The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

[The Brain]

Great Rings vs Rings of Power is described by Gandalf, and my impression is that they are identical.

In Eregion long ago many Elven-rings were made, magic rings as you call them, and they were, of course, of various kinds: some more potent and some less. The lesser rings were only essays in the craft before it was full-grown, and to the Elven-smiths they were but trifles - yet still to my mind dangerous for mortals. But the Great Rings, the Rings of Power, they were perilous.

One thing that appears to have thrown Gandalf off is Saruman's (dishonest) claim, as the foremost expert on Elven-rings, that The One had been washed out to sea. But what possible evidence could he have produced to support this? And while not technically impossible, it could have been stuck to a branch floating in the river for instane, it does seem unlikely in the extreme that a gold ring would be washed hundreds of miles to the sea. And if you look at more magical possibilities it seems unlikely that the Ring would have "wanted" to be washed into the sea.

Gandalf should have been more suspicious, but one attractive possibility is that Saruman used his famous power of speech to convince the Council against their better judgement. But what exactly was Saruman's game? He was always ambitious and vain, but he didn't look into the Palantir and become totally corrupt until around T.A. 3000, and the Rings were debated by the Council at their last meeting in 2953. And did Gandalf speak of Bilbo's ring at this meeting, or didn't he, and if so why not*? If he mentioned the ring then why didn't Saruman take steps to acquire it? Haughty Saruman, head of the Wizards, acknowleged master of Ring-lore, would let Gandalf sit on such an item, and not even attempt to study it?

*Likely an early feeling that Saruman was no longer completely trustworthy. But then keeping vital information about a Ring of Power from the Council at a meeting about the Rings... who's really untrustworthy, Gandalf?

[Threviel]

New trailer

Looks good until 2:17 in and then it becomes The Hobbit

[Threviel]

Also they continue with everyone having fires lit midday in sunshine by open windows but they omit all the smoke and coughing and fire watches...

[Tamas]

New trailer

Looks good until 2:17 in and then it becomes The Hobbit

I liked the previous trailers but this somehow destroyed most of my desire to watch it.

[HVC]

The acting seems... lacking

[Threviel]

Also weird that the death of Orodreth or Angrod or Aegnor would be Galadriel's main driver, one would think that Finrod's fate would be more of a motivation...

Edit: Or everything else about the enemy or the guilt of the kin-slayings...

It seems like a shit show... But I judged WoT too harshly based on the trailer so I'll wait for Ep. 1 before I judge it too harshly.

Edit2: Of course later Tolkien implied that Orodreth was the son of Angrod and the father of Gil-Galad, and even ignoring that he died with Glaurung close by so probably not him dying in the trailer, so it's even stranger that Galadriel would single out one of the twins as her main motivation...

Edit3: And Galadriel standing by his corpse taking his sword implies neither of them since the enemy won all the battles where they died and their bodies were in all probability not recovered, but an imaginary new brother.

[garbon]

Also they continue with everyone having fires lit midday in sunshine by open windows but they omit all the smoke and coughing and fire watches...

Not enough coughing?

[Threviel]

Also they continue with everyone having fires lit midday in sunshine by open windows but they omit all the smoke and coughing and fire watches...

Not enough coughing?

I'm not entirely serious, but in any pre-modern society you don't waste firewood by having constant fires going all day long. Fires were used for cooking and heat and sometimes for illumination. Smoke is not nice now and it was not nice then, they wouldn't have wanted to have fires burning around them when it wasn't necessary. It makes no sense in historical films to have torches or fires burning in the court yard at day in summertime. But almost every historical film has fires burning uselessly all day long and apparently so does the elves and men of Middle Earth. An let's not go into the economic aspects of deforestation, we did that with candles in the WoT thread.

Going back further and/or looking at the poor with bad  or non-existant chimneys a lot of ailments were because of fires burning inside, it's not healthy to stand around in smoke a lot. You would get cough attacks and especially eye problems.

[crazy canuck]

Also they continue with everyone having fires lit midday in sunshine by open windows but they omit all the smoke and coughing and fire watches...

Not enough coughing?

I'm not entirely serious, but in any pre-modern society you don't waste firewood by having constant fires going all day long. Fires were used for cooking and heat and sometimes for illumination. Smoke is not nice now and it was not nice then, they wouldn't have wanted to have fires burning around them when it wasn't necessary. It makes no sense in historical films to have torches or fires burning in the court yard at day in summertime. But almost every historical film has fires burning uselessly all day long and apparently so does the elves and men of Middle Earth. An let's not go into the economic aspects of deforestation, we did that with candles in the WoT thread.

Going back further and/or looking at the poor with bad  or non-existant chimneys a lot of ailments were because of fires burning inside, it's not healthy to stand around in smoke a lot. You would get cough attacks and especially eye problems.

On the bright side, there are very few candles.

[grumbler]

Also weird that the death of Orodreth or Angrod or Aegnor would be Galadriel's main driver, one would think that Finrod's fate would be more of a motivation...

Edit: Or everything else about the enemy or the guilt of the kin-slayings...

It seems like a shit show... But I judged WoT too harshly based on the trailer so I'll wait for Ep. 1 before I judge it too harshly.

Edit2: Of course later Tolkien implied that Orodreth was the son of Angrod and the father of Gil-Galad, and even ignoring that he died with Glaurung close by so probably not him dying in the trailer, so it's even stranger that Galadriel would single out one of the twins as her main motivation...

Edit3: And Galadriel standing by his corpse taking his sword implies neither of them since the enemy won all the battles where they died and their bodies were in all probability not recovered, but an imaginary new brother.

Remember that they've ignored all of the event sequencing from Tolkien so that they can have Eregion, Moria, and Numenor all come to their dooms (presumably because of the rings) at about the same time.  So time doesn't mean much.  Having said that, Finrod was reincarnated so still alive, and the bodies of Aegnor and Angrond were destroyed by fire.  My guess is that the "new brother" is Celebrimbor.

[grumbler]

I liked the previous trailers but this somehow destroyed most of my desire to watch it.

Same here.  Except for the title, there is nothing Tolkienesque in this trailer.  It's clichéd melodramatic high fantasy.

[celedhring]

Yeah that trailer was pretty meh. I still cling to the hope that it was just a trailer trailerizing things, but I admit it's a very thin straw...

[Sheilbh]

Seems like a bit of a weird music choice.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Remember that they've ignored all of the event sequencing from Tolkien

there's quite a bit more from Tolkien they ignored in their 'updating'...

[Threviel]

Celebrimbor might perhaps perhaps be seen as a brother by Galadriel if we ignore all the kin-slaying that the sons of Feanor did. Sure, yeah.

But I mean, they have the rights to Silmarillion IIRC, no they don't, I checked.

That explains all of it, they have the rights to LotR, the Hobbit and the appendices.

So they have been forced to forge a story that can have nothing to do with Silmarillion, which explains it all. They're even quoted as saying that they hade to create a Toikienesque story more or less on their own.

So yeah, it'll be the last two seasons of GoT but from the beginning.