Amazon series:reactions and thoughts (Spoiler alert!)

What I also have an issue - beyond them deconstructing Galadriel - with them deconstructing Gil-Galad - Gil-Galad is the most successful elven ruler in history who created one of the most enduring and stable elven kingdoms ever in ME - which even hobbits remember more than 3000 years after his death. He is the ultimate selfless war hero by fighting Sauron personally, valuing and allying himself with humans and by being a good ruler in peace times. Why making him a stupid fearfull jerk? It seams the authors of the series have a strange pleasure in bringing our heroes down.
 
Last edited:
I actually don't think they do this on purpose... i think they totally do not see it this way and probably wouldn't understand why anybody does not think their characters are absolutely great and wonderful. They probably feel they're totally doing these characters full justice by fleshing them out, expanding their stories and making them more human and so more easily relatable to people i mean, nobodys perfect, so why Gil-Galad?
 
I actually don't think they do this on purpose... i think they totally do not see it this way and probably wouldn't understand why anybody does not think their characters are absolutely great and wonderful. They probably feel they're totally doing these characters full justice by fleshing them out, expanding their stories and making them more human and so more easily relatable to people i mean, nobodys perfect, so why Gil-Galad?

Imho this is what causes the audience's discomport with modern story telling - the reason d'etre of a hero in a story is to be inspirational and admirable - even on the cost of relatability. Otherwise the people would be content with just gossiping about their naighbours and not longing for heroes' stories. Making heroes relatable to the extent that it makes them loose any admirability undermines them being heroes that inspire - they get just as boring as the neigbours next door.
 
Last edited:
Possibly. On the other hand we have everymans like Bilbo or Frodo who grow over themselves... but elves are not meant to be like this.Legolas wasn't. I cannot nail it down, i am very interested in the theory of storytelling, as i myself wish to learn and become better at writing, but i can't say what it is that bothers me.It isn't lorebending i am sure, that just adds up.
 
I am up to Episode 5 now, and I have to say, I *love* how they incorporated those two songs into the episode.

A walking song for the Harfoot migration montage made sense. But introducing it as Poppy singing her own family's song while her family is gone was lovely and well done. She also sang 'on request' with some reluctance which was perfection.

And give me all the Numenorean sea shanties! A background drinking song at a celebration while the scene played out in the foreground seemed to be a very natural way to work that in. I don't love everything they are doing with their world building for Numenorean culture, but THAT was perfect.

I love that our fandom now has these two songs in it :)
 
So! I finally caught up to the show and... I'm still figuring out my thoughts. I've continued to take notes and I am starting to get the complaint of the show being too slow. Here were the notes I took as I watched Episodes 4/5/6Screenshot_20221004-000348.pngScreenshot_20221004-000351.pngScreenshot_20221004-000442.png
 
So! I finally caught up to the show and... I'm still figuring out my thoughts. I've continued to take notes and I am starting to get the complaint of the show being too slow. Here were the notes I took as I watched Episodes 4/5/6View attachment 4559View attachment 4560View attachment 4561

Adar cannot be Eol as Eol hated the sun. Maeglin would fit better, as Adar seems to know both Quenya and Sindarin. And his mother Aredhel has seen the Trees of Valinor and surely talked to her son about them - nothing Eol would care about. Has not Maeglin been promised command above the orcs by Morgoth (a promise Morgoth did not inted to keep but still made to him?) Adar cannot be one of the original elves abducted around Cuiviénen as otherwise he would not have known Beleriand as an elf still.
 
Doesn't matter, Adar seems to confirm to Galadriel he is one of the first elves caught and turned ,he does self-identify as an Uruk.Him liking the sun and speaking both Quenya and Sindarin-nevermind.The show is full of such contradictions and inconsistencies and IMHO is it because the writers simply are not aware of them. Why does Arondir know Quenya?Or the Stranger?

The Mithril storyline imho does introduce two things:corrupted material and manichaeism/dualism. Also there is no difference anymore between lightelves and umanyar and the light of Aman and elvish fading.

Adar is more sympathetic and relatable than Gil-Galad and Galadriel by now. Waldreg is just a petty chieftain and a village barkeeper... if he'll be a ringwraith then i'll cry!

I do not understand the Southlands plot, neither how they put Halbrand on his throne -what throne? Where? Where is his retinue? Or his lands? Why does nobody know or recognize him? How did they know where they had to go and how did they get there in time? How could they know about Tirharad or even the Orcs had marched on Ostirith? How do they put a guy on a nonexisting throne in a nonexisting land or a land of just a few scattered villages with an army of but 500 men? The entire key-sword-volcano thing was weird... who build the mechanism, and why? Sauron? When? And... why or how.. and for what and why a key for a dam for a volcano? How does this entire weird form of magic work... mechanic plus elementalism... then why is the mechanism necessary at all inn the first place, and what for a sword as a key? And if Annatar is alraedy in contact with Celebrimbor...then why does all of this happen off-screen and why do the elves believe such obviously false fabrications..they would know better than accepting Elves and balrogs turning tree-roots into mithril or silmarils in trees on top the Hithaeglir. So many things that seem illogical to me, do not fit alltogether or make me ask why and get me all but confused.
 
Last edited:
. Why does Arondir know Quenya?Or the Stranger?

If the Stranger is from Valinor he would of course know Quenya well - both the Quendya nad Quenya forms. Sindarin would be a bit exotic to him, insofar it does differ from Valinorian and Tol Eresean Telerin. Arondir might have learned Quenya in Gil-Galad's court if he has been trained by Noldorin scholars e.g. in botany - far fetched but possible. Still he would not use it in daily life.

I do not understand the Southlands plot, neither how they put Halbrand on his throne -what throne? Where? Where is his retinue? Or his lands? Why does nobody know or recognize him? How did they know where they had to go and how did they get there in time? How could they know about Tirharad or even the Orcs had marched onn Ostirith? How do they put a guy on a nonexisting throne in a nonexisting land with few scattered villages with an army of but 500 men? The entire key-sword-volcano thing was weird... who build the mechanism, and why? Sauron? When? And... whay or how.. and for what and why a key for a dam for a volcano? And if Annatar is altaedy in contact wirh Celebrimbor...then why does all of this happen off-screen and why do the elves believe such obviously false fabrications..they would know better than accepting Elves and balrogs turning tree-roots into mithril or silmarils inntrees on top the Hithaeglir. So many things that seem illogical to me, do not fit alltogether or make me ask why and get me all but confused.

Contrived, random and illogical. Most of it. And with moments of really cringe dialogue which is also often much as random and illogical as the plot at times.
 
Last edited:
Sure, the stranger COULD at some point have been to Valinor and learned quenya.It still wouldn't be his first language and why would he talk in it to Probbits? Arondir... well sure, if he fought alongside Noldor he might have catched up some Quenya, still it wasn't their colloquial language, that ought to have been sindarin. I get the impression that all elvish is the same and Valarin and elvish is also the same and all elves are the same. That might seem like nitpickyness now but... such things bother me.
 
Sure, the stranger COULD at some point have been to Valinor and learned quenya.It still wouldn't be his first language and why would he talk in it to Probbits? Arondir... well sure, if he fought alongside Noldor he might have catched up some Quenya, still it wasn't their colloquial language, that ought to have been sindarin. I get the impression that all elvish is the same and Valarin and elvish is also the same and all elves are the same. That might seem like nitpickyness now but... such things bother me.

That is worse, as elves and human natures are basically the same too. And there is a lot of this "sameness" generally in their story.
 
Well, one thing is for sure, now watching and analyzing a real-time, actual adaption of Tolkien, that also is not based on a novel but also a timeline/story-outline combined with own creative inventions and interpretaions to me completely changes my outlook on the silmfilm project. As a silmfilm superfan i've also occasionally been a harsh critic, especially when it came to the frame issue.. or several timeline compressions or the streamlining, simplification of a few threads or character plot points...

I have to say how amazed and intrigued i am now how good silmfilm writing is, up to details like characterization of difficult persons, dialogue and description of action scenes - of course that still doesn't tell me how any director would practically set these things actually into scene but still... i can imagine how Trop often may have looked okay or good on script but when it comes to actual filming and putting scenes togeter and interpreting them in ways of dialogue and cinematography ,that is where is get clumsy, because things are missing and are not well thought through or only very superficially. The silmfilm writers are far away from such shortcomings, and they are hobbyists and not professionals who do this for their actual job! I have to pay much respect to their work...
 
Last edited:
Giving Galadriel a growth arc where she starts out like....this, and winds up like the character we meet in Lord of the Rings makes some sense. I am fine with them giving her some opportunities to grow past or out of the situation they started her in. By episode 5, she is able to recognize her own flaws and obsession, at least, and I am *hoping* that that is the start of shifting her in a different direction. But we'll be seeing her for all 5 seasons, so it makes sense that season 5 Galadriel may be quite different from season 1 Galadriel.

I am less okay with where Gil-galad seems to be going. We haven't seen a lot of him yet, but he is a rather manipulative ruler thus far. He sent Galadriel away because she was troublesome. And he was not very honest with Elrond about why he would be 'helping' Celebrimbor. Also a lot of pressure for Elrond to break his oath. And if the elven fear of the blight (which is 100% the darkening from The Dark Crystal TV show) is in any way a false fear manufactured by Sauron...then having both Gil-galad and Celebrimbor fall for this would be unfortunate. I am fine with villains being clever, but Celebrimbor's acceptance of Annatar is meant to be in stark contrast to Gil-galad and Elrond, who smell a rat. There will be time to differentiate Gil-galad from Celebrimbor in the future, and I hope they do.

Adar was handled interestingly! I definitely spent time saying "Please don't be Maglor" to the screen, and the proto-orc made more sense anyway. I would have hated if he'd turned out to be Maglor, for real. Eöl and Maeglin would be dead anyway. I wasn't super keen on his insistence on being called an Uruk, but I did think that the 'Mordor for the orcs!' idea was interesting and a fitting motivation for the character. Not really sure what Adar actually thinks of Sauron at this point.
 
I am not against the idea of having another Galadriel, quite the opposite.Just the way it is done i simply do not enjoy much and cannot follow it very well, i find it less convincing than Gil-Galad being a manipulative , oathbreaking simpleton who believes in hearsay and superstitious folktales. In away i like the idea of the blight as it serves as a storytelling mechanic for the marring of Arda and the shadow or dark tree, but i do not enjoy the elves thinking it is themselves fading because of the loss of primordial light... it makes them seem weirdly selfish and it makes the rings a bit too obviously machinery.
 
Giving Galadriel a growth arc where she starts out like....this, and winds up like the character we meet in Lord of the Rings makes some sense. I am fine with them giving her some opportunities to grow past or out of the situation they started her in. By episode 5, she is able to recognize her own flaws and obsession, at least, and I am *hoping* that that is the start of shifting her in a different direction. But we'll be seeing her for all 5 seasons, so it makes sense that season 5 Galadriel may be quite different from season 1 Galadriel.

Galadriel would never become the Lady of Light we know from LOTR. Redemption in elves never seems to go as far and complete as in humans, see Maglor and Maedhros or even the book Celebrimbor - once overshadowed elves do never recover fully - once personally fallen book elves always seem to stay quite vulnerable to evil. So as evil a Galadriel as she is now in the series she could not later preserve Lothlorien from corruption - even after having a future "turn of heart" - as she would always corrupt it by her mere presence. Having character flaws is a different matter than chosing to do bad things and having dark potential a diferent matter to actually having chosen darkness - and she has crossed this line in the series.
 
Last edited:
Galadriel would never become the Lady of Light we know from LOTR. Redemption in elves never seems to go as far and complete as in humans, see Maglor and Maedhros or even the book Celebrimbor - once overshadowed elves do never recover fully - once personally fallen book elves always seem to stay quite vulnerable to evil. So as evil a Galadriel as she is now in the series she could not later preserve Lothlorien from corruption - even after having a future "turn of heart" - as she would always corrupt it by her mere presence. Having character flaws is a different matter than chosing to do bad things and having dark potential a diferent matter to actually having chosen darkness - and she has crossed this line in the series.

I'm thinking of elves who did different. The most "evil" elves we ever met , apart from Eol and Maeglin, are Feanor and his sons...
Galadriel is quite like them in the tv show, but... i don't know... more psychopathic... that smile of joy when she did imprison those Numenorean guards, or when she humiliated the recruits instead of training them, or the unecessary stunts she did while slaying the snowtroll or during the Tirharad skirmish instead of fighting efficently.. she did that seemingly to brag and because she really enjoyed the kill and showing the superior skill in killing. Adar was right... that is very much like an Uruk.I guess Celegorm and Caranthir are possibly the worst and Maglor and Maedhros the nicest ones... i guess only Maglor changes a bit to the better doesn't he? But he certainly ends up sad and tragic, not very... well lightfull.
 
Last edited:
I'm thinking of elves who did different. The most "evil" elves we ever met , apart from Eol and Maeglin, are Feanor and his sons...
Galadriel is quite like them in the tv show, but... i don't know... more psychopathic... that smile of joy when she did imprison those Numenorean guards, or when she humiliated the recruits instead of training them, or the unecessary stunts she did while slayi gbthe snowtroll or duringbthe Tirharad skirmish instead of fighting effeicently.. she did that seemingly to brag and because she really enjoyed the kill and showing the superior skill of killing. Adar was right... that is very much like an Uruk.

Still, for whatever bad Maedhos and Maglor had done - their own nature seemed good. But even so their own good nature and character were incapable of recovering them - once on the "bad road" - they were doomed to fail. Same with book Celebrimbor - once tainted - for all his recovery - he was doomed to be fooled by Sauron again and then end in a gruesome way.
And here Galadriel is shown personally far far further down this road than any of them in the books - as such her recovery - and recovery to such a high standing - seems completely out of reach imho for keeping any character consitency.
 
Back
Top