Recent content by Darren Grey

  1. Darren Grey

    Legolas, light running, and the Fianna of Celtic myth

    I think the key to understanding Legolas' athletic ability in running over snow is in how he introduces it - "for running light over grass and leaf, or over snow - an Elf". This immediately puts me in mind of the myths of the Fianna, a band of men of Irish legend. The Fianna famously had to pass...
  2. Darren Grey

    Southern Star pipe-weed and tobacco-growing in England

    Sam also fantasises about fried fish and chips, which wasn't a "thing" until the 1860s. But as I said, Tolkien happily ignores certain things for his hobbitses, who are overall rather Victorian as a society. Very interesting to know about tobacco growing in such northern climes. I've always...
  3. Darren Grey

    Southern Star pipe-weed and tobacco-growing in England

    In ep 227 there was an aside about the "Southern Star" breed of pipeweed, and for some strange reason this got discussed for only a minute before moving onto more "proper" story discussion. Well I can't help thinking about it more, so I did some digging and ended up down a crazy rabbit-hole...
  4. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    And if the hair colour is coming from the Maiar element, does genetics come into play at all?
  5. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    "His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight" to me reads as a poetic way of saying "black". And Arwen is said to be the spit of him, so I imagine that means they have the same hair colour. And she's the image of Luthien, which again reinforces black on the lot of them.
  6. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    I don't know how common knowledge that is. It can also easily be explained away by elf/Maia genetics working differently. Arwen is not just dark-skinned like Luthien - she is the very image of Luthien reborn. The line gets their dark hair from Melian, and one might imagine that Maiar-touched...
  7. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    I wasn't aware that if you're dark haired one of your parents must have dark hair too. I think the vast majority of fans won't think about this at all. The only comparison they'll make with PJ is on hair length (which is happening aplomb already). I think the biggest change to actual Tolkien...
  8. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    We really don't know how they'll do time compression yet, and if they'll have a bit of time skipping at the start. Certainly sounds like the main story will start with a mature and established Numenor though. I can understand them not wanting to have to artificially age (or actor replace)...
  9. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    I think regardless of lore Amazon were never going to have a bearded female main character. It would be an item of ridicule in every report. They want Disa played and received seriously.
  10. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    Corey said on Twitter that the total conversation he had with them was 3 hours, and they edited it down to a 20ish minute video. I'm guessing a lot of extra nuance and detail of Corey's got cut. Can you imagine if ExLotR got edited down? Sacrilege...
  11. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    Corey has been featured on a new IGN video giving his reactions to the trailer: All pretty solid and reasonable takes, as you might expect. I think the video editors have heavily cut him to speed things up though, which is really jarring when you're used to his methodical pace of speech.
  12. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    I don't think it's the Feanorian Star. I've posted a comparison here: https://i.redd.it/82c71yomz0i81.png There are some theories that it's a newly invented sigil for the House of Finarfin, with the pearl in the middle representing his Teleri wife.
  13. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    The showrunners said they only have rights to LotR + TH, and what they invent has to *not conflict* with other works as much as possible. I'm personally taking that to mean they'll be using items and ideas with permission, without having all-out legal rights to do what they want. It gives the...
  14. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    I definitely remember all the controversy that occurred when Orlando Bloom was cast as Legolas and Elijah Wood as Frodo. And lots of fuss about Aragorn having a beard, and the balrog having wings. Ultimately I think a visual medium is always going to make visual choices that people won't like. I...
  15. Darren Grey

    Amazon series: reactions to news and rumours. (Spoiler alert!)

    High quality version of the teaser video here. You can see a lot more detail of the Numenorean port in particular. Pretty amazing!
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