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 Da Boss wrote:
I've thought about that A LOT, and how to maybe use that in a game with Orc protagonists at war with the Gods.

.

Ork! The Roleplaying game held that as one of it's ultimate goals. Have your ork kill the sun. Of course, eating broccoli also caused you to explode, so it was slightly less serious than ROP.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Ork! The Roleplaying game held that as one of it's ultimate goals. Have your ork kill the sun. Of course, eating broccoli also caused you to explode, so it was slightly less serious than ROP.

I mean, we haven't seen an orc eat broccoli in RoP yet, so can't rule it out.

Sooo took a deep breath and watched S2 Ep 1 with Mother....

Good
First bit with Sauron - esp liked the thing that remained - although thought for a moment it was going to become the Watcher in the Water - which I don't think anyone really knows what it is?
It looked good for the most part (although see below)
Gandalf and the not Hobbit was quite fun.
The ship part I liked.

Bad
The Elves - my fav race in LOR and oh dear....the outfits - esp the armour, the plain stupidity of every single one of them, the dialogue....ye gods it is bad - hmm I guess the bit at the end with the Tree looked... good.
No Dwarves :(

?
Why did the Father of Orcs release the prisoners when their king seemed to care for them - proper evil guys note this and torture them to make the stoic hero talk...

S2 E5

Hey look, it’s The Actor Kevin Eldon, King of Hobbies! Though his weak lemon drink is conspicuously absent.

As ever, haven’t and probably won’t read any Tolkien, so opinion solely informed by this show.

And I am enjoying that the nature of the Rings is a big deal. Give the “Good Races” pretty geegaws which grant them ways to make their lives better, and presumably the One Ring allows Sauron to influence the bearers of the others, who having been given free reign have the respect and adoration of their peoples will be followed down darker routes.

Still very much an improvement on the “who are you, and why should I care” of Season 1.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
This image I found is the start of one of the chapters in the book. Just read the first 2 paragraphs of that total nonsense and you will get an idea of what reading the silmarillion is like. haha

snip...

Also this...

snip...

What's meant to be difficult to read about this?

I like to joke the only thing Catholic School prepared me for was being able to read stuff like this comfortably. Both the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings are roundly criticized for being 'dry' but its almost always referring to this kind of long elaboration in backgrounds that draws heavily from the kind of layouts you see in the Bible and mythological texts.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:Difference is, Silmarillion was never was never meant to be published, especially in raw form. You want to read the actual stories, you read the ones Chris expanded on and published.

Rings of Power has writers who seem like the only time they've touched a pen is when they drew a picture book.

Lance845 wrote:Factually untrue. Silmarililon was pitched along with TLotR and was rejected by publishers. Tolkien continued work on it all the way up to his death but he definitely tended to publish it.

If it was only notes for his own history then that paragraph of cousins could have been more easily recorded as a flow chart.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:It was unfinished, so it was never meant to be published. So, yes true.

While the Silmarillion we got (with its annotations and footnotes in the margins being notes by Chris outlining that this or that inconsistency is because the paragraphs in question were written decades apart instead of some in-universe explanation) is almost certainly not what JRRT would have ultimately published if he'd lived to see it done, it's not unreasonable to guess that a lot of its broad stroke revelations regarding the orcs are probably close.

Leopold Helveine wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
]Like the Sun is literally in the sky in Middle Earth to torment and discomfit the Orcs. The Valar have done that specifically to make their lives worse and drive them underground.

This is one of the more important aspects Tolkien took from real world mythology emphasising the -inherent evil- that Orcs 'do represent.
You have for one the mythology of trol, the mythology of tengu and the mythology of kallikantzaroi.
The first refers to hunched over people that live in mountain caves and raid villages stealing children, they are described as having 'esoteric knowledge'.

snip...

While I like the detail you're going into here, I feel like you may be missing the forest for the trees.

Yes. Tolkien's orcs draw from mythological sources and these creatures from which he draws are, as presented, irredeemably evil. The problem is, the crux of Tolkien's dilemma about the orcs is that while these mythologies allow for irredeemably evil creatures that think and speak and possess intelligence, Tolkien's Christian philosophy does not, and that philosophy is front and center in his work. Tolkien's orcs speak, think, have a concept of right and wrong (and express all three in the text of his work) and he was conflicted because he believed they must obviously be redeemable, but couldn't reconcile that with how he'd depicted them thus far.

That's the crux of Tolkien's moral dilemma about the orcs, it's also the crux of pretty much every good guy orc story from Warcraft 3 to TNG's Klingons.

RoP is actively poking at this sore spot, it seems to be one of its central ideas. The scene with the orc child touches on one side of the dilemma, and for some reason everyone is forgetting the scene in season one with the water ration or any of the many, many others that touch on the other side of it. He'll, Galadriel and Adar have exactly one scene together in which she says orcs have no right to exist and he replies that only God gets to decide that and here they are lol.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

While I like the detail you're going into here, I feel like you may be missing the forest for the trees.

Yes. Tolkien's orcs draw from mythological sources and these creatures from which he draws are, as presented, irredeemably evil. The problem is, the crux of Tolkien's dilemma about the orcs is that while these mythologies allow for irredeemably evil creatures that think and speak and possess intelligence, Tolkien's Christian philosophy does not, and that philosophy is front and center in his work. Tolkien's orcs speak, think, have a concept of right and wrong (and express all three in the text of his work) and he was conflicted because he believed they must obviously be redeemable, but couldn't reconcile that with how he'd depicted them thus far.

That's the crux of Tolkien's moral dilemma about the orcs, it's also the crux of pretty much every good guy orc story from Warcraft 3 to TNG's Klingons.

RoP is actively poking at this sore spot, it seems to be one of its central ideas. The scene with the orc child touches on one side of the dilemma, and for some reason everyone is forgetting the scene in season one with the water ration or any of the many, many others that touch on the other side of it. He'll, Galadriel and Adar have exactly one scene together in which she says orcs have no right to exist and he replies that only God gets to decide that and here they are lol.

Well, this is (no offence) where you're dead wrong, Tolkien exactly commented on the fact how christianity had muddied the water concerning the mythology of albion and erin as much as the greater gaelic world' (including the saka roaming branches as much as sea peoples that went all over the earth) and was rightfully keeping it out of his written world. Tolkien did not write from a christian philosophy, he wrote again rightfully from a pagan (this word means of the countryside) and heretical (this word means 'able to choose') philosophy.

The christian philosophy is indeed rooted in the good vs evil paradigm, which is relatively modern and originating of the gnostics who demoted the ancient and antique creator deity as a jealous usurper who stole the light of a new higher god known as el elyon/barbelo/sophia. The creator was vilified and made into the "evil" or adversarious contrasting entity; a fallen' deity to be transcended from.

The preceding pagan worldview revered the creator entity, we know today as the Sun' which was symbolized and allegorized many times as much as had many titles and names corresponding with the alchemy of creation and its aspects, such as associations with spring and rebirth as much as with its light or in some cases named after the people who revered the creator themselves, for instance ariel which means god(el) of the ari'. etc.
Sometimes he was simply called the good god (dag-An'/Dag-da(nu) or the lord of the mountain (ela-gabalus) if not just associated with such in illustrations ( such as the (T)horagalles, Tharapita, horselord deities such as Iu(dieus)pater(father) and so on and on)

It is this Solar' creator mythology that Tolkien drew from, -not- the christian one, but I understand that the series lacks the ration for this subject, and its writers especially are limited to simpler concepts.

Episode 5 was an absolute slog, even by this shows standard.

Its making me appreciate the more boring episodes of season 2 of HotD much more. At least they had witty/intelligent dialogue delivered by fine actors.

So got to episode 5

To my great surprise I was actually quite enjoying but the Elves get worse and worse...Dumb, dumb dumb... also did they only have the one horse that the show could use.

Wizard looking for his stick and halflings are greatly tedious.

Numenor is just odd.

I do like the black Legolas

I actually am enjoying it but they are stretching out the wizard-quest thing. Once they reveal his name it's going to be tedious, whether it's Gandalf or not.

Starting to spot some Star Wars type dialog turning up. Tom's 'help them or complete your training' moment and Galadriel said "escape is not his plan".

Its weird - some bits could have done with time jumps - easily done as except for the halflings everyone lives for centuries at least but instead we have the Dwarf rings acting instantly to corrupt the Dwarves....

"I have lost my stick and my name " is tedious

How do the Dwarf rings corrupt them? Because Tolkien explicitly says that Dwarves cannot be dominated by the rings like men were, and that they do not become Wraiths for that reason. The rings just increased their already present greed.

 Da Boss wrote:
How do the Dwarf rings corrupt them? Because Tolkien explicitly says that Dwarves cannot be dominated by the rings like men were, and that they do not become Wraiths for that reason. The rings just increased their already present greed.

That is how it is corrupting them. The dwarven king who was first given the rings refuses to share them with anyone else. He is digging deeper for more and becoming paranoid of others taking or wanting what is his.

The One Ring has not been forged yet. There has been no attempt to dominate with the rings yet.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
How do the Dwarf rings corrupt them? Because Tolkien explicitly says that Dwarves cannot be dominated by the rings like men were, and that they do not become Wraiths for that reason. The rings just increased their already present greed.

That is how it is corrupting them. The dwarven king who was first given the rings refuses to share them with anyone else. He is digging deeper for more and becoming paranoid of others taking or wanting what is his.

The One Ring has not been forged yet. There has been no attempt to dominate with the rings yet.

Yep - but I wish it would have taken more than 10 seconds to work - time jump would have worked well...

Episode 7.

Now we’re getting somewhere! The battles were fun, and easy to follow. But, perhaps a smidgen too easy? Certainly odd to see Elves not fighting in a well ordered phalanx type thing, so maybe that’s colouring my opinion.

Gods above that episode was bad......

I assume they are ignoring the whole Galadriel's husband and daughter - who marries Elrond....cos otherwise this is going to get a bit icky.

Battles were just a mess and not in a good way, oh we need an archer - oh for some reason she gets shot by a load of orcs but no one else - like what?

Galadriel lets a tortured old smith go off to fight Sauron with some guards who have trouble fighting orcs... I mean its not dumber than everything else she does in the show, every week.

Only mercy was no Wizard looking for a stick

I didn't find so bad. Some how I can enjoy while being aware of some negatives.

Kudos for trying to evoke the feeling of Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields, but if your going to introduce a hot archer who dies making the crucial shot then take an episode or two to build her up - not three scenes and one line of dialogue.

Celebrimbor and the City Guard realise it's Sauron and confront him. Cool - but then it turns into The Life of Brian.

And I'm getting a little tired of Adar, the ex-elf Super-Orc, and the writers having it both ways with the orcs as unsavable brutal thugs and as a people with hope, dreams and families.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Episode 7.

Now we’re getting somewhere! The battles were fun, and easy to follow. But, perhaps a smidgen too easy? Certainly odd to see Elves not fighting in a well ordered phalanx type thing, so maybe that’s colouring my opinion.

You serious though, the battles fun and easy to follow?
They were completely illogical in every way, manner, shape and form.

I probably forgot 100 things but these should do..

And that’s Season 2.

Overall I’ve enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to S3.

However, pacing. I feel like S1 and S2 could’ve been condensed down.

So the awful mess of a season ending in a awful mess of nonsense where plots and timelines were allover the place and made little sense.

Trying to think of something that was good or made sense.....er... there was some pretty cgi places....er.....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And that’s Season 2.

Overall I’ve enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to S3.

However, pacing. I feel like S1 and S2 could’ve been condensed down.

I'm also very happy this smoldering pile of elven bones is over and I can with the best of luck forget this series exists come when S3 starts and ignore it wholly.

At the watching of the season finale I had so little interest in any character that I completely zoned out of everything that happened and probably missed all the logical fallacies concerning because it was like watching an ep of scooby doo while multitasking computerwork or something..

g(R)andalf in particular is like a cardboard character in this series, and whoever made his finding of his name be oblivious to the fact that gandalf means WAND-ELF in ancient english (gandr-alf) (also equates to wind-elf btw) to begin with should be fired from film making for life.

despite being zoned out I still wasn't blind to the atrocious laziness in this series, but what really made me exhale all creatures of pandoras box from my vocal chords was the moment the drow elf pranced around the screen entirely peak healthy as could be while he

No, nothing about this series was fun or good or anywhere near a proper standard to art and expressing a story, my lord what a ridiculous, ridiculous, RIDICULOUS waste of money it is. The single good moment in this finale was

Anyone that wants to start breathing nitrogen (and some oxygen particles) again can start watching the new batman series Penguin' and experience the immense contrast in quality.

It was a big pile of Gak - mainly watching it as my 80 yr old mother enjoys fantasy with a good bit of violence but she was shaking her head at some of the nonsense and going but.. why did or how come....?

Lowlights:


Penguin seems very good and there are plenty of well written shows out there.. Compare Fallout to Rings of Power....

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
despite being zoned out I still wasn't blind to the atrocious laziness in this series, but what really made me exhale all creatures of pandoras box from my vocal chords was the moment the drow elf pranced around the screen entirely peak healthy as could be while he

Spoiler:

had JUST BEEN KILLED IN THE PREV EP..

...

 Mr Morden wrote:
It was a big pile of Gak - mainly watching it as my 80 yr old mother enjoys fantasy with a good bit of violence but she was shaking her head at some of the nonsense and going but.. why did or how come....?

Lowlights:

Spoiler:

* The Dwarves going oh look a Balrog - lets immediately teleport to the siege....because...we can somehow..
* Orcs being noted as frenzied killing machines in the same episode but happy to chat to Glad and let the five elves she rescued flee - probably - unless they butched them off screen which would have made more sense.
* Glads magic ring being super good healing - except when it wasn't ....but then was again....
* the entire Numenor story - Ughhh I mean WTF
* Gandalf wandering looking for a stick or the plot or a decent script
* The stupid masked people - what do they do - "Die immediately"
* Saurons motivations veering wildly from sentence to sentence

Penguin seems very good and there are plenty of well written shows out there.. Compare Fallout to Rings of Power....

Oh yeah completely forgot about that 2nd point scene..

 insaniak wrote:

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
despite being zoned out I still wasn't blind to the atrocious laziness in this series, but what really made me exhale all creatures of pandoras box from my vocal chords was the moment the drow elf pranced around the screen entirely peak healthy as could be while he

Spoiler:

had JUST BEEN KILLED IN THE PREV EP..

Spoiler:

Assuming you mean Arondir (who is not a drow, since those aren't a thing in LorR), he was still alive when Adar walked off.

...

The dwarfs being resistant to the magic of the rings prevented them from being enslaved to Sauron's will, but amplified their greed and pride. So that much the series got right, they just condensed the timeline to fit it into the series.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

Spoiler:

He was ran through twice lethally and went deathstare to the ground, and in the next ep walks around and fights 100% fine as if he just had a bowl of soup and a chickenleg instead.

 insaniak wrote:
The dwarfs being resistant to the magic of the rings prevented them from being enslaved to Sauron's will, but amplified their greed and pride. So that much the series got right, they just condensed the timeline to fit it into the series.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

Spoiler:

He was ran through twice lethally and went deathstare to the ground, and in the next ep walks around and fights 100% fine as if he just had a bowl of soup and a chickenleg instead.

Spoiler:

The wounded guy being magically healed of his wounds while hanging out with another guy possessing a magical healing ring isn't really that much of a leap.

It would admittedly have been better if they had actually shown the healing, but there was a lot to fit into that last episode as it was.

The ring that got taken off him and he refused to use?

No, Gil-Galad.

The mindbending people go through to still support the horrific writing of this thankfully ended season (and hopefully soon to be canceled series) is amazing..

I'm curious, Leopold - are you able to post without insulting those who might hold a different POV to you?

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
The mindbending people go through to still support the horrific writing of this thankfully ended season (and hopefully soon to be canceled series) is amazing..

The what, now? It's not really that much of stretch to assume that the guy with the magical healing power might have used it to heal some folk.

The thing is, even if finding that explanation did take more than 3 and a half seconds thought, the way I see it is: if I'm watching a show, I have the choice of ignoring its flaws and just enjoying the ride, or picking it apart and not enjoying the time spent watching it. That second option just feels like a complete waste of time and energy, so if I can't enjoy the show for what it is, I'll just watch something else. I don't see the point in continuing to watch a show if I don't find something positive in it, and I find the idea of people hate watching a whole series just to complain about it more than a little bizarre, honestly. But you do you.

 insaniak wrote:

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
The mindbending people go through to still support the horrific writing of this thankfully ended season (and hopefully soon to be canceled series) is amazing..

The what, now? It's not really that much of stretch to assume that the guy with the magical healing power might have used it to heal some folk.

The thing is, even if finding that explanation did take more than 3 and a half seconds thought, the way I see it is: if I'm watching a show, I have the choice of ignoring its flaws and just enjoying the ride, or picking it apart and not enjoying the time spent watching it. That second option just feels like a complete waste of time and energy, so if I can't enjoy the show for what it is, I'll just watch something else. I don't see the point in continuing to watch a show if I don't find something positive in it, and I find the idea of people hate watching a whole series just to complain about it more than a little bizarre, honestly. But you do you.

I am mainly watching it cos mother wants to see it when I go round otherwise I would drop it - like I did "Last of Us"

My fav bits of 1st series where Elrond and Durin - but no interactions to speak off....

Fair point on Gil-Galad - but not sure when that would have happened as they were all captured pretty quickly....