Pity, I number among those that like Tom Bombadil.
All I can ever think of is
Toke-a-lid! Smoke-a-lid! Pop the mescalino!
Stash the hash! Gonna crash! Make mine methedrino!
Hop a hill! Pop a pill! For Old Tim Benzedrino!
I mean, that was Nori’s motivation all along, as well as, eventually, her family. But I went back and watched the scenes from the latest episode, and basically he tries to ‘wake’ that tree, a branch falls on a couple of them and everyone is clearly afraid of him after. Cut to other plotlines. When we get back, the head protohobbit basically gives him directions and a star map and Gandalf takes off to zero fanfare. Get lost asshole. Maybe not that strong, but no misgivings about him leaving after he’s helped so much.
From Memory: Hopefully it is mostly right.
Ho Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo
By Water, Wood and Hill, by reed and willow
By Fire, Sun and Moon, Harken now and Hear us
Come Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us.
I just discovered a box of my 70s books, and that was among them. I can’t decide if I want to risk rereading it though….
In this case the work is not wonderful for those with great amounts of pre-existing knowledge and expertise and those who can only judge it for its own value in create good storytelling with characters we care about, but I wonder if having great knowledge makes it harder to enjoy a work for how it delivers on its own, viscerally. (I see that sometimes in art, the conflict between thinking about a piece and it significance in art history, for example, and experiencing it.)
There is absolutely no question.
If I had no previous knowledge, I would have thought, “Aww… Galadriel has lost so much. First her brother, then her husband.”
But me watching… What the 
, Celeborn isn’t in this because he’s DEAD?!”
I had to Google it to see the writers assuring people that they left it ambiguous on purpose. But still, if you need to broadcast that he’s not really dead, just don’t suggest it at all. Just have him off doing other stuff. There have been times in lore when they’ve been separated for long periods of time. When you are immortal, being away from each other for years is no big deal. And you have a great reason; Galadriel is obsessed with her vendetta and Celeborn might not support her. I think that would even be interesting.
The only thing I can figure is that they want Galadriel to be single so that she can be in a romance which just seems wrong.
I have tried to judge it on its own merits (or failures), not on how closely it hews to canon. I am reminded of the Sandman adaptation tho, where a goodly number of plots and dialogue were very similar if not identical to those in the original comics, and left me feeling a bit out that Gaiman and his gang of adapters didn’t let the adaptation breathe a bit more on its own (like PJ’s 1st trilogy did). The best change was definitely John Dee not being a abominable psycho.
A narrative which is consistently surprising isn’t any better than one which is consistently unsurprising. In the main I do think Sandman S1 is better than RoP S1, but not by a ton.
That’s the thing with prequels. We should theoretically know what happens to these people. So either it’s a fake-out, which is lazy writing when you already know the outcome, or they are just shitting all over canon.
I think with the exception of Elrond and the Dwarves, I’m really having trouble feeling any concern for these characters. Maybe because there seems to be very little “human” reasons for anyone doing anything they do. Honestly, I can’t even remember why or how Galadriel convinced the Numenoreans to launch a military expedition to the Southlands. It didn’t seem like she or anyone else knew what was going on there. It all feels like “we must do this!” and “we must do that!” based on various vague prophecies, visions, and gut feelings that tie into Tolkien’s notes.
So wait: the Brandyfoots were close enough to Orodruin to get their fruit trees killed by falling fire debris. Yet Sardoc is telling Gandalf that Greenwood the Great (Mirkwood) is within hiking distance. Huh?
Also, you’d think Gandalf would need to go considerably north or southward (think Forochel or Far Harad) to see stars that you couldn’t see from wherever the Brandyfoots had been.
The White Tree in Numenor shed its leaves, which was seen as a warning from the Valar that they needed to heed Galadriel rather than give her a swift boat ride to Middle Earth (and leave her there). They were seen as the “Tears of the Valar” or whatever.
Honestly, I think the show would have been 10 times better if it stuck to the newbies not in canon. Theo and Arondir and Bronwyn and Halbrand and the Harfoots. You can do anything you want with their stories without using the lore as toilet paper. And there would be actual tension; we’d have no idea what’s going to happen to these people.
The show could be done with important stuff happening in the background. Rumors of Sauron returning, a fleet arriving from Numenor, Dwarves discovering Mithril in Moria. I’d enjoy that show a lot more.
That’s an excellent idea. Might be hard to sell to the executives who would want “headliners” like Galadriel, but I’d watch it.
Did the Dwarves dig all the way down to the Balrog in the second age? I get the reference that the Balrog is down there, but did it ever come out before Moria was overrun way, way, way later?
Otherwise, it’s kind of pointless to show it to us.
The dwarves woke the Balrog well into the Third Age (TA 1980). For reference the Fellowship of the Ring entered Moria in TA 3019.
Although the Balrog went there at the end of the First Age.
My point exactly. A tree shedding its leaves should not drive the plot.
It was winky fan service.
Let me quote the wiki:
For more than five thousand years, the Balrog lay dormant at the roots of the Misty Mountains beneath the Dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dûm. It remained undisturbed throughout the Second Age and most of the Third Age, until the Dwarves awoke it
…by dropping a leaf on it. 
Well, should a burning bush? I mean, if signs and portents are seen as having power, it doesn’t matter if it’s leaves or the pattern of cow entrails being read by an oracle.
One of the fan sites interpreted it as I did:
Yeah, but not just any old leaf, a Magical Elf Leaf.
Meanwhile, the Numenoreams crossed the ocean and galloped all the way to Tirharad, crossing a mountain range along the way, in no more than 18 hours. They’ve been playing fast and loose with travel times in a way that’d make Jack Bauer envious.