**Spoiler Warning** Rings of Power S1E1 - "A Shadow of the Past"

[Tar Elenion]

That was (raw) snails, not clams...

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Tar Elenion

That was (raw) snails, not clams...

Thanks - now snails.



That beach troll image is still clouding my thinking...do they where board shorts?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I may have to re-evaluate my low opinion of The Wheel of Time (as in, the worst fantasy TV show imaginable). Clearly I'm not imaginative enough.

[Michael Murry]

coup de grâce - French ku də ɡʀas - noun - a final blow or shot given to kill a wounded person or animal.

(1) Bêthberry: "...with a sword she slew the Witch King."

(2) William Cloud Hicklin: "... The Witch-King had apparently never even considered the possibility of facing a woman in battle."

Both of the statements above, correct as far as they go, overlook the positively critical role of Merry the Hobbit and the rather special sword gifted to him by Tom Bombadil when Tom rescued the Hobbits from the tombs of evil barrow wights early in The Fellowship of the Ring.

As regards Eowyn and her confrontation with the Witch-King at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields (as related by Professor Tolkien):

Out of the wreck rose the Black Rider, tall and threatening, towering above her. With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace. Her shield was shivered in many pieces, and her arm was broken; she stumbled to her knees. He bent over her like a cloud, and his eyes glittered; he raised his mace to kill.

But suddenly he too stumbled forward with a cry of bitter pain and his stroke went wide, driving into the ground. Merry's sword had stabbed him from behind, sheering through the black mantle and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew behind his mighty knee."

...

"So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dunedain were young and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will."

With Professor Tolkien's authoritative text in mind, then, a more complete rendering of introductory statement (1) above would say that Eowyn administered the coup de grâce to a fatally wounded Witch-King made vulnerable to ordinary swords by Merry's blade of Westernesse.

A more complete rendering of introductory statement (2) would say that the Witch-King had apparently never even considered dealing with a Hobbit in battle, either, especially one armed with the only blade that could fatally wound him and render him vulnerable to the ordinary swords of ordinary persons, human or Hobbit, "not-man" or otherwise.

[Formendacil]

So, I have seen Episode 1 and deliberately held off on Episode 2, so as to allow my thoughts to percolate. I made a running list of notes as I was watching, which I present lightly edited and even more lightly expanded. I warn that it's quite stream-of-thought.

• Musical cue = very movie. Did they get Howard Shore?

• Elven children throwing rocks = this does not feel right. The Fall of the Elves is at the end of Valinor; this is too much in its noon.

• Darkness of the Ocean should not bother the Elves--and "up" should mean Stars, not Lights.

• ears seem less pointed

• "they said it would be over quickly" = clearly a "home by Christmas WWI reference, but why? The War of the Jewels was not WWI sublimated, but Tolkien's ANSWER to WWI--his escape. Odd.

• Forodwaith is too tall: should not be uber-Rockies

• "Commander Galadriel" "other commanders"--too Latinate! Tolkien never uses the word, does he? Certainly not as an address.

• zero tension: if this is your Galadriel, she SHOULD not find anything** Okay, expanding here: I think what I meant is that since we KNOW that Sauron is out there, we, as the audience, should either be allowed to cut to the chase OR it needs to be more clear that Galadriel is really chasing after nothing--instead, we have plenty evidence in a single episode that she's right. So what was the point of this? There's no tension.

• Is reflection-Galadriel here to help make you think "wow, she really looks like Kate Blanchette?"

• "a trail for orks to follow--were they supposed to follow Finrod's shoulder?

• Troll: replaying Moria sequence? Or trying to show that Elves are so much cooler?

• WHY the giant antlers? A Thranduil-call sideways?

• I like the round door "etymology."

• Nori is actually linguistically appropriate, but still stupid.** My meaning was that Dwarves take outer names from the human peoples around them, and the Mannish tongues of Rhovannion in the 2nd Age are a not-implausible source for the names Dori, Nori, and Ori--it's just still stupid when the audience is going to think immediately of a Dwarf. How was that the point?

• Elrond is Bilbo/Frodo-writing?

• "Elf-Lords only" is too 21st century

• First impression: I LIKE young-Elrond but cannot picture him as the same being as Hugo Weaving.

• Graeco-Roman is far better for Elves than Celto-Nipponese

• Galadriel being junior in any way to Gil-galad distorts the family tree so much!

• Downfall of New Zealand: not enough flat! (Quoth the prairie lad)

• Why "Harfoot"? What was wrong with "holbytla"?

• Why is the ceremony in nature? This is the High King of the Noldor--"only the stones remembered them" in Eregion. These are the builders of Gondolin and Nargothrond! Why is this a proto-Lorien?

• I do like Gil-galad as a presence.

• Why is he talking about "granting" passage--the Exiles TOOK passage? But potentially complicated and interesting to explore the tension around accepting the Pardon of the Valar.

• Did not expect fireworks!

• He literally just walking in, Nerwen!

• How would Elrond know what Finrod would think? Because your great-grandfather was there at his death?

• It's weird, but the in-between dynamic of Gil-galad's man and Galadriel's friend does seem right.

• "No one in history has ever refused the call"--what are you talking about, Elrond? Though Galadriel's refusal is very true to character.

• Why the ears (other than Hugo, of course)? Can't you make more clear that he's half-man?

• Tired of the map already. A strength of the Jackson movies was living IN the geography and capturing the book's labourious movement through it. Not so here!

• Harad looks no further south than Lindon or Rhovanion--because all of them are New Zealand.

• Bree with funny hats.

• Why British accents in Harad? Okay, I know why: all fantasy beings speak British--so no American accents--and you must avoid Evil Stereotypes, so real world English-as-a-Second-Language accents are out, but I don't like it.

• Is that a Return of the King motif for Sauron? A twist I'd not expected, but he did portray himself as an heir of Morgoth, I suppose.

• This Harad-woman seems too much "modern woman." Do I think this because of visuals or because she seems to be straight of a Netflix romance?

• Should have said "leaf-mould" instead of "rotten leaves." Missed opportunity!

• Where is this Elven outpost? The High King is Noldor--who acknowledges him so far out? And the design is all Silvan!

• Does the cow have the Black Death?

• Are we going to get a Sauronic "shards of Narsil"--Narsil itself barely got the shards of Narsil!--Nevermind, it's a proto-Morgul blade.

• The standing on the ship has to be Elrond's stupid dream, right?

• Ugh, Gil-galad is not so good this scene... regretting my earlier approval. Why is he PRO-Celebrimbor?

• Well, at least Celebrimbor LOOKS like a mad scientist Elf.

• Are the good people in your bad village SUPPOSED to make me think of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah?

• That ship looks so CGI.

• Are they in a trance?

• What happens to the Elven-servants taking their armour off? Why the two tiers of shipmates?

• Is trip to Valinor actually an artistic depiction of ritual suicide?

• Okay, the ship climbing the straight road is cool imagery, even if the dumbly-standing Elves are still ridiculous.

• Is Sauron a meteor? Is this a dinosaur extinction metaphor?

• Flashback-Finrod has made me decide he cannot be Finrod. Looks, sounds, and talks nothing like my mental image. Could be Aegnor.

• This feels more 1st Age Doom of the Noldor but it'd make a cool setpiece in an Eärendil retelling

• Kind of a Stardust ending.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

• Tired of the map already. A strength of the Jackson movies was living IN the geography and capturing the book's labourious movement through it. Not so here!

• Why British accents in Harad? Okay, I know why: all fantasy beings speak British--so no American accents--and you must avoid Evil Stereotypes, so real world English-as-a-Second-Language accents are out, but I don't like it.

• Is trip to Valinor actually an artistic depiction of ritual suicide?

Have they shown us Mordor yet?

Apparently most of the actors are trying to disguise their Australian accents. I suppose a voice coach cost too much given the limited budget.

I thought it was a Rapture myself.

EDIT: Please note my question is rhetorical for Form's sake about the use of the maps, which foreshadows events. *rolls eyes* Thank you.

[Tar Elenion]

The the area where the southlanders dwell and the watch tower is in *Mordor (per maps leaked before the show). The map in the show labels southlands immediately east of *Mordor.