Spoilers Rings of Power is back!

[Micah Sweet]

That's flat out wrong. When I say that the writing in season 1 was garbage, it has nothing to do with the butchering of Middle Earth. Those are two separate issues. I'm talking about writing that Galadriel jumps off into the ocean hundreds of miles from land and expects to be able to swim to shore. I'm talking about writing a scene where a volcanic pyroclast like destroyed Pompei rolls over Galadriel and the humans and they almost all just shrug it off like it was nothing. All of them with the exceptions of Galadriel and Sauron should have been killed. I'm talking about writing in a few Numenorean ships that somehow have room for an entire army with horses and supplies for the army plus horses. Ships of Holding I guess.

There were dozens of examples of horrible writing like that.

These are my big issues as well. The world as depicted makes no sense in dozens of ways. And people let them get away with it; I'm not sure why exactly, maybe Rule of Cool is all that matters to them, or maybe they just want fantasy TV and will compromise on logic and verisimilitude (consistency, not realism) to get it. In any case, I will always see this as a legitimate complaint.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And do you hold Raiders of the Lost Ark to the same standards of realism or geographical accuracy? It's a fantasy adventure, not a documentary (not that they are any more realistic in the Netflix age).

NB, that wasn't a pyroclastic flow, it was ashfall. And, whist many people in Pompeii (and particularly Herculaneum) were killed in pyroclastic flows, the famous preserved bodies where asphyxiated then buried in ashfall, which lasted several days and was unpleasant, not instantly fatal. You should read Pliny the Younger's account. He would know, he was there.

It had volcanic lightning in it. That was not just ashfall.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have no problem with the swimming. If a 60 year old woman can swim a 100 miles in one go I have no problem with a powerful elf doing several times that.

Yeah I get the shot of the fiery ash flowing over Galadriel was indulgent. But it was one shot in the episode. It’s a cinematic indulgence where the laws of physics and the rule of cool intersect. My understanding was that most of the villagers don’t survive. Just the remenents.

I dont think they needed to let the pyroclastic flow engulf everyone it could have just been regular clouds of ash from the eruption falling on them but I guess they wanted the image. It’s just a visual representation.

Then again I think of all the times D&D encounters take part near lava yet players don’t get instantly broiled when they fly or jump over it. Did you have the same complaints when Frodo steps onto the promontory overlooking the caldera of Mount Doom despite those air temperature likely to be many hundreds of degrees centigrade? Tolkein did sometimes follow the rule of cool too.

The writers of this series use the Rule of Cool almost exclusively. It's a matter of degree.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You forgot boring. Really really boring.

Fun can wash away many flaws.

Too many for my tastes. Part of a good story is having a consistent world where things make sense within its rules. It builds investment in what actually happens to the characters.

 

[Micah Sweet]

These are certainly some of the more egregious challenges to any sense of verisimilitude which I think any good show requires. Instead, we are left with a show which quite obviously disregards physics in order to provide spectacle - at which it also fails. Contrivances drive the story forward, without any sense of consequence (physical, emotional, psychological) from prior states which have been demonstrated on screen - this even extends to dialogue, where characters frequently just talk past each other, without any sense of conversation, rifiing off of one word in a previous line of dialogue in order to create a false sense of logical exchange.

And I think this is the nub of it. It is the sheer density of these logical inconsistencies - stacked each upon the last - which sets RoP apart from anything I've ever before seen. The result is an edifice which lacks any kind of logical coherence.

Bumping into Sauron, and then Elendil while going for a swim across the Atlantic ocean - I mean, surely there are better ways to contrive these encounters?

Another good example from S1 is the Macguffin which turns the key which opens the gate which causes the water to rush down the channels which empties into the magma chamber which causes the volcano to explode. I mean...why? The answer, of course, is the spectacle of an exploding volcano - a momentary dopamine hit which disregards logic, physics, causality. Who and how and why this giant geological pinball machine exists is not addressed.

That, and the obsession with retconning aetiological stories, and the origins of motifs - "This is how Mordor came to be; this is why Gandalf said this to Merry; this is where mithril comes from'" etc.etc. etc.

Why build a tower wrapped in chains? So you can blow it up and it looks cool.

In the latest episode, the orcs use catapults to destroy a mountain so that it blocks a river so they can walk across its now-dry riverbed. Where did the water go? Don't know, but it's cool, right?

"Prepare for ground assault!"

Didn't see any AT-ATs, though.

They really do seem to start with something visually exciting as a concept, and then make sure the story leads to that image, seemingly above all other priorities in many cases.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That wasn't what I was talking about. She could have whispered that Sauron was was manipulating Adar or given other quick warning during the kiss scene. Keeping silent in that moment when she could have gotten information to him unknown was unwise.

That is what I was talking about. Elrond would have figured out Sauron was manipulating Adar before Galadriel did, and it had exactly zero effect on his actions. Useless information is useless.

 

[Micah Sweet]

When I don't like a series, I stop watching it. No entertainment is better than bad entertainment. I don't understand why people waste their precious time on things they know will invariably displease them.

There are many things about the show I do like. The music is superb. Most of the acting is excellent. The Dwarf plot line is for the most part quite well done to my mind. The plot and the setting, however, are inconsistent and too focused on exciting visuals and surprises, with an unfortunate side dish of always trying to be clever rather than effective.

IMO, the setting and the plot often make no sense, and it's hard to be invested in a story if that's the case.

 

[Dausuul]

If this is the Iron Crown that held the Silmarils, it would have been used by the Valar to fashion a collar to chain and humble Morgoth after the War of Wrath. So I do not understand how it ended up in the hands of the Orcs. Was the crown "lost" during the War of Wrath? Then where are the 2 Silmarils it still held? Did the Valar retrieve the Silmarils and then just throw the crown away? However you tirn it, it doesn't make sense.

The two remaining Silmarils were removed from the Iron Crown after the War of Wrath. The Valar intended to take them back to Valinor, but Feanor's two surviving sons, Maedhros and Maglor -- bound by their oath to reclaim the Silmarils no matter who held them -- killed the guards and seized the stones. The Valar refused to shed any more blood and let Maedhros and Maglor leave with the Silmarils.

However, the Silmarils burned the brothers until Maedhros leaped into a fiery chasm with his (presaging Gollum's fate), and Maglor cast his into the sea.

The fate of the Crown after being used as a collar for Morgoth remains unknown. The obvious answer is that it went into the Void with him; but that is never stated outright, and it could be that physical objects can't be removed from Arda. If so, the Valar would have had to dispose of it somehow afterward -- they certainly would not want it in Aman -- and it's conceivable Sauron might have recovered it and reforged it into a crown again.

I'm not real sold on this explanation, but it is at least possible. Still, the Crown was never indicated to possess any extraordinary power -- it wasn't Morgoth's equivalent of the One Ring or anything (per Tolkien, all of Arda was effectively Morgoth's Ring).

 

[Zaukrie]

I wouldn't protest. If every scene of squabbling Numenorians this season had been replaced with wholesome harfoots, it would have been the richer for it.

Agreed

 

[Micah Sweet]

The two remaining Silmarils were removed from the Iron Crown after the War of Wrath. The Valar intended to take them back to Valinor, but Feanor's two surviving sons, Maedhros and Maglor -- bound by their oath to reclaim the Silmarils no matter who held them -- killed the guards and seized the stones. The Valar refused to shed any more blood and let Maedhros and Maglor leave with the Silmarils.

However, the Silmarils burned the brothers until Maedhros leaped into a fiery chasm with his (presaging Gollum's fate), and Maglor cast his into the sea.

The fate of the Crown after being used as a collar for Morgoth remains unknown. The obvious answer is that it went into the Void with him; but that is never stated outright, and it could be that physical objects can't be removed from Arda. If so, the Valar would have had to dispose of it somehow afterward -- they certainly would not want it in Aman -- and it's conceivable Sauron might have recovered it and reforged it into a crown again.

I'm not real sold on this explanation, but it is at least possible. Still, the Crown was never indicated to possess any extraordinary power -- it wasn't Morgoth's equivalent of the One Ring or anything (per Tolkien, all of Arda was effectively Morgoth's Ring).

I've always loved the explanation of Arda Marred as Morgoth's Ring!