Celeborn being dead in the Second Age doesn’t mean he can’t be alive in the Third. Just ask Glorfindel.
It would mean no return to Middle Earth. Celeborn must just be missing. But tough one for a die hard fan to put up with.
So maybe the Stranger is Radagast? He was of Yavanna’s people. (Nature Vala, Mother of Ents and Trees effectively)
I will be angry if he turns out to be Annatar.
No clue on the weird strangers that burnt the Harfoot village.
We know the wizards didn’t arrive in Middle Earth until the Third Age (although they may have been in Arda sooner).
I’d be shocked if it was Annatar. Why would he arrive in a meteor and make friends with proto-Hobbits? He was around waaaaaay before this. Seems to me he has more important tasks at sowing dissent than hanging around in the countryside.
While this series certainly takes liberties with the source material that seems to go too far.
That’s why I mentioned Glorfindel - he died in the fall of Gondolin, went to the Halls of Mandos, was reincarnated in Valinor, and then returned to Middle-Earth. They could be setting up something similar with Celeborn.
There are a lot of reasons why that would be wrong and you really don’t need to explain Glorfindel to me. I’ve explain all that in this thread and was hoping we would see him as he was sent back this early.
Glorfindel was pretty unique, an Elf of the Light, a slayer of a Balrog.
The Harfood’s speech about “being true to each other” was BS. We just went through several episodes hearing about how they leave people behind who can’t keep up with their caravan. Even orcs don’t do that.
Also they kicked out the Stranger because…why? Is it his fault these little idiots choose to stand under the tree he tries to magically fix while he’s working on it. Get back people, he’s about to do some magic shit.
I’m 100% sure that’s it. And I’m glad they introduced that she’s already married to him, as that returns things a little to canonicity (which, while I’m not a slave to it, is still nice to have)
Quenya. He was saying “wake up”, and something about healing similar to this phrase but I couldn’t make it all out. Also something about a flower, maybe the imperative “Bloom!”? Although that would be losta, not lóte, and I’m sure he said lóte.
Durin and Elrond are such drama queens - no elf’s going to have to die if they don’t get mithril, they’re just going to have to move house.
To, and this is important, motherfucking Heaven-On-Earth to live with the damn Gods. Hardly the Trail of Tears here.
Speaking of capital-D Drama, they were really channeling Macbeth in that scene with Durin and Disa, weren’t they? Which is quite on-brand for Tolkien, after all.
And apologies to all, they clearly did mean a direct Southlands=Mordor, not just part of it.
Plus it also avoids presenting Celeborn as some sort of stay at home husband while Galadriel is off doing her thing.
And come to think of it, LOTR does have a rich history of “fake out” deaths:
Frodo getting stabbed by the Witch King (it’s just a flesh wound)
Frodo getting stabbed in Moria (saved by Mithril vest)
Gandalf falling off Khazad Dûm Bridge (magic)
Pippen and Merry accidently burned with the Uruk-hai (turns out they weren’t)
Aragorn falling off a cliff and swept down river (turns out he was ok, if anyone bothered to check)
so on and so forth
That was just in the movie. Never happened.
When the Amazon episode said that “Adar ponders a new name” I was 99% sure he was going to reveal himself as Sauron somehow. The weird pale people still confuse me. They’re just deliberately mean.
Wow, I thought the latest episode was just terrible. Deadly dull and mostly stupid.
Huh, i liked it.
Galadrial comes across as a decent person, rather than a genocidal maniac.
Theo cares about other people
The Durin/Elrond relationship was kicked up a notch
Something actually happened
We saw a balrog
I wonder what the three fates were, though.
Wait, was Galadriel saying Celeborn is dead?
The Stranger has to be a protagonist. It would be too unsatisfying at this point to make him evil. He even made a little flower pop out.
She marries him later, so I’m sure he’s just “missing” and we won’t see him.
The cheering of the Southlanders was annoying-they’ve taken to Halabrand too easily. Apart from him it was a decent episode. The dwarf parts were the best.
I thought the editing was poor, but enjoyed it despite thinking the idea of anyone surviving that lava/toxic smoke, not to mention with hair unsinged, is ridiculous.
Maybe I should watch it again then. I was skimming a bit, watching at breaks between a programming project that’s due.
What struck me as tedious and stupid was all these folk in the aftermath of the volcano - 1) most should be dead, 2) they’ll all die if they don’t leave immediately (smoke and ash inhalation if nothing else). And that’s when we hang about and do character development? If there’s a tsunami, you head for shore, you don’t natter about and do dramatic dialogue. I guess that spoiled the rest for me?
Maybe I should watch again. 
Also that camp the Numenorians set up near the end that Galadrial visited and met the queen. You really put up big panels of opaque fabric around your camp? Sounds defensible.
And, hell, the whole thing with the proto hobbits telling Gandalf to get lost after the tree incident. He helped two families migrate a bazillion miles on foot, saving their lives, then dramatically saved some from wargs. But didn’t wake up a dead tree - and they exiled him. These hobbits can be jerks.
Bit early for the Balrog tho. I mean, there was quite a bit of mithril kicking around. The Guards at Minas Tirith has Mithril helmets.
Yeah, that should teach Nori to shut up… but it didn’t.
Welp, I canceled my Prime 2 days before it would have charged me. My sense of disbelief is pretty much gone at this point, with the machinations of the people behind the curtain yanking their little levers far too obvious now. The only characters I remain invested in are The Stranger and Nori, but they haven’t done a lot with the former, and I dislike his 3 woman fan club that has been following him around and glaring at everything.
Understand, I have been waiting seems like forever for some true idealistic high fantasy to finally appear on the small screen, but this isn’t anywhere close to my ideal.
I only hope that if and when they finally film Beren & Luthien’s story (assuming I’ll live to see it-I’m 60) they put people in charge that know what the f. they are doing and knock it out of the f. ballpark.
I dunno…there seems to be something about Middle-Earth that everyone just seems to love. Elves (many of them at least) left Valinor to be in Middle Earth. Morgoth never wanted to hang in Valinor with his siblings. Likewise Sauron. They were all about dominating Middle-Earth and not living in heaven (so-to-speak).
I’m not sure what it is but those in Middle Earth seem committed to it and while some could go back to Valinor at almost any time they never do (at least not until they kinda have to).