[+] The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - SPOILERS ALLOWED

[OB1]

That's a possibility for this show. It really wouldn't make sense for them to delve too deeply and awaken something like a Balrog if they knew it was there, but it's a better idea than any other that I've seen so far.

I think it could be explained why the Dwarves several millennia later started digging again via the same line describing how the One Ring was forgotten about. To turn a phrase, "And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the Balrog passed out of all knowledge."

While the second age timeline is being compressed, I don't think they're going to retcon the thousands of years that the film established passed between Sauron's defeat and the ring being discovered again, so it seems likely that the dwarves ended up forgetting (or ignoring) the old tale and re-awakened it.

Again, I have no idea how this all ties in with Tolkien's intent or writings, but it would make sense in the world of the film/show.

 

[Rabulias]

But why show the balrog if you aren't going to use it.

Heh. Chekhov's balrog.

 

[ART!]

Hmm, I tend to think of the wizards as being charismatic, but I guess that's really only true for Gandalf and Saruman. Weird creeps as wizards certainly is possible. The casual, pointless cruelty to the harfoots would be disappointing as hell for wizards, though.

IIRC, Tolkien had two notions about the two blue wizards*. In both cases, they went east - east of Greenwood/Mirkwood the Great, east of Rhun, east of Mordor:

1. They went east and went bad, directly or indirectly contributing to the forces that joined Sauron.
2. They went east and did good, without which the forces from the east that joined Sauron would have been much greater.

* (He wrote about Middle-earth for about 60 years, and kept revising and rethinking thinks, so talk of Tolkien's canon beyond The Hobbit and LOTR is a dicey proposition. It was Christopher Tolkien who cobbled together the Silmarillion and everything since.)

 

[Hriston]

IIRC, Tolkien had two notions about the two blue wizards*. In both cases, they went east - east of Greenwood/Mirkwood the Great, east of Rhun, east of Mordor:

1. They went east and went bad, directly or indirectly contributing to the forces that joined Sauron.
2. They went east and did good, without which the forces from the east that joined Sauron would have been much greater.

* (He wrote about Middle-earth for about 60 years, and kept revising and rethinking thinks, so talk of Tolkien's canon beyond The Hobbit and LOTR is a dicey proposition. It was Christopher Tolkien who cobbled together the Silmarillion and everything since.)

My recollection of your (1.) is more of a "going astray" in the mode of Radagast. It is said they founded magical traditions. I don't recall reading anything that suggested they actually joined Sauron's cause.

Also, "cobbled together" is a fair description of the Silmarillion, but not of the Unfinished Tales or History of Middle-earth. Those books presented the extant texts individually with copious painstaking notes on revisions and emendations that were made to them over the years. The result gives the impression of a body of work that has been spared the process of any cobbling together.

 

[Mercurius]

My understanding of the The Silmarillion is that Christopher Tolkien tried to present a representation of his father's overall work, so the versions within it are the latest that JRR had developed. So it isn't as much "cobbled" as it is a "representative anthology." It isn't complete, but it also isn't in contradiction with any of JRR's later understandings of Middle-earth.

 

[ART!]

My recollection of your (1.) is more of a "going astray" in the mode of Radagast. It is said they founded magical traditions. I don't recall reading anything that suggested they actually joined Sauron's cause.

Also, "cobbled together" is a fair description of the Silmarillion, but not of the Unfinished Tales or History of Middle-earth. Those books presented the extant texts individually with copious painstaking notes on revisions and emendations that were made to them over the years. The result gives the impression of a body of work that has been spared the process of any cobbling together.

I think you're right on both counts.

I probably have warped "gone astray" in my head into "went bad". However, going astray from their mission effectively helps Sauron, so...?

 

[embee]

Good episode
Does Gondor exist at this point? I’m assuming not and I’m assuming isildur is the same from the novels? Isn’t his place in this story off by over a 1000 years?

Maybe it's not Isildur.

Like maybe it's Isildur Franklin and years down the road there's an Isildur Johannson. We don't know his last name.

 

[reelo]

It isn't complete, but it also isn't in contradiction with any of JRR's later understandings of Middle-earth.

Some of it is. Like the ancestry of Orcs. In the Silmarillion (and this show) it's Elves, but later in his life, Tolkien meant to change that to Humans. Because the implications of them having been Elves are.... numerous.

Also, the lineage of Gil-Galad. If he had been the son of Fingon, Noldorin kingship would have gone to him after the death of Fingon. But it went to Turgon first. In some late writings, Tolkien changed Gil-Galad's lineage to him being the son of Orodreth, who in turn was changed from being a son of Finarfin to being the son of Angrod. This was, it appears, Tolkien's last stance on that matter, and if that had been maintained in the Silmarillion and the show, it would make Galadriel Gil-Galad's great-aunt.

 

[Mercurius]

Some of it is. Like the ancestry of Orcs. In the Silmarillion (and this show) it's Elves, but later in his life, Tolkien meant to change that to Humans. Because the implications of them having been Elves are.... numerous.

Also, the lineage of Gil-Galad. If he had been the son of Fingon, Noldorin kingship would have gone to him after the death of Fingon. But it went to Turgon first. In some late writings, Tolkien changed Gil-Galad's lineage to him being the son of Orodreth, who in turn was changed from being a son of Finarfin to being the son of Angrod. This was, it appears, Tolkien's last stance on that matter, and if that had been maintained in the Silmarillion and the show, it would make Galadriel Gil-Galad's great-aunt.

OK, fair enough. Relatively minor fare, though. And I'm not sure if Tolkien was certain about the humans > orcs lineage, or if he was just considering it. Having read his Letters a couple times, I was struck by how he endlessly fiddled with stuff until his last years. I mean, well, that's world-building for you!

 

[Mercurius]

A bit more on the The Silmarillion. In many ways, it truly is the "Bible of Middle-earth." Not just because it presents the mythology, but because it is a limited slice of a much larger body of stories.

I'm not a Biblical historian, but as far as I understand it, both the Old and New Testament are just selections of stories - the former just a fraction of Hebrew sacred literature and apocrypha, and the latter just some of the gospels and stories of Jesus, with the Gnostic Gospels essentially being selected out (e.g. Thomas, Mary Magdelene, etc). The Bible as we know it was selected to present a coherent sacred text, yet also one that served the political purposes of the early Catholic Church. So, for instance, they didn't include the story of Lilith, the first wife of Adam who left him because she wanted to be his equal, or the Book of Enoch, which describes angels copulating with women and creating the nephilim (giants), which the Ancient Aliens crowd has latched onto (I mean, how cool is that?!).

But there is a crucial difference: the Bible was compiled with a socio-political agenda in mind, whereas the Silmarillion was not. Meaning, Christopher Tolkien didn't exclude stories about the Maiar having sex with humans and breeding them to be cute hobbits, or Elves genociding dwarves, etc. He tried to create a comprehensive picture of the First Age, in particular, and the total arc of Tolkien's great story, from the Song of the Ainur to the Fourth Age.