The Rings of Power: (Season Two, Episodes 4 and 5) Please Just Stop It

 

Last night we again gathered to watch new episodes of Amazon’s The Rings of Power, last week’s and this week’s. While we had fun getting together to riff and groan about them, they are otherwise a boring litany of periods of frenzied over-action and callbacks (‘memberberries’) from better iterations of Middle-earth. We were yawning by the end; our only emotions that had been evoked were incredulity and outrage. On the drive home our memories of the jumbled incidents were starting to fade. Rather than tax myself with trying to straighten them out, I affix Wikipedia’s summation:

Episode 4: “Eldest”. Elrond and Galadriel set out for Eregion. They come to a bridge that has been destroyed and are forced to take a more dangerous path. The Stranger meets a mysterious man named Tom Bombadil while Nori and Poppy find a community of halflings called Stoors. They learn that the Harfoots are descended from a Stoor who left Rhûn in search of the Sûzat, a place of green hills that he dreamed could be the home of halflings. Arondir deduces that Estrid is one of the Wild Men. She earns back Isildur's trust when he and Arondir are sucked into a mud pit inhabited by a nameless creature and she helps free them. They are confronted by two Ents who captured Theo and the Wild Men in retribution for the felling of trees by Wild Men and by Adar's army. Arondir promises to protect the forest and the Ents free their prisoners; one of the Wild Men is Hagen, Estrid's betrothed. After fighting off Barrow-wights, Elrond and Galadriel find Adar's army. Galadriel gives her ring to Elrond and tells him to return to Lindon to warn Gil-galad. Galadriel stays to hold off the Orcs and is captured by Adar.

Episode 5: “Halls of Stone”. Durin III uses one of the new Rings of Power to help rebuild the Dwarves' infrastructure and bring sunlight back to Khazad-dûm. The ring also makes the king greedy, and he dismisses a warning from Disa that they could be awakening something evil that lives beneath the mines. In Eregion, Annatar insists that they start work on Rings of Power for Men but Celebrimbor refuses to be involved. When Durin IV expresses his concerns about the Dwarven rings to Celebrimbor, Annatar suggests that the negative impacts are being caused by Celebrimbor lying to Gil-galad about making more rings. Celebrimbor agrees to help make rings for Men in an attempt to redeem his work on the Dwarven rings. The new king of Númenor, Ar-Pharazôn, tasks his son Kemen with cracking down on members of the Faithful who remain loyal to Míriel. Kemen interrupts a memorial service that members of the Faithful are holding, leading to a fight with Isildur's friend Valandil that ends with Kemen killing Valandil. Isildur's father Elendil is blamed for starting a riot and arrested. Elrond arrives in Lindon and warns Gil-galad.

In such a bare outline, it might sound better than it is. Better (if still not very good), but still stupid in terms of Middle-earth lore and history.

Barrow-wights were evil spirits stirred up by the Witch-King of Angmar to inhabit the barrows of the North Kingdom of Arnor. Not only is there no Witch-King (a Nazgul) yet, there is not even a North Kingdom yet, and these barrows are way down south.

Ents were always very friendly with Elves; it seems unlikely they would try to kill an elf on sight, no matter how ‘hasty’ they may be acting. And if they are being so murderous and vengeful, why have they spared Theo and the other Wild Men with imprisonment? And this might be just a design quibble, but they look almost 40 feet tall, not 14 feet tall, and their faces a chance collection of knots and knobs. And by this time the Entwives have separated from the Ents (if not being lost yet) so why is Winterbloom (an obvious female, voiced by Olivia Williams)) accompanied by Snaggleroot (an obvious male, voiced by Jim Broadbent)?

Tom Bombadil. Why is he so far East, and why is he not a ‘merry fellow’? In the books, it is said that Tom will not go beyond his set borders (around and in the Old Forest and the Withywindle), but it is argued that his borders have been ‘shrinking’ over time. The Rings of Power seems to suggest his borders were once vast, and not just the shrinking Forest. But how does that explain the presence of Goldberry, the spirit of the Withywindle River, being with him so far east in a desert? He has a little lamb named Iarwain, which is one of his own names (‘Eldest’) Why? And he has his desert (minion? companion? antagonist?) Old Man Ironwood, to fill in for Old Man Willow. Real stretch of the imagination there, writers. Why is Tom so evasive and yet so proactive, compared to Book Tom?

Isildur, Arondir, and Estrid encounter what amounts to a ‘Watcher in the Swampwater’ on their journeys. After defeating the ‘nameless thing’, Arondir even says “There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the earth,” echoing Gandalf’s words in LOTR. These ‘deep places’ apparently include mud puddles. It is the occasion for a rather feeble dad joke.

And one element that particularly annoys me is that the not-Hobbits refer to a prophecy of a future green land full of running water and hole houses called the Suzat. Suza is an actual non-translated Hobbitic word for ‘province, area’ which Tolkien says translates to ‘the Shire’.  Why, oh why, the extra T? Just to get their grubby mitts all over it, like a dog marking territory.

Apologists for The Rings of Power try to handwave these objections away by saying these were earlier, less-developed times, not the Middle-earth described during The Lord of the Rings. It coulda happened. There coulda been Barrows and Barrow-wights in other places. Tom Bombadil coulda been down East for a while. There coulda been a couple of wild and crazy Ents out on their own. There coulda been Wizards in Middle-earth before the Third Age and (surprise!) they coulda been trained by the neutral, careless Tom Bombadil.

All these couldas might be fine for private fan-fiction, but hardly for a billion-dollar boondoggle with pretensions to ‘tell the story Tolkien never could.’ The real problem (apart from plotlines, dialogue, and general incoherence) is that the show is running in a different moral universe than Tolkien’s, almost an amoral universe. Middle-earth does not run in that framework.

The thing that really bothers me about The Rings of Power, the thing that really scrolls my knurd, is that it may very well rise up before another little eleven-year-old kid like me as an actual barrier from finding the real Middle-earth, whether by accepting the show’s mediocrity as a fan or by judging the quality of Tolkien by this turd and refusing to give him a chance. I can only hope that they will be able to follow this dirty puddle backwards to its pure source.

 I could speak more about and against these episodes here (I hate how the rings make a twingly, 'magical' sound and how the Numenoreans have some sort of sacred, holy practices -they only had one yearly religious rite, directed to Eru himself) but I grow weary of the subject. At least I need say no more about it for two weeks yet. 

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.