Didn’t Sauron control the orcs in the same manner where he made the elf soldiers kill each other? He was present at both the elf and orc events so it appears there’s a distance limit to his control.
I think he began to turn the orcs before the event where they killed Adar. They first found him up in the forge where he had killed Celebrimbor . I figured it was around that time he convinced the orcs to turn on Adar
you need to watch the Numenor stuff at some point before next season because like how the Elves were most of S2's plot, I expect the Numenoreans to be so in S3. their storyline only gets better from here, trust me. they're pack animals. they rule by might, it's not about needing to be corrupted or convinced. if you're stronger than the guy currently in charge then guess what, you're the new guy in charge. Adar started showing signs of weakness (to Glug) and that's all Glug needed to know he wanted change. he knows of the might of Sauron, he asks if Sauron is Sauron and when he says yes then Glug offers to betray Adar without hesitation. and as you heard it in that episode, once the orcs smell blood they go nuts so after that initial stab from Glug, everyone else just went along with it. meet the new boss, same as the old boss. they are not creatures with much subtlety or nuance. some of you sort of overestimate Sauron's ability to control things. he says it as much in his duel with Galadriel, "the road goes ever winding, not even I can see all its paths". he's just an ace at capitalizing on people's mistakes and weaknesses.
That was a much better season than the first! The Sauron Celebrimbor scenes were top tier from both actors all season. Galadriel was less cringy, Elrond was good, and I guess I hated Numenor less than most as what’s coming is going to be incredible if they do it well (and this season shows promise). Despite some stuff that’s way too on the nose, I enjoyed it a lot more and it seemed like a show that’s scratching the worth of Bezos crazy spending spree.
Kemen is a buffoon, he's too stupid and weak to end up as the Witch-king. he's just your stereotypical rich kid bully, he's the way he is because it's convenient, not because that's who he really is whereas Ar-Pharazon is driven by his lust for power. neither he nor Earien exist in the books, they're just written in to flesh out the Numenor story a bit, they're hollow and unimpressive characters and using a trope like Kemen to make into the Witch-king would be awful writing. Sauron doesn't just toss the Nine Rings and collect nine random dudes to make the Nazgul, he sought out kings, warlords, powerful warriors, etc. Kemen is like Don Jr. or Eric Trump.
Totally agree. Not saying it’s good writing but to me it feels the same as making the Stranger into Gandalf.
I don't think I'll be watching a potential season 3. I gave it a honest shot but I just can't get into this show.
Also, would be really awesome if they kill Gandalf and use it explain how Maiar are immortal and why Sauron survives.
So what are the limits of Sauron’s power? if the guy can just create alternate realities like when Cerebrimbor went outside to “hear” the alarm bells… what chance do they have? Just curious if his power does have limits because seems dude can do whatever he wants rn
In the series he can only do that to others with whom he has spent close time enough to get into their minds. It appears he has to be close by to accomplish the illusions and mind control. He wields this or a similar influence through the rings in which he participated in the forging. He can wield an influence through the palantirs too, but I don’t know if it’s the same thing.
I mean, as you saw, it was a really thin veil of illusion because he was so distracted by Adar's attack he couldn't give the mice more RNG in its pattern. he can't just go out and face a thousand Elves and wave his hand and make every Elf think he's now surrounded by 999 orcs. in the books he had some abilities with a wider range of power like being able to take a fairer form and have people believe it but as he suffered defeats and deaths he lost these abilities to fool Elves and then even later to fool Man. by the time he's getting a bad manicure from Isildur, the physical form of his body under that armor is twisted and wretched-looking. you saw what you saw because in the books he corrupted Celebrimbor over centuries of time and Adar didn't exist so he wasn't in a rush.
"Sauron launched an invasion of Eriador and destroyed Eregion in the War of the Elves and Sauron. Númenor dispatched an immense military force to Middle-earth to aid the Elves of Lindon and, after a period of heavy fighting, defeated Sauron and his hosts." Why did the show create Adar and make an alternate version of this instead of just doing it as written by Tolkien?
That's how TV writers are now. They always think they can improve on what the author wrote. It's why so many adaptations fail.
I think that is an overly simplistic explanation. Sometimes it comes down to factors like budget, but also timeline representation and continuity for actors. It would be challenging to pull off a centuries corruption of Celebrimbor and maintain interesting character development and plots for example. I know House of Dragon's tried that to an extent and it was somewhat successful, but I didn't love it. I am not super familiar with the pre-Rings timeline, but I thought Adar was one of the standouts of the show, new or not. I loved the complexity of his character.
That is true. I'm not super familiar with this timeline myself. Just the broad strokes of it. I wasn't even speaking of this show necessarily. Just more in broad terms. It feels like too many writers and show runners take on an adaptation with the goal of making it their own instead of being true to what the author wrote. Changes will always be necessary. Even Jackson changed a decent bit but he did it with the utmost respect for the source material. I just wish we got more adaptations like LotR and Dune and less like the Witcher where it seems like the writers on that show hated the source material and changed it at every turn when it wasn't even necessary.
It is a fascinating contrast in this show how so many characters make frequent reference to events that happened thousands of years ago - light of the two trees, I've been awake since before the breaking of the first silence, etc. - they're clearly immortal/nearly immortal beings, but then they are compelled to squeeze thousands of years of lore into the span of months (maybe? it's hard to tell) of the most eventful days ever in middle earth.
That was something that even bothered me a little in Lord of the Rings. From the time Bilbo leaves Frodo the ring to the time he leaves the Shire is something like 20 years. But in the film it seems like a few days later.
Jackson made a fair bit of concessions and changes as well, yea. I mean, Sauron doesn't die like he does in LOTR. his body doesn't explode if the ring slides off his finger. Elendil and Gil-galad stabbed him to death (both also died for it) and Isildur basically stood over a defeated Sauron and cut his finger off and took the One Ring as sort of a "fuck you" for everything Sauron had caused. that's one thing I'd love to see if this series goes the distance.
it just breaks in two as Elendil dies, it doesn't shatter like in the movies. the way it's written it's as if with Elendil's death the power the blade held also fell. it stays unforged until one worthy of wielding it arises and gains power again under Aragorn.
Agreed. Most of season 1 was a struggle to watch. Season 2 was ok to good but not great, except the Celebrimbor/Annatar stuff was great. I hope we never see another halfling the rest of the series. Terrible. Numenor stuff was actually good. Some of the writing and acting was bad but it was overall such a massive improvement from S1. I enjoyed the dwarf stuff this season as well. Galadriel stuff was actually pretty good outside of most of ep8. Actually looking forward to S3.
This passage would kind of explain what I was talking about earlier with orcs being fickle and killing sauron and adar: The passage is from The Silmarillion, during a discussion about the nature of Orcs and their relationship to Morgoth, their creator. “For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance thereof, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery.” The orcs are probably inherently bound to hate whoever controls and enslaves them. Their very existence is a form of slavery, servitude, misery, and mockery.
Sorry if this has been discussed, but don’t want to get spoilered by reading through. Wife & I are 2 episodes in and want to know if this is worth continuing? Does it get better? Just don’t want to invest the time if this is more of a continuation from the 1st season and not impressed thus far.
If you grew up reading the hobbit and LOTR and nerding out on this stuff and can’t even enjoy this show then I don’t know what to tell you. Yah certain parts suck like the halflings but overall I find it very satisfying and entertaining and it scratches my Tolkien itch
The fact that it's lotr is the only reason I stuck it out this long. It's just not a well written show. Even visually I'm not a fan. The cgi is well done but there's something about the aesthetic I don't like. Maybe it looks too clean? I don't know but it's just not my thing. If a season 3 actually happens maybe I'll give it a shot in 2027.
“Grand Elf” storyline moving so ridiculously slow. If they took 50% of the hobbit screen time from the first two seasons and invested into advancing his story the show would be so much better.
Much of the Hobbit story line certainly seems like a waste. So why did they handle it like they did? Are we, as viewers and judges, missing something?
Nah. They were trying to hit us with some nostalgia with their female Frodo and Sam but it didn't work.
there's no storyline at all, that's the real issue. Gandalf isn't meant to arrive for literally every bit of like 1000-3000ish years (depending on which other storyline's supposed present day you count from). they're winging every single bit of his storyline so it's going to be slowed down or sped up depending on what a given episode needs. my guess is they ultimately want it to end with what's called the Wandering Days (the period of history for the Hobbits where their ancestors were always migrating) finishing and some Hobbits starting to put down roots and then tie that in to why Gandalf had such affection for them as a species. if you only ever watched the movies, you jump into it and hey there's friendly Gandalf happy to see Frodo and the Hobbits loved when he visited and so on and so they figured they could go "well, why was it like that?" and try to carve out a story there to fill up some plot each week. my guess is if we actually get five seasons you'll see almost no Hobbits next season and it'll focus on Gandalf becoming Gandalf and defeating the Dark Wizard. then he'll wander West, run into Nori for season 4 and they'll wander back to her clan in season 5 and the clan will be in deep shit and Gandalf helps rescue them and find them a permanent home and they go from fearing him to revering him. something along those lines. they shouldn't have done the Hobbits at all and allotted their time to the Dwarven storyline, which frankly is not that important at this time and then everything else is Elves and Numenoreans. like 50% Elves, 35% Numenoreans, 15% Dwarves and that's all you need.
I know what you mean with the aesthetics. I can't put it into words any different from you even though it's not exact, too clean. Must be an Amazon thing bc I don't love Wheel of Time's feel/look either.
I think wheel of times biggest issue is it looks cheap. I feel like season 2 of lotr was better with the clean thing. The main characters are starting to get more in the mud now. We’ve spent a lot of time in elven cities and numenor, which are both pretty clean places
TBF by the time of the trilogy she’s 3,000 or so years older with the knowledge and wisdom that theoretically goes with it. Additionally she has learned just how powerful and insidious Sauron is.
I had to partition this Galadriel off from canon Galadriel because they aren't the same being on almost any level. It helped my enjoyment of the show immensely in season 2