The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

[Threviel]

I always keep thinking that if a milennia-old society like, say, Numenor or the Dwarves had dark-skinned ethnicities among them and they intermingled freely, the end result would be mixed race societies rather that ones where you have white people and then black people. But it's a very minor peeve, since trying poke at the plausibility of societies in fantasy worlds is generally a dumb idea.

Numenor's population was made up of three different stocks of people that Tolkien described in different ways. Of course the Dunedain that made up Gondor and Arnor was one people due to the intermingling of thousands of years on Numenor. So whilst different looks should be common in the early second age by the fall they should all be similarish. Which isn't really realistic since there would be surprisingly few generations since they lived for hundreds of years, so presumably the show is possibly on the more realistic side, if there is such a side.

But who cares about this silly minutiae. The casting was excellent and all of the silly discussion a non-issue.

[crazy canuck]

Kind of weird that an elf who has been scouring Middle Earth to find Sauron didn't know there had been no King of the Southland for a thousand years.  Also weird the people of the Southlands did not know that little fact when their "king" was introduced to them.

[FunkMonk]

The whole thing felt like really expensive fan fiction, but I still liked it well enough.

I hope the writing is better in the second season.

[crazy canuck]

The whole thing felt like really expensive fan fiction, but I still liked it well enough.

I hope the writing is better in the second season.

Yeah, it looked very good.  If it had been a silent movie, I think I would have enjoyed it better.  As a Talkie, it was not great.

[mongers]

A solid 6.5 out of ten from me; it's stuff inspired/based-on Tolkien's mythic world, so better than 9/10th of what's available.

[Solmyr]

Kind of weird that an elf who has been scouring Middle Earth to find Sauron didn't know there had been no King of the Southland for a thousand years.  Also weird the people of the Southlands did not know that little fact when their "king" was introduced to them.

I mean, most people in the late Third Age also didn't know there was a King of Gondor.

[crazy canuck]

Kind of weird that an elf who has been scouring Middle Earth to find Sauron didn't know there had been no King of the Southland for a thousand years.  Also weird the people of the Southlands did not know that little fact when their "king" was introduced to them.

I mean, most people in the late Third Age also didn't know there was a King of Gondor.

There wasn't

[grumbler]

I mean, most people in the late Third Age also didn't know there was a King of Gondor.

There wasn't

That would explain it.

[Solmyr]

Halbrand's initial presentation was as this show's Aragorn expy, so their roles are similar. Most people didn't know about Aragorn's existence and claim, same with Halbrand (if he was the descendant of the Kings of the Southlands).

[crazy canuck]

Halbrand's initial presentation was as this show's Aragorn expy, so their roles are similar. Most people didn't know about Aragorn's existence and claim, same with Halbrand (if he was the descendant of the Kings of the Southlands).

You are correct that few knew about him specifically, but importantly he was well known to the elves and Gandalf, among others.

There was also a rich history known in Gondor.

[Tamas]

Ok so I was angry at episode 7 because it was just so DULL DULL DULL.

In all honesty Episode 8 wasn't much better either except that I really liked what they pulled with Hallbrand. I totally thought they were building the series' Aragorn since they clearly went for a similar look as well. So that was well done.

Rest is very meh.

[HVC]

Ok so I was angry at episode 7 because it was just so DULL DULL DULL.

In all honesty Episode 8 wasn't much better either except that I really liked what they pulled with Hallbrand. I totally thought they were building the series' Aragorn since they clearly went for a similar look as well. So that was well done.

Rest is very meh.

I stopped watching halfway through episode 4. Been contemplating finishing it but.. meh.

[mongers]

I thought it enjoyable light entertainment.

[Jacob]

Interesting read "On the Tolkienic Hero": https://scholars-stage.org/on-the-tolkienic-hero/

[grumbler]

Interesting read "On the Tolkienic Hero": https://scholars-stage.org/on-the-tolkienic-hero/

Seems to be written by a guy that hasn't read, say, Huckleberry Finn or The Sword in the Stone or any of the dozens of tales that follow the Hero's Journey with a reluctant hero.  Tolkien was just consciously applying it to romantic English pastoralism.