Somehow it feels like they are trying too much to milk every last single drop of IP available out there to create the next big thing that everyone is talking about, and for me, Rings of Power, just like with House of Dragon and that Harry Potter thing with Fantastic Beasts, it just seems like there are shows/movies created by suits strictly from a financial or business point of view and have absolutely no soul to them.
It's worse with Rings of Power because they don't have all the rights, but they wanted to take advantage of the name to increase the views, create some sort of off brand world that is there but not quite, just like sports games where one company doesn't hold all the rights and you end up playing with some weird teams like White Blue and some generic player names, because you know you can't legally use a name. Can't wait for Gonbolf next season.
To me what seems really weird about all this are all the attempts to "franchise" LOTR that fundamentally misunderstand the property by taking what seems to be a core idea of the setting, when it really isn't.
The idea behind LOTR is that Tolkien tried to create a modern "mythos". The guy drew on and expanded a lot from existing mythology and folklore (especially Norse myths) when creating the setting of LOTR/the Hobbit. Trying to keep the story of LOTR focused on the One Ring and all the other attached rings seems... wrong?
In the grand scheme of things, Sauron is a fairly minor villain of the setting, he's merely a high ranking general of Morgoth/Melkor (name depends on the published version of Return of the King where he gets namedropped once, Morgoth being the one used later and the intended one). The rings are just the instrument Sauron used to try and gain power. Other stories don't have to keep focusing on the rings, in fact, they're probably more interesting when they don't. The other book written by Tolkien, The Hobbit (the book, not the movies) understood this; the One Ring provokes mystery but ultimately is just a tool for the actual narrative which is Bilbo and the dwarves restoring the dwarven kingdom. Sauron doesn't even play a role in it!
If someone wanted to expand on something in the "mythos" of LOTR, then it'd be much better to just... tell a new story and tie it through sharing locations and maybe a few background characters instead of fawning over The One Ring constantly. That story has been told. Tell a different story, there's plenty of possible "room" to fit it in, even if you don't own the rights to the Silmarillion.
But who am I kidding, that idea would never make it past a Marketing Executive who wants to milk the original story for what it's worth by overfocusing on stuff that doesn't need to be focused on.
> Tell a different story, there's plenty of possible "room" to fit it in
So much this. And it can be done without any additional information from the works not covered by the existing movie rights - after all, most of the information about the Third Age exists pretty much only (at least in a finished form) in the Appendices to LotR.
Story of the fall of Arnor/Arthedain, including defeating the Witch King? Story of the Kin-strife in Gondor? Fighting the Corsairs of Umbar?
In fact, a story I would pay gold to see, and which can easily be tied into the films, is the one about the exploits of young Aragorn - as a Ranger in the North, then in the courts of Gondor and Rohan, and in the lands of Rhun and Harad. Even the title writes itself: "Where the Stars are Strange"...
Now I got my own wheels turning: It could even have Viggo Mortensen as an old King Elessar, telling the story of his youth to some young hobbits, as a framing device... O.o
> he's merely a high ranking general of Morgoth/Melkor (name depends on the published version of Return of the King where he gets namedropped once, Morgoth being the one used later and the intended one)
Well Melkor is his "true" name (his Valar name), Morgoth is a name given to him by the elves, meaning "The Enemy" in Sindarin.
I don't know about Rings of Power, I have never read the books and it's been forever since I've seen the LoTR movies, but in terms of HOTD, it is my understanding based on the Alt Shift X videos on YouTube that analyze the show and how accurate it is to the books (which I have not read either) that it is not bad at all? Some things are different, but in the most recent episode for example, they mentioned that one change (Viserys Targaryen's final years and death) was welcome by Martin to such a degree he said he'd rewrite the book to match if he could. So the writers of HOTD I think are doing a good job being inspired by the source material and I am so far enjoying it more than I have enjoyed several seasons of GoT.
Well, given that the tv show has already ended finishing ASOIF books must feel like a chore, while for example writing "Dunk and Egg" stories is fun for him. Also, he tried to be too clever and had written himself into a corner at the end of "The Dance with Dragons", that's why "Winds of Winter" take so much time to finish.
I've heard it said that Martin is a pantser rather than a plotter, so he tends to let characters go where it makes sense for them to go. The problem might be that because he knows the broad strokes of the ending, being closer to it means it's harder to organically get characters where they need to be - he has to become more of a plotter, which isn't his preferred approach -- sounds exhausting. I think the last 2 seasons of the show demonstrated what happens if you navigate this transition poorly.
HOTD is so refreshing after the disappointing final seasons of GoT. I didn't have high expectations for it but it's been some of the best television I've seen years.
It's pretty much that. Cashing in on nostalgia in some form has kicked into overdrive since halfway 2010s. Not necessarily financial success either (as indicated by many of these projects running massive losses).
>Somehow it feels like they are trying too much to milk every last single drop of IP available out there to create the next big thing that everyone is talking about, and for me, Rings of Power, just like with House of Dragon and that Harry Potter thing with Fantastic Beasts, it just seems like there are shows/movies created by suits strictly from a financial or business point of view and have absolutely no soul to them.
Is it because there isn't any other IP out there to do? They are starved for writers? Or is it these few things are all that'll actually sell/work?
> House of Dragon ... created by suits strictly from a financial or business point of view and have absolutely no soul to them.
This doesn't apply to House of the Dragon. They've done a great job adapting and expanding upon the source material. It does not feel soulless. These are rich worlds created by talented authors who've dedicated their lives to building them out. Audiences are happy to see these worlds explored further.
Nobody should argue that the show is accurate to the source material. However, this article hides behind a veil of "fact" to really just complain about the things they don't like the show. There are huge gaps of knowledge about what is happening in the Second Age so there are all kinds of things that could be happening (elves watching mordor? Maybe. Elrond buddy-buddy with the Dwarves? He had to learn Khuzdul somehow.) but the article cherry picks what it likes and what it doesn't, complaining about there being no evidence of some things while saying that the lack of information about other events is okay because they like the outcome.
Assumptions made about what the Elves could have been doing during this time period in Eregion? The author makes them sound absurd and completely outside of what was written.
Whatever the Harfoots are doing? That's okay because the author likes their storyline on the show
If you don't like the show that is 100% okay, I think the show is a 7/10 at best and sometimes it dips well below that, but don't hide that distaste behind a call for literary purity.
I think that Rings of Power bangs up against this timeline compression a lot. It feels weird to us that no one is concerned about Sauron - he was just there! But in the canon timeline there were long stretches of time where nothing very interesting happened.
That being said, I would gladly watch a TV series about day-to-day shire life in the third age.
For a summary of the criticisms of Jackson's interpretation, the only article I know of is "JACKSON, PETER" in Michael Drout's J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia (2007). Maybe someone else has a better reference.
> this article hides behind a veil of "fact" to really just complain about the things they don't like the show
Not at all. This article is primarily trying to answer the question from the title; any personal opinions are incidental, and not the article's focus; it is a personal blog after all.
However, this characterization appears to be based on the Uzi Rule (the assumption that if J.R.R. Tolkien did not specifically deny the Orcs all carried Uzi sub-machine guns, then they must have carried such weapons; they simply didn’t use them in any scenes of the stories). The Uzi Rule illustrates the absurdity of fan attempts to redefine Tolkien’s Middle-earth on the basis of Absence of Denial, which is a classic logical fallacy.
I've seen this argument used against ANY change/addition to Tolkien's story, which is just completely unreasonable.
So the question is, when are we talking about giving Orcs Uzis, and when is it a reasonable change/addition? I don't feel like this article addresses the question.
He mentions the Uzi rule in relation to "Galadriel was not a warrior in Tolkien’s stories. "But later he writes "So the Amazon show’s portrayal of Galadriel is not inconsistent with some of his thoughts."
So is it unreasonable or not? Can we not talk about significant changes/additions to characters or plot points that might have been consistent with Tolkiens thoughts, without immediately jumping to the idea that it's the same as adding Uzis or fighter jets to the story?
The "Uzi Rule" seems almost completely useless in this discussion. The use of "Uzi Rule" itself seems like a logical fallacy to me. It's a bit of a false dilemma and a slippery slope fallacy. A change is either OK because it's small enough, or it's just like adding Uzis, and if you made a change as big as X you might as well have added Uzis or fighter jets.
Err, not? Making a generic story using Tolkien’s names without meaning. Which seems odd in that it alienates a vocal, internet-heavy fan base without gaining a wider audience. Better to use something new or without the fanboy base. Speaking as a fanboy, willfully distorting the subject matter is a no-go.
This seems to ignore the existing, wider audience that enjoyed the movies.
I won't defend the quality of the Rings of Power—I think it's lacklustre at best—but the premiere did get 25 million people watching it. It seems doubtful a completely original series would have attracted so large an audience right off the bat.
And I don't think there's necessarily a problem deviating from the source material when adapting something. But you do need to make sure your new ideas are as good, or better, than the original. To me, the single biggest failure of Rings of Power is that those deviations have been so poorly executed. Bad plotting and bad writing abounds.
It is really funny to hear these types of statements when if you could go back and look at what fans were saying about the Peter Jackson movies, they are largely the same. People complaining about deviations from the source material.
The benefit the movies had was just that they were executed very well. As you mention, so much of Rings of Power is just bad execution (or really odd pacing/writing choices).
Not as bad and Jackson included genuflections towards the fans and the source material in the extended editions. And, on the whole, the characterization was correct and the timing was believable. Some wtf’s but probably the best we’ll get. Hobbit sucked though. Cash grab.
I guess they're using the LOTR's name/fame to attract people, if they would have done another fantasy show without LOTR's name, this would not have work as well so I guess they went for it, regardless of the fanbase.
The world can thank Jackson for doing a great trilogy that doesn't change the story that much and that is still a master piece.
Well, the hobbit doesn’t do much to bolster Jackson’s reputation. Harshly lit, far too long, trying to cash in on the Tolkien name and lotr fame. This makes Amazon’s effort start off as a cash in on a cash in - Jackson’s good stuff is almost 20 years and a viewing generation old.
Ah yeah I almost forgot about The Hobbit, you said it, it was far too long. The difference with LOTR is that is doesn't include LOTR in its name, unlike Amazon's new show. But yeah they're trying to milk the cow. Yeah we're not getting younger.
Not really. This is why financial entrepreneurs "acquire" things like brands, IP, games, software, ... not to maintain its quality, but to milk the goodwill built up, and extract money out of it. To milk greatly inflated expectations of the market for money. To be able to create large amounts of revenue using standard/generic efforts (I'd say substandard, but it's not substandard, really, it's just an unremarkable amount of effort).
Given the deal Amazon made (and that it's a one-off), can you name one reason they would be afraid of destroying the reputation of the lord of the rings universe? Doesn't damage them at all.
Besides, let's face it, most of the value in Middle Earth comes from the books. Yes the films brought in a lot of people for a short while, but even the films don't make the impressions the books made on many fans.
Sadly, it makes sense, especially to business MBA's that fear one thing above all else: risk (mostly risk for themselves personally, but entire boards of companies are known to make the same reasoning). This is exactly the behaviour you'll find all over any wall street firm, which is the environment Jeff Bezos "grew up in". And sorry to say, you have to admit: it can work pretty well.
I wish the Tolkien estate sold the rights for Silmarillion and other stories published posthumously, AND retained some editorial control over the content of the content. Christopher could have done this in life. If he did, The Rings of Power could use more Tolkien content than just the appendices of Lord of the Rings
What wider audience do you want? LOTR has been a solid part of pop culture for over 20 years now, ever since the movies came out.
I'd argue that the vocal internet-based fanboys are the minority, so while I truly can respect the integrity you'd prefer they take with the source material... I can also see why they would not worry about it and just make a show that they believe will be well liked by the more general audience.
In the end, I'm sure they'll do the same thing we software folk do when your audience has mixed feelings about your product - listen to all sides and then choose who they want to make happy and react accordingly.
> LOTR has been a solid part of pop culture for over 20 years now...
Actually, LotR the book has been a major influence in American pop culture since the 1960s. The debate here seems to be whether RoP is faithful to Tolkien's vision, not Jackson's vision. Not criticizing, just trying to keep the original point in focus.
> The debate here seems to be whether RoP is faithful to Tolkien's vision, not Jackson's vision.
No. RoP isn't faithful to either visions, as Jackson's vision wasn't exceptionally far from Tolkein's vision. The differences come from the reality of the medium.
As a huge Tolkien fan, I am quite relaxed about deviations from the source material. I get that there are storytelling constraints that demand timeline compression. I am also perfectly fine with the addition of new characters.
Where RoP falls down is the execution of the storytelling. Inconsistent pacing, cringy amateurish dialogue, fakeout deaths, plot armor, and so much Harfoot filler. The first five episodes should have been two episodes and the last episode should have been three episodes. I wish they had opened the mystery boxes much earlier in the season and then showed how Sauron was cunningly manipulating the other characters - but that would have required some intelligent plotting and dialogue.
My diagnosis of root cause is that a good show starts with a good story. But what RoP started with was a brand, onto which they grafted a story.
I am hoping that someone will recut the whole first season into a 3 hour movie.
For fairness, it’s not a terrible show, just a bit mediocre. I want to give credit to some parts which were awesome: Adar, the dwarves, the cast and character design generally, the scenery, mount doom, and all of the forging of the rings (this is the bit that I wish was shown over more episodes, not just squeezed into the finale).
I also don't mind deviations. I've read the Silmarillion, but it wasn't the easiest read and I don't recall it that well.
However, I'd put more weight on the bad things here. The writing, story, dialog, characterisation, consistency of character. They're all really bad. It stops you getting drawn into the world because it's not believable. The characters don't seem to do things because that's what they'd do, they do things because the story needs them to do it for the next thing to happen.
The CG, effects and all that, these get all the attention but aren't typically why people come back to a show. I don't want to watch a third rate drama dressed up.
The Harfoots are mentioned in the prologue of the Lord of the Rings, "concerning hobbits".
Honestly, I think they're probably the best example in the show of the writers extrapolating off of what's in the books to create new content that is mostly consistent with the world Tolkien created. I can see where opinions could vary, though.
> Amazon didn’t procure the rights to use most of Tolkien’s source material. They are contractually bound to make up nearly everything you see in the show.
So Amazon spent $250M on the acquiring rights [1], and yet, that doesn't even cover the meaty parts of the source material? They budgeted a whopping billion dollars, and gave the job of show running to people who had no experience in managing the show of this scale; heck they have no experience at all. Both of them have barely any credits on IMDb [2, 3].
The curse of streaming services is that return on a piece of content is nearly impossible to derive. For a movie, whether it made money or lost money, is pretty obvious. Netflix on other hand sees if you watched something for two minutes and calls it a victory [4]. I won't be surprised if there's a lot of grifting going on in making the production decisions.
I've been enjoying it, but I suspect that LotR purists are having fits.
The stories were basically written from whole cloth, based on fairly short mentions, in the four "later" books. From what I understand, they weren't even allowed to use Tolkien's notes.
I haven't encountered anything that has made me think this was a different "universe," but the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing.
For one thing, ol' J. R. R. was more than a little chauvinistic. Women didn't really play much of a part, in his writings, and when they did, they were fairly peripheral, or "objectified" (not necessarily in a sexual manner, but they were obvious stand-ins for some ideal).
I've been enjoying seeing Galadriel as an arrogant ass-kicker, but am a bit disappointed in a flower-sniffing Elrond.
If you ask me what's making the series unpalatable, it's this.
Make all the women act like toxic men, and make all the men act effeminate.
It goes back to the old line: "Being powerful is like being a woman. If you have to tell someone you are, you aren't." Galadrial in LOTR was an insanely powerful, to the point it was frightening. But she acted like a woman, not an arrogant man.
The writers are so clueless as to how to make a woman be a powerful character, the only way they can figure out how to do it is turn her into Captain Marvel / Rey / Mary Sue.
I don't understand how can a be classified as a Mary Sue if she was wrong about every single thing and every thing she did backfired or failed. And this was pretty much telegraphed by the average writing since episode 01.
It's either a non-text book case or conflating. She's basically that edgy, grumpy, aggressive side character. But instead of a side character, she's a main character. Instead of comic relief, she is serious. Instead of being confronted quickly, the flaws are ignored or presented as beneficial and barely opposed at all.
The archetype itself isn't new. If anything, women were overrepresented in that archetype as side characters for decades. Changing the character's role just doesn't magically solve the need for the archetype to interplay with others in a less brash way.
I enjoyed the first season as well, but not at first. I thought it was too slow, and spent too much time trying to really send the message "we spent a lot of money on this!" Long stretches of not much happening beyond too-long focusing on costuming and sets.
The finale worked for me, though, and retrospectively made the overall narrative flow work for me as well, so that makes it easier to dismiss the self-indulgent deadwood as ultimately I felt the core story was solid and well-told.
On Tolkien's chauvinism, one review I read noted that Tolkien doesn't come across as especially sexist -- as in, he's not anti-woman -- so much as he just kind of forgets about women. Which, granted, is still a form of sexism, but one that leaves a gap that can be filled rather than a hostile rejection that would be difficult to overcome. So like you, I've been enjoying the Galadriel character, and really the general increased peopling of this world overall, and don't feel it necessarily contradicts Tolkien's writings so much as fills them in.
Couldn't stand watching the show in the same vein as I didn't enjoy the Star Wars Sequels. The story is boring, the characters are bland, and the world doesn't feels lived in. LotR has way too many mystery box storylines which don't actually have to be told.
> ...the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing.
Isn't that exactly what is getting Tolkien devotees twisted in knots?
I can empathize both with people who want to see something new in a Middle-earth setting and those who don't want to see anything incongruous. It depends on how happy you are with the original. For example, traditional Westerns bore me to tears, and I only really like Westerns that make a drastic break with tradition, like Cowboys & Aliens (2011).
Have you checked out Outer Range? It's a little weird, but it was a good twist on the genre in the same way as Cowboys & Aliens. You get your usual conflict over land, but the why unfolds with each episode.
> I haven't encountered anything that has made me think this was a different "universe," but the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing.
I don't 100% agree on your take that Tolkein's stories were outright chauvanistic, but I do agree that the tone of the show is different to the books and the movies to its detriment. Rings of Power does not feel like an Epic in the genre sense, like Beowulf, which was a genre and style that Tolkein knew very well. The show feels far too...casual, the dialogue too sitcom-y at times (the dwarf scenes are brutal), and the world too clean and empty. When there are "epic" scenes, they end up feeling more like Disney or power rangers stuff (akin to Legolas riding the shield down the steps, I must admit).
While the effects are, at times, fairly incredible,I also think the writing has been an obvious weakness. The show is just kind of floating along in permanent exposition land. Only when a certain "dark land" is finally created does it actually start to have any stakes at all, but that is 5/6s of the way through the season already. By focusing on 5 distinct storylines for most of the show they keep everything in the shallows.
This is it. The writing is just awful in every sense. I mean, the story begins with Galadriel not wanting to leave Middle Earth. At that point I though:
"okay already stranding off canon but let's keep an open mind. So she's going to return to Valinor, have a chat with the Elven higher ups, (maybe even the Valar!) and go back to Middle Earth to continue her mission with renewd support. They're really going to show off with those billion dollar sets of the blessed realm!".
But nope, the writers really thought that having her jump overboard the ship into the open sea, just swiming, was a believable thing to write.
You can't write Tolkien elves like that. At this point in the story Galadriel is like 3000 years old yet her dialog is that of an inexperienced teenager when she has already seen everything (or knows someone who has) there is to see in the whole world.
Then there is the tone. The harfoot sections are the most unwatchable with an almost Dinsey vibe. The Numenoreas acting feels like the cringey dialog right before they start singing in a musical.
That's been my experience. I like the show and have largely tried to ignore purist grognards. It's hard when they seem to be well-represented in the media and discussion around the show, but I've managed to go right on enjoying it in spite of their endless negativity.
How well do you like the show? How much would you pay just to see the show?
I'm curious, because aside from the disregarding the lore, attacks on fans, etc., in the end, the show was just boring. Like seriously falling asleep boring.
I don't know much about the lore, don't know anything about attacks on fans, and didn't find it boring. I watched it alongside a rewatch of the entire Stargate franchise now that it's on Prime again with the change in ownership. What response are you looking for here?
Rings of Power is roughly similar to rewriting the Bible. Keep the same characters but change the timelines and have all the characters get into new and unique things.
And then go and ask Catholics to just give it a chance. C’mon don’t be a hater it’s still about Jesus. Give it a chance.
Why not just make a show set within the rights you do have?!?
I wish they had been more bold in staking out a new tone. Instead it feels more like content cut from Jackson's better films, with mostly boring characters and plot that doesn't really move forward.
Imagine something that follows the ring-smithing process but with the tone of Primer between Annatar and Celebrimbor. Galadriel in something plotted and shot like a Western war film instead of a handful of mediocre martial arts scenes. Durin and Disa but it's a sitcom with Elrond as the crazy neighbor who keeps dropping by.
Agreed. I think they should have made an effort to be _more_ different than the movies. The LotR trilogy, for many fans, has passed into a kind of mythological state of reverence. When they decided to make a show that followed in the same vein they were just making everything so much more difficult for themselves. They probably should have avoided comparisons to the movies, instead of welcoming them.
Never read any of the books, so I don't really care! I didn't see the southlands king turning into Sauron before the last episode, apparently many did, but I think a lot just read about it on the Internet. Just from watching it, it's not obvious at all (except of course, what are the odds that Galadriel stumbles upon the king of the southlands by accident?). And I loved the ending credits soundtrack of the final episode! What a great way to turn Tolkien's poem into a haunting song.
I think the show is hitting the spot for people only vaguely familiar with the lore. The greedy look on the faces of the elves in the end looking at the rings was well done. I wonder though how they can make the next seasons interesting, now that we know it is all about getting dwarfs and then humans equipped with rings.
I must say, I was positively surprised by the show. I had expected much much worse.
Same here, I only caught one episode of HOTD, the one where they are at the feast and the two guys fight over the girl and then she gets kidnapped. The whole episode felt intimate, filled with emotion and natural rhythm, very personal and lifelike. Now I'm a fan.
Contrasting to LOTR where a bunch of miscast 20 year olds give wooden performances in front of sterile CGI to advance a bolted on story. Disappointment of the year.
I don't mind that the show is not so faithful. What I call out is that it isn't believable. Character building is shallow and predicatble. Everything looks staged. Nothing is shocking and everything is blah.
They failed to leave an impact on me where Game of Thrones succeeded.
> The Harfoots (presumed ancestors of the Hobbits of the Shire, Buckland, and Bree) are completely made up. But I rather like them and I think their story is so far pretty logical.
The Harfoots aren't just made-up, actually. They're mentioned in "Concerning Hobbits", the prologue to The Lord of the Rings.
"Before crossing the [misty] mountains, the Hobbits had already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless, their hands and feet were neat and nimble, and they preferred highlands and hillsides.
...
The Harfoots had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long lived in the foothills of the mountains. They moved westward early, and roamed over Eriador as far as Weathertop while the others were still in the Wilderland. They were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous. They were the most inclined to settle in one place, and longest preserved their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and holes."
Presumably the Rings of Power storyline takes place before the Hobbit's recorded history began, before they settled between the misty mountains and mirkwood and long before the settled the shire, while they were still wanderers.
What's the legal basis behind Amazon needing a license to create their own stories based on the names and biographies of characters from a book? Seems like a very broad extension of the usual understanding of copyright.
[Tolkien-related tidbit: My English teacher at school was taught by Tolkien at Oxford, so my teacher's teacher was Tolkien!]
I guess it is the same as… Mickey mouse. I do not think anyone other than Disney could use a mouse named Mickey as a character and not expect to be sued.
The people mad at this show are the same people who memorized Silmarillion knowledge. That memorization act for many decades was street cred in the fandom. Now the fandom has opened its borders and rapidly taken in new members who don't share the same value system as the long-time fans, and the old fans are experiencing a devaluation of their dedication and a rejection of their culture. They very predictably try and gatekeep the material.
It's not unlike what happened when Disney bought Star Wars and struck down the entire Extended Universe. I suspect when Disney gets around to retelling some of the SWEU's more famous works, that their creative liberties will be similarly challenged.
"Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" is in the Silmarillion which Amazon don't have rights to. So they need to actively avoid stuff that Tolkien has written, either by ignoring parts of the timeline or changing the story.
From the second age of the internet -- when livejournal was still a thing -- we have this: The Silmarillion in 1000 words. It is one of the jewels of the time, and thankfully was not buried in the sea when livejournal went under.
I was of divided mind going into this series. I do consider myself a Tolkien purist (I have most of the History of Middle Earth on my shelf, and recently read the Nature of Middle Earth), and instinctually cringe at the thought of deviating from the books. (And I was irked at some of the changes Peter Jackson introduced in his movies.)
But:
* You can't cover 3000+ years of history in five seasons without making changes.
* If you want to have the same human characters (and the actors who portray them) season after season, you need even more changes.
* The series must stand on it's own, without forcing viewers to read the books; and
* There are a number of gaps and inconsistencies in Tolkien's writings on events and motives. (Galadriel's history and motives in particular are a mess, so it's not clear what her "true" story even is).
The published Silmarillion (including the texts summarizing the Second and Third Ages) is based on the most complete versions of Tolkien's writings, not necessarily his most recent. When did the Sun and Moon first appear? Are Orcs descended from Elves? Was Sauron fully evil when he first collaborated with the Elves on the Rings? The answers all depend on what text you read.
So I think there is more freedom here for the show writers than many of their on-line critics acknowledge. Even more so when you consider the Second Age writings have very few scenes and dialogues between characters. We don't get to "know" Elendil, Isildur, Galadriel, or Sauron like we get to know Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, and Gandalf. Does filling in those details make them "unfaithful" to the books?
In addition, some of the deviations they clearly have made -- the importance of mithril, Galadriel's dagger and quest, the dark elf Arondir -- do have important useful payoffs in the plot. The lack of mithril gives the writers an opportunity to show how Sauron aided the Elves in Ring making in an understandable way. It also leads to Galadriel giving up her dagger and (hopefully) giving up her obsession with avenging her brother (and perhaps starting her transition to the Wise High Elf we meet in the LotR?). Arondir's appearance allowed for the casting of a damn good actor (Ismael Cruz Córdova), and exploration of an interracial (Elf-Human) relationship by an interracial set of actors (likely emotionally engaging the viewers). I think those payoffs have been worth it.
A tangent: I think the casting and acting has been excellent, the CGI beautiful, and the plot twist at the season ending clever (giving viewers a reason to watch the whole season all over again). I enjoyed it, and look forward to the next season.
Worse, they are extrapolations from oft-threadbare notes which explicitly need to avoid overlapping with other stories and notes they're intended to overlap with! What a horrible basis for any story, let alone something trying to take an epic tone.
Regarding elven ethnicity, I am perfectly willing to allow creative license on this point. We’re talking about immortal fantasy creatures. Being consistent with real-life human genetics and evolution is a low priority. Particularly as there’s nothing in Tolkien’s source material that strongly defines elves as exclusively fair-skinned. The mentions of fair skin are limited to descriptions of particular individuals, and the Noldor race of elves. I do think that Tolkien probably conceived of elves as white in his own mind’s eye, but he never committed strongly to this in the text.
Uh yeah there’s nothing overtly political in the show. People that are getting political vibes from the show all seem to be pointing to being annoyed about color blind casting. That’s not political, unless you’re the kind that thinks having black people in stuff is political, which is sad.
I remember how comically absurd it sounded when I saw women on Iranian TV: because the regime does not allow hair, even women in bed are pictured with a hijab on, in their movies. :D
The less funny thing now, is that the West has reached that level of absurdity without noticing, because a women sleeping with her hijab on, or an underground black creature (ork), or a black medieval British princess (as seen on some BBC shows), is pretty much the same level of insanity.
And you're right, of course there is nothing political in that. :)
Yeah, that part was laughable. No one in Numenor has seen an elf in 100s of years. One elf shows up, and all of a sudden the trade unions think they'll lose all their jobs to her
On the other hand the show's attitude is overall middling-positive about the elvish imperial state - and on top of that Galadriel's multi-century War on Terror is ultimately justified.
I don't think the story is coherent enough to be making a real political statement, even if a few scenes gesture wildly at a few vague (and contradictory) political ideas.
> unless you’re the kind that thinks having black people in stuff is political, which is sad
His point was literally that "having black people in stuff is political", so what exactly is your argument? Tolkien described elves as fair skinned, so there must have been an explicit decision by the show runners to override this, for reasons that could reasonably described as political. If you think that equality / equity etc agenda is not political "because it is the right thing to do", maybe take a moment and reflect on that.
Well, if I recall correctly, the elves appeared long before the sun was created and are attracted to the night and the moon (when it appeared) and the stars. The sun is important for humans and the first sunrise was in a sense a sign that the ages of elves were over. In my mind, at least, the elves' had skin that resembled moonlight
Edit: See e.g., The Silmarillion, ch. 11: "for the Sun was set as a sign for the awakening of Men and the waning of the Elves, but the Moon cherishes their memory"
You don't recall correctly; elves awoke to only stars. Both the sun and the moon come at the same time, much later. It's true the elves preferred the moon but I don't recall any explicit reason for this; I'd interpret it as part of the overarching theme that elves are more staid, less visibly intense, than men in general.
Which is all to say - I don't see any relationship with skin color.
You are right about the stars and my statement was unclear. The elves awoke as Varda made new and brighter stars, and it is stated that "their eyes beheld first of all things the stars of heaven. Therefore they have ever loved the starlight"
When looking in the Silmarillion, it seems that they primarilly loved the stars and aspecific preference forthe moon is not mentioned. However, the moon came first (as the elves, compared to the humans) and traveled over the sky several times before the sun first appeared; "Isil was first wrought and made ready, and first rose into the realm of the stars, and was the elder of the new lights, as was Telperion of the Trees. Then for a while the world had moonlight [...] Tilion had traversed the heaven seven times, and thus was in the furthest east, when the vessel of Arien was made ready" and "the Sun was set as a sign for the awakening of Men and the waning of the Elves, but the Moon cherishes their memory"
Why it matters? So, in my opinion, that the elves may be fair or perhaps pale in the skin makes sence symbolically due to their relationship to the night and the stars (and perhaps the moon). Also, in humans, there tends to be a relationship between the sun exposure of an area and skin color but I don't think we know how this affect elves (how their bodies work, some born before the sun was created, living for very long time, etc.)
So first, your last paragraph really does feel like some kind of post hoc reasoning - "elves should be pale and elves like the moon, ergo elves are pale because of their relationship to the moon"? I don't get the logic. (I mean, they're obviously not following or even based in any kind of biological laws here.)
But also - orcs also hate sunlight, yet have darker skin. And harfoots have darker skin but prefer the sun. (And trolls also prefer the moon, for different reasons.)
So even trying to find some thematic association within Tolkien... it's just not there.
I'm not sure how you got from someone directly responds to a question about a specific thing to this is the only thing you care about, other than making a huge presumption.
It's worse with Rings of Power because they don't have all the rights, but they wanted to take advantage of the name to increase the views, create some sort of off brand world that is there but not quite, just like sports games where one company doesn't hold all the rights and you end up playing with some weird teams like White Blue and some generic player names, because you know you can't legally use a name. Can't wait for Gonbolf next season.