best thing to come out of the show is making Tommy B a good character. introducing neutral into archetypal good vs evil battles is really difficult but doing it with a character who most likely would make any other character on the show shit their pants a bit if they faced them 1v1 is extremely difficult. it's like writing around Chekov's gun. so I was absolutely impressed by their Bombadil. much like HotD, this 18-24 months between seasons stuff is bullshit. The Sopranos got away with that because it was the final season and it's arguably the GOAT but even they caught an enormous amount of flak over it because it was almost unheard of twenty years ago. this shit is becoming a habit for studios but people hate it. they forget characters and storylines and just care less about the return. the money spent on this stuff should mean it can still be done in a year's time. I refuse to believe otherwise.
Loved episode 4. Ok with these hobbits for now only because they're part of a cool side quest. They better not attempt to waste our time going any further with that love at first sight hobbit crush shit though. We don't need a side quest on the side quest. Bombaldi and the Istar scenes were great. Probably my favorite storyline right now. Istar needs to find a more level appropriate staff. Something always goes wrong when your character is level 10 and you get that OP level 20 staff and try to use it. Definitely feels like a major battle is coming up and if it's a large scale elf v orc battle I'm all about it. They make elf fighting pretty dope in cinema. Wish I could binge the rest of the season now.
I have to agree. This huge waits between seasons just isn't working for me. Especially if it's not absolutely amazing. Which this certainly isn't.
This season started strong but episdoes 3 and 4 could have been better. It's not terrible by any means and I'm enjoying it. They have fallen into some more slow and unnecessary stuff like last season and they definitely could be doing better with it. But I'm enjoying it and will take what I can get.
I could see saying episode 3 was slower but idk what you're expecting to happen each week if Ep 4 was slow. The storylines are moving at a good pace we don't need GoT Season 8 speed here
It’s all about the money. They want to turn a few good shows into 10 years of subscription. I am interested to see how Silo does. The second season of Silo should catapult it into one of the biggest shows on TV but does the audience come back two years later and do they actually progress the story commensurate with the pace of the books
silo s1 ended in June 2023. S2 is coming back in November 2024. Not quite the same as hotd, rings etc
wait, where was Goldberry? you hear her singing, and her name popped up on subtitles, but bombadil deflects when asked
my guess was the lamb. she's very poorly defined as a character but I have her as a Maia in my head canon so shape-shifting and whatnot would be doable for her. if I were to go further, perhaps a bad experience with the previous wizard has her spooked and she won't reveal herself until the Stranger proves himself good.
I was watching The Fellowship Of The Ring last night and noted Saruman’s beard looks just like the Dark Wizard’s. Also Saruman was sent to Middle Earth before the other four (per the Tolkien Gateway). He would have had time to get established before Gandalf arrived.
Even though they’re beating us over the head with it being Gandalf I’m going to believe these are the two blue wizards
Saruman did not come first, the two blue wizards did, Tolkien rewrote this much later. neither Saruman, Gandalf, or Radagast came until TA (which is after where this story of the Rings of Power will end). he also didn't arrive in any huge, appreciable sense of time ahead of the other two either. you need to understand that in the books, in the universe Tolkien created, that corrupting men, corrupting elves, and corrupting Maiar or Valar all take vastly different amounts of effort and time. one can be done in months or a few years, elves can take decades or centuries, and the others can take centuries to millenia. Saruman didn't magically arrive on ME 5-10 years before the others and get corrupted in that time. it's also worth noting Saruman wasn't corrupted corrupted, Sauron was a means to an end and that end was the One Ring. Saruman was always prideful, always jealous of Gandalf, always ultimately disliked being given the charge he was given (to save ME). he sought power himself just like Sauron. this fall from grace took thousands of years. I'm also not telling you it can't be Saruman, I'm just telling you it'd be exceptionally bad writing if it were him.
If these two wizards are Gandalf and Saruman that will probably be the thing that makes me stop watching.
I think it’s debatable about how corrupted Saruman was, but I think what you listed is how he justified it but breeding Uruk Hai and possibly mixing them with humans was pretty far down the road.
oh, no, he was long gone. and he was so prideful he couldn't see a way out that didn't have him groveling to Gandalf and Radagast (and boy, oh boy, did he hate Radagast) so he just doubled down. I just meant he wasn't some mindless thrall that Sauron controlled like many others he corrupted. he allied with Sauron for convenience, because he thought he'd be able to get his hands on the One Ring easier than opposing him. Sauron definitely influenced him down that path, though.
Yeah I just think the whole thing was manipulated by Sauron and his “free will” was illusory towards the end for him.
I cited my source. Tolkien wrote lots of notes about the Blues. Some of them contradict themselves. In one the Blues came under the influence of Sauron and possible established one or more magic cults. In another they were heroes who helped to limit Sauron’s influence in the East and South. So I simply believe they came after Saruman as stated in the Tolkien Gateway. FWIW, there’s a lot of debate on this. I chose my position because it makes the most sense to me out of all the options available. The tv writers might invent something that neither of us have considered. Maybe they create new Canon? For instance, in Tolkien’s writings Gandalf arrived by ship at the Havens in the Third Age (the tv series is in the Second Age) and he said he never went to the East (Rhun is considered East). So I don’t know how the writers are going to reconcile the Stranger as Gandalf.
The Stranger is actually the Balrog from Moria, he just forgot he can turn into shadow and light himself on fire.
yes, I know all of that already. none of that even begins to explain why you think Saruman is the evil wizard besides "guys, I was watching the movie and well, the beards are similar".
They don’t make these shows for the comparatively small fans of the series/author/worlds. They make them to make money off subscriptions. Idk what to tell you if you think they care at all about ruining some book nerds head cannon or they don’t follow the what was physically written 100%. All they care about is getting enough eyeballs to make money. -they’ve pretty much confirmed it’s Gandalf. If it isn’t Gandalf at this point it’s kind of a very silly intentional misdirection -again, if it is Gandalf then it would make sense to use another familiar character to the millions of people who’ve seen the movies. Is it book accurate? No. Will it work? Who knows. -the other option is to make it Gandalf and another wizard they just made up for the show or they combined the two blue wizards into one and he is evil but redeems himself or some shit
that's not what's under discussion. Gandalf being Gandalf doesn't matter. Saruman being evil thousands of years before it actually happened and superseding famous events in the lore does matter, whether you think so or not. it'd be akin to someone making a series about early Anakin Skywalker and saying "yea, he was evil as a baby" and erasing his entire character arc and fucking up tons of already existing lore. Gandalf being haphazardly written into existence before he should have is stupid but him ultimately being a force for good on the show doesn't really change his character. his morals and virtues have never wavered ever in the lore. the evil wizard being Saruman would change everything which is why I think there's no way it is him and they will catch a ton of shit for it if it is hence this kind of attitude:
i’m not arguing for it to be them or even that it would be ok or work out and make sense. I’m only saying why I think a tv show would do it. Idk why you’re arguing with me as if I’m advocating for it
Hi my name is Whisky Delta and I could give a shit about Numenor Im also into the scotch tonight, hence no (e)
Let’s be real the acting chops in Numenor aren’t really there. Gray beard and his son are cringeworthy.
No different than any of the movies, and yes I knew what was coming. The fight seen was very frustrating, but tolerable knowing what is to come. I am really enjoying this season. I like how we are starting to see the connections to Lord of the Rings. Adar is a super interesting character,
season 3 has been greenlit for a while I think viewership has been good and that it’ll go all 5 seasons it’ll only get better imo
Numenor is bad and the Dwarves are really close to bad because they created a wife for Durin IV and she gets in the way of fucking everything. Dwarven timeline is beyond fucked anyway (Durin's Bane killed Durin VI not Durin III) but Disa is horribly written and horribly acted. Adar good, Sauron good, Elves good, orcs good, Stranger good (Harfoots tolerable now that there's only two). my one bone of contention with the Elves is Celebrimbor, who I'm basically tolerating right now in order to see Celebrimbanner. a corruption that took centuries is instead happening in mere days and that cheapens the act and makes Celebrimbor look lesser. do enjoy what they're doing with the Rings and showing well, power. it's not like they were worn and people got tricked and enslaved, they were capable of amazing feats.
Complaints about Disa make sense now knowing that she's created for the show and maybe it wasn't all bc of "oh black dwarf bad woke" that the headlines were saying during season 1. She's not a good character, but the concept of the female dwarves that can talk to rocks is cool so she's not a complete waste of screen time like the Harfoot clan was. New Adar >>>>>>>> Old Adar imo.
I'm at the point where I've had to mentally remind myself "this is some new, not remotely canon take on Galadriel" and then compartmentalize my loathing of the jumbled timeline. It makes it not bad television, a step up from last year so far. Numenor would be WAY more compelling if they showed Pharazon go challenge Sauron for supremacy of Middle Earth, Sauron feigning awe, and then corrupting and flaming the fire of rebelling against Valinor. But alas, even Sauron can't be in two places at once when you've condensed millennia into just a few months/years.
finally got caught up. show is much better than last season. thread is not great when people just want to argue why their predictions could be true. love the lore stuff adding context to what we're seeing in the show though.
Talking about bad acting, whoever is doing Sauron is doing some pretty damn good acting imo. Any time a bad guy makes you really hate him, they are doing a good job.
I think the puddle thing, and specifically the way it happened, are inventions of the show, but Sauron (and Gandalf and Saruman and the Balrogs) are all essentially immortal angels, so while you can "kill" them, you basically just discorporate their spirit until it can reform eventually. It's described at the end of the RotK book where Saruman dies and his spirit kind of hangs around a bit until God kind of turns him away from going back to Heaven and he blows away on the wind. Elves also fall into this category, at a lower HP level, as the basically go to God's Waiting Room for a while and eventually come back.
Man, Galadriel is so bad. But the guy playing Sauron is playing Celebrimbor like a fiddle and doing it so well.