Rings of Power: Tolkien's Shambling Skinsuit

zignor 4 said:

Nope, he’s just referred to as Sauron. The name is not in the LoTR books at all.

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Bezos is a fucking idiot for thinking he could make this show without the rights to the Silmarillion.

From out of the frying pan and into the fire.

There's some theories that the stranger is a maiar named tilion (who could possibly be one of the blue wizards but I think that's a stretch). The people of rhun called tilion the guardian of the moon.

Also halbrand is definitely not sauron, he doesn't have connections to people he should. Pharazon being a big one.

Most theories are suggesting halbrand is either the witch king OR the king of the dead (the oathbreakers that aragorn forces into submission).

j00t said:

the king of the dead (the oathbreakers that aragorn forces into submission).

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Those people lived in Middle Earth before the fall of Numenor but I suppose that wouldn't stop Amazon.

Gavinmad said:

Those people lived in Middle Earth before the fall of Numenor but I suppose that wouldn't stop Amazon.

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that hasnt changed. halbrand is from the southlands

Every scene with Durin is fucking amazing. Dude is great.

Big Phoenix said:

So is Galadriel some cocky asshole no one has ever heard of?

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Maybe the city that forbids elves chooses not to celebrate or teach about them. The libraries have information but perhaps that access is very restricted.

was the plot of this weeks episode really the King of Elves telling Elrond that all elves will die by Spring unless they get their hands on some mithril? "Elrond, we have to cook!" Are the dwarves the cartel? Is Celebrimbor Jesse or Walt?

I guess that explains why Celebrimbor is in a hurry although it really begs the question, why don't all the elves just fuck off to Valinor

and was that Pharazon's son who blew up the ship? Why did Isildur cover for him? No one's gonna investigate or anything?

Did the ships sink because they were looking down instead of up?

spronk said:

was the plot of this weeks episode really the King of Elves telling Elrond that all elves will die by Spring unless they get their hands on some mithril?"

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That was so mystifying to me, what the fuck are they talking about!? They are building some sort of mirror chamber to shine mithril light into all the elves? It's nonsense.

spronk said:

was the plot of this weeks episode really the King of Elves telling Elrond that all elves will die by Spring unless they get their hands on some mithril?

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I almost feel like picking on the show is beneath me at this point.

Chris said:

That was so mystifying to me, what the fuck are they talking about!? They are building some sort of mirror chamber to shine mithril light into all the elves? It's nonsense.

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It looks like it is building up to an explanation that the elves will all need to wear a piece of mithril on them, or they die.

Like the writing room was sitting around asking "Why did the elves make the rings of power?" and instead of "well they made magic rings because they are helpful" (or whatever Tolkien said), the writers went with "Well if they don't have mithril rings, they all DIE!"

A ring of power for you, and a ring of power for you, and a ring of power for everyone! What a twist!

All this LOTR talk made me want to rewatch The Fellowship, I always thought the first movie was the best.

Voyce said:

All this LOTR talk made me want to rewatch The Fellowship, I always thought the first movie was the best.

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i agree. Two Towers is really good too. ROTK just never seemed to end.

The departures from source became more and more pronounced as the movies progressed. Aside from turning Gimli into comic relief and badly mangling the Nazgul chase/confrontation at the Ford of Bruinen, Fellowship followed the book pretty closely.

Gavinmad said:

The departures from source became more and more pronounced as the movies progressed. Aside from turning Gimli into comic relief and badly mangling the Nazgul chase/confrontation at the Ford of Bruinen, Fellowship followed the book pretty closely.

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i rewatched all of them about a year ago and i always loved fellowship way more than the others but i could never understand why. i THOUGHT it was because boromir is one of my favorite characters and he's obviously not in it after fellowship (outside of the extended edition stuff) but it occurred to me what the issue was...

there are PLENTY of things that PJ changed, but you don't really notice it because the fallout of those changes don't happen until the other movies. the barrow blades the hobbits get is a perfect example. those blades were very specifically designed to fight the ringwraiths and tolkien purposely created them as a way for merry to be the catalyst for the witch king's death.

it was his way of saying that there's no such thing as coincidences and while things may seem like it at glance, these kinds of things can be traced back eons by the decisions that people made, for good or ill. you could argue that the prophecy of no man being able to kill the witch king is about this. it wasn't a man who killed the witch king, it was A LONG LINE of men (not gendered, just people) making very specific decisions. in this, it changes the meaning of that prophecy from something that the witch king took as him being immortal, to the reality that his downfall was utterly unavoidable. those blades had a LONG history behind them that the ringwraiths hunted for and tried to destroy but hadn't found all of them, almost like the ring quest from the perspective of the wraiths.

but instead what we got was silly girl power.

j00t said:

but instead what we got was silly girl power.

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The swords Aragorn hands to the hobbits at Weathertop are clearly meant to be the four barrow blades, and just like in the books Eowen would have died without Merry's help. The death of the Witch King is barely different from the book at all.

Gavinmad said:

The swords Aragorn hands to the hobbits at Weathertop are clearly meant to be the four barrow blades, and just like in the books Eowen would have died without Merry's help. The death of the Witch King is barely different from the book at all.

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merry and pippen lose their swords from weathertop in the movies.

and again the entire meaning is different. the scene makes it about eowyn saying "i am no man." yes, merry is there and he helps, but there was a reason why "no man" could kill the witch king and it's because he couldn't be really be harmed (at least not permanently) until the barrow blade SPECIFICALLY breaks that enchantment. tolkien made a point to say that it wasn't eowyn or merry that hurt him, but the blade itself.

j00t said:

merry and pippen lose their swords from weathertop in the movies.

and again the entire meaning is different. the scene makes it about eowyn saying "i am no man." yes, merry is there and he helps, but there was a reason why "no man" could kill the witch king and it's because he couldn't be really be harmed (at least not permanently) until the barrow blade SPECIFICALLY breaks that enchantment. tolkien made a point to say that it wasn't eowyn or merry that hurt him, but the blade itself.

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I'll be damned, I could have sworn they got them back in Isengard just like in the books but the sword Merry presents to Theoden clearly has a horse motif on the pommel. That being said her movie dialogue is not significantly different from the books aside from being dumbed down out of Tolkien-speak for the masses, yes the timing is different and it is more of a girl power moment than in the book but she still only succeeds because Merry saves her. It's Merry (and the other three hobbits) who matter, not some random blacksmith who died over fifteen hundred years ago.

You could argue that without the enchanted blade all they managed to do was disincorporate him yet again, but then he would have died for real a week and a half later and it still would have been a hobbit that killed him.