(avg. read time: 45–90 mins.)
Episode 1
The distinction of the most expensive TV show ever produced goes to Amazon Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Was that money well spent, or will this show turn out to be a blunder of historic proportions? Either way, I am sure there will be a documentary made about it with all sorts of behind-the-scenes stories—beyond the ones circulated in the news and noted on sites like Wikipedia—that may further illuminate some things about it now that are being kept under wraps. That documentary will also have something to say about the reception of it, and it will be interesting to see who produces it, what angle they take, and thus how they process the praise and criticism directed to the show. But those are concerns for another time. Since the show is out now, what have we to say about it?
My own motivation in writing this review is twofold. One, as should be obvious, I have a deep love and appreciation for the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. This is amply demonstrated by things you can read on this Substack and it will be further demonstrated as I continue to post here. Anyone who has conversed with me for a sufficient amount of time will have learned of my affinity for Tolkien. Two, less obviously, I was especially motivated to write this review by the process I went through in writing reviews for the Peter Jackson films. Those reviews were quite extensive and intensive, both trilogy reviews totaling tens of thousands of words long (though the LOTR review is around three times longer). (I have also written an extensive review of the already-forgotten Tolkien biopic.) I deeply enjoyed writing those reviews, going through the intense sifting process of reviewing the adaptation decisions, and examining where they worked and where they did not. Since I first heard of ROP after finishing the LOTR review, it was a logical next step for me to write a review for it, however it turned out. As such, I am not someone motivated by excitement for the show (fulfilled or disappointed) nor anticipatory antipathy for the show (fulfilled or surprised).
I would like to clarify my approach for this series and for the reviews I will be posting on the Peter Jackson films at other times. I am by no means a purist. I am aware that I am working with an adaptation and not a reproduction. I do not regard any deviation from Tolkien as a deviation from perfection and therefore a bad thing, nor do I think everything Tolkien wrote is ready-made for filming, as if there could never be a need to change anything for a new medium. Nor in my reviews do I take the uncharitable route that purists tend to take and focus only on the changes made, and making those changes and the fact that they are changes the sole standard by which I judge the quality of the adaptation. When I look at changes, I must ask why those changes were made, and whether they contribute positively, neutrally, or negatively to the quality of the adaptation in this new medium. I also look at where the adaptation is consistent with the source material and where there is creative fidelity even in the midst of changes. This means that I try to be close to comprehensive in my reviews of the adaptation, with some qualification. One, I do not look at every omission, unless there is some material difference it makes, otherwise it gets overly repetitive just to say, “the show omitted this,” or, “the show did not include that.” Two, if something comes up that I can only comment on for a sentence, I may not bring it up if it is otherwise unrelated to a paragraph I compose. I am trying to keep these reviews somewhat interesting without reducing them to a mere catalog of similarities, differences, additions, and omissions. And I am aware that according to the credits and the interviews that Patrick McKay and John D. Payne only had the rights to LOTR and its appendices, so one of my interests in doing these reviews in terms of seeing what materials they drew from or could have drawn from to construct a cohesive story for the Second Age will not come to fruition. But there is much still to review in this regard. In any case, the review of adaptation decisions will be less straightforward here than for the Jackson films. And that is why the reviews of the various episodes will be quite long, as I do not have the more straightforward points of comparison to give some clear boundary marks for this review.
I should also note that I will only do minimal updates to these reviews if issues I bring up are addressed later. The reason is because the manner, order, and connections with which information is presented matters. If the writers do not mention something when it would make sense to do so, but do reference it later, that can still pose a problem for the writing quality. The points will thus be retained even if they are addressed by something else in the show, however well, later on.
I avoided engaging in much of the pre-release discussion for this show, not least because some of the discussion was surely premature. It tends to happen that time will make fools of anyone overeager to unjustly criticize or unjustly defend a show. One side may end up vindicated and the other embarrassed, yet too few will learn what they should learn one way or the other. But I do want to briefly address a couple things before I get into my proper review of the episode.
Concerning the racial/ethnic composition of the cast, it is not that I do not have opinions on the decisions made, but it makes no real difference, despite all the claims of how significant it is (from defenders and critics). If one recalls The Shawshank Redemption, the character Red was written in the original novella to be Irish, whereas Morgan Freeman is certainly not Irish, and there is even a winking joke in the movie about this. The fact that Red was a black man in the movie made it a less accurate adaptation, but it did not make it a worse adaptation, and the role was a defining one for Freeman’s career for which he is widely praised (and I cannot help but wonder if one of the best movies ever made would have been quite as good without him in the role). As long as things are coherent within the adaptation itself, such changes are not a detriment in principle, but that does not necessarily make them good either. I will not say more about the issue because, if the show is otherwise good, any inconsistency with the source material concerning skin color and such will not be the deciding factor in making the show bad. Conversely, if the show is otherwise bad, this casting will by no means make the show good.
For similar reasons, I do not obsess over how appropriate someone is in age or appearance for their roles, as long as it works within the context of the adaptation. After all, Pippin was only nine years old at Bilbo’s 111th birthday party, but he is much older in the Peter Jackson film, and it is, rightly, not generally regarded as a significant problem that Jackson and co. did not find a different, much younger actor for Pippin’s first appearance in the film, only to go with Billy Boyd for the remainder. But defenders of the show cannot eat their cake and have it too on this front either. When the first teaser came, there were cases of people trying to say “ackchually, Galadriel’s actress IS the appropriate age for her character according to the LORE.” That is disputable, even according to the lore, since Tolkien’s work was hardly solidified on the appearance of age for the Elves relative to Men. But one cannot defend this casting as accurate in age then turn around and say nothing in criticism of the casting of Celebrimbor and Elrond, if it is indeed supposed to be significant that Morfydd Clark is the right age and appearance for how Galadriel would look at this time in her life. Elrond’s actor is all of a year younger than her, even though Elrond is at least around 1,800 years younger than Galadriel (if we go by when Galadriel was born in “The Annals of Aman” and the conversion rate of Valian Years to solar years in that same work; it would be much more if we used a later idea he had). We do not know for certain if Celebrimbor is supposed to have been younger than Galadriel, as Tolkien nowhere gives his birth year (as far as I am aware), but he was part of a generation of Elves after Galadriel (he was Finwë’s great-grandson while Galadriel was his granddaughter by another line), and so the implication is more likely that he was younger. But in any case, one cannot consistently say that, if he was older, there was such an age gap between them that he could accurately be played by an actor over twenty years older than the actress playing Galadriel while Elrond could be accurately played by an actor one year younger than her. Thus, again, I will not be commenting further on this subject.
General Features
With all of that said, let’s start with the general stuff about this show. You know, the sort of things much briefer reviews will talk about. First, the visual quality is … fine, I guess. I will say that for a season of a show that cost more than the LOTR trilogy combined (even adjusting for inflation), I rarely found it visually striking. I will mention exceptions as they come up. Most of the visuals that did strike me were for reasons other than how picturesque they looked (whereas in Jackson’s LOTR many establishing shots were drawn from pictures composed by Tolkien illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe). And it is not that I am “tone deaf” to such things either. Avatar for all its flaws, has striking visuals that keep me engaged. Hero, a film from China starring Jet Li, is one of the most visually stunning movies I have ever seen, and it was working with a budget much smaller than ROP. I even talk about these things in my reviews for The Hobbit and LOTR that I will post, but this is not an aspect I consider especially strong about ROP.
This is not exactly my area of expertise, and I know that this is something the show is usually praised for, so I will give some examples of the good and the not-so-good. I think the Two Trees are pretty well realized and they are colored well in recognition that they are the predecessors for the sun and moon. But Valmar just looks like a Minas Tirith knock-off, like another structure that we will see in Númenor and seems as if it might as well be a map painting. That is, we are never allowed to get the sense that it is lived in like we do with Minas Tirith in the Jackson films. Likewise, Lindon looks alright from the establishing shot, but then the scenes we get within the location feel disconnected from those establishing shots, as we are never anywhere near any of the many buildings we see. But easily the most visually striking place in the series is what we see of Númenor, and it largely befits a kingdom in its days of glory (or so it would seem).
I know that the above aspect is commented on a lot in the short reviews I’ve seen, but for the sake of encouraging better storytelling, I would think it would help if we all put less stock in this aspect of making shows and movies. It is not that visual quality does not matter, but it is hardly a great compliment to your show if you imply that the best way to watch it is on “mute” so that you can just look at visuals without being distracted by the dialogue. The visuals are there for telling stories, for providing settings for the stories, and for characters to interact with. As such, I would say that a review that begins and ends with this aspect without serious consideration of the qualities of storytelling and characterization is not a review that is particularly worthwhile. Besides, shows like Stargate SG-1 demonstrate that you do not need massive budgets going to visuals to keep viewers engaged (and that for ten seasons).
The music is … fine. The theme for the show is decent and it is fitting. Again, it may not be a fair comparison to Howard Shore’s iconic score, but I think of that score and how recognizable and distinct so much of it is that just listening to it on CD back in the day, I could tell which part of the movie each piece was associated with. But I am not asking for Shore-level excellence. It would just help if I could tell the aspiration was there. So much of it feels rather generic.
Costumes are not as much of a strength of the show as I was expecting them to be. There are some good works, but even in the armor that is otherwise decently designed, there is a curious lack of gauntlets or gloves (with a few exceptions). The hands are constantly exposed for no apparent reason. Otherwise, so much of the costuming is unspectacular. The armor that Galadriel and her fellows wear for their ceremony and departure to Valinor is bland, it looks like it is unfinished. And this armor that is apparently just ceremonial, despite being given to highly honored warriors, is in stark contrast to the armor worn by Arondir, a scout in the far reaches of Gil-galad’s dominion. I am not sure why this armor has a face carved into the chest, but it at least looks better than sheer nothing. Another example of sheer nothing is what we see on the Númenóreans the first time we encounter them. They look like rather low-budget fare and not things with notable craftsmanship from a kingdom in its glory days. There are also cases where the costumes do not make sense in context. Probably the most notable example of this is Bronwyn’s appearance. She wears a nice blue dress and is otherwise much cleaner than everyone else in her village, presumably because she is the only one who bathes. But from analogy of our own ancient times, clothes dyed in such vivid blue were generally reserved for royalty and the rich, as they were expensive. So why is a healer dressed in such luxury in a village where everyone else is poor and grimy? Some videos on YouTube go into more depth on this than I can, such as this one, released before the show came out, and this one, from a channel that often analyzes weapons, armor, tactics, and so on from medieval and fantasy representations.
Finally, for the general features, we should talk about the cast. Insofar as there is a main character, the one being treated most like one is Galadriel played by Morfydd Clark. From our earliest promotional releases, critics have been calling this version of Galadriel “Warrior Princess,” and there is something to that. Not on the “princess” side because there is no royalty about her, whether by status, bearing, demeanor, speech, or otherwise. But her character is practically defined as a warrior. There is no great wisdom here, no gravitas, no power expressed in ways beyond the physical. Part of the intrigue of Galadriel is how much remains hidden about her, but this version of Galadriel wears her heart on her sleeve to an excessive degree, at least in terms of the script, as Clark does not emote that much (leading to tonal dissonance of script and performance, though I wish the script had played better to Clark and to Galadriel). As I have not seen Clark in anything else, I do not know whether to blame this lack of emoting on the actress or the direction she is given. Another fascinating characteristic about her is how her sight (literally and in terms of insight) was so piercing that even the powerful could be intimidated by it and be laid bare before it. There is nothing like that in this show’s version of the character. And there is a difference between wisdom, especially regarding persons, and the times when she has plot-convenient knowledge of things, as the script just gives it to her. One could, of course, argue that qualities like I have described were characteristics that came to her later in life, but that would ultimately be excusing the move of substituting a less interesting and compelling character in place of a more interesting and compelling one that already existed. It also buys into the lie that dynamic character arcs that are built on the conceit of characters beginning at the complete opposite of where they end up in a later story are inherently better and more interesting than cases in which characters are more consistent and not just operating at the whims of the writer. And all of this concession is even assuming that they have a plan and are competent to get the character where she would need to go, which, as you will see from the rest of my review, we the audience have no reason to think that they do. In any case, giving her this characterization in the Second Age is also not accurate to Tolkien’s work, especially given how much she learned from her centuries in Doriath from Melian, where she also met her husband, Celeborn, prior to the start of the Second Age.
Speaking of which, WHERE IS CELEBORN? Why is one of the wisest Elves of Middle-earth, the one who had been Galadriel’s husband for centuries before any time this could be set in the Second Age, one of those who first called her by the Sindarin form of her name “Galadriel” (not her original name), nowhere to be seen? Even if he shows up in a later season, I must ask what the point is of delaying his introduction. This is especially perplexing because they decide to invent a companion for her journeys anyway. It is a profound change to Galadriel to act as if she has no attachments that create obligations, as would be the case with a spouse. And I would defy anyone to explain to me how it is a change for the better.
Elrond, played by Robert Aramayo, is the POV character that the script seems least sure of what to do with. The writers want him to be a friend of Galadriel while also being an obstacle. They want him to have a tight friendship with Durin IV that will move the plot along, but they also want him to actually be a terrible friend so that there can be conflict between them to fill up the runtime (but we will get to that next episode). They want him to be wise, but never show any particular prudence. As such, the script does not give Aramayo much to work with, leading to a performance that he can hardly help but make unremarkable.
Another POV character is Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot, played by Markell Kavanagh, a show-only character. Arguably, Kavanagh is the best actress in the show. Really, seeing her performance juxtaposed with Clark’s is like night and day. Her face of terror in episode 2 has been memed, but that is because it is certainly an earnest face of terror. Unfortunately, the character she is given to play is the all-too-cliché “she’s not like other girls” role. So much of her character consists simply of contrast with others—like how she doesn’t follow the rules—and any positive content we are given is almost always spoken by other characters, sometimes to her, as if the people in question wouldn’t know her. That is too bad, because it would have been more interesting to have a POV character in this situation who is more of an exemplar of her people, but who is driven out of her comfort zone into the broader world and into a story bigger than herself and her group by some kind of incitement, maybe even by a means in which she tries to be good according to her people’s values, yet this leads to a conflict with everyone else when she makes choices they do not agree with. It did not need to be a paint-by-numbers misfit character arc where she is the one who is different from everyone else, and she is always right (from the perspective of the script, if nothing else).
Our other major POV character is Arondir, played by Ismael Cruz Cordova. He, too, is a show-only character, and one with even less definition to his character than Nori. His primary characteristic is that he is in love with a human woman for reasons that have yet to be clarified (unless it only goes so far as that he thinks she’s beautiful). When one of his comrades tries to warn him away from getting involved with a human woman, his response consists in telling him, “Yeah, well you stink” (specifically, he says he smells of “rotten leaves,” which is not particularly stinky, as potpourri is made out of that stuff, but maybe he has particular leaves in mind that do smell bad?). The show also tries to convey to us that he is smart when he ruins a game two villagers are playing by telling one of them he can win in three moves. Does this apparent adeptness in strategy come into play throughout the rest of the season? I guess we will need to wait and find out. As for Cordova’s performance, he is apparently only ever asked to act stoic, and … I guess he does that. Emotionally, it is a rather undemanding performance.
Bronwyn, played by Nazanin Boniadi, is another character that is made to stand out. How does she stand out? One, she is in love with Arondir the Elf for reasons that are never indicated (there is even less to go on from her end of the relationship, because she never even hints at anything in particular). Two, she is apparently the only villager who bathes and dresses in unusually nice clothes, so that she is the only one presented to the audience as attractive. Three, she is the only villager that is not written as stupid in some plot-driven fashion. She is presented as a healer, but we have yet to see any of the characteristics that you would expect to accompany such a role, as there is no special knowledge of the body or treatment, no gentle touch, no remarkable compassion, no especially steady hand, no peculiar knowledge of herbal lore (the closest we get on this score is her finding seeds to give to Arondir that are rather commonly used in that area), no impelling desire to do what she can to heal the world around her, and nothing else besides. We are simply told she is a healer and we see a mortar and pestle that are used for such a purpose (as well as a jar of some powder that she throws at an Orc).
Honestly, there is not much to go on with these characters. What is supposed to be one of the advantages of the TV medium compared to the film one is that we have more time and space to explore the major characters involved, whereas filmmaking must compress characterization to meet the more restricted demands of time. Thus, we necessarily learn much more about Benjamin Sisko than we do about Darth Vader. But even with the show’s slower pace, we have less information about each of the major characters and less to work with in distinguishing them as characters beyond the basic external stuff of appearance, race, and setting than we do with similar amounts of time spent in the film medium with the Fellowship of the Ring (which also features more major characters). But this is what we have to work with.
In-Depth Analysis of Episode 1
Prologue
Now that we have addressed the general features, let’s get right into the story of the first episode, “A Shadow of the Past.” Naturally, the first thing I noticed was the length of the show. Before credits, the show is just over an hour. If this is consistent across all eight episodes this season, it leads me to wonder how much they are going to get accomplished with that amount of time. Because they certainly did not accomplish a lot in this episode.
The first line of the series is, “Nothing is evil in the beginning. And there was a time when the world was so young there had not even been a sunrise. But even then, there was light.” Talk about tripping and faceplanting out of the gate. The first sentence does not go with the rest of the line. The only way it could be perceived as working is if it means something so insipid as, “Things were alright to start with.” But “evil” would hardly be the right descriptor here if they are trying to go for that. You would think that the first line being presented in this fashion might be something thematically crucial for the show, but it is not. The sentence is taken from one Elrond said in the chapter “The Council of Elrond” in Book II. In fact, it was immediately followed up with, “Even Sauron was not so.” But instead of going in that direction, the show goes nowhere with the line. Instead, it completely shifts course with the line about light in the world’s youth. And the first thing we see after this line is not that light. We do not see the light source different from the sun until after this scene plays out. There is already significant dissonance arising, both within the script and between the script and the visuals. Unfortunately, this is not the last time we will see that.
We have a scene with Galadriel as a child folding up some parchment while a boy and his friends on the other side of a stream tease her about how she must know that the thing she’s making won’t float. Her response is, “It’s not going to float, it’s going to sail.” Two more problems crop up here. One, it’s made of parchment, so of course it’s going to float, and we have been given no reason why anyone is doubting this except … well, they’re mean. Why are they mean? Don’t know. Two, I’m not sure what the point of the distinction is, since there is no sail on this thing, even when it folds out into a bird shape. It is going down a stream without needing wind or any other kind of propulsion. Seems like floating to me.
The kids then throw rocks at the boat while it is floating down the stream. Eventually, the lead boy hits it right with a big rock and makes it sink. Why do they throw the rocks? Because they’re mean. Why are they mean? Don’t know. We will never know. This is a vain writing trick to make Galadriel more sympathetic—but it is only a superficial sympathy because we do not know why she is bullied—rather than likable or appealing in other fashions still. But it is not quite coherent, as child Galadriel does not come off as someone who is bullied because she does not fight back. In fact, she fights back immediately after the boy sinks the parchment boat. If this is an intrinsic trait of hers, you would think these kids would know, and such a quality tends to discourage bullying. We do not even get to learn who these bullies are, as they will never show up again. I am so glad we had this absolutely necessary sequence.
This scene segues into the introduction of Finrod, Galadriel’s oldest brother. She has other older brothers in Tolkien’s stories, but for the purposes of this series, they are all named Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Show. Now Finrod is presented in this show primarily as a warrior, but he was also a king of the largest Elven kingdom in Beleriand and renowned for his wisdom. We do not get any of that here. He does say a bit of pseudo-intellectual refuse that creates a sense of pseudo-profundity, but like Galadriel, he is primarily presented in terms of being a warrior.
That pseudo-intellectual refuse comes in Finrod’s dialogue with his sister. This is the only dialogue they share. He poses a question to her about why a ship floats (notice that he does not say “sails”) and a stone cannot. He says that a stone can only see downward to the darkness in the water and is drawn by it. On the other hand, while the ship is drawn downward by the water, it floats because its gaze is upward, towards the light. This is an utterly strained analogy trying to connect the previous scene with the imagery of light and darkness and to force upon the viewers a sense of “isn’t this whimsical?” The viewers won’t recognize what Finrod says as wisdom, because we have a sense of things like heaviness and buoyancy. And besides, wouldn’t a ship’s “gaze” be forward and not upward? This is the problem with writing pseudo-profound dialogue: it loses its effectiveness if it becomes less profound the more you think about it. It is a veneer of high-minded allegory overlaying a void of meaning.
The problem only continues with Galadriel’s line: “But sometimes the light’s shine reflects just as brightly in the water as in the sky. It’s hard to say which way is up and which way is down. How am I to know which lights to follow?” Again, this is presented like some profound quandary, as if it is one of life’s great questions. But it especially does not make sense in a world before a sun and moon, as waters like the ones they are near do not reflect the light in such a fashion as a sun being directly over a body of water or on the horizon above a body of water would do. These sources of light are not moving. There are the stars, but those are lighting the world outside of Valinor and she does not mention the stars. And the question contains its own answer as far as the literal source of it is concerned: you know which way is up by looking up and which way is down by looking down. That should tell you where the light is coming from.
In any case, Finrod whispers the answer to her. This is a natural way to try to draw viewers in, as they will ask, “What did he say?” and the writers implicitly respond with, “Stick around to find out.” This action also gives the impression that the line is especially profound and important to the characters involved. But we will get to what sort of resolution it creates.
After this exchange, they walk back towards the Two Trees. Apparently, this was taking place near Valmar, as I am not sure what other city they imagine this one to be. While they walk, we hear Galadriel the narrator say, “We had no word for death.” This is not quite accurate to Tolkien’s work, as Míriel had famously died well before Galadriel was born (and this example would be especially familiar to her family), and they knew of the Halls of Mandos and what they were for. But it also does not fit with the implication of when Finrod tells Galadriel, “I won’t always be with you,” which seems to imply death as a possibility. The way in which he says it is also suggestive of such a serious implication, but we are not dealing with a coherent script here.
She also says the Elves thought their joy would be unending. This is another example of dissonance within the script because we have seen no joy as such. The one case in which Galadriel interacts with Elves not related to her, she sure is not showing joy. It also signifies how rushed the script is. This is the barest of setups, which lacks any vital information, but it also lacks something to make us care. We do not see the joys of living in Valinor. Except for this odd dialogue, we see nothing of the relationship of Galadriel and Finrod before war comes along. We only get a glimpse of the Two Trees.
Speaking of the Two Trees, their presence in this story is not a violation of saying that the show only has the rights to LOTR and its appendices, because the Two Trees are referenced in LOTR. It is odd, though, that after we get a quick glance at them and then Morgoth’s darkening of the Trees is narrated (unsurprisingly, Ungoliant is not mentioned), we are not told of the Silmarils. In fact, the Silmarils will only be referenced in the next episode in a rather odd way. But we will get to that. What is odd about this oversight is that they want to reference the incitement of Galadriel and other Elves going to Middle-earth to fight Morgoth, but they don’t reference the actual incitement, which concerned the Silmarils and Fëanor’s persuasion of most of the Noldor to follow him on his quest to reclaim them. The Silmarils were more vital for shaping the events of the First Age even than the Rings of Power were for shaping the events of the Second Age. The Silmarils are also mentioned several times in LOTR, so it is not like a reference would be a violation of the rights they have (which is also demonstrated by the fact that characters talk about them in the next episode).
The transition to Middle-earth is also rushed here, so that it is left to imply that she came in the fleet of ships that crossed the sea, which she did not. Although Tolkien often rewrote parts of her story, in no version is she among the ships stolen from Alqualondë, since Fëanor took these ships for himself and his people and burned them on the opposite shore. In the version reflected in The Silmarillion, she was among those who crossed the Helcaraxë, the ice connecting Aman and Middle-earth. This could have even been seen as preparing her for her journey in the icy lands later. It also would not be getting away from LOTR, since the place there is referenced as the “Narrow Ice” (Book II/Ch. 1). It could have also given us a sense of the determination they had in vanquishing Morgoth (although there were other reasons for the crossing in The Silmarillion).
The rest of the montage is a mess adaptationally speaking, and illustrates the problems created by the decisions made to take the story in this direction. That is, the fundamental problem in starting the story in this fashion and failing in both the deep world-building and good character-building departments is that they made the decision to make Galadriel have a personal vendetta against Sauron that makes her obsessed with finding him even when everyone else tells her to call off the search. In explaining this, you need to set up why it is so personal, which most naturally entails bringing in family, hence Finrod’s presence. But you also need to explain how they got roped into conflict with Sauron, hence the need to appeal to what Morgoth, his lord, did. Then I suppose you need to say something about before that time, but it seems like they approached this section as if anything would do.
But this decision also leads to certain knock-on effects that hurt the quality of the montage. One, because we have a tenuous connection to maintain between these events and Sauron, who is our main villain, we end up with a situation in which Morgoth is mentioned several times, even outside of the prologue, but is never once shown. Two, we are told that the Elves go from Valinor to Middle-earth, but Beleriand is not mentioned, even though it is referenced in LOTR (II/2; II/4; IV/9). After all, to mention Beleriand, you would need to say something about what happened to it, since it is no longer around in the Second Age, which would also mean referencing the Valar, and for some reason that is not considered important here (the Valar are never mentioned until the third episode). Three, we are thus only shown a generic battle, one that is not decisive for anything, one whose significance is unknown, one in which we only see one character who means something to the story (and he is not well represented in the scene as being particularly valiant), and one which, despite attempts to make it seem big, just looks so small because we see so little from it. By the way, these things can be fixed visually and with some narration, as in the Battle of the Last Alliance in the prologue of the FOTR film. But it seems here like they took an approach that some action, any action, will do. (Because I don’t know what battle this is supposed to be, I also don’t know why we have a flying dragon here, since they only showed up in the War of Wrath, nor why we have a burning eagle. But hey, action!) Four, because it is thought that we need to have multiple representations of this struggle, we have a shot that was in the trailer of Elves floating in the air with all this red in the sky. What does this represent? Who knows? I certainly don’t. There is nothing else like it in the rest of the show or in Tolkien’s stories for that matter. It is simply there for the visual. Five, following that same theme, because we also need a scene with a grown-up Galadriel here, when we see her walking around the battlefield cleaning up in her dress, she picks up a helmet and stacks it on a giant pile of other helmets. Why did they make such an absurdly massive pile of helmets that looks this tidy? For the camera. Six, we are told that Finrod vowed to seek out Sauron and destroy him (why he targeted him specifically, we are not told), but then we immediately cut to him dead on a slab. They probably could not actually show his death without it violating the rights they have (since he dies at Sauron’s fort, but not by Sauron’s hand in The Silmarillion, after being captured trying to elude Sauron).
The easiest way to improve all of this would be to drop the personal vendetta angle altogether. It is totally unnecessary. You can tell the story without it, like Tolkien did. And there are no benefits that come with it that would not be exceeded by dropping it. I would have suggested starting over with a whole new prologue. For example, here is an idea that could be visually striking, more faithful to Tolkien’s work (even as it is conveyed only in LOTR), and would make for a good story in its own right. Galadriel could narrate a prologue like in FOTR, but now the setting is that she is telling the story to children in Eregion (perhaps specifically in Ost-in-Edhil). As she tells the story, we could see something Tolkien describes in FOTR:
At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. (II/1)
This could be done with a tapestry in the background that tells the story visually. You could have animators make that tapestry come to life as she tells the story. And because it’s a tapestry, it’s not as if we would expect a lot of detail on the events (alternatively, this could be done with stained glass). You could start with the Two Trees, speak of their beauty and the delight they brought, show Fëanor capturing their light in the Silmarils, then move to a scene in which Morgoth darkens the trees, takes the Silmarils, and escapes to Middle-earth. This would then be followed by a scene depicting the march through the Helcaraxë in pursuit of him, then a scene of the Elves losing (maybe including their loss despite the help they received from Men), showing how hopeless the war with Morgoth turned out to be, which is followed by Eärendil going to Aman to get help, followed by a scene of Morgoth’s defeat, maybe with a scene of Eärendil being set in the sky with his Silmaril shining as a star, which the scene would cut to before the camera pans down to Galadriel’s continuing explanation. This would even form a connection with LOTR, as the light from that star is captured in the phial that Galadriel gives Frodo. (Certain changes might need to be made to pass over things here, unless one is willing to work in an explanation about Beren and Lúthien as ancestors of Eärendil, or it could be suggested somehow that they already know that part of the story and she is just giving the overview here; maybe a child could complain that she did not mention something.). It is here where she could explain that Morgoth could only be defeated with great cost and destruction, but that not all of their problems were solved, most importantly that his chief servant, Sauron, escaped. Her closing statement could be something about how the Elves must be vigilant, lest Sauron should return and wreak untold destruction like his master did. This particular scene could be in what will be the narrative present for the rest of the story (at least of the season), or it could be even earlier with the rest of the series taking place in a time when we see Sauron return. At some point, perhaps at the end of season 1, we could then have the sequence in which Sauron conquers Eregion and in the process the building housing the tapestry is razed. One of the last shots of the season could be of the tapestry burning.
Now I have not dotted every i and crossed every t on this suggestion, and there is room for adjustment. But this idea works just off of information we have from LOTR, does not name any events exclusive to The Silmarillion, yet remains faithful to what is contained in both in a creative way. It gives us some important backstory in which Sauron is not the focus, but represents the potential continuation of it. We could introduce the fact that Galadriel is still watching for Sauron, but not because she is an implacable warrior, but simply because she knows better than to think he will be in hiding forever. This opening also better allows for us to build up in future scenes the wisdom of her character, rather than needing to insist upon her being a warrior first and foremost. Such scenes will serve as build-up for the moment when she sees through Sauron’s disguise and false claims of goodwill. This opening also allows us to keep Celeborn in the story, as he could come in at the end of the narration and we could see scenes of their relationship and how they rule together (since they ruled in Eregion for a long time before founding Lothlórien, although this story is not told in LOTR, but neither are many of the things they feature in this series). He is no longer an obstacle to the story someone else wants to tell. Furthermore, near the end of this scene or even the end of the first episode, Galadriel could give her explanation to a child of why she is still where she is and not back in Valinor like the army that came to save them.
Nevertheless, we did not get this or any other better idea. As it stands, we are stuck with the personal vendetta and the negative effects it has on shaping this story. We will see many more examples of this as we go on. One of them that is presented immediately with the scene that gives us the seed of this vendetta is a mark that Sauron left on Finrod’s flesh: a symbol no one could comprehend. This is our first glimpse of Sauron’s distinctive mark that will appear elsewhere in this episode and this series. This event and this symbol give Galadriel the motivation to hunt Sauron like the rogue cop she is and the trail she needs to look for … I guess. However, the mark’s purpose here—whatever it is—is different than others we will see.
Next, it is mentioned offhandedly that Morgoth was defeated, but again, we never see him, yet Sauron escaped. This leads to a hunt that goes “to the ends of the earth” for centuries. Is he that good at hiding or are she and her squad that bad at finding? You decide. In any case, this line is vague enough to tell us that we are somewhere in the Second Age, but not when exactly. Clearly, the show does not do a lot to narrow down a timeframe to somewhere in the 3,441 years of the Second Age. It is as helpful as saying, “this story takes place after Christ.” And it is not that they even need to specify an exact year. There could be some remark of how many centuries it has been since Melkor’s defeat and that could have given us something to grasp for a setting in time. But we will see in later episodes that this show has a rather open relationship with the chronology of its source material and comes and goes as it pleases with that material.
She also leads us to believe that the Elves have grown comfortable in the centuries since then, that they have become complacent. Obviously, this sets up how Galadriel wants to do something good that is out of other people’s comfort zone, so they tell her not to do it. This will become a familiar character tool, and not just for Galadriel. But it also reveals the limitations of the writing in another way. By making this hunt such a personal thing for Galadriel, we are indulging the fantasy that she also fosters that her pain is somehow worse than others, that her loss from the war was more deeply personal, so that she cannot find life after it in the way everyone else seems to be able to. All of the other Elves we see lived during the war that defined the First Age, all of them lost family and close friends, and those are losses they will carry for centuries and millennia. But hers is the only one we are allowed to see in this personal light, and so we are supposed to pretend that the other Elves can more easily forget the war. And this is where they did not take account of the difference between Elves and the similar forgetfulness and complacency we have seen among humans. This tends to happen among humans as generations that live through something grow old and die off, but this does not happen with the immortal Elves. They carry their memories with them for much longer than humans ever could.
This leads to our first scene in the “present-day” of the narrative as she and her small crew are seen climbing up an ice wall in the Forodwaith. This is where we see another of the shots that was in the original trailer that contributed to the characterization of Galadriel as “warrior princess.” It is also another case where the visual and the reaction the makers hope to get from it matters more than its contribution to the story. They wanted an exciting climbing sequence out of nowhere—literally, as there is no reason based on Tolkien’s stories for them to be here—and so here the Elves are. Could they have gotten where they are going another way? Who knows? Their purpose there is just looking around, so for all we know this was motivated by Galadriel saying, “let’s look up there.” And all she has for such a long and dangerous climb, from which neither she nor anywhere else faces any fatigue, is the dagger she took from her brother. I know knives are basically the most useful tool ever invented, but that does not mean it is good for everything. Further reinforcing the emphasis on visual over substance is that they are climbing up this wall of ice while there is this massive waterfall right next to them. The Forodwaith tends to be a frozen wasteland, as the show represents, so why, given that we have this thick ice over the rock wall, do we have a massive waterfall going? I know that moving water freezes at lower temperatures than still water, or at least needs to be exposed to such low temperatures for longer to freeze. But surely those conditions are met here. If it is not cold enough for this waterfall to be frozen, which still would have presented a good visual, would that not be an indication that the surrounding ice is not as thick as they would like, and thus may be excessively dangerous to climb?
When she and the Elf whose role is to be the doubter—they call this show-only character Thondir—arrive at the top of the wall, we get some more questionable dialogue. He is trying to dissuade her, to get her to turn back, but it seems like an inopportune time for that. They both just climbed up this massive wall and the rest of the group is still in the process of climbing. I mean, you might as well make some use of your time while you’re up here. He also tells her it’s been years since an Orc was sighted. This is meant to motivate her to call off the search. But would not a relatively fresh sign like the sighting of Orcs indicate that Sauron was still around, at least by this show’s logic of inherently connecting the two? It would be a relatively fresh sign on the scale of the “centuries” Galadriel told us in narration that they have spent hunting Sauron. So either there is a conflict between these two parts of the script, or we are supposed to think of this guy as either dim-witted or acting in bad faith. It would be more understandable if this guy and the others have followed her for centuries and turned up nothing, but apparently there have been times, such as in the last few years, that the search has produced results and they have had reason to continue. We know that the basic message here is that Galadriel is committed/obsessed and her men are tired, but how do the writers want us to regard that message? From the overarching story, we are supposed to get that Galadriel=good and right, but why? And how are we supposed to gather that from this scene in particular?
He also says a line that fits with what we have seen so far of the writers trying to sound epic and wise. To underline his skepticism, he asks, “How long can living flesh endure where even sunlight fears to tread?” What? First of all, we clearly see the sun in the distance, and it isn’t exactly on the horizon. Second, Sauron is something beyond living flesh, and surely you know this, so why pose such a question? Third, Orcs as a rule hate sunlight, particularly at this time in the history of Middle-earth, so, again, you would assume he would know that it would be advantageous for them to reside somewhere away from the sunlight. Fourth, you also ought to know this from your experiences in the First Age, knowing where the Orcs came from in Angband. Fifth, from the viewers’ perspective, this is difficult to take seriously if they know anything about Mordor, you know, where Sauron ruled from. If he meant to suggest it was something about the cold and not the darkness so much, surely this Elf would be wise enough to make a statement that makes that point more directly. But that is the nature of pseudo-epic, pseudo-profound dialogue, which leads to being indirect for the sake of it, and thus losing your way to a point you might have been trying to make. Sixth, going back to the first point, it is odd that Galadriel will later say that the group will set out “at first light.” But I thought this was where sunlight fears to tread.
Anyway, we cut to the group proceeding through pitch dark just going in a general direction. Galadriel only stops after someone from the back of the group insistently yells, but he does not even mention that someone has fallen from exhaustion, which she initially tries to help only by taking her thin cloak and covering him with it to warm him. This may be something accurate to Tolkien’s work, considering that the Elven cloaks withstand the environment quite well. If that is what is intended, props for the subtle allusion. Otherwise, this would only be a token gesture that accomplishes little. But in any case, nothing comes of this as the lightning strikes in the storm reveal that they are on the right track and the Elf is presumably fine once they get inside so that he needs no more attention. (In fact, with the continuity errors, they appear to pick up extra Elves.)
When they get inside the dark fortress, Galadriel says, “This is where the Orcs gathered after Morgoth’s defeat.” This line just further reminds us that we never saw any visual representation of Morgoth’s defeat, nor did we even see Morgoth. Morgoth is made to be rather important (which he is in the story of Middle-earth and Arda in general), but why then do we never see him in this visual adaptation? But a few other problems arise with this line. First, adaptationally, as I indicated before, this setting does not work, as there was no fortress, much less one of such significance in the Forodwaith for Morgoth or Sauron. We know of the area from Tolkien’s work mainly because the last king of Arnor (before Aragorn) hid here. So there would certainly be some dissonance with having him take refuge here from the enemy (in this case, Sauron’s chief servant, the Witch-King of Angmar) in an area where he once had a fortress (thus, one would think that with the enemy still active he could come back here). Second, this is one of a few cases that we will see here where we must ask how Galadriel knows this. This is not a case of the insight I said before was missing from her character, where she has a deeper perception than others; it is just convenient knowledge for her to have in order to pass on to the audience. She was not even sure it was here before, so the idea that she knows its purpose is difficult to believe. Third, I must ask: HOW? How did they gather here? Did we not see how difficult it was to get here? How could so many Orcs gather here? Or is there an easier path that these Elves just didn’t take?
We will get no answers to these questions or to those raised by another exchange in this scene. One of the Elves puts his hand in the flame of his torch, for some reason. Why? That is not a thing people tend to do with torches, so surely something besides the script should be motivating him to put his hand in an open flame. But he says when he does that that he can’t feel anything. Galadriel explains this by saying, “This place is so evil our torches give off no warmth.” That is the only explanation we get, but that explanation needs its own explanation. How could a torch give off light and not warmth, considering that what causes a fire to give light is also the means by which it produces heat? It is also odd to say this considering Sauron’s association with fire; you would think the magic here might produce some effect of being surprisingly hot; that would at least give us a more pronounced contrast with the environment. But whatever. We know the reason why the torches stay lit is so that we can have lighting for this scene, but the showrunners want to eat their cake and have it, too.
We then have three other cases in quick succession by which Galadriel is made to appear smart by the other Elves being made useless. These are not matters of insight, piercing perceptiveness, or deeper knowledge from experience, but are simply cases where the script needs to move along and someone has to do something, so it might as well be Galadriel and not the nameless Elves. First, there is the following exchange: “This way.” “How can you be certain?” “It’s colder than the rest.” I am not sure how she determined that, especially when the torches do not provide any warmth, so it is not as if she has had a chance to get warmer. All you needed was for them to spread out and look around, maybe in pairs, by which means we could have seen more of this fortress and maybe gotten more visual information about Sauron and the Orcs, and then have someone call to Galadriel about a passageway. Second, at one point when she sees her reflection in the ice, she punches it, somehow knowing, despite its lack of transparency, that there is a doorway here. You would think using one of your tools could have accomplished this better than just punching at ice. (She mistakenly says “The door was filled in here,” when it is the doorway that would be filled in, not the door. But I’m not super smart like her, so what do I know?) This could have been visually signaled in some way on the other side of the block of ice, but we can only get information from this scene if Galadriel tells us herself. Third, when we get to an altar or table of some kind, Galadriel somehow knows to track this snowflake (this before she knows what it will do) to fall on this slab to know where to pour water to reveal Sauron’s sigil. This is something in particular that you would think another Elf would be able to figure out, since these Elves have been on this journey with her for centuries and they should know as much as she does in this regard. We have no indication that she has spent a longer time hunting Sauron and the Orcs and thus has more expertise about looking for them.
When she pours the water and finds Sauron’s sigil, we get some more problems that demonstrate how sloppily this scene was composed. One, when she pours the water on the table it causes smoke or steam to rise from the sigil, though it freezes on the surrounding rock. Why did this effect happen? Magic, I guess, but it is difficult to understand the internal logic of such magic even if we go that way. Would this not also be an indication that the extreme cold is not a sign of Sauron’s evil, when it is clearly associated with heat here? Two, Galadriel says the awkward line, “Even stone cannot hide the mark of the one whose very hand is flame unquenched.” This again undercuts what she had said before about the extreme cold, but the stone was not hiding the sigil anyway. Besides, if we were going to describe his hand as flame unquenched—which is not entirely out of keeping with how Gil-galad dies in Tolkien’s work—would it not have made sense to see some burns on Finrod and not simply some extensive scars that do not look like they let out a lot of blood?
But the biggest problem with this scene is with the interpretation of the sigil. Supposedly, according to Galadriel’s statement to her companion on this centuries-long hunt who somehow does not know this, Sauron left this mark on that surface for Orcs to follow. But how does she know this? There is nothing different about the sigil to indicate it serves such a specific function. There is not even any direction given, so what would they be following? Would the Orcs also need to know which part of the altar/table to pour water on or some other way to uncover it? Would they have needed to figure out the way to that specific area? Did they leave the ice after they were done or did they put the ice wall back together after they found the place? In any case, when he left this mark on Finrod, it wasn’t serving that function then, was it? When we see this sigil again later in this episode on a sword, it is not telling Orcs to follow it to … somewhere. So this also forces us to ask: why did he mark Finrod this way? Is he like Marv from Home Alone, who feels compelled to go out of his way to mark all his work? Does he leave it on anything he touches? If either of these were true, how can one discern the different functions of the sigil?
Doubting Thondir, the singularly least helpful Elf on this quest, dismisses all of this, as well he should, and insists that it is time to give up the search and go home. She gives an empty response about how she misses home more than anyone, but she cannot return home until she fulfills her purpose in finding Sauron. I say that this is an empty statement because the audience has not been shown any reason for why she would miss home, by which she means Valinor. All we saw of her experience there was that she was bullied. And Finrod, the only family we saw of hers, died in Middle-earth. We are told of joy in Valinor, but we never see it. It is thus unclear what she would be going back to. But it is also in contradiction with Tolkien’s work, regardless of which version you follow. As I said, Tolkien rewrote many aspects of Galadriel’s story over the years, such as whether or not she was even allowed to cross back to the Undying Lands at the start of the Second Age. But there was never an iteration of the story wherein she was kept from going back by her purpose in pursuing Sauron. She was especially influenced by her desire to rule a realm of her own and to explore the lands of Middle-earth. We can see both of these aspects of her personality in her history in the Second Age, when she and Celeborn ruled several lands until finally settling on establishing a kingdom that would become Lothlórien. Again, I am not someone who thinks every change is a bad thing, but I see no better purpose served by this change that would justify such a drastic change to this character’s story.
But we have not had a proper fight scene yet, and so a wild Snow-Troll appears. After all, most of the audience will remember the Cave-Troll fight from FOTR. The Snow-Troll proceeds to manhandle the rest of the Elvish party and then we get THAT dumb jump that circulated on social media in advance of the show’s release. It’s the clip when one of the nameless Elves tilts his sword behind him so that Galadriel can step on it, and he can throw her onto the Troll (or he might have done that if the scene was edited better so that she did not lift off from the sword before he swung it). He’s there to be a prop for her stunt. But the stunt is just flashy, it is not even necessary. When Legolas did his stunts in LOTR, there was a purpose served and a way of minimizing risk to himself. The vaulting on the Troll takes the risk of the Troll knocking her out of the air or picking her out of the air to do who knows what. But none of that matters in light of the fact that she takes down this Troll singlehandedly in a gruesome kill. It is almost as if these companions were just there to hold her extra stuff. That’s why she was willing to just wait on the sidelines until she got her time to do a stunt, rather than running in to help (seriously, it is twenty seconds of screentime between when she arrives in the room and when she does anything, and it is not as if we are cutting to a bunch of things happening simultaneously; she just waits that long).
Presumably in recognition of their uselessness, her companions, led by Doubting Thondir, say, “screw this, we’re out” immediately after this fight. I am not sure why this would bother Galadriel, since the group of hunters would still be at 100% strength whether the others are around or not. But again, this is a way to make Galadriel look sympathetic by making everyone else look bad. This should be a moment that reinforces their mission, since they have found signs of Sauron here. That is, they have reason to think that their hunt is not a wild goose chase. Instead, they show contempt for her leadership by laying their weapons down and refusing her orders (though I am not sure why they would drop their weapons since they were just attacked by a Snow-Troll and they don’t know that there is no other danger nearby). I understand what they are going for with this scene, but it has a context that it does not fit in. It does not fit with what has come before, and it will not fit with what comes after. Despite these Elves abandoning this quest, they all make it back to the same place for the same ceremony. She could have just said that they will report back to the high king with what they’ve learned, and nothing would have needed to change about the later scenes (though, as we will see, there are things that ought to change about those scenes).
And with that, we reach the end of the prologue that lasted over seventeen minutes. I know it seems that I have commented on almost every line, but sadly that is the quality of what we got in this prologue. I have been so detailed in this because the prologue is supposed to be setting up our story for the series, but it has done such a bad job of that. The writers have taken what Tolkien wrote, put it in a grinder, and processed it into something of remarkably lesser quality when there was no need for it to have been this way. If you are going to make this show about the Second Age, I think my prologue idea would have been more efficient without sacrificing so much of Tolkien’s lore for no good reason.
The Harfeet
What comes after the prologue is (for the most part) only slightly better, and I must say it is remarkable how little happens in the rest of this ~hour-long episode. But I also must say that my first unqualified positive about the content of this particular episode comes immediately after the prologue. I think these map transitions were a good idea. It is an easy and visually memorable way to get your audience oriented. There was one earlier that I had issues with, as noted above, but here we are taken to a more distinct region of Middle-earth: Rhovanion, the land where the Harfoots roam. This is a rather broad expanse of land mostly east of the Misty Mountains, but it serves well enough, since the Harfoots are portrayed as nomads, so this map presents us with the idea that there is a vast swath of land that they migrate across.
In the particular patch of land they occupy now, we first see the hunters they hide from. How does the show visually represent them as hunters before telling us they are hunters? Well obviously hunters would carry giant moose antlers on their backs. Right? No, that would certainly not be the sort of feature that would make hunting more difficult. Why would you suggest such a notion? And what sort of things do hunters talk about? They talk about the fact that there is nothing to hunt, indicating that they are having difficulty. Pay no attention to the moose antlers or the other stuff they are carrying to show that they have clearly been successful hunters.
As for the Harfoots (I can just hear Odo Proudfoot say “Harfeet”), I might as well mention something that I am sure most are familiar with by now. Despite being passed off in publicity materials as predecessors of Hobbits or proto-Hobbits, Harfoots are Hobbits; specifically, they are a sub-group of Hobbits. I think there is some rights issue in that some other company that was involved with The Hobbit (I think Warner Bros.) owns the rights to that word, at least for purposes of profit-directed visual adaptations. I get that this is a legal difficulty that Amazon and the makers have tried to work around, but there is no sense pretending that they are not Hobbits. I will call them “Harfoots” just to keep consistent with the show, but let no one mistake that for me taking seriously the idea that they are anything other than Hobbits. Hobbits may have existed in the Second Age (nothing clearly indicates that they did not), but they did not factor into any stories, since Tolkien aimed for them to be obscure. They are here because it is a “Lord of the Rings” story and thus it is thought that there need to be Hobbits of a kind, whether they fit well or not.
Unlike how Tolkien presents the Hobbits as being exceptional at avoiding detection by the Big People, the Harfoots in this show are exceptional at camouflage. We see this after the hunters leave and all the Harfoots come out of hiding. This was perhaps the most visually impressive feature in the whole first episode. Clearly, plenty of thought had to go into the hiding and camouflage, and it all unravels quickly with things being set up for village life to continue as normal after the threat has passed. This was an energetic sequence that was well coordinated, well directed, and all around well done (though I am not sure how actually practical it is putting all that stuff up when someone gives a signal for one of the Big People). That being said, the issue this particular setting creates is that the Hobbits known as Harfoots in LOTR were known for preferring hillsides and highlands, as well as settling in one place and living in tunnels and holes. But these Harfoots, at least at this point, live in a forest, which was a Fallohide preference, they are migratory, and they care nothing for tunnels and holes. Also, while Hobbits are always presented as civilized, these are nasty Harfoots and the director for some reason directs them to eat berries in the most obnoxious way in our first scene with Nori so that the young Harfoots are left with messes all over their faces.
Speaking of Nori, I have already reviewed this character, so I will not repeat the points here. It is just notable that already in the first episode, we have a second POV character that has the same characterization mechanism as Galadriel, in terms of wanting to do something good that is outside the norm and so others discourage her. In this case, Nori wants adventure, that is, beyond the nomadic existence she already lives. It’s pretty generic, but there is nothing inherently wrong with it. I would say this characterization mechanism fits better, given what we know from The Hobbit and LOTR (even in the case of a Stoor like Sméagol), than similar characterization of Galadriel and another POV character we will meet later. But, as I have said before, it would be better if we did without the mechanism.
Elrond and Galadriel: An Unconvincing Friendship
After our first meeting with Nori, we are suddenly with Elrond (who we later learn is composing Gil-galad’s speech). For some reason, there is no map transition here. We are later told that the location is that of Lindon, “capital of the High Elves.” Of course, in Tolkien’s stories, Lindon refers to a region, not a city. Mithlond, otherwise known as the Grey Havens (which is mentioned in the show) would best qualify as the capital, since that is where Gil-galad resided. Lindon was the westernmost realm of Elves in Middle-earth, being the lands between the Ered Luin (the Blue Mountains) and the sea (referred to here as the Sundering Seas). It is divided by the Gulf of Lhûn into Forlindon (northern Lindon) and Harlindon (southern Lindon). The Noldor, the High Elves that include Gil-galad, Elrond, and others, primarily resided in Forlindon, while Harlindon was primarily inhabited by the Sindar and Silvan Elves, over whom Celeborn and Galadriel ruled for a time until moving eastward. I give you all this information only to give context to the contrast of what we will see in the following sequence involving Galadriel.
When Elrond meets with Galadriel, as well as in another scene where they talk later, we see again the tendency from the prologue of trying to prop up Galadriel to seem smart by making others look useless. It is incredibly unfortunate that the victim this time is Elrond, someone else renowned for his wisdom and knowledge of lore, but they need to make Galadriel the lone wolf rogue cop that’s right in the end. In fact, when Sauron came (under the name “Annatar”) to Lindon, it was Elrond and Gil-galad who rebuffed him because they sensed his evil will. But their characters must be changed to make Galadriel look better.
Of course, such efforts can only go so far when hamstrung by the general script and the inherent flaws in reducing Galadriel’s story arc to a personal vendetta. We see this in the dialogue Galadriel and Elrond have, where Elrond asks Galadriel to tell him of her adventures and her response is, “Elrond, you really have become a politician.” This is not a natural response to what he said, but it is motivated by her taking his words as empty flattery, which doesn’t make her look particularly wise. It makes it look more like she does not know how to relate to people. Of course, that is coherent with what we have seen from the show thus far, as she seems to understand everything but how to relate to people, which is a major departure from her character from Tolkien’s stories in which she could see into the hearts and minds of others and softened the heart of Gimli towards her and other Elves.
Instead, the Galadriel of this show insists to Elrond that she speak to the manager … I mean, the king. Elrond naturally does not take this request seriously, but he tries to assuage her with saying they could talk after the ceremony. And here is where that information I cited from the books earlier is especially pertinent. If you read the books, the idea that Galadriel would have to go through Elrond to speak to Gil-galad, and not only that, but that Elrond would be so reluctant to give her what she wants … it sounds so ridiculous. The change is made simply to isolate Galadriel, to make her the lone wolf baying against the darkness threatening to swallow up Middle-earth. It did not need to be this way. It did not need to be so trite. Tolkien’s work shows as much.
A Brief Harfoot Interlude
The scene briefly cuts back to the Harfoots, and I don’t really have much to say about this. It just further establishes the contrast of Nori with other Harfoots. The one question I have here is, given how the Harfoots like to stay away from other people, how does Nori’s mother know anything about Elves, Dwarves, and Men? The last one kind of makes sense, because they live in an area where they see these Big People from a distance, but it sounds like there’s more experience behind the remark that everyone has their place. (Similarly, in the next episode, when Nori and Poppy go through the options of what Asteroid Man could be, they also seem to be knowledgeable about the Elves, Dwarves, and Men.)
A Silly and Sinister Ceremony?
When we return to Lindon, we are in the ceremony with our first appearance from Gil-galad. If this speech was written by Elrond, I must say I expected better. One line that really stood out to me as a bad simile was when Gil-galad, reciting Elrond’s words, says that this group of hunters had been “washing away the last remnants of our enemy, like spring rain over the bones of a spoiled carcass.” Huh? The more I think about this line, the less it makes sense. Does he just mean a decaying corpse? And I was under the impression that a carcass is not as far along the stage of decay as a skeleton, which is what the imagery actually implies. It is also such a jarring juxtaposition of a pleasant, beautiful spring rain and a carcass exposed to the elements that I have a hard time believing Elrond thought this would be poetic. This is yet again what can happen when you try to sound high-minded, when you try to be indirect for the sake of it to sound epic, but then you lose your sense of direction to the point in the process. Direct speech does not mean dry speech and it does not make your story feel less epic. Sometimes it’s the better route if you are otherwise trying to force the poetry too much.
Another silly statement Gil-galad makes is that “Today, our days of peace begin.” The impression that Galadriel gave from her narration was that most Elves had put that past of war behind them and no longer thought Sauron was an imminent threat, for one reason or another. So why would he just declare peace with all the suddenness and effectiveness of Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy or George Costanza proclaiming the Summer of George. The implication is that it was not a time of peace in the centuries leading up to this, despite what Galadriel said. To say it is so today leads people to think that Galadriel and company vanquished a final enemy that was standing between them and the time of peace. So Gil-galad is not just wrong, he is also presented in such a way that he is maliciously deceitful. Why? Because he’s a king and not Galadriel. Someone must suffer the character assassination to make this plot work.
To that end, it turns out that the ceremony is for the purpose of sending Galadriel and her companions away. Thus, again, this cover-up is getting quite malicious. Gil-galad not only wants to pretend that the evil is gone, he also wants Galadriel gone. He just dresses it up as more of a gracious reward for a job well done as Galadriel and her companions receive passage to the Grey Havens and on to Valinor (even though Gil-galad in Tolkien’s stories did not have the authority to reward such things). This whole sequence is further illustrative of what we have seen with Elrond. In order to justify the fundamental decision they made in how to tell Galadriel’s story, McKay and Payne must turn other good characters into collateral damage. Because Galadriel must be a lone wolf with a personal vendetta against Sauron, others who Tolkien presented as good characters must be re-presented as obstacles for her. Instead of giving Sauron a foothold among the Elves by exploiting Celebrimbor’s love of craftsmanship, like in Tolkien’s work, every leader among the Elves not named Galadriel must become a liability (or just disappear, in the case of Celeborn).
The Dialogue Goes from Bad to Worse
The scene that follows this is the night of revelries in celebration of the ceremony and what it signified. The fireworks here certainly looked cool. But the scene raises some issues with the lore. As far as I am aware, Tolkien never wrote in detail about the use of gunpowder in his work. But previously, it had only been associated with Gandalf (for his fireworks) and Saruman (for his explosives). One could see it as something of a secret among the Wizards, which could be given magic flourishes, as with Gandalf’s fireworks, but which, in line with their directive against using their powers in certain ways, was not to be shared with others. This would be another line that Saruman crossed in his use of explosives against Helm’s Deep. Again, this is my theorizing about gunpowder in Middle-earth, but I think it is one that makes sense of what we see of its use. Otherwise, if the Elves know of it, it raises the question of why they never used it in all their many conflicts with Morgoth and then Sauron and his servants. Of course, it is possible that this show will go on to suggest that they do use it, but that just causes problems with Tolkien’s works anyway. Really, this fireworks show is only here to make a connection with Gandalf’s fireworks show in the Shire.
Naturally, Galadriel is off by herself standing in front of a tree carving of Finrod. These tree carvings honoring the heroes of the past look quite remarkable. And they make sense as a way for Elves to memorialize people in something that lives and grows. Of course, they are clearly not opposed to making statuary out of stone, but this works as well as a reasonable inference that looks appealing to boot.
But the sort of enchantment brought by this visual only lasts so long before Galadriel says Elrond is “standing there breathing like an Orc.” Obviously, Elrond wants to talk with her, but also wants to give her time with this memorial of her brother, so he is giving her space. This remark of hers is unduly hostile, particularly given the association of Orcs with the bull’s-eye of her hatred, and given that Orcs at this time were drawn from corrupted Elves (so you would think it was offensive in context). But Elrond just smirks it off as, “Oh, that Galadriel.” The reaction does not match the remark, particularly given the characters involved. It is just an artificial means of making her seem like she’s alright, no matter what she says, and that Elrond, because he is a good guy (even though he is an obstacle for her), always assumes the best of her, though we have seen nothing from her that shows why she should be in such good standing with him despite everything.
In case there should be any doubt about how disturbed Galadriel is, she responds to Elrond’s statement that the evil is gone by saying, “Then why is it not gone from in here?” That is, she points to herself in answering that question. On the one hand, that has some implications about her mental state, which I suppose foreshadows the ending of the episode, but we will get to that. On the other hand, it is a remarkably ill-conceived response from a character we are supposed to believe is smart. Why is she appealing to her feelings, something that can be easily dismissed by someone who does not share them, and not the evidence she encountered at the start of this show? All we needed was for her to say something to the effect of, “Unlike you, I do not have the luxury of living in denial of what I saw.”
Another problem with this scene is that it puts the lie to Galadriel’s earlier line that no one in her company misses Valinor more than her. We see no evidence in this scene, in the later scene, or in any other scene that she has such an earnest desire to return to Valinor. If anything, what almost makes her submit to going there is peer pressure. We never even see her express what she misses about Valinor. But what we do hear about is how she insists that “his task is now mine,” referring to Finrod’s task of destroying Sauron. Likewise, when Elrond tells her to put up her sword, she asks what she is to be (Elrond’s response of, “What you have always been: my friend,” does nothing in this situation, particularly since Elrond is not going with her to the Undying Lands). This shows more clearly than any other line how Galadriel is defining herself as a warrior. She is not a queen who realized after long years her desire to rule her own realm (alongside her husband Celeborn), she is not a sage with insight into the hearts and minds of others, she is not an explorer and seeker of knowledge, she is not a bringer of beauty, order, and flourishing wherever she can find it (which especially gives her a point of comparison and contrast with Sauron), she is not one who shows her power in ways that transcend the physical, she is not someone in whom all these qualities and others develop pride and so give her an extra weakness for the Ring to exploit. No, Amazon Galadriel is a warrior first, foremost, and last of all as far as this show is concerned. It is a contrast with Tolkien’s work, one that we are supposed to buy as something that will be resolved by the end of the series by those who insist on giving these writers the benefit of the doubt, but it is also such simplistic characterization and one that does not require the more complicated writing needed for some measure of continuity with Tolkien’s work, which would translate to a more interesting, engaging, and compelling character.
The final problem to address from this dialogue is THAT line from the trailer, the one that so many picked apart prior to the show’s release. Galadriel insists that Elrond has not seen what she has seen, to which he responds, “I have seen my share.” Then she responds, “You have not seen what I have seen.” This is not good dialogue writing to simply have two characters argue and one character repeat the point she already said without any sort of variation. It amounts to a “Nuh uh.” I held off on saying anything about it prior to release simply because I wanted to see if the show would at least provide context that made this bad dialogue at least more intelligible. Alas, there was no added context. We the audience are not privy to what she has seen that motivates her self-assuredness in the face of Elrond’s denial and we are not privy to what Elrond has seen either. There is not even a cutaway to visually signal what it is that Galadriel has seen that makes her right and Elrond wrong. It is just an immediate response. The only added context we get makes it worse, as she barely restrains the anger in her voice (as you can see from the face twitch) to say, “I am grateful that you have not known evil as I have.” This is simply her acting as if her suffering is worse than everyone else’s, that her problems are the most significant. But all that would justify such a claim, as far as the audience can tell, is the fact that we have only seen her suffering, because she was the POV character for the prologue.
The Southlands: The Land of One Clean Person
After that conversation, we are back to a map transition, this time taking us to the Southlands. If anyone is confused by this location name, it seems like the people making the show were also confused. When we first see “the Southlands” on the map, we are taken far to the east past what would become Mordor near the end of the Ered Lithui to an unnamed village. But when we cut back to the map later on, “the Southlands” is plastered from the entirety of what would become Gondor and all the way through Mordor. Why they would not put where we apparently were in the focus of this shot but instead place the center hundreds and hundreds of miles away is a question I cannot answer. In any case, it is here that we meet Arondir, who is presented as another POV character. What stands out about him is that he is in love with a human woman (Bronwyn), a single mother and healer in this village, so he wants a good thing that is out of the ordinary for his people and so others tell him not to pursue it. Third time’s the charm for this characterization trope.
It should be noted that these two characters pursue this relationship surreptitiously. But why they do so is not clear. Apparently, there is some stigma from both sides against the idea, but at the same time everyone seems to know they are in this relationship anyway, so it’s not like they have been particularly good at keeping it a secret. It is just a feature of this story to sell the “star-crossed lovers” angle. Another such feature is another Elf telling Arondir that there have only been two other Elf-human romances and they both ended in tragedy. It may just be the case that this is the character’s take and thus it is not necessarily a problem for the script that it is inaccurate. That is, he may see the fact that Lúthien died at all and then came back with Beren to live a mortal life as a tragedy, whether that is the best description or not. But I am not sure how he got to the conclusion that Tuor and Idril’s relationship ended in tragedy. And besides, from both of these lines, through the union of Eärendil and Elwing, came the line of the Kings of Númenor on one hand and Elrond and his descendants on the other. But in any case, it might have been better, from the perspective of the accuracy to the stories, simply to point out the inherent struggles that come with romance between an immortal and a mortal. Another dimension to all of this that makes it a bit odd is that Arondir is said to have been stationed here (they call the place “Tir Harad”) for seventy-nine years, and Bronwyn is certainly not seventy-nine years old or older. The implication is that he would have watched this woman grow up from infancy. So how did they get around that apparent mental obstacle? It could be that we will learn more from future episodes, but as it stands, it is not clear what the bases of the mutual attraction are.
He also gets involved in a scene at the tavern/butchery/whatever where he is being racisted at. Again, it is not clear what the resentment towards the Elves is about beyond their mere presence, but maybe that will be cleared up as the series goes along. If so, I’m still not sure why that particular information is not put up front. We learn that the people the Elves were concerned about died 1,000 years ago, so we get our first indication of chronological placement for this series … maybe. The lad who says this to Arondir also calls him “knife-ears.” Then he says to him that “our true king will return” and liberate them from the Elves. These lines raised a couple of issues for me. First, “knife-ears” is a slur directed at Elves that we do not see anywhere in Tolkien. It has become something of a commonplace in Dungeons & Dragons settings, apparently (though it is unofficial), and it is used in the Dragon Age series of video games. In the latter case, it makes sense both in light of how the Elves’ ears are shaped (they are longer and certainly pointier than the Elves we see in Middle-earth visual adaptations) and in light of the fact that humans tend to treat Elves as second-class in Dragon Age. It does not fit as well here. Second, I was left confused by who this “true king” is. We learn later that the ancestors of this village were subjects and apparently supporters of Morgoth, so I wondered if that was what the lad was going for. In the same vein, he could have meant Sauron. But then you see how this village reacts to the presence of Orcs in the second episode and suddenly that interpretation does not make sense. Where, then, do they get this idea about their “true king”? And saying he will “return” implies that he has already been there, so who could they be talking about? Alas, we will find out the answers to these questions in episode 3, and they will neither be good nor drawn from Tolkien’s lore in the slightest.
To one of the points noted above, Arondir’s commander shows up to have the sole function of saying racist lines about the villagers. He comments to Arondir that “The blood of those who stood with Morgoth still darkens their veins.” This is confusing from an adaptational perspective because of how far removed the Southlands are from the land where the war with Morgoth took place (it was in the land that used to be west of Lindon). There were Easterlings involved from the Battle of Unnumbered Tears onward and many of them took Morgoth’s side, but is that what we are supposed to take from this? This whole notion is troublesome if it is supposed to be drawing on that idea, since The Silmarillion is supposed to be beyond the bounds of the licensing rights, and this history of the Easterlings does not come up in LOTR. It is also odd just from the internal logic from the show. We hear of how these Elves answer to Gil-galad (i.e., they are not part of a separate kingdom that he does not directly command), but are we supposed to buy that Gil-galad would be so dismissive of the potential threat of Orcs or think that they are best dealt with by not looking for them while these people who are descended many generations over a millennium distant from the supporters of Morgoth require a constant watch until Gil-galad decides otherwise?
When Arondir goes back to the village to see Bronwyn one more time—as Gil-galad has called his squadron back—they are interrupted by an old man who has come to see if the village healer can do anything for his cow. When Arondir examines it, he squeezes the cow’s udders, and it squirts out some black goo. It is certainly an impactful contrast, but the cow looks way too relaxed. I imagine it is not easy to train a cow to pretend to be distressed, but it nevertheless causes some visual dissonance between how the cow is behaving and the stuff that is coming out of her (especially since Arondir is squeezing that utter for an uncomfortably long time until his hand is full and overflowing with the goo). The explanation for this is that she was feeding near Hordern, another show-only location near this village. What is it about that area that made her squirt black goo from her udders? Was she eating tar? We’ll never know. It was just an ominous sign to get Arondir and Bronwyn to go up there.
While they’re off, we cut back to Theo, Bronwyn’s son, who is showing the snippy lad from earlier something he found. This is one of those times that we find out that people in the village know that Arondir and Bronwyn have a thing, so they’re not doing too well at hiding it, even though Theo denies it to the guy’s face. This is also where it is hinted, but not necessarily confirmed, that Theo’s dad just ran off for whatever reason. Maybe we will find out for sure what happened to him later in the season. For now, Theo wants to show off this blade he found. That blade bears the mark of Sauron that has some function other than something for Orcs to follow. But it’s made quite clear that we’re dealing with some evil; it is even accompanied with a shift in music when we see it. What’s so special about this blade? I guess we will see later.
Is Gil-galad Supposed to Be a Villian?
The scene then returns to Lindon with Gil-galad and Elrond talking. This is where Gil-galad essentially admits to Elrond that he does think Sauron is still around, meaning that he lied to everyone attending that ceremony and others who have heard his declaration of peace. But his explanation for why he thought it necessary to send Galadriel away is that if she continued her search, she would have kept alive the evil she sought to defeat, “For the same wind that seeks to blow out a fire may also cause it to spread.” It is difficult to take this reasoning seriously if we are supposed to believe at some point that this is a good and wise king, which you would think we will eventually need to believe by the time the War of the Last Alliance comes around. This reasoning just sounds like, “If you destroy the enemy, then he wins.” If Sauron is alive, her search is not keeping him that way. If he is a threat, her search is not keeping him that way. The signals he is sending off are not those of a wise king trying to do what is best for his kingdom, but someone who is either incompetent, cowardly, or enthralled to Sauron. That is certainly not the Gil-galad of Tolkien’s work, but in the absence of anything validating or vindicating, these are the most natural inferences from what the show is telling us about him. In fact, instead of addressing Elrond’s concerns directly, he basically says, “Never mind all that, here comes Celebrimbor.” We will find out more about the task Elrond has related to him next episode.
An Unconvincing Affair
The brief cutback to the Harfoots with Sadoc Burrows watching the stars and saying they’re watching for something does not really warrant further comment, except that I am curious about this book of his. Then the scene shifts back again to Arondir and Bronwyn on their way to Hordern. Arondir says something about how that village was especially loyal to Morgoth. Again, though, we must wonder how long ago this was. But it is brought up just for a bit of conflict between the two, as she lets us know that she was originally from Hordern. How is this pertinent? It isn’t really. What I think is a pertinent question is why they apparently could not see the smoke coming from Hordern sooner. The whole town is burning. So should they have not noticed this sooner? Or did they hold off on reacting to it for our benefit?
Mr. Mystery Box
I have generally gone in narrative order for my commentary here, but I will break that habit in this case so I can refer to one storyline continuously. The last thing we see from the Harfoot storyline is an asteroid that crashes to earth. That asteroid contained someone. Who is it? I am guessing it is Gandalf and this is the writers’ way of crowbarring him into a story he does not belong in. But hopefully we will see soon enough.
Payne and McKay, What Have You Done?
With that small bit out of way, the rest of this commentary will concern the closing scenes of Galadriel’s storyline. For whatever reason, the Elves go through this strange undressing ritual as their ship approaches the Undying Lands. Why are they going through this now? Don’t know. But it functions in the plot as making it so that Galadriel is at less risk of drowning due to wearing armor when she decides to jump into the sea. Another strange feature of this scene is the fact that there is a cloud barrier that must open up for the ship to pass into Valinor. This does not work adaptationally with this period in history in Arda. But I am also not sure how they are going to make it work later on when they need to show the Númenórean fleet attempting to invade Valinor. Of course, that whole event and the fallout thereof may be revelatory of their approach, because what are they going to say about the Valar and Eru Ilúvatar, the One who is ultimately responsible for changing the fashion of the world to remove the Undying Lands from it?
But as they ship is going into the light, Galadriel, who supposedly longed for home more than anyone, remembers that she prefers pure, unadulterated vengeance to everlasting peace and joy. She first signals this by walking back in the boat towards Finrod’s dagger, which she was so reluctant to put down. Thondir tries to stop her by calling for her to take his hand. I don’t know what difference that particular gesture makes, as the other Elves are not holding hands and holding hands does nothing particular to permit entry to the Undying Lands.
What ultimately convinces her to do this? This time we actually do know. She is inspired by a memory of her brother whispering what is supposed to be wisdom to her in the prologue. So this must be pretty important, yes? In response to the question about how she could know which lights to follow after their convoluted, nonsensical conversation, Finrod whispers to her, “Sometimes we cannot know until we have touched the darkness.” Okay … let’s break this down. First, in the context of the convoluted conversation, what is this statement supposed to relate to? Or would it only be relevant to her somewhere over a thousand years later? She asked a ridiculous question stemming from light reflecting off the water and confusing her as to which way is up or down and thus as to which lights to follow. Instead of actually clarifying anything, he is essentially saying that you have to get some familiarity with the darkness to know the right light to follow, but that is a complete non sequitur in a conversation of non sequiturs.
Second, this may just be the least Tolkienesque line in the entire episode; indeed, it is positively anti-Tolkien. The notion that this could be among what Finrod calls “the most important truths” could not be further from the truth as far as Tolkien is concerned. That one might need to “touch the darkness” to discern the light is starkly opposed to how he thought. We can see this from two examples, one from Tolkien’s story and one from his life. From Tolkien’s story, Saruman’s fall was brought about by the fact that he studied the arts of the Enemy, but in the process he was drawn in and influenced to be like Sauron. As Elrond said, “It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill” (II/2). From Tolkien’s life, we know that he did not approve of C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, as he thought the whole thing was hazardous to try to study the ways the demons work, as this could lead one down the path of Saruman. This idea of “touching the darkness” as the way to the light, and that Galadriel would use it as a guiding force in her life, such that she would refuse Valinor because of it, shows how far this show has strayed from Tolkien’s path. If anything, it sounds more like something Sauron, especially appearing in the fair disguise of Annatar, would say.
Third, if the only point of the line is simply to say, “you’ll know it when you’ll know it,” we run into a familiar problem with this script. When you try to sound wise without being wise, when you think indirectness for the sake of it is the same as profundity, this is the dialogue you get. It has once again lost its way to the point it was trying to make because it tried too hard to sound like what it was not.
Thus ends the first episode of ROP. We have seen a lot of problems with this script. They are amplified by the fact that this is an adaptation, but they are severe enough on the level of this story in itself. The various constituent parts are defective and dysfunctional, and as such we do not get anywhere, as shown in the episode’s pacing issues. I do not have a problem with a slow pace, per se (I enjoy Blade Runner, after all), but I do have a problem with pacing issues combined with vacuousness. And that is impression the script leaves. It is like an open-world video game that gives the illusion of a big world to explore, but is in fact filled largely with so much empty space. That is why this review has been taken up with dissecting dialogue and not events, because not much happens in this episode that is slightly over one hour long. There is not even a clear inciting event for the story of the Second Age; we only have Galadriel’s quest for revenge that is a holdover from the First Age plus some vague hints of things that could happen. We continue to wait around for things to happen. There may be a hint of something with the appearance of Asteroid Man, but that is at the absolute end. Let us hope things pick up in episode 2.