Whereas I’m frustrated that Gil Galad is an asshole, Galadrial is an idiot, and too many of the characters are boring. And they make incomprehensible choices. Like, why did the kid take Isildur to the sworn-to-Adar who stole his horse, and then, when Isildur was about to make a clean getaway, announce himself to them? I didn’t understand why he offered to help Isildur at all, but why then take that crazy risk?
And I’m confused by what’s happening over in Numenor. I’m just not following. (It doesn’t help that I’m partially face-blind, and having trouble keeping the characters straight. That’s on me, not the series, but it affects my enjoyment.)
It is gorgeous. Gorgeous scenery, with plausible cultural differences between different groups of people. Gorgeous costumes. And i like the dwarves, and the hobbits, and Adar, and Sauron. I think Sauron is played really well.
He’s very much in the Thranduil vein of Elf King. On brand.
The Galadriel who was right about the wights, and who, it will turn out, is right about the Elf rings and Elrond is wrong?
I like her a lot in this show.
I think he is supposed to be latching onto a substitute parent/big brother figure, and also doing some payback for the death of his mom.
I think you missed that Isildur wasn’t going to make a getaway - he’d gotten the people at the fire suspicious, and would not have escaped without Theo’s distraction.
I think we’ve already established Theo is not the sharpest rock in the pile.
Palace coup fueled by nativism, seems simple enough.
I saw that, but horses are faster than people. It sure looked like he could have cut and run.
Yeah, this one is mostly on me, i just can’t keep track of enough if the characters. The broad outline of the coup is clear enough. It bothers me that the eagle shows up and caws like a dumb beast, though.
Also, something straight from Tolkien that is bothering me: where did Celebrimbor get the power to put in the rings? Feanor used the light of the two trees in his gems. (And i don’t know what in the silmarils.) Sauron was extremely powerful, and poured his own essence into the one ring. But what powers the 3?
And yes, Galadrial is showing “character development”. Which seems odd in someone that old, but okay.
You know that he was a Noldor of Fëanor’s direct line who was born in Valinor during the Years of the Trees, right? He had a lot of innate power.
Plus I think there’s a bit of a misconception about how magic works at play here - yes, there’s the pouring of your own power into things you make, like the One Ring or in a much lesser way, all Elvish artifacts. But there’s also formulaic magic in Middle Earth, that involves knowing the right spells, right materials and right circumstances.
I think a lot of both went into the 3.
She continued to develop even in LOTR. And Elves aren’t human, “old” is a very relative term.
Yes. I would love to learn more about that. But i suppose that’s a pretty niche interest, and not very photogenic. I did like how Sauron played on Celebrimbor’s pride and lack of recognition. I thought that was good drama, as well as being realistic.
(The “forging” looked a lot less realistic, but I’ll grant that it was pretty.)
Tom Bombadil called him an Istar, though, so he’s neither the Witch King nor Khamul, since they are both men. I would also be disappointed if it should turn out to be Saruman, just basically rehashing the conflict between him and Gandalf an age early. I was actually hoping that both him and the Stranger turn out to be the blue wizards, at least the connection to Rhûn seems to argue for that. But what’s that about hope and fools…
I finally finished this series. Mostly, I’m disappointed. I thought the best part was Sauron, and his deception of Celebrimbor. That felt plausible. The whole invented story of Adar worked reasonably well. Good job, writers. And the political chaos in Numenor was okay, although i don’t think chaos makes for engaging story telling.
But the entire Gandalf arc felt wrong on many levels. He’s there too early. He’s confused and helpless too long. Saruman has already been corrupted, yet no one knows that at the council of Elrond, years later. I actually liked Bombadil, despite his not being dressed right. But everything around him was just annoying.
Hmmm, I kind of forgot to watch this despite mostly liking S1 (it’s not one of the shows my wife watches, so I was usually watching it at odd times when she was off). Now I’m not sure I want to have a go at it, but maybe I’ll watch the first couple of episodes.
The last couple of episodes of this season helped to pull it together.
@puzzlegal - I don’t think that is going to be Saruman - but there are enough hints it ‘could’ be - which is of course how they played out the Gandalf (‘grand elf’) thing…
Sadly, I’m pretty sure it’s Saruman. They’ve made him look an awful lot like the Saruman in the movie version of LotR. And he has some of the same “memes”, for lack of a better word. “Old friend, you and i can rule together”.
I think it’s better than S1, so it’s probably worth giving it a try. But I’m looking forward to getting back to the bear and mrs. Maisel, and the gbbo, which are the other shows queued up with the friend i watch tv with.
One of the show runner said the dark wizard is not Saruman (maybe).
Given the history of Middle-earth, it would be highly, highly, highly improbable that this could be Saruman. If not impossible… So the Dark Wizard’s fate is not decided and his name is not out there yet, but it would almost defy the laws of gravity and physics for it to be Saruman.
Not exactly a definite no, but pretty close.
I feel like the last few episodes of this season kept getting better, until they got to the last one which was overloaded with cliches and stilted dialog. Like @puzzlegal, I ended up being impressed with the Celebrimbor plot. Early in the season, I didn’t see his actions fitting the character. But they did a nice job of showing how he was broken, and I ended up finding it believable.
I also ended up really liking the Adar character. And I liked Galadriel more each episode. The Gandalf plot was the only one that stunk, and surprisingly that was because of Gandalf, not Bombadil.
It pains me greatly because I love LOTR and Tolkien, but I’ve officially given up on this series. It’s just so bad in so many ways. Poor acting, laughable dialogue, incomprehensible character decisions, muddied plotting, the desecration of canon, the time compression that makes everything feel hurried and unthought out. The Tolkien estate had good reason to be wary and not endorse this.
I think people for some reason think “we can’t use the Silmarillion” means “we can’t use the Silmarillion but we are still going to tell the same exact story, wink wink”. They are not “desecrating canon”, it literally has to be different. I liked this season a lot better than season 1.