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[Alatar]

https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2022/0 ... D7AAyzMAu8

[Alatar]

Positive vibes:

Taking the pulse of the Tolkien fan group assembled, nearly all shared an increased hype level. The biggest fears they shared have been calmed, and this lucky group are now comfortably anticipating future drops of RoP marketing.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Must be the same event that Shawn Gunner attended. There are certainly good vibes coming from it, but no information. So it is hard to say whether it means very much.

[Alatar]

https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2022/0 ... 71xWu4G72k

[Eldy]

Corey [Olsen] held court

Oh, dear God.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Corey [Olsen] held court

Oh, dear God.

[Anduril]

I don't know the guy's work, but calling himself "the Tolkien professor" rubs me the wrong way. Like, the two people who literally were that are dead. Then I'd call Shippey that over anyone else living. Then if Shippey doesn't call himself that, why would anyone else. Branding, it seems.

[Eldy]

He is very good at branding and marketing. I don't even mean that as a put-down, it's just facts. But yeah, I'm not a fan of the name, either (among other things).

Anyway, as to the primary topic of the thread, I'm sure the event was exciting for everyone who went, but it means little to me. Presumably Amazon made them promise to sacrifice their firstborns to Bezos if they share any details of what they saw, so we won't get anything but "vibes." And vibes are almost always good when you're in a crowd of people and everyone's excited and seeing the new thing is an event. See also: the gushing, positive fan reactions that pour out of every blockbuster premiere, no matter how the film is received by general audiences.

[Alatar]

I dunno, I am somewhat mollified. A lot of these were apparently critical of the superbowl trailer and have changed their minds. That's significant. I mean I would be happier if it was someone I know personally and trusted, but I'd be expecting at least a few negative reactions to be sprouting up by now, but its been universally positive. It reminds me of the reaction to PJ's Cannes Event.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I guess I am somewhere in between you two. I agree with Eldy that these kind of gushing "vibes" tend to be meaningless, but I also agree with Al that it is encouraging that it seems to be pretty unanimous. On the other hand, every time I see that picture of Elrond I get a sinking feeling.

[Alatar]

That'll be the Númenórean influence

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Eldy]

I'm not expecting them to do this, but in all seriousness, I would enjoy seeing a screen version of Elrond who openly identifies as both an Elf and a Númenórean, particularly since this is a point in the timeline when Númenor still exists. We're talking about the guy who named his sons "Elf-Númenórean" (Tolkien's translation of Elladan in Letter 211) and "Elf-knight," but used the Gondorian Sindarin spelling for the latter name rather than the normal Elvish spelling (it would've been Elrochir otherwise; cf. Letter 144).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[OT]As a complete aside, Eldy, your comment about Elrond's sons reminded me of Kristine Larsen's paper, "Seeing Double: Tolkien and the Indo-European Divine Twins" published in the same issue of Mythlore as my paper on Círdan (and which contains a discussion about Elladan and Elrohir among the various twins that populate Tolkien's writings). If you have not read it, I think you would find it interesting. I certainly did.

Seeing Double: Tolkien and the Indo-European Divine Twins[/OT]

[Alatar]

https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2022/0 ... VNSZ0cRgZQ

Empire’s forthcoming “Summer Preview” issue is set to include an interview with John Howe about his role as concept artist for Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power TV series.

They’ve posted an enticing preview snippet of Howe sharing his thoughts about we ought to expect from the series in which he empahsises just how different Second Age Middle-earth is from the Third Age world that many are more familiar with.
“This isn’t the Middle-earth you remember,” he says.
“This is a world that’s very vibrant. The elves are not hidden away in Mirkwood or lingering in Rivendell. They’re busy constructing kingdoms. The dwarven kingdom of Moria is not an abandoned mine and the Grey Havens is not yet an abandoned city. I loved having the opportunity to explore that unseen history.”
He also talks about how this story is also taking to the seas.
“We’re finally sailing on the oceans of Middle-earth,” teases Howe, promising a set of sea-faring elves. “They’re daunting and enterprising and are almost colonising the world. They were a lot of fun to imagine. It’s something neither Lord Of The Rings nor Hobbit movies went anywhere near.”

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Now that sounds very good!

[Eldy]

“We’re finally sailing on the oceans of Middle-earth,” teases Howe, promising a set of sea-faring elves. “They’re daunting and enterprising and are almost colonising the world. They were a lot of fun to imagine. It’s something neither Lord Of The Rings nor Hobbit movies went anywhere near.”

Seeing the more fantastical, less obviously in terminal decline world of the Second Age is one of the things I'm most looking forward to about the show. I'm glad they're retaining that element of the texts. Though the addition of an "almost"(?) colonial Elvish thalassocracy is an ... interesting decision. Curious to see what that looks like in practice.

[OT]As a complete aside, Eldy, your comment about Elrond's sons reminded me of Kristine Larsen's paper, "Seeing Double: Tolkien and the Indo-European Divine Twins" published in the same issue of Mythlore as my paper on Círdan (and which contains a discussion about Elladan and Elrohir among the various twins that populate Tolkien's writings). If you have not read it, I think you would find it interesting. I certainly did.

Seeing Double: Tolkien and the Indo-European Divine Twins[/OT]

I have not read that, but it sounds interesting! I'll give it a look when I have time, though between an upcoming anime convention and my now wildly out of hand essay on Elbereth I can't say when exactly that will be.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The nice thing about the MythLore articles is that they are always available.

With regard to Howe's comments, it is curious that he says that a focus is going to be on Elvish mariners, and yet there has never been a hint that Círdan is a character in the show.

[Eldy]

Having thought about this a bit, the Noldor seem the most likely perpetrators of seafaring Elvish colonialism, so that might account for Círdan not playing a significant role (hopefully he's in there somewhere, though). I'm sure Galadriel was not the only one who still wanted to make good on Fëanor's promise of organizing realms of their own to rule, especially now that they could focus on actually making those realms prosperous rather than being in constant war with Morgoth. Tolkien wrote more about Sindarin adventurism than Noldorin in the early Second Age (Greenwood, Lórinand, and maybe Edhellond on the one hand vs. just Eregion on the other; Imladris wasn't founded until after the War of the Elves and Sauron), but maybe the show will give the Noldor more to do. Any sort of Elvish thalassocracy would undeniably be a change from Tolkien, but perhaps not a totally ungrounded one.

Obviously, the Noldor weren't renowned as great seafarers, but Gil-galad was a protege of Círdan, more or less. And Turgon managed to put together maritime expeditions even at a distance, while he was in Gondolin, establishing some precedent for the Noldor being able to adapt.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well, there is one text published in The Nature of Middle-earth in which Tolkien stated that Círdan WAS a Noldo, though that text was abandoned in the middle of sentence, presumably because Tolkien realized that it conflicted to strongly with everything else that he had ever said. But generally speaking, it is pretty canonical that the Noldor were not mariners and that it was pretty canonical that the mariners were from the various groups descended from the Telari (on either side of the great sea); after all they were also called "sea-Elves". It is pretty axiomatic that what ships sailed from Middle-earth were captained by Elves deputed by Círdan, even Númenórean ships until they established their on nautical tradition.

Would that be a contradiction with the lore sufficient to violated the terms of the agreement? If it were up to me it would be, but I doubt that those whose opinion really matters would feel the same way. Even, probably that of those in charge of the Tolkien Estate, now that Christopher has passed into the west.