The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series

instant classic

i’ve seen the first three minutes or so of the first episode and that was enuf for me

A cut towards the end between Gil-Galad and Halbrand, both full of dark, boring, secrets.

I also regret to inform you I've remembered who Isildur reminds me of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIh2xe4jnpk

lol

We at the podcast have taken all this under advisement. (We record our first episode since the series started tomorrow. I suspect we will be somewhat sweary.)

so i dremt there was a big ilx conference dedicated to predicting what was going to be in each ep of every coming series of the benighted and dumm elf show

i will not share with you many of the details of this dream (it was a big ilx conference, it was superficially friendly but also panicked and dorky and paid the highest poster attention to the wrong detail; also i was not really paying attention to my own dream tbrr)

but i will say THIS: someone at this conference proved by science (printing out their own tweets) that there would be an entire episode that was just a tom bombadil song and this better happen or like, fvck everything

Hahah a true vision.

I pledge myself to you, Sauron!

You’re Sauron, right?

*guy on screen doing the same grasping at straws as feckless viewers*

also that guy appeared to be called baldrick

Waldreg according to the subtitles that I have on for an ever-increasing amount of the stuff I watch - it did raise the question of what percentage of the giant orc armies are just dudes in orc-like masks, like Joker henchmen.

Also amused that between Celebrimbor and Kemen Kevin we're getting old and young Michael Palin.

haradwaith with michael palin

Isildur just seems woefully miscast, no matter how young he’s meant to be.

I think the proximate problem is not so much that’s he’s miscast (although he might be) as that he’s not a good actor?

The guy playing ser christon Cole in the dragon thing would be better.

what is the collective noun for SAURONS? a thrakatulûk of saurons

anyway so far we have at least five (not enough)

1: halbrand!
evidence: association with southlands, shitty behaviour on the raft, currently in numenor and abt to take a controlling role in a naval enterprise to the glory of ar-pharazon (as he isn't yet known)
2: adar aka oren!
evidence: terrible skin, orc boss, moody, gothy, baldrick thinks he's sauron
3: yung gandalf!
evidence: actually can't be gandalf if you go by some "official" timelines, ice magic, ambiguous conversation with nori, it's kind of boring if he's just gandalf hobbit-pal
4: the creepy elf-looking dude examining the crater!
evidence: when we saw him in the promo everyone turned to their date and said "that's yung sauron" (but i think it's yung saruman)
5: theo!
evidence: haircut with the swagger of the stone roses, carries that thing around

It turns out that Sauron was *us* all along

Kind of a perverse achievement on the show's part that no matter who Sauron turns out to be, it'll be disappointing and weird

An amazing achievement.

"How do we tank ourselves further?" "Got just the idea."

Adar definitely needs to release an album on Projekt

Anyway my cohost Jared has another thread up. Not wrong.

no more lore
society has progressed beyond the need for worldbuilding

— Jared Pechaček (@vandroidhelsing) September 26, 2022

hear, hear! not everything has to be LORE, stuff can just be. and in fact, the most magic bits of stories are often the inexplicable bits. See: Tom Bombadil/how much it would actually suck to have a "The Lord of the Rings: Tom Bombadil: Origins" show.

lmao I’m not enough of a Tolkien guy to know that they made up that entire mithril thing for the show

amazing

I know the confused meteor wizard guy will turn out to be Someone Important, but it would be a lot funnier if his character remains exactly as he has been and they just never develop that plot line

I also believe they should have two full episodes that have no characters other than Tom Bombadil and his wife. Scratch that, a couple of the faux hobbits, too

the two "bombadil: fatherless wife guy" eps are both musicals

confused meteor wizard guy is déagol

anyway so far we have at least five (not enough)

Sauron on the Orient Express

anyway so far we have at least five (not enough)

Sauron on the Orient Express

highlevel intellectual sleuthing from comicbook dot com: https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/rings-of-power-secret-sauron-suspects-ranked/

p sure it's actually not baldrick but

anyway so far we have at least five (not enough)

Have we actually seen enough of Lenny O'Henrys magic book to discount him?

Shame a show trying so hard not to be racist is so weighed down with the concept of blood guilt.

lenny henry as sauron: i am totally into the idea that the One Ring is actually only ever large enough to fit on a halfling's finger

the evidence? smeagol! bilbo! frodo! lenny henry as sauron! NO ONE ELSE

all the images of a towering dark fiery armoured figure are elvish and/or numenorean propaganda! you couldn't see how big he was when he wore it and after isidur cut if off the massed armies of gil galad (aka pil galad) and etc weren't going to say "and it turned out he was tiny and scurried away into the bushes!")

“three rings for the elven-kings under the sky,
seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
nine for mortal men, doomed to die,
and a wee one for the Dark Lord on his tiny tiny throne"

Not sure if this was already posted but looks like we might be finding out this week

Evil reveals itself. #TheRingsOfPower only on @PrimeVideo. pic.twitter.com/UTM2w7ZhPF

— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime) September 23, 2022

that's number seven

Finding this a very pretty, silly & chill thing to watch (entry stance: cool on Tolkien generally, actively dislike his high style, don't much care about the lore).

Absolutely love Morfydd Clark, just hypnotically watchable or maybe listenable - surprising vowels and stresses and then so good at the trilled 'r's. Her expressions are good too, so it can't all be down to that, but I go a bit ecoutez-repetez when she delivers a line in a way I enjoy. Obviously do not watch this me, I am annoying.

otoh can't really get over the issue that's briefly mentioned upthread: is this thing (I'd assume unintentionally) saying that hobbits evolved from Irish/Irish Traveller primitive foragers into stout yeoman Middle Englanders? I'm not exploring ~the discourse~ outside this thread but are people generally ok with that, or happy treating it as mildly insensitive accident? I could probably swallow the oirish nonsense if that evolution didn't seem implicit.

if we turn to the EXTANT LORE *everyone screams*: the shire hobbits and the anduin-based harfoots are iirc already from distinct strains of some long-lost ur-halfling type?

ie the latter didn't migrate west and settle down to become the former, they simply dwindled (= eaten by orcs, ents, beorn, durin's folk, teleporno)

ok cool I'll take it

*pushes up glasses* The Shirefolk are a blend of strains, these being the Harfoots, the Stoors, and the Fallohides.

So presumably the show-Harfoots are meant to be the ancestors of Frodo & co. but only one branch. I'm a bit curious if we'll ever see the other branches.

so in fact some shire hobbits may be eligible for a harfoot passport. Thank you, this is becoming clearer.

Hey, applicability not allegory, buddy. (But I kid the etc.)

Shame a show trying so hard not to be racist is so weighed down with the concept of blood guilt.

We at the podcast couldn't agree more.

Absolutely love Morfydd Clark, just hypnotically watchable or maybe listenable - surprising vowels and stresses and then so good at the trilled 'r's. Her expressions are good too, so it can't all be down to that, but I go a bit ecoutez-repetez when she delivers a line in a way I enjoy.

well, there is a tempest in her and the tempest is always right

“three rings for the elven-kings under the sky,
seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
nine for mortal men, doomed to die,
and a wee one for the Dark Lord on his tiny tiny throne"

so sauron mistake was basically pissing off hobbits by not creating a ring for them which forced them to take his instead and then destroy it out of spite

Amazing. This was simultaneously the consistently best episode and the absolute dumbest fucking thing.

stoked for the pukelmen

Ned otm

So the sword hilt was basically a giant pair of scissors for the Mount Doom ribbon cutting?

why does the big goblin not simply eat the smaller arondir

stop just throwing him around you horrible doofus

watch out teleporno, theo is horny for galadriel