Amazon series:reactions and thoughts (Spoiler alert!)

Haerangil said:
You both are right. Then again - Halbrands appearance on that raft if even more so a complete mystery to me.The folks on the raft were southlanders, and were real yet.
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No necessary. Those completely could have been some impostors like the 3 witches were.
Also Sauron was aware of Galadriel pursuing him, if he managed to poison the Lindon tree and plant the mithril idea into Celebrimbor who influenced Gil-Galad, then planting into them the idea thed Galadriel's shadowy presence fastens the return of evil at the very same time seems not too far fetched.
If Sauron knew they would try to ship out Galadriel to get rid of her because he himself suggested it and if he knew she will not leave ME as he has her husband - and maybe daughter - captive, then he just asks a favor of the evil fish-dragon and waits around Valinor for her to appear.
 
If i was a writer i'd reveal them to be Annatars cronies in some short future scene, where we see them switching back from southerners into elven smiths we saw at Eregion and back into an obvious phantom-shape.

Saurons Attack on Eregionnwould be a good placing i guess..
 
Haerangil said:
If i was a writer i'd reveal them to be Annatars cronies in some short future scene, where we see them switching back from southerners into elven smiths we saw at Eregion and back into an obvious phantom-shape.

Saurons Attack on Eregionnwould be a good placing i guess..
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Regrettably they do not seem too keen to explain past hints...
 
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Possible. They seemed fond of flashbacks and revealingbthings that had never been mentioned before. I personally would like it, i liked their take on Sauron in many ways. He's an interesting guy.
 
Haerangil said:
Possible. They seemed fond of flashbacks and revealingbthings that had never been mentioned before. I personally would like it, i liked their take on Sauron in many ways. He's an interesting guy.
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In rewatching the scenes between Halbrand and Galadriel throughout, I’m liking this more and more. I do hope we get Sauron perspective from now on - he’s been set up as an active character, after all. And he has a lot to accomplish yet.
 
The showrunners confirmed in an interview that the ignition mechanism for Mount Doom was Sauron's plan, I gather partly at least in service of Morgoth as a place to retreat to, and it was co-opted by Adar.

And Halbrand being on the raft is apparently going to be explained in season 2. It's the thing that (looking only at the show's internal consistency) that at present makes little sense, as Corey has pointed out. ("Get him on the raft, and everything after that works", or words to that effect).
 
David_M_R said:
The showrunners confirmed in an interview that the ignition mechanism for Mount Doom was Sauron's plan, I gather partly at least in service of Morgoth as a place to retreat to, and it was co-opted by Adar.

And Halbrand being on the raft is apparently going to be explained in season 2. It's the thing that (looking only at the show's internal consistency) that at present makes little sense, as Corey has pointed out. ("Get him on the raft, and everything after that works", or words to that effect).
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I have no trouble with the raft. If Sauron has Celeborn he knows Galadriel will not leave. There are various ways how this could have come about. No problem for me here.

I have much more problem with the evil sword doing nothing magical in the end.
 
Odola said:
I have no trouble with the raft. If Sauron has Celeborn he knows Galadriel will not leave. There are various ways how this could have come about. No problem for me here.

I have much more problem with the evil sword doing nothing magical in the end.
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I personally like that the only ‘magic‘ as such as come from the Istar and the three Sorcerers (or whatever they were) and that all of the evil work, as well as the Elves work has been technological/chemical/alchemical. Arondir says it is a key in Ep5 - the ‘magic’ is that it needed human blood to work. (no creation comes without sacrifice, says Celebrimbor).
 
Ilana Mushin said:
I personally like that the only ‘magic‘ as such as come from the Istar and the three Sorcerers (or whatever they were) and that all of the evil work, as well as the Elves work has been technological/chemical/alchemical. Arondir says it is a key in Ep5 - the ‘magic’ is that it needed human blood to work. (no creation comes without sacrifice, says Celebrimbor).
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But a simple lever would do here. No blood necessary. That undermines completely what magic is needed for.

And actually about the raft - I always found a bunch of mere Southlanders ending up around Valinor completely unbelievable. How come mere mortals have ventured so far into the forbidden West and past Numenor? For what purpose? How? Made no sense then and so it does not still.
So the whole raft story always seemed to me not what it pretended to be. So again, no obejctions whatsoever to the raft being a setup trap from me.
 
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It makes most sense these were folks looking for the Breelanders, as we do not exactly know where these southlanders were suposed to come from and the Breefolks ancestors had familiar ties with the white mountain folk.

HOWEVER inworld, it would make most sense this was all just a trick created by Annatar and his phantom-posse, given we believe they COULD fool elves ,but i also suppose a lot of Galadriels actions also only make sense if she is at last partially under Annatars spell.

But that opens an entirely different problem: how would Galadriel BELIEVE such a simple, obviously made-up scenario? I mean: even many audience people obviously having trouble understanding or believing it! How would Gil-Galad not at last think of the possibility someone may have actively poisoned the holy tree... also a nice explanation why Annatar was so close to Lindon btw.

I already said i'd like the reveal that not only the raft folks but also a number of Celebrimbors apprentices actually were Phantoms of Annatars. Problem with that: the amount of fantasy and creative energy we all have to invest in these scenarios to think of plots and things happening off-screen or hidden in background to rationalize a story that is full of gaps. I don't think of this as the effect of genius writing...
 
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One thing the showrunners said after the season ended is that they did't want the viewers to be 7 episodes ahead of the characters, which is why, despite hints and nods, we don't know who Sauron is until ep 8, being presented with scenarios as different sets of characters believe them. The deception should be convincing enough that viewers can believe it, and so really believe the deceiver is as good as claimed, rather than the deceived merely being stupid for not seeing it. And we are deliberately being shown Halbrand through (mostly) Galadriel's POV, or else other characters (he's only shown alone once or twice). Perhaps we should think of it as a epistemic regime, though in a different medium it is done differently to how one has a POV character in a book.
 
David_M_R said:
One thing the showrunners said after the season ended is that they did't want the viewers to be 7 episodes ahead of the characters, which is why, despite hints and nods, we don't know who Sauron is until ep 8, being presented with scenarios as different sets of characters believe them. The deception should be convincing enough that viewers can believe it, and so really believe the deceiver is as good as claimed, rather than the deceived merely being stupid for not seeing it. And we are deliberately being shown Halbrand through (mostly) Galadriel's POV, or else other characters (he's only shown alone once or twice). Perhaps we should think of it as a epistemic regime, though in a different medium it is done differently to how one has a POV character in a book.
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If done skillfully this might have worked. As it is, Galadriel still comes of as stupid while Halbrand as Sauron comes of as unearned to many (not to me, for me his hints were convincing enough).
 
Odola said:
If done skillfully this might have worked. As it is, Galadriel still comes of as stupid while Halbrand as Sauron comes of as unearned to many (not to me, for me his hints were convincing enough).
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I didn’t see Galadriel’s failure to see Sauron for who he was as stupidity, but rather the tunnel vision that comes from PTSD induced obsession. I‘ve actually been in this situation myself (not because Sauron killed my brother, mind you). I got to a point where I couldn’t see anything that didn’t confirm my world view, and when my friends and family would point this out to me, I would reject them or respond that I couldn’t do anything else other than what I was doing. I knew I had lost myself but I couldn’t stop. In that state, Galadriel saw what she wanted to see in Halbrand - a way to stop Sauron’s plans for the Southlands by reinstating a King there. She was wise enough to recognise the significance of a ‘chance meeting’ but otherwise she was absolutely blinded by her own drive to find Sauron and defeat him.

I had to go through therapy to come out the other end of my own PTSD-driven tunnel vision on my own life. It was a revelation for me to be able to recognise what I had become due to that obsession. So Galadriel’s actions and choices are very realistic from my perspective. For Galadriel, she starts recognising her issues from the ‘confession scene’ in Ep5 with Halbrand onwards but feel she is with a kindred spirit (as does Halbrand), so her guard is not up until he starts getting close to Celebrimbor in Eregion. At that point, she has ‘healed’ enough to be able to see through the disguise.
 
Ilana Mushin said:
I had to go through therapy to come out the other end of my own PTSD-driven tunnel vision on my own life. It was a revelation for me to be able to recognise what I had become due to that obsession. So Galadriel’s actions and choices are very realistic from my perspective. For Galadriel, she starts recognising her issues from the ‘confession scene’ in Ep5 with Halbrand onwards but feel she is with a kindred spirit (as does Halbrand), so her guard is not up until he starts getting close to Celebrimbor in Eregion. At that point, she has ‘healed’ enough to be able to see through the disguise.
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This part was not fleshed out. Galadriel's "turn" to suspect Halbrand seemed sudden, random and unwarranted.
The passage Celebimbor stated about "flesh" was a citiation from Adar and had no attachement to Halbrand whatsoever in the series yet as far I do remember.
 
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Odola said:
This part was not fleshed out. Galadriel's "turn" to suspect Halbrand seemed sudden random and unwarranted.
The passage Celebimbor stated about "flesh" was a citiation from Adar and had no attachement to Halbrand whatsoever in the series yet as far I do remember.
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It wasn’t random - it came at the first opportunity she had to suspect him once her vision had cleared. He presumably wasn’t saying much when he was pretending to be mortally wounded. The last thing they said to each other before Mt Doom erupted was that they both felt some kind of connection/power fighting alongside each other. At that point I think Galadriel could have gone either way but was on the road upwards because she recognised how close she came to killing Adar without mercy and how little difference there was between what was in her heart at that point and what she thought was evil. The eruption of the mountain symbolically was the ‘touch of the darkness’ that finally helped her see the true light. The passage that Celebrmimbor quotes came originally from Sauron. It is something I think that Adar was recapitulating from what he had heard from Sauron when he was still serving him. It is what Sauron was trying to do in the far north. That’s when the penny drops for Galadriel (Also the ’key that unlocks the dam’ metaphor.
 
Ilana Mushin said:
. The passage that Celebrmimbor quotes came originally from Sauron. It is something I think that Adar was recapitulating from what he had heard from Sauron when he was still serving him. It is what Sauron was trying to do in the far north. That’s when the penny drops for Galadriel (Also the ’key that unlocks the dam’ metaphor.
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Agreed. That Adar nad Celebrimbor had this line form Sauron is very much possible. But how to connect this very line with Halbrand? I could understand had Galadrriel run off to check and vet all of Celebrimbor's people - but Halbrand she has just herself brough in and he never to our knowledge has stated anything of this kind.
 
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