting, but surprise, they're actually just Joe Schmoe and Billy Bob. The real villains were these hitherto unseen characters! Haha! Gotcha!" It was a pleasant surprise that they didn't go that direction and instead allowed people familiar with the lore to draw good conclusions. I didn't realize that there had been a leak, but I've read the books :)
I enjoyed the Halbrand -> Sauron reveal/transformation. I appreciate that Halbrand never broke character with sly glances at camera when other characters had left the room or foreboding musical cues whenever he did or said something questionable. Lore buffs know the story of Sauron and know he was a master smith, could take many forms, reveled in deception and misdirection etc. I'd be curious to know if someone unfamiliar with the lore would have suspected Halbrand to be Sauron, or at what point they picked up on it if they did. I enjoyed the sales pitch to Galadriel because I don't think anything he said was a flat out lie, there was enough evidence from what was portrayed on screen for it to be plausible that he was being truthful and did want to "heal" Middle Earth, right up until the literal thunderclap and shouting. Because he never had any sneaky villain moments before, we can relate to Galadriel feelings as he's speaking to her. "This is Sauron, of course he's evil and unredeemable, but yeah, he did tell me that he had done evil and I told him that he could move beyond it. He's Sauron, he wants to rule and dominate, but it was me who encouraged him to go become king, who persuaded Numenor to fight and he hasn't done anything suggesting evil so far. Maybe this isn't the same Sauron from the previous films/age of the world?"
I appreciated the reference and revelation of Galadriel when Celibrimbor said of Halbrand "He was merely the key that unlocked the dam."
I'm less enamored by the Gandalf reveal, both because it flies in the face of the legendarium and because it was rather boring in my opinion. It feels like the show wanted to get all the big characters into the story, so they came up with a whole song and dance to make Gandalf to appear, even though he doesn't really play any role in the main story of the show. The Harfoots are not particularly compelling to me either, bouncing back and forth between immutable loyalty and devotion to each other; and an almost cruel eagerness to leave the main characters behind. "Nobody walks alone, unless you break your ankle, in which case, it's off to the wolves with ya!"
All in all, not the worst finale to a not as bad as expected show. I am not a fan of the constant setups for later seasons and the mystery onion plot format does get tiresome in my opinion. It makes it very hard to trust the show when it comes to characters, character arcs, motivations and events. Everything has a subtext, every object is a key item and it can feel like the show wants you to be constantly second guessing everything and everyone you see, which can either make for a very engrossing story, or a very boring one if you don't have the investment to keep up the guessing game. I wouldn't be disappointed if seasons 2+ never show up, but assuming they do get made, I'll probably watch them, at least from morbid curiosity about what other ways the writers come up with to spit on Tolkien's works if not for actual enjoyment of the show's stories. In the end, not the worst way I've ever spent a few hours of my life, so I can't be too harsh.
I think by episode 3 I had settled into the mindset of "This is fanfiction". That's not meant as slander, its just the recognition that Tolkien is dead and these writers were approaching the story from their own interactions with his text. When I approached it with the view of "this is how the writes imagined the story going down", it compares closely to what I see in some of the midrange quality fanfics out there. The main points of comparisons being references to the original work, some deviations from the original lore either for spectacle or to set up a story beat of there own that wasn't covered by the original source, and often a philosophy that differs from the intent of the original work either because the fic writers have their own story they want to tell within the setting of the original story or because sometimes it looks like they had... a different interpretation of the of the original work/ they wanted to highlight another way to read the original work's intent. All in all it wasn't an awful show to me it was just a high budget fanfic of moderate quality. I point to the MCU as exhibit A for this not being an uncommon occurrence these days. And Rings of Power was never going to be Tolkien levels of work, there is a reason why we idolize him as a good writer, he was a step above the rest, so expecting a second coming of LoTR would be setting myself up for disappointment anyways. Peter Jackson's movies were trying to visualize words already written and RoP was trying to fill in a vaguely described time in the lore so I don't feel its fair to compare the two. Rings of Power just kinda missed.
I think people miss that Annatar wouldn't have worked on screen. Even people who weren't familiar with the lore would've seen something was wrong from miles away. Especially when you consider that in the lore, A LOT of people didn't trust Annatar immediately. People who's opinion you should absolutely trust.
The point is, you would've had a lot of complaints from people about how predictable that part of the story was. (And a lot of flak from people, who didn't already know the story, about how stupid Celebrimbor was. He wouldn't be treated as someone who was tricked, just someone who was plain stupid). Keep in mind too, this part of Tolkien's lore was basically cliff notes. It probably wouldn't even have been engaging even if written out as a novel.
Overall, Annatar and how he came and went from the scene works only as lore, not storytelling like novels or movies/TV shows. So you have to make changes if you actually want to keep your audience interested and immersed.
I just wish we had spent more time in Eregion, even making it the main storyline.
We could've focused on the Gwaith i Mirdain and have maybe a handful of original smith characters, one being obviously Sauron, but not using the name Annatar so Amazon can have their little mystery box for book fans as well. (Not a fan of it, but it could work perhaps).
Change the main character to Elrond, since he pretty much IS the main character in the legendarium in a way. I think Galadriel is too grand and mythical to be a main character, it doesn't work for me. She could and should still be in the show however.
Considering the limited rights, I don't think they should've had so many book characters in the show. More original characters would've worked better instead of having to change the existing ones and having fake out deaths that WE KNOW THEY AREN'T DEAD.
But I'm obviously not a writer so this might be my own hubris showing.
I absolutely love the way that you articulate your criticisms. I have not read the books, but watching your take unfold has really made me want to!! It's fascinating that my read on the show is far less harsh; perhaps I've deprived myself by not reading the books earlier :0
Cultists: You're Sauron
Gandalf: Yeahhhh, I AM SAURON, aren't I?!
He just accepts it so easily lmao
I know they're starting to already film the next season but I truly wish they could have asked you to help write it. Your rewrite of game of thrones, especially the long night episode that you did in only a few days that was far superior than the original episode. Despite all of the overwhelming hate that started before the show even started, I truly want it to be successful. Even if they can't use the original story, the world is so rich with details that could make for fantastic fan fiction (which I'm not against if it's good). I 100% agree with you about everything with this series. For how long each episode was, the characters are mostly bereft of anything valuable.
Handmaid's tale just had an episode where a character was introduced and killed in a single episode with only a few minutes of screen time and I genuinely felt worse about him than anything else I've watched all year. That's the power of writing and acting that I wish they could pour into this show.
I agree with everything you said. I also felt the song at the end credits was completely unnecessary and hate that they were trying to copy the films all along. That just rubs me the wrong way and I don’t know why. I caught the hint that they were after the tone of the song at the end of Two Towers. But it just didn’t hit how it should have. I’m not sure why
The song at the end felt like it was more appropriate for an Aladdin cartoon than a high fantasy show.
You’re extremely generous with your reviews 😅.. Which isn’t bad but like, imo Galadriel was not done very well. She had a very basic, simplistic character arc.. and the way she reached it didn’t seem to make much sense. Like what part of the journey that we saw her go through would REALLY have changed her. What was SO special and transformative about her journey that would have led her through the arc? I didn’t see anything that would be distinct from her thousands of years of life and journeying.. I mean, she met halbrand.. didn’t really learn anything much from the Numenorians. It’s more like she went to Numenor and that was just to introduce the audience to the kingdom, but she didn’t actually go through any transformative experience. I’m fact, she got her way the entire time. MAYBE you could argue her ONE day in the south lands transforms her. But that’s such a stretch. And then they really said, when writing this show, that they WANTED GALADRIEL TO BE THE CAUSE OF ALL THE DESTRUCTION TO COME IN THE NEXT 5k years… they legit made Galadriel the cause of the war of the last alliance and the war of the ring, because for some weird reason, they made her seem really dumb by having her insist for literally no reason that Halbrand was the king of the Southlands. Which if she never did that, then Sauron would have lived happily as a smith in Numenor and Galadriel would not play any part in his atrocities (which she doesn’t in the lore but even without the lore.) And if they had written her with just a sliver of common sense, she WOULDNT be dumb enough to insist that he was the king of the southlands. They literally dumbed galadriel down for the sake of the plot. It’s infuriating to me.
ALSO I didn’t know about the leak and still figured out after the third episode that halbrand was Sauron. The writers are not very subtle..
So, now that the season is done, I feel more comfortable criticizing the show, though being aware that they have five seasons plotted is important.
There is a weird thing I’ve noticed with a lot of these extremely high budget epic adaptions they’ve been making in recent years that they have weird pacing and story structure, where they are simultaneously trying to do too much and too little at the same time. That I think is the big critical flaw with Rings of Power. It is too big in ambition but due to the nature of streaming and the sheer scale of the production, don’t have a lot of space to do it in. This is designed for streaming; so whereas a classic 90s style season of a fantasy or sci-fi show would be like 25 episodes, which is plenty of space for your myth arcs and stories of the week, 8 episodes requires you to be tight a way that does not lend itself to Tolkien (or Dune, or Foundation, or what have you).
How would I fix it? They have five seasons greenlit, so, I would focus on five things, four of which happen in sequence. I’m a Casual, but my understanding is four major events needs to happen one after the other.
The rings of power get made, Sauron goes to war with the Elves to get them, Numenor kicks Sauron’s ass and subsequently falls due to Sauron taking over, and the War of the Last Alliance, which sets us up for Lord of the Rings. I’m adding into this a Blue Wizard visiting Rhun.
So for the purposes of the first season of the show, we are going to cut one story line and trim another. First, we aren’t going to the Southlands at all. Sorry Bronwyn and Theo, you don’t add anything. Maybe they’ll pay off on reality, but if I’m Mayor of the Lord of the Rings, we aren’t finding out.
Instead, we are taking Adar and the Boys and having them moving south through the Vale of Anduin along the eastern side of the Misty Mountains on their way to Mordor. In fact, I would make their March the opening show and what the Harfoots were hiding from. Mostly this is to get all the story lines in the general area of Eregion and Khazad-Dum. Poppi’s song and the Harfoots moving over the map will be the opening credits for the first episode.
I would then have the show with Galadriel proceed as normal. My goal is to get her to meet Halbrand in Ep2 as normal and then go to Numenor with him. Him being the King of the Southlands his his cover still, but instead of them going there, the deal will instead be for Elendil and Tar-Miriel to give him a ride Lindon with Galadriel.
The Numenor plot will have Miriel wanting to renew contact with the Elves, which will be a seed of conflict for Season 2. In this case, we are cutting Isildur’s story until Season 2, when we will be doing Numenor properly. Right now, we are establishing it is there, getting the general situation, and meeting Elendil. I want to get Galadriel and Halbrand to Lindon about Episode 4.
The reason the Narrative is taking them there is because I want their arrive to coincide with Elrond and Durin meeting Gil-Galad and during stealing his table. This is a tightness thing, to weave the stories together. Plus, I want Elrond to be the one that suspects Halbrand is not what he seems and have some scenes where he is being inconveniently observant, to counterbalance that Halbrand is clearly working Galadriel, who do to her quest for vengeance has become vulnerable to his manipulation. We are also establishing Halbrand seems supernaturally persuasive.
By Ep5 we get those four back to Eregion and have Halbrand start working Celebrimbor and then suddenly a survivor from an attack we might see earlier comes over the misty mountains to report Orcs are on the move. Galadriel goes off to fight them, and Durin and Elrond go with her because the contingent of elves Eregion is sending will have to go through Moria to get there in time to catch Adar. Our big action sequence is a force of Elves and Dwarves rolling Adar and the gang and we have that wonderful scene with Galadriel and Adar.
During this time Halbrand is working Celebrimbor and they made the lesser rings and the sixteen greater rings. Halbrand will be in Eregion about half the season and we’ll have a mystery plot where Elrond smells a rat and investigates to help his friend Galadriel. In Ep8 as it happens they piece it together and expose Halbrand as Sauron, who flees. They then make the three elven rings.
Last shot is Halbrand clearing off his device and making Mount Doom become Mount Boom, and the season ends.
That’s what I would do at least. That feels tighter and sets us up for the next big historical event.
Major studios seem to have convinced themselves they can tell coherent stories well in under ten episodes and I have yet to see any of them be right about that. They intentionally cut their writers/showrunners off at the knees by limiting their episode count and it snowballs down and harms everything else about the production
If by some divine intervention I had been given these scripts during development, I would have sent it back with one note on the top page of Episode 8: "Scrap the rest. This is all you need".
This one episode was the whole thing people wanted to see, and we wanted to see it properly explored. This should have been the entire focus of the season.
I actually came around on the series in the last few episodes. It wasn't great, but I'd watch another season: I enjoyed it overall.
Biggest issue for me was the pacing: at the end of season 1 it feels like the story was just starting to get interesting. If they condensed some of the lesser plot lines - I'd go with Numenor and the Southlands - they might have gotten to this stage of the narrative a couple of episodes ago, and had more time to devote to the parts that worked the best.
I would have watched a whole episode of Sauron manipulating the elves - I like how good he is at making his ideas seem like they came from other people. That actually requires more skill as an orator AND a craftsman: he knows forging well enough that he can predict the lines of development other craftsman will take.
My hope is that season 2 picks up the pace, but we'll see. My understanding is that they shot more than 1 season simultaneously, so course correction might be off the table.
By the time Sauron left Eregion, most of the rings had already been made. This includes the rings that ended up with the men (links to Nazgûl) and the dwarves (links to Durins Bane) also a number of prototype rings without power (Gandalf assumed Bilbo’s ring was one of these)
Some pretty big future storylines pivot off this & the potential downfall of the elves could have been told in their doing something corrupt in the name of good & then the intoxication of the power these minor rings gave them + the misplaced drive to obtain more power by making greater rings - All we got was a casual one liner that some other stuff happened + the 3 rings as some sort of arms race.
Minor point - from the start of ring making to finally forging the one ring, about 500 years passed - the half foots would all be dead - some serious non linear storytelling presented as concurrent just for the fake out (go writing team!)
My thoughts on the Sauron reveal was that it was embarrasing. Saurons second fall to his will to dominate should be to exactly that! His own pride, distrust and nihilism towards the valar and his lust for domination. Not because a girl rejected him once.
And i got second hand embarrasment when he was trying to kind of justify himself to Galadriel. Sauron shouldn’t try to be convincing by talking about what a great guy he is. He should focus on the cold, hard logic of what he can give the elves. Sauron only cares about coordination and efficiency so why the hell is he grandstanding morality?
If i could i would honestly take out this entire reveal form the show. I believe that it shows the writers having a fundamental misunderstanding of who Sauron is and how he operates.
If i were magically made the head writer the thing i would do in season 2 is:
- Introduce Annatar and have him work with Celebrimbor like in the books.
- Still keep Halbrand around (maybe he can emass forces in mordor) this way even the people who have read the books will be wondering what is going on.
- Reveal Annatar as the real Sauron with the Halbrand reveal being a ploy to make the elves think that they have already discovered Sauron.
- Reveal Halbrand as the future Witch King of Angmar who Sauron instructed to pretend to be him and was brainwashed enough by Sauron to actually do it.
This way we still have Annatar helping to forge the rings and working with Celebrimbor, Sauron being a 3D Chess master, A reason why even the elves that distrusted Annatar didn’t think he was Sauron in disguise, The origin of The Witch King (that is extremely improtant since its one of the few original things they can do that doesn’t contradict the lore) and a pseudo retcon of the Halbrand twist (witch i hate).
Maybe you could have just had the stranger say "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor..." instead of "I am good"
Anyone else who thought that the end song was making a reference to the end song of the two towers? They have a similar dark vibe with a similar singing voice, but of course the series were just singing the rings poem (or what I should call it)
I finally got around to ep8 and it really turned me off. By ep2 I was convinced that the Stranger was Sauron returned and the writers used the Istari story for that. I thought that was creative. By ep4/5 I had the epiphany that Haldbrand was the King of the Dead, an unknowned preNumenorean lord of Men who audiences would know from the PJ movies. I said there was no way they’d have Gandalf in the show since he’s 3rd Age. Oh well, I guess everything I thought was kinda creative actually was exactly what my non-Tolkien friends assumed. They assumed immediately that Halbrand was Sauron and the Stranger was Gandalf. Like you say Celebrimbor has to work with Sauron to make the other rings, right? At this point I would not be surprised if Sauron just makes sixteen rings and hands them to dwarves and men. I mean, that’s what my friends think happens given they only know the movies.
What even was Saurons plan?
Did he even have one?
He got trapped on a raft with some random people, knowing that Galadriel was going to jump off the boat when she was being sent to the Undying Lands. He knew that they were going to be picked up by the Numenorians and welcomed on their island.
He knew that Galadriel would believe his story because of his sigil, even though he said he just took it, and then convince the Numenorians to go to war to liberate the Southlands.
He knew about Adar, that he was planning to create Mount Doom and succeed, despite him fighting against him and capturing him. He knew that he was going to get badly wounded in the eruption and that Galadriel would take him to Eregion because of that and that he would be allowed to partake in the creation of the rings of power.
And to plan ahead for that, he must have known of the fact that the elves were desperately looking for a cure for the fading, that they figured out that mithril would help and that they would get some from the dwarfs, but not enough to solve their problem.
This... sounds a bit contrived to me.. that would include a ton of random chance or the insights of an all-knowing being, that not only knows of events all around the world, but also of events that haven't even happened yet..
Or was this whole journey of Sauron really just pure chance? Had he just given up on life when he was stranded on this raft, until Galadriel swam by and picked him up for this wild ride?
Did Sauron just happen to randomly stumble over the chance to lay the foundations for him to rule the world, just because he came across Galadriel?
Did Sauron end up in Celebrimbor's forge by pure luck, or was this where he wanted to go all along???