Episode 5 (Spoilers, including discussion of the preview)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

]Here's the preview, which I have now watched.



]With regard to the mithril, can we tell who's hand it is that is giving it to Celebrimbor?

Mithril.jpg (68.56 KiB) Viewed 5279 times

I wouldn't be surprised if they make seem like Elrond violated his oath, and it is even possible that Durin IV will be convinced that Elrond did do so, but I would bet good money that it will turn out that he did not.

The look that Theo gives makes me think (once again) that HE is Sauron.

Who is that Galadriel is fighting against? I can't tell.

[samaranth]

Halbrand's continued protests about returning to Middle-earth strongly suggest he's either the world's most reluctant warrior and/or he's running from something. It adds weight, in my mind, to him becoming a potential King of the Dead.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not buying the King of the Dead thing.

[Eldy]

With regard to the mithril, can we tell who's hand it is that is giving it to Celebrimbor?

I think that particular shot is actually Celebrimbor (hand on the right) handing the mithril nugget back to someone else. The heavily embroidered cuff resembles that of Celebrimbor's green robe, while the plain sleeve on the left looks like Elrond's traveling outfit. Given that the latter has no distinguishing features other than its plainness, it's possible it belongs to someone other than Elrond, but for now I'm sticking with the shot meaning what it appears to. I don't want show!Elrond to be characterized as a scheming, duplicitous politician who will say whatever he thinks his friends want to hear in order to manipulate them, but between pre-release comments and what we've seen onscreen so far, that doesn't seem inconceivable for him.

[Inanna]

It doesn’t? Why? I quite liked what we have seen - and did not think duplicitousness was part of his character?! What have I missed?

[Eldy]

It doesn’t? Why? I quite liked what we have seen - and did not think duplicitousness was part of his character?! What have I missed?

I'm still not 100% decided on Elrond, and I admit my reading of him is influenced by pre-release material, but I'm only getting more cynical about him as we go. For all his apparent sincerity at moments, sometimes he really comes across as a sleazy politician type who will say whatever he needs to say to get what he wants. Or, rather, what his boss wants, since show!Elrond's low status and corresponding ambition is an important part of his character (in our first glimpse of him, the speechwriting scene, he's patronizingly informed that he can't attend the next council meeting because it is for "elf-lords only"). In that same episode, Galadriel calls him out for being a "politician" and trying to distract her with pretty words. His conversations with Galadriel can be interpreted in different ways, and I was initially unsure if he sincerely thought Galadriel sailing to Valinor was best for her, or if he was trying to ensure she didn't defy his boss (Gil-galad). Of course, both could be true, but his way of speaking was uncomfortably familiar to me.

However, it's Elrond's interactions with Durin III in episode four that really rub me the wrong way. Elrond pries into his ostensible friend's private business because Celebimbor, whom Elrond has been assigned to work for, is curious. When caught out, Elrond refuses to display any contrition for trespassing and invasion of privacy, instead immediately blaming Durin III for undermining their friendship by keeping secrets. A secret that has no bearing on their friendship except insofar as it's only resumed since Elrond came to Khazâd-dûm because he wanted something from the Dwarves (assistance in constructing Celebrimbor's forge). Then again, Elrond also lies and says he has no interest in what the Dwarves are mining, when in fact his entire purpose for trying to find out is so he can report back to Celebrimbor. I ... have personal reasons for thinking ill of people who refuse to accept any responsibility for their actions, and blame their bad behavior on anyone who gets upset about it. It's manipulative, and Elrond using that tactic so he can collect information for his boss is, to me, duplicitous.

[Smaug's voice]

This episode will probably have a lot of mixed reactions because it has some of the biggest and pointless deviations from Tolkien's texts - if true. I'm talking about the whole Silmaril-Mithril connection.

BUT I do not know how much of that to actually believe as true. The very first thing that Elrond says when asked to retell the story was that it was "apocryphal".
I think the idea is to set up the Rings of Annatar as some desperate move for the Elves for their fear of diminishment when they fail to get hold of the Dwarves' mithril. The Tree in Lindon seen as a connection to the Elves' fading lives seem like far too much of a stretch when the more obvious explanation is that Sauron (who may already be there as Annatar behind the scenes) is simply corrupting them behind the scenes (a reference to Morgoth's corruption of The Trees?). Maybe Annatar is actively making the trees rot which makes the Elves be reactionary so that when Annatar does present them with the alternative of the Rings of Power they are more amenable to accepting them. As an added bonus, this also surely ends up driving a wedge between the Elves and Dwarves which only boosts Sauron's cause.

Was Annatar present in the meeting that Elrond was not allowed to attend at the beginning, right after which he was sent to Khazad-dûm?

All of this paints Sauron as really cunning and truly earn him the nickname of "Deceiver".

All of this is speculation and if they really make the Mithril-Silmaril-fading Elves connection to be literally true then I would really dislike it. But I would like to wait and see where this goes further.

[Smaug's voice]

Also, I liked Galadriel a lot more this episode. More than any till now.

[Eldy]

I officially can't even with ROP anymore. Whether or not the Elves are correct in their belief, the fact remains that Gil-galad's and Celebrimbor's motivation, and by extension the driving force behind much of the plot, is that they believe the Elves' "immortal souls will dwindle into nothing" in less than a year unless they acquire vast quantities of mithril, which is believed to contain the light of a Silmaril, so that every Elf in Middle-earth can soak up Silmaril light like they're Siberian schoolchildren getting doses of UV light in winter.



Surprisingly, the Harfoot plotline was the most tolerable to me this episode. I had problems with some of the others, most notably Isildur being insufferable (I understand it's early in the series and he'll have character development later on; doesn't change the fact that he's an unpleasant brat), but I can't bring myself to think much about them when we have goddamn mithril tanning beds. What the hell.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This episode will probably have a lot of mixed reactions because it has some of the biggest and pointless deviations from Tolkien's texts - if true. I'm talking about the whole Silmaril-Mithril connection.

BUT I do not know how much of that to actually believe as true. The very first thing that Elrond says when asked to retell the story was that it was "apocryphal".
I think the idea is to set up the Rings of Annatar as some desperate move for the Elves for their fear of diminishment when they fail to get hold of the Dwarves' mithril. The Tree in Lindon seen as a connection to the Elves' fading lives seem like far too much of a stretch when the more obvious explanation is that Sauron (who may already be there as Annatar behind the scenes) is simply corrupting them behind the scenes (a reference to Morgoth's corruption of The Trees?). Maybe Annatar is actively making the trees rot which makes the Elves be reactionary so that when Annatar does present them with the alternative of the Rings of Power they are more amenable to accepting them. As an added bonus, this also surely ends up driving a wedge between the Elves and Dwarves which only boosts Sauron's cause.

Was Annatar present in the meeting that Elrond was not allowed to attend at the beginning, right after which he was sent to Khazâd-dûm?

All of this paints Sauron as really cunning and truly earn him the nickname of "Deceiver".

All of this is speculation and if they really make the Mithril-Silmaril-fading Elves connection to be literally true then I would really dislike it. But I would like to wait and see where this goes further.

The Mithril-Silmaril thing is utter nonsense whether it is true or not.

x-posted with Eldy.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

More from Dimitra Fimi on this episode, which captures my opinion very well.

The bits I liked:

1. The Harfoot walking song: though the style was way too stereotypical of a tendency to flatten out + romanticise folk music, it fits that the hobbit ancestors have walking folk songs (lots of those in #LOTR) and with the idea of hobbits as “rustic” people (the word comes up again and again in #Tolkien’s interviews). I’ve written on this in “Hobbit Songs and Rhymes: Tolkien and the Folklore of Middle-earth” (free to access here: https://dimitrafimi.com/.../hobbit-songs-and-rhymes.../) and talked about it too in my #Tolkien2019 keynote (available on the Tolkien Society YouTube channel here: youtu.be/rAAYOnkVnwk). And, of course, there was nothing accidental in the last line: “That not all who wonder or wander are lost” - deliberately echoing Bilbo’s song for Aragorn: “All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;”

2. If I’m right that the Stranger is Gandalf, then the scene of him protecting the proto-hobbits on a tree from wolves resonates with Gandalf, Bilbo and the dwarves weathering the wolf attack on a tree in The #Hobbit (but, then, what’s with the freezing hands thing???!!!)

3. The materialities of Lindon and Númenor remain stunning (I’m still stopping every few shots to observe details).

Things I didn’t think worked:

1. Galadriel showing off swordsmanship skills. I don’t have a problem with her wielding a sword, but this scene was way too much of a TV/film trope - too predictable (and I’m not sure it fits the character they’re building for her…)

2. The entire palaver with the stone table. No, no, no. Caricaturing the dwarves taken to an extreme - and the Dwarf-Elf rivalry taken as a given and played for laughs. Seriously, snap out of it.

3. The mithril-Silmarils link. It’s not just that there’s no textual support for this (the series departs from the texts multiple times). And I can see the desire to play with the motifs of gems/materials with unfading light. What bothers me is that this storyline systematises the “magic” of Elvish immortality and ties it to particular objects and processes. Tolkien’s magic system is a “soft” one (see Brandon Sanderson’s essay on Hard vs. Soft magic systems: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/) and I think it’s a structural mistake to change this. It can have repercussions further down the line…

I could go on but still thinking about other bits and pieces. These are just some first thoughts. My review of the first 3-4 episodes is in this week’s Times Literary Supplement and on the TLS podcast here: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/.../vaccines- ... ves-on.../

Over and out.

[samaranth]

The mithril/Silmaril storyline had me literally talking back to the screen (in a ‘what do you think you’re doing?!’ way)

I think all the possible Saurons are turning out to be red herrings - Theo has reverted to being a good kid, Halbrand is just a dude with a shameful past and probably doomed to fail in the future, and the Stranger is more wizard-who-doesn’t-know-the-limits-of-his-power than not. It is likely, as Eldy said in another thread, that we haven’t seen Sauron yet. Or he may well be already hard at work but not yet stepped to the fore.

Noting that this is a potentially 5 season series, and we’re still early in season 1. It may be that we don’t see any definitive sign of Sauron and the actual rings of power (you know, those things that are in the title) until the final moments of this season’s last episode.

I can’t gauge the arc of this and I’m not getting a strong sense of plot progression, even building of dramatic tension. We’re being presented with episdoes of story and of character that might mean something, but in the next moment are shown to be not all that critical or real after all. This depiction of Middle-earth surely can’t contradict the events of the Third Age and the War of the Ring, so eventually it has to resolve into the known lore at some point – doesn’t it?

On the plus side, I do love the walking song. It’s a simple, singable tune with enough lore references in it to make me happy.

The look of each of the places is still stunning, but I'm taking a succession of lovely images from it rather than the storytelling: the autumn of Lindon, the crafted swords, the ships of Númenor, the snow-tipped mountains, the moon.

[Dave_LF]

That image of a first-age elf fighting a balrog was something

[Smaug's voice]

I didn't find Galadriel training Númenórean first-years to be that egregious. Yes it's trope-y and especially came into Hollywood through Wuxia films, but it was finally a scene that reflected Galadriel's experience in contrast to how she's been acting the past 4 episodes. In this episode she also seemed more considerate and gentle with others. What doesn't work for me though is the fact that she's too short. She's the same height as the cadets and it makes her look like a human princess instead of an Elvish queen. I wonder why they couldn't have just shot it in a way to make her look tall. The same quibble passes onto Elrond as well who seems maybe just a foot taller than Durin.


I'll still wait and digest the Mithril-Silmaril bit and see how big of a thing they make it into eventually and how much of it is just shrugged off as an urban legend. To quote the book, the show hangs at the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail.

Loved the walking song. The highlight of the episode, too bad it was also only the first scene!

[Eldy]

I'll still wait and digest the Mithril-Silmaril bit and see how big of a thing they make it into eventually and how much of it is just shrugged off as an urban legend. To quote the book, the show hangs at the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail.

I dunno, I feel like the in-universe truth of the mithril origin story is kinda beside the point. They're still making this a huge plot point and the linchpin of two key characters' motivations. If it turns out Gil-galad and Celebrimbor bet the farm on a story that truly is just an Elvish folk tale ... I don't really see that as better.

[Eldy]

Noting that this is a potentially 5 season series, and we’re still early in season 1. It may be that we don’t see any definitive sign of Sauron and the actual rings of power (you know, those things that are in the title) until the final moments of this season’s last episode.

This seems plausible to me, especially regarding the Rings. Sauron surely has to show up in the first season, given how much they've built up the mystery about his identity. I hope it's for more than a few moments in the final episode, but I wouldn't rule out that possibility. I definitely don't expect to see the forging of the Great Rings until S2. We only have three episodes left in S1, and the Southlands/Adar conflict will likely get the lion's share of screentime. At most we might get a tease at the very end of the season that the Rings will be the Elves' next big project to try to forestall their decline.

[Inanna]

That image of a first-age elf fighting a balrog was something

It really was! I feel that is what is really keeping me going with this series. These snippets of pure visual awesomeness. Every scene of Númenor makes me go "Wooo".

Other than that, the whole mithril-silmaril thing is a giant turn-off. Let's see how it plays out - but it reminded me of the movie, Avatar. And I don't mean that as a compliment.

I keep waiting to see "Wise Galadriel". But I keep getting manipulative Galadriel. *Whine*.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I saw this pointed out on Facebook. Look at their neck guards.


Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

[Inanna]

Ah! Nice bit of detail & story hidden in plain sight.

So, Atar is from Lindon. Since it is a neck guard, he served there as a soldier - at some point of time.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

So, Atar is from Lindon. Since it is a neck guard, he served there as a soldier - at some point of time.

Or, he and Gil-Galad have common roots from the First Age.