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Funky See Funky Do posted:I'm really not feeling the changes they made to Galadriel in the show. They've written out her husband, her daughter, all the power and majesty she's supposed to have. Where it stands in the show it looks they're about to have her have a fling with some Numenorean. They could have just invented a new character and had her do all the same stuff without missing a beat. Instead they've invented a new character and called it Galadriel. yeah, it's wheel of time all over again
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Sep 4, 2022 10:39
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Bongo Bill posted:Call me an optimist, but I don't get the impression that Galadriel is going to have that kind of relationship with Halbrand. The decision not to include Celeborn in at least the first season, and by implication push their relationship much later in the timeline, suggests to me a desire to ensure that romance doesn't end up being part of her on-screen motivation at all. Rather, who better than a human in Númenor to serve as a cautionary tale about dealing with bereavement in a healthier way? I think you are incredibly optimistic if you think any of that second paragraph is happening. I was wrong about the guy being Numenorean because I assumed when she jumped she was near Valinor and not a little ways off the coast of Middle-Earth. You know, because she was near enough to Valinor to see it. It might be a Numenorean colonist from their southern holdings buy he says he doesn't have king.
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Sep 4, 2022 10:51
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I'm incredibly optimistic for thinking she's going to get one of the Rings of Power? I think it's possible I've misunderstood your point.
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Sep 4, 2022 10:57
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It's possible I didn't make it well. I mean that I don't see Celeborn or Celebrian happening in this show or her character going from a brash young hothead to a serene, almost ethereal figure of reverence. It's only two episodes in but it just feels so off base with her. Am I to understand that they couldn't include anything from the Silmarillion and by association the Akallabeth? How're they going to do Numenor without that?
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Sep 4, 2022 11:18
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Bongo Bill posted:Call me an optimist, but I don't get the impression that Galadriel is going to have that kind of relationship with Halbrand. The decision not to include Celeborn in at least the first season, and by implication push their relationship much later in the timeline, suggests to me a desire to ensure that romance doesn't end up being part of her on-screen motivation at all. Rather, who better than a human in Númenor to serve as a cautionary tale about dealing with bereavement in a healthier way? At least a Númenorian of that time could live 3-400 years (judging from the lifetime of the first couple of kings), before they started to diminish. Although I wonder who Halbrand really is, considering that the rest of the people on the raft were hostile to Galadriel, they cannot be people of Númenor, which (at that time) was still friendly with elves. With a name like Halbrand he's likely related to the House of Hador or one of it's branches. Thing is that nowhere in the books or other source material Galadriel was this avenging, single-minded warrior-type. In "The People of Middle Earth" she was described as wiser and more temperate than others, especially when compared to elves like Fëanor. For example, she is smart enough not to swear Fëanor's oath and she had no part in the kinslaying. It's also mentioned that she desired rulership of her own realm, which was one of her motivations to leave Valinor. The Galadriel we see in the show, has a very different personality than the Galadriel in the source material. Hammerstein fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Sep 4, 2022 |
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Sep 4, 2022 11:31
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I figured out who the Stranger is. He's the Maia of the Moon, Tilion, and we witnessed the origin of the myth that became Frodo's song in the Prancing Pony.
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Sep 4, 2022 12:03
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Ah, I see. I do get the impression that they're framing it as basically a bad thing that Galadriel is focused on loving up the Shadow to the exclusion of all else, and it seems unwarranted to assume that her character will not undergo any development over the course of the show.
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Sep 4, 2022 12:12
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edit: wrong thread!
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Sep 4, 2022 13:46
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ChubbyChecker posted:lol I'm reading through the Mordor sourcebook now, of the hidden forge of Sauron in Mount Doom. There are five pages of ridiculous tom of horror-tier traps that no PC's will ever survive. What was the point? Mordekai fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Sep 4, 2022 |
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Sep 4, 2022 14:24
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Funky See Funky Do posted:Am I to understand that they couldn't include anything from the Silmarillion and by association the Akallabeth? How're they going to do Numenor without that? The entire ordeal is summarized in the appendices of ROTK. They’re allowed to use anything in the appendices.
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Sep 4, 2022 14:50
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Mahoning posted:The entire ordeal is summarized in the appendices of ROTK. They’re allowed to use anything in the appendices. They have been continually evasive on what they have the rights to which remains bizarre.
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Sep 4, 2022 15:38
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Mordekai posted:I'm reading through the Mordor sourcebook now, of the hidden forge of Sauron in Mount Doom. There are five pages of ridiculous tom of horror-tier traps that no PC's will ever survive. What was the point? well it's not like the characters would survive anything else either, sooner or later some random orc would kill anyone, even a vala, with a lucky crit
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Sep 4, 2022 15:48
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:They have been continually evasive on what they have the rights to which remains bizarre. I don’t think they have? I recall reading several different things laying out what they have the rights to. These are essentially the same exact rights that New Line Cinema (and eventually Warner Brothers) had for the LOTR and Hobbit films. The rights holder in the case of the movies (and video games and stuff) is Middle Earth Enterprises, which was formerly the Saul Zaentz Company. However, MEE’s rights had an exception where they could not adapt a television show of 10 episodes or more. So Amazon was able to purchase those rights directly from the Tolkien estate. Since much of the events of the Silmarillion are summarized or referenced in the appendices, they can use those events in the show. They did say they went to the Tolkien estate a few times and asked for permission to show or talk about something outside what they had the rights to and were granted permission on those few occasions.
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Sep 4, 2022 16:43
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Hammerstein posted:For me, as Tolkien nerd, the whole Gild-galad/Galadriel/Valinor dynamic was the lowest point of the show, because it went against so many of the foundations established by Tolkien. In some of his last writings Tolkien decided Gil-galad was actually born in Valinor, and with Finduilas was amongst the youngest of the Exiles. It's not a change I particularly care for, but it is something to keep in mind.
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Sep 4, 2022 17:10
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from another thread:
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i was surprised that i did like the valinor part at least visually. when the actors don't try to deliver any lines, and you forget about how stupid some of the plot is, it looks good
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Sep 4, 2022 17:19
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I'd giggle and be happy if Galadriel or someone claims they got thrown thousands of miles south by the storm because Ulmo intervened.
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Sep 4, 2022 17:24
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 peter is elros lois is elrond
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Sep 4, 2022 17:41
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ndegD3Zp58&t=40s One of Durin's children is wearing the Dragon Helm of Dor-Iomin
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Sep 4, 2022 23:21
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Mordekai posted:If any of you didn't know, Bombadil in fact was a maia. He was also a 360 level animist with 120 agility and a +90 in the cookery skill If Saruman designed an RPG, it'd look like that. Wasn't there a game where Tom's stat line was a string of ?????
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Sep 4, 2022 23:39
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Mordekai posted:I'm reading through the Mordor sourcebook now, of the hidden forge of Sauron in Mount Doom. There are five pages of ridiculous tom of horror-tier traps that no PC's will ever survive. What was the point? https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9qwm-rNX9YEX0hUYkZDdzY1Tjg/view?usp=drivesdk&resourcekey=0-6J854q8dkeHUWeVX_qNG2w But yeah I read through that a few years back. Best I can figure is 80's gaming required that. People wanted to see what Sauron's inner sanctum and forge might be like because that sounds like a rad idea for an adventure. But it's sauron in the heart of Mordor and there's big loving treasure there so of course he's got to set it up like some excessively trapped and deadly secret lair. Maybe the idea was for a GM to seed clues and poo poo for high level gaming if they wanted to use it? Maybe it's because if a party is roaming through Mordor they might decide to go here and so the GM should have something to punish them for their hubris? I have no idea. It was kinda weirdly cool for that part of me that's still twelve, but still excessive and weird. e: My favorite part is where Sauron asks the players six questions of Middle Earth trivia. dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Sep 5, 2022 |
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Sep 5, 2022 06:10
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Falathrim posted:In some of his last writings Tolkien decided Gil-galad was actually born in Valinor, and with Finduilas was amongst the youngest of the Exiles. His background creates various issues in general - for example most sources say that Gil-galad was still a child during the Dagor Braggolach. That's hundreds of years after the Noldor left Valinor, even elf kids don't take that long to grow up. And if we accept that he was born in Valinor and is the son of Orodreth we get the issue that Orodreth's wife is a Sindarin elf, meaning she cannot have been in Valinor, cause these elves remained in ME. In the early version (that's the one I was referring to, when I said that he had not been in Valinor) he's Fingon's son, but if that's the case then Turgon (Fingon's brother) could not have become High King of the Noldor after Fingon's death, because succession passes to the eldest son (see Fëanor-Maedrhos-Fingolfin). Gil-galad's whole backstory is a mess.
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Sep 5, 2022 06:39
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So in Rolemaster/MERP massive, lovelingly designed critical hit tables were a thing, a selling point if anything. Could you actually one-shot Tom Bombadil or indeed Sauron with a especially lucky hit roll or did they have some sort of critical hit protection?
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Sep 5, 2022 09:01
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Deptfordx posted:So in Rolemaster/MERP massive, lovelingly designed critical hit tables were a thing, a selling point if anything. yes, but it would be very unlikely unless one was near equal level but perhaps a hundred orcs could take sauron
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Sep 5, 2022 12:16
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ChubbyChecker posted:yes, but it would be very unlikely unless one was near equal level 1000 orcs, a 0.1% critical chance, he's toast. Well, he's usually toast, but you know what I mean.
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Sep 5, 2022 13:16
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Runcible Cat posted:1000 orcs, a 0.1% critical chance, he's toast. There is literally a 100% chance of scoring a critical on Sauron. Think about it. Literally 100% eye, lidless
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Sep 5, 2022 13:18
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I rather enjoyed the first episode of the The Rings of Power. It’s obviously not what Tolkien would have created, but he likely wouldn’t have created a TV show to begin with. Fantasy as an entire genre can be evaluated in how it reacts to Tolkien, and Rings of Power is on the extreme end of Tolkieniness without actually coming from the hand of the man himself. Taken for what it is, something very Tolkieny that isn’t actually Tolkien, I thought it was good. The Galadriel in the show is not the same as the Galadriel in the books, but she evokes the original well. She’s an extremely driven, powerful, “amazonian” (Tolkien’s own word choice) woman who skirts the edge without actually falling into true evil like many of her relatives. The plot in the south lands that’s obviously going to lead to the lineage of Dol Amroth is also pretty interesting. I quite liked the elf dude there. Overall, from one episode, it seems like good TV, as much as there is such a thing, and obviously has tremendous respect for its source material, even though it inevitably betrays it. I thought using Finrod as a mentor and primary motivation for Galadriel (not named, but he definitely seemed to have werewolf claw marks on his body) was quite clever. I really didn’t like portraying Elrond as a “politician”, though. And I thought him being excluded from an “Elf Lords only” council was absurd, given he’s the son of Earendil and a descendant of Luthien. I also strongly disliked Finrod saying to Galadriel that you need to touch the darkness to know what’s right and what’s wrong. That seems completely against the spirit of Tolkien’s works, even if moral ambiguity is a feature of the high elves, including even Finrod, seemingly the noblest among them. But overall it was a good experience. I definitely look forward to watching more, even if occasional scenes make me groan and yell at the TV.
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Sep 5, 2022 14:57
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Hammerstein posted:Gil-galad's whole backstory is a mess. This is what really tempers any of my "but that's not canon" complaints with the show, because all this First and Second Age poo poo was never really nailed down.
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Sep 5, 2022 15:07
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Sending people off to Valinor like it's Siberia is kind of silly, but I actually do like the idea that the incoming generation of ME-born elves/humans/etc would be like "if we could just get these Boomer Noldor to shut up about their blessed treelights and the thousand years of strife we could actually build a nice pretty future here". It makes a little more sense as to how they could be arrogant enough to work with another dark lord just cause he gave himself a cool new name.
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Sep 5, 2022 15:45
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Yeah its obviously just a plot device to move Galadriel where they want her, so if that storyline falls flat, its just a bunch of bad choices. If her story ends up being good otherwise its just a blip at the start that no one remembers
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Sep 5, 2022 15:47
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Yeah its obviously just a plot device to move Galadriel where they want her, so if that storyline falls flat, its just a bunch of bad choices. If her story ends up being good otherwise its just a blip at the start that no one remembers Pretty much. They could have literally skipped the whole thing and give Galadriel some other reason to visit Numenor.
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Sep 5, 2022 15:56
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adhuin posted:Pretty much. They could have literally skipped the whole thing and give Galadriel some other reason to visit Numenor. I think what the origin of it is they needed something to hammer home the concept of Valinor to someone who has not read the books. They want that right up and front in the first episode so that the conflict in Numenor makes sense. Since they determined they had to show the boat scene, they just added Galadriel in since it solved their other problem of "how do we get her to Numenor within the first 3 episodes"
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Sep 5, 2022 16:00
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They also have to have her (I mean not specifically Galadriel, necessarily, but whichever character they chose to represent the "we have to stay watchful" crowd) in conflict with the man to establish that everyone else thinks it's time to move on from all the doom and gloom and just make cool magic jewelry again. I like that they made the elves more actual people, and just kind of have to accept that they've toned them down from their written versions to be more relatable. I mean the Galadriel on the page would just sing a song to that storm to put it to sleep and/or take her where she wants to go, and Elrond would probably win the rock breaking competition by whispering the terrible secrets of sediment until the rocks broke themselves. It'd be kinda funny but also boring.
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Sep 5, 2022 16:04
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Yeah, one thing I've been telling friends is how i like that they are getting across that the elves can be major dicks, or just dumb as hell. that's essentially the Noldor's entire deal.
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Sep 5, 2022 16:07
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Something I've been wondering. Did the dragons participate in the battle of unnumbered tears? Glaurrung precipitated the Battle of Sudden Flame when he attacked too early, and then during the Dagor Bragollach the dragons followed in the wake of the flames issuing from Thangorodrim. But did dragons take part in the later battle, or did they only really come into their own during the War of Wrath?
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Sep 5, 2022 18:15
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Arc Hammer posted:Something I've been wondering. Did the dragons participate in the battle of unnumbered tears? Glaurrung precipitated the Battle of Sudden Flame when he attacked too early, and then during the Dagor Bragollach the dragons followed in the wake of the flames issuing from Thangorodrim. But did dragons take part in the later battle, or did they only really come into their own during the War of Wrath? The incident where Glaurung revealed himself too soon was actually 200 years before the Bragollach. He then played a role in both the Bragollach and the Nirnaeth, at full strength for both. e: I was wrong, Glaurung's "brood" joined him during the Nirnaeth. Falathrim fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Sep 5, 2022 |
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Sep 5, 2022 18:26
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Well I finally watched it and I thought it was fine, and I used to spend my teenage afternoons poring over the Appendices, The Silmarillion, and The Book of Lost Tales scribbling notes about aligning the time frame and conflicting details in a notebook. I can't imagine having the energy to get mad about it. It's too soon to say if the narrative setups will pay off but as far as adaptation to screen goes I have no issue with decisions made. I'm scared to see what they must be arguing about in the other thread.
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Sep 5, 2022 23:09
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It's not bad, nobody's being Reddity. It's just a lot of trying to make sense of the timelines and the characterizations and such.
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Sep 5, 2022 23:32
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It hasn’t been bad. I mean you have the normal amount of folks coming in to say THIS SHOW IS rear end but this is the internet, and this is SA, and it’s a time-honored tradition. Setting aside the people (not here on SA) who are pissed that middle-earth has black people, because I absolutely cannot relate to this mindset, I do get some of the criticisms people have leveled at the show so far. But I will also say that I love fantasy. Horror is my favorite genre but fantasy is a close second, and the great thing about right now is that we get a new RoP episode every Friday and a new HotD episode every Sunday, for several weeks. It’s a fantastic time to be a nerd, and I couldn’t be happier right now. It’s also got me watching the LotR extended editions again, and this time also re-watching each one with the various commentary tracks. We are living in nerd heaven right now, for those who can just sit back and enjoy these shows w/o hating on them. I do not mean to sound condescending but if one is a fantasy nerd but hates either of those shows, I just feel pity for them.
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Sep 5, 2022 23:51
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I liked the intro with the flowing and changing lines of sand or whatever, except the title card kind of showed up awkwardly.
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Sep 6, 2022 00:04
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SHISHKABOB posted:I liked the intro with the flowing and changing lines of sand or whatever, except the title card kind of showed up awkwardly. its the music of the ainur and i feel like i must be a rube or something cause it legit surprised me that they did something so cool that nearly everyone beyond Tolkien nerds would miss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFAcYruShow
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Sep 6, 2022 00:11
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