It's almost like they are, all of them, being deceived...

There are so many clues for both the Stranger and Halbrand being Sauron that I have whiplash.

Halbrand was basically screaming it with every line of dialogue, but at the same time, it is being made blatantly obvious. It will be more of a twist for book readers for him to be genuine and end up being Witch King / King of the Dead.

The Stranger got so many 'hint hint nudge nudges' this episode. First a hint for Blue Wizard with ice magic. Then, it devolved into hardcore Tilion pandering with the shot of him under the moon and his crater looking like the moon's face. And then the cult-y Mystics showed up to investigate his crater, bearing a plate with his constellation on it, giving heavy Sauron vibes with the music reprising the Sauron and Shadow themes.

At this point, I'm sorely hoping it is all one giant deception and Sauron has been Annatar the whole time, chilling in Eregion, giving Celebrimbor phenomenally bad advice and telling apocryphal lore stories to Gil-Galad so he can get his hands on mithril to make some nice shiny rings. That "elf Lords only" meeting looking a lot more sus right now.

THAT would be a writing masterstroke tbh.

 

This is what makes me think the Halbrand/Stranger stuff is all too likely to be red herring.

 

Why do I feel like the bit of Mithril Elrond was given will end up being Nenya? Like, it just feels so obvious, right?

 

I've not really been able to give my thoughts on this the time they really need due to being away on holiday for the last few weeks, but I don't think my earlier comments were unmitigatedly positive. I've certainly tried to focus on the positive for the simple reason that I never go into anything looking to hate it, but I still have a lot of doubts with regard to the show.

I'm finally home, and finally able to write up my thoughts, so let's do this.

First, we have to accept that there must be a distinction between 'this is not how I'd do it' and 'this is bad'. It does become very difficult to differentiate between those two things at times, but to give the show an honest chance, I have to make an attempt.

Let's keep that for later, though. Instead, I'll start with the stuff I (mostly) like:

The visuals are impressive. It's obvious that a great many CGI artists died to make this show a reality, and there's a number of scenes where the CGI backdrops don't quite mesh with the green-screen actors, but this is something I feel we simply have to accept on a show like this. The sheer amount of CGI in what I imagine is close to 9 hours of footage was always going to leave us with some weaker stuff. The art direction I'm seeing, however, is something I can absolutely get behind.

The breadth of the world, and the willingness to tell stories set outside the realms we usually see and hear about is laudable, in my opinion. At the end of the day, this show is effectively a piece of unreasonably high-budget fanfiction, and I am always of the opinion that fanfiction willing to colour outside the lines, as it were, is more interesting than those stories which are slavishly dedicated only to what is directly shown in canon.

I also quite like Pharazon and Miriel. This is, I think, the area where the show displays the most nuance and willingness to deploy subtlety. Presumably, this is because Pharazon is being kept back from the general audience as a potential villain so that his 'turn' can be more impactful. Miriel's motivations are also something I like.

Next come the things I feel are a bit of a mixed bag.

The dialogue is... not quite right, to my ear at least. The general scene-filler stuff is okay (Elrond and Durin's talks are probably my favourite), but in a lot of the more important scenes, I'm left wanting something a little more than what I'm given. What I'm getting at here is when the Elves go extra Elfy, and start speaking in metaphors to each other. It feels a little clunky. An example would be the (over) use of 'light'. It is used in dialogue to signify good, as an opposition to darkness, but also to describe the... souls of the Elves, and a more general magic power at the same time (as well as also being used as a metaphor for wisdom), and it feels a little repetitive at this point. I know Tolkien used it in these ways, but it never felt quite so dense. It's like when you're reading a series of books and the writer obviously discovered a new favourite word halfway through and started using it at every opportunity.

That said, I'm not sure anything save Tolkien himself will ever really feel 'right', and they've done a mostly passable job. The repeated use of 'light' is getting to feel a little trite, though.

Numenor itself has been compressed more than I'd like. I fully expected the time compression to have a simplifying effect on the development of Numenor as a power, but it also seems to have been compressed almost entirely to Armenelos alone (with only brief mentions of other locations within Numenor, none of them seeming to have any great importance). Armenelos is great, don't get me wrong, I love the CGI, but it makes Numenor feel so very small. The expeditionary fleet was planned to be just 500 men, and this is treated like it's a big deal when this should be the most populous realm in the known world. If this is what constitutes a 'big effort' by Numenor, I worry that the Great Armament, when we eventually see it, will be rather underwhelming.

Then there's the stuff I find it hard to countenance.

The 'light of the Elves is dimming' thing feels entirely too straightforward, and also very unnecessary. It feels to me to be entirely at odds with how fëar are represented by Tolkien. The only way for it to be diminished is in the creation of something great, or through the weariness of despair and time, and even if I try to interpret it more broadly, I simply cannot see how any power of evil can have such great power at a distance. This is something that even Morgoth could not have imagined, even while he spread his influence throughout all of Middle-earth, and yet we're meant to accept that Sauron can? It's especially egregious for me, as it seems so simple to motivate the Elves along their path without this fairly ham-fisted device.

I am also very leery of the changes made to the origin and nature of Mithril. I know a number of people have suggested that this might be a lie propagated by Sauron, but I also find that hard to believe. In a Kingdom populated by at least a few Elves who were alive before the darkening of the trees, it seems a real stretch to believe that such a 'legend' could take root and be widely known unless it had some element of truth. Additionally, I think this is likely meant to offer some kind of explanation for Durin's Bane: It is the Balrog in the story (which makes me wonder for a moment if Adar could be the Elf).

Then there's the general public perception in Numenor. While I like Pharazon, Miriel, and most of the other named Numenorean characters, I'm really not impressed by the 'they'll take are jawbs!' rabble. It seems like such an unnecessary own goal when the Elves are apparently concerned with the impermanence of things. Why not make the same true of Men? Make their cultural motivations mirrors of each other, and see where that takes their interactions (How can the Elves deny us and claim our mortality a gift when they so jealously protect their own immortality? Why can Men not see that immortality is a prison? Our actions now are not made to protect our immortality, for that is ever-unchanging, but instead we act to protect our ability to experience joy, love and happiness through those endless years, and to stave off sorrow unending.)

So far, however, I've only really talked about how the story has been constructed, and not so much on how it is being told. Here, I remain to be convinced.

I'm a little leery of just how blatant they're being with their red herrings. I'm still of the opinion that the Stranger is the only real possibility for a concealed Sauron (though I'm starting to wonder if he's any of the so far revealed characters). Adar just feels all wrong. Too obviously a baddie, and far too transparent. If he ends up being Sauron it would be a disappointment. Halbrand-as-Sauron would feel like a bit of an ass-pull to me. Oh sure, there are little bits and pieces here and there that people have grasped on, but if this was his plan all along, it is entirely too messy to have been the product of a master manipulator. It would require him to have control over far too many things he shouldn't have control over. This would be another disappointment.

Which leaves the Stranger. He appeared in a ball of fire (which burned cold) and he has powers that can really only come from a Maia, but which are also presented with a heavy dose of ominousness. Yes, we have to wonder why Sauron, a master of language, has lost the ability to speak and appears to be acting like a somewhat senile old man, but if he's some other Maiar then we similarly have to wonder why the Valar would toss him over the wall into Middle-earth so hard that he can't even remember why he's there. If it is the Stranger, then my feeling is that he either did something to conceal himself from the Valar (which gave him a case of the forgetsies for a while), or he did something big and powerful which knocked him for six.

All in all, the way it's been set up feels too audience aware. Like a major reason for the characters acting the way they are is simply to mislead the audience, rather than feeling like it's just a natural choice for their character.

The next aspect of the storytelling that I'm not sold on is the pacing. As people have pointed out it is slow. Now one can argue that Tolkien's own pacing in the early part of the Lord of the Rings is also very slow, but this is a tv-show and I feel it has to conform to the expectations of its format here. If we don't get a meaningful climax and payoff in this season, I'll feel it was a big misstep. It's still possible to pull this off, but if we don't make meaningful steps in this direction with episode 6, I worry that any climax we do get will be very rushed indeed.

But where does this leave us on the 'bad vs not what I would have done' scale?

Well, most of the choices regarding Mithril, Numenor and the Elves' motivations fall into 'not what I would have done', and aren't necessarily bad (even if they do impact my enjoyment when they're brought up). Yes, they might directly contradict elements of canon, but a lot of canon directly contradicts elements of canon. Canon contradiction is not a-priori bad in this case, it's just not the canon contradiction I personally would have gone for. The issues of pacing, dialogue repetition and overly audience-aware writing fall much more squarely into 'not great'. The pacing is the most structural of those issues, and on that we're not completely lost. Not only is it still possible to rescue the pacing for single-season television, but even if the pacing ends up being set entirely for a five-season epic, it still might work in the end (though I'm not jazzed about having to wait till 2028 to see a proper conclusion).

 

So more and more, I'm pretty convinced we've not seen Sauron yet. Thoughts here (and yes I know not totally canon compliant)

The Stranger = Gandalf

Halbrand = King Under the Mountain or Witch King

Adar= Just evil elf

Theo = Nazgul or Witch King if it's not Halbrand

Isildur's Bros= Nazgul

 

Isn't king under the mountain a dwarf that rules Erebor?

 

Derp. King of the Mountains. This Dude

 

Three of the Nine were Numenoreans, so it's possible we've seen one or more of them, but I'm skeptical it would be Isildur's friends. Perhaps the jealous son of the Chancellor guy.

 

Episode 6 was fun. Not sure how lore friendly it is, but I dig it.

 

Okay, this one was in my opinion probably the best one so far.

 

I'll agree that it was good. It hadn't quite clicked that this land is proto-Mordor until now.

Perhaps my biggest gripe is how small scale everything is. 500 men, barely a tenth of that on screen, save maybe a quarter of one single village from a few dozen orks. What feels like barely a company taking on a small incursion. I wonder if scales wouldn't be higher without covid. Regardless, it's hard to give Bronwyn's village any significance in the long-term beyond their ownership of the sword-key.

 

I am fairly certain it's a covid thing yes. The biggest crowds we see are all less than 100 people due to NZ's strict rules, so they had to use copious crowd replication techniques in a lot of shots. If you freeze frame some of these you will notice duplicated extras standing in different poses/places in the same shot.

Season 2 should feel much bigger.

Also, episode 6 was great.

Very friendly. I can't really think of anything that was even semi-egregious. I guess the biggest thing is they just made up the word "Moriondor" to describe the early 1st age elves captured by Morgoth. Actually a pretty clever deep cut of Sindarin roots meaning "of the dark one". Carl Hostetter knows what's up.

 

I'm pretty sure that all of the different story lines are happening at slightly different times. The Numenorean military expedition got to the Southlands extremely fast, and knew just where to go in order to save the village. You can argue that Halbrand was guiding them, and that the queen had a look through the Palantir before they left or whatever, but logistically speaking, 500 men on horses shouldn't have been able to cross half of Middle Earth in a few days, especially when they don't really know the land at all and don't have a clue where they're actually needed.

That's sort of par for the course in modern TV shows I suppose, but its jarring because Tolkien was all about the journey, and this show is all about the destination.

My other main complaint is that several main characters have been stopped from doing terrible things just in time, and I do mean just in time. The first time it was fine, the third time it felt both predictable and contrived.

Also, Galadriel is incredibly unsympathetic. I honestly empathise more with Adar after the last episode. She wants to commit genocide, seems to be completely fine with torture, signed Halbrand up for the military expedition into the Southlands after he explicitly refused to go, and seems willing to go to absolutely any lengths to find and kill Sauron, even in the face of glaring evidence that he's dead. We know that he's alive, but she has no reason to think so, especially after Adar's confession.

 

I hear that. But I also feel it is blatant and on purpose.

Her main 1st age character flaws are pride, arrogance, and hatred of Feanorians. 2nd age Galadriel literally just sits around in Eregion for 1300 years or so doing nothing until she gets Nenya. She'd be a far less interesting character if they started her there.

I'm glad they went with a more 1st age Galadriel. Give her somewhere to go and room to grow into the character that is more familiar to the audience.

 

The end of last weeks episode was incredible, though as a few people have already said the covid-restrictions constrain how big some of these moments feel (Something House of the Dragon is also unfortunately afflicted with).

Damn though. Seeing Galadriel’s face as Mount Doom erupted was pretty haunting.

Spoiler

Do we think Adar told the truth? Did he ‘kill’ Sauron, leaving him in a much weaker state. I could see it playing into The Stranger, actually. I wonder if they dive deeper into his character next episode

Loving the show so far, but definitely excited for the size and scale to get larger in Season 2.

 

I don't really get the complaints about scale. The Southlands is not a sophisticated, centralised state, and the orcish forces under Adar are just a roving migratory band, not the army of a civilisation with their own lands. The conflict appears similar to Anglo-Saxon England in level of sophistication, where the "Kingdoms" were often quite loose in authority and small in size. For example, a typical Viking invasion force in Anglo-Saxon times might be around 500-1000 men, e.g. at the Battle of Edington.

In any event, this is not Numenor engaging in total warfare against another state. It is an expeditionary force to deal with what is effectively a roving company of bandits. One would not expect them to deploy some massive army. There will be huge battles later on between sophisticated, centralised states capable of levying large forces and having the logistics to keep them deployed, but it is appropriate, historically realistic, and good pacing to start the series off with conflicts at a smaller scale.

I don't think the scale takes away from the impact of events at all - if anything, it grounds the impact of Adar's orcish forces and the eruption of Mt Doom as something affecting everyday folk living their everyday, small lives. There's very much a Pompei-type feel to the end of episode 6 - a normal town of normal people suddenly being overtaken by forces much greater than they are.

I also don't have any problem with the ancestors of Shadowfax being superhorses capable of maintaining top speeds for long periods of time.

 

So the Stranger theory is out of the window.

And Halbrand is looking more and more like Sauron, now going to the Elves.

 

This sneaky fucker agrees to ride over 800 miles with a septic wound? How can Halbrand be anything other than a Maia at this point?

Spoiler

Every prediction the reddit leaker made has come true now. So yeah... Halbrand is Sauron. And that means the mithril myth is probably "true." Ugh. Fail.

Also dafuq?


Like, obviously Celeborn is not dead (or he'll at least be Mandos'd and rezzed), but this needed more than a tidbit of exposition. If he's missing... what the fuck has he been doing for 1000-2000 years? Big lol if they axe Glorfindel and give Celeborn his part. It's not LOTR unless Glorfy gets shafted.

Galadriel was really the best part of this episode. Just the acceptance of her role in the rising shadow has changed her personality to be more 3rd age (almost a little too sudden actually). I am excited for more of my favorite hot elf granny.

 

Honestly at the end, the only thing I could hear is 'The South Will Rise Again!'...

 

Beyond the corporatist Tolkien sloganeering and somehow making a universally loved Galadriel unlikeable, which I think is criminal, there is a somewhat enjoyable, cringe-y, good looking high fantasy show which is a rarity. Also these actors should be given awards just for the dialogue they have to work with.