#rop halbrand

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OMG. Halbrand is going to be one of the nine, isn't he? He's going to accept one of the rings... I just know it, he's too nice yet so violent...

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Personal gripes with episode 6

The Horse Stunt.  

It was cool when Galadriel did it the first time.  I’ve greatly missed the old ‘take a shot for over-the-top elf stunts’ drinking game of the Legolas days.  But then she did it a second time.  And then Halbrand did it to take down Adar.  

This led me to believe one of three things:

The stunt team suck and couldn’t think of any other way to make cavalry action exciting.

The director/showrunners have a weird hard-on for sideways horse riding – take that one as you will. 

Or (and get your tin foil hats for this one) it’s a form of badly executed symbolism.  A way to show a person’s growth.  Or, ya know, a dark lord watching and learning to mimic the actions of a good person.  

Speaking of symbolism…

Galadriel’s white horse.  

Look, I love the visual.  Galadriel looks awesome in her armour (finally decent female armour in a fantasy show, with no ‘separate boob bubbles’ and other impractical stuff).  And sure, if you’re the Queen Regent of Númenor and you’ve sent your people into a battle led by an elf, you’re going to want that magical commander to look good.  A shiny symbol of purity and goodness for all to see and be inspired by.  That’s not my issue.  There wasn’t a single other white horse in that entire charge.  They were all the same basic chestnut.  No darker colours, no lighter; no mottled.  So either Númenor has a colour selective horse master who is utterly ruthless (while still keeping the random well trained white horse floating around just in case a hero shows up and needs to use it) or the creative team on the show blanked out and thought that we needed the symbolism shoved even further down our throats.  Because they think we’re all stupid.  

Halbrand can teleport?  

Look, I am a mere mortal, and one prone to epic fangirling over damaged, broken men seeking to make amends (I’m looking at you, Winter Soldier & Gray Man) and so I did love when he came riding into view and did the epic takedown (even if I hated the execution; see above).  But like. HOW? How was he there?  From the opposite direction, too!  He didn’t cut and intercede from the side; it was a direct, head-on charge from the direction Adar was fleeing (aka, not the village).

When one is seeking to run away from something, they will generally continue on a forward trajectory.  There may be a bit of zigzagging to make people confused, but you will always be heading away from that which is chasing you.  In this case, it is Galadriel and the village that they were just fighting in.

I would love to have some sort of insane theory about how this proves that Halbrand is Sauron or something.  Maybe he… mentally manipulated Adar to change direction?  He teleports?  Lol.  No, none of that makes sense.  

So either Adar was riding in crazy, drunken 8’s around the village just for the shits and giggles, or there was a major breakdown in storyboarding and production. Sadly, I’m going to assume that it was the latter, and this – above all else – really fucking bugged me.

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