A COMPLETE DISASTER, Rings of Power Season 1 OVERVIEW

So, as promised I just bought your signed graphic novel and a copy of your book. I've been listening to it on audible for a couple hours now and it's very well done. You're pretty good at keeping things short and simple while still giving a lot of detail, and the intro alone made me want to know more about the character and the world. Pretty impressive. Keep at it sir. :)

"We're writing the book Tolkien never wrote" theres a reason he never wrote this😆

You know a story about a former Dark Lord seeking redemption only to be dragged back into evil by someone he cared about could have been a interesting setup for a fantasy series, as long as it didn’t have anything to do with TOLKIEN and the world he created!

"You have to turn your brain off to enjoy this show." Nathan, you're absolutely right, and a lot of people are absolutely trained to do just that. From Michael Bay to Marvel and Star Wars, "turn your brain off and look at the pretty pictures" is exactly the kind of media that is raking in millions these days. Substance has lost, people just want to consume and relax, not think and engage.

Galadriel is actually the most sauronian character in this show.

I love how they made Sauron the good guy in this show. All he does is good things. Saves Galadriel, joins the fight to help the Southland's and is one of the key factors to save the elves.

Not going to lie. Helbrand reminds me of a recovering alcoholic trying to get his life in order despite his new party animal girlfriend trying to get him drunk at every turn. I'm not sure that Sauron deserves a redemption arc but he acted like he was at the tail end of it before the first time we meet him, and Galadriel pushed him off the wagon. He is trying to put his past evils behind him, falls in love with someone who is making all the same choices. She tries to get him involved with the very thing he is trying to distance himself from. He falls to temptation in an effort to impress her, who then rejects him for becoming the very thing he was trying to avoid, despite being what she wanted him to become, driving him deeper into his past life. You can make your villains sympathetic, tragic even. You can turn them to evil due to an interaction with the heros. But to have the heros reject their responsibility, to reverse the villains redemption, just seems... evil.

In Tolkien’s work, Sauron’s teaching the Elves how to make the Rings of Power and his participation in the making of the same was all part of a plan that took centuries to implement. In ROP, there is no plan and Sauron would not have ended up in Eregion (really, Ost-in-Edhil) without contrivance upon contrivance. One, whether Adar actually killed him or whether he had some resurrection, he managed to sneak aboard a ship fleeing the Southlands (where no one noticed his pendant), which is just the right ship that would get attacked in just the right place at just the right time that he would be able to make it on just the right raft to encounter Galadriel. Literally, without Galadriel, nothing else in this set of circumstances could have possibly led him to this point. Two, in the vast Sundering Seas, Galadriel needed to be in just the right path at just the right time for the makeshift raft to encounter. Three, he would need Galadriel to notice the tiny non-prominent pendant he wears and be so curious about it that she will not let the mystery of it go. Four, in letting Galadriel take point on where they would be heading, he would need the raft to make it through a severe storm intact with both of them still alive —with all the tossing about, change in direction, and chance of losing the raft altogether—and end up somewhere in the path of a ship, which will just so happen to be in the right area, that will bring them to Númenor. Five, despite Amazon Sauron’s stated intentions of staying in Númenor and working as a smith going against the ultimate outcome of ending up in Eregion and forging the Rings, Galadriel would need to have her first breakthrough in over 1,000 years in understanding the mark Sauron left by finding just the right information in a hall of lore in Númenor that neither he nor she knew about. Six, in the process of that same contrived breakthrough, he would need Galadriel to happen upon the one document she would need to learn the significance about the pendant he wears for some unknown reason (seriously we do not know why he wore it) as being the mark of the King of the Southlands, and precisely none of the documents she would need to show that Halbrand is not the lost King of the Southlands. Seven, additionally, Amazon Sauron would need to count on all of these previous contrivances coming together to convince Galadriel that their meeting was the work of a higher power (though, really, that “higher power” is the writers’ collective) and that she would thereby push forward with absolute conviction. Eight, Amazon Sauron would have had no reason to leave Númenor despite his express wishes if not for the sudden change of heart for Míriel and the Númenóreans in general. Nine, again, despite Amazon Sauron actively working against Galadriel’s purpose and objecting to his involvement therein at every turn, he would need her to persist in insisting to bring him along and manage to, somehow, say just the right words to convince him to come along. Whereas book Sauron’s plan was straightforward yet subtle and requiring great patience, determination, clarity of thinking, and meticulousness to execute, Amazon Sauron has no grand purpose and actively works against what brought him to this point in the story. If he had gotten what he wanted, he would never be here. But despite his wishes, even despite him giving up his pendant at one point, his presence in Eregion can only be possible by the script contriving a change in heart for him engineered by one of the show’s worst-written scenes (and that is saying something). In this case, the contrivance is not an external one, but an internal one that makes no sense, but without which he could not have arrived at this point. Even his own will cannot ultimately thwart everything working out exactly as it needs to in order for the plot to get where it goes. Ten, for all of this to work out as it has when Amazon Sauron arrives in Middle-earth, he would need the army to be in the right place at the right time (despite no scouting and the complete idiocy of crossing that much distance in the time given) to save the Southlanders and, in order to create what Morfydd Clark herself called “sexual tension” between him and Amazon Galadriel, he would need to be wherever he needed to be and do whatever he needed to do to capture Adar and make the scene happen. Eleven, another contrivance that would be necessary for Amazon Sauron to be here is everything that happened with the volcano. Otherwise, he would have been a pretend king, however exactly that would have worked out, in the Southlands and gone about his merry way if not for the volcano being triggered by the most ridiculous of circumstances and ruining everything. But just like with the ignition of the volcano itself, one thing that these writers have been consistent about is that everything will happen as it needs to happen, regardless of whether it logically should happen, in order for the plot to get where it goes. Twelve, following this contrivance, he would need to get wounded (somehow) on the road just bad enough that he needs “Elvish medicine” rather than the healing Men can provide, while also being just healthy enough to not die during an absurd five-day ride (she said he was wounded six days ago, which was the day before they left, so they actually rode for five days). Without such a convenient wound, there would be no reason for him to go to the Elves and not stay among the Southlanders. Even the timeline for the trip is a contrivance, not only because it makes no sense (abusing horses that manage not to die for five days straight to travel the distance it took Frodo 48 days to travel without a horse, even with 9 days traveling faster on a boat), but also because if the time to travel had been more realistic, Galadriel, even as dense as she is, might have noticed something odd about his condition remaining so stable over such a long and arduous journey, even if he should rightly be dead if he was a mortal Man. But everything, even space and time, will inevitably bend to the necessity of the plot getting to where it goes. Of course, technically, one could break all of these points down into multiple contrivances each. But for simplicity, I treat each event as a separate contrivance, not necessarily every aspect of each event.

Thanks for watching this in our stead Shad! Keep up the great work!

I just realized why the rings were forged that way! Because they had to be engraved! Narya, Cirdan's ring, bears the inscription " The sea is always right". On Vilya, Elrond's ring, is read " Give me the meat and give it to me raw". Nenya, Galadriel's ring, says "There is a tempest in me ".

There is one likeable character in this show. Adar. Looks after his family. Wants to build them a home. Real stand up guy

I still say that the plot was written separately from each other and glued together at the end. I pity the post production and editors in this.

There's a series of twitter posts that Gary from Nerdrotic quoted during his post-series review. The poster of the comments pointed out the exact line of convenient circumstances that lead to Halbrand ending up in Eregion. Which culminated in the final summary of "What this show establishes, in its utter fumbling incompetence and in defiance of the most basic of Tolkien's lore, is that the Sauron of the Third Age is entirely a creation of a deceitful, manipulative Galadriel whose cruelty and rejection drove a repentant being back to evil. In summary, Sauron is a penitent nobody and happy to remain so as long as he has a forge to work in and some metal to bang on, until a shrill, pushy Karen of an elf drags him back to power even though he begs her not to, then crushes him when he asks her out."

What they did to Galadriel (and Sauron tbh) is really unforgivable. They turned her into a bimbo with perpetual pms and him into some kind of misunderstood bad boy who would totally be a good guy if he was just loved enough by the right woman. Both were downright neutered. Urgh. They turned a high fantasy epos into some kind of third rate romantasy drivel. And they really think they did something here.

I like it to someone going to a PC gaming store. They buy the most expensive gaming stuff. The most expensive chair, tower, monitors, etc. And then they go home and think because they have a $500 keyboard it will make them a pro gamer without skill and practice. That is Rings of Power. Thinking a lot of money can make a good show.

Rings of Power made me really nostalgic. It really captured that moment from my childhood when my math teacher used to produce a magical sword fragment to unlock an ancient pencil sharpener.

The great thing about this show was it led me down a path of self-discovery. I discovered that I'm a masochist.

Gentlemen, you deserve a special knighthood for your completion of this onerous journey, easily akin to Frodo and Sam’s trek across the plains of Mordor. As I’ve said to European Lore, thank you for going where I could not follow. We owe much to you, him and the crew of FNT. My friends, you bow to no one. I think your point on pretty visuals may prove out with the upcoming Avatar movie. Everything I’ve seen about it emphasizes how beautiful it’s going to be. I’m anxious to see if it’s enough. We’ll see.

There is a point to Isildur's sister... there are two big, massive, beautiful reasons for her to be in the show and you know it, Shad.

I never made it past the first episode. I walked out of the room after 5 minutes as it was just so bad. My son talked me into coming back and to at least watch the first episode. I've only been watching the reviews online since. I'm so glad I didn't carry on watching as I would probably have broken my tv in frustration!