Rings of Power: No Themes, No Meaning, No Point

Amazon's Rings of Power season 2 is... well, it's not much. For one thing, it's pretty clear that at least half of some plotlines were left on the editing room floor, leading to seriously disjointed storytelling. Then you have the lighting which can only be described as "aggressively eco friendly". But most importantly, the character development/arcs and thus the themes of the alleged story are incredibly flat, if not outright nonsensical. There is no meaning to be found here, no point to the story they are supposedly trying to tell. It's all PLOTPLOTPLOT with hardly a moment to spare for any sort of introspection or exploration on a character's part.
It's a far cry from the rich, detailed, meaningful characters and themes that DEFINED the Lord of the Rings. It isn't Tolkien. It isn't even fan fiction. Fans like the thing they are mimicking. This is just a product.
#ringsofpower

[@master_samwise]

Which adaptation is worse: Rings of Power or Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender?

[@QuatarTarandir]

Both? Both. Both is good

[@auhsojjoshua0]

To be fair, Netflix's Avatar had its good points especially Zuko's relationship with his crew. It has good characters minus Sokka. It is WAY EASIER to defend Avatar than RoP. RoP is utter desecration of lore. Avatar had the effort of sticking to the lore albeit not entirely sticking to it.

[@dpolaristar4634]

Well Rings of Power feels like its written that on a fundamental level despise everything Tolkien stands for, Avatar feels like it was written by people that like the show but don't understand nuance and just have an understanding of writing of a 13 year old writing fan fiction for the first time, except the 13 year old might get better and learn from failures.

[@peregrination3643]

@@dpolaristar4634 I really appreciate that we're all deferring to being 13 when writing like this is okay. There is definitely a "phase" going on when writers are around that age. Which makes it more remarkable that the "pros" have devolved to that phase the rest of us outgrow.

[@scottybreuer]

RoP is the greater failure. AtLA is a worse failure. The man who dies attempting scale Mt. Everest has failed to achieve an immense undertaking while the man who falls to his death from the top of the Grand Canyon failed to walk a much easier path already laid out for him. Both are tragedies, but they hit differently.

[@dredgen0268]

Fine-I’ll rewatch the extended Trilogy again.

[@RoseBaggins]

I dreamed about the Behind-the-scenes last night. Definitely should rewatch it!!

[@MissDevo1]

I just started watching them again needed a brain scrub after those episodes.

[@martinbojanich6304]

sounds about right yes, god speed lads

[@zzevonplant]

It really never gets old. My 5-year-old has watched the 3 extended editions at least 10 times already & I just never tire of them. (And yeah, my kid is really weird, she legitimately sat through, not only all of the extended ROTK in one sitting, but also the credits because she likes the music - 4 1/2 hours. 😂)

[@RoseBaggins]

@@zzevonplant can't say I blame her.

[@chadbateman4777]

5:11 "what is beauty when it is born in part of evil?" "No less beautiful." That literally sounds like something Morgoth or Sauron would say to justify their actions.

[@5quepasa]

It's true. Let's take your average fairy tale. Its beauty often lies in addressing some aspect of our fallen world. There's an evil queen, a murder, or something of abject horror that births the conflict. However, the story is no less beautiful for the evil that, in part, births the story. I think the scene actually gets to one possible interpretation of a line in the Silmarillion from Manwe: "Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Eä, and evil yet be good to have been." In this, he speaks of the evil of Feanor's Oath and his pride, but acknowledges that great beauty will come out of that evil. The whole conversation between Elrond and Cirdan is wonderfully Tolkien-esque.

[@primal1233]

I'm glad Tolkien isn't here to witness this total failure

[@chriswest4875]

As if it would ever be possible if he were alive

[@bvyup2112]

@@chriswest4875 exactly

[@whynottalklikeapirat]

I believe ROP was written by Trollkien (yes some millennial changeling)

[@travtuck7646]

He sees it & he ain't happy.

[@Elechte]

One of Tolkiens themes is how mortality is a gift. I finally see it.

[@CallMeTeci]

"A smart writer has sometimes a hard time writing stupid characters, because they cant imagine the stupidity of some people. But stupid writers cant even fathom the thoughts of smart characters and are therefore incapable of writing those at all."

[@Ednawandel]

"Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivializes. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. Heroes brandish their swords, lasers, wands, as mechanically as combine harvesters, reaping profits. Profoundly disturbing moral choices are sanitized, made cute, made safe. The passionately conceived idea of the great storytellers are copied, stereotyped, reduced to toys, molded in bright-colored plastic, advertised, sold, broken, junked, replaceable, interchangeable." -Ursula K. LeGuin

[@master_samwise]

my goodness is that spot on.

[@thobydavis7649]

thanks for finding this quotation from a master of fantasy! Very apt for the abomination of Tolkein's work that is Rings of Power

[@uberhuber7903]

@@master_samwise I dont think you would like her, she was a feminist. the anarchist part might vibe with you incels though.

[@darktenor4967]

Gandalf: "the only way to defeat Sauron is to journey to Mordor and cast the one ring into the fiery mountain where it was made." Aragorn: "Or we could get some orcs to shank him when he's not looking, I hear that's worked in the past?" Gandalf: "Oh, forgot about that. But how do we get the orcs on side, aren't they creations of utter evil completely loyal to their dark master?" Aragorn: "Not at all, orcs are just like us, they have families, feelings and relationships. I'll promise them that once I am king of Gondor, I'll fund free governmental childcare places, with priority given to orc families with small children, that way they'll be lining up to back stab Sauron!" Gandalf: "Oh, and there was me thinking we'd need an epic quest undertaken by hobbits full of heroism, friendship and sacrifice!" Aragorn: "No, just remind everyone to check their elf-privilege and of the importance of social justice and the voices of minorities! Speaking of which, Arwen? You are king now! If anyone wants me I'll be standing in the back looking useless!"

[@QuatarTarandir]

Lmao

[@supernerd8067]

This reminds me of the Freedomtoons parody of Rings of Power.

[@stephanl2409]

Masterful!!

[@engineerdeluxe]

10/10 😂

[@InferiorG]

Would read again

[@jamesthemuchless]

The show writers learned everything they know about horses from watching Tangled.

[@bvyup2112]

the horse is the best character. Im team horse.

[@travtuck7646]

I'm convinced they all just went to the wikipedia for ideas & research.

[@bvyup2112]

@@travtuck7646 youre giving them too much credit

[@pamelalansbury94]

And that’s a bad thing?

[@yurikendal4868]

For the amount of money blown off, yes​@@pamelalansbury94

[@Matt-on4of]

I had my friend tell me with complete honesty that he preferred the RoP to the movies. I had a moment of serious consideration of our friendship and his mental health.

[@QuatarTarandir]

Lol, I would be the same

[@adilshekh8879]

Obviously there are people like your friend that are watching the series.

[@LoLa-kw6wn]

Now that's true fandom muwahahaha. But hold on to your friend, in this age they are hard to come by. The Age of Loneliness.

[@Parzival-2049]

Did you ever stop to think maybe you are tye problem? 😹 You clowns are hating on this mindlessly The show isn't quite as bad (better than season 1 and HoTD) Also if you were not kidding about your comment then you definitely are the issue

[@reek4062]

So? The movies are stupid, loud and obnoxious.

[@crusader2112]

Honestly, the idea of Orcs having families and babies seems like something George RR Martin would come up with, considering one of his critiques was that "did Aragon have a policy of slaughter and 'slaughter orc babies."

[@reactiondavant-garde3391]

I guess he is the type who would allow the goblin babise to grown up. "Maybe some goblin is good!" - Said the men before a stone breaked his skull.

[@GoB1996]

He would’ve at least made more sense of it lol. I don’t mind a new idea being written in but it still has to honor something

[@reactiondavant-garde3391]

I hate youtube. I can't even make a Goblin Slayer reference.

[@Canadish]

The idea of 'Orc baby wat do?' could be good to explore, but it doesn't work with Tolkien's work. The Orcs work as corrupted creatures of evil, its a world that is more black and white than our own. The narrative is undermined if you have to stop and think about the thousands of Orc families Legolas ruins when he drops a 100 foot ladder on the crowd of raging Uruks.

[@benjaminthibieroz4155]

@@reactiondavant-garde3391 Don't worry, we all thought about it

[@JangoUnchained98]

The real word missing from Amazon's adaptation is sincerity. If they sincerely tried to be faithful to Tolkien's works, or at least tried to adapt it in good faith, most of us, I reckon, would be far more forgiving towards them. Alas, they saw something that is, effectively, a cultural staple, and tried to milk it in the most shallow way by reducing it to being just another brand.

[@master_samwise]

My goodness is that ever true.

[@535phobos]

Yes! The Hobbit was by no means great, it was outright terrible compared to LotR. But ever so often you had those moments where you feel that they all tried. They all wanted to tell another Middle Earth story, and it could have been good if given more development or probably cut into 1 movie. Rings of Power is just a soulless cash grab. Noone here wanted to make anything else than money

[@jonopress1795]

@@master_samwiseWell said. I’ve screenshotted this. This perfectly describes my feelings. You just put into words feelings I couldn’t describe

[@reek4062]

Most of you already decided to hate the show seven months before it first aired. And given how many of you revere the Peter Jackson films, I believe most of you don’t care about ‘sincerity’.

[@stevolopez]

I'm 55. When I was a kid, I read The Hobbit 5 times, the Lord of the Rings 7 times, and the Silmarillion 3 times. My 12 grade teacher went to Oxford and was in Professor Tolkiens class. I used to be a Game Master (like a Dungeon Master in D&D) in Middle Earth Role Playing game and would make up adventures in Middle Earth for my friends to play in. I saw the first season. It was total garbage. I'm barely watching the first episode of the second season and i can honestly tell you that I think they learned something. It's much better than last season. I hate wokeness and all that but I love Middle Earth so much that I'm willing to at least give it a chance and its not disappointing me like the first season. I just saw Cirdan the shipwright take the rings in a boat. Just so you know... i used to be upset that they were changing the story... but now in a way I'm glad they did because now I don't know what's going to happen. When the LotR movies came out, yes I knew what was going to happen, but right now, I'm kinda glad that its more of a mystery. I hope it gets better. If not, at least I'll enjoy seeing the graphics of the world I enjoyed as a kid!

[@jamesthemuchless]

The show writers really counted on the audience totally forgetting everything that happened in the 1st season so they could get away with total inconsistency. And you know what? They're absolutely right. I remember very little of the last season.

[@reek4062]

New Line fans don’t care about tonal inconsistency. The showrunners clearly tried to please them.

[@yurikendal4868]

There is no effort to write a good story

[@notmyname3302]

I remember enough to know that every bad thing that os happening is Galadriels fault

[@MajorLeeAwesome]

If I was a member of Tolkien's family, I'd be succinctly radicalized.

[@sirawittassanapoom9582]

Simon Mario Reuel Tolkien.. As of 2022, he is a consultant on the Amazon TV series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

[@BabsJohnson111]

@@sirawittassanapoom9582 money dear boy

[@resathe6760]

They are partly to blame for this shit show by selling the rights

[@CorePathway]

@@sirawittassanapoom9582You mean he’s cashing huge checks

[@mark9294]

Simon Tolkien bears a huge amount of responsibility for this crap by lending legitimacy to it.

[@michaelman957]

Angry show writers: "You hate out show because we made Galadriel strong!" Me: "No, I hate the show because you made her insanely weak."

[@reek4062]

True, she’s underpowered and made stupid in the show.

[@RoninDave]

Pretty much every decision she makes is wrong and leads to disaster. She's highly incompetent

[@aryatawde8121]

I think, the same way a less intelligent person would struggle to write a story with masterminds, people who seldom contemplate, or disregard personal responsibility and morality, can’t write moral characters well.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

That helps explain it.

[@yurikendal4868]

Our values are expressed through our art

[@crazyralph6386]

Case in point- Leslie Hedlamp

[@nocturnusnerd]

As far as I remember, precisely the fact that the orcs have an unchangeable nature and that their sole purpose is to do war, is a testament of how evil and corrosive is Morgoth/Sauron's power. At this point they can show Shelob being fierce because she's a poor mother from a bad neighborhood trying to feed her offspring

[@reek4062]

I don’t think Melkor initially even ‘created’ them for war. He bred them as a mockery of the Children of Iluvatar, since he’s unable to create new life himself. Then he decided they were useful for war, but I think this is mostly a byproduct.

[@user-bz9of6tn6l]

Well they showed Shelob as a sexy woman in Shadow of Mordor/Shadow of War, despite it never being mentioned anywhere in the Legendarium(as far as I can recall) that she could shapeshift into a beautiful form.

[@Dolencd]

LOL! The rings are actually in the title and they still mostly look like kids lollypop rings from the 90s. What a disgrace. I was sick on the couch at home when the first series came about. And for the first 2 episodes it was not that hard to try and overlook the issues right after Galadriel threw herself from the ship into the water I started laughing out loud and closed that abomination.

[@Mrspuma527]

lol, I made it all the way until Arondir did that super awkward back-roll while getting beat up by an unarmed giant orc. That was my ‘I’m out moment.’

[@anthonyfournier1731]

Sauron comes out of ground and meets a man in 2 minutes and then he is the one person to just start monologuing about “goodness”

[@travisscholes6588]

And he also happens to carry the "king of the southlands" mcguffin

[@master_samwise]

PLOTPLOTPLOTPLOTPLOT.

[@bvyup2112]

@@master_samwise makes sense if you dont think about it

[@scroseFE]

to be fair it shows Sauron's manipulations. This was his forte. It's one of the few things I found the show got right

[@bvyup2112]

@@scroseFE except theyve proven that its almost all dumb luck and not actual manipulation.

[@davidmcaninch4714]

The people who worked on the Lord of the Rings movies really wanted to avoid putting their own political ideas into them and really wanted to pay tribute to the late great Professor JRR Tolkien. I haven’t seen the show, but it seems like the guys who are working on Rings of Power want to do the opposite of that, which is a real shame.

[@riccardozanoni2531]

it's not even the politics... they just never even read the lord of the rings, much less the rest of Tolkien's works, and it shows. They just went with the "esthetic" of the lotr movies, with no attention paid to the original material that made that esthetic stand out and feel alive. It's just another trashy cash grab, like most remakes.

[@luisrods]

It is not that "it seems like," they explicitly said they were going to put their own political ideas into the project: "It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of the author's work would reflect what the world actually looks like." But the problem goes beyond that because they haven't even done that right, things happen randomly just to move the plot forward, as Samwise said, there's no theme, nothing to hold the elements together, just random elements put together.

[@reek4062]

The movies also avoided putting Tolkien’s ideas in the films, or twisted them. Also, they have Saruman’s Hitler speech.

[@RJ420NL]

Guyladriel would easily fall for Sauron's mind games again. Guyladriel is a moron. In contrast, Galadriel would see right through him. Guyladriel is not and never will be Galadriel.

[@reek4062]

You should close your computer/smartphone, leave mommies basement, and meet real women.

[@joeway8665]

This Rings of Power seems like Melkor's greatest revenge; a complete mockery of the original work.

[@Andresdha]

Also the opening scene of S2E1 absolutely retcons and contradicts the beginning of season 1. Supposedly Sauron in his cool armor form dominated the orcs and waged a huge war where Finrod died and triggered Galadriel’s John wick arc. But now we know that Sauron was killed (his bodily form) by the orc mutiny and Adar and spent, potentially, centuries in goo form? Which one is it? When did Sauron wage war? In both scenarios they start by saying this is just after Morgoth’s downfall at the dawn of the second age so wtf bro Edit: spelling mistakes

[@master_samwise]

Oh my gosh I forgot about that part. LMAO

[@AshishShrivastava-q6i]

Great point! Not only has this show nothing to do with what JRRT actually wrote, even if you pretend it’s a new fantasy show in a new universe it’s totally internally inconsistent. Crap pacing, crap dialogue, crap world building, crap characters, crap, crap, crap and more crap!!

[@Andresdha]

@@master_samwise they really are unaware even of what THEY wrote lol

[@luisrods]

You are so right! I had also forgotten about it, but I can tell you that even though I liked the "idea" of showing a flashback about the time Adar "killed" Sauron (this was mentioned in season 1, so I was curious), there was something that felt odd (not only the contradiction you just called out) but everything felt too quick and too much "in your face": Sauron speaking to the orcs, one orc going rogue, and then Sauron stabbing the orc like 30 times in front of all the others, what was genuinely going to happen? the orcs stabbing him like 100 times... it was too obvious, though the idea was promising, on paper.

[@OliverLodgeMusic]

Absolutely true. Another thing I am confused about is they are now calling the silly Mordor map symbol, the mark of Adar. I thought it was made by Sauron as a "back up plan" or whatever. Sauron even puts the mark on Finrods body (for absolutely no reason). Unless I missed something. Same as Adar being defeated and all orcs killed in the southlands in s1 but now claiming that he was victorious and somehow has a full orc army again. Could claim he is lying to cover a defeat here but certainly didn't come across that way.

[@haleyschreiter9746]

Thank you for defending Tolkien! ❤

[@reek4062]

Jackson fans don’t care about Tolkien.

[@luralord9202]

Gil-Galad is better in the brief second he appeared in Fellowship of the Ring than he is in Rings of Power.

[@reek4062]

Why doesn’t Gil-Galad wear a helmet in the films? Why isn’t he shown to burn in Sauron’s hand?

[@luralord9202]

@@reek4062 My point is that Amazon did him bad,

[@crazyralph6386]

Yep, he was a total boss in the prologue, not even close to this portrayal.

[@reek4062]

@@luralord9202 I agree.

[@aithjawcraig9876]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Out of every mistake and stupid decisions the writers made, turning Sauron into a sympathetic villain was far and away the most egregious.

[@Binkbinkson]

Sympathetic yes. But damn how I wanted a charming and charismatic Annatar. Someone like Lee pace could have pulled it off. Someone entirely selfish and corrupted but outwardly attractive and knowledgeable just like real life villains who turn people to their own ends

[@irena4545]

@@Binkbinkson A _good_ writer might actually pull both - Sauron perhaps trying at first, more or less honestly, to indeed atone, as he had claimed to Ëonwë, but the lure of charming people to do as he wanted and falling back to his old ways while actually corrupting himself even more and more might have been a real treat to watch.

[@reek4062]

Well, after Morgoth was defeated Sauron went to Eonwe and asked for forgiveness: he may truly have felt regret. But when Eonwe said he needed to go to Aman for judgment, Sauron fled east out of pride. And Sauron likely didn’t see himself as evil. The Valar were poor stewards and had effectively abandoned Middle-Earth to its fate, so he probably wanted to ‘bring order’ (under his rule). Of course I don’t expect movie fans to have actually read the books.

[@indy_go_blue6048]

If those ppl made a movie about the Soviet Union under Stalin, they'd try to make him a sympathetic ruler and a loving father and family man. Why should this surprise you?

[@ryansmurda1552]

The people making ROP hate Tolkien. They think the books are racist, sexist, and antiquated. They are remaking it to fit a modern ideology. None of this is accidental, bad writing, or misunderstanding.

[@LaffeeTaffeeGG]

The thing is there IS racism and sexism in LOTR. Elrond was a racist jerk. Eowyn is constantly being told to stay put and look after the weak like a good lady. It's throughout the story and founded on solid points (Elrond looks down on Men because he literally saw a Man choose power over freeing the people of Middle-Earth), but the whole point of LOTR is that everyone is forced to rise above those traditions and prejudices in order to save the world. They prove themselves wrong, change their minds, and everyone grows for the better. RoP is offended that those flaws would even exist in the first place and over-corrects to the point that the message is lost, and the story suffers.

[@dhayabris3163]

the racial representation is just ridiculous... as an asian homosexual, I don't feel represented in RoP... all I get is constant cringe watching asian elves and hobbits...it's like watching a chinese man wearing poncho and sombrero holding burrito while curling his mustache singing Despacito with his guitarron🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

[@pauloaugustolazzarotto5569]

Not watching ROP was definetly the right choice

[@rovhalt6650]

26:34 Nooo!! That was someones baby orc!! He had a family who loved him!! 😭

[@BenjaminHezekiah]

I agree with this. The themes are so muddled that I wasnt sure what they were trying to get me to think. Only that good and evil are seemingly subjective, but then immediately the writers contradict themselves. They're not nuanced discussions, theyre confused signals. It's insignificant noise.

[@master_samwise]

Yep, that would be because they're not trying to get you to think anything beyond "ooh, that looks nice". This is a product. It's just content. Nothing more.

[@BenjaminHezekiah]

@@master_samwise It felt just like a Marvel movie: no conviction & all spectacle. Dead in the heart. And that's just it. Tolkien's work is personal, alive and spiritual. Amazon, a corporation, CAN'T understand those things. It's not alive. Neither is it a passion project to the people under it. That's what makes the Jackson adaptation different, why it felt alive, because the people who made it had heart & conviction.

[@crazyralph6386]

Probably the best example of The Dunning Kruger Effect I’ve seen in years?

[@Niekvw]

@@master_samwise imagine being so wrong. Maybe have a look at Rings & Realms, might make you look at it differently.

[@master_samwise]

@@Niekvw If you want to suggest someone consider an alternative perspective, don't lead with an insult.

[@mrRambleGamble]

"the subtlety of a dwarf perceived by elves" Be proud of that one. Well written 👏👏👏

[@wb6266]

The problem is they're writing the characters as if they are humans, but most of the characters in the show AREN'T HUMANS, and while they might have similarities, they don't think like humans do. They didn't have to strictly follow lore to make the elves interesting. They just had to use their imaginations along the lines of the lore.

[@_emory]

Something that made me cringe was the stranger saying to nori, [it’s not odd for a harfoot to miss home] This is clearly an attempt to mirror the hobbits missing the shire, but A) the stranger just got there, it doesn’t seem like anyone knows about harfoots, but he, who just rode in on a meteor, acts like it’s common knowledge And B) harfoots don’t have a f*%ing home Hollow attempt at recognition

[@jamesdelmontegermanonthemo9711]

0:26 We don't wanna go to war today, but the lord of the land says nay nay nay! We're gonna march all day all day all day! Where there's a whip there's a way!

[@moosey4life216]

All of the homages given to Peter Jacksons work would of worked if it complimented good writing, story telling, and world building , but instead it looks like someones fan fiction. Compare the "best scenes of the show" to a simple scene in GOT season 1, with Ned Stark asking questions in the blacksmith shop, and you are more invested in the blacksmith shop scene compared to any scene in ROP.

[@alaia-awakened]

It annoys me so much when people say “It’s just a TV show.” It isn’t - the Lord of the Rings is a piece of cultural heritage that influenced and inspired millions of people and still does to this day. Culture MATTERS. Break down a society’s culture, break down that society. That’s why people get furious at this.

[@benconnolly9883]

Here's something that occurred to me about the allure of the elven rings, as you described it (I haven't watched the show): the ornate, bejeweled rings are supposedly so beautiful that they can't be resisted, and they have a pull similar to the One Ring because of that; but that's so hard to suspend your disbelief about (especially when they're bouncing around like physics objects in a PS2 game, but I digress). Mere beauty doesn't corrode the will like that, especially to lead someone towards wrongdoing. It's far more impressive that the actual One Ring is a simple golden band that exerts the tempting power it does; the shots in Jackson's trilogy where the Ring kinda just stares back at the camera are absolutely magnetic, and even without the sound design, you can tell this ordinary-seeming object is far more than that.

[@benconnolly9883]

Also, the lights are a little bright in the studio this time, I think

[@master_samwise]

I hate lighting so much lol.

[@youruncleted]

jackson is such a genius of scene framing. he made everything look exactly as it should, from hobbits to the ring. you're right, in every scene the ring is in, even without sound design, you just feel the weight and presence of the ring. it's perfect. the perfect trilogy.

[@SirSpuddington]

@@master_samwise So did the showrunners for season 2, judging by how poorly lit the "dark" scenes are. :D

[@Adara007]

Exactly. Peter Jackson employed fine craftsmen and jewellers to create Galadriel's ring and various sized versions of the one ring. They made these beautifully and the lighting Jackson used further highlighted this and gave them a sense of uniqueness. By contrast in RoP the eleven rings look cheap, akin to toys children get for 50 cents via those lucky dips outside grocery stores.

[@tutuadefolalu3661]

Amazon’s biggest sin was their dishonest marketing. This was never going to be an adaptation of Tolkien’s work. It’s a reimagining, an Amazon-original story based very loosely off Tolkien’s writing concerning the Second Age, and is focused solely on telling the kind of “inclusive” story Amazon’s executives want to tell. They don’t have the rights to the actual detailed info on the Second Age, so they had to make up 90-95% of what’s on screen. Had Amazon admitted this up front, instead of gaslighting everyone, maybe there would’ve been less backlash.

[@reek4062]

The backlash is *mainly* coming from fans of the Peter Jackson films and culture war vultures. Admittedly, many Tolkien fans *rightfully* hate the show, but they form a small minority of the backlash. LotR contains a fair amount of information about the Second Age, but the showrunners decided that the brand name was enough and discarded it.

[@crazyralph6386]

@@reek4062does it matter? even a layman can tell you this tv show is an abomination. knowing the lore is pretty far down the list, when one just wants to be entertained.

[@Niekvw]

All adaptations reimagine.

[@AthEE_One]

​@@crazyralph6386 Yes, it does actually matter quite a bit that a sizeable portion of the outrage comes from the exact corrupting force (culture war grifters big and small simply _are_ an appendage of it) Tolkien hated enough to make it the big bad of an entire mythology.

[@Eilonwy95]

Such an odd route for a lotr based show to go. Where are the grand themes of good vs evil? The inspirational characters? RoP is just a bunch of nothing.

[@reek4062]

In the books there is a lot more grey than you might think.

[@Eilonwy95]

@@reek4062 Interesting. Can you give some examples? I know the good guys struggle to do what is right at times, but the villains are pretty straight up evil.

[@reek4062]

@Eilonwy95 The Valar have good intentions, but are poor guardians and clearly showed their preferences . They invited the Elves to Aman, both to protect them and for their own pleasure, but by doing this they left Middle-Earth and Men on their own, to be corrupted by Melkor. After Morgoth was defeated (for the second time), the Valar gave the Edain extended lifespans, great powers and even their own island relatively close to Aman. But by doing this they both disenfranchised the other Men of Middle-Earth, leaving them to be dominated by Sauron, and planted the seeds for the Darkening of Numenor. After Miriel died, Finwe remarried (which Elves normally did not do) and had children with his new wife: there was a lot of friction between Feanor and his half-brothers. Thorin (and many Dwarves) were greedy. Sam bullied Sméagol, possibly stopping his relapse on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol. And I must mention Helm Hammerhand. In the book he punched Freca, killing him. But Freca had been summoned at Edoras for a council and had not physically attacked him, though he behaved arrogant and made verbal threats. So the following war with Wulf is grey. (Of course Philippa Boyens screws this up.)

[@AthEE_One]

​@@reek4062 Wasn't Helm Hammerhand also said to eat men during the long siege of the Hornburg? Tolkien was certainly not simplistic, the show just does its own complexity poorly.

[@reek4062]

@@AthEE_One The Dunlendings said that,.

[@AshishShrivastava-q6i]

Spot On! The 3 Elven rings WERE NOT touched by Sauron’s evil. That’s precisely why after he lost the 1 ring at the end of the 2nd age that Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond could use them to preserve and protect Lothlorien, and Rivendell, And Gandalf could use his ring to inspire others. Amazon has gone from ignoring the lore to outright subverting it. F these guys!

[@reek4062]

Finally, a completely valid criticism.

[@AshishShrivastava-q6i]

The truly sad thing about this show is that it will be the introduction to Tolkien’s world for many people, and they will form a mental image of what he wrote based on it. Such that even if they eventually read the books their impressions will forever be tarnished by this fetid turd.

[@luisrods]

Just as it happened with the Star Wars sequels, I see some little girls dressed up as Rey and I can't help to get a bittersweet feeling. What can we do? If you have children, introduce them to the right entries of stories or movies, I already watched the original Star Wars movie (1977) with my child, a simple act in the hope she can grow up recognizing good stories from bad ones.

[@Parzival-2049]

​​@@luisrods The Anakin character and actor was hated by Many on his introduction. Look at him now... Also yes I agree Rey might not be as great of a character but she earned her way up just like the other Jedi She was also trained by the best, Luke Skywalker

[@reek4062]

This is one of the main reasons I hate the Peter Jackson films.

[@tathemrelag3123]

There totally were orc women, and orc babies. Orcs were true, living things, and they reproduced in the same manner as all other thinking races. And there were plenty of orcs who weren't keen on the idea of going to war even during the War of the Ring, when Sauron's hold on their wills was so strong that his destruction sent many of them completely insane. _However,_ I highly doubt that orc family dynamics were particularly pleasant (I personally suspect that the mightiest orcs probably kept the... "use" of the orc women for themselves, and that those women were _not_ treated very decently at all). And orcs didn't want to go to war because war required discipline and working together with lots of other people they didn't like to achieve a common goal, and was just a lot harder and more dangerous than simple brigandage.

[@joywagner979]

This review helped to crystallize a thought for me: Rings of Power is a self-insert fantasy depiction of women who think things like ... "I can fix him!" "I'm strong enough to deal with his mistreatment and bad behavior!" and/or "I had no idea he was evil, despite all of his obvious red flags! There was no possible way I could have known! (Also I will definitely forgive him in an instant if only he shows me a kernel of attention.)" Not all women are like that! But some of them are, and I can clearly picture them choosing this version of Galadriel as their poster girl and onscreen "representation."

[@Eilonwy95]

To be fair to RoP I don’t think Galadriel has any intention to try to fix Sauron. I think she is pretty against him now that she knows who he is

[@joywagner979]

@@Eilonwy95 I hope you're right! I just don't trust the writers to *not* depict her forgiving him, thinking (as the type of woman I'm talking about is wont to do), "sure, he is the Dark Lord who slaughtered many innocents including at least one person I loved ... but when I knew him as Halbrand, I thought he was really nice, *and* he's so very cute! I should remember the good times we had and give him another chance!!" (To anyone reading this who might find themselves in a similar situation: please value yourself and do not give that person another chance.)

[@Eilonwy95]

@@joywagner979 I could be wrong, but I think that is very unlikely. I think she was only slightly interested when she didn’t know he was Sauron. I haven’t seen anything to suggest she is at all the forgiving type.

[@johnrambo5795]

Thats one of the worst reviews I have ever seen tbh. Not one second did a thought like that cross my mind. Its weird to instantly attack the Show because hmm women

[@fran131415]

They took all the critiques and bad stuff from the first season and doubled on it all over.

[@Antoine-x2f]

Orcs were never mindless evil drones... they are violent and aggressive by nature and design, but we see them running from fights all the time, plus they "multiply after the manner of the other children of Illuvitar", so yeah, orc-babies, as weird as it sounds

[@master_samwise]

Oh yeah, orc-babies exist. But the loving nuclear family unit shown in RoP seems completely contradictory to, you know, orc nature. They are inherently violent; that's just how they were made.

[@Antoine-x2f]

@@master_samwise Someone still has to care for the young I'd reckon, but in the end who's to say what we saw is a nuclear family like the ones we imagine ? Maybe they don't have specific parental attachment and let some orcs care for all the littles ones or something. And even if it was, what is so wrong it ? What I liked about the scene was that they still snarl and growl aggressively at each other in place of having real affection, imo it's like they do have the feeling deep in them from their elf side, but the corruption is so strong that they can't understand or express it without resulting to violence. I think it's fitting !

[@Antoine-x2f]

@@master_samwise sadly, there's plenty of violent nuclear families in the real world, if they do have couples like humans and elves they still probably beat the life out of each other constantly because that's just their nature

[@whitegoose2017]

​@@master_samwise Maybe they reproduce asexually which would mean they practically clone themselves. Tolkien wouldn't have written it that way, but he wasn't quite specific on it.

[@Antoine-x2f]

@@whitegoose2017 nah they def' be clapping cheeks

[@BrokeProphet]

Rings of Power is the worst case of 'and then' story telling I have seen in recent years.

[@Daradain]

Hey Master! Love your stuff! You asked what the theme of the show is, and I think I have an answer: pride and good intentions are no substitute for virtuous deeds. Galadriel is arrogant and selfishly motivated by revenge, and plays right into Sauron’s hands. Cirdan is so confident in his own wisdom that he does exactly what Gandalf warned about, taking the ring out of a “desire to do good”. Celebrimbor expressed a vain desire to craft something to rival the silmarils in S1, and that vanity makes him incredibly gullible to a being that tells him everything he wants to hear (lifted straight out of the Screwtape Letters). Meanwhile Elendil’s made-up daughter pulls a quintessential zoomer move and rebells against her father’s tradition and plays a key role in starting Númenor’s downfall. Even the seriously weird orc thing fits this theme, as the orc idea of “freedom” is about conquering and enslaving humans. I’m definitely not saying this show is a secret masterpiece, but as I’ve started to notice this trend I’m starting to give it a little more of the benefit of the doubt.

[@scroletyper8286]

Ok so yes amazon did this wrong, but the letters of tolkien do include an idea that there are parts of their culture that may be good or ordinary. There would be orc babies. I know we see uruk-hai born from the earth but tolkien would not right that. He in fact made it a point not to right that for the dwarves. We can assume that orcs bread much like men or Amy other of the races of middle earth. Only it's probably closer to what is seen in a show like goblin slayer than the living family we get here.

[@muig3931]

A bit of info on the orcs : According to the late book "Morgoth's Ring" (1993 I believe, so published by Tolkien's son) and The Silmarillion, Orcs can breed, have feelings and can live without a master. They also understand concept of right/wrong, good and evil, camaradery and a have some sens of humour. They're evil, but in one of his essay the professor tried to go into the grey area, like nothing is really bad (evil) in the beginning, even Sauron (Mairon) wasn't. Only Melkor could have been ? Though clumsy, the amazon series (as an adaptation of his work) is technically lore accurate on this, because the canon is too complex to just be LOTR. Tolkien made too much add-ons with the essays, new stories or even letters.

[@Angrenost02]

Portraying an orc as a caring father isn't lore accurate. Not at all. Nor is showing them wanting to live in peace. Refusing to go to a war in which they'll have to fight hard against dangerous foes? Yes, I would have no issue with that. But that would only be because they would prefer to oppress, pillage and kill easy preys.

[@luisrods]

I don't think the problem of showing an orc family (with crying baby and all) is the actual problem, for each thing they have made right to the complex canon of the Tolkien universe, they have made multiple others quite wrong. The real problem is that this element (and others, like characters recalling Beleriand) appear in a vacuum, inside an already misguided story. What is the role the orcs are going to play ultimately in the end? In the story, they are not tragic figures like Gollum was; they will be only the obstacle, the enemy, and the threat in the great journeys of all the main characters of Tolkien's work. That Adar shows love for the orcs, does not mean they have to show them as a human refugee family, they could have shown them breeding from the ground and still would make sense that Adar felt love for them, the writers show them like they did mostly because they couldn't think of any other way to convey empathy. In the end, it's merely bad writing.

[@Parzival-2049]

The mindless haters online want something to cry about You are hurting them with facts

[@Angrenost02]

The show isn't lore accurate on this matter. The orcs aren't in a grey area between good and evil. And even if nothing was evil at their beginning, the orcs are evil in the Second Age. Would you argue that Morgoth is in the grey area during the First Age? I don't think so. Also even if Tolkien had his own doubts about the orcs as a purely evil and irredeemable race, that is still how they are portrayed in the lore, especially in the published texts, which the show is supposedly adapting. Tolkien couldn't change that without having to rewrite pretty much all of it.

[@Angrenost02]

@@Parzival-2049 Yeah sure buddy.

[@nemediv4086]

Sauron having free will and willingly choosing evil (a luxury that orcs never had) is all fine and dandy, but the idea that he could have a change of heart after some random old dude talked to him about the importance of being good is about as likely as me turning my life around thanks to sage advice from my cat. This is an immensely powerful, antediluvian being that rejected the grace of Eru Iluvatar and the Valar in favour of being a proud, spiteful, power hungry asshole. Tolkien made it clear that both Morgoth and Sauron hated the Children of Iluvatar (elves and men) - why would either of them want to hear a single word coming from beings they saw as inferior and wanted to hurt them just for the hell of it?

[@OliverLodgeMusic]

It's also confusing because he seems to have the change of heart but then immediately returns back to evil when he doesn't help the man and takes his pendant thing. Then he looks evil and as if he has a plan when he sees Galadriel in the water. But then in s1 he genuinely seems to want to just be a blacksmith in Numenor and also says he isn't the king of the "southlands". Then he doesn't kill Adar and is injured off screen and taken to Celebrimbor by Galadriel. I didn't get the feeling any of this was planned in s1 and they also haven't made it seem like a grand scheme in retrospect in s2. It literally makes no sense to me

[@w-james9277]

They didn’t have the rights to adapt the story Tolkien wrote so they made most of it up. And because of that, they shouldn’t have fucking made it in the first place! 🤬

[@whitegoose2017]

If someone told me to write a story set in this time and I was allowed to use the Numenorians, the fall of Numenor, the forging of the rings and so on.. There are loads of places you could go with those allowances. I can just have Numenorians colonize/settle Middle Earth. The entire series could just be about that. Numenorians having to deal with the lesser Men, the rowing bands of Orcs left behind by Morgoth and so on. Present as little as possible about the Forging of the Rings to the viewer and the Elves in general, because they are best left as a mystery that slowly unveils itself as the story unfolds. In season 2 the fall of Eregion happens, but again its not the main point of that season. It's just a side dish. You get to the half-way point in like season 3-4 where the Fall of Numenor occurs and you're left with Elendil, Isildur and Anarion trying to figure out what to do now that the fatherland is gone. Then it's season 5 that it all culminates into events that will lead up to the where the Lord of the Rings begin, e.g. the Last Alliance.

Should of just made their OWN show.

[@tinat2967]

I have been waiting for this video! As a lover of Tolkien’s work, I am so excited to watch! By the way, could you consider looking into character vices/virtues in the Hunger Games series? Curious as to your thoughts when characters who live in such an oppressive society that can still show virtues even in such grave circumstances.

[@UnderratedBurnyBadger]

You basically said everything I wanted to say. But the one smaller thing that continues to annoy me almost as much as the lore butchery is the way all the characters pronounce names. Why does *everyone* roll their freaking Rs? That is rhetorical, of course. I know they made the actors do it because they think it makes them sound more posh but it just comes off sounding pretentious.

[@micaiahweaver1346]

"The Dwarves are for the dwarves" - The Last Battle

[@Eilonwy95]

Quality reference

[@Keram-io8hv]

Just returned to playing Shadow of War, like yeah it's terrible fanfiction but at least creators were never so smug with it and never said it was "Far better than anything Tolkien ever wrote"

[@QuatarTarandir]

And I feel like with that, it kinda did the same thing the movies did. It changed things from Tolkien, but did it in a way that somewhat still respeced Tolkien's lore. I mean the main things that they changed were Elves staying spirits, which kinda works since you have the Nazgul; the years of everything, which in the end doesn't change a ton; and the Shelob thing, which at least makes some sense with her being descended from Ungoliant. Sure it's still fanfiction, but it doesn't do it in a way that just disrespects all of Tolkien's works and I always felt it kept some themes, especially of sacrifice

[@ebonslayer3321]

Shadow of Mordor/War are pretty far from "terrible fanfiction". They manage to keep to the core themes of his work while retaining a cast of interesting and developing characters. Are they as good as Tolkien's work? Definitely not, but they are incredible stories in their own right.

[@QuatarTarandir]

@@ebonslayer3321 I love them, but they definitely change a lot of things and make some weird choices, so I get where the OP is coming from with "terrible fanfiction". And by that I'm guessing he means how it almost doesn't try hard to follow the lore sometimes

[@Keram-io8hv]

@@ebonslayer3321 You took me wrong here, I love the story and the theme but I know it would make Tolkie roll in his grave same as Rings of Power

[@QuatarTarandir]

@@Keram-io8hv Using someone else's words to add onto it, Shadow of Mordor/War would make Tolkien roll in his grave. ROP would make him spin like a top, lol

[@meganhuggins7494]

Orcs were evil beings, they weren’t misunderstood family men who struggled to leave their families behind!! Tolkien went into great detail explaining all his characters and never once wrote that Orcs had family units. Evil existed in Tolkiens world, just as it exists in ours today!

[@Scott-d2f8m]

Did the writers forget their own show? Quite simply yes. Or more precisely, it exceeded the token limit on the AI that has been writing it.

[@Cody-5501]

Tolkien fought in one of the worst wars in history a war where there was little justification for its start and decided that objective good and objective evil were real and that good and love is worth fighting for. These “writers” got insulted on Reddit once and decided that morals are non existent and evil isn’t objective. Who thought this was a good idea

[@krisjustbegun9740]

I find it hilarious that in the show Celebrimbor just knows to make two masculine rings and one dainty feminine one that just happens to choose Galadriel. The design choice would make so much more sense if the bearers of the rings were known before the rings were crafted for them

[@RipRoarin]

If someone was given a billion freakin dollars to make a tv series out of events from the silmarillion and still isnt able to create something worth watching then, well, may god have mercy on their soul.

[@Quart3rmain3]

*TOLKEIN orcs are orcs

[@DonBetong]

Lesson learned: never sell a beloved franchise to a heartless corporation. Not even for a billion dollars.

[@nisibonum7634]

the modern world rejects everything JJR Tolken stood for, so when exploring his world as a modern writer there is nothing to offer it.

[@AthEE_One]

That is absolutely not true.

[@brendancoulter5761]

Its not only that they through out Tolkien's themes, they have none of their own, at least none that they really believe in. Take the Orc family for example, the point was to make the audience go "Wow I guess the orcs are people to" right? Does the show humanize the orcs outside the one throw away scene? No not really. Orcs are evil invaders. In season one we see them destroying nature recklessly, enslaving their enemies making them do hard labor in chains, their is an entire scene where an orc is an unkillable slasher monster that needs to be stabbed multiple times and beheaded before it finally stops attacking, then is head smacked down on a tavern table to warn the villagers that orcs are coming. They use the orcs as inhuman monsters, because thats easy writing. Then they try to humanize them. They dont care about their own themes. Its a totally hollow show.

[@gabrielcruz6752]

2:54 Nenya was given to Galadriel because she lived near the Anduin, the mightiest river in northwestern Middle Earth that was the main defense against Mordor and the future Dol Guldur. I came to that conclusion after re-reading Unfinished Tales. Celebrimbor was not the stupid elf Am4zon is trying to sell, he was thinking strategically when delivering Nenya to Galadriel. There is a logic in Tolkien even if the professor didn't explain that logic explicitly. So the RoP scene about the ring of Adamant choosing Galadriel is extremely dumb.

[@p0psyckle248]

Sauron, one of the most powerful maiar to ever walk middle earth, Morgoth's chief lieutenant, reputed to be one of the most cunning being of middle earth, who required the last alliance of men and elves to finally get defeated by a lucky strike to his only weak point thrown by Isildur as a last resort, get fooled by an orc and turn to goo after getting hit by a crown... That's blasphemy.

[@user-bz9of6tn6l]

I think Rings of Power can be summed up by this line from Shakespeare's Macbeth: 'Tis a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[@commissarkordoshky219]

ROFL that ending

[@Royce9019]

Amazon: Orc lives matter Audience: No they don't

[@AthEE_One]

Tolkien: Orc lives probably matter. I don't know. I'm troubled by the very implication of an entirely evil race. Here's n-teen different pieces of handwriting presenting vastly inconsistent opinions on this matter; maybe my son will publish some of those or something.

[@tiffanyl4829]

Thank you. "The Lord of the Rings is special. It matters." Yes, it matters.

[@quagsiremcgee1647]

I'm worried about what a story set in the east, but it would be a tragedy of epic proportions if done right.

[@GrrmPleaseWrite]

The only way this show can find any redemption is if it ends with Sauron being the one telling the story.

[@enigmaoriginal2665]

Seeing Jeff Bezos bash his own garbage show says something......

[@Lornext]

"Humanizing" orcs is the most tone deaf crap I have ever seen.

[@Parzival-2049]

Little do you know it's lore accurate... Smh mindless hatred you people show

[@reek4062]

Read the books.

[@AthEE_One]

Tolkien did that, numerous times, _and_ inconsistently - moreso than the show anyway.

[@QueenAleenaFan]

He's not a very good orc is he? Imagine not wanting to be the best orc warrior ever

[@Baltazarddt]

Why not make crops in the slopes of the Mountain? Khazad dum is the oldest dwarf mansion, but if a dark claudia show up ever1 starves? We could have done a much better job

[@Jeremy-83]

I think you're all being very unreasonable. High District Manager Gil'Gadaddy did an amazing job and Guyladriel is one of the best representations of this character from this beloved series I have ever seen.

[@isaacchillman11]

W title

[@bryanwigmore7224]

It's just occurred to me that Guy Gavriel Kay is still alive. In fact he's not yet 70, and he helped compile the Silmarillion, and he's an established fantasy author with a great track record. Amazon could have paid him $10M to write this and it would have made only the smallest dent in the budget. Imagine what we could have had. (That's assuming he didn't just say "I'm not touching that".)

[@jazzflute]

This show is absolutely the worst Tolkien adaptation. Completely misses the mark

[@reek4062]

Peter Jackson’s Twin Towers exists

[@5quepasa]

If you watch this show and can't see any themes, then you're probably illiterate.

[@Eilonwy95]

Why illiterate?

[@5quepasa]

@@Eilonwy95 because the characters literally talk about the themes in their dialogue. It doesn’t take a lot of education to read into the subtext and understand what the creators are saying about the nature of Power and art. Love the name, by the way. The Prydain Chronicles were some of my favorite books as a kid

[@jsivonenVR]

The depiction of Cirdan and especially Celebrimbor truly devastates the heart of even the most stoic Tolkien fans… 😞

[@reek4062]

I haven’t seen season 2 yet, so I don’t know about Cirdan. But Celebrimbor was butchered in season 1.

[@SirSpuddington]

It's not just that this show has no themes, it's that the themes it does have are as antithetical as it is possible to be to the universal themes of honor, love, loyalty, and self-sacrifice found throughout Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. The Three Rings being objects of such desire and having such dominating power over the hearts and wills of other beings is, as you said, EXACTLY THE ONE SPECIFIC PURPOSE FOR WHICH THE GOD OF EVIL FORGED THE ONE RING, THE GREATEST AND MOST EVIL WEAPON OF WORLD DESTRUCTION THAT MIDDLE-EARTH HAD EVER SEEN. For the showrunners to make this change, they would have to 1) fully understand the original theme and purpose of the characterization of the Three, and 2) be fully willing to flip that entire storytelling construct on its head and try to push the exact opposite ideas as the truth. This change wasn't made out of petty garden-variety ignorance - you can't be this specific and thorough about reversing an existing idea into its exact mirror inversion unless you grasp the actual nature of its original form in the first place. To me, that's not incompetence on the writers' part, that's outright malevolence seasoned with hearty helpings of arrogance and bitterness.

[@Sleepy.Time.]

its a shame seeing such a amazing IP put to such waste

[@Zorbodorb]

Tolkien wrote that he disliked allegory in all its manifestations and the show's writers produce this abomination, it's a disgrace.

[@arisenomega]

Everyone has to be relatable and humanized: orcs, elves, dwarves, Sauron himself... so now everyone's basically dumb and fickle like humans.

[@deannav1807]

I told my bf “I wish the rings of power was good, I miss the lord of the rings…” we ended up watching the entire trilogy in a day and it still slaps and I cried like 8 times.

[@reek4062]

Read the books

[@deannav1807]

@@reek4062 I actually was planning on starting them as soon as I finished my asoiaf reread! I tried in middle school but it was too difficult for me from what I recall, so I couldn’t get into them, but I’m going to give it another shot.

[@reek4062]

@@deannav1807 The books are great, far better than any of the adaptations or videogames. If I could make recommendations, I would read The Hobbit first, then LotR. You can also listen to the audiobooks (there are several), though I have not listened to them.

[@hans471]

the "good orc family" has black skin 😄 (all other orc skins are whitened). Sorry for pointing out this ultimately meaningless fact. However, it does show how this show is politiced up to the smallest detail.

[@no.9516]

These IPs were ruined the day manufactured rage for content creation became profitable.

[@DeletedTaters001]

When I saw this pop up in my recommended I thought it was more rage-bait. Then I saw what channel uploaded it and I went "ooooh" That bad huh : / I was hopeful for a redemption arc

[@morganspector5161]

An epic above all requires an overarching theme and purpose. All the component stories are there to advance that purpose. The problem with the writing in this show is that neither the writers nor the "showrunners" have any idea what the theme and purpose of RoP is. We're almost done with the second season and still have no idea at all where this is going, or why, or how. That's why the program seems so disjointed and disconnected. All these people give us is set pieces intended not to advance the overall story but to push their social justice agenda on us. In other words, they are not writing in service of the epic, but using the epic to serve themselves. That above all is why this show deserves to be treated only with contempt.

[@alistairjames490]

Thank you for addressing the Círdan part! When he said Manwë instead of Ulmo i was like wait.... and then the part where the 3 overcome him...But but but they're not corrupted....so what....why...why this whole part when everyone knows already...the one hasnt even been made yet....

[@OlgaRykov]

This is what you get when a new generation of film makers were raised by computer and video games, not by stories and character arcs. It's just all about loot: wearing it, carrying it, fighting for it, looking at it, talking about it, etc.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

There are many video games with stories and character arcs, but they probably all arrived after these filmmakers came of age and so they don’t care.

[@mikedangerdoes]

What kind of boomer take is this lol? It's just crappy writing by crappy writers. The only thing that's different now is that we have outrageously wealthy companies attempting to sell services, rather than products. Content and brand value are king, writing is secondary. And that's got nothing to do with videogames.

[@OlgaRykov]

@@mikedangerdoes only a zoomer, who is raised by steam and discord as if they were his parents, uses "boomer" as a slur.

[@mikedangerdoes]

@@OlgaRykov I have no idea about discord parents or whatever you are talking about. I just remember exactly that kind of nonsense talk you brought up over twenty years ago and thinking it was just silly old people who didn't understand. But at least they had the excuse of it all being new and unrelatable. What's your excuse for such a weak take, though?

[@LaffeeTaffeeGG]

This is a small complaint but... why are there "old" Elves? Elves pretty much plateau in appearance when they reach adulthood, staying at a permanent 30ish-40ish physical maturity. So why do we have so many old farts playing as Elves when Celebrimbor should look the same age as Elrond or Galadriel?

[@big_red01027]

There's not much "plot" either; from what I've been able to glean from episode reviews (because I refuse to watch the actual show), nothing has happened this season, other than Nori being Nori and all the failures you adroitly pointed out. Cirdan is as laughably written as Elrond and Galadriel. Can't wait to see how Bombadil gets bastardized.

[@rovhalt6650]

The Rrrings of PoweRrrr have left my soul feeling Rrrestless

[@user-gm4kv2my4u]

I've been asking this for the past few days. If Amazon wanted a fantasy world where they could have diverse cosmopolitan cities, orcs that are just misunderstood, xenophobic white people who are pissed off at elves, and plenty of thirst trap 'shades of grey' demi gods - why didnt they just buy the rights to The Elder Scrolls and make a show from that?

[@Scottygthreethousand]

I actually like this show sincerly, despite straying from the supposed faithful 1-dimensional depiction of good vs evil. For the record, I have read LOTR & enjoyed all the Peyer Jackson films.

[@travtuck7646]

I love how they name-drop Feanor & Manwe, seemingly w/o having a clue who either of them really are or what they did 😂😂

[@theorixlux]

Paolini, a YA author, did better the Tolkein elves than a multibillion dollar company. This is as wasteful and hateful as bookburnings.

[@berengustav7714]

Inheritance Cycle is endearingly flawed and good. It is okay to have fantasy with elves who are the opposite of monotheistic,because it would be dull if every fantasy world had the same viewpoint.

[@benjaminthibieroz4155]

That's because he actually admired Tolkien and whished to write a good story. That's far more than any writer on this show.

[@talithakoum3922]

I found the Inheritance Cycle ridiculous as a kid, but I've grown fond of it recently. It had a lot more effort put into it than ROP, and it featured strong male characters AND strong female characters, who compliment each other instead of competing.

[@theorixlux]

@@talithakoum3922 wym ridiculous "as a kid"? Yeah even all these years I recall fondly all the characters. Was lots of fun

[@ArwenUndomiel406]

The devolution of storytelling, these last 20 years, is a crime against humanity.