Spoilers Rings of Power is back!

[Maxperson]

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'.

Yep. And if they had focused on a few stories, they wouldn't have had to mangle the timeline. Nor would they have had to mangle the stories in order to mash them all together.

 

[Stalker0]

An edited book of his notes and drafts. His thinking. His stories. Just because he didn't publish them doesn't make them less valid or not his vision.

Almost any author will tell you that a lot changes between drafts and especially in the final work. I mean look at early drafts of LOTR, there are key differences between those and the final work.

An author's vision changes as the art is crafted, and until the art is finalized and on display the vision is never complete. Tolkien dead leaving the work unfinished, and so his true vision for the work can never be known.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Departures from we do have, not fill-in-the-blanks stuff. Generally I like the original characters better than the ones that have been adapted.

The way they are doing it, pulling in bits of Tolkien from various places, including stuff from the novel text that never made it into the movie, means there is a lot more stuff in the show that Tolkien actually wrote than if they picked a single timeline entry and wrote it up into a story.

Tolkien, of course, was very bad at writing characters (how many of the Hobbit dwarves actually have a personality? Two at most), but a lot of the charm of his work stems from its amateurism, which gives it a lack of the contrivance found in most novels.

What this show doesn't have is Tolkien's love of languages, the sounds of words, poetry and puns. But frankly I think most of the potential TV audience would find that boring. Tolkien was eccentric in his tastes, and as a teacher, he was the one the students dreaded getting.

 

[Maxperson]

The way they are doing it, pulling in bits of Tolkien from various places, including stuff from the novel text that never made it into the movie, means there is a lot more stuff in the show that Tolkien actually wrote than if they picked a single timeline entry and wrote it up into a story.

That's the problem. By bastardizing Tolkien's characters and timeline, they are alienating a lot of people. If they had picked a single timeline entry for a story(Ar-Pharazon, Istari, Rings of Power, etc.), yes they would have had less real material, but so long as they were true to the characters and didn't contradict what was written, they could create the rest of the stuff just fine. We all know that there are a lot of blanks to fill in.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sorry, but no. Never published =/= never wrote.

He wrote a lot of bits of stories, a couple of which are fleshed out with actual characterisation, such as the account of the encounter between Gandalf and Thorin at Bree, which incorporated into The Hobbit movies (after a fashion). But you can't make a fragment into a 10 episode TV show. And actual story has a beginning, middle and end, it has characters, it has conversations. What you can do is repurpose those fragments to inspire parts of a show, which is what is being done.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's the problem. By bastardizing Tolkien's characters and timeline, they are alienating a lot of people. If they had picked a single timeline entry for a story(Ar-Pharazon, Istari, Rings of Power, etc.), yes they would have had less real material, but so long as they were true to the characters and didn't contradict what was written, they could create the rest of the stuff just fine. We all know that there are a lot of blanks to fill in.

I don't think that's true, since it would have a lot less actual Tolkien material in it. You would still be getting a lot of people whining, maybe a slightly different group of people. And the things you mention all take place over hundreds of years in any case, you would still have to compress the timeline to tell them. "Nothing further happened for a hundred years" does not make entertaining TV. The Foundation TV show is also struggling with the same issue. Harry Seldon, didn't you die hundreds of years ago?

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't think that's true, since it would have a lot less actual Tolkien material in it. You would still be getting a lot of people whining, maybe a slightly different group of people. And the things you mention all take place over hundreds of years in any case, you would still have to compress the timeline to tell them. "Nothing further happened for a hundred years" does not make entertaining TV. The Foundation TV show is also struggling with the same issue. Harry Seldon, didn't you die hundreds of years ago?

That show also has a lot of similar problems.

Woldbuilding made those works. TV shows require characters.

 

[TheSword]

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.

How does that make for a better story other than some dogmatic standard of purity that most people don’t care about. It’s a story inspired by Tolkien’s works filling in a gap in events.

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.

She isn’t a warlike Amazon she’s a driven leader who can fight with a sword and a bow and ride a horse. She is being heroic on par with the other heroic characters in the series. You seem to want her to be passive. Just as people were angry that Arwen was active. Don’t understand why. But it goes back to this idea of dogmatic purity.

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.

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?

Do you realise how silly it sounds saying something like Numenoreans aren’t superstitious. Or that the king of the elves couldn’t tell someone they’ve done enough damage and it’s time to go. You may not like the idea but they are entirely plausible and well within the writers purview.

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).

I’ve made previous comments about critics not being able to drive cars. See my comment to Sepulchrave.

 

[Maxperson]

How does that make for a better story other than some dogmatic standard of purity that most people don’t care about. It’s a story inspired by Tolkien’s works filling in a gap in events.

Even if it wasn't better, it also wouldn't be worse all those who don't know Middle Earth well. And the fact that they are using Aldarion the Mariner and his father Tar-Meneldur instead of people not born for 1500 years would make it far better for those who do know it well and care about that history. It's a net gain.

She isn’t a warlike Amazon she’s a driven leader who can fight with a sword and a bow and ride a horse. She is being heroic on par with the other heroic characters in the series. You seem to want her to be passive. Just as people were angry that Arwen was active. Don’t understand why. But it goes back to this idea of dogmatic purity.

So she isn't Galadriel who was never those things. I don't want her to be passive. I want her to be active as the wise and beautiful elven woman of magical power that she was.

Do you realise how silly it sounds saying something like Numenoreans aren’t superstitious.

Perhaps you should read about the Numenoreans.

Or that the king of the elves couldn’t tell someone they’ve done enough damage and it’s time to go.

First, she is far older, more powerful and more respected than her great(great great?) grand nephew. He would never have tried, and she was extremely prideful and wouldn't have listened even if he were foolish enough to have tried. She wouldn't have jumped off the boat in the middle of the ocean. She would have just said no and walked away while she was in his presence.

Second, the Valar refused to allow her to return to Aman. When they did she basically laughed in their faces and told them that she didn't want to go back anyway. Not only does some elven king not have the authority to overrule the Valar and return her to Aman, but if she laughed in the faces of the Valar, she's not going to listen to someone several thousand years her junior.

Third, Galadriel was the most powerful elf alive at that point. There's no way Gil-Galad would be stupid enough to 1) want to send her back, 2) try to send her back.

Fourth, the "damage" she did never happened. It's just another example of the horrible writing of season 1.

I’ve made previous comments about critics not being able to drive cars. See my comment to Sepulchrave.

I'm not going to go back and try to locate which post that was in. Nor do I understand it. Critics can drive cars. In no case will any comment you have made turn the horrible writing of season 1 into something better.

I'm just thankful they upped their game for season 2.

 

[TheSword]

Even if it wasn't better, it also wouldn't be worse all those who don't know Middle Earth well. And the fact that they are using Aldarion the Mariner and his father Tar-Meneldur instead of people not born for 1500 years would make it far better for those who do know it well and care about that history. It's a net gain.

So she isn't Galadriel who was never those things. I don't want her to be passive. I want her to be active as the wise and beautiful elven woman of magical power that she was.

Perhaps you should read about the Numenoreans.

First, she is far older, more powerful and more respected than her great(great great?) grand nephew. He would never have tried, and she was extremely prideful and wouldn't have listened even if he were foolish enough to have tried. She wouldn't have jumped off the boat in the middle of the ocean. She would have just said no and walked away while she was in his presence.

Second, the Valar refused to allow her to return to Aman. When they did she basically laughed in their faces and told them that she didn't want to go back anyway. Not only does some elven king not have the authority to overrule the Valar and return her to Aman, but if she laughed in the faces of the Valar, she's not going to listen to someone several thousand years her junior.

Third, Galadriel was the most powerful elf alive at that point. There's no way Gil-Galad would be stupid enough to 1) want to send her back, 2) try to send her back.

Fourth, the "damage" she did never happened. It's just another example of the horrible writing of season 1.

I'm not going to go back and try to locate which post that was in. Nor do I understand it. Critics can drive cars. In no case will any comment you have made turn the horrible writing of season 1 into something better.

I'm just thankful they upped their game for season 2.

A critic knows the destination but can’t drive the car. I’ll take seriously adjectives like ‘junk’ or ‘steaming pile of garbage’ from folks with some demonstrable capability in the area of screenwriting, producing or directing TV or film.

I’m aware of Galadriels ‘Power’. You’re completely missing the point that just because Galadriel is more powerful (whatever that means in real terms) does not mean she would excise that power to force her own way. This isn’t Dragonball Z and Galadriel is a good person. It is possible for someone to be respectful of an inferior - particularly if that inferior is in a position of authority. Galadriel did her thing for several decades in the series, elves died in the process and at the conclusion of that, several influential and respected people strongly suggested she return to valinor. A decision she ultimately rejected of her own choice. She wasn’t made to do anything. Seeing how Galadriel does sail into the west eventually - clearly the injunction isn’t as clear as you are making it out to be.

As for the Numenoreans, the show is clearly depicting the decline of that civilization. A decline and cynicism typified by Ar Pharazon. The Numenoreans are described at one point as only following custom out of fear of the valar… a giant eagle landed on the windowsill and a sea beast chose the rightful queen. This seems to fit the bill very neatly.

What a lot of these points amounts to is folks talking the least charitable viewpoint and determinedly turning away from alternative explanations. As I said check out the dozens of inconsistencies with Tolkien’s published stories let alone his notes. There are plausible explanations and work arounds but you’re never going to reach those if you’re searching for things to be pissed off about.