Lord of the Rings TV series gets multi-season order at Amazon

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Well, I think that for me the gestalt - good choice of words, thank you - is the problem. It isn't any one detail, but the pattern created by all the details. And that pattern goes beyond getting buttons or drinking vessels or skin color "wrong" - too often this sort of discussion turns on the kind of geekery we mock Trekkies for - but that they are all wrong in the same direction. They are all alterations in the direction of Generic Fantasy Tropes and Mass Market Appeal. So it isn't simply a question of "not getting it," of not having spent fifty years parsing the Appendices, Letters, the Simarillion index and HoME, but rather an evident willingness intentionally to warp everything in service to the great god whose name is Ratings. And, moreover, to take the Lazy-Hollywood rather than the Inspired-Hollywood path, that of dreary imitation and recycling.

But if you had to ask about one specific thing that tempted me to put an ashtray through the TV screen? The plate armor- not that Galadriel is wearing it (although that's part of the gestalt too) - but that anyone is wearing it.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

But if you had to ask about one specific thing that tempted me to put an ashtray through the TV screen? The plate armor- not that Galadriel is wearing it (although that's part of the gestalt too) - but that anyone is wearing it.

As someone with minimal knowledge of medieval warfare and weaponry, could I ask you to elaborate on why the armour galls you so much?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

As someone with minimal knowledge of medieval warfare and weaponry, could I ask you to elaborate on why the armour galls you so much?

Tolkien's world is clearly set in the age of mail- everyone wears it, including the most advanced smiths in the world, the Dwarves.

From this I would have to conclude that Middle-earth, just as it had not invented gunpowder, had not invented the metallurgy needed to produce iron ingots bigger than a bloomery yield- about 2 - 2.5 lbs (.8-1.2 kg). Enough for a sword or an axe-head, but not anything more. Note how early-medieval helmets like Sutton Hoo are made of multiple pieces riveted together?

Our ancestors didn't start to wear plate armor until the second half of the 14th century not because they were stupid, or that no-one though of it, but because it wasn't possible until they could produce iron ingots big enough to make breastplates et cetera out of. Even at the end of the Third Age, Middle-earth wasn't there yet.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

As someone with minimal knowledge of medieval warfare and weaponry, could I ask you to elaborate on why the armour galls you so much?

Chain mail is the only thing Tolkien ever mentioned directly. No plate ever. Never. The Dwarves were still manufacturing chain well into the 3rd Age (their specialty, such as Frodo's mithril corselet).

Since I don't feel like typing copious descriptive passages, our buddy Michael Martinez at middle-earth.xenite.org has a quite all-encompassing overview of Tolkien's armorial preferences:

https://middle-earth.xenite.org/how-...ndorian-armor/

The only thing Mr. Martinez neglects to mention is far earlier descriptions of armor v. chain by Tolkien in the story of Eöl the Dark Elf (although I'm quite sure he was not of African descent, but merely saturnine) and his invention of the meteoric metal galvorn:

...as hard as the steel of the Dwarves, but so malleable that he could make it thin and supple; and yet it remained resistant to all blades and darts. He named it galvorn, for it was black and shining like jet, and he was clad in it whenever he went abroad.

The description leaves room for conjecture.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

The only possible counter-evidence, or at least the one snippet which has been thus proffered, is the "polished vambrace" with which Imrahil discovers that Eowyn is still alive.

That said, there was a considerable period during the Age of Mail when men would augment a hauberk with bits of solid plate, usually at the elbows (couters) and knees (poleyns). And since the mail-wearing Rohirrim especially valued "coats of bright rings out of the Southlands" (meaning Gondor); since Pippin's Citadel Guard armor was mail, and Denethor wore mail under his robes, it appears that Gondor just as Rohan wore mail (in fact, if Gondor made plate, surely the Rohirrim would have been eager to import it; for that matter, if the smelting technology existed in Gondor the Rohirrim and the Dwarves would have swiftly adopted it).

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Worser and worser


Amazon’s Rings of Power Script & Audition Videos - See What They’re Doing to Tolkien!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlHYvpL4KwY

[Tar Elenion]

In addition to Imrahil's "bright-burnished vambrace that was upon his arm", there is this:
"'Alas! My axe is notched: the forty-second had an iron collar on his neck. How is it with you?'"
and:
"He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword."
So, scale armour (and a possibly a plate armour collar).
(Various mentions such as "metal wrought like fishes' mail and shining like water in the moon", "robed to the middle in mail like the scales of blue and silver fishes" also bring to mind scale armour).

There is also this from Fall of Gondolin:
"Now this great work was finished to their mind, and folk were the busier about the
quarrying of metals and the forging of all manner of swords and axes, spears and bills, and the fashioning of coats of mail, byrnies and hauberks, greaves and vambraces, helms and shields."
Greaves as well as vambraces.
Thus some indication of ancillary pieces of plate armour, as well as scale or lamellar armour.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

It strikes me that Amazon's marketing department (and its paid shills like theonering.net) have adopted a very interesting strategy: insult the fanbase and call them names. Innovative, certainly.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by G55

Anyone else wanna do the recognizability test?

Yeah, okay. Using this count of the trailer scenes, and assuming I saw the "Welcome to the Second Age" map way back when, but then nothing until my Fire TV said "Rings of Power trailer - watch?"

Voiceover: clearly a Hobbit. She's got Pippin's accent and a Tookish feel to her lines.

1. Numenor or Mithlond. After a little thought, the single mountain suggests Numenor (ie, Romenna).

2. Meeple, probably just common Men in M-e. The wooded valley could be Lorinand or Fangorn I guess.

3. A Hobbit, probably the one doing the Voiceover. Looks about right for a pre-Shire halfling.

4. Icy waterfall. Doesn't ring a bell.

5. Woman off a cliff. Stars suggest elf or Numenorean, of which I'm inclined to the latter (Numenorean women stayed at home). Looks blonde, so Galadriel-as-Nerwen?

6. Man on a raft. Shipwrecked Numenorean? Hard to see who else would be out on a breakable boat.

7. Pointy-eared archer showing off? Must be Silvan. Is it the lighting or is he darker than Legolas et al? (Though of course Leggy is at least half Sindar.)

8. Meteor shower over... Mirkwood, maybe?

8a. Posh elf somewhere elvish. The leaves suggest Lorien, but they could just be birch in autumn. He doesn't dress like a Lorien elf, so Lindon? Could be Elrond or Gil-Galad in that case.

9. Eowyn. No, probably not Eowyn. Proto-Rohirrim?

10. The blonde elf from before, in a cave, finding a troll thing (could be a Great Goblin). Given the appearance of several obvious original characters, she could be an unnamed elf warrior rather than Galadriel. Wait, is her armour the same as not-Eowyn? Could do with a better shot.

11. Pretty trees, clearly elvish but the cliff doesn't scream Lorien. Maybe Lindon again? (Or western Numenor before they kicked off.)

12. Dwarf. Maybe a Firebeard rather than Longbeard.

13. Elf. Is he in the dwarf mine? If so, Celebrimbor (hence the metal thing).

14. Singing woman, maybe also underground? Could she be one of the elusive dwarf women?

15. Blonde elf on a raft. Are these the blonde and raft from earlier? Swinging back to calling her Galadriel - she's got the right sort of intensity.

16. Naked man being pulled out of a fire. Sau...ron? It's hard to see how, but nothing else even remotely fits.

17. Dwarf smashes rock. Smash, dwarf, smash. Hey, if that was Celebrimbor maybe this is Durin.

18. Someone jumping. Could just about be showy Silvan elf from before. Is he chained up? Is he fighting Numenorean slavers? That'd be cool.

19. Is this part of the Last Alliance sequence from the movies? Maybe it's the fall of Eregion - could he be Celebrimbor from before? I'm not great with faces.

20. Tiny hand says Hobbit. Clearly this is a Gandalf-esque figure she's fallen in with - maybe one of the Meeple?

Title: The Rings of Power. So probably yes on Celebrimbor, Galadriel, Elrond/Gil-Galad, and Durin. Maybe yes on Sauron in a fireball (volcano mishap?). Didn't see any obvious Nazgul candidates or Cirdan.

~

So actually, yes: if you have an idea of the time frame, I think most of them are recognisable. The big fail is "Celebrimbor", because his distinctive feature is hanging out with dwarves, which doesn't scream Elrond. Lindon/Lorien is another possible issue, but for this trailer the goal was clearly to make you think "elvish", which for me succeeded.

And I don't think there's anyone else Lady Nerwen /could/ be. ^_~ Even if you expand the scope to the entire history of Arda, "blonde elf lady in armour" is Galadriel before she settled down.

hS