Okay, I was wondering what was with the smoke covered barren landscape. My first thought was the escaped elf had paused because of the desolation, until he turned and I saw the arrow sticking out of his chest. That’s gonna put a damper on escape attempts.
I’m guessing 3-4 years, top, in-series.
Also, Sauron forged the rings before he went to Numenor - he went there after the war with the elves, and that started with the destruction of Eregion and the death of Celebrimbor.
My guess is the series will go something like this:
Season 1 ends with the Annatar and Celebrimbor starting to work together on the rings.
Season 2 sees the forging of the rings and ends with the fall of Eregion.
Season 3 sees the war between Sauron and the elves and ends with Sauron going to Numenor and Khazad-Dum falling to the Balrog.
Season 4 is all about Sauron in Numenor and ends with the fall of Numenor.
Season 5 is the War of the Last Alliance and ends with the fall of Sauron (with possibly a coda showing Isildur’s death)
An amusing tweet I stumbled upon today;
Could the Witch-King be the Regent’s dad ( I missed his name) or the bearded advisor? He seemed shady.
Pharazon? Definitely not him. He has his own part to play in the story.
Somehow I completely missed that the chancellor was meant to be Ar-Pharazon. He’s going to wind up being a major player in the events to come.
I was concerned there wouldn’t be a lot of fun GOT-style intrigue. It seems I was wrong. I took the fact that the smiths were making weapons to imply a preparation for an attack? Or was it just to be more dramatic than making, say, a horseshoe?
I didn’t read anything particularly deep into it. The scene just exists to create conflict for Halbrand. He wants to find a way to stay in Numenor because it’s a hell of a lot better than the orc-ravaged place he came from, and he tries to appeal to them with his experience as a smith, but they won’t accept him because he isn’t a member of the guild.
I don’t know - there were several shots of different smiths forging weapons. I think they were hinting that Numenor is preparing for war.
We’re just after watching eps 2 & 3. I’ve not quite bought into Galadriel as the warrior princess who also likes to ride and go to the library. Predictions for who is who are that Halbrand is some major baddie and the Stranger is some kind of major goodie but those expectations can and might be subverted. I reckon Adar is going to be one of the first corrupted Elves-Orcs and that he and Arondir will have a long character arc. And I’ll throw out a prediction: One of them is going to be Mouth Of Sauron.
Also getting a kick out of the “convention” for the accents of races: The Dwarves for the most part have Scottish accents while the Harfoots have Irish (“We all loved him, but he was an eejit”). Poppy and Nori are practically (okay “proto”) Derry Girls.
One thing I’m pretty sure of: the series will end with Isildur (or his heirs) granting the Harfoots a track of land in Eriador to settle down and cease their migrations.
Well if we are in the later part of the second age the Numenorians are subjugating the men of Middle Earth to provide wood and materials for their navy and society. Less so further north and west were the elf-friend colonies were based.
IIRC, the Mouth of Sauron is explicitly one of the “black Numenoreans”. And, being that he’s a mortal man, he wouldn’t have been kicking around in the Second Age.
Aye, this is true and I’ll back off my wild prediction. I do see Adar & Arondir as rivals in a series long arc.
Could Adar be one of the Avari, the so-called “Dark Elves”?
I also saw the work happening at the forge as being meaningful, partially based on his reaction.
I’m still liking the Galadriel parts of the story, including the fact that she’s not perfect…she really needed to ramp it down when they came before the court.
I’m a little confused by the strength and combat abilities of the elves, but in any case, I still hate the Legolas style of fighting, and I hope they don’t go that way.
I don’t think they’re any stronger than humans - just very, very experienced. They’ve all been fighting and training for literally centuries.
I just re-watched the fight scene, it was the scene of Arondir running up the chains that put me off, but on rewatching it’s sort of at the limits of being light footed but very experienced, so never mind.
Also, I loved the demented warg, the first thing I thought of when I saw it was that it was something that Sam Raimi would have in an Evil Dead movie.
Halbrand is not reading to me at all like a going-to-be big bad. He’s looking very much like the Aragorn expy.
Attacks, many and ongoing. At this point, Númenor should be already making war on the people of Middle Earth as a colonial power. The timber for all those ships didn’t come from the island…
I’ll go with some from column A and some from column B. I get that she’s still relatively young (although that seems like having it both ways, if the series is set near the end of the Second Age) and inexperienced, but for an elf renowned for her wisdom in the Third Age, she has precious little of it here. The actress seems awkward when she is not portraying the big-talking and overly-proud elf princess. Her expression while riding the horse was, I thought, cringeworthy. For this character to carry a large part of the series could make it rather a slog.
It just occurred to me to wonder, if she is such a warrior now, what is going to change in a couple of hundred years for her to not be in the front lines alongside Elrond at the last battle of the Last Alliance.
I think that would end up being a major twist, if so. He appears so far to be showing all the signs of a classic movie hero. Remember he did save Galadriel from being dragged down and drowning, with no prospect of any reward at all. Yes, he comes from the people who supported Morgoth, but if we are right about the timing of this story (near the end of the 2nd Age) that was over 3000 years ago already. And, to parallel what Arwen said to Aragorn, he is that king’s heir, not that king.