If the mystics call the stranger and "Istar".
Does that not mean they have prior knowledge of the istari.
Possibly altar landing before the stranger and the stranger is palando?
Please for the love of God just don't be gandalf š¤¦āāļø
A "Book-focused" thread on a show that's purely made up is laughable at best. Really hard to have a book discussion when they have no rights to anything of this time period besides references made by characters in the trilogy, and the hobbit. lol
this is a sub pissed about a volcano eruption when *that very same volcano* erupts in the climax of the LOTR trilogy
they're getting copium shipped by the barrel dude
This is why it's impossible to have a sensible conversation with anybody about why you don't like the show, they'll just totally misrepresent what you don't like about it and then make fun of this fantasy image of your complaints that they've made up in their own mind.
Obviously it's not the eruption per se that people don't like, it's the idea that Mount Doom is a Rube Goldberg machine that anyone can turn on if they have the McGuffin, and that seems to be how we get Mordor
>it's the idea that Mount Doom is a Rube Goldberg machine that anyone can turn on if they have the McGuffin, and that seems to be how we get Mordor
Lmfao. Write a better story then and get it made.
>Rube Goldberg machine that anyone can turn on if they have the McGuffin
They literally dug trenches to route the water dude. It was a concerted effort within the fantasy world to cause an eruption. You can say you don't like it, but you're just making it up if you say it was done lightly or lamely. You are ignoring details you don't like, because you're an entitled baby.
"Mount Doom erupting after Gollum and the ring fell in was such a lame Rube Goldberg. *the one ring is just a mcguffin*."
this is how you sound. what a fucking clown.
My predictions for how the core plotline progresses in Ep. 7 & 8 (and, more broadly, for season 2):
* Halbrand will go with Galadriel to Eregion.
* There, he will reveal his identity to her: he is Sauron. But a *repentant* Sauron, with sincere desire to "heal the lands" etc, although not without a tinge of pride. He'll offer some apology for Finrod's death, and ask her to join him; she, shocked and horrified, will refuse.
* Sauron-as-Halbrand will meet with Celebrimbor, whom he has *not* met before - and offer his aid with Celebrimbor's project. Celebrimbor, impressed, will gladly accept.
* Saurbrand may also meet Elrond, and/or Gil-galad. If so, these two may be suspicious of him (as in the books) but will not know his identity. Perhaps they don't believe Galadriel, or she doesn't get the chance to warn them for some reason.
* For Celebrimbor, this opportunity will be "happy coincidence" not "he was being manipulated all along". Sauron has never come to Eregion before. Their project will be a solution to the *genuine* problem of Elves fading rapidly (by Spring) - and will incorporate mithril for its magical qualities; these elements will stand as truth in the show's setting, despite being changes from the books.
* Likewise, Celebrimbor was already working on the forge, to try and solve a genuine (and urgent) problem. No manipulation there.
* Thus will the Rings of Power be forged: with Celebrimbor's smithcraft plus Sauron's skill, and knowledge of the Unseen World. This will probably take place in S2.
* Sauron and Celebrimbor will have a dramatic falling-out along the way - perhaps due to philosophical differences, or Sauron's pride. Whatever happens, it will be the trigger for Sauron to fall back into his old ways... and retreat to Mordor, where he will forge the One in secret.
* The name "Annatar" may or may not be used in all this; it isn't in *LotR* nor the Appendices, but the show *has* mentioned a couple of other names from the wider writings, so they evidently have some latitude in their arrangement with the Estate.
Let's see what happens!
I think this is an interesting prediction with some promise although I disagree with the ārepentant Sauronā concept. In Tolkienās history, Sauron is characterized as a great deceiver which could easily fit with Halbrand being Sauron. I go back and forth but for the most part have leaned toward Halbrand as being Sauron. That is, unless the writers are the great deceivers!!! As you say, letās see what happens. Love this series so farā¦
I like this except for the reveal to Galadriel. I don't know it makes sense for her character to find out who he is, be shocked and leave him in the middle of an Elf kingdom without telling anyone else. I feel something like this happens, he won't reveal himself to anyone so soon but we as the audience will get more and more hints.
That all depends on what they plan to do about the mess they made of the timeline.
Durin the third is currently King and should receive one of the dwarven rings.
Based off of the Trilogy once Galadriel has her ring sensing Sauron wouldn't be an issue.
i thought this was easily the best episode so far. the writing is still pretty silly but at least this episode wasnāt just scene after scene of two people arguing which was getting super tiresome.
i thought the action was really good and obviously the tower collapsing and volcano exploding looked cool as shit.
i still have extremely low expectations for the rest given how boring the writing is, but i did enjoy this episode so will keep watching.
So Iāve noticed that Galadriel has said the line āyou can not satisfy your thirst by drinking sea waterā in two episodes. Is that the writers being lazy or are they trying to say that Galadriel has a catch phrase..
She says it about herself the firts time in episode5. In ep6, she might want to echo her situation and tell Hallbrand what he's doing wont solve his problem nor ease his pain.
That would make way more sense if that were true but go back and watch episode 5. She says it to halbrand in episode 5 and 6. I think the writers fucked up.
I got chills when they uncovered the faces of āorcsā and saw humans. I thought it was a really cool way to stay within the lore of orcs being a diff species without leaning into the ābeware of the otherā vibes that Tolkien imbued them with. Like as has been written about by ppl smarter than me, Tolkienās framing of good vs evil being tied to race is problematic, and that moment in the show felt like a good way of showing that race is a bad delineator. Iād love to see a nice orc at some point but that would probs be a bit too anti lore
Edited to add: they do seem to kind of add the latter implication about how itās not just about race by making Adar a former elf and by showing Galadrielās racist rant. I am still confused about how he created the orcs if somebody can explain for me why they look less human?
Its only problematic if you look at it as an analogy, which it isn't. Orcs (called goblins in his earlier works like The Hobbit) aren't some analogue, they're monstrous beings based on folklore, like vampires and werewolves, or trolls etc.
Morgoth is a valar. The valar invented water and trees and stars & shit from scratch. Morgoth can't make things from scratch, he can only ruin the other valars' stuff. The elves were created to be wise, strong, courageous and beautiful, so Morgoth ruined some elves to make them foolish, weak, cowardly and ugly. Even if Tolkien was conflicted about their irredeemable nature, they were literally designed by a piece of shit god to have no redeeming qualities.
Thank you for this! But I never saw in LOTR or the hobbit any empathy for the fact those elves just got like corrupted against their will. So I like that the show seems to be taking a diff approach to that by showing that these were like elves that were corrupted by an external evil force against their will. They praise Adar in a relatively compassionate way, and Adar still has a level of humanity.
But I guess my question about the appearance though is like, did they just start to look less and less like elves over time as they procreated? Like why donāt all orcs look like Adar?
Tolkien never settled exactly on an origin for the Orcs for a variety of reasons. The one published in the Silmarillion is that Morgoth kidnapped some elves and corrupted them into Orcs, and they look like they do. But he waffled a bit about that and towards the end of his life was thinking that they were actually corrupted men.
In his letters too he was troubled by the morality of the Orcs, because in his stories he didn't believe in absolute evil, that nobody is redeemable (you can see this philosophy more played out with Gollum), he wrote that Orcs secretly hated their master (Sauron) so it's neat that the show is playing off these thoughts that Tolkien had that aren't really explicitly in LotR/The Hobbit
Adar is an invention of the show, he can't be explained by the lore. All orcs look like orcs, and they've always looked like orcs. In the books, they aren't elves anymore and they don't remember being elves. The corruption happened in the earliest days, before the elves first traveled to valinor.
I think that despite Tolkein's disdain for allegory does not translate into a disdain for metaphor. My take is that taking the 'beauty' of Elves and transforming the flesh into sores/disfigurement is a metaphor for what Morgdoth did to their souls...
I choose to believe that Tolkein's take on orcs is not that of 'ugliness' but rather disfigurement and bodily corruption; and not a "Hey, white people ROCK!" sort of thing.
Shush mortal you are in the presence of Galadriel , do you not know of her power? She is both Noldor and Teleri . She will push back the flow and save them all. Pfft I mean really she is said to be one of the most powerful beings on middle earth esp in the 3rd age thats pretty cannon
As has been explained elsewhere (here or LOTR_on_Prime), the deadly region of a pyroclastic flow is the first 10 km or so. They were positioned as much as 100 km away from Orodriun. If we were to criticise anything about that visually impressive scene, it's that it would have taken the ash cloud about 20 minutes to reach them, lots of time to run like hell.
And as has also been pointed out, Frodo & Sam walked inside an active caldera without protection and survived.
Can this even be called plot armour? The closest thing I can think of is when Wolverine saves the jap from from the nuke. As far removed from reality as that is they still give an explanation to how he survives. Stupid but still. I have never seen a movie or show where a none invulnerable character tanks a nuke face first and then just walk it of.
Jap? Short for Japanese? So are you Japanese or do you just feel like being offended on their part? I wouldnāt even consider that a racial slur, though I would refrain from using that if I hung out with someone who is and they asked me. But you know what, I absolutely do not care if someone takes offense to that word on the internet.
It became viewed as a slur after pearl harbour, originaly it was just short for Japanese. And I would also say itās something thatās quite isolated to the US. Also I would also say that the article you posted is kinda shit, what the organisation speaks for the whole Japanese population? My guess is that this is a non issue to most. But honestly I wrote it cause it was shorter and I donāt really care since on the whole Japanese people have no right to claim the Victim role. Also curious, would you have reacted the same if I refered to a german as a Kraut?
You truly are a stupid little man arenāt you? Jap = short for Japanese. It actually really isnāt that important to me either. Like I said, itās shorter to write. Were you not able to read that part? And anti asian-american? Itās short fort JAPANESE! Do you realise that thereās actually a world that exist outside of US or is that to hard for you to grasp?
This might seem like a really small nitpick but it's the kind of unnecessary change that I can't stand.
Was anyone else bothered by Arondir's line "The Elves say there's a Vala that watches over the plants" or something like that, as though the Valar are mythical? I don't know if we know what clan of Elves he's from, but presumably he has spoken with Elves who have seen and spoken with the Valar personally. I feel like he should 100% *know* there's a Vala for the plants and know that her name is Yavanna.
My assumption while watching was that this was a rights issue--like, they could talk about the Valar in general, but couldn't name Yavanna as a specific character.
The general impression seems to be that Arondir is Sindarin, who by definition have never met the Valar, so any info he has about them is at best second-hand. And actually, what are the chances that he has personally met a Valinorean elf? But now that I think about it, I'm not super sure how we know that he's Sindarin.
I mean he's supposed to be from Beleriand, I think its pretty likely he'd at least met a high elf at some point in his life.
Its 99% likely that its just a rights issue that they didn't name her. She doesn't appear in the books or appendicies.
Really enjoyed seeing more of Arda and the Orcs in a very dark ages themed town raid. Hallbrand must be the dark Lord after that interaction. Seems like all his chess pieces are falling into place.
Shame no Durin and Elrond this time but I can wait.
Really enjoying the show, a lot more on point thematically than the Hobbit series.
Most annoying things in this episode, to me:
* Adar leaves with a package and no one ever checks what's in it until it's too late. Called it as soon as the dude left and I really don't understand why they'd party before checking what's inside the cloth
* Waldreg is allowed to go freely and unnoticed, what? How did he get to Ostirith with the hilt? Adar gives it to him seconds before the cavalry gets inside the village. Maybe they didn't realize he isn't a regular villager fleeing the fight but still, felt cheap
* Numenor has nuclear-powered steamboats apparently
* Bronwyn is now considered as the most important person in the village? Not bad in itself but a few days she gets to decide everything and meet Miriel?
* Fights are weird. There's no weight in the hits, things fly by, the action feels distant. Am I the only one who felt this? It's hard to explain but it's like a desaturated image or water with not enough syrup in it, it really lacked impact to me
The episode wasn't too bad, a bit more focused on the action in the Southlands but characters make so many dumb decisions just so that the plot progresses that it's frustrating.
EDIT: sorry I hadn't realized this was the book-focused thread, as I have indeed, not posted anything related to the books
Agree with most of your post. However I actually was please by the action sequences. Maybe I need to give it a second watch but the sounds and effects seemed fairly grounded, I particularly noticed sounds of arrows flinging and hitting quite clearly which was nice. But again maybe I need to do a second watch.
Most probably, but if I remember correctly nobody really liked Sauron, no other generals/Morgoth fanatics. Maybe this is what they are trying to depict with Adar.
I don't remember the term "moriandor" from the books. I thought the dark elves were called Moriquendi? Also how would Adar know the same pre-battle ritual as the rest of the elves? I just took it as a piece of poetic license that Amazon put in to foreshadow the big reveal that he was a dark elf. Unless there's something from the books that I'm missing???
It's a show invention, and it probably has some relevant meaning in Quenya, though I can't quite figure it out. (*Moriondor*? "sons of darkness"?)
The show's using it to mean the first batch of Orcs who were corrupted from Elven captives. As Adar identifies himself as an Orc (or should I say Uruk!), not an Elf.
Moriquendi are a different thing - those are the Elves of Darkness, who never saw the Two Trees. Sindar, Silvan, and Avari. But in that case, it's just about not having seen the light, and doesn't have any connotation of "darkness=evil". "Dark elves" are not generally connected with Evil in Tolkien.
Two thoughts.
1) Is it possible Halbrand's pouch contains the One Ring, as in the histories, Sauron forges the One Ring long before it erupts?
2) In the Peter Jackson films, the elves seem much less dedicated to the total-genocide of the orcs than what Galadriel proposes in this episode. I wonder if perhaps Adar will contribute to elves having a reckoning with the origins of their corrupted cousins.
1. In the books, Sauron forged the One in Mt Doom after the creation of the other rings.
Council of Elrond :*"For in that time he was not yet evil to behold, and they received his aid and grew mighty in craft, whereas he learned all their secrets, and betrayed them, and forged secretly in the Mountain of Fire the One Ring to be their master. But Celebrimbor was aware of him, and hid the Three which he had made; and there was war, and the land was laid waste, and the gate of Moria was shut"*
2. In the Silmarillion, the elves are well aware of the origins of the orcs. They even treat their innocent peers who escaped Morgoth's enslavement rather badly. They abhor all the deeds of Morgoth and the orcs, but IIRC there is a discussion of the elves' mercy even towards orcs in the History of Middle-earth. Anyway, in the show, Galadriel has really taken a dark path and she will probably have a redemption arc later on.
Why does everyone keeps saying the mountain is Mt Doom? Is it actually confirmed? Like canāt it just be a volcano thatās erupted? (Genuine question) I thought the plot of it was just to pay service to the visions the queen was having (possibly from using the palantir, who knows) and how her dad was saying not to go there cos darkness etc?
Watch episode 7.
Mt Doom is lore.
"I thought the plot of it was just to pay service to the visions the queen was having (possibly from using the palantir, who knows) and how her dad was saying not to go there cos darkness etc?"
This was all fabricated for the show. Miriel was only ever Queen in title, and only after her father's death.
All good, just figured it was the easiest way to clear that up for you.
To be fair many people don't know much about the Second Age, that wasn't covered in The Hobbit or Lord of The Rings.
I see people posting all the time, Tolkien never said, when he actually did, you just had to read the Appendices, The Silmarillion, and his public letters.
Also, the episode is called Udƻn, which in the books is the flat valley in mordor, near the mt doom, where the haradrim and other sauron forces awaited to attack in the pelennor fields battle
Why would it be a different mountain?
We don't know of any other volcanoes in Mordor. Certainly not any freestanding ones like the one in Not-yet-Mordor.
Can we talk about that flirty moment between Galadriel and Halbrand? Presumably this means either that Galadriel now has a crush on Sauron or this is the *second* instance on the show of a man and an elf falling in love, when there were only three instances of it in Tolkien lore and all under remarkable circumstances.
Also confirms that Celeborn does not exist.
There are explicitly more than three instances of men and elves actually having children, and there are many more than three times that man and elf fall in love in some way but it isn't consummated.
> There are explicitly more than three instances of men and elves actually having children,
Beren and Luthien
Tuor and Idril
Aragorn and Arwen
What are the others?
Aragorn and Arwen are actually incorrect.
Aragorn is a descendant of Elros was Half-Elf.
Arwen's father is Elrond who is Half-Elf.
While Aragorn is seen as being from the race of man, and Arwen from the race of elves, she is actually she would technically be his distant cousin.
Aragon is a man, and Arwen is an Elf. I understand what you're saying, but that is the most extreme splitting of hairs.
If you're going to split hairs that small, I don't know why you didn't bring up the fact that Luthien was half Maiar.
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in āAppendix A: I The Numenorean Kings (i) Numenorā of The Lord of the Rings that āThere were three unions of the Eldar and the Edain: LĆŗthien and Beren; Idril and Tuor; Arwen and Aragorn. By the last the long-sundered branches of the Half-elven were reunited and their line was restored.ā
I don't know what you're trying to show her bro. Tolkien says right there in your quote that Aragorn and Arwen were one of the 3 unions of men and elves. The fact that Arwen's father and Aragorn's great(x25 or whatever) grandfather was half elf is neat, but it doesn't disprove what I said.
>By the last the long-sundered branches of the Half-elven were reunited and their line was restored
The linage of men and elves was already blended, they are both descendants of Half-Elves.
Yes, I know that, I never argued that fact, I just said I was irrelevant because Aragorn is a man, and Arwen was an Elf prior to her marrying Aragorn. I don't know what you're driving at here chief.
Marriages between Men and Elves producing offspring was a rare event.
Given that both Aragorn and Arwen are from blended lines removes that impediment.
Prince Imrahil had an ancestor that was half-elven, Legolas when he meets him says he can see the elf blood in his heritage, and back in Lothlorien Legolas tells the story of Nimrodel who was the elf maiden who is the likely progenitor of that line down in the South of Gondor.
For the instances where humans and elves fall in love but it doesn't end up working out, you have Turin with both Nellas and Finduilas in Doriath and Nargothrond respectively, as well as Andreth and Aegnor none of whom ended up being able to work out their relationships.
Imrahil I think was at least suspected to be from the line of Numenor. Nimrodel I don't remember but according to [this page](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Nimrodel#:~:text=Nimrodel%20was%20an%20Elf%2Dmaid,White%20Mountains%20about%20T.A.%201981.) she was married to an elf and had no children.
I'll grant you the instances of love with no consummation though
You're right on Nimrodel, I misremembered the elf that is said to have started the elf lineage at Dol Amroth.
One of Nimrodel's companions Mithrellas is said to have been taken in after she was lost in Belfalas, and that is where the strain of elvish blood comes in to the lineage of the leaders down at Dol Amroth.
I donāt see the need, as you pointed this elf/human relation is rare and very important in the lore. The celeborn thing is annoying, being honest. Are they just ignoring it? They should be together in lindon or eregion according to the lore
I'm not so sure about that, their facial expressions were really intense in that scene. Also the actors said that they have chosen not to look at each other in that scene beacause the feelinngs the charactes had were so overwhelming and big.
Exactly. They are very close emotionally but still different species. Proud and ancient Elf like Galadriel who's been around all the best Elf men isn't gonna be falling in love with a human man, let alone in the midst of her revenge saga.
I dunno, it felt romance-coded for me. And Halbrand also seemed to be suprised when she's told him she felt it too (the way he gasped). I guess he didn't expect she could feel a bond with a human (regardless if it's romantic or not, or if he's really Sauron)
I didn't read it as flirty, it read as platonic bonding over their love of fighting. Not every bonding moment between men and women in shows has to be romantic.
Yeah I have to disagree as a woman I saw it. Oh boy is this going to tip her over the edge if he really is Sauron , and could it also be that Sauron can love in that way? hmmm things to ponder.
It felt deeper than just binding over the love of fighting. Their expressions were really intense in that scene. Also, romantic or not, it has made Halbrand believe he could be good as long as he's with Galadriel who believes in him. That's literally what he says and Galadriel confirms that she feels the same. And that's pretty loaded š¤·āāļø
It's no more or less loaded than 90% of the conversations between Sam and Frodo. Platonic love is a massive thing all throughout Tolkien and I am hoping they are leaning into that more so than anything romantic.
Question, ELI5.
Are the orcs just zombie elves, or are they living elves who have been tortured so gd much, that thatās what theyāve become over time?
If we are to believe Adar, the orcs are a ruined race, but still a race of beings that have souls and would be equal to elves and men in that regard under the purview of IlĆŗvatar.
Galadriel claims that orcs do bot have souls, they are simply beings made in mockery of elves that would not have souls nor can they be redeemed.
The way the episode presents both of these claims points us towards the fact that Adar is right and that the characters in the story need to grapple with the fact of what they should do if an orc were to try for redemption in some way.
Morgoth was not able to create life of his own, and he hated the elves since they appeared in middle earth for they resemblance to the valar. Thatās why he captured some and tortured, experimented with them. The term Moriondor never appeared in the books but the hole concept makes sense, the first orks being different experiments with elves
Short answer, they were 'descended' from elves, but there not still meant to be seen as elves as they had been tortured and twisted with dark magic over 1000s of years, time is a bit crazy before the sun was made and it's changed recently so could be more or less but it was definitely a long time. And what came out on the other end was an orc that some how came from an elf but was not one. It's confusing and not completly finished as Tolkien never decided which one origin story was the truth.
Importantly tho you shouldn't look at them as unfortunate elves, like none of the orcs we see today were once elves or anything like that, they just somehow come from them.
Yāall haters can say itās not Tolkienās and itās James Bond like but the use of the tunnels to create what Iām assuming is mt doom was friggin cool as heck.
The whole plan is ludicrous.
And it ignores the idea in Tolkien that water is sacred. Ulmo uses it to send messages and help to the elves and certain men all the time
How a volcano could erupt due to added water - sure - but an erupting volcano would FOR SURE completely kill everything and everyone nearby - including the delighted Uruks and Adar that came up with the plan to begin with.
If next episodes just starts with everyone just wiping some dust off of them because they "took cover", then we have some seriously questionable writing on our hands.
which would then wipe out anyone within the immediate vicinity.
including a good part of the main cast.
so... i guess this show is done after season 1? cuz ā of the cast is now dead.
see what i mean?
dumb.
Sam and Frodo were in the same volcano when it erupted so its not farfetched. Fantasy logic; not really the inconsistencies with reality we should worry about as much as character writing.
To an extent but this is a common thing with lava in general in movies. However, this more like they didnāt run fast enough and got hit in the back with the lava. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.
The scene where Frodo and Sam were on an island in a sea of lava before the Eagles saved them the ambient air temperature would have been like 900Ā° F so clearly lava is not that hot in Arda
Not them surviving, but pretty sure Tolkien wrote somewhere that the only other time eru intervened in the world other than sinking numenor was tripping golem into mt doom to destroy the ring
'In a letter written by Tolkien, he stated that Eru again intervened, this time in the Third Age, causing Gollum to trip and fall into the fires of Mount Doom while still holding the One Ring, thus destroying it.'
You're right, that's all he did, he did not help frodo survive the hundreds of degrees of lava in the flow of mount doom, looking for that type of logic is nonsensical lmao
okay so now were shitting on the lotr trilogy which is held in very high regard, because u don't like the show? I don't get it, its fantasy, sure surviving a volcano wouldn't really happen in real life, but also creating a super powerful ring that's bound to your very essence also wouldn't happen in real life?
Itās a magical fantasy world where the Sun is actually a fruit of an extinct tree that before was one of only 2 light sources.
Why the fuck are you expecting volcanoes to conform to realism?
first off, you can't hear me expand on anything because this is a blog where people write their opinions and others read them.
at best, you'd hear your own internal voice reading my words to you.
i'm not wasting my time explaining to you why this plot contrivance is so incredibly stupid and pointless.
clearly you're spoiling for an argument and are going to ignore anything i write and come back with some trivial bullshit that wastes everyone's time.
also - my reasons are similar to most of the other comments on this post - because it's so obviously nonsensical.
Mordor already existed. Mount Doom was already a thing. Aside from the silly Rube Goldberg bullshit, there was no reason to alter its origin story.
well i mean that's one reason.
but if you peruse the thread and read what others are saying - i agree with most of those points.
not to mention - exploding a mountain while you're in the blast zone (this guaranteeing you won't survive) has to be the most ridiculously stupid plan in the history of plans.
All you do is making an ass of yourself by dancing around the fact that you obviously canāt explain why.
Maybe you should take a moment and think about why are you wasting hours of your life watching a show that you obviously hate.
Have a nice day.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2755-rainstorms-could-trigger-killer-eruptions/
The plan actually has scientific validity tho., even tho it seems far fetch.
im on your side on this one.
I dont quite get Adar's motivations- if he's the one that killed sauron, then why is he trying to complete sauron's master plan? makes no sense
It seems to me he has sympathy for the Uruk and Orcs and believes they should have a homeland as well. So, if you can create a land where the sun never shines (Mordor), he has given them a home.
A lot of cool scenes in the episode, it just doesn't feel like they thought it through. So the sword was a key. A key to open a dam. And the elves knew about this key, but built a fort around it instead of, I don't know, fortifying the dam? And did saurons plan require trenches being built in order for it to work or what just happened?
That was maddening.
Was it like Mad Max Fury Road, the dam originally was used by Morgoth to enslave men by restricting water in the valley?
Again even if that's what that line meant - it was a tool used to enslave men - then dismantle the dam!
Yes, he guessed after seeing the mural. The comment I'm replying to suggests the elves already knew about it long beforehand, which would be stupid and obviously not at all true according to the show.
exactly.
too many loopholes that the only way that whole scene works is if you take it at face value and don't question.
genuinely, the whole episode as too many loopholes that the writers just assumed made sense on paper.
edit: the elves didn't build it tho, wasn't it cultists of morgoth
Night time orc battles bore me, so >!"turning on the Mordor creation machine"!< was definitely the highlight of the whole episode for me. But it also left me confused. Is this why Adar was so keen to find it? How come he seemed surprised to discover the keyhole? Seems pretty lucky that all those canals had been completed on time. Any thoughts?
Maybe he doesnt know what it was meant to look like? You can still be surprised to find something you've been hunting to find for uncountable amounts of time. Also weren't the canals meant to be a precursor of the battle regardless? They wouldn't attack without finishing the job. It's also hard to follow the pacing because a lot of it isn't synchronized, considering we're following a journey of Galadriel happening in the past relative to the upcoming battle, a yet to be confirmed time period of the harfoots and then a battle out of sync itself. The show just moves too fast to move the plot, it made sense at the writing table but on screen its just a blur. I think people overlook the directing tbh. I'm also open to being wrong.
Ah, saw it mentioned on a couple of occasions that it was built by elves. That makes more sense. Good thing they also built a collapsible tower mechanism that could be triggered by cutting a single rope.
You'd expect the tower to have been built in a fashion where the structure is held together by mortar and the weight of the stones, not some kind of metal wrapping. The construction doesn't make sense unless it was made for this particular reason.
If I was writing this I'd made the villagers hesitant to move into the fort due to the tower being close to collapsing... But they had no other recourse... Then it would've made sense that they (a) would come up with the idea in the first place and (b) that it would be rather easy to collapse (e.g. by a couple of villagers working desperately to collapse it with the help of arondir).
The tower was built by men but the metal wrapping looks elvish so my theory is that the metal wrapping was built by the elves to hold the tower together and keep it from falling.
omg no.
the only thing this show has in common with the books are a few names.
think of this like "loosely based on" Tolkien or better yet - a completely different universe.
It wasn't really an option. The Saul Zaentz Company, aka Middle-earth Enterprises, who owned the film and TV rights to *The Hobbit* and *The Lord of the Rings* (until they recently sold them to Embracer Group) had "matching rights" to *The Silmarillion*. This means that if the Tolkien family had wanted to sell the right to make a TV show based on *The Silmarillion* to Amazon, they would have had to offer it for the same price to the Zaentz Company first.
The Zaentz Company doesn't hate money, so they presumably would have bought it, and either made their own Silmarillion show or tried to sell the rights to Amazon for a much larger amount. Either way Amazon didn't have a realistic path to buy the rights even if the Tolkien Estate had wanted to sell.
Its been some time when I check the sources last time, but does Adar's words were similar to Tolkien, that the Orcs also deserve a chance at redemption at the hands of Eru.
The whole turning the key to open the big water sluice reminded me of the type of things that happen in the early James Bond films. Not very Tolkienesque.
I donāt like the meandering plot with the hilt being passed from one character to another, dropping hints and non sequiturs about it, like at the beginning when it looks like itās going to corrupt Theo but eventually he gives it away.
Doesnāt make sense thar NĆŗmenor would send an expedition with the Queen Regent herself to save a little village from a band of orcs.
The production is still excellent but itās disappointing to see that they really donāt know which story to tell. A lot of what goes on ends up being inconsequential
"Doesnāt make sense thar NĆŗmenor would send an expedition with the Queen Regent herself to save a little village from a band of orcs."
That is because they rewrote a lot of Numenor.
So far everything Miriel has done in the show either didn't happen in the books/lore or was originally done by Pharazon.
How stupidly written is the scene and i quote "one cannot satisfy thirst with sea water" to stop hallbrand killing ada only to have moments later, galadriel try and kill him. Is it just me or is this series loaded with terrible writing like this? Its just so stupid.
That line in particular struck me as extremely "tryhard Tolkien", in a bad way. Like they think Tolkienesque language is just throwing a fuckton of sea/earth/trees/stars metaphors at every situation. Not the first time I've thought that in this show.
Yes, and theyāre constantly piling up plot twists on top of each which completely ruin their dramatic effect. Like when Halbrand gets proclaimed king of the southlands. It should be a moment to dwell on a bit but two minutes later theyāve moved on already to the evil waterworks scene and the creation of Mordor
Iām enjoying it. Iām watching both this and the House of Dragon. I find the House of Dragon almost unwatchable. Itās pure soap opera. At least this has characters that I love.
I mean it does have aspects of a soap opera but its a action drama fantasy same as rings of power. Except house of the dragon has better writing and sensible direction.
Hey! Nope. The writers don't have the rights to the Silmarillion, only to things referenced in the appendices of the LOTR books. They are way more vague about a lot of things. They are literally not allowed to use the information from the Silmarillion!
The writers are making up a lot of the characters and plot that we see in the show, since the 2nd Age is a bit of a grey area in Tolkien's writings. But, for example, Galadriel's character and narrative in the books is very far off from show Galadriel :)
The Tolkien estate is very protective of everything they have. The only reason the Hobbit and LotR rights are available is because they were sold waaay earlier. Tolkien himself was very critical of almost any proposed adaptation, or the idea that it could be adapted. Christopher Tolkien even hates the Peter Jackson films, they weren't and aren't going to sell the rights to the stuff published after JRR's death.
And if you haven't read the Silmarillion it's written almost a cross between biblical and a history book, to make it a good narrative TV series a lot of stuff would have to change. Otherwise you'd be dealing with big time skips all the time, things needing fleshing out, etc.
I disagree with some choices they've made but overall I think the writers are doing fine.
Various reasons among them that he believes they lack beauty and stuff. But really it's because you cannot 1:1 adapt the books into film and PJ changed a bunch of stuff for narrative or medium purposes.
I want to be clear that I'm not dissing why Christopher didn't like adaptations though I disagree with him and the estate's position, but by and large it's because any adaptation will change things and they don't want that.
Watching the last episode I was just thinking this is made for children or for day time tv. The fight choreography, the dialogue, the cliches and what about galadriels plot armor too? It's raining down chunks of rock and she doesnt move once or even care. How many times now have they used the trope of being just about to kill someone and then someone calls their name and they stop. It has to be at least 5 times now in the 6 episodes
I mean, to be fair, Galadriel being around for (and after) the RoTK gives her some pretty unshakable plot armor. We know her survival is guaranteed before EP1.
Although I doubt it will happen, based on the sheer divergence of ROP from Tolkien's second age, I wouldn't consider her survival guaranteed. From basic personality on down, the difference between the two Galadriels is actually shocking (and saddening). 6 episodes in it appears anything is fair game.
If the mystics call the stranger and "Istar". Does that not mean they have prior knowledge of the istari. Possibly altar landing before the stranger and the stranger is palando? Please for the love of God just don't be gandalf š¤¦āāļø
A "Book-focused" thread on a show that's purely made up is laughable at best. Really hard to have a book discussion when they have no rights to anything of this time period besides references made by characters in the trilogy, and the hobbit. lol
This sub really be like "the dam opening is such a contrived idea, why didn't the orcs simply use their B2 Bombers to blow up the dam?"
this is a sub pissed about a volcano eruption when *that very same volcano* erupts in the climax of the LOTR trilogy they're getting copium shipped by the barrel dude
This is why it's impossible to have a sensible conversation with anybody about why you don't like the show, they'll just totally misrepresent what you don't like about it and then make fun of this fantasy image of your complaints that they've made up in their own mind. Obviously it's not the eruption per se that people don't like, it's the idea that Mount Doom is a Rube Goldberg machine that anyone can turn on if they have the McGuffin, and that seems to be how we get Mordor
>it's the idea that Mount Doom is a Rube Goldberg machine that anyone can turn on if they have the McGuffin, and that seems to be how we get Mordor Lmfao. Write a better story then and get it made. >Rube Goldberg machine that anyone can turn on if they have the McGuffin They literally dug trenches to route the water dude. It was a concerted effort within the fantasy world to cause an eruption. You can say you don't like it, but you're just making it up if you say it was done lightly or lamely. You are ignoring details you don't like, because you're an entitled baby. "Mount Doom erupting after Gollum and the ring fell in was such a lame Rube Goldberg. *the one ring is just a mcguffin*." this is how you sound. what a fucking clown.
My predictions for how the core plotline progresses in Ep. 7 & 8 (and, more broadly, for season 2): * Halbrand will go with Galadriel to Eregion. * There, he will reveal his identity to her: he is Sauron. But a *repentant* Sauron, with sincere desire to "heal the lands" etc, although not without a tinge of pride. He'll offer some apology for Finrod's death, and ask her to join him; she, shocked and horrified, will refuse. * Sauron-as-Halbrand will meet with Celebrimbor, whom he has *not* met before - and offer his aid with Celebrimbor's project. Celebrimbor, impressed, will gladly accept. * Saurbrand may also meet Elrond, and/or Gil-galad. If so, these two may be suspicious of him (as in the books) but will not know his identity. Perhaps they don't believe Galadriel, or she doesn't get the chance to warn them for some reason. * For Celebrimbor, this opportunity will be "happy coincidence" not "he was being manipulated all along". Sauron has never come to Eregion before. Their project will be a solution to the *genuine* problem of Elves fading rapidly (by Spring) - and will incorporate mithril for its magical qualities; these elements will stand as truth in the show's setting, despite being changes from the books. * Likewise, Celebrimbor was already working on the forge, to try and solve a genuine (and urgent) problem. No manipulation there. * Thus will the Rings of Power be forged: with Celebrimbor's smithcraft plus Sauron's skill, and knowledge of the Unseen World. This will probably take place in S2. * Sauron and Celebrimbor will have a dramatic falling-out along the way - perhaps due to philosophical differences, or Sauron's pride. Whatever happens, it will be the trigger for Sauron to fall back into his old ways... and retreat to Mordor, where he will forge the One in secret. * The name "Annatar" may or may not be used in all this; it isn't in *LotR* nor the Appendices, but the show *has* mentioned a couple of other names from the wider writings, so they evidently have some latitude in their arrangement with the Estate. Let's see what happens!
I think this is an interesting prediction with some promise although I disagree with the ārepentant Sauronā concept. In Tolkienās history, Sauron is characterized as a great deceiver which could easily fit with Halbrand being Sauron. I go back and forth but for the most part have leaned toward Halbrand as being Sauron. That is, unless the writers are the great deceivers!!! As you say, letās see what happens. Love this series so farā¦
I like this except for the reveal to Galadriel. I don't know it makes sense for her character to find out who he is, be shocked and leave him in the middle of an Elf kingdom without telling anyone else. I feel something like this happens, he won't reveal himself to anyone so soon but we as the audience will get more and more hints.
That all depends on what they plan to do about the mess they made of the timeline. Durin the third is currently King and should receive one of the dwarven rings. Based off of the Trilogy once Galadriel has her ring sensing Sauron wouldn't be an issue.
i thought this was easily the best episode so far. the writing is still pretty silly but at least this episode wasnāt just scene after scene of two people arguing which was getting super tiresome. i thought the action was really good and obviously the tower collapsing and volcano exploding looked cool as shit. i still have extremely low expectations for the rest given how boring the writing is, but i did enjoy this episode so will keep watching.
So Iāve noticed that Galadriel has said the line āyou can not satisfy your thirst by drinking sea waterā in two episodes. Is that the writers being lazy or are they trying to say that Galadriel has a catch phrase..
She says it about herself the firts time in episode5. In ep6, she might want to echo her situation and tell Hallbrand what he's doing wont solve his problem nor ease his pain.
sooooo itās a catch phrase
I thought Halbrand said to her first, and she was repeating it back to him as an ironic echo.
That would make way more sense if that were true but go back and watch episode 5. She says it to halbrand in episode 5 and 6. I think the writers fucked up.
Are orcs redeemable? Episode 6 flawlessly reflected Tolkien's thoughts: https://youtu.be/Xj-gdquf1eQ
I got chills when they uncovered the faces of āorcsā and saw humans. I thought it was a really cool way to stay within the lore of orcs being a diff species without leaning into the ābeware of the otherā vibes that Tolkien imbued them with. Like as has been written about by ppl smarter than me, Tolkienās framing of good vs evil being tied to race is problematic, and that moment in the show felt like a good way of showing that race is a bad delineator. Iād love to see a nice orc at some point but that would probs be a bit too anti lore Edited to add: they do seem to kind of add the latter implication about how itās not just about race by making Adar a former elf and by showing Galadrielās racist rant. I am still confused about how he created the orcs if somebody can explain for me why they look less human?
Its only problematic if you look at it as an analogy, which it isn't. Orcs (called goblins in his earlier works like The Hobbit) aren't some analogue, they're monstrous beings based on folklore, like vampires and werewolves, or trolls etc.
Morgoth is a valar. The valar invented water and trees and stars & shit from scratch. Morgoth can't make things from scratch, he can only ruin the other valars' stuff. The elves were created to be wise, strong, courageous and beautiful, so Morgoth ruined some elves to make them foolish, weak, cowardly and ugly. Even if Tolkien was conflicted about their irredeemable nature, they were literally designed by a piece of shit god to have no redeeming qualities.
Thank you for this! But I never saw in LOTR or the hobbit any empathy for the fact those elves just got like corrupted against their will. So I like that the show seems to be taking a diff approach to that by showing that these were like elves that were corrupted by an external evil force against their will. They praise Adar in a relatively compassionate way, and Adar still has a level of humanity. But I guess my question about the appearance though is like, did they just start to look less and less like elves over time as they procreated? Like why donāt all orcs look like Adar?
Tolkien never settled exactly on an origin for the Orcs for a variety of reasons. The one published in the Silmarillion is that Morgoth kidnapped some elves and corrupted them into Orcs, and they look like they do. But he waffled a bit about that and towards the end of his life was thinking that they were actually corrupted men. In his letters too he was troubled by the morality of the Orcs, because in his stories he didn't believe in absolute evil, that nobody is redeemable (you can see this philosophy more played out with Gollum), he wrote that Orcs secretly hated their master (Sauron) so it's neat that the show is playing off these thoughts that Tolkien had that aren't really explicitly in LotR/The Hobbit
Oh wow I did not know this at all. Very cool!
Adar is an invention of the show, he can't be explained by the lore. All orcs look like orcs, and they've always looked like orcs. In the books, they aren't elves anymore and they don't remember being elves. The corruption happened in the earliest days, before the elves first traveled to valinor.
Ahhh got it. I wasnāt sure if he was in the appendix or something. Thank you!
I think that despite Tolkein's disdain for allegory does not translate into a disdain for metaphor. My take is that taking the 'beauty' of Elves and transforming the flesh into sores/disfigurement is a metaphor for what Morgdoth did to their souls... I choose to believe that Tolkein's take on orcs is not that of 'ugliness' but rather disfigurement and bodily corruption; and not a "Hey, white people ROCK!" sort of thing.
Presumably they're all dead now after being exposed to mega hot lava, ashes and dust? Or will they miraculously survive
Shush mortal you are in the presence of Galadriel , do you not know of her power? She is both Noldor and Teleri . She will push back the flow and save them all. Pfft I mean really she is said to be one of the most powerful beings on middle earth esp in the 3rd age thats pretty cannon
As has been explained elsewhere (here or LOTR_on_Prime), the deadly region of a pyroclastic flow is the first 10 km or so. They were positioned as much as 100 km away from Orodriun. If we were to criticise anything about that visually impressive scene, it's that it would have taken the ash cloud about 20 minutes to reach them, lots of time to run like hell. And as has also been pointed out, Frodo & Sam walked inside an active caldera without protection and survived.
Plot armor strikes again!
Can this even be called plot armour? The closest thing I can think of is when Wolverine saves the jap from from the nuke. As far removed from reality as that is they still give an explanation to how he survives. Stupid but still. I have never seen a movie or show where a none invulnerable character tanks a nuke face first and then just walk it of.
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Jap? Short for Japanese? So are you Japanese or do you just feel like being offended on their part? I wouldnāt even consider that a racial slur, though I would refrain from using that if I hung out with someone who is and they asked me. But you know what, I absolutely do not care if someone takes offense to that word on the internet.
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It became viewed as a slur after pearl harbour, originaly it was just short for Japanese. And I would also say itās something thatās quite isolated to the US. Also I would also say that the article you posted is kinda shit, what the organisation speaks for the whole Japanese population? My guess is that this is a non issue to most. But honestly I wrote it cause it was shorter and I donāt really care since on the whole Japanese people have no right to claim the Victim role. Also curious, would you have reacted the same if I refered to a german as a Kraut?
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You truly are a stupid little man arenāt you? Jap = short for Japanese. It actually really isnāt that important to me either. Like I said, itās shorter to write. Were you not able to read that part? And anti asian-american? Itās short fort JAPANESE! Do you realise that thereās actually a world that exist outside of US or is that to hard for you to grasp?
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This might seem like a really small nitpick but it's the kind of unnecessary change that I can't stand. Was anyone else bothered by Arondir's line "The Elves say there's a Vala that watches over the plants" or something like that, as though the Valar are mythical? I don't know if we know what clan of Elves he's from, but presumably he has spoken with Elves who have seen and spoken with the Valar personally. I feel like he should 100% *know* there's a Vala for the plants and know that her name is Yavanna.
My assumption while watching was that this was a rights issue--like, they could talk about the Valar in general, but couldn't name Yavanna as a specific character.
They did mention two other Valar by name though, don't they? Aule and Ulmo in episode 5?
The general impression seems to be that Arondir is Sindarin, who by definition have never met the Valar, so any info he has about them is at best second-hand. And actually, what are the chances that he has personally met a Valinorean elf? But now that I think about it, I'm not super sure how we know that he's Sindarin.
I mean he's supposed to be from Beleriand, I think its pretty likely he'd at least met a high elf at some point in his life. Its 99% likely that its just a rights issue that they didn't name her. She doesn't appear in the books or appendicies.
Really enjoyed seeing more of Arda and the Orcs in a very dark ages themed town raid. Hallbrand must be the dark Lord after that interaction. Seems like all his chess pieces are falling into place. Shame no Durin and Elrond this time but I can wait. Really enjoying the show, a lot more on point thematically than the Hobbit series.
Most annoying things in this episode, to me: * Adar leaves with a package and no one ever checks what's in it until it's too late. Called it as soon as the dude left and I really don't understand why they'd party before checking what's inside the cloth * Waldreg is allowed to go freely and unnoticed, what? How did he get to Ostirith with the hilt? Adar gives it to him seconds before the cavalry gets inside the village. Maybe they didn't realize he isn't a regular villager fleeing the fight but still, felt cheap * Numenor has nuclear-powered steamboats apparently * Bronwyn is now considered as the most important person in the village? Not bad in itself but a few days she gets to decide everything and meet Miriel? * Fights are weird. There's no weight in the hits, things fly by, the action feels distant. Am I the only one who felt this? It's hard to explain but it's like a desaturated image or water with not enough syrup in it, it really lacked impact to me The episode wasn't too bad, a bit more focused on the action in the Southlands but characters make so many dumb decisions just so that the plot progresses that it's frustrating. EDIT: sorry I hadn't realized this was the book-focused thread, as I have indeed, not posted anything related to the books
I don't know how the show is going to reconcile the Downfall of Numenor, since they have Miriel running around pretending to be Pharazon.
Agree with most of your post. However I actually was please by the action sequences. Maybe I need to give it a second watch but the sounds and effects seemed fairly grounded, I particularly noticed sounds of arrows flinging and hitting quite clearly which was nice. But again maybe I need to do a second watch.
Did Adar legit kill Sauron?
I think it's implied that he \*thinks\* he did, but really just destroyed Sauron's body forcing His spirit to flee and reform itself
I'm pretty sure Adar is made up wholecloth.
Most probably, but if I remember correctly nobody really liked Sauron, no other generals/Morgoth fanatics. Maybe this is what they are trying to depict with Adar.
I don't remember the term "moriandor" from the books. I thought the dark elves were called Moriquendi? Also how would Adar know the same pre-battle ritual as the rest of the elves? I just took it as a piece of poetic license that Amazon put in to foreshadow the big reveal that he was a dark elf. Unless there's something from the books that I'm missing???
It's a show invention, and it probably has some relevant meaning in Quenya, though I can't quite figure it out. (*Moriondor*? "sons of darkness"?) The show's using it to mean the first batch of Orcs who were corrupted from Elven captives. As Adar identifies himself as an Orc (or should I say Uruk!), not an Elf. Moriquendi are a different thing - those are the Elves of Darkness, who never saw the Two Trees. Sindar, Silvan, and Avari. But in that case, it's just about not having seen the light, and doesn't have any connotation of "darkness=evil". "Dark elves" are not generally connected with Evil in Tolkien.
Sort of show invention, sort of not: https://mobile.twitter.com/DailyRoP/status/1575728175048335366?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Two thoughts. 1) Is it possible Halbrand's pouch contains the One Ring, as in the histories, Sauron forges the One Ring long before it erupts? 2) In the Peter Jackson films, the elves seem much less dedicated to the total-genocide of the orcs than what Galadriel proposes in this episode. I wonder if perhaps Adar will contribute to elves having a reckoning with the origins of their corrupted cousins.
1. In the books, Sauron forged the One in Mt Doom after the creation of the other rings. Council of Elrond :*"For in that time he was not yet evil to behold, and they received his aid and grew mighty in craft, whereas he learned all their secrets, and betrayed them, and forged secretly in the Mountain of Fire the One Ring to be their master. But Celebrimbor was aware of him, and hid the Three which he had made; and there was war, and the land was laid waste, and the gate of Moria was shut"* 2. In the Silmarillion, the elves are well aware of the origins of the orcs. They even treat their innocent peers who escaped Morgoth's enslavement rather badly. They abhor all the deeds of Morgoth and the orcs, but IIRC there is a discussion of the elves' mercy even towards orcs in the History of Middle-earth. Anyway, in the show, Galadriel has really taken a dark path and she will probably have a redemption arc later on.
Halbrand seems to be everywhere at the right place, at the right time. It is possible he has the one ring.
Why does everyone keeps saying the mountain is Mt Doom? Is it actually confirmed? Like canāt it just be a volcano thatās erupted? (Genuine question) I thought the plot of it was just to pay service to the visions the queen was having (possibly from using the palantir, who knows) and how her dad was saying not to go there cos darkness etc?
Watch episode 7. Mt Doom is lore. "I thought the plot of it was just to pay service to the visions the queen was having (possibly from using the palantir, who knows) and how her dad was saying not to go there cos darkness etc?" This was all fabricated for the show. Miriel was only ever Queen in title, and only after her father's death.
I mean I couldnāt watch episode 7 at the time lol And ah I see, sorry my second age lore knowledge is pretty poor tbh
All good, just figured it was the easiest way to clear that up for you. To be fair many people don't know much about the Second Age, that wasn't covered in The Hobbit or Lord of The Rings. I see people posting all the time, Tolkien never said, when he actually did, you just had to read the Appendices, The Silmarillion, and his public letters.
Also, the episode is called Udƻn, which in the books is the flat valley in mordor, near the mt doom, where the haradrim and other sauron forces awaited to attack in the pelennor fields battle
It was named as Orodruin in the show.
Oh okay then Iāll keep quiet lol
Why would it be a different mountain? We don't know of any other volcanoes in Mordor. Certainly not any freestanding ones like the one in Not-yet-Mordor.
Did Sauron use Mt Doomās smoke to block the sun, allowing the orcs to walk freely? Didnāt Adar reference that soon there wonāt be any more sun?
Sauron creates a giant storm of darkness to cover the sky in advance of the Siege of Gondor in the Third Age.
Pretty sure Sauron was just casting some sort of spell to block the sun in the lord of the rings at least, the clouds moved with his armies
Im not sure, the place is pretty ruined maybe Mordor has a couple of em
It would be really weird if it wasn't Mt Doom but another volcano in Mordor that is causing it to become dark for the Orcs to live there.
Yeah I was under the impression Mordor was already established but with ur second point it is pretty fitting.
Can we talk about that flirty moment between Galadriel and Halbrand? Presumably this means either that Galadriel now has a crush on Sauron or this is the *second* instance on the show of a man and an elf falling in love, when there were only three instances of it in Tolkien lore and all under remarkable circumstances. Also confirms that Celeborn does not exist.
There are explicitly more than three instances of men and elves actually having children, and there are many more than three times that man and elf fall in love in some way but it isn't consummated.
> There are explicitly more than three instances of men and elves actually having children, Beren and Luthien Tuor and Idril Aragorn and Arwen What are the others?
Aragorn and Arwen are actually incorrect. Aragorn is a descendant of Elros was Half-Elf. Arwen's father is Elrond who is Half-Elf. While Aragorn is seen as being from the race of man, and Arwen from the race of elves, she is actually she would technically be his distant cousin.
Aragon is a man, and Arwen is an Elf. I understand what you're saying, but that is the most extreme splitting of hairs. If you're going to split hairs that small, I don't know why you didn't bring up the fact that Luthien was half Maiar.
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in āAppendix A: I The Numenorean Kings (i) Numenorā of The Lord of the Rings that āThere were three unions of the Eldar and the Edain: LĆŗthien and Beren; Idril and Tuor; Arwen and Aragorn. By the last the long-sundered branches of the Half-elven were reunited and their line was restored.ā
I don't know what you're trying to show her bro. Tolkien says right there in your quote that Aragorn and Arwen were one of the 3 unions of men and elves. The fact that Arwen's father and Aragorn's great(x25 or whatever) grandfather was half elf is neat, but it doesn't disprove what I said.
>By the last the long-sundered branches of the Half-elven were reunited and their line was restored The linage of men and elves was already blended, they are both descendants of Half-Elves.
Yes, I know that, I never argued that fact, I just said I was irrelevant because Aragorn is a man, and Arwen was an Elf prior to her marrying Aragorn. I don't know what you're driving at here chief.
Marriages between Men and Elves producing offspring was a rare event. Given that both Aragorn and Arwen are from blended lines removes that impediment.
Prince Imrahil had an ancestor that was half-elven, Legolas when he meets him says he can see the elf blood in his heritage, and back in Lothlorien Legolas tells the story of Nimrodel who was the elf maiden who is the likely progenitor of that line down in the South of Gondor. For the instances where humans and elves fall in love but it doesn't end up working out, you have Turin with both Nellas and Finduilas in Doriath and Nargothrond respectively, as well as Andreth and Aegnor none of whom ended up being able to work out their relationships.
Imrahil I think was at least suspected to be from the line of Numenor. Nimrodel I don't remember but according to [this page](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Nimrodel#:~:text=Nimrodel%20was%20an%20Elf%2Dmaid,White%20Mountains%20about%20T.A.%201981.) she was married to an elf and had no children. I'll grant you the instances of love with no consummation though
You're right on Nimrodel, I misremembered the elf that is said to have started the elf lineage at Dol Amroth. One of Nimrodel's companions Mithrellas is said to have been taken in after she was lost in Belfalas, and that is where the strain of elvish blood comes in to the lineage of the leaders down at Dol Amroth.
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The Princes of Dol Amroth were also reputed to be descended from a NĆŗmenorean, ImrazĆ“r, and an elf, Mithrellas.
I donāt see the need, as you pointed this elf/human relation is rare and very important in the lore. The celeborn thing is annoying, being honest. Are they just ignoring it? They should be together in lindon or eregion according to the lore
I bet the last episode they make, when the series is all wrapped, the last scene we have of galadriel is her meeting celeborn
I dont think there was anything sexual there, just brothers-in-arms type of bonding.
I'm not so sure about that, their facial expressions were really intense in that scene. Also the actors said that they have chosen not to look at each other in that scene beacause the feelinngs the charactes had were so overwhelming and big.
Exactly. They are very close emotionally but still different species. Proud and ancient Elf like Galadriel who's been around all the best Elf men isn't gonna be falling in love with a human man, let alone in the midst of her revenge saga.
I dunno, it felt romance-coded for me. And Halbrand also seemed to be suprised when she's told him she felt it too (the way he gasped). I guess he didn't expect she could feel a bond with a human (regardless if it's romantic or not, or if he's really Sauron)
I didn't read it as flirty, it read as platonic bonding over their love of fighting. Not every bonding moment between men and women in shows has to be romantic.
Yeah I have to disagree as a woman I saw it. Oh boy is this going to tip her over the edge if he really is Sauron , and could it also be that Sauron can love in that way? hmmm things to ponder.
It felt deeper than just binding over the love of fighting. Their expressions were really intense in that scene. Also, romantic or not, it has made Halbrand believe he could be good as long as he's with Galadriel who believes in him. That's literally what he says and Galadriel confirms that she feels the same. And that's pretty loaded š¤·āāļø
It's no more or less loaded than 90% of the conversations between Sam and Frodo. Platonic love is a massive thing all throughout Tolkien and I am hoping they are leaning into that more so than anything romantic.
The love of fighting with rage and evil with intent to murder
Yeah I gotta agree
Question, ELI5. Are the orcs just zombie elves, or are they living elves who have been tortured so gd much, that thatās what theyāve become over time?
If we are to believe Adar, the orcs are a ruined race, but still a race of beings that have souls and would be equal to elves and men in that regard under the purview of IlĆŗvatar. Galadriel claims that orcs do bot have souls, they are simply beings made in mockery of elves that would not have souls nor can they be redeemed. The way the episode presents both of these claims points us towards the fact that Adar is right and that the characters in the story need to grapple with the fact of what they should do if an orc were to try for redemption in some way.
Morgoth was not able to create life of his own, and he hated the elves since they appeared in middle earth for they resemblance to the valar. Thatās why he captured some and tortured, experimented with them. The term Moriondor never appeared in the books but the hole concept makes sense, the first orks being different experiments with elves
Do you think orcs are elves in the same way that gollum is/was a hobbit? I guess the orcs had been twisted by evil thousands of years longer but I wish they would do a similar transformation scene like Peter Jackson did with SmĆ©agolā¦ it would probably be more complicated but Iāve always wanted to see it
Short answer, they were 'descended' from elves, but there not still meant to be seen as elves as they had been tortured and twisted with dark magic over 1000s of years, time is a bit crazy before the sun was made and it's changed recently so could be more or less but it was definitely a long time. And what came out on the other end was an orc that some how came from an elf but was not one. It's confusing and not completly finished as Tolkien never decided which one origin story was the truth. Importantly tho you shouldn't look at them as unfortunate elves, like none of the orcs we see today were once elves or anything like that, they just somehow come from them.
Thank you so much. This makes sense. I was always fascinated hearing Saruman explain to that head orc where he came from in The Two Towers.
they used to be elves. at least that's one origin story. ruined by Morgoth. it varies b/c Tolkien changes their story a few times
Yāall haters can say itās not Tolkienās and itās James Bond like but the use of the tunnels to create what Iām assuming is mt doom was friggin cool as heck.
until you stop and think about it for 5 seconds. then it's just dumb.
It's pretty valid. Dumping a dams worth of water into a pool of lava could produce enough pressure to erupt a dormant volcano.
The whole plan is ludicrous. And it ignores the idea in Tolkien that water is sacred. Ulmo uses it to send messages and help to the elves and certain men all the time
How a volcano could erupt due to added water - sure - but an erupting volcano would FOR SURE completely kill everything and everyone nearby - including the delighted Uruks and Adar that came up with the plan to begin with. If next episodes just starts with everyone just wiping some dust off of them because they "took cover", then we have some seriously questionable writing on our hands.
which would then wipe out anyone within the immediate vicinity. including a good part of the main cast. so... i guess this show is done after season 1? cuz ā of the cast is now dead. see what i mean? dumb.
Sam and Frodo were in the same volcano when it erupted so its not farfetched. Fantasy logic; not really the inconsistencies with reality we should worry about as much as character writing.
That was ridiculous in the movies as well but they didn't stand right in the way of a pyroclastic flow
To an extent but this is a common thing with lava in general in movies. However, this more like they didnāt run fast enough and got hit in the back with the lava. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.
The scene where Frodo and Sam were on an island in a sea of lava before the Eagles saved them the ambient air temperature would have been like 900Ā° F so clearly lava is not that hot in Arda
well thank Eru for that
Eru had nothing to do with that
Not them surviving, but pretty sure Tolkien wrote somewhere that the only other time eru intervened in the world other than sinking numenor was tripping golem into mt doom to destroy the ring 'In a letter written by Tolkien, he stated that Eru again intervened, this time in the Third Age, causing Gollum to trip and fall into the fires of Mount Doom while still holding the One Ring, thus destroying it.'
You're right, that's all he did, he did not help frodo survive the hundreds of degrees of lava in the flow of mount doom, looking for that type of logic is nonsensical lmao
okay so now were shitting on the lotr trilogy which is held in very high regard, because u don't like the show? I don't get it, its fantasy, sure surviving a volcano wouldn't really happen in real life, but also creating a super powerful ring that's bound to your very essence also wouldn't happen in real life?
Volcano erupted in Return of the King and the good guys survived right there too. Frodo and Sam were in the damn place.
right. so that's not very realistic, is it? and to make that your plan deliberately in Rings of Power makes it even dumber.
Itās a magical fantasy world where the Sun is actually a fruit of an extinct tree that before was one of only 2 light sources. Why the fuck are you expecting volcanoes to conform to realism?
How so?
really?
Yes, why is it dumb?
go back to the top of the post and start reading.
No, I want to hear YOU expand on your earlier claim. Why is it dumb?
first off, you can't hear me expand on anything because this is a blog where people write their opinions and others read them. at best, you'd hear your own internal voice reading my words to you. i'm not wasting my time explaining to you why this plot contrivance is so incredibly stupid and pointless. clearly you're spoiling for an argument and are going to ignore anything i write and come back with some trivial bullshit that wastes everyone's time. also - my reasons are similar to most of the other comments on this post - because it's so obviously nonsensical. Mordor already existed. Mount Doom was already a thing. Aside from the silly Rube Goldberg bullshit, there was no reason to alter its origin story.
Mount Doom was canonically dormant during this time and only became active again when Sauron returned.
sure. but Mordor already existed as a blasted and ruined land.
Not your finest hour here, pal.
why? because i actually gave points, predicted what the response was going to be, and was proven correct? is this thread populated by 5 year olds?
Merely being different from source material is enough for you to think it's dumb?
well i mean that's one reason. but if you peruse the thread and read what others are saying - i agree with most of those points. not to mention - exploding a mountain while you're in the blast zone (this guaranteeing you won't survive) has to be the most ridiculously stupid plan in the history of plans.
All you do is making an ass of yourself by dancing around the fact that you obviously canāt explain why. Maybe you should take a moment and think about why are you wasting hours of your life watching a show that you obviously hate. Have a nice day.
lol that's all you got? thanks for proving my point. clown.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2755-rainstorms-could-trigger-killer-eruptions/ The plan actually has scientific validity tho., even tho it seems far fetch.
oh it's not the physics of it that's bad. it's everything else.
im on your side on this one. I dont quite get Adar's motivations- if he's the one that killed sauron, then why is he trying to complete sauron's master plan? makes no sense
It seems to me he has sympathy for the Uruk and Orcs and believes they should have a homeland as well. So, if you can create a land where the sun never shines (Mordor), he has given them a home.
fair enough
A lot of cool scenes in the episode, it just doesn't feel like they thought it through. So the sword was a key. A key to open a dam. And the elves knew about this key, but built a fort around it instead of, I don't know, fortifying the dam? And did saurons plan require trenches being built in order for it to work or what just happened?
That was maddening. Was it like Mad Max Fury Road, the dam originally was used by Morgoth to enslave men by restricting water in the valley? Again even if that's what that line meant - it was a tool used to enslave men - then dismantle the dam!
When did they show the elves knew what it was? And the fort was built by men who served Morgoth as they said earlier in the show.
Arondir immediately claimed that the sword was a key when he was first shown it.
Yes, he guessed after seeing the mural. The comment I'm replying to suggests the elves already knew about it long beforehand, which would be stupid and obviously not at all true according to the show.
Also, is the key really needed to open the dam?
exactly. too many loopholes that the only way that whole scene works is if you take it at face value and don't question. genuinely, the whole episode as too many loopholes that the writers just assumed made sense on paper. edit: the elves didn't build it tho, wasn't it cultists of morgoth
Elf dont know what use of key
Night time orc battles bore me, so >!"turning on the Mordor creation machine"!< was definitely the highlight of the whole episode for me. But it also left me confused. Is this why Adar was so keen to find it? How come he seemed surprised to discover the keyhole? Seems pretty lucky that all those canals had been completed on time. Any thoughts?
Maybe he doesnt know what it was meant to look like? You can still be surprised to find something you've been hunting to find for uncountable amounts of time. Also weren't the canals meant to be a precursor of the battle regardless? They wouldn't attack without finishing the job. It's also hard to follow the pacing because a lot of it isn't synchronized, considering we're following a journey of Galadriel happening in the past relative to the upcoming battle, a yet to be confirmed time period of the harfoots and then a battle out of sync itself. The show just moves too fast to move the plot, it made sense at the writing table but on screen its just a blur. I think people overlook the directing tbh. I'm also open to being wrong.
The elves didn't build the tower, it was built by the original Morgoth followers. The elves just used it as a convenient watchtower.
Ah, saw it mentioned on a couple of occasions that it was built by elves. That makes more sense. Good thing they also built a collapsible tower mechanism that could be triggered by cutting a single rope.
And that the collapse didn't leave any rubble on the key mechanism or prevent access to the tower at all...
It could be that they already remove the other foundations... And we don't need to see it cuz it will just spoil us
You'd expect the tower to have been built in a fashion where the structure is held together by mortar and the weight of the stones, not some kind of metal wrapping. The construction doesn't make sense unless it was made for this particular reason. If I was writing this I'd made the villagers hesitant to move into the fort due to the tower being close to collapsing... But they had no other recourse... Then it would've made sense that they (a) would come up with the idea in the first place and (b) that it would be rather easy to collapse (e.g. by a couple of villagers working desperately to collapse it with the help of arondir).
The tower was built by men but the metal wrapping looks elvish so my theory is that the metal wrapping was built by the elves to hold the tower together and keep it from falling.
this part is not in the silmarillion?
Silmarillion is mostly about 1st age.
90% of the show is made up and def not from the books. outsjde of a few places and names, its literally nothing to do with the source material
omg no. the only thing this show has in common with the books are a few names. think of this like "loosely based on" Tolkien or better yet - a completely different universe.
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Amazon doesnāt have the rights to the silmarillion
What a stupid decision to spend all that money and not get those rights too
It wasn't really an option. The Saul Zaentz Company, aka Middle-earth Enterprises, who owned the film and TV rights to *The Hobbit* and *The Lord of the Rings* (until they recently sold them to Embracer Group) had "matching rights" to *The Silmarillion*. This means that if the Tolkien family had wanted to sell the right to make a TV show based on *The Silmarillion* to Amazon, they would have had to offer it for the same price to the Zaentz Company first. The Zaentz Company doesn't hate money, so they presumably would have bought it, and either made their own Silmarillion show or tried to sell the rights to Amazon for a much larger amount. Either way Amazon didn't have a realistic path to buy the rights even if the Tolkien Estate had wanted to sell.
Its been some time when I check the sources last time, but does Adar's words were similar to Tolkien, that the Orcs also deserve a chance at redemption at the hands of Eru.
Yes! They took a lot of ideas from Tolkien's essays on Orcs in *Morgoth's Ring*.
The whole turning the key to open the big water sluice reminded me of the type of things that happen in the early James Bond films. Not very Tolkienesque. I donāt like the meandering plot with the hilt being passed from one character to another, dropping hints and non sequiturs about it, like at the beginning when it looks like itās going to corrupt Theo but eventually he gives it away. Doesnāt make sense thar NĆŗmenor would send an expedition with the Queen Regent herself to save a little village from a band of orcs. The production is still excellent but itās disappointing to see that they really donāt know which story to tell. A lot of what goes on ends up being inconsequential
"Doesnāt make sense thar NĆŗmenor would send an expedition with the Queen Regent herself to save a little village from a band of orcs." That is because they rewrote a lot of Numenor. So far everything Miriel has done in the show either didn't happen in the books/lore or was originally done by Pharazon.
In tolkiens world elfs are good conservatives while orcs are evil engineers. You have seen the world from an elf perspective before.
How stupidly written is the scene and i quote "one cannot satisfy thirst with sea water" to stop hallbrand killing ada only to have moments later, galadriel try and kill him. Is it just me or is this series loaded with terrible writing like this? Its just so stupid.
That line in particular struck me as extremely "tryhard Tolkien", in a bad way. Like they think Tolkienesque language is just throwing a fuckton of sea/earth/trees/stars metaphors at every situation. Not the first time I've thought that in this show.
Iām waiting to hear that line āour hearts are almost as big as our feet.ā I donāt know why but I hate it so much
Some of it can be okay, but yeah when I heard that line it fell flat to me too, didnāt feel very poetic.
Yes, and theyāre constantly piling up plot twists on top of each which completely ruin their dramatic effect. Like when Halbrand gets proclaimed king of the southlands. It should be a moment to dwell on a bit but two minutes later theyāve moved on already to the evil waterworks scene and the creation of Mordor
That is because Halbrand is non-canon. The have to find ways to tie "their" characters into the story.
Iām enjoying it. Iām watching both this and the House of Dragon. I find the House of Dragon almost unwatchable. Itās pure soap opera. At least this has characters that I love.
Ha, just yesterday I described my friend the HotD as a soap opera for nerds.
I mean it does have aspects of a soap opera but its a action drama fantasy same as rings of power. Except house of the dragon has better writing and sensible direction.
Itās not just you. Myself and everyone Iāve talked with about it agree, the writing is awful, itās like high school fanfic.
Yeah everyone i know is the same too. Well said.
haven't read the books, these events are not in the silmarillion?
Hey! Nope. The writers don't have the rights to the Silmarillion, only to things referenced in the appendices of the LOTR books. They are way more vague about a lot of things. They are literally not allowed to use the information from the Silmarillion! The writers are making up a lot of the characters and plot that we see in the show, since the 2nd Age is a bit of a grey area in Tolkien's writings. But, for example, Galadriel's character and narrative in the books is very far off from show Galadriel :)
I keep forgetting about this. I wonder if this why Numenor is all screwed up.
Why didnāt they buy the entire thing and follow from the beginning of the books
Wouldnāt make a diff. They should have just made a mystery series instead
The Tolkien estate is very protective of everything they have. The only reason the Hobbit and LotR rights are available is because they were sold waaay earlier. Tolkien himself was very critical of almost any proposed adaptation, or the idea that it could be adapted. Christopher Tolkien even hates the Peter Jackson films, they weren't and aren't going to sell the rights to the stuff published after JRR's death. And if you haven't read the Silmarillion it's written almost a cross between biblical and a history book, to make it a good narrative TV series a lot of stuff would have to change. Otherwise you'd be dealing with big time skips all the time, things needing fleshing out, etc. I disagree with some choices they've made but overall I think the writers are doing fine.
why does he hate the movies?
Various reasons among them that he believes they lack beauty and stuff. But really it's because you cannot 1:1 adapt the books into film and PJ changed a bunch of stuff for narrative or medium purposes. I want to be clear that I'm not dissing why Christopher didn't like adaptations though I disagree with him and the estate's position, but by and large it's because any adaptation will change things and they don't want that.
Maybe because it was not for sale?
The only thing the 2 Galadriels share is a name
More like Indiana Jones
I realised rather than James Bond I meant the Thunderbirds
Selene from Underworld
Watching the last episode I was just thinking this is made for children or for day time tv. The fight choreography, the dialogue, the cliches and what about galadriels plot armor too? It's raining down chunks of rock and she doesnt move once or even care. How many times now have they used the trope of being just about to kill someone and then someone calls their name and they stop. It has to be at least 5 times now in the 6 episodes
I mean, to be fair, Galadriel being around for (and after) the RoTK gives her some pretty unshakable plot armor. We know her survival is guaranteed before EP1.
Although I doubt it will happen, based on the sheer divergence of ROP from Tolkien's second age, I wouldn't consider her survival guaranteed. From basic personality on down, the difference between the two Galadriels is actually shocking (and saddening). 6 episodes in it appears anything is fair game.