Get over it

A sideblog for bitching about ROP

[mhevarujta]

And, here we have it.

This sort of mentality on McPayne's part is exactly why people who are not dude-bros but who are simply longtime fans of Tolkien's characters have found The Rings Of Power alienating.

It's not that I'm dropping the show. I think that we reached the bottom with the Sauron x Galadriel dynamic in s01 ,with Halbrand, and now the only way is up. But stiill, the fact that McKay and Payne believe this is a good idea says a lot about them and of their "understanding" of all characters involved.

And I'm sorry that they think that just because Galadriel is a female character this is needed to make her interesting. I'm sorry my girl is subjected to this. The misogyny in the way they wrote hers and Sauron's dynamic was there from the start and they just can't seem to let it go.

[cupkakie]

I kind of wish that Amazon had made its own medieval fantasy show instead of tacking on LoTR and making it spiritually/creatively bereft of meaning from the source it claims to have been adapted from.

If you really want to know the histories of the First and Second Age of Middle Earth -- the Silmarillion is where you will find the heart.

tldr; just wish Amazon would stop beating an already dead horse...

[veteran-ranger]

There are few things as painful and frankly, heartbreaking as seeing a female character who has existed for decades, who has been appreciated on her own for who she is by the fandom for over half a century, be reduced to the female love interest in a dark romance ship because of an adaptation. And now 80% of the tags about her are about said ship. Makes me want to jump off a cliff.

[darklinaforever]

Clearly, someone missed the point. It doesn't matter that Celeborn is coming back, or that Galadriel is becoming the Lady we know—that’s the whole idea. The point is simply that it’s striking to see the first image of her for this season... with her husband. Usually, we see her alone, or else in the company of Sauron/Charlie—you know, the show's other main character? The one she literally forms a duo with—the very heart of the show? Yet here, the first image of her for Season 3 is with her husband, not on her own as usual. And her husband is played by an actor who is far more famous than she is—someone who doesn't get cast in minor roles. Whereas Celeborn... well, he isn't exactly a major character to begin with. So, people are wondering what they’re going to do with him. And the reason for the concern is that, in Season 2, Galadriel was already sidelined in the show's narrative. That’s what this is about. It’s not exactly hard to understand. And honestly, I couldn't care less about Celeborn in this show. It’s obvious Galadriel is in love with Sauron anyway. So, I’m going to relish the classic love triangle: the girl tempted by darkness who’s drawn to the villain, yet still has a perfectly "nice boyfriend". I really insist that Galadriel’s arc regarding the darkness be maintained and continued—and that her relationship with Celeborn ties into that, too. Because we have to finish this arc before she becomes the lady we know. If Galadriel gets sidelined even more this season, and her connection to Sauron is downplayed in favor of a husband nobody cares about, I’m going to scream. Oh and I want see a jealous Sauron.

@lizzie-queenofmeigas

[haladriel-was-never-canon]

Sorry but thats pretty much "i am mad that Galadriel doesn't get with my favorite guy, hence i am throwing a tantrum and whining about sidelining her, even if i was perfectly fine with her being a) aged down in the story, so that Gilgalad and Celebrimbor are older than her, b) removed from her canonical role of Lady of Eregion and the political importance that she's in the second age, and c) HER SPEECH turned into something Sauron says to HER even if she only expresses desire to be in the PLACE of the dark lord, not WITH him." Guess that book Galadriel doesn't understand that she wants to be with him all along? Guess however that's fine if her most important and pitoval scene in lord of the Rings gets given to a man, if you can go uwu dark romance with him?

Sorry but people in the comments saying that they want "Dark Queen Galadriel" ... Dark Queen Galadriel doesn't exist. In the book frodo during the scene of the mirror sees her as even brighter and charming. You're mad that you won't get a version of Galadriel that never existed at all. Also, her ruling as the Sauron's wife is somewhat "empowering", while she ruling as Lady of Lorien sucks? She having half maia celebrian Is based, but not she having Celebrian with the canonical father of her child? Whats the logic here?

Celeborn being a minor character: lol and lmfao. In case you forgot, Frodo is the main character of lotr. Both him and Galadriel are "secondary" if we take Frodo's pov. And i know that you never read the books, but there's in Unfinished Tales a story about the forging of the Rings and of Sauron in Eregion, look at how it's called...

Decrying that Galadriel gets sidelined when you are mad that Galadriel doesn't appear with Sauron (because that "man" is fine as long as it's your beloved Halbrand, i suppose) it's so funny frankly. Maybe leave feminism to people who ACTUALLY understand what it meant. Funny how people are only now criticizing the sexism in the show when in the very first season they stripped away Galadriel of her ambition and her canonical traits !!! She never needed a stupid ass dark romance to be important, the conflict was only with herself. Funny how you all claim to care about Galadriel when a) you couldn't give a fuck about her pre season1 and b) now are admitting that you don't want her to be the lady of Lorien and are making up stuff about a "dark queen" arc that was nowhere to be found in the book.

None of you ever gave a shit about Galadriel before you could ship her with Sauron. Spare me the concern trolling. @darklinaforever

[kibutsulove]

personally dislike it whenever people tag my saurondriel art as haladriel because i think fanon haladriel & the common trop-fandom interpretation of saurondriel has done irreparable harm to the understanding of galadriel and sauron’s dynamic and their independent characters as a whole. but alas

[kibutsulove]

something something i just do not like the heteronormative characterization that is often shrink-wrapped onto them in trop fanon for multiple reasons. (This is not an intelligent-sounding post at allll forgive me but this was squirming around in my head for a little while)

I feel like it’s a very clear flattening of his character, and I cannot explain it very well, when someone minimizes Sauron down to his stupid halbrand persona (which on its own i am not a big fan of. he’s boring sorry) and sort of. like. hypermasculinizes him, which also separates him from his canonical attributes of being a divine being without an inherent gender who as well seduces powerful men for his own personal gain.

and as much as i love trop galadriel, the way she is presented in the show is often misinterpreted/misconstrued, by ( some ) <- people, for the sake of pairing her with the previously mentioned sulove-irking depiction of sauron. she is commonly reduced and stuffed into the submissive role of this pairing and any further attempt to empower her in that specific narrative tend to be backhanded and inevitably present her as a “brat” or just generally foolish. Similarly, there is also this hyperfeminization of her that works to ignore any of herrr canonical attributes surrounding her mother-name & her physical person. like we all know the description.

also dare i say I don’t see a lot of the people who characterize them like this interacting with sauron and galadriel outside the contexts of the pairing ?? I don’t know. SULOVE RANT OVER!!! I RESIGN MYSELF TO FIRING SQUAD !!!

[pukiirice]

I really don’t want to see any more middle earth adaptation movies or shows, it will suck, cuz it’s not gonna to be made out of respect and love, it’s just another cash cow, it’s already been this way when the hobbit trilogy was released, Hollywood really sucks ass

And I feel like they waited Christopher Tolkien to pass away so they can grab the adaptation rights immediately and milk the hell out of middle earth, not giving a fuck about paying any respect to source materials

[pukiirice]

The fuck, why do ROP fans like to bring up the kiss between Túrin and Beleg to justify the weird ass kiss between Elrond and Galadriel, one is beautifully written and heart wrenching, another is just stupid bad writing, don’t compare these two, the mere mention of ROP in a sentence is an insult to COH which is actually good and queer.

I remember the writers of ROP said there might be queer relationships in the show at a comic con, yet there is still none, only weird ass crack heterosexual ships that don’t make any sense, they are too afraid to make silvergiving gay but are totally ok to butcher the character of Galadriel and make her fall for the guy she hates the most, wow so progressive, fuck ROP and anyone who defends this shit

[pukiirice]

Just post this here, I think i’ll reblog this quote every time when a new adaptation of middle earth comes out in the next decades:

“They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people 15 to 25,” Christopher says regretfully.

“And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.” The divorce is systematically reactivated by the movies. “Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed by the absurdity of our time,” Christopher Tolkien observes sadly. “The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has gone too far for me. Such commercialisation has reduced the esthetic and philosophical impact of this creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: turning my head away.”

[pontmercii]

😂😂

[lyrainbeleriand]

Okay, okay, midnight fuckin furious time, the RoP finale, the "made you my queen" saurondriel bullshit, let us talk about how fuckin misogynistic and totally disrespectful to how tolkien portray his female characters.

So. On first look, it actually sounds like Tolkien right? They even use the exact same line from FoTR, right? (instead of the dark lord you would have a queen, stronger than the foundation of the earth bit)

but it is so not. Why? Because RoP galadriel didn't say that line. Sauron fuckin did. In the book, that whole scene of her resist the temptation of the ring is a show of her own ambition, how she fight her own demon, and how she reject that demon and chose true wisdom. But in RoP, it is all the man' wish, it has nothing to do with her, "I alone can see you greatness!" I puke at that line, Amazon i sincerely ask you do you know who galadriel is???? The fairest of the house of finwe, the one with the greatest achievement among the noldor except feanor, the lady of light, and you think she needs sauron to tell her her greatness, her value, her potential??????? Also, in the book, her ambition is to be her own queen, not sauron's queen, i don't need to tell you the big difference between a queen regnant and a queen consort right?????

with this plus the show's beginning with her character's initiative changed from "to rule a land of her own" to literally pointless vengeance for Finrod (hey dude is literally walking peacefully with their father in valinor why would he even need that), the two writers(some context: they are devout mormons.) took away all that made galadriel unique and great, and the approach itself is extremely misogynistic, also the change of the role of being seduced by sauron from Celebrimbor to galadriel, shows that they can't bare the tiniest hint of homosexuality (context again: they are mormons), and the impact of this change kinda make you feel like: omg it's all the woman's fault! If she hasn't stir things up everything will be fine! No? Just me? Really? (ps i don't even want to talk about the female elves maidens whose heads are entirely covered serving in silence)

[undercat-overdog]

I haven’t been watching RoP, so I look forward to a review by you. I want to know just how bad it really was…

I definitely plan to! I should say that there's things I did did enjoy! And I don’t want to take away from people who do find delight in the show. I didn’t like it but it’s not the worst thing ever, on the bad side of mediocre, and honestly if it weren’t a Tolkien adaptation I wouldn’t care (or watch). But it is and I think it fails as both an adaptation and as a work independent of the source material. A billion dollars can’t buy a C+ script; it’s Middle-earth as written by JJ Abrams on the worst writing day of his life.

Sean T. Collins wrote a good review that captures most of my feelings.

But since it’s going to take two years for season 2 to be released (how), I can forget about it soon.

[undercat-overdog]

Rings of power salt below, edited to be less grumpy because I’m trying not to be grumpy on main.

Continua a leggere

[undercat-overdog]

I poked desultorily at a Rings of Power review and never got around to writing it out. But the showrunners talking about how they wrote a better story than Tolkien brought a black anger to my heart, so.

I don’t think the show is very good and the problem is them. A day ago I would have said that the Hobbit movies were worse than RoP and objectively that’s probably still true. But to my knowledge, PJ never said that Tolkien’s story was stupid. Payne and McKay did.

I didn’t come in as a hater; if anything I came in expecting to reluctantly like the show and my primary worry was that it would affect my interpretations of the world and characters. I was expecting bad Tolkien and good television; I was expecting to be entertained. (Well, I was entertained, thanks to my brilliant and funny cowatchers <3)

And I don’t think the show was terrible; I’d call it the bad side of mediocre. The actual audiovisual part was competent. Some things were done very well (very pretty!) and some things weren’t (the sound mixing). I feel something was off with the moment-to-moment editing but the lack of proper establishing shots that fit the dialogue in some scenes were the faults of others (e.g., Tar-Miriel saying the Numenoreans will sail with the tide as she and Elendil stand in the middle of a field with no water nearby; were they actually by a shore I’m sure the cinematographer would have gotten shots showing it, so it’s hardly their fault or the editor’s). It was ok-ish! All that was mostly good even, though not $465 million dollars good.(1)

But the script sucked, story and dialogue both. Spoilers below.

Continua a leggere

[undercat-overdog]

The biggest offender of the ROP show : it doesn't do any justice to Ar-Pharazon/Sauron. And Ar-Pharazon isn't DILF enough

Anon, you are so right. Well, I don't think it's the biggest offense, but it is a major offense! It didn't help that imo Halbrand is a black hole of charisma, store-brand Viggo. I don't think they even interacted :(

I quite liked Pharazon's look but not for him; it would have worked well for an OC advisor or maybe Amandil. But Pharazon himself should be smoking hot and look much younger: prime of life, not entering old age. I'd love him to resemble Elrond (and thus Luthien).

[undercat-overdog]

Third and fourth episodes worse than the first two. Thoughts in no particular order.

General note: I have seen people say that RoP needed more time to develop and that studio pressures to make it faster paced hurt the show. No, what RoP needed was less time and ideally fewer storylines. Desperately need an editor. This isn't a complaint about slow pacing. Slow pacing is fine. Inconsistent pacing, pacing that's alternatively slow and rushed, isn't fine.

Other general note: the show has a major problem with timelines, both in its internal narration and how it fits with Tolkien canon. There are a bunch of third age elements popping up (Kings of Men burying their dead in the Barrowdowns? What Kings of Men!), but there are internal problems too, especially the disconnect between Isildur and Numenor (was Isildur in suspended animation for the time it took for Elendil to go from Mordor to the coast and then for not-Brego to travel all that way back?) There's no sense of time or distance.

Things I liked:

The spider fight at the beginning was fun! Nonsensical but very fun. Loved the gleaming spider eggs.

I like the evil Istar and his evil minions, even if the main minion dude stole his mask from General Grievous. I'm also really into the desert setting! Nice to see a place that's not New Zealand Aotearoa. (Middle-earth has more biomes!)

Some of the set design is very nice. Numenor's is so pretty and I liked Tom's house, especially the star map on the ceiling.

I hope they're going for a romance with Isildur and what's-her-name. It's shallow but cute. If we must have a dead mother, I like how it was drowning and not childbirth or illness, especially in Numenor (though why the angst, Isildur, isn't the sea is always right?) I was meh on a lot of that storyline, but Isildur's cute and so is his horsemance.

Things I didn't like or were neutral on:

A minor sin, but I cannot get over how bad makeup is and has consistently been from the beginning. This time it's Saubranatar and the blond elf OC: their foundation is not the same shade as their skin and goes horribly with the wigs (blond elf OC desperately needs some purple toner, very brassy). At least in Bombadil they finally found a character for whom blush overload is appropriate.

Reallllly not a fan of the prosthetics either, especially with the new hobbits.

Still hate the hobbit storyline and now I have more to hate with it, in Bombadil.

I kinda wonder if they've gone to the longer hair because of all the backlash to the short hair lol.

The hobbits are looking for the promised land of Suzat? First, wtf. Second, Westron the language will not exist for a couple thousand years!

Why is we're-not-saying-he's-Gandalf the only character who has been naked so far? More than once!

Is a shot of orc baby the reason people wrote articles about how rop added morally complexity and greyness? Lol.

The Numenorean storyline is incoherent and terminally stupid. I realize that last season didn't leave them a great foundation: still terminally stupid. Why didn't the eagle talk? I do think Pharazon in particular has potential, but he's way underdeveloped.

What the hell is Theo's vest thing? They've moved into a (ruined) settlement and have running water, they no longer need to muck farm! Also I would like if the evil helmet haired kid never comes back. Cannot express how little I care about him or his and Arondir's stepdad angst. He and Isildur sure are monster magnets though.

Speaking of monsters, it felt like an rpg where the DM kept rolling for random monster encounters. In two episodes, we got spiders, Sarlacc creature, Eagles, Ent and Entwife, angry person-eating tree, barrowwights, I'm sure I'm missing something. Just randomly take shit and throw it in, doesn't matter if it fits, fans like references! It's pandering filler that doesn't advance the storyline.

Can we stop it with the PJ movie callbacks? I'm resigned to never getting away from his aesthetics, but all the recreations of different shots. I guess they took the Barrowwight look from Pirates of the Caribbean and not PJ?

We know she's an Entwife and not an Ent because she has flowers.

Lmao that is so much metal to make a handful of rings and the mithril lump is tiny. Is it homeopathic mithril? And for a show named after Rings, they sure don't spend a lot of time on them.

I have very little good to say about Celebrimbor and that storyline but it's a character and place I'm deeply invested in so I'll leave that be. On a couple neutral notes, Charles Edwards' acting is better than last season (where I was very not impressed) and I'm curious what they'll do with Elrond's antipathy towards the Three, given that he'll later end up bearing one.

The end credits song at the end of episode 4 was hilariously incongruent.

[eilinelsghost]

I've not posted much when it comes to my feelings/critique of Rings of Power (because the discourse there is a toxic hellscape that I have not wanted to touch with a 10 foot pole), but I've come away from the final episode so frustrated that I can't help saying one thing.

In trying to be clever with their "references," what the showrunners have ended up doing instead is taking the narrative power away from several of LoTR's key moments so that when those instances show up in the "later" trilogy, they are shorn of their meaning and arrive instead as hollow echoes of what RoP is putting forward as their original instances.

This is most clearly seen in Season 1 when Galadriel's pivotal moment in Fellowship of the Ring is taken from her, placed in a man's mouth first, and consequently shifts the entirety of her narrative arc/test to be about her relationship/temptation by this specific person instead of being the full fruition of what brought her to Middle-earth in the First Age. Her test (as noted in the Shibboleth of Fëanor, found in HoME volume 12: The Peoples of Middle-earth) is the rejection of "all that she had desired in her youth," which is specifically tied to her involvement in the rebellion of the Noldor and subsequent rejection of the Valar's pardon.

If Galadriel's test is thus reframed to be primarily about refusing the power Sauron offers, then she does that here in the Second Age (per their depiction) and this scene thereby makes her choice at the Mirror irrelevant because it turns it into a test she had already passed. (The irony here is that so many bad faith critiques were that the show made Galadriel too independent & fighter-y when in fact they took all of her independence and cut the knees right out from under it by making her entire story about Sauron instead of its own complicated arc. But I digress.)

In Season 2, we receive an additional host of these attempted referential echoes, but I will focus on one in particular because it operates in exactly the same way that Galadriel's Season 1 scene does. It is once again the final episode, once again a character whose journey we have followed through the whole season (throughout both seasons, in fact), and once again it is taking a key moment in the LoTR narrative and shifting it to be instead something that has already happened in the Second Age - specifically, the scene with the Stranger (now disappointingly officially identified as Gandalf) and "the Dark Wizard". This effectively lifts Gandalf's refusal of Saruman's offer in FoTR and places that exact temptation (join me and together we can weild the power that Sauron has) centuries earlier so that when he is faced with it at Isengard in the Third Age, Gandalf is merely repeating his earlier decision and facing nothing but an echo of a temptation he has already mastered.

These characters are now caught in a Groundhog's Day of their defining moments, repeated ad nauseam till it is reflex and not conviction.

In attempting to construct resonance and connection between the two narratives, what RoP has done instead is shore up a hall of empty mirrors, each reflecting back upon itself to the point where the origin becomes meaningless and the beauty of its narrative power is lost.

[serregon]

every big hetslop ship has a guy named Kylaemond and he’s the boss of the racist faerie wizards but secretly he cries himself to sleep at night because he Feels Bad about being forced to own gnome slaves but he has no choice because he’s haunted by his Sad Backstory involving a mom in the refrigerator and he’s actually really Deep and has a hidden heart of gold that can only be unlocked by our heroine Freyladriel who is nominally a strong female character but easily overpowered and turned into a demure damsel in distress by Kylaemond who starts off as her greatest enemy but is later revealed to be her Magical Faerie Force Soul Mate Alpha and she flirts with a turn to the dark side because he is sooo hot and the gnome slavery thing is Nuanced Actually and she can fix him by becoming his two for the price of one therapist and cocksleeve