Rings of Power -- all opinions and spoilers welcome thread.

[Maxperson]

@Maxperson, I hope you won't mind me answering here.



I agree with the order of magnitude, but I'd be hard pressed to say when the show is occuring. We'd need to count time from the end of the series instead of going by past events. Episode 8 is the forging of the rings (1600 SA) and Galadriel is born in 1362 during the time of the Trees. That's 148 years of the Trees (~ 1,500 solar years), the remainder of the First Age (590 years). Shouldn't she be a little closer to 3,800?

The rings were forged over around a century of time I think, from about 1500-1600. The show takes liberties with time and clearly has made the elven rings first, when they were last, so I'd think it's still around that 1500 mark.

 

[MarkB]

Anyhow, the 3255 timemark seems right to be the coincidence of calendars between Tolkien and Amazon's Second Ages. That makes Galadriel around 5,500 years old. Sure, she'll age 3,000 more years into the Third Age, maybe changing her character (though I don't buy it as she is already wise in the Second Age) but... it makes very difficult for the writers to implement significant character change over the very short time of the series. If we're to follow Theo to the end of season 5 (I have this hunch), it will be a very short time to mature for Galadriel between millenial stasis of her character.

Why does Galadriel's (or any elf's) character have to be in stasis? Why does living a long time mean eventually settling into just one persona and staying there? Maybe the secret to enjoying a long life and not getting lost in sheer ennui before your first millennium is mental flexibility.

Galadriel suffered a personal tragedy just prior to the start of the series, which is reason enough for her to lose her accustomed serenity, but even beyond that I see no reason why she (or any elf) should be assumed to have achieved some form of eternal Zen over her first few centuries that will never change through the next several millennia.

Even Elrond gets some character growth over the course of the LotR trilogy. Why assume that Galadriel is incapable of change?

 

[SakanaSensei]

As someone who appreciates what Tolkien did for the world (essentially creating the mainstream version of my favorite genre) but has never been too hung up on things like timelines, I've loved the show up to this point. It's beautiful, the relationships between certain sets of characters were great (the harfoots, the Elrond/Durin bromance, Durin and Dusa), and I liked the bits of exploration we've seen on the advent of Mordor, particularly everything surrounding Adar.

I'll be back for season 2, for sure.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Why does Galadriel's (or any elf's) character have to be in stasis? Why does living a long time mean eventually settling into just one persona and staying there? Maybe the secret to enjoying a long life and not getting lost in sheer ennui before your first millennium is mental flexibility.

Galadriel suffered a personal tragedy just prior to the start of the series,

That's depending on the chronology used. In the show, we see that she's very affected by her brother's death (why not, as elves aren't incapable of feelings) and she spent time after that looking for Sauron... for a undetermined time, but it seems long (she's chastized by Gil-Galad for not dropping it after everyone else has dropped it). In Tolkien's chronology, Finrod dies in 465 FA, so he's been dead for 1600 years (if we're mid-SA) or 3300 years (if we're toward the end of SA). Sure, I know that it's very sad and it takes time to overcome grief. However it sounds... a bit long if we take into account the timespan and her already wise character. One wise enough to... not take part immediately in the War of Wrath after Finrod's death, when a "breakdown" would be the most expected.

The grief and rage (she's wishing to keep Adar alive so he can see each and every of his children being killed before him, that's... capital E evil hatred) would be very fitting for a human character who lost her brother in a war and spent 10 years non-stop chasing the person responsible. It would be more credible to me and I'd buy it readily. Or Geraldiniel, Arondir's cousin, placed in the same predicament, if an elf is needed for the cool action scenes.


Edit: looking for Finrod's date of death online, I noticed that he was allowed to be reborn in Valinor soon after his death and got reunited with his girlfriend who didn't follow him in Middle Earth. This piece of information makes Galadriel's decision NOT to go west as bidded by the High King a very tragic decision, since she unknowingly refuses to go to the Undying Land out of fear that she'd lose the grief that is her drive... and it is true that she'd lose it, since she'd be reunited with her brother and she'd have an early happy ending.

 

[Parmandur]

You're right. if we count considering that Isildur need to be alive at the end of the Second Age and I think they can't deviate from that, everything must be happening within a (Numenorean) lifetime of 3441 SA. The time condensing also seem to occur, with Isildur, which was suppoed to be an adult by the time of Tar-Palantir's death while he seems to be still a young adult in the show.

Anyhow, the 3255 timemark seems right to be the coincidence of calendars between Tolkien and Amazon's Second Ages. That makes Galadriel around 5,500 years old. Sure, she'll age 3,000 more years into the Third Age, maybe changing her character (though I don't buy it as she is already wise in the Second Age) but... it makes very difficult for the writers to implement significant character change over the very short time of the series. If we're to follow Theo to the end of season 5 (I have this hunch), it will be a very short time to mature for Galadriel between millenial stasis of her character.

5 Season ≠ 5 years. See what House of the Drafon is doing right now, people understand time jumps, amd while I expect they will keep the calendar vague and unspecified, the events from King Tar-Palantir's death to the War of the Last Alliance covers many, many decades, and a time jumpnjere or there seems likely.

 

[MarkB]

That's depending on the chronology used. In the show, we see that she's very affected by her brother's death (why not, as elves aren't incapable of feelings) and she spent time after that looking for Sauron... for a undetermined time, but it seems long (she's chastized by Gil-Galad for not dropping it after everyone else has dropped it). In Tolkien's chronology, Finrod dies in 465 FA, so he's been dead for 1600 years (if we're mid-SA) or 3300 years (if we're toward the end of SA). Sure, I know that it's very sad and it takes time to overcome grief. However it sounds... a bit long if we take into account the timespan and her already wise character. One wise enough to... not take part immediately in the War of Wrath after Finrod's death.

I think we have to chalk that up to more of that timeline compression. In this continuity, I don't think it's been more than a few months since Galadriel lost her brother.

The grief and rage (she's wishing to keep Adar alive so he can see each and every of his children being killed before him, that's... capital E evil hatred) would be very fitting for a human character who lost her brother in a war and spent 10 years non-stop chasing the person responsible. It would be more credible to me and I'd buy it readily. Or Geraldiniel, Arondir's cousin, placed in the same predicament.

I just don't see the point of making elves so unrelatable in a show. They're written and played by humans, for humans. Sure, give them some wisdom and otherworldliness, but ultimately they should still have drives and motives that we can relate to.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

5 Season ≠ 5 years. See what House of the Drafon is doing right now, people understand time jumps, amd while I expect they will keep the calendar vague and unspecified, the events from King Tar-Palantir's death to the War of the Last Alliance covers many, many decades, and a time jumpnjere or there seems likely.

Sure, I except some time jump, but if Theo is still around at the end of season 5 (and I expect him to be an adult by then), it will be less than 80 years, a very short time compared to what we discussed. I don't think Southerners are having non-human lifespans.

 

[Parmandur]

The rings were forged over around a century of time I think, from about 1500-1600. The show takes liberties with time and clearly has made the elven rings first, when they were last, so I'd think it's still around that 1500 mark.

I don't thinknthey will ever get too clear on the exact timeline, but it seems more likely that they have moved all the major plot events forward to the 34th century SA.

 

[Parmandur]

I think we have to chalk that up to more of that timeline compression. In this continuity, I don't think it's been more than a few months since Galadriel lost her brother.

No, I think she has clearly been at this for a looking time, and 3000+ years fits. She's just that lacking in chill.

 

[Maxperson]

No, I think she has clearly been at this for a looking time, and 3000+ years fits. She's just that lacking in chill.

If the year is 3400 SA and her brother died 485 FA it has been thousands of years since his death and she is not 3300 years old, but 5300.