Spoilers Rings of Power is back!

[Maxperson]

Eh, they're barely in it and a side-story, at least at present. I can barely remember what's happening there.

They're overthrowing the blind queen and setting up Pharazon to take her place it seems.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

They're overthrowing the blind queen and setting up Pharazon to take her place it seems.

In the books the hereditary queen is displaced by Pharazon purely on the grounds of sexism.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I like this season better than the last one, but I really can't stand how they are depicting the Numenoreans. They were high men, more advanced than any other race of men. Essentially they were Atlantis. Instead they are being depicted is petty low superstitious people(Oh no! An evil elf stone!!! Everyone panic.).

They try to illuminate the idea that Numenor is more advanced by having Isildur explain aqueducts. The other humans only have Iron Age tech. But it’s quite hard to show tech level differences when both tech levels are pre-modern.

As for why many Numenians have turned against the elves and Valar, this is one development that they haven’t tried to squeeze into the time frame of the show. It’s anger and mistrust, not superstition. It’s clear if you are familiar with LotR that Palantir ARE dangerous and misleading. It’s not superstition if it’s true.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm fine with Numenors depiction. Inspired by Atlantis but they're further ahead tgan their contemporaries.

In Europe Constantinople pre 1204 comes to mind.

Tech level wasn't really that different just organization and wealth.

 

[Maxperson]

They try to illuminate the idea that Numenor is more advanced by having Isildur explain aqueducts. The other humans only have Iron Age tech. But it’s quite hard to show tech level differences when both tech levels are pre-modern.

As for why many Numenians have turned against the elves and Valar, this is one development that they haven’t tried to squeeze into the time frame of the show. It’s anger and mistrust, not superstition. It’s clear if you are familiar with LotR that Palantir ARE dangerous and misleading. It’s not superstition if it’s true.

A few things.

First, if they had built Numenor to be majestic, made of marble or other finely worked stone. Great statues. No dirty or run down places. A place where even the commoners are well dressed and educated(not filthy and crude), it would have gone a lot farther towards showing Numenor as much more advanced. They bungled it.

Second, I understand the distrust of the elves, but the way they were acting on the show was like a bunch of superstitious peasants. Not the well educated high men that the Numenoreans are supposed to be.

Third, the Palantiri aren't dangerous or misleading. It's that someone like Sauron using one can use his power through his Palantir to mislead others that are using one. The danger is Sauron, not the Palantiri.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm fine with Numenors depiction. Inspired by Atlantis but they're further ahead tgan their contemporaries.

In Europe Constantinople pre 1204 comes to mind.

Tech level wasn't really that different just organization and wealth.

In Middle Earth it was. Numenor had superior tech. They would have been like plate armor wearing Europeans or Romans existing along side the rest of a world that was in the bronze or stone age.

 

[Alzrius]

In the books the hereditary queen is displaced by Pharazon purely on the grounds of sexism.

What books are you getting that from? Because The Silmarillion (specifically in "Akallabeth") says:

Now Gimilkhâd died two years before his two hundredth year (which was accounted an early death for one of Elros’ line even in its waning), but this brought no peace to the King. For Pharazôn son of Gimilkhâd had become a man yet more restless and eager for wealth and power than his father. He had fared often abroad, as a leader in the wars that the Númenóreans made then in the coastlands of Middle-earth, seeking to extend their dominion over Men; and thus he had won great renown as a captain both by land and by sea. Therefore when he came back to Númenor, hearing of his father’s death, the hearts of the people were turned to him; for he brought with him great wealth, and was for the time free in his giving.​

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And it came to pass that Tar-Palantir grew weary of grief and died. He had no son, but a daughter only, whom he named Míriel in the Elven-tongue; and to her now by right and the laws of the Númenóreans came the sceptre. But Pharazôn took her to wife against her will, doing evil in this and evil also in that the laws of Númenor did not permit the marriage, even in the royal house, of those more nearly akin than cousins in the second degree. And when they were wedded, he seized the sceptre into his own hand, taking the title of Ar-Pharazôn (Tar-Calion in the Elven-tongue); and the name of his queen he changed to Ar-Zimraphel.​

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In other words, Pharazon displaces Miriel because he's "more restless and eager for wealth and power," which leads him to seize a throne that he knows isn't his and perform a marriage that violates Numenor's laws of consanguinity.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

In Middle Earth it was. Numenor had superior tech. They would have been like plate armor wearing Europeans or Romans existing along side the rest of a world that was in the bronze or stone age.

In Tolkien's original conceptions of Numenor - before its stories were anchored to the larger legendarium - Numenor was envisaged as an industrial, steampunk-esque society, with battleships, tanks and flying machines.

Some literary vestiges of this "tech gap" remain - e.g. we don't know what Orthanc and the outer wall of Minas Tirith were made of; the Numenoreans "devised engines" with the help of Sauron; their archers used hollow steel compound bows etc.

 

[Parmandur]

In Tolkien's original conceptions of Numenor - before its stories were anchored to the larger legendarium - Numenor was envisaged as an industrial, steampunk-esque society, with battleships, tanks and flying machines.

Some literary vestiges of this "tech gap" remain - e.g. we don't know what Orthanc and the outer wall of Minas Tirith were made of; the Numenoreans "devised engines" with the help of Sauron; their archers used hollow steel compound bows etc.

Heck, the very first draft of a Middle Earth story ever written, The Fall of Gondolin, had freaking Orc Mechs in it.

Tolkien could be very wild and unhinged. Rings of Power follows the general trajectory since the final "canon" rendition of the Simirillion of making Tolkien's worm more "Tolkienien" than he was necessarily the case.

But that's fine, they are doing a good job of it, and get the actual themes of Tolkien better than Jackson & Co. did 25 years ago.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

But that's fine, they are doing a good job of it, and get the actual themes of Tolkien better than Jackson & Co. did 25 years ago.

You have stated your opinion on this before; restating it does not make me agree with it any more than I did previously.

RoP is currently undergoing a catastrophic collapse in its viewership numbers. The question remains as to whether Amazon allows this Bezos vanity project to succumb to market forces, or if they throw another billion dollars at it because they don't care.

The risk involves the credibility of any future IP which Amazon wants to adapt; it's not just about LoTR or RoP.

I think it will quietly expire at the end of a short S3, with a reduced budget. I guess we'll wait and see.