Spoilers Rings of Power is back!

[TheSword]

It's unfortunate that you feel the need to construe my comments as hyperbolic; they really aren't. They're quite heartfelt and authentic.

All our words speak for themselves.

 

[Parmandur]

I’m more than happy to assume that while a lot of Tolkien’s notes and scribbling make for fun myths they make for lousy stories and of course some artistic license has to be taken as it does with every story and as it had to with the film adaptions.

A lot of them are great stories...but theybwere notnwritten for film treatment.

 

[TheSword]

For anyone interested in seeing some of the inconsistencies in Tolkien’s own works. Nobody’s perfect.

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Possible_inconsistencies_in_the_legendarium

The writer has generously added potential work arounds in a benefit of the doubt kinda way. If only folks approached the lore of the series in the same way and tried to find ways it could work instead of ways it could fail.

 

[TheSword]

A lot of them are great stories...but theybwere notnwritten for film treatment.

lots are yes. I’m a big fan. Not all are by a long shot. A many are just ideas or concepts and some of the longer pieces can be pretty dull to be honest.

I don’t begrudge him a few duffers considering the excellence of the rest of it.

 

[Hriston]

I might be misremembering, but I think that the series does not have the rights to the Silmarillion or other posthumous books. They can use only the appendices in LotR, IIRC.

And quite a bit of the body as well, apparently.

 

[MarkB]

I'm very much not a fan of the idea that the fate of the Elves is somehow linked to mithral, or the presence of the Istari in Middle-Earth in the Second Age, or awakening the Balrog very early, or Barrow Wights when there shouldn't be any, or pretty much everything they've done with Tom Bombadill. Do any of those count?

All that being said, adaptions will make choices I don't like, and there are many things about the show I do like. Most of Numenor, how the Dwarves are portrayed, how Sauron is portrayed, the idea of Adar. The visuals are also very nice.

I think this is the crux of why the show struggles to maintain an audience. They're just doing so much that there's hardly anyone who likes all of what they're showing - whether it's the characters, the storylines or the lore.

If they'd just gone for less of a sweeping, all-inclusive approach and concentrated upon just one or two of the stories they're simultaneously telling, they could have told a more coherent narrative, and built an audience that tuned in for all of it rather than spending a portion of each episode waiting through for whatever, for them, is the next 'good bit'.

 

[Eric V]

It's unfortunate that you feel the need to construe my comments as hyperbolic; they really aren't. They're quite heartfelt and authentic.

Comments can be authentically heartfelt and hyperbolic at the same time. Unless you mean it's a literal steaming pile of garbage, you engaged in some serious hyperbole. Which is fine, no law against it; just shows the power of the emotion behind them, I suppose.

 

[Zardnaar]

Comments can be authentically heartfelt and hyperbolic at the same time. Unless you mean it's a literal steaming pile of garbage, you engaged in some serious hyperbole. Which is fine, no law against it; just shows the power of the emotion behind them, I suppose.

Yeah that was Willow. So so bad.

Mediocre gets dumped on hard I suppose.

 

[Maxperson]

So these can be split into three main categories.

1. Timing issues. With the mythology spread over tens of thousands of years this was always going to need to be altered to work for a coherent story. I hope you can see that. What difference does it make if an event happened a few thousand years later when nothing relevant happens in the intervening period? I cannot see any benefit that slavishly sticking to precise timelines gives to the quality of a story? It’s lorebearding for the sake of lorebearding.

They didn't need to condense anything. Leave Elendil and company out of it completely. Use contemporary Numenoreans. They had the names for the Numenorean kings of that time. Tell the story of the rings of power and finish the story in a season or two. Then do the story of Elendil and Ar-Pharazon another time. The coming of the Istari yet a different season.

There was no good reason for them to completely maul the timeline.

2. Character issues. You don’t like the stories they are telling because they don’t fit your image of those characters. That’s fine. But when we’re talking about characters living for thousands of years then is space for them to be more than just one thing. Tolkien’s notes and short stories are just that. Snapshots. They don’t attempt to fill a characters entire arc. The writers should be allowed to fill some gaps. Galadriel spending some time kicking ass in no way invalidates her later or earlier appearance. It’s highly remeniscint of the outrage when Arwen was given a more active role in the films. Nothing wrong with strong women.

Oh good God. I love how you make it about me not liking strong women.

We know what Galadriel was like when she was young, middle aged, and during the Lord of the Rings. It would be completely against her character to go warlike amazon.

3. Breaking the Rules. You say that Gil-Galad can’t order Galadriel to Valinor. Galadriel has to have clear magical powers. Numenoreans can’t be superstitious. Elves don’t need rings of power. Elves don’t need Mithral. The fact is these ‘rules’ are extrapolations and assumptions based again on notes, short stories or outlines that you and others have made. They’re not actual rules of the world in a logical sense. You have no idea the influence Gil-Galad could exert over Galadriel in those specific circumstances because you don’t have access to everything that has occurred in their relationship. Even where there are logical rules a big part of fiction is about the exceptions.

Galadriel does have.. Numenoreans weren't... Gil-Galad couldn't... This is how the Middle Earth is. There are no extrapolations there. We have enough stories written by Tolkien to know these things.

My biggest issue with your list though is that none of those things would make the story better. Not of those things would add greater drama, tension, narrative or satisfaction. What benefit to the story does having the rings being forged over 100 years? Or having Elendil looking decrepit? The items are useless factoids that add no value in and of themselves but are elevated to the level of dogma. As if every word Tolkein put to paper came straight from the lips of God and as if Tolkein never changed his mind.

In your opinion it wouldn't make the story better. In my opinion the story would be different and at LEAST as good, probably better. And who said anything about Elendil being decrepit?

That said if you want to focus on the fact that your 13 points aren’t shoehorned into the plot then you’re only hurting yourself. Sometimes people have to give themselves permission to enjoy something for what it is.

Season one was junk for what it was. Horrible, horrible writing. Even if I take it as some sort of fantasy story and not Lord of the Rings, which I did with the Lord of the Rings movies and loved them because I did it, season 1 was still almost entirely junk. The dwarves were done very well.

Season two is much better than season one. The writing I will disagree with @Sepulchrave II and say that it's average. Not great(aside from a few pieces) and not horrible(aside from a few pieces).

 

[Maxperson]

All our words speak for themselves.

I didn't take his words to be hyperbolic at all. A bit strong in some areas and I disagree with him a bit, but it wasn't hyperbolic.