Rings of Power is Perfect--Bezos is Better than CT!

[Oddwen]

This is the MOST MEDIA EVER and I hope they make a RINGSOFPOWERILLION dollars, but I do think they revealed the "Halbrand is Beruthiel" twist a little early, they could have made that last quite a few more episodes. But the sword fight as the raft broke apart while swirling down into the giant whirlpool was pretty epic. I'm glad that it was established that elves can hold their breaths indefinitely, that will preemptively answer a whole lot of questions going forward.

Gil-Galad's interpretive dance brought me to tears and I'm not surprised it made Elrond kill all those people, it was just that powerful. And it was a great origin for Elrond's catchphrase "Men? Men are weak." CHILLS, y'all!

Moria was really awesome, dwarves and balrogs living together in harmony. Gothmog seems to love his balloons doesn't he? Almost as much as Durin III loves to keep sharp pointy objects everywhere, ha ha ha! What innocent fun!




I'll post a few predictions here that were getting too silly...I mean, TOO ACCURATE AND REAL for the Movies thread - if there's a better thread for them I'll move them -



We will not see any incidents of shield surfing until after the Fall of Numenor. Not because of any law, but simply because of a series of coincidences and butterfly effects that prevent it just before it happens.


I kind of hope that The Stranger is Saruman, and he has an almost rebellious teenager-ish time with the Harfootsies, getting into all kinds of juvenile trouble, aided and abetted by his mind of metal and wheels until he's seen by someone like Radagast, who thinks he's uncool, and then totally overcompensates by turning his back on the wide world and focuses on whatever the Middle-Earth equivalent of stock trading and land development is. (Probably trading of literal kine-stock and literal land development) He may say some cutting and rude things to someone who is later revealed to be Smeagol's grandmother, who becomes a bitter, backstabbing person.



We'll see more comets. Radagast will land somewhere in the woods, his comet will bounce amusingly for some time, crack open just like an egg and he'll imprint on the first thing he sees, which will be a rabbit. Alatarcomet and Pallandocomet will knock into each other mid-flight and fly screaming off into the sunrise, never to be seen again.



Elrond will grow his hair out - probably due to being too busy for haircuts while helping Celebrimbor at the forges. The weird "elf lords only" snipe seems to be an early indicator of some sort of racial purity push that will happen as a result of Sauron somehow - Elrond will be forced into exile, a subplot will be him founding Imladris and he will disappear for a few episodes until he unexpectedly shows up at the Last Alliance with a bunch of wood elves and/or men who refused to fight for Isildur/Gil-Galad, just in time to stab an orc that was just about to skewer Gil-Galad from behind. It'll be one of those hackneyed scenes where this particular orc is gloating before going in for the kill like some sort of dumb-dumb, only to be cut short, its only purpose to shield Elrond's new hair and wardrobe change from view for a moment before its carcase falls. No explanations will be given or demanded by the characters and Gil-Galad and Elrond will share a knowing glance and maybe clasp hands or forearms, before continuing to fight.



I really really hope that at some point it turns into "The Celebrimbor and Narvi show" and they have all kinds of cool adventures, like when Celebrimbor almost invents shield surfing but is stopped by Narvi, who isn't quite as drunk and uses the shield to bash open the cellar door behind which they were trapped while sneaking off to get more ale. Celebrimbor steps up when Narvi gets into a pickle with some kind of mithril-and-ale fuelled animatron that he can't stop, Celebrimbor tosses the dwarf-mecha off the bridge of Khazad-Dum, where it doesn't stop but keeps slowly digging deeper....and deeper.....and deeper..........and deeper.....................................one might almost say "greedily".



Halbrand (Raftwurst) will turn out to be Elendil who was trying to go on some sort of journey to "find himself" - the Elendil currently gadding about Numenor is one white and nine black cats in a trenchcoat. Isildur suspects something but Anarion doesn't, and there is much amusement as Isildur lays increasingly complicated traps (all Acmë brand) to catch the cats, and somehow proves Anarion right every time. The real Elendil will come home to his family and favorite trench coat having learned the greatest lesson of them all - "If you never say hello, you won't have to say goodbye!"



And the person who finally shield surfs will of course be Tom Bombadil, in his only appearance.

[Boromir88]

I want to talk about this orc digging randomly underneath the citizens of Tirharad's floorboards. It appeared to be a lone orc so I imagine it was part of a convoy that just got lost. Where did all the orcs go, wondered Gil-galad? Well obviously, under people's floorboards. "That's not a sink hole, kid, it's an orc fortress."

I'm glad the orcs (well at least this one) had a gym membership to Mordor Fitness. I wonder if Sauron gave out free memberships in the beginning? Must have been too costly to keep it going in the Third Age? But this orc was jacked. It chucked a table across the room like a sack of feathers.

Orcs need more development than just cannon fodder to fill Dark Lords armies. I mean this isn't a game (*glares at Legolas and Gimli*). Or Hurin just cutting down countless of them like a hot knife through warm butter. I suppose Saruman's orcs took down the great warrior, Boromir, but they stood back and shot arrows at a man who forgot his shield. That doesn't count in my opinion. If they went at him fair and square he could have chopped through 100 of them seeing how easily Legolas and Gimli went through what 45? 46?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Let's talk about The Hotman, aka The Meteor Man. Though I am not sure how much of this should I post here in case some of it turns out to be true after all...

I have mentioned elsewhere, with 90% seriousness, that it would be great if he turned out to be The Balrog after all. It comes about like thus: one day, after having lived together with the Harfoots for years, he is finally trusted with preparing the cooking fire for the tribe and accidentally sets himself on fire. Ashamed of himself, he runs away from the tribe, hiding by burrowing deep under the roots of the mountains, thus setting a precedent for all future pariahs, but also giving the Harfoots an idea for a more permanent settlement. Centuries later, the legend of the Burning Man travels among all the Little Folk of Middle-Earth, reaching the ears of young Sméagol who sees a kindred soul and embarks on a search, only digging in the wrong part of the Misty Mountains.

ANOTHER option that, I swear, I seriously considered for perhaps five minutes, is that the Meteor Man turns out to be Tom Bombadil. There is not really much to contradict that possibility aside from a few sentences by Tom himself about how he's the oldest of all - likely a poetic metaphor or a self-aggrandizing exaggeration anyway (besides, could not really be true unless he were Eru himself, right?). Sticking close to Hobbits in the future, weird association with "wild" lifestyle, the fact that he speaks in annoying rhymes and songs that clearly stems from the fact that he learned speech from a bunch of silly crazy rabbit-like hunter-gatherers... Does this not make sense?

(Yeah... I am still not sure if this is entirely cut for this thread. It is not that far from being objectively plausible.)

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Oddwen

We will not see any incidents of shield surfing until after the Fall of Numenor. Not because of any law, but simply because of a series of coincidences and butterfly effects that prevent it just before it happens.

Shield-surfing? Bah, that's so 2002! We now have sword-stepping, which is so much flashier! Galadriel will probably level up at some time and unlock the perk for dagger-stepping, and later still... bowstring-stepping? Smokering-stepping? The possibilities!

Originally Posted by Oddwen

Elrond will grow his hair out - probably due to being too busy for haircuts while helping Celebrimbor at the forges. The weird "elf lords only" snipe seems to be an early indicator of some sort of racial purity push that will happen as a result of Sauron somehow - Elrond will be forced into exile, a subplot will be him founding Imladris and he will disappear for a few episodes until he unexpectedly shows up at the Last Alliance with a bunch of wood elves and/or men who refused to fight for Isildur/Gil-Galad, just in time to stab an orc that was just about to skewer Gil-Galad from behind. It'll be one of those hackneyed scenes where this particular orc is gloating before going in for the kill like some sort of dumb-dumb, only to be cut short, its only purpose to shield Elrond's new hair and wardrobe change from view for a moment before its carcase falls. No explanations will be given or demanded by the characters and Gil-Galad and Elrond will share a knowing glance and maybe clasp hands or forearms, before continuing to fight.

This is actually very likely to happen, except Elrond will now be Hugo Weaving (digitally de-aged by a few millennia) revealing that the other Elrond is actually an impostor android substituted for him by the Dwarves durin/g his last stay in Hazard-Doom for the purposes of some hidden agenda, like, I dunno... probably something to do with cheese.

Originally Posted by Boro

I want to talk about this orc digging randomly underneath the citizens of Tirharad's floorboards. It appeared to be a lone orc so I imagine it was part of a convoy that just got lost. Where did all the orcs go, wondered Gil-galad? Well obviously, under people's floorboards. "That's not a sink hole, kid, it's an orc fortress."

One of the big reveals in this show is going to be that it was never Sauron who corrupted the orcs - it was the Dwarves who bred them as slaves to dig and burrow through lesser matter than stone which they feel is beneath their dignity. Their evil plan is to turn all of Middle-earth into one huge Swiss cheese (see above), and future episodes will feature orcs coming out of the woodwork everywhere, mounted on giant cockroaches.

[Boromir88]

I can't wait for more Conanbrimbor! How is he not covered in burns everywhere? Except his hands, got to keep the nails nice. It doesn't matter. I don't care. More Conanbrimbor, please? All the shirtless dwarves in the forges (can't have a panzy elf showing them up!) is great telly.

[Oddwen]

Oh wow, episode 3 is an episode for the ages! I can't believe they killed Sauron already! He never stood a chance against the entire Harfoot clan! The way the converged with their cudgels and spears chanting "Nobody walks alone, NOBODY LEAVES ALIVE" was soooo creepy!



The scene where.....you know, THAT scene.........between Galadriel and Halbrandwurst......yeah I'm not sure I liked that. I suppose it was necessary to set up for the......OTHER scene but...yeesh. Leave SOMETHING to the imagination, will you?



The visual differences between Numenor and Oldmenor were really well done, kudos to whoever outsourced the CGI to overworked and underpaid non-union labor.


I hope Arondil doesn't snitch on the budding romance between the unnamed orc and entwife. That wooden't be very nice. He ought to branch out, start to be-leaf in something beautiful, even if a happy ending in these times is just mapleleaf. Let them have their time together, there will be time enough fir them to pine before they must em-bark upon the dark stream up which there is no re-rowan. Okay I'm logging off for now.

[Galadriel55]

I think you've all missed a big element in Episode 3. In a fantastic move which ties together all three Ages of Middle-earth and references multiple works from Tolkien's published and unpublished materials to Jackson's most iconic movie scenes, the tunnels in the episode clearly hint at the existence of WEREWORMS! We will likely get a glimpse of said creatures closer to the season finale. Stay tuned for Middle-earth's most iconic and canonical monsters!

[Boromir88]

Episode 4 "The Great Wave" - Fantastic episode. The spectators in Armenna's Coliseum started the longest wave recorded in history. A record that still holds true today.

Queen Regent Míriel’s faith is tested; Isildur finds himself at a crossroads; Elrond uncovers a secret; Arondir is given an ultimatum; Theo disobeys Bronwyn.

Isildur finds himself at a crossroads. No literally he's standing in the middle of a crossroad. That's his scene.

Elrond uncovers a secret, uncovering Gil-galad's covers, uncovering Gil-galad has bed bugs.

Bronwyn tells Theo to get rid of the sword. Theo says no.

[Oddwen]

Well I didn't expect Halbrand to be Ulmo, that's for dang sure. Though him meeting Galadriel on the sea and wanting to stay on an island that is soon due to be under the sea does make sense if you really, really, really think about it. No, harder.


Sadly, my hopes for the Celebrimbor & Narvi show are not to be. I am so sad I can't even joke about it.


I'll have to turn to the words of Show Galadriel to comfort me: "Why are you crying? WHY ARE YOU CRYING? Are you some kind of weak-willed yellow-bellied namby-pamby IDIOT? I'll give you something to cry about!"

Originally Posted by B88

The spectators in Armenna's Coliseum started the longest wave recorded in history.

This is where the show's timeline vs. the appendixes has diverted the most, as doing the wave wasn't invented until Boromir son of Denethor invented disco.