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

[Parmandur]

So you think that it's okay for her to go completely out of character and doom the entire world just because she didn't want to be embarrassed that she didn't catch onto him sooner?

That's not the mistake that the Noldor made in going after Morgoth in the first place. What she is doing doesn't mirror anything other than bad writing.

It's in character to jump out of the ship, rather than let go and pass into the West.

And yes, choosing to fight in defiance of destiny is the same mustake.

My bad. I thought you were talking about the One Ring as the One. Yes, Eru is mentioned and of course wouldn't come help after Morgoth was captured. Nor would he allow the Valar to do so.

Galadriel's tragic flaw here, whi h setting up a lot if wins for Sauron, is trusting her own strength instead if divine grace and providence.

She also had the choice to stay in character and say, "Hey guys! Remember that fellow that was helping you? That was Sauron. Surprise!!" Instead she keeps completely silent about it going against her character as established in the books AND the new completely different character in show.

If she came cleanly this point, they wouldn't make the rings...which would mean she would have to return to Valinor. She is hiding the truth so that she can keep her vendetta alive.

 

[Parmandur]

Literally nobody is arguing that it isn't on the same plane at this point in the show. Nothing in the books says that they could see Valinor, even with farsight(clairvoyance). What it says is that they could see the white tower in Erresea, which isn't Valinor. It's island off the coast of Valinor.

But part of the Undying Lands. it did not take magic to see it, it just over the horizon.

 

[Maxperson]

It's in character to jump out of the ship, rather than let go and pass into the West.

And yes, choosing to fight in defiance of destiny is the same mustake.

Would have been nice if she chose to fight in defiance of destiny instead of capitulating to Sauron without so much a post encounter whimper. Fighting in defiance of destiny is going to every elf who will listen to tell them that he was Sauron in disguise and she can prove it.

Galadriel's tragic flaw here, whi h setting up a lot if wins for Sauron, is trusting her own strength instead if divine grace and providence.

She doesn't do that, though. She loses and then lets him go off to destroy the world, rather than trusting her own strength(which she just found out in no uncertain terms wasn't enough).

If she came cleanly this point, they wouldn't make the rings...

Refusing to 1) believe what you are told and know to be true, and 2) think you're better than a Maia actually are Noldor flaws, especially in Celebrimbor who was a grandson of Feanor. It would have been FAR more Tolkien for her to actually be Galadriel and tell them, and then have Celebrimbor and the others refuse to listen and think their strength would keep the rings safe from Sauron.

She is hiding the truth so that she can keep her vendetta alive.

That's not what would happen if she told them.

 

[billd91]

It's in character to jump out of the ship, rather than let go and pass into the West.

I can't think of any other instance of Galadriel behaving in a blatantly suicidal manner to avoid going in to the West. So it doesn't seem particularly in character to me.

Galadriel's tragic flaw here, whi h setting up a lot if wins for Sauron, is trusting her own strength instead if divine grace and providence.

I don't think any message in Tolkien is to trust in divine grace and providence to deliver you from your problems. I think part of the expectation is that you do the best you can and if you receive grace, that can put you over the top, but if you actively pursue evil deeds, you're not likely to receive it at all (see Frodo vs Gollum). If everyone just sat around not exerting their own strength and waited for divine grace to deliver them, they'd have been under Sauron's thumb long ago.

She is hiding the truth so that she can keep her vendetta alive.

Which, ultimately, keeps bringing us back to one of my primary criticisms of the handling of Galadriel. Are we writing Galadriel? Or are we writing Fëanor? Because Galadriel knows the wages of obsessive vendetta pursuit. Or at least, she should if they were doing a better job of writing for her character.

 

[OB1]

I can't know why you felt what you felt. I will say that I don't think the writers do anything to earn those emotions. I've sat through two episodes now, and it just seems that, like so much film and TV these days, RoP has the structure of emotional 'story beats', and emphasises them with all the techniques of the medium (music, cinematography, acting, etc.), but the writing doesn't really make sense. I'm expected to project emotions onto these moments, because the show is telling me that they are Important and Emotional, but the writing doesn't give me any reason to believe or care.

Of course different people respond to things differently, and I agree with you that a lot of modern visual storytelling falls into the trap of using techniques to cover up flaws in the story, but where that is usually a problem is when their is no clarity of conflict.

For me, Galadriel's conflict in that scene was clearly communicated. She didn't want to leave middle earth because her work was not finished, but she had been commanded to leave. If she leaves, she'll never return. Therefore, if she wants to finish her work, she must stay in middle earth, and the only way to do that is to jump ship. That is a simple conflict, but a specific one, similar to Luke turning off his targeting computer or Bilbo deciding to leave the Ring in Bag's End.

The techniques used are all in service to how monumental the decision to leave was for her and ask us to empathize with her. She waits till the last possible moment, she sees others vanish into Valinor, she's surround by an ocean!

And for me, I was cheering when she jumped! Yes, don't listen to your king! Sauron IS coming and you have to help stop him! And look, providence is shown when she's rescued from the ocean! She MUST have made the right choice... Only at the end of the first season did I understand just how backward I had it. A fantastic reversal of the hero's certainty in the rightness of their actions.

 

[billd91]

For me, Galadriel's conflict in that scene was clearly communicated. She didn't want to leave middle earth because her work was not finished, but she had been commanded to leave. If she leaves, she'll never return. Therefore, if she wants to finish her work, she must stay in middle earth, and the only way to do that is to jump ship. That is a simple conflict, but a specific one, similar to Luke turning off his targeting computer or Bilbo deciding to leave the Ring in Bag's End.

See the part bolded above. I do have a problem with this very idea. Is there any hint, in either the Lord of the Rings or the Silmarillion, that any lord of the elves is commanding their people to leave Middle Earth and head into the West? There are examples of hosts taking up the invitation to go to Valinor, as well as hosts that choose to stay in Middle Earth. When the Noldor who returned to Middle Earth were pardoned, there were hosts who took up that pardon and left, and others who stayed behind.

People may follow their leaders, but there never seems to be a lack of choice in the matter. Gil-galad trying to boot his auntie out of Middle Earth because she's not being a team player doesn't work for me.

 

[OB1]

See the part bolded above. I do have a problem with this very idea. Is there any hint, in either the Lord of the Rings or the Silmarillion, that any lord of the elves is commanding their people to leave Middle Earth and head into the West? There are examples of hosts taking up the invitation to go to Valinor, as well as hosts that choose to stay in Middle Earth. When the Noldor who returned to Middle Earth were pardoned, there were hosts who took up that pardon and left, and others who stayed behind.

People may follow their leaders, but there never seems to be a lack of choice in the matter. Gil-galad trying to boot his auntie out of Middle Earth because she's not being a team player doesn't work for me.

Well, Elrond lies (by omission) to Arwen to get her to leave in the film version of LotR (no idea if this is similar to the book) by not telling her about the child, and she was pretty peeved about it. Seems a very similar story beat to me. Arwen starts to go at the behest of her father, wrestles with her choice to leave, then turns back. That Galadriel doesn't have a vision in that moment to help turn her around was probably one of the first clues that she wasn't making the right choice to head back. It's almost as if Sauron is the One Ring to her, something she can't give up no matter how much her obsession with him is corrupting her.

 

[Dausuul]

Well, Elrond lies (by omission) to Arwen to get her to leave in the film version of LotR (no idea if this is similar to the book) by not telling her about the child, and she was pretty peeved about it.

It was not in the book, nor was anything like it. Aragorn and Arwen's relationship was one of the areas which the movies handled very differently.

The book is silent on what Arwen was doing during the quest for the Ring. There is certainly no indication that she considered going into the West, let alone tried to, nor that Elrond tried to deceive her or trick her.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't think any message in Tolkien is to trust in divine grace and providence to deliver you from your problems. I think part of the expectation is that you do the best you can and if you receive grace, that can put you over the top, but if you actively pursue evil deeds, you're not likely to receive it at all (see Frodo vs Gollum). If everyone just sat around not exerting their own strength and waited for divine grace to deliver them, they'd have been under Sauron's thumb long ago.

His actual message is "God helps he who helps themselves as best as they possibly can, and even then only if all hope of anyone else helping is gone." Any elf who relied on Eru to save them would end up in the Halls of Mandos.

 

[Maxperson]

Of course different people respond to things differently, and I agree with you that a lot of modern visual storytelling falls into the trap of using techniques to cover up flaws in the story, but where that is usually a problem is when their is no clarity of conflict.

For me, Galadriel's conflict in that scene was clearly communicated. She didn't want to leave middle earth because her work was not finished, but she had been commanded to leave. If she leaves, she'll never return. Therefore, if she wants to finish her work, she must stay in middle earth, and the only way to do that is to jump ship. That is a simple conflict, but a specific one, similar to Luke turning off his targeting computer or Bilbo deciding to leave the Ring in Bag's End.

The techniques used are all in service to how monumental the decision to leave was for her and ask us to empathize with her. She waits till the last possible moment, she sees others vanish into Valinor, she's surround by an ocean!

And for me, I was cheering when she jumped! Yes, don't listen to your king! Sauron IS coming and you have to help stop him! And look, providence is shown when she's rescued from the ocean! She MUST have made the right choice... Only at the end of the first season did I understand just how backward I had it. A fantastic reversal of the hero's certainty in the rightness of their actions.

See, I thought the jump as we saw it was stupid. Not the rebellion and idea behind it, but the method. She should have either refused outright or jumped ship shortly after leaving port.