"The Rings of Power" Vanity Fair article

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I don't think we can see Nori's ears, but aren't Hobbits the only ones we know had pointed ears? Tolkien Gateway says it's from Letter 27, and I think it's sometimes used to argue that elves did too (it's the "slightly pointed and 'elvish'" line).

Fair enough. I have to say that here I am a prisoner to my own "headcanon" based on my early readings and perception of the world where, as opposed to all other mainstream fantasy, Elves did not have pointed ears; and Hobbits' description in all the commonly accessible sources absolutely does not mention any difference besides the size, curly hair and hairy feet. This is, I guess, the case of super-thorough nitpicky research on something that is not particularly clearly stated versus generic overall impression, and I, unusually, went with the latter.

In any case, my point about pointy ears being the decisive factor in recognising an Elf stands: it should not be like that. You should recognise an Elf by starlight in their eyes or whatever. But that said, granted, I understand that in the cinema, the former is the easiest way of doing it, also for the bulk audience who already are used to pointy-ears being the distinctive feature of the Elves.

(But I still think that is wrong simply because if having some clearly "nonhuman" body part was the difference between the races, then exactly the case of all Túrins etc being mistaken for Elves would be pretty different. If your world is inhabited by "normal" people and then people with an extra limb, third eye or pointy ears, you are going to focus on that characteristic and it would be the foremost in your mind at all times. Also then raises the question if it were so, why was it never described when anyone from Bilbo to Éomer first saw the Elves etc.)

Originally Posted by Hui

As for #2: if Halbrand is Numenorean, then for a thousand years or more Numenorean society has been turning hard against the elves. I don't think Galadriel would be overly trusting of a people who are claiming most of Middle-earth as their own personal slave-taking playground, and literally had a king who called himself "Lord of the West".

But that would be the explanation for her suspicion of him, yet the trailer shot (anyway, it is just a trailer shot) is framed the way that he is the one who is surprised what sort of alien impostor (or perhaps what sort of species he thought has been extinct) this might be.

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

I cannot fathom why anybody, even out of their right mind, would don antlers in such a manner as is depicted outside of a religious ceremony. You would get blown over by every gust of wind. Perhaps that is the point and these people periodically travel by wind power..?

I am too stupefied, but well, I guess we have to wait to see more about them. We don't even know who exactly they are. Maybe they are just hunters returning from killing the Antlered-Spawn of Glaurung.

Originally Posted by Boromir88

There's not an over-reliance on CGI:

Certainly a good thing; even though in this era, after two decades of amazement by the possibilities of CGI (effectively started by PJ's LotR, no less), there is nowadays a bit of a revival of "good ol' school puppets and real stuff" (cf. recent Star Wars). It does not make it necessarily "better", it simply is "the new mainstream" to have a bit of "real stuff" in your film.

Originally Posted by Boro

But it appears young Elrond's storyline is going to be focused on a friendship with Durin IV, which Payne says Elrond is trying to "repair their friendship." Still not quite what I think when I hear "Elrond," but maybe not as bad as when I first heard him described as a "politician."

Well, let us anyway remember that these characters have certain development before them (HOPEFULLY!).

I mean, if in the first episode we are going to see Elrond being like, say, "I am illiterate and I hate books", I can already see fans screaming that this is not Elrond, but then the series is going to show how he meets Celebrían and she shows him a book and he is like "meh, no way!" and then he starts reading it and becomes enthralled, and then becomes an expert on Moon-letters, then I say, this is the proper way to do it. Same goes for being a wily politician or anything else.

Originally Posted by mhagain

Apologies for dragging up Hobbits again, but Tolkien did describe them as clearly having a prehistory before they became known, having already divided into the three subtypes. As for where they are located in this time period - the objections are making assumptions that stretch credibility. Why can they not be living around the Sea of Rhun, for example?

I'm not saying it's a good thing that there are Hobbits in this, and I'd personally prefer if there weren't. What I am saying is that their presence doesn't actually contradict anything written, and it shouldn't take huge feats of mental agility to see that.

Basically this. It may be good, may be bad, but it is within artistic license and it is a plausibility that the proto-Hobbits lived anywhere outside Eriador. Or heck, if you really really stretched it, they could even have lived somewhere in Eriador in the beginning, then sometime in the middle of the Second Age be chased away for some reason (say, Númenorean raids), live somewhere in the East for some thousand years, and then move into Anduin Valleys.

Originally Posted by mhagain

On the other hand, Nori Brandyfoot is a terrible name, and really shows how little the creators understand the naming schemes Tolkien used. The correct approach would have been to pull something from an ancient language. Westron didn't exist yet (well it did, but only in the sense that Westron is Adunaic) and anyway if the Hobbits were further east they wouldn't have mixed with those Mannish cultures, but there are plenty of alternatives.

Indeed. I don't know how it was possible, when doing Tolkien, to overlook the central subject of language, as it seems to be the case at the moment. I mean, if the Harfoots either were named something like Déagol or at least something close to the upper-half of the Hobbit family trees, it would be okay. Nori is a Dwarf.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Despite all the devoted Tolkien fans out on the 'net who are horrified - purely on the basis of the difference from canon, and definitely nothing else that rhymes with dracism - by such things as a non-white elf and a non-white dwarf, you know what I haven't seen? Any complaints about Gil-Galad, who looks nothing like his canon self.

His sword was long, his lance was keen
His shining helm afar was seen
The countless stars of heaven's field
Were mirrored in his silver shield

Gil-Galad's colours are blue and silver; they're the colours on his emblem, and descriptions like "into darkness fell his star" imply that he actually wore star-silver. It's even in his name! But the series has put him in gold.

Literally what I said in my previous post. Gil-Galad should be the one in Galadriel's "Joan of Arc" armour.

Originally Posted by Hui

Personally, I hope they're being 'generous'/lenient enough to let the story run as it does in Tolkien's texts. Things like: Tar-Miriel should be forcibly married to Pharazon, and should attempt to climb Meneltarma at the last. Otherwise, you'd be doing the character a complete disservice. Some things (like how Finrod dies) can be worked around, but to do that with Miriel would mean writing her out entirely.

Literally this. If it is true that the Estate is granting some tidbits here and there on a case-by-case basis, then this would be the good piece that should be included. Besides, for instance the Meneltarma thing is such a stunning idea for cinema that I can literally see it in my mind. Of all things, that should be put on-screen. (And you could even shamelessly make it akin to PJ's Frodo&Sam upon Mount Doom-ending, intentionally referencing it, only instead of fire having water - and that would be all perfect as far as I am concerned.)

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Besides, for instance the Meneltarma thing is such a stunning idea for cinema that I can literally see it in my mind. Of all things, that should be put on-screen. (And you could even shamelessly make it akin to PJ's Frodo&Sam upon Mount Doom-ending, intentionally referencing it, only instead of fire having water - and that would be all perfect as far as I am concerned.)

...you're a monster.

---

Tar-Miriel clings to the rock of the Meneltarma, her finery all in tatters, the crown Pharazon forced on her washed away. Below her, the towers of Armenelos are falling; as we watch, the great dome of Sauron's temple cracks and falls to the waves.

Above her, the Holy Mountain towers, wreathed in stormclouds. It is so close now, but still impossibly far. There is no way she can reach it.

Unless...

We see movement, at first seeming to be merely the stirring of the clouds: a downward ripple, as if something is falling through them. It repeats. Lightning flashes. The clouds part - and the Eagles of the Lords of the West emerge.

They are vast and terrible and beautiful - barely even birds any more, their claws clasping lightning, their wings a shadow that blots out the sun. But we can see something in their eyes - not rage or hate, but a pity so deep it becomes something else.

They swoop down from the storm, towards the waters, their eyes fixed on Miriel. She struggles upright, raising her hands in appeal; we see her lips move, forming the prayer to Eru that should have been spoken in the mountaintop hallows. We are with the Eagles now, watching her come closer, until she is covered by their beating wings...

... and they pass over, flying out of the storm, and the wild waters consume Tar-Miriel, last Queen of Numenor.

---

Because sometimes, the Eagles don't come.

And you're a monster for putting it in my head.

hS

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

...you're a monster.

That is one of my best qualities.

Because sometimes, the Eagles don't come.

Yes, I did not want to state it so bluntly, but that is exactly what I was thinking.

And you wrote it so beautifully that now I do want to see it. If any of the Amazon team is reading this, I beg you...

[mhagain]

It occurs to me that the First Age stuff is easily solved. There's enough material in the LotR Appendices to form an outline that can be usable as a prologue, and then all that needs to be done is show some non-specific scenes of Elves and Men in combat. So we could very easily be shown, say, Finrod in combat (at one of the earlier battles), together with a voiceover that just says he died but without explaining how. Fingolfin and Fingon don't actually appear in the Appendices, not even by name. Turgon does but only as a fleeting reference. Of all the First Age Elven Kings, Finrod is the one with most information about him, and we're told he was King of Nargothrond, brother of Galadriel, and gave his life to save Beren (but nothing more specific).


There's also the matter of Gildor Inglorion, with Inglorion meaning "son of Inglor", and Inglor being an earlier name for Finrod from first edition times, but that's probably best kept away from.


For the Second Age, the biggest hole is, as I've said, the story of Celebrimbor. The material in LotR is so thin as to be virtually non-existent, and even if the show can supplement it with the Silmarillion it's barely better. They absolutely need Unfinished Tales for this, particularly if they need to present it in a matter that doesn't contradict Unfinished Tales. Doing a story of Celebrimbor without UT, but also without contradicting UT, would be absurd, and the only solution would be to put the whole matter of the Rings creation and theft by Sauron behind the scenes. Which would also be absurd for a show named "Rings of Power".


On that basis I refuse to believe that the show doesn't have this material, but I guess we'll see.


Everything else seems adequately covered. Númenor, on a quick glance through LotR and comparison with Akallabeth, is very well-covered, but it would, I agree, be a shame to lose the Miriel story. Galadriel is very thinly-covered again, but there's no real detail there anyway, which would free the show up to invent things. Lindon, more or less likewise. And so with pretty much everything else.


If I were to fan-theory about the timeline compression, something that might work might be placing Sauron's capture and imprisonment in Númenor directly after the Númenoreans rout Sauron from Eriador. In other words, a merging of Tar Minastir and Ar Pharazon. There's not a huge amount of info in the Tale of Years (or any other source, barring the Númenorean king list) for the gap between the two anyway, so that should be very doable.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Yes, one could cobble together a Second Age storyline from Appendices A and B. Especially since, as per the showrunner, the series only takes place in the last century or so of the Age: Isildur's lifetime, and the Fall of Numennor and the Last Alliance are covered laconically but decently..

But it should be kept in mind that such a storyline only could, hypothetically, be done. There was never any guarantee that it would be, because there was never any guarantee that the job would be entrusted to writers of any skill or sensitivity. And now it is apparent that they possess neither; they can no more comprehend what they have been given to work with than a tribe of cave men could comprehend a smartphone. Every single thing about the reveal reeks of cluelessness, and the replacement of Tolkien with schlock standard-issue Genre Fantasy.

Whether or not they get hair color or skin color or the basics of nomenclature right is just the surface of it, and really unimportant except as a symptom of the disease: total incapacity and incomprehension, Cardi B fans confronted by the Missa Solemnis, Orcs in Lothlorien.

Now, I don't think it's necessary that to count as a "true fan" one has to have read the Athrabeth or the Statute of Finwe and Miriel, or even the Silmarillion for that matter. But if we take The Lord of the Rings on its own terms, it is palpable on every page that they are in the same universe, that Frodo and Aragorn and all the rest live in the same reality that encompasses the high seriousness of the more recondite works.

The Athrabeth could not exist in this Amazon travesty. There is no room for a philosphical framework here, because the only framework there is is "how do we work this hackneyed plot device into the story?" The most expensive television production in history has less intellectual depth than a decent superhero flick: nothing but an assemblage of lazy cliches. The problem with General Galadriel in her silly plate armor is not wther it is "canon" or "faithful to the books," but rather, and far more egregiiously, that Warrior Wimmen are a tired old pop-culture trope by now (dear God, James Cameron made Terminator 2 and Aliens back in the eighties!), and Amazon Galadriel (ha!) is just a reflection of an impotence of creativity, an inability to conceive of a mighty woman in any terms other than the worn-out masculine framework of hitting things with sharp objects and climbing glaciers with really, really inadequate mountaineering equipment. Tolkien, a man born in Victoria's reign, could manage it, but not these contemporary Hollywood hacks.

I have to say, this has caused me to ameliorate somewhat my disdain for PJ's LR, simply by demonstrating that it could have been so, so much worse.

[Boromir88]

Not to give Lommy more cringes, but just thinking about Galadriel being a water-bender because, you know she has the "Ring of Water."

Clearly, Elrond being a politician would make sense to get Vilya, the "Ring of Air," to help with all the hot-air politicians have to spew.

I seem to vaguely recall that at some point Gil-galad had Narya, but ends up giving it to Cirdan. "The Ring of Fire" hmm..Gil-galad being engulfed in flames in his battle against Sauron, could have just been fire-bending gone wrong. Or maybe Cirdan figured out a good insurance scam when his ships catch fire - I mean he always has blaming the Noldor to fall back on.