Fundamentally Rings of Power did far more to faithfully engage with the actual themes and philosophies and intricacies of it's source material than PJ's films ever did. Like just focusing on Adar for a second, they have created a character to be the active thinking avatar for Tolkien's unresolved orc problem and that's so fucking ballsy. Tolkien never decided how orcs exist in his world, they have souls but the birth of a soul is Eru's prerogative and that would make Eru actively to blame for the continuation of a brutalised slave race that is used to enact vast harm upon middle earth. So do they not have souls? No they must, Sauron cannot field an entire army of automatons, and within the books themselves orcs clearly show culture, aspirations and a fear of death.
And so you have Galadriel, standing there, telling Adar that orcs were a mistake, a mistake by whom? God? It's a fascinatingly niche nod to her hubris. And then Adar says no, we have souls and names, souls created from the very same One as you were. And that's such an incredibly exciting premise to go into the second season with, that these orcs do have souls. That each individual was made by Eru, that they do possess a piece of the secret fire, it'S!!!! I'm so thrilled. And that's not to even get started on the acknowledgement of Elven resistance to returning to Valinor being a bad thing that is against the divine order as expressed by Durin III and much more just!!! It's so refreshing to even see it attempted when PJ's 'hope and friendship' whitewash has been all anyone's ever thought Tolkien was about up until now.
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