Episode One and Two: It
Begins
Yesterday (September 3) I
went over to my brother John’s house to watch the first two episodes of The
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. He and his family already had an
Amazon+ subscription and a nice big television to watch it on. Though I could
not help hearing many things before I went over and knowing many people’s
opinions, I scrupulously avoided any detailed reviews, so I could go in with a
clear mind.
To rehearse my pedigree once
more, I was introduced to Tolkien in 1972 in Third Grade; read The
Hobbit in 1975 and The Lord of the Rings in 1976;
watched the Rankin Bass Hobbit in 1977 and the Bakshi LOTR in 1978; got my
first copy of The Silmarillion in 1979, and every posthumous
Tolkien publication from then on, including the complete The History of
Middle-earth in fourteen volumes from 1983 – 1996 then The
Nature of Middle-earth just one year ago in 2021. I saw the explosion
of ‘Ringers’ with the Jackson movies, suffered through his Hobbit films, and in
2020 mourned the death of Christopher Tolkien, the gatekeeper of his father’s
legacy. I am not of the first generation of Tolkien’s readers, nor even the
second Hippie generation. I cannot write in elf-runes. My first love for
Tolkien and for Middle-earth grew in isolation, almost in secret, in a small
Texas town, away from fandoms and encouragement, almost amid contempt.
I have chanted my
qualifications. Now I feel rather like one of those priests, scarred and
crippled by the Julian persecutions, who were called by Constantine to
pronounce for the newly accepted Church what is heresy and what can
legitimately be affirmed. It is a daunting feeling.
Well. We ate lunch. We got
comfortable. We settled down and spent a couple of hours watching the first two
episodes of The Rings of Power. We talked about it a bit and found
that we pretty much agreed about it.
It wasn’t good. It wasn’t
absolutely horrible. It was a billion dollars’ worth of ‘meh’ (so far).
Let’s consider the ‘not
horrible’ bits first. The first thing you will find on most positive reviews of
ROP is that its design is visually appealing. This is true; the cities, the
towns, and the wild lands tend to be quite pleasing, the costume design mostly
adequate, and the background music does its job without being particularly
intrusive - or inspiring. These are of course cosmetic festooning; no series
will survive just on good looks. The one verified glance we get at Sauron is
static but satisfying.
The actors do a fair job as
well, considering the material they have been given to work with. I
particularly came to like the characters of Celebrimbor and Elrond, who were
not as objectionable as we had been led to believe they were going to be. I
enjoyed nearly everything about Khazad-dûm,
and even found the much-reviled Disa to be pleasant, if not lore-accurate (no
beard). Elanor (Nori) Brandyfoot and her friend Poppy are an interesting pair,
and not simply a gender-flipped Frodo and Sam, unless you’re thinking of the
clownish Sam in Bakshi’s LOTR.
Alas, now I must turn to the
‘not good’ portion of ROP.
The worst thing, of course,
is that it is not Tolkien. It is playing with a few of Tolkien’s action
figures, and with the skeletal outline of The Appendices of The Lord of
the Rings, which are informational and not exactly narrative. There is much
that could be done with that, even so, but the writers and showrunners seem to
be fixed on studiously subverting the lore whenever possible. They want to make
a Middle-earth that conforms to modern sensibilities, when Tolkien’s
Middle-earth did not even conform to the sensibilities of the time that it was
written. It is, instead, a yardstick that measures and is measured by the age
in which it is read.
Tolkien’s work, and
especially The Lord of the Rings, is, to borrow a phrase, a
heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Every attempt to adapt it has been
flawed, even Jackson’s much touted trilogy of movies. It is not essentially a
franchise, it is not ‘intellectual property’, save by unhappy chance and the
‘dirty devices of this world’. It is this, not being a troll or gatekeeping,
that makes those who love Tolkien hold anything that has to do with
Middle-earth to high standards. We do not wish it to change but to grow; we do
not want to see a shoddy suburb spring up around it.
ROP’s Elves are not Elvish.
Tolkien’s Elves (even the lowest) are distant and aloof from other races, even
displeased if interfered with, but not snooty. ROP’s Elves are politicians:
they set up an occupation force in the East, among other things. In Tolkien,
there is no Elvish word for ‘politician’ though there are plenty for other
kinds of rulers. Although there are examples of Elves Behaving Badly (Feanor
and Maeglin – Elf princes - spring to mind, but also Saeros in the tale of
Turin) it is hard to imagine Tolkien’s elf-children (in the Days of the Bliss
of Valinor, no less) acting quite as Orcish as they do in the Prologue.
Elf/mortal pairings are referenced in ROP as being rare and ending in tragedy
(quite canonical), only to be subverted with a look that says “Well, we’re
getting one now,” thus repeating one of the most ill-advised story lines from
Jackson’s Hobbit movies.
And one just weeps for the
lore. For every good instance (the entrance into Khazad-dûm is not yet ‘The
Doors of Durin’ which Celebrimbor will later help decorate) there is a terrible
ham-handed element that makes anyone with even a passing acquaintance with
Tolkien’s work shudder.
Among the worst is the
naming. Middle-earth (more than many works) is based on words, on language, on
names: Tolkien, as a philologist, did very careful building that way. There is
so much background available, which need not have been referenced, but worked
with behind the scenes to make sure that what was invented didn't clash.
Instead, we get several abominations that make the ‘toxic’ fandom boil.
Take for example the name
Elanor Brandyfoot. Not only does her nickname ‘Nori’ pointlessly recall one of
the dwarves from The Hobbit, the name of Elanor for a hobbit would
not have been possible until the Third Age when Sam Gamgee named his daughter
after an Elven flower he saw in Lothlorien. Brandyfoot would also be
impossible, because the ‘Brandy’ element had not entered their naming tradition
until they had crossed the Baranduin (Brandywine) River and founded the Shire.
It seems the writers just wanted a ‘Hobbitlike’ name without any of the inner
historical significance.
Whenever anyone tries to
sound profound, they produce wisdom on par with a bumper sticker. The Harfoots’
idiomatic references to carts and wheels seem forced. The Tirharad
insults about Elves seem strangely reminiscent of those that have been used about
Vulcans. The name of Hordern seems to needlessly recall (to me at least) the
name of Michael Hordern who voiced Gandalf on the 1981 BBC radio show. And so
on … and on.
BUT … all these things being
considered, is it the absolute dumpster fire that many are proclaiming? Well,
no, not exactly [Present-Day Me: Yes. Yes it is]. But it is certainly not the unmitigated success that others
are exalting it as, either. Like I said, it is one billion dollars’ worth of
‘meh’. It can best be enjoyed by divorcing it in your mind from Tolkien,
Middle-earth, or The Lord of the Rings, and thinking of it as
an alternative timeline, a bit of ascended fanfiction, like The Iron
Tower trilogy. It is mediocre, a questionable C at best, which is
disappointing for a Tolkien … well, it’s not an adaptation; maybe an
association, I guess? But for just another TV series, it's watchable. There are
storylines with a bit of intrigue that one wants to see play out (Is the
Stranger Gandalf, despite appearing in the Second Age? Does his ‘cold fire’
have anything to do with the heat-draining presence of evil in the Snow-Troll's
chamber? Is the Stranger Sauron, or some other evil?), and that act as just
enough of a lure to prompt further viewings.
John and I have tentative
plans to gather again every weekend and watch until the season’s end. Will we
boost the numbers of an unworthy series? Perhaps. In the long run it will not
matter. Tolkien and Middle-earth will remain as they are, and we will at least
have had the pleasure of a day’s visit and an interesting critical discussion
afterward. And that's all I've got to say about it at the moment.
Episode Three: In the
Medical Sense of An Episode
I was back again at John’s
house with my nephew Kameron to watch the third episode of “The Rings of Power”
on Friday. I have to admit that the pleasure of having the occasion of visiting
the family probably tips my tolerance of the show a bit toward the indulgent
side, but even that cannot completely compensate for the fraying of the
emotions that “The Rings of Power” works upon my mind.
I suppose one cannot expect
writing on the level of Tolkien himself from mere show biz people. I cannot
count how many times we guessed the next line of dialog or made a joking parody
of what it would be, only to have it fulfilled nearly verbatim. What can I say?
These ‘creatives’ are not nearly creative enough, and they have mere outlines
to guide them, which they tend to ignore any chance they can. Almost more
irritating is when they echo lines and situations in a most painful ‘wink-wink,
nudge-nudge’ manner.
The first part opens with
Galadriel and Halbrand on a Numenorean ship, where they meet Elendil. They are
taken to Numenor and meet the ‘Queen-Regent’ Miriel who is very cold to them as
possible spies. Halbrand fast talks her into a period of leniency to decide
what to do with them, then he and Galadriel proceed to make trouble wherever
they go.
Elendil takes her to a
library (as one does with prisoners, but then he seems to be more kindly
disposed towards Elves) and she realizes that the sigil that is haunting her is
a map of what will become Mordor. Halbrand shows a suspicious interest in becoming
a smith and staying in Numenor, which raises some ideas in the viewership that
he may be Sauron. Even his claims to being the king of the men on Middle-earth
might be a sort of dissembling truth.
We get to see a lot more
Orcs next in this episode, as they have captured Mr. Tuvok and his fellow
Elves. In ROP, Orcs do not only grow weak and dizzy under the Sun, but their
flesh audibly sizzles when they leave their sheltering tents. After all the other
Elves are killed while trying to escape, Tuvok is taken to the Orcs’ revered
leader, called Adar (the Sindarin word for ‘Father’), whom we only briefly see
in a blurry glimpse. There is some speculation that this could be Sauron, but
it seems more likely to be one of the corrupted Elves who were the Orcs’
original stock.
Meanwhile, the Harfoots are
getting ready to make their Fall migration, which isn’t good news for Largo
Brandyfoot, Nori’s dad, who broke his ankle last episode. We are given a long
remembrance list for those Harfoots who were killed on the trail or left
behind, full of mostly terrible attempts of coming up with Hobbit names. The
Stranger is finally revealed to the whole tribe, and, despite misgivings, is
put on probation as he joins them. This solves the Brandyfoots’ problem, as he
can draw their cart for them. The Stranger is looking less and less likely to
be Sauron in disguise.
There are no specific
instances of the Dwarf strand of story or of Bronwyn and her people (the humans
captured by Orcs are apparently from Hordern) in this episode.
Everyone seems to be
playing the "Spot the Sauron" game for ROP, and that is still an
element of interest. Is it Halbrand? The Stranger? Perhaps the shadowy
"Adar" held in such reverence by the Orcs? In jest, I propose a
fourth theory: it is the 'Galadriel' we've been seeing. It would explain her
strange unpleasantness; her hunt for Sauron could be a big red herring that
allows her to visit old evil fortresses without suspicion; the absence of
Celeborn (the real Galadriel and Celeborn being off somewhere in isolation);
her jumping ship rather than go to Valinor; her actions sowing doubt and dread
wherever she goes, etc. etc. Although the Lore states that all the Valar and
Maiar, though bodiless, have a gender that appears when they do embody, such
details have never stopped the showrunners before. The big objection to this
theory is that it's probably too creative by half for “The Rings of Power”.
Episode Four: Headin’ for a
Hullabaloo
Yesterday I once more made
the pleasant journey to Babeloth to visit family and watch Episode Four (“The
Great Wave”) of Amazon’s The Rings of Power. I still refuse to
grant it the prefixing title of The Lord of the Rings in my
references; it is clumsy and inappropriate for so many reasons, not least of
which is the onerous task of typing it out in full and feeling that it is
somehow a lie one is forced to keep telling. But on with the show.
It begins with Queen-Regent
Miriel’s prophetic dream of a great wave overwhelming Numenor (a type of
Atlantis dream that Tolkien had many times himself; he bequeathed it not only
to Faramir in LOTR but apparently also to his son Michael, to whom he had never
spoken of it). Miriel and Galadriel then undergo a period of sparring while
Numenor gets all het up about the presence of ‘the Elf’. Galadriel somehow
sneaks in to see the real bedridden King, further angering Miriel and ending
with ‘the Elf’ being thrown into the clink with Halbrand. The man offers some
cunning advice, Miriel shows Galadriel a vision in a Palantir (which she claims
is the only one on the island – another ignoring of canon), the White Tree
starts shedding, and Miriel decides to take Galadriel back to Middle-earth with
a fleet to counter the feared rise of Sauron. I understand there are some who
are squeeing over a possible spotting of Narsil (the blade that broke in the
killing of Sauron and was later reforged into Anduril, Aragorn’s sword).
We return to proto-Mordor
where Mr. Tuvok finally meets Adar, the revered leader of the orcs. (Reverence,
rather than simple fear and respect or downright hatred of a superior is a
strange emotion to see in an Orc.) A corrupted Elf who has seen better days, he
begins the interview by (mercy?)killing one of his own badly wounded minions.
He rambles on a bit about becoming a god, then releases Tuvok to return to the
men of Tirharad to deliver an ultimatum. They, meanwhile, have holed up in the
Elf-tower as the most defensible spot, and the situation is giving off strong
‘Helm’s Deep’ vibes. Bronwyn is trying to organize a defense, but there are
some self-important men, darn ‘em, who are challenging her decisions. Her son
Theo and his friend Rowan volunteer to sneak back to their abandoned town and
grab some supplies, but a group of Orcs start invading. The friend buggers off
with about a wheelbarrow’s worth of food, but Theo is left caught in town to
sneak around and avoid capture. When he is spotted it is seen he has the
strange sword-end that the forces of evil have been seeking. Theo runs away and
is joined by the returning Tuvok and Bronwyn who has come out to search for
him. They flee and are saved by the rising of the sun. Back at the Elf-tower,
Theo is confronted by the former hider of the broken blade, Waldreg, who ask
him if he's heard the good news about the Lord Sauron?
We return to Khazad-Dum for
the most enjoyable of the story-threads so far. The Elf-Dwarf collaboration is
in full swing, with Celebrimbor’s tower/forge well under way. Celebrimbor
spends a moment talking to Elrond about Earendil, taking the opportunity to
fill the audience in on some backstory. Elrond returns to the Dwarf kingdom,
where he gently manages to finagle Durin’s secret location from out of what
Disa does not tell him. In that hidden mine seam he gets Durin
to tell him the big mystery: they have discovered mithril (more
specifically Disa has discovered mithril), and so finally they
can dig greedily and too deep. There is a sudden collapse in the mine, trapping
four miners, until Disa sings some calming Dwarf-opera to the rocks. After an
initial clash, Durin and his father agree that the Elves are up to something
that needs further investigation. Perhaps it's just me, but it seems there are
some echoes here of Terry Pratchett's Dwarvish developments (his own vision of
Dwarves being initially based on Tolkien's; thus does popular culture feed into
itself).
There are no Harbits … I beg
your pardon, Harfoots … in this episode. We can only assume they are on their
migration, with Poppy eating all the snacks and Nori constantly asking, “Are we
there yet? Are we there yet?” The showrunners keep insisting that the Harfoots
are not Hobbits, which is like saying the French are not Europeans.
As usual, this episode
suffers from poor writing: unrealistic action (yes, I know it’s a fantasy, but
fantasy needs inner consistency, character truth, and probable
improbabilities), clumsy echoes of familiar phrases, and cliched tropes. Once
more we had the uncanny ability to predict what was going to be said or done,
and words we spoke in jest were fulfilled in earnest. But, on the plus side,
the turgid action seems to be finally ramping up and we can be amused by the
fights and spectacles. There is still a bit of good scenery porn.
In fact, it occurs to me
that I might quite enjoy The Rings of Power on a certain
level, if I watched it without a dialogue track.
Episode Five: Stop! In the
Name of the Lore!
Suppose you sat down to play
a game of chess. Suddenly your opponent begins making wild, unorthodox moves:
knights act like rooks, bishops like queens, pawns start capturing pieces right
in front of them. You would say he is cheating, or perhaps didn’t understand
the rules of the game. He might counter that he is simply being creative, and
that it makes things more exciting. One thing would be certain. Though you were
using the same gameboard and pieces, it certainly wouldn’t be chess.
This episode, I think,
finally sets a pointing finger down on the very sore spot that has been vaguely
plaguing readers of Tolkien since the very beginning. Forget black Elves and
Dwarves. Forget deviations from the timeline or contradictions with known ‘lore’
or even clumsy writing and callbacks. The difference is even more fundamental
than that, and it is epitomized in the story the writers have concocted for the
origin of mithril.
The story that Gil-galad
orders Elrond to recount has an unnamed Elf-Lord and a Balrog fighting over a
tree growing high on a mountain. Lightning strikes the tree, and the two
combatants are somehow merged into a single substance that trickles down to the
roots of the peak and becomes the fabulous shiny ore when it mingles with a
lost Silmaril. Gil-galad states that mithril is “as pure and light as good, as
strong and unyielding as evil.” And therein lies the crux, I think.
It would be very easy from a
cursory reading of The Lord of the Rings to describe
Middle-earth as a kind of Manichean world, with good and evil poised in a sort
of yin-yang struggle for dominance. A closer reading reveals that for all its
power, there is light and a high beauty that the Shadow can never touch; that Evil
does not have the power of creation, it can only sully what is made. To
describe strength and rigor as an essential quality that evil can impart is to
deeply misunderstand the nature of Middle-earth. They are simply positive goods
that can be misused. C. S. Lewis summed it up:
“The truth is that evil is
not a real thing at all, like God. It is simply good spoiled. That is why I say
there can be good without evil, but no evil without good. You know what the
biologists mean by a parasite—an animal that lives on another animal. Evil is a
parasite. It is there only because good is there for it to spoil and confuse.”
It seems that moral
ambiguity is the greatest, perhaps the most irreconcilable, difference between
what is Tolkien and what is The Rings of Power. Perhaps it is this
that the showrunners mean most profoundly when they say it reflects “modern
sensibilities”. This moral ambiguity plagues every episode. Are Gil-galad and
Celebrimbor’s actions evil? Do the Orcs just want lebensraum? In Tolkien there is
moral uncertainty (“I know what I must do, but I’m afraid to do it”) but no
moral ambiguity. Tolkien’s moral theme is not the largely accepted Zeitgeist of
our time and it would take a master-touch to dramatize it.
“Good and ill have not
changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and
another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them …”
It is not the ridiculous
constructions of the story (“The Elves are going to fade … right now! Unless we
take our mithril pills!” or some such nonsense – although I suppose the forging
of the Three Rings, which do resist time and fading – and could need to be made
with mithril - of which Durin seems to have enough to hand out samples - but
then ring-making is not a thing yet – ah, the Lore!) that is the worm in the
apple here. It is the profound philosophical disconnect. They do not play by
the game rules, and if they don't, they should play another game.
Episode Six: Oh, Bloody Hell
Last night, the last few
hours of September, I once more voyaged to my brother’s house for a new
installment of The Rings of Power. I had been studiously avoiding
all the review videos that had been popping up on YouTube all day already. None
of them looked like they had anything good to say about it. Odd, that. I
went in with as clear a mind as possible, under the circumstances.
This episode concerned
itself with only two strands of the story, Mr. Tuvok and the denizens of
Tirharad fighting Adar and the Orcs, and Galadriel and the Numenoreans sailing
to Middle-earth. The two strands weave together for an explosive climax as Galadriel
and troops ride in to save the day - temporarily. No Harfoots, no Elrond and
Durin.
The plot can be summed up
thus:
Adar: We’ve got you!
Tuvok: (collapsing tower) On
the contrary, we’ve got you!
Adar: (somehow surviving)
No, you don’t. We’ve got you!
Tuvok: (somehow surviving
the counterattack) Now we’ve got you at last!
Adar: Ha! Those were human
decoys. Now we’ve got you!
Galadriel: (arriving with
the Numenoreans) Now I’ve got you!
Adar: (faking them out and
escaping in the ensuing apocalypse) Now I’ve really got you!
That apocalypse is the
triggering of Adar’s long-term plan all along, to set off the first eruption of
Mt. Doom so that the ensuing pall will make a Land of Shadow where his beloved
orc-offspring (“We prefer the term Uruk, you bigot”) can walk the earth un-barbequed.
The explosion seems to engulf both Orcs and men, and the show ends with
Galadriel just standing stoically while the fires overwhelm her. But since we
see her in the previews of the next episode, we can assume her awesome
girl-power will somehow allow her to survive. It would not surprise me if she
were to say something along the lines of “Naked I was sent back, until my task
is done.”
It would be well in keeping
with the innumerable and constant callbacks and Easter eggs that plague the
show as the writers rather obviously try to cadge some magic and good will from
Jackson’s wildly popular movies. They are none too subtle, and it just comes
across as lazy writing. The ‘creatives’ are none too creative.
Episode Six (titled ‘Udun’,
the Elvish word for ‘Hell’, more or less, applied to Morgoth’s first fortress
in Middle-earth) is riddled with problematic plot devices. How Mr. Tuvok (all
right, I’ll call him Arondir) could rig the tower to collapse in one night
(where would he even get the metal bands to hold it together in the first
place? It couldn’t be a device already in place. No-one could possibly live and
work there under those conditions) is a mystery. How Orcs could delve nearly
four miles down to magma even over hundreds of years … how Numenoreans could
sail their ocean-going ship miles inland up a river before continuing on horses
… how Bronwyn’s wound, while cauterized on the outside, could also stop
bleeding internally … how nobody checked the package to see if the powerful
McGuffin was still there … how water poured on lava, though it might cause an
eruption of steam, could also somehow trigger an enormous magma explosion …
these are all ‘improbable improbabilities’ that are handwaved out of consideration.
(“But how …”. “Shh. Hush, my pet. I rigged it.”) It breaks all suspension of
disbelief if you stop to think about it for five seconds. As Tolkien said,
Middle-earth is a place where (despite the existence of magic and miracles)
‘miles are miles.’
Once more, in a dialogue
between Galadriel and Adar, Orcs are argued to have a right to existence, if
only because they are in ultimate origin, ‘Children of Iluvatar’. The same,
however, could be said of Morgoth or Sauron. The tragedy of the Orcs is that
they have been twisted into a race that lives only to kill or enslave. If
they could live in harmony with other races (or even amongst
themselves) there would be no need to destroy them. But the humans of Tirharad
(though it was an occasion of pity and horror) had the right to defend
themselves and kill even their erstwhile fellow townsfolk when they turned and
came to attack them.
If I would hazard a guess, I
might say the next episode will involve the Harfoots and the Stranger, and
Elrond and Durin, probably with interludes of Galadriel wandering in a
visionary state. If I could say one definite positive thing about this episode,
it would be that at least it brings us closer to the end of Season One.
Episode Seven: Mordor, She
Wrote
My God, I’m so tired. Not so
much physically tired, but mentally exhausted. Yesterday evening, of course, it
being Friday, John took Kameron and me to the Babel house to view the latest
installment of The Rings of Power. My exhaustion arises from my
consideration of what to say about it.
First, a general
observation. The amount of echoes, callbacks, references, and Easter eggs
appears to be increasing. It seems every other line of dialogue, every other
framing shot, calls to mind the Jackson films (even The Hobbit ones
now) in a shameless ploy to borrow some amount of nostalgia, some bit of power
or affection by association. It fails miserably because it is so ham-handed. It
comes off as lazy or even as a parody. I’d say spoilers ahead, but the whole
thing is pretty rotten, anyway.
It opens with Galadriel
coming to in the wake of the eruption of Mt. Doom. How she, or indeed anyone,
Orc or human, could have survived being engulfed in the wave of ash and gas
that surrounded them without being roasted or suffocated is a mystery. Perhaps
it’s the plot armor she’s wearing.
Plenty of unnamed characters
don’t survive, of course, and in the aftermath one of Isildur’s expendable
friends perishes as well, just to show the awful price of the disaster. (What
was his name? Seanomir? Biffalad?) Which also begs a question. With all the
citizens of Tirharad (which looks like a little town of about five houses)
being pecked off (leaving to join Adar, killed in Orc attacks, caught in an
eruption) just what is left for Halbrand to be king of? So far, it is just a
remnant of survivors of one town who have proclaimed him. But maybe there are
other villages – in a land now infested with darkness and Orcs.
Anyway, the surviving
Numenoreans and Southlanders flee back to their camp. Galadriel and Theo are
separated from the main group, so they can have some bonding time together. In
talking about loss (Theo has not seen his mother Bronwyn in the aftermath), Galadriel
reveals that Celeborn, her husband, is dead – or at least, probably dead.
Though Elves can be ‘reborn’ (returned from the Halls of
Mandos – which is why Elves only marry once – which should put a terminus on
the implied Halbrand/Galadriel tension) this is a major deviation from what
Tolkien wrote. What happened to the showrunners’ claim of “not
egregiously contradicting something we don't have the rights to”?
Perhaps their fingers were crossed. Galadriel and Theo hide from Orcs in a
scene that evokes Frodo and the other Hobbits hiding from the Nazgul. One of
the Orcs asks, “What do you smell?” I muttered “Elf-farts”, but the answer is,
“Nothing but ash.”
Meanwhile, in another story
thread, Elrond and Durin the Fourth are disappointed when King Durin the Third
decides to close the mithril mine and refuse the Elves (or even the Dwarves)
access. Disa gets all Lady Macbeth on her husband, and they discover by
accident that their bit of mithril ore restores the blighted leaf in which
Gil-galad saw the fate of the Elves back in Scene Twenty-Four. That decides
Durin Mark IV. He and Elrond dig for mithril on their own. Alone.
In another blatant contradiction of Lore, Elrond says that Durin is one in a
line of Durins, one after the other. Impossible, of course, because the kings
named Durin were supposed to be the original Durin ‘come again’, and you can’t
be reincarnated twice at the same time.
King Durin finds out, of
course, and appears clutching the restored leaf (the clue by which he finds
them?) just as they open huge veins of ore. He banishes Elrond and downgrades
Durin (Disa has mentioned he has a brother that might become king now). He orders
the newly opened shaft closed and tosses the leaf (which has by now had a
storied career) down the hole behind it. It flutters down, down, down, until it
lands at the bottom of the abyss. It is suddenly shriveled in a wave of fire,
as it has disturbed the Balrog’s slumber (shades of Smaug and the thrush!).
Certainly, it cannot be released just yet, as the Dwarves have yet to mine even
enough mithril to make Bilbo’s famous chainmail.
Meanwhile the Harbits have
reached the edges of Greenwood the Great (aka Mirkwood, in its days of
innocence). Poppy sings a little bit too much traveling music about snails.
They discover an apple grove that has been withered by the fires of Mt. Doom
(which, if you look at the map, is quite a distance – and over a mountain
range, too). Sadoc Burrows, the Harfoot leader, asks the Stranger to try his
powers (amply demonstrated a couple of episodes ago) in an attempt to heal one
of the trees. When his efforts are not immediately successful (and even seem to
endanger the tribe) Sadoc decides to send him away to look for his stars
(remember that bit?). Nori bids a sad farewell to her rescue puppy.
The next day she awakes to
find that not only has the apple tree regenerated, but the whole grove is
restored and full of ripe fruit. The Harbits happily and greedily refill their
supplies. But the Three Weird Sisters are still on the trail of the Stranger
and are led to the Harbit camp by a careless bucket dropped in a stream by the
panicking Poppy. They seem to recognize the power that brought back the grove
and are about to follow the Stranger’s trail when Nori pops up and tries to
redirect them in the wrong direction. The three attack her, and when the others
come out to defend her, the trio use their powers to burn both the trees and
the Harfoot carts, then leave.
Things look bleak, but
Nori’s dad Largo gives a rallying speech about how the Harfoot’s strength lies
not in skills or carts, but in how they stay true to one another (this from
folks who have apparently regularly abandoned the slow and weak). Inspired, Nori,
Poppy/Sam, Sadoc, and his wife Malva head out into the uncharted wilderness to
find the Stranger and … I don’t know, warn him? Even though the Ghostly Trio
have a day’s march on them and some sort of infallible sense of what direction
he's in. But hey, their hearts are bigger than their feet! Or their heads,
apparently.
Meanwhile, back in the
Numenorean camp, Galadriel and Theo have finally caught up with the rest of the
refugees. The camp tents are filled with casualties and the wounded. Theo is
afraid (for about five seconds) that he’ll find his mother dead, but Bronwyn
has survived. What luck! Meanwhile, Elendil fears Isildur is dead and Miriel
has been blinded trying to rescue people from a burning hut (so brave! so
compassionate!). Now her blood is up for revenge, and she vows to return with
an army and wipe the bad guys from the face of the earth. But hist! Where is
Halbrand, who is definitely not Sauron? He has been found at last, wandering in
wounded. Galadriel cries out that he needs ‘Elvish medicine’, a vile and clunky
phrase invented for the Jackson movies. It must have worked, because the next
time we see Halbrand he is up and riding a horse, going with Galadriel to seek
aid from High King Gil-Galad, and definitely not just abandoning his
‘kingdom’. Arondir, Bronwyn, and Theo watch them and the Numenoreans ride
off into the sunset. At least Miriel has left them her camping gear.
The last section switches to
Adar and his Orcs. They too have somehow survived and are whooping it up in
their new homeland. The human traitor Waldreg is loudly praising Adar as the
lord of the Southlands, trying to ensure he’s not going to wind up on the menu.
Adar says they need a new name for their home. The location title (these have
not been used for some time now, which makes it all the more corny) of ‘The
Southlands’ pops up and burns away, and the new name ‘Mordor’ is blazed in red.
So Adar has not only created Mt. Doom; he has named Mordor.
This description of the
episode is not exhaustive, but it has been exhausting. I cannot recount every
instance of the clunky writing as it strives to be ‘elevated’, or the moments
of excruciatingly slow pacing (hey, it gives the story space to breathe, I
hear), or all the offenses against ‘canon’. I may have got things a little
jumbled, as it’s hard to recall details of chronology when the connective
tissue between events is a little dodgy and you are appalled at every turn of
the tale. There is only one more installment of this season.
I hear that against all
rules of common sense and in the face of fan disapproval (patently evil!), that
they are doubling down and have already started filming Season Two. What
new terrors the last episode of Season One will bring, I dare not speculate.
Will they finally disclose who or where is Sauron? They would be unwise to do
so, because the teasing of that fact is one of the only impetuses of viewer
interest, annoying as it may be. The things we can be almost sure of is that
there will be one shocking reveal or incident, nothing will be resolved, and it
will end on a cliffhanger. Even the writers and showrunners of The
Rings of Power can’t subvert such serial conventions, no matter how
much Tolkien they deface. Or … can they? It would be hard to overestimate their
negative talent.
Episode Eight: Nunc Dimittis
I didn’t know exactly what I
expected when we started watching the season finale. I mean, I knew there would
be at least one big reveal and a sort of cliffhanger (if only an ominous
implication), but just how bad it would be I could not imagine. How could it
possibly be worse than Episode 7?
Well, somehow these genius
showrunners found a way.
There were some good
features. As usual, it is a very pretty show to look at, especially landscapes,
cities, and (occasionally) some design elements. But there seems to be a
general rule that the closer in you get, the worse and less satisfactory things
become, especially in costuming. The exception might be the three Elven Rings.
But I get ahead of myself.
There are some sequences
that actually attain moments of excitement, despite the long stretches of
tedium in between. A good example would be the parts of the first section
follow the story of “the Stranger”, the Weird Sisters, and the Harbits who are
following them. The Ghostly Trio catch up with the Stranger and hail him as
Sauron Returned, albeit with some amnesia issues. They restrain him with force
until his full memory can be restored. Nori and her little band turn up and try
to release him but are fooled by the Weird Sisters, who are poised to destroy
them. This snaps the Stranger out of his funk and rouses his powers, which he
then channels through the staff that Nori takes away from the evil leader.
The Trio changes under his onslaught, first into wraith-like beings,
then, inexplicably, into a cloud of moths. They have been turned into something
… unnatural.
The Stranger’s mind has been
unblocked, apparently, and suddenly he can speak perfectly sensibly. The Harbit
elder Sadoc has been killed in the fight, so the Harfoots can all go on to
being a matriarchy. Gandalf (because let’s face it, that’s who the Stranger, to
no-one’s surprise but merely in an anti-climactic confirmation, turns out to
be) heads off to Rhun, joined (after a moment’s hesitation), by Nori, who is
off on an adventure.
Meanwhile, Elendil and
Miriel are on their way back to Numenor. Miriel is too proud to be helped
around by Elendil (so brave! so independent! I would have laughed if she had
then gone walking over the side of the ship). Back in Numenor, the old King is
dying, and Pharazon commissions a memorial portrait of him. Elendil’s daughter
Earien is one of the artists left alone with him. The King wakes up, starts
babbling significantly, and wanders into the next room. Earien follows and
finds the covered Palantir. She ominously pulls the cover off (but since all
seven stones are still in Numenor, she can’t be in danger of Sauron – perhaps
she’ll get something from Eldamar, where the Master-stone resides in the
Undying Lands). Elendil and Miriel return to find the ships and city shrouded
in black. The old King has died.
Meanwhile Galadriel and
Halbrand have reached Eregion, and Halbrand gets his “Elvish medicine”, though
he seems to barely need it. High King Gil-galad is also there and has ordered
Celebrimbor to shut his forge down since the Dwarves have refused them mithril
and the Elves must pass into the West. But the recovered Halbrand has some good
advice on how to stretch the little bit of mithril they have, and with his
surprising insights into smithcraft Celebrimbor begins a last-ditch effort to
save the Elves on Middle-earth.
Galadriel, suddenly
suspicious of this mere human’s skill that surpasses even the son of Feanor and
the repetition of words she heard elsewhere, finally decides to do some
research on the man she’s helped set up as King of the Southlands. She
confronts Halbrand with the fact that the line of kings had been broken a
thousand years ago without any heir. Halbrand reveals that he is Sauron (what a
surprise!) and immediately begins an attack on her mind.
In a series of visions he
reminds her that her brother Finrod told her about touching the darkness, how
she has aided Sauron to return to Middle-earth, how his ambitions were for the
restoration and healing of the world (just with him as ever-lasting tyrant),
how he never really lied to her (just didn’t correct her assumption), and how
he can make her a Queen if he joins her, or reveal that she helped him if she
doesn’t. She defies him and wakes up struggling in the river, where Sauron has
apparently pushed her. Elrond helps rescue her, but Halbrand/Sauron has
disappeared. Ominously, Galadriel appears not to reveal Sauron’s return to
anyone, feeling ashamed about her part in it.
However, she now seems to
have some insight into ring-making, and says they need to make three rings for
the Elves. Celebrimbor says they need the purest gold and silver to add to the
mithril to make the stretching alloy. She sacrifices her beloved Valinorean-made
dagger, last relic of her brother, and the rings are made of the new alloy.
Galadriel herself has become ‘alloyed’ by her experiences, perhaps ready to
give up mere military means for new spiritual powers. We finally get to see
some rings of power in The Rings of Power [they look like something that you'd get from a bubblegum machine].
The last scene is of the
revealed Sauron, looking rather like Anakin Skywalker, on the brink of the
newly created land of Mordor. You get the feeling that Adar the rebellious
proto-Orc is in for some hard times. He gazes speculatively at Mt. Doom, the future
forge of the One Ring. There is a terrible rendition of the Ring verse in song.
Which all sounds more
exciting than it actually worked out to be. The episode suffered from the same
boring stretches; the same lapses of narrative logic; the same poor writing;
the same lapses of Lore and tone; and the even more frequent use of callbacks,
Easter eggs, and references to evoke the member-berries of long-established
LOTR fans. One little trick that they do that annoys the heck out of me is to
have an almost word-for-word quote (usually from the Jackson films) but tweaked
or minimally rephrased. Good visuals, yes, but piss-poor writing. They could
have gotten away with much less CGI or special effects if only their characters
and pacing were handled better. As it is, there is too much filler and too
little meat in this sausage.
I was left at the end, not
so much in anticipation of the next season, as in relief that this one was
over, and that it would be about a year until any more would be available.
Whether the showrunners will have learned better in Season Two (already filming)
or not, at least there can no longer the fake tension of the Sauron reveal. The
clumsy misdirection and obvious foreshadowing were done. I need never watch
this season again.
Perhaps sometime in the
future when The Rings of Power has passed into the dark
backward abysm of time, I will run across a copy of the whole series
remaindered in the $1.99 bin. Perhaps I will buy it, for completion’s sake or
as an object lesson. But maybe I won’t. It would still be a little too expensive,
especially in the waste of time and spirit.
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