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

[ART!]

I'm finally caught up and I just want to address the main criticism that people have with the show. That is, that it's slow and boring and that nothing happens for ages.

I think one of the things going on here is that there are 4 storylines and it's not until several episodes in that only two of them converge. And honestly it's not even clear that most of them are related, again until several episodes in. One would assume they are, but the showrunners are playing such a long game that the connections aren't clear, for the most part.

 

[Ryujin]

I agree, although as has been pointed out, Tolkien rewrote and reimagined a lot of things, so even if you go with the last version he wrote of X, you'll still run into problems with how the new X jibes with the ripple effects of the old version of X.

People are going to have to start asking, "So are you Tolkien, Orthodox Tolkien, or Reformed Tolkien?"

 

[Mercurius]

I agree, although as has been pointed out, Tolkien rewrote and reimagined a lot of things, so even if you go with the last version he wrote of X, you'll still run into problems with how the new X jibes with the ripple effects of the old version of X.

I think the issue I have is the idea that anyone other than JRR can make canonical LotR. They can't. It is his world, his creation. I'm not suggested that you are saying otherwise, though I've seen elements of this thread's discussion veer into places where new elements of Rings of Power are being talked about as if they are "new canon" because they fill out gaps in Tolkien's work. That somehow seems....sacrilegious, especially when the show is so divergent from Tolkien's original works.

This isn't Star Wars or Star Trek, or the MCU - all essentially shared worlds (or universes). Although even then, there's a marked tonal difference between Lucas' Star Wars and Roddenberry's Trek and what came after (especially so with more recent Trek offerings like Discovery and Picard).

 

[Morrus]

I think the issue I have is the idea that anyone other than JRR can make canonical LotR. They can't. It is his world, his creation.

I completely disagree. It's no different to George Lucas, Ed Greenwood, Siegel and Shuster, Ian Fleming, Stan Lee, whoever came up with Robin Hood and King Arthur. IP outlives its creators and passes on to new custodians, and it's all valid.

That somehow seems....sacrilegious, especially when the show is so divergent from Tolkien's original works.

That word has no place in this discussion, for me. We're talking about entertainment. A fantasy book written 70 years ago. It's loved by many, sure, but it's just pop culture. Tolkien was a fiction author, not some kind of prophet.

In a hundred years there will be as many interpretations of Middle Earth as there currently are of Batman. Some will be good, some not so good, some will be remembered and others forgotten, but that's just how it works.

 

[Rabulias]

I think the issue I have is the idea that anyone other than JRR can make canonical LotR. They can't. It is his world, his creation.

So what happens when his own writings contradict each other on certain points?

 

[Mercurius]

I completely disagree. It's no different to George Lucas, Ed Greenwood, Siegel and Shuster, Ian Fleming, Stan Lee, whoever came up with Robin Hood and King Arthur. IP outlives its creators and passes on to new custodians, and it's all valid.



That word has no place in this discussion, for me. We're talking about entertainment. A fantasy book written 70 years ago. It's loved by many, sure, but it's just pop culture. Tolkien was a fiction author, not some kind of prophet.

In a hundred years there will be as many interpretations of Middle Earth as there currently are of Batman. Some will be good, some not so good, some will be remembered and others forgotten, but that's just how it works.

So I guess you don't believe that art is anything other than entertainment? Or that an artist's creation isn't their own, but somehow turns into pop culture? Sure, there are many interpretations of Starry Night or Beethoven's 9th, but there is only one "true" (or canonical) Starry Night or Beethoven's 9th. It doesn't make later interpretations un-entertaining or not worthy of our enjoyment, but it isn't the same thing as the original.

For example, we have this and then we have this. Both are great, but the former is the "canonical" version of Blue Monday.

Note also that Lucas, Greenwood, etc licensed those properties out to be further developed. Tolkien didn't. Even if the Tolkien estate licenses someone to write a sequel, it will never be "canon" - just some authors story that uses words and ideas from Tolkien.

So for me, there is Tolkien and then there are interpretations of Tolkien - that includes Bakshi, Jackson, and the Rings of Power. They aren't the same. To use Tolkien's terminology, if his Middle-earth is a "secondary world," all further interpretations are "tertiary worlds" (a term he didn't use, but I think it works for this context).

p.s. Re: sacrilegious. I wouldn't get too hung up on the word - I don't mean it in a religious sense, but more in terms of artistic fidelity. But if you can't separate that word from its religious context, replace it with "dishonoring" or "disrespectful" - that is, of the artist's creation.

 

[Mercurius]

So what happens when his own writings contradict each other on certain points?

Well, it depends upon what you're talking about. As I said, there's Tolkien, then there's our own individual reading of Tolkien - our own version, be it a One Ring campaign or our own imagination when we're reading it (e.g. what the Balrog looks like to me might differ from what it looks like to you, and neither of us are "wrong"). And a third category: a cinematic version of Tolkien, which is essentially the filmmakers' version of Tolkien.

But I have no problem with ambiguity. Having engaged in my own process of building a singular world over about 30 years, I know that there are countless numbers of things that I don't know, or am uncertain of, and things are always changing. My understanding of the world increases over time, but sometimes I shift something so that my current view contradicts an earlier view. I suspect the same was true of Tolkien. If he had lived another 20 years, Middle-earth would have developed and changed further (though I think over the years, it changed less and less, and most later changes were fine-tunings and fleshing out details).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the issue I have is the idea that anyone other than JRR can make canonical LotR.

No one is calling the TV series (or indeed the movies) canon.

 

[damiller]

So I guess you don't believe that art is anything other than entertainment? Or that an artist's creation isn't their own, but somehow turns into pop culture? Sure, there are many interpretations of Starry Night or Beethoven's 9th, but there is only one "true" (or canonical) Starry Night or Beethoven's 9th. It doesn't make later interpretations un-entertaining or not worthy of our enjoyment, but it isn't the same thing as the original.

For example, we have this and then we have this. Both are great, but the former is the "canonical" version of Blue Monday.

Note also that Lucas, Greenwood, etc licensed those properties out to be further developed. Tolkien didn't. Even if the Tolkien estate licenses someone to write a sequel, it will never be "canon" - just some authors story that uses words and ideas from Tolkien.

So for me, there is Tolkien and then there are interpretations of Tolkien - that includes Bakshi, Jackson, and the Rings of Power. They aren't the same. To use Tolkien's terminology, if his Middle-earth is a "secondary world," all further interpretations are "tertiary worlds" (a term he didn't use, but I think it works for this context).

p.s. Re: sacrilegious. I wouldn't get too hung up on the word - I don't mean it in a religious sense, but more in terms of artistic fidelity. But if you can't separate that word from its religious context, replace it with "dishonoring" or "disrespectful" - that is, of the artist's creation.

This is almost the kind of discussion we had in the One Ring game I mentioned upthread.

Its why I referred the problem to manuscript traditions. In New Testament scholarship, for example, there is no one verifiable text. There a multitude of manuscripts ALL with differences. (In fact noted biblical scholar Bart Ehrman suggests that there are more variations in text of the new testament then their are words in the new testament; though he does say most of those changes are insignificant to the text) What that means is there is no "canon". What you have a body of manuscripts that give you a general outline, the details are debatable.

Take for example just the crucifixion narrative. The details don't all match up very well. But the general outline remains.

And then the other non canon books of the new testament simply emphasize things that the canon books don't. John's gospel is generally recognized, for example, as kinda gnostic, but not gnostic as things like the gospel of thomas.

So, in my campaign, the idea that there is only one way to understand, interpret, or even experience the text is silly. It didn't work that way.

And more to your point:

If it is a work of art. Then at its core art is a subjective , not a objective . Which for me means any attempt to say "this is" and "that is not" is antithetical to art. because interpretation is part of the art.

 

[Morrus]

So I guess you don't believe that art is anything other than entertainment?

That would be a bad guess! I think art can be different things to different people.