(avg. read time: 48–95 mins.)
Episode 3
Arondir Wakes Up, But When Do We Get to?
This time, the story opens with Arondir’s plotline. He has been dragged who knows how many miles to what is basically a labor camp. We will see later that we are talking about some absurd distance here, but I will save further comment on that for then. For now, we see that the Men from Hordern and, likely, other places have been taken prisoner to dig. Arondir also is made to dig … for something (my guess is plot, or maybe a better script). They will say later what they are digging for and it doesn’t make sense. Also, we see the massive canopy above that is supposed to provide shade for the Orcs. Not only does it have a lot of holes to where plenty of sun beams are getting through, but at some point, surely a question needs to be addressed. Why have the Orcs decided to make this massive canopy and not just continue tunneling as they have been doing? That would keep them out of the sun. Having underground prisons for all these people would make for more stressful conditions. There could even be some comment about how, as bad as everything is, someone would rather work digging day and night out here than stay down there in the dark. It could have also been an effective transition in the opening to see this light at the end of a tunnel and then have to readjust our eyes—so to speak, at least through the camera—along with Arondir. But the real reason why everything is above ground like this is because you get better lighting for these scenes. They do not want to leave to the imagination how terrible it could be underground amidst all the screams. For the same reason, and because of some silliness they will engage in later in the show, the writers did not seriously consider having the Orcs make the people dig at night, when they would not have the vulnerability that they do. Either option, or really a combination of the two, would have made more sense than what the writers contrive instead.
Anyway, it turns out that it was a lucky thing that Arondir did not try to go for backup before he went down that hole. Otherwise, he might have discovered that his comrades were already captured. Instead, they are conveniently here so that he has people he knows in the labor camp. How were they captured when they went the opposite direction from him, and the Orcs did not yet attack the village in between in force? Don’t know. In fact, as the episode goes on, we will see that we will never know. It is apparently not important to explain this to our POV character and thus to the audience.
On Second Thought, Let’s Not Go to Númenor, ‘Tis a Silly Place
But before we have time to dwell further on this contrivance, we move to a plotline that has featured multiple contrivances of its own: the plot of Amazon Galadriel. She is now inside the ship that we saw pick her up last episode. Fortunately, Halbrand wakes up before she does to get her oriented. I say “fortunately,” because Amazon Galadriel might well have hurt/killed some people in the process of getting the information she wants. As has been established and will be further confirmed by the rest of this episode, she has no people skills and lacks any and all insight into people that Tolkien’s original character had.
When Halbrand gives her some food, Galadriel decides to open with the question, “Our hosts: saviors or captors?” She is clearly holding off on eating her food until she finds out the answer to this question, but it is pointless to do so. Halbrand responds by saying that the food is not poisonous, which he follows up with qualifier that is not poisonous for humans after she takes her first bite. These lines simply do not make sense in this context. First, as I said before, the question is pointless for Galadriel’s purposes. This is not because the question itself is pointless, as it is a natural one to ask, but it is pointless because surely Galadriel would understand that if the people on the ship have captured them, there would not be reason to poison them. That would rather undermine whatever purposes the captors would have for them, wouldn’t it? If they wanted you dead, surely it would have been easier to leave you in the sea, yes? Second, this contrived way of trying to show Halbrand’s sense of humor does not work from Galadriel’s perspective and her paused reaction makes no sense. Surely she would know, after all her years and experiences, that there is nothing that is non-poisonous to mortal humans that is poisonous to immortal Elves. But clearly, Amazon Galadriel is not that smart. The only times she is made to appear so come by making others act as if they know nothing.
When Galadriel goes up top, she finds the captain and tries to interrogate him. The guy tries to dodge the questions and simply says that he is obliged to deliver her and Halbrand to his betters. This implies some standing law or command to deliver such people to his superiors, but that is flatly contradicted by later scenes. In fact, he will get into trouble with his “betters” because he brought her back. Either he is lying, his superiors are that dumb as to forget what they themselves command, or the writers simply forgot this line that was written to draw out the plot to fill the time.
One particular part of the exchange between her, the guy, and Halbrand caught my attention for its irritating writing: “To what port do we sail?” “See for yourself. We’re nearly there.” “Nearly where?” “Home.” Well thanks for nothing, dude. There is no apparent reason for his vagueness, though, and we never find out why he is being so evasive, except to give off the impression that he is hostile. Presumably, he is only talking like he has “shut up and go away” tattooed on his forehead because the writers want to save even the naming of Númenor and the exposition about it for Galadriel alone. But I must wonder for what reason this would be. It is natural to have what they were missing from the last episode, which is someone who does not know something to be in the scene to have something explained to them that the audience needs to be explained. But would it not have been more natural for the guy to say where they were going and then Galadriel could have explained to Halbrand?
As for Númenor, I will say that this is the best work of designing a setting that we have seen so far. The intricate carvings, the gleaming city, the hustle and bustle that makes it look lived in, the lively port, the structure that looks like Minas Tirith (which obviously took inspiration from the latter from the showrunners’ standpoint), all of it contributes to some great looking visuals. I did also like the uses of blues and golds for the attire and other motifs in the city. I will say, though, that this can get overdone, to the point that it appears in too many places as if these are about the only colors they know or like. It would also help if they could narrow down where this is supposed to be. I am guessing this is the eastern port of Rómenna, but it is treated as if it is Armenelos, the capital, where the rulers resided, which was near the center of the island. It is sort of like with Lindon and Eregion where they give the name of a region to a city and never narrow it down, for some reason.
Anyway, as much as I might wish it were otherwise, we need to go back to the dialogue. Galadriel explains to Halbrand, “In the Great War, your people stood with Morgoth. These Men stood with the Elves. As a reward, the Valar granted them this island. It has changed much since then.” For whatever reason, they saved the first reference to the Valar for the third episode of this series, rather than for any point in the first episode, when such would have been appropriate. They at least remain consistent with Tolkien’s story that Númenor was a gift to the Edain (the Men who were the ancestors of the Númenóreans). However, the issues arise when we start trying to connect Galadriel to this island. It is not necessarily a problem that Tolkien’s stories say nothing about Galadriel visiting Númenor, particularly since they primarily related with the Elves of Tol Eressëa (and perhaps Aman). The problems, instead, come with trying to fit such travel with Amazon Galadriel’s story. It has been let on that she has been hunting Sauron for many centuries. For what reason would she have traveled here, especially in its early days (for her to have a point of reference of how much the island has changed “since then”)? Did she think Sauron was there? And if she came there early on, how was she not aware of the hall of lore that will be so important to her later? We will get to that whole scene, trust me. And if she did not travel here, how did she come to know all of these things she passes on to Halbrand? Is it because she read the script? Furthermore, why did she feel the need to drag his ancestors into the answer? Was it actually necessary for her to run down his ancestors to answer his question? Or is this just an ingrained quality of Elven racism according to this story?
Something else crucial is missing from this dialogue and from the rest of the episode. In addition to how she could have mentioned from the outset that the Elves and Númenóreans shared gifts and knowledge with each other, she could then have brought up something to answer more specifically how these Men could build what they have. That is, these Men have been granted a longer lifespan, around thrice longer than the average Man (which is noted even in Appendix A of LOTR). This would be good setup for the fact that, while their longer lifespans allowed them to accomplish more, they could not ultimately stave off the dissatisfaction with mortality and the envy of immortality. This is a fascinating aspect of Tolkien’s overall story, and the particular driving force of his larger story about Númenor, the Akallabêth. I realize that they cannot directly adapt the latter, but there is enough to go on in LOTR and especially its appendices to present this theme adequately as something central. It may be that the show will eventually mention it, but why would the writers not put that point upfront to say what is different about these Men and to show that the long-lived people nevertheless are anxious over their own mortality (at least, later in their history), particularly since it is so crucial to Númenor’s story? Of course, it would have been better for Númenor not to get roped into the story of Amazon Galadriel at all, as we will see, but if you are going to put this kingdom in your story, why not do it right and keep in focus what was in focus for them in Tolkien’s story?
I also want to highlight what follows Galadriel’s answer and how poorly it fits. This is one of those case studies of how contrived the writing in this show is. I will repeat the line above first, then follow it up with Halbrand’s response, and finish with what opens Galadriel’s next bit of exposition:
“In the Great War, your people stood with Morgoth, these Men stood with the Elves. As a reward, the Valar granted them this island. It has changed much since then.”
“Do I detect a note of envy?”
“Not envy, sorrow.”
It seems to me that the writers wrote two bits of exposition for this scene, but they did not have a way to link them together. We have nothing on par with, “But then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.” Instead, Halbrand’s line is apropos of nothing. There is no suggestion of envy in the line itself. When you actually hear the dialogue read, Clark has no intonation of envy. In the world of the narrative, there is not a way to make sense of Halbrand’s line. It is there purely to serve the function of a transition, but it doesn’t do well even at that level of simplicity. This all could have been fixed rather easily with some rearranging of the script and some help from visual storytelling. If the director had been more consistent with people’s reaction with whether they could see Galadriel’s ears or not (some people in this scene look askance at her even though her ears are covered), Halbrand could have just had a look around and asked something about, if these people were so friendly with the Elves, why they look at her this way now.
That leads us to our next bit of exposition, which would have benefited from some rearrangement. She saves until now to tell Halbrand, “Once Elves came and went freely from these shores. Our people were as kin, sharing gifts and knowledge.” She actually could have said that instead of her line of “It has changed much since then.” This would give Halbrand some measure of the answer he is actually looking for. Then Halbrand could have the adjusted dialogue I suggested above. Then Galadriel could say a modified version of her next line, “Númenor began to turn away our ships. In time, they broke off all contact.” When Halbrand asks, “Why?” Galadriel replies, “We may be about to find out.” I suppose she hedged with “may,” but the fact of the matter is that we never find out in the course of this episode. I know because I read The Silmarillion, and there are hints of such things in Appendix A of LOTR, but the show itself has yet to say anything on the subject by the time the episode ends. The writers are only drawing this information out because of poor pacing and presumably because they think that this drawing out is the only way to get your audience to come back for more.
Galadriel and Halbrand are then brought to have an audience with Queen Míriel and Chancellor Pharazôn. You know, I was already getting upset at the chronological confusion in the previous exchange, which screwed up the chronology of this show in relation to Tolkien’s work beyond all possible repair. But with this information, they somehow made it even worse. Let’s recap. Galadriel said in episode 1 that she hunted Sauron for “centuries” even after Morgoth was defeated. We are also told in episode 1 that the ancestors of the villagers who stood with Morgoth died 1,000 years ago. Even though that is likely rounding, that means this series is supposed to be set somewhere around 1,000 years into the Second Age, right? I mean, Eregion exists, and that was founded in SA 750. If we were being utterly generous, we could say that maybe Galadriel was just underselling it with saying they were hunting “centuries,” when it would have been more forthright to say, “over 1,000 years,” since the hunt started before Morgoth was defeated, and it would have given whoever she is telling this information to a clearer idea of the timescale. But then things start piling up to make this all more and more irreconcilable with Tolkien’s work. First, the show is called THE RINGS OF POWER, so we are clearly set well after just “1,000 years” or so, as the Rings were forged and distributed between SA 1500 and 1600. The Rings have not been forged yet, though that is clearly an event being portrayed as just around the bend. Second, Durin III and Durin IV both exist right now, although really only Durin III overlaps with the forging of the Rings, and Durin IV was considerably later (by close to 2,000 years later if he was the ruler during the War of the Last Alliance). Third, though the deterioration of relations between Númenor and the Eldar (as well as the Valar they were aligned with) was a long, slow process, it was not until the reign of Ar-Adûnakhor, the twentieth King of Númenor, beginning in SA 2899 and ending in SA 2962, that the Eldar ceased open travel to Númenor (in The Unfinished Tales, it is said that a few ships came secretly to the western shores, but I am trying to work with information available in LOTR at this point). Fourth, we are told that Tar-Míriel is queen, even though she never reigned as such in Tolkien’s work, and that Pharazôn is chancellor. Ar-Pharazôn began his reign as the last King of Númenor in SA 3255. Fifth, likewise, as we will learn later, the captain is none other than Elendil, who was a contemporary of Míriel and Pharazôn, and would outlive them both by more than a century after Númenor was destroyed in SA 3319, as he led the Faithful to Middle-earth in time to escape its destruction (Elendil would die in battle with Sauron in SA 3441). Sixth, Isildur is a relatively young man, which means these events would need to be somewhere in the early-to-mid-3200s. Seventh, by the end of the show, we learn that the previous king (known as Tar-Palantir in Tolkien’s work) is still alive, which would mean sometime before SA 3255. While the Númenórean chronology is still messed up, as Míriel never reigned by herself as she should have, it is at least more internally coherent, yet all of it is such an outlier that it would require Galadriel and Halbrand to have floated through a time portal that brought them over 2,000 years into the future, completely out of sync with the rest of Middle-earth we see. Overall, no matter how you approach all of these points, it is impossible to reconcile this chronology with the show trying to bring all the disparate elements together. There is telescoping in narratives and compressing timelines, and then there is complete disregard for chronology of your source material by being thousands of years off. When I saw that Elendil was going to be part of the cast, I thought they were saving him for a later season, that this was going to be some approach where different seasons cover different eras in the Second Age. But I was giving this show too much of the benefit of the doubt. This aspect of their adaptational work is beyond sloppy and beyond careless. The fact that the collapse of chronology is deliberate makes it even worse than if it was born of ignorance. Among other things, this tells us that they have no interest in the rise and fall of Númenor, or its role in the overall history of the Second Age, but only in its end.
On top of this, the change to make it so that Míriel is queen for some time before Pharazôn takes over seems to be motivated only by the desire to have a queen in this show (without showing Galadriel to be one, I guess, because Amazon Galadriel is first, foremost, and last a warrior). Nowhere in LOTR or its appendices do we find the notion that Pharazôn was chancellor. In fact, he was a mighty commander who was part of the royal household and forced Tar-Míriel, his first cousin, into marriage, thereby breaking Númenórean law that did not allow marriage among people related closer than second cousins. Except for the point about Númenórean law (which comes from The Silmarillion), this information is readily available in Appendix A of LOTR. The change in his position and time of rule, besides allowing us to at least start with a queen in Númenor just because, also seems to be motivated by turning his rebellion into some matter of political machinations, and not the fact that he has the overwhelming might of the military behind him and the respect (as well as fear) of so many in Númenor. This simply makes Pharazôn look weaker by comparison, and he is no longer paradoxically the most powerful of all the Kings of Númenor, a thrall of Sauron, and the one who brought Númenor to its destruction, nor will we see the conflicts he has while being corrupted by Sauron through his pride and fear of death. He is still a usurper, but the position from which he usurps and the implications of how he will usurp make him less interesting. I cannot see how this is a change for the better or even a neutral change. They have actively downgraded the mightiest tyrant since Morgoth (even though Sauron was pulling his strings for the vast majority of his reign) for no apparent reason except that they wanted to show a queen. We could not select any of the three other queens who ruled in more peaceful times for Númenor, when there is liberty to do so. No, instead we must smash the chronology into rubble and rebuild it with the competence of lemurs reconstructing a sculpture with rocks and glue, and let the narrative chips fall where they may.
But despite the fact that none of this should be happening and by rights we shouldn’t be here, we’re stuck with this story with these corrupted characters in this setting. We cannot even make it to the audience with the queen without some more oddities, both in light of Tolkien’s work and in light of coherency with the rest of the show. First, Halbrand feels compelled to tell Galadriel to put aside history, about which he knows only what she told him in the last minute, and to not make things worse. I’m just baffled that I had to sit through that line, knowing that the recipient is supposed to be Galadriel. She was a character who could bridge the differences between Elves and Dwarves, who could see past all deceit into the heart and mind of Sauron, who recognized Gandalf’s superior quality even when others were more drawn to Saruman, who had the self-awareness and self-control both to realize the temptation the One Ring held for her and to be able to resist it when offered to her. And now, she needs to be told how not to make situations worse with strangers because she has zero people skills.
Second, when the captain, Galadriel, and Halbrand walk into the hall, we hear Pharazôn address the men and women of Númenor, but when the three approach the queen, he is no longer speaking to the crowd. Apparently, the queen and the chancellor were busy, but when we actually see them, we see that they were busy doing nothing. They are just here, waiting for the scene to happen. I am not sure if the inconsistency between the earlier bit and the rest of the scene is an error in the script, directing, or editing, but someone messed up somewhere to create this dissonance, though I suspect the script is to blame for the contrivance that everyone is waiting for the scene to happen.
Third, Halbrand tells Galadriel to kneel, to which Míriel responds, “No one kneels in Númenor.” It’s almost like they wanted their Black Panther meme moment from Avengers: Infinity War, since this is not an idea you can derive from Tolkien, especially in the time when Míriel was alive, when Númenor had been operating as an empire for well over 1,000 years of its 3,000+-year history. But while that is an unlikely yet still debatable inference, the incoherence comes with Halbrand telling Galadriel to kneel as if he would know better, having just arrived on this island a few minutes ago. Even worse is that Galadriel goes along with his instruction, acting as if he would know better than her. Within the world of the story, why did that happen? We know that it appears this way in the script because the writers wanted a moment of levity and to artificially set up the line from Míriel. But if you really wanted to get to this idea so badly, why not just have Halbrand attempt to kneel and be corrected? It would have accomplished the same thing and would not create additional absurdities of character interaction.
How does Galadriel handle this situation with the Númenóreans? She does it with this easy three-step guide to incompetent appeal. Step one, try to exert your status as if it demands something from them. She introduces herself as “Galadriel of the Noldor, daughter of the golden house of Finarfin, commander of the northern armies of High King Gil-galad,” and then segues into saying she needs a ship to get to Middle-earth. Splendid! Appeal to your exalted sense of self (whether justified or not). Step two, lie to try to gain the upper hand in your demand. When Pharazôn objects that it has been a long time since a ship of Númenor was permitted to make such a journey on an Elf’s behalf, she claims, “It is because of the Elves that you were given this island.” And what a lie it is! Not only is it completely against what Tolkien wrote, it is also against what she herself said but a minute or two ago (since she said the Valar gave them the island and didn’t mention the Elves having anything to do with it). Step three, when people don’t like what you are spewing, threaten violence. In fact, Galadriel’s threat of violence follows the queen saying that her people paid for the island with blood with saying that “if blood is the price of passage, I will pay it.” Fantastic work, Galadriel! It wasn’t relevant to what the queen said, but that’s the way to make the situation worse (in fact, she repeats such asinine catchword linkage when the queen says, “You are welcome to try,” and she responds, “I have no need of your welcome”). Don’t worry, your companion will be there to try to clean up your mess. That’s what he’s there for.
One other oddity to this conversation that my comedic guide did not cover is a comment that Galadriel makes at the start. She claims that the captain delivered her and her companion from certain death. What an odd statement. It pretty well implies that she would have certainly died if she had not come across that raft. For all intents and purposes, that means Galadriel jumping off the boat was a slow attempt at suicide, or at least that she thought dying at sea was preferable to spending any time (even temporarily) in Valinor. Nothing had gotten worse about her situation when she was floating on the raft as opposed to when she was trying to swim all the way across the Sundering Seas. But she says she was facing certain death without the captain’s help. Thus, we are left to conclude that she put zero thought into diving off that boat, or that she was so driven to vengeance that killing herself in trying to get it was something she considered preferable to going to Valinor at all. (Remember, we have been given no reason to think that she could not go back from Valinor and every reason to think she could.)
But anyway, Halbrand does what he can to clean up Galadriel’s mess and smooth things over with the queen. After his appeal, Míriel agrees to give the two of them three days of grace while the Númenóreans weigh the options. But since all of this situation is written so vaguely, it is unclear what the complications are and why they would not want to get rid of her as soon as possible. Of course, we know that it is so the things the writers want to happen on the island can happen. But in the world of the story, surely there are trade ships that go to Middle-earth; it does not need to be a military ship. Just put her on one of those ships and her annoying self will be out of your hair.
In the meantime, Galadriel is to be restricted to palace grounds. Rather than realize her tactic of verbal blunt force trauma has not worked for her, she does not simply shut up and bide her time. She must verbally insist that she will not be a prisoner. Pharazôn responds with saying, “I would sooner kneecap a stallion than seek to imprison the mighty commander of the northern armies.” The fact that this is followed up with laughter is enough to silence Galadriel. I’m not sure why they made this decision, to make Pharazôn look more likeable by getting a verbal win over Galadriel who has been as unlikable as she has ever been in this scene. But congratulations, writers, you had to make Pharazôn, who will become the worst tyrant of Númenor, look better than one of Tolkien’s best Elf characters, even if only for this episode.
Then we get Halbrand doing this awkward thing where he embraces the captain in gratitude in a rather obvious attempt to retrieve Galadriel’s knife. You see, we were shown quite directly in the opening of this plotline that the captain had taken Galadriel’s knife. Why? Don’t know. Nothing about his character that we see hereafter illuminates why he would do such a thing either. But the writers need something for Halbrand to do that benefits Galadriel in a way even her obtuse self can recognize. What they were trying to do here with the awkward embrace was so obvious that I imagine everyone in the audience called it. But the execution is so poorly thought out and it should have fallen apart at multiple junctures. First, even if Halbrand is that smooth at removing the knife, they are surrounded by people who are looking directly at them. Are you telling me no one saw what he did? And if they saw, are you telling me no one would say anything? He is a stranger in the kingdom, and he just took a weapon off a soldier; you would think that would call for comment. It is only through some choppy editing that we don’t actually see him take the knife (just so they can maintain the “surprise”). Second, even if we buy that he got the knife out of there without incident and managed to hide it, how did no one notice Galadriel holding it rather openly? And you also have to ask: where could she have hidden it? It is not as if that dress has pockets. Third, surely at some point the captain must have noticed that the knife was missing out of his belt. Did he not care? Why did he not care? Why take the knife from her in the first place if it doesn’t matter if she has it?
But Galadriel and Halbrand can’t move on from this scene without one more clunky catchword linking line from Galadriel. In response to Galadriel wanting him to come back to Middle-earth with here (and it is unclear why she cares at this point), Halbrand asks her, “You really expect me to leap with you back into the furnace?” She responds, “You leapt into the sea to save one life. I seek to save many.” This line is difficult to take that seriously because this is obviously a personal vendetta, so it just shows her sense of self-importance again, but also because he did more than her in terms of “leaping” to save lives. In fact, earlier in this scene she was itching for someone to kill. And if she was trying to appeal to him to come with her, there are more effective ways than saying what amounts, “I intend to save a lot more people than you have.” You can adjust this line in a number of ways, possibly the simplest of which is, “You risked your life to save one. Come with me and we can save many more.” Is that a great line? No. But it’s better than the one we got in its context.
In the rest of the scene, we learn that the captain is none other than Elendil. As I indicated before, I was quite upset that Elendil was in this series this early on. I was even more upset to see how they changed his character. I suppose it is a good thing that, as with Amazon Galadriel, no one would ever confuse this guy for Elendil the Tall. But I don’t know why they needed to share a name. On that note, as Jackson’s FOTR also got wrong, Elendil is not particularly tall because Lloyd Owen is not particularly tall. It is more excusable in LOTR with Elendil being a minor role, as opposed to here. There are ways around this height challenge, as we saw with Ian McKellen in LOTR, but neither Jackson nor this show have gone that route. Alternatively, one could find an actor 6’ 6” or taller (Tolkien’s accounts differ, but Elendil was at least around 7’), but perhaps such an actor might not have the quality the makers are looking for. Lloyd Owen is certainly not a bad actor. He delivers his lines well; it’s just a shame that he is not given better lines to demonstrate his competency, as he has shown elsewhere in a relatively extensive career (compared to most of the cast). I know there are practical difficulties here, but those can be worked around. What is more difficult to work around is how this character is written. And we will get to that.
One thing they have changed about Elendil is how he is regarded. He is not as prominent as he is in Tolkien’s story. Thus far, one sees no basis for why Elendil would be among the people Sauron hated most (after his father, Amandil), but that was in part due to Elendil’s prominence. Now, he must be a captain who Míriel cannot even identify. In Tolkien’s story, he is a distant cousin of hers, as his grandfather was her father’s cousin, and his father Amandil had been both the last Lord of Andúnië in the west and a dear friend of Pharazôn when they were young. But Amandil has seemingly been taken by the Nothing we last saw in The Never-Ending Story that consumes the sense and depth of this fantasy world. Elendil is said to be of “a noble line,” but even with that vagueness, one wonders why Míriel did not already know him. It is not as if he is of a noble line from another country.
The Sea Is Always Silly
Next, we are introduced to his son, Isildur, who is said to be following Elendil into the service. The first thing we learn about this young man who does not resemble Elendil at all is that he likes his glamor shots. In fact, while everyone in this training exercise is hard at work with the ship, he is just staring off into the distance with a profile shot for the camera while something whispers his name for … some reason. But fortunately, someone gets his attention, otherwise the class stooge would have died from his own stupidity. That guy (named Imrahil, a most unfortunate borrowing from LOTR considering Prince Imrahil’s quality) was unwinding a rope for some unknown reason and it nearly throws him out to sea once it’s loose. And even though the rope was previously tied around that post multiple times, Isildur gets it secure with one loop around. I’m not a sailing expert, but I’m guessing the director and writers aren’t either.
So after this exercise, the trainees do not dock anywhere, they simply go ashore in rowboats. They then face the sea with their captain and recite the mantra, “The sea is always right.” I guess that applies even when the sea is angry like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli. You get no points for guessing that this silly motto is not from Tolkien, nor does it represent what any particular character of his thinks. And that is because it is a motto that falls apart once you give it any thought, particularly since it is unclear what it is positively supposed to mean. Do these sailors never sail or row against the tide, since the sea is always right and clearly doesn’t want them going that way? They obviously use oars, but why would they do that if the sea is always right? Or do they just make sure the oars never disagree with the sea by going in another direction? What if you get caught in a big storm on the coast or on the sea? Do you just accept death because the sea is always right? Why ever save someone from drowning if the sea is always right and wants to claim them? Or could it be that you don’t know what the sea wants and thus whether it is right or not?
I cannot help but again be reminded of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which featured a similarly terse characterizing statement that was much better thought out. I am not saying I necessarily expect DS9-level writing from two writers who had no writing credits to their name on anything fully developed before this show (they both did uncredited work for the last Abrams-Trek movie Star Trek Beyond), but you would think that Amazon would want something of that caliber for something they have sunk this much money into. And I make this point just to show the difference between competent writing and incompetent writing. I imagine that they will put the mantra in question to further use in the show, but I cannot see how it would have the potential for profundity that the line I am about to discuss realized.
The example I am thinking about comes from DS9’s episode “Rocks and Shoals.” A character we only meet in this one episode is a Jem’Hadar named Remata’Klan. The Jem’Hadar are the genetically engineered soldier race for the Dominion, the most powerful galactic empire the Federation had yet faced in Star Trek. Remata’Klan represents the typical Jem’Hadar in his absolute devotion to the state, which he conveys in his refrain throughout the episode, “It is the order of things.” His devotion is so absolute that, despite knowing that the Vorta in authority over him named Keevan has betrayed him and his fellow Jem’Hadar by deliberately having them walk into an ambush set by Captain Sisko and his crew, he never wavers, following Keevan’s orders to attack the Federation crew even to his death because “It is the order of things.” Throughout the conversation, Sisko tries to talk him out of following through and inevitably being slaughtered, even asking him, “Do you really want to give up your life for ‘the order of things?’” Remata’Klan’s response not only reiterates his devotion, but it is also one of the most profound characterizing lines I have ever heard that emerged from his refrain, “It’s not my life to give up, Captain. And it never was.” So much is packed into that simple refrain of his and it is unpacked masterfully in Remata’Klan’s final scene, especially with this line. Given the trouble this show has had already with pseudo-profound lines and general characterization, I fear that nothing even approaching this quality will come of the mantra, “The sea is always right.”
Anyway, as the trainees are disbanding, we learn that Isildur has a beloved horse, which is something new but not a particularly untoward interpolation. A bit more bizarre is that Isildur has a show-only sister named Eärien. I am guessing she is going to die in Númenor’s destruction somehow and that is going to be how they explain why we never heard of her. They only later reference his brother Anárion, who for some reason does not actually appear in this episode, and they act as if there is some estrangement between him and Elendil. The dynamic between them is even more curious, since Anárion was Isildur’s younger brother. I suspect we will learn more about all this later in the season, but it is odd that they front this made-up character at the expense of giving Anárion any screentime.
As we cut back to not-Armenelos we get a shot of Nimloth. Its location here ought to further confirm that we are in the capital city of Armenelos, but Armenelos was not a port city, so I am guessing the writers are just in error as far as the adaptation is concerned. In any case, Nimloth is the white tree from which the White Tree of Minas Tirith was descended. It was itself descended from the tree Celeborn in Tol Erresëa, which was descended from Galathilion in the Elven city of Tirion in Eldamar, which was descended from Telperion of the Two Trees. As such, Nimloth is part of the line of trees that links the White Tree to the eldest of trees, an echo of Valinor that persists among Men. Although, one might wonder why this particular tree is so massive compared to its scion in Minas Tirith in Jackson’s ROTK. We are never told the size of the tree, but Jackson’s depiction seems more reasonable, since there is a point in the book in which old White Tree is placed in the Hallows.
In any case, the tree is a point of reference here for a clunky dialogue scene with Míriel and Elendil. Míriel says of Nimloth, “The Faithful believe that when the petals of the White Tree fall, it is no idle thing, the very tears of the Valar themselves, a living reminder that their eyes and their judgment are ever upon us. Do you believe that?” The Faithful are those who hold fast to the traditional allegiances of Númenor, including the friendship with the Eldar, the maintenance of Quenya (the language of the High Elves), reverence to the Valar, and devotion to Eru Ilúvatar. They are otherwise known as Elf-friends. In Tolkien’s original story, Elendil was one of the leaders of the Faithful. In fact, he was the last of their leaders, as he led nine ships of them to Middle-earth to escape from Númenor (these were the Faithful who had not already left for Middle-earth or been sacrificed to Morgoth in Sauron’s cult). This idea attached to them is a show-only innovation only somewhat similar to something we see in The Silmarillion of Tar-Palantir, a Josiah-like figure in Númenor’s history, prophesying that the perishing of the White Tree would also mark the end of the line of the Kings. And since the tree was tended, and it went through seasons so that it had no bloom in late autumn, I doubt the idea was that its petals never fell, except as some kind of bad portent. But we need a contrived setup for next episode, so here we are.
But all of this is simply to set up the line whereby Elendil perhaps ambiguously dissociates himself from the Faithful. As he says, “In my experience, it is unwise to live one’s life guessing after signs and portents.” Remember that line, because it is in direct conflict with what Elendil will say later in this scene.
Míriel then tries another tactic to get at Elendil by asking about his name. The show accurately describes the possible meanings of Elendil’s name as “one who loves the stars” (or “Lover of the Stars”) and “Elf-friend.” Of course, you would think if he were trying to hide his allegiance, he might have sought to change his name to something Adûnaic (the language of Númenor), like the recent kings had done. But Elendil was not so surreptitious or dubious in Tolkien’s work. Furthermore, they incorrectly say that Elendil’s name means “Elf-friend” in the Elvish language (by which they mean Quenya), as if to distinguish it from a non-Quenya meaning of “one who loves the stars.” They are both meanings derived from Quenya. (Of course, with these points in mind, it is a wonder that Galadriel never takes notice of his name, but she never acknowledges him by name in the whole episode. Chalk another one up to her powers of observation.) Míriel thus asks if he is an Elf-friend and Elendil responds with saying that he is a loyal servant of Númenor.
Already we see that the stuff about Nimloth is now far in the rearview, being a throwaway introduction to the scene, but the next part of the exchange will contradict both this opening of the scene and what we have been told earlier in the episode. Míriel says, “though Elves have been unwelcome on our shores since the reign of my grandfather’s great-grandfather, you chose to break that precedent.” In fact, she will say that breaking such a precedent amounts to treason. Although Míriel’s statement of how long it has been since the Elves have been welcome is accurate to Tolkien’s story, the idea that this conduct is treasonous contradicts Elendil’s earlier statement that he is obligated to bring Galadriel and Halbrand to his betters. Did the writers forget about the whole reason Elendil brought Galadriel to Númenor—apropos of nothing in Tolkien’s work—just to create this artificial conflict? You decide. But the answer is probably “yes.” One way or another, this is a complete unnecessary contradiction.
The other part of this exchange features Elendil saying, “The sea put her in my path, and the sea is always right.” (It is at this point that Míriel says, “The sea cannot commit treason.”) Bear in mind that Elendil previously said, “In my experience, it is unwise to live one’s life guessing after signs and portents.” So not only do the writers not seem to remember what was said in Elendil’s first scene, but they do not even remember what Elendil said at the start of this scene. “I do not believe in following portents … unless they come from the sea, because the sea is always right.” Furthermore, by this reasoning, didn’t the sea obviously try to kill her and Halbrand? It sure seemed like it with that storm and the fact that they were floating so far from any land with no provisions. Elendil obviously made a decision here and he is trying to pawn it off on the sea. This is not a man of integrity who takes responsibility for his decisions, as would befit Tolkien’s Elendil. No, he is a man at the mercy of the writers, and they are not particularly merciful. In any case, the scene ends with a vague intimation that Míriel wants him to perform a service, which is kept vague for no reason.
Setting Is Hard
After that long extended sequence of silliness, we are back to the map transition. And here we see the show’s continuing inability to reckon realistically with location in the Southlands. The first time we saw the label of the Southlands, it was over a place near the end of the Ered Lithui mountain chain, which is around 500 miles long. The second time, we have just this massive label of “The Southlands” that stretches from what would become Gondor all the way across what would become Mordor. Now the show draws our focus to a place between Lake Núrnen (a.k.a. the Sea of Núrnen) and the Ephel Dúath mountain chain on the western side of what will become Mordor. This puts us hundreds of miles west and hundreds more miles south from where we started. That means the Orcs’ tunnels must be hundreds if not close to 1,000 miles long. Alternatively, they are far from where the tunnels are, having traveled a long distance through the sunlight, despite what the show will indicate later. If the tunnels are not somewhere nearby, we are being asked to believe that this trench and its covering with shade extends for miles, which means these Orcs must have a lot of material just lying around that they could use for such shade. Whatever exactly may be the case, the fact remains that, for some reason, Arondir and his cohorts have been dragged a long way while being unable to execute an escape attempt and all to be forced to dig at this specific location and nowhere else closer by where the Orcs captured them. Matters of setting in both time and place seem to be serious obstacles for these writers and others working on this show to wrap their minds around.
In any case, once we return here, we get a rather contrived demonstration of how the Orcs are bothered by the sunlight. This is broadly accurate to Tolkien’s work, but not in the way shown here where their skin starts burning when exposed to sunlight. One, the writers are inconsistent on this point over the course of the episode, as there are plenty of other times when the Orcs’ skin is clearly exposed to sunlight, and they do not suffer any ill effects. Two, Orcs are not vampires. They dislike the sun and are in some ways enfeebled by it, but it is not literally deadly to them. Three, this is clear reason why the Orcs should be forcing their captives to dig at night. But apparently no one in the world of the story or in the writers’ room thought of this obvious solution.
At this point, the Elves have a moment for reflection. They mix a rather obvious statement, whereby they feel the need to spell out what the audience could easily figure out about the tunnels helping them avoid detection and sunlight, with a contrived one, wherein they say that the Orcs are searching for something, like a weapon. This statement is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the previous one. There is no way they would know they were searching for a weapon, except that the writers need them to think that to set up a connection with the weapon Theo found. And besides, this is not how you dig for searching. They are obviously digging a trench. If they were searching, they would start at some spot and dig outwards; they would not dig a trench.
Amusingly, this silly mix of statements is then followed up with one that illustrates how horrible the Elves have been at their job. They say that the Orcs have been ransacking village after village. Yet the Elves never saw anything until Arondir was in the right place at the right time to squeeze a cow’s udder to squirt out tar to then learn that the cow had been feeding near a town that was recently ransacked and razed. If not for that convenience, none of them would have expected anything until they were captured. What have the Elves even been doing all this time if the Orcs were able to get away with this much without them noticing?
The Elf captain (his name is Revion) then says that it seems Morgoth has a successor. The Orcs call him by the same title they apparently gave Morgoth: Adar. Adar is the Sindarin equivalent of Atar, which means “father” (as in “Ilúvatar,” which means “All-Father”). This is not a title applied to Morgoth or Sauron anywhere in LOTR. Of course, one could argue that this Elvish title was said by the Orcs as a result of Morgoth’s corruption of Elves into Orcs, and possibly reflects a blasphemous intention on Morgoth’s part. But this is not something one can derive from LOTR, and thus it seems to represent a conflict with the adaptational restrictions of this show to LOTR. The writers would need to draw on sources other than LOTR to establish such an idea. Of course, one must wonder how the inference was made that this could be Sauron if the assumption shared by everyone besides Galadriel and, at least for a time, the people she dragged along in her quest, was that Sauron was gone. But I suppose these Elves are ready to believe anything after seeing how badly they screwed up with noticing that the Orcs are still around in force.
But the writers have decided that we have had enough talky bits; we need some confrontation. The only way that they can figure out how to do this is for an Orc to tell the Elves to chop down the tree. They tell them to do this just because they are jerks. When we have the scene this seems to be a deliberate echo of Isengard from The Two Towers, that was at least serving a utilitarian function, as the trees were used for fuel. Here, chopping down the tree would not do any good for the Orcs and would take too long, as Revion says, because they would also need to uproot the tree with all that tangled mess behind them. It would be easier to dig around it, especially if, as we were told, the Orcs were searching for something. It’s not going to be under that tree. But the Orcs just need to act this way to force a scene in which one of Arondir’s comrades dies.
Speaking of which, after the argument, an Orc comes up and acts like he admires the spirit of the Elves, saying that they have earned a water ration. This scene is rather drawn out as we are waiting for the obvious thing to happen. All three Elves slowly take a drink from the jug as the Orc stands there watching, obviously waiting to do something. And instead of doing something as simple as taking a step or two backwards, the Elves just go along with this. Finally, the Elf Arondir said stank of rotten leaves takes his drink and the Orc cuts his throat while he does so. This scene is played for overdramatic effect with the slow motion of the wound forming on his neck and the choir accompanying the death. I am left wondering how he died though. The depth of the wound is not obviously extending to his jugular, and the amount of blood that comes out of it is less than what Lloyd Christmas simulated when he acted like the barber cut his throat in Dumb and Dumber. It is more like a bad cut from shaving than a fatal wound. But whatever, he’s dead. Farewell, dear Elf, we hardly knew ye (literally).
At this point, Arondir says he will cut down the tree with this tiny double-bladed axe that seems woefully insufficient. It seems rather wasteful with that gap in between the blades that will make cutting the tree more difficult. But this gives Arondir the opportunity he was looking for to climb to the top of the trench (which was not difficult, anyway). When he gets a look around, we see some things that are questionable. One, this trench is obviously extending for a good distance, making this whole construction with the shade more and more implausible. Two, in addition to the fact that this is not how you dig to search for something, especially something so small as a weapon, the wide shot just confirms that there was no reason this trench had to go through the tree. The trench is already curving. Three, we see other trees on either side of this one that have been burned and or chopped down. How did that happen? Did the Orcs do it? Did they allow the prisoners out of the trench just long enough to do that? And for what purpose was either of these things done when they have nothing to do with the trench? Four, something no one in this story has addressed is how cutting down the tree does anything about the mass of roots hindering their progress. Indeed, nothing is ever done about the roots in the course of this episode.
Just Checking … Yup, Galadriel Is Still Insufferable
But enough of that; we must return to Númenor, even though it is a silly place. We hear that Galadriel has escaped the palace grounds. How did she do it? Don’t know. The show doesn’t care. Instead, they want us to show what happened after she escaped. And for that purpose, we need to see her pulling Assassin’s Creed stuff above the heads of the guards in the street. In fact, for the rest of the episode, we never hear anything about her escape or any consequences she faces for it. Consequences are for suckers, after all. Of course, for this escape to happen, just like everything else they have done to make Galadriel look better, every nameless person must be utterly incompetent. We see this from the people she walks by who suddenly do not notice that she is an Elf, despite her ears showing. But you better believe that when the writers require people in the show to not care, they will not care. We also see this from the guards in two respects. One, their vision is apparently two-dimensional, as their eyes cannot see things above their height, even when the way eyesight works would indicate it would be otherwise. She is even wearing a vivid blue dress. Two, these guards have a mind-numbing exchange that is as follows:
“You will inform Pharazôn that she’s escaped.”
“I informed him last time.”
“That was a dog.”
What exactly are they trying to say here? Are they trying to say that the guard informed a dog? Because that would be stupid beyond belief. But that is a way you can take the horribly vague phrasing. Are they trying to say that the guard informed Pharazôn about a dog? Then why not say, “You only saw a dog” or “That was about a dog”? Why write such inane babble instead of trying to express your ideas more clearly? And what does it matter, even to these nameless people, who informed Pharazôn last time something happened? If they had the idea that the guard informed Pharazôn about a dog, why would he do that? And why would you keep someone so incompetent as to mistake a dog for an Elf on palace guard duty? Why not replace him with someone better fit for the role, that is, unless you want her to escape?
Of course, all of this is for naught, as we see that Elendil was waiting for her, because he has plot-convenient knowledge as to which of the oodles of docks she would go to (if he happened to be wrong, she would just be gone and probably leave some dead in her wake). Apparently, the service Míriel charged him with is simply to make sure that she causes no further disturbance. Why did we get the earlier cutaway, then, as if to imply something sinister? Why did she not just say what it was and we could have moved on?
Anyway, we have another scene of Galadriel engaging in dialogue, which means we have another opportunity to see Galadriel’s complete inability to communicate and to understand people. When Elendil mentions how he could call her minders, Galadriel clumsily approaches him to threaten his life. I say “clumsily” because she has to take several steps and she twirls her knife for no reason, as the twirling into a different position provides no advantage and only puts the knife in a more awkward position. Of course, there is plenty of twirling weapons for no purpose in this show. But what makes it even worse in this case is that she says, “suppose the words never managed to escape your throat,” then proceeds to hold her knife with the outer edge of her hand facing his covered belly, rather than holding the knife so that it is at or near his exposed neck (you know, since she mentioned his throat).
This is another scene that not only shows the lengths to which these writers have gone to make Galadriel an unlikable person (even to the point of Galadriel saying earlier in this scene that she wishes Elendil had never brought her here, the alternative to which, she said herself, was CERTAIN DEATH); it also shows how generally poorly written she is. Not only have they so utterly changed the character from what Tolkien wrote, they have also made her as shallow as a puddle in a parking lot. They have not only defined her as a warrior to her very core, but they have made her so bloodthirsty that there is room for nothing else. She is not even a warrior-poet or a warrior-philosopher on the level of someone like Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. He was a character with much greater depth who got much less relative screentime than her. Even compared with other female warriors, there is so much less to her than even Tasha Yar, Star Trek: The Next Generation’s least defined major character (the comparison would only get more unfavorable if we were to consider Kira Nerys from DS9). I am utterly ashamed that this character bears the name “Galadriel.” And it is only getting worse.
Elendil’s response does not take her threat seriously. He presents her with the possibility that the words did escape his throat, saying, “you’d be back at the palace in chains even further from your destination.” A better response would be one that made the assumption that she would try to kill her way out, since she would try to kill him and then kill whatever guards came for her, as she would inevitably need to do with the alarm raised and her attempting to steal a boat. He could have said that if she killed him, and killed anyone else, she would ensure that her life would be forfeit, and so she would never reach her destination.
And because Galadriel has apparently not made herself unlikable enough, she follows up this statement with an arrogant response that is apropos of nothing: “Who is this mortal who speaks to me as if he has the slightest idea who I am?” Why is this apropos of nothing? One, Galadriel already said who she was in that scene with her ostentatious self-important self-introduction where Elendil was part of the crowd. You know, it’s that scene where she acknowledged him in a statement she made to Míriel. Two, Galadriel also said where she intends to go, at least broadly speaking, so obviously Elendil would have a general idea of her destination. Three, and this is the most important one, nothing in what Elendil just said had anything to do with “who she is.” She just wanted to reiterate in a most clunky fashion, “I want us to talk about me now. Tell me about my eyes.” (After all, Elendil’s next line is about her eyes.)
They go back and forth like this for a little longer and it all goes nowhere until Elendil speaks some Elvish to her. Galadriel is pleasantly surprised to learn that he speaks Elvish, though one might think that, has she learned his name, she might make her own inquiry before it all came to this. But as we have seen, she does not care. Elendil says that the language is still carved on statues here and that it is still taught in their hall of lore. Galadriel indicates that she wants to go there. What she expects to find in this library that she did not find at an Elvish library in all those centuries in Middle-earth is not clear. But you better believe that she will find exactly what she is looking for (and we will get to all of that). When she asks how far it is, Elendil tells her that it is a quarter-day’s ride.
This transitions us into an unnecessarily long and slow horseback riding scene. Obviously, the makers wanted their landscape shots, but the lengths to which they go for the glamor shots of horseback riding on the beach makes this whole scene silly. They shoot the scene on the beach in super slow motion for no reason other than to make that part of the scene last for thirty seconds while the horse only progresses a few strides. This is the only time we get a toothy smile from Galadriel thus far, but since they have done so much to make this character unlikable, it is sort of like seeing Vidal from Pan’s Labyrinth having a good time (although Vidal, while being more despicable, was at least better written than her). It may be good for her, but since they have done nothing to connect us to this character, why does it matter to us? Nor does the super slow motion make all of this more endearing. The setting here also shows how they only cared about the superficiality of “doesn’t this look pretty?” Elendil and Galadriel have no reason to be riding on the beach, since they will just need to climb back up to reach the hall of lore and cannot get there from the beach.
Halbrand Going Nowhere
But before we get to the hall of lore, we must cut back to see what is going on with Halbrand. He is busy trying to get in with the blacksmiths, as he wants to work in the forge. He claims to know a thing or two about this work from his time back in the Southlands. Is this information going to get us anywhere? Is it going to come into use? I suppose we will need to wait and see, because nothing is done with it here. The blacksmith just turns him down, since Halbrand does not have his guild crest, and “until you earn your guild crest, you can’t forge steel in Númenor.” How, then, does one earn a guild crest if you can’t even learn to forge steel without one? This is not how guilds worked. You did not need to attain a crest to do the activity the guild was organized around. Otherwise, where does apprenticeship come in? It would be one thing if one needed the crest to be an authorized seller of steel, but it makes no sense to say you would need one to do any work with forging steel.
But as he goes about his day, Halbrand gets harassed by some Númenóreans while he is trying to have lunch. This is another contrivance because they want a fight scene later, so Discount Gerard Butler and his gang need to pester him about coming into their land and taking all their stuff. At first, Halbrand appears to try to smooth things over with them by buying everyone at this tavern or whatever a few rounds of drinks. This seemingly goes a long way towards changing everyone’s disposition towards him, but I must ask: where did he get the money? He is buying everyone in this place a few drinks. That is certainly not cheap itself, but how does he have any money, let alone enough to buy this many drinks? The world will never know.
But for all of this, Halbrand ends up right back where he started with Discount Gerard Butler and his goons. Why? Because for as much as the show wants to present Halbrand as smooth and clever, he is neither as he stupidly steals Discount Gerard Butler’s crest (and this time the camera actually allows us to see him take it), apparently thinking that he wouldn’t notice. The gang then corners him in an alley because I guess the writers wanted the fight to take place here, rather than in such a public venue. Halbrand tries to talk his way out of the fight in a fashion that I hope he realizes is vain because he says, “I don’t want any trouble” after stealing something from the guy. And he did not just steal, he stole a crest, without which he would apparently not be able to work in Númenor. So he literally would be taking his job, like he was being accused of wanting to do. Halbrand is definitely being harassed, but he is also definitely doing nothing to help himself.
Then we get the fight that we had to go the long way around to getting, since this show needs to pad out its runtime. Discount Gerard Butler floors Halbrand with a punch while his friends hold him. Then they conveniently stand around waiting to be attacked. Then Halbrand goes positively psychotic and proceeds to beat the ever-loving snot out of these four guys, including by breaking one’s arm and painting some door frame with a bit of Discount Gerard Butler’s blood from smashing his head against it. This is one of those scenes taken as ground for speculation that I will address later, but in itself, the scene once again demonstrates how much this writing relies on contrivances. Why is he in this situation? He is there because of an asinine rule about guild crests, and he happened to see a man with a guild crest he needs, who also happens to be the one leading his harassment, who he steals from after a failed attempt to charm, since he did not invest enough ability points in that attribute. All of this leads to a fight that the writers perceive that we need, but not without some filler in between to pad the runtime, since, if we really needed this fight, there is no particular reason we needed the nonsensical bit about him buying all the drinks.
Revelations of Nonsense
Speaking of nonsense, we get quite a deluge of it with the visit to the hall of lore, though the extent of it will not be fully unfolded until a later scene. There are some minor positives to mention before I dive in. First, they at least remembered to reference Elros, the first King of Númenor, and that he was Elrond’s brother. The idea that Elros assembled this library, although it is nowhere stated in Tolkien’s lore (since the “hall of lore” is not named as such), is certainly not far-fetched. Second, the implication seems to be that there have been additions since then, as there are all these scrolls, but then the librarian brings in a bound volume. So I guess that’s something.
But once we get beyond those basic things, this scene falls apart, in terms of the quality of the scene itself, the inner coherency of the show, and its consistency with the work it is adapting. We will need to process this step-by-step. First, Galadriel draws that symbol of Sauron, which she hands to Elendil, and Elendil hands it to the librarian saying, “We’re looking for any information you may have on this.” Then with only that symbol to go on, the librarian somehow finds the exact volume that is needed and opens the book to the exact page they need. I guess this librarian must be an archivist of the highest order if he is able to look at this symbol and find just what he needs in this massive hall of information in less than a minute. He sure is a convenient genius.
Second, with Galadriel’s knowledge of Númenor that was on display earlier, including her statement of how the island has changed much, the implication is that she has been there at some point in the distant past. I thought such an idea was absurd, but if we are going along with the implications of the earlier scene to indicate that she has been there, how did she not know of this hall of lore before? How did she not check this place before? Why did it take her having an incidental conversation however many years later to learn that this island had a library that has been there from the early days of the kingdom?
Third, the show makes it so that, whatever time this is supposed to be that is irreconcilable with Tolkien’s story, Tar-Palantir is still alive, but was forced from his throne. He comes up in the conversation as the one who is responsible for the hall not being torn down. But why though? Why have him still be alive? Why is Míriel so disloyal to her own father that she will support forcing him from his throne but still loyal enough that she will come to visit him in the tower he is banished to? These are not questions Tolkien had to answer because Tar-Palantir died before he gave up his throne. He was a Josiah-like figure that did all he could to lead the kingdom in repentance, but it was too late. Why change his story at all? Why not have the actual decline of Númenor featured in the story, where we see it at its best in season 1 and eventually see its destruction at, say, the end of season 4? Why start near the end of its story apropos of nothing else in the rest of the story? Why could we not see Tar-Palantir try to turn the tide and fail? Why would anyone think the writers have made a change that is positive for visual adaptation here and not a decidedly negative one that makes for a sloppy and incoherent story?
Fourth, only now … ONLY NOW does Galadriel figure out that the sigil is not a sigil. How does she figure this out ONLY NOW after some vague and irreconcilable number of centuries searching for Sauron by looking for this mark? Because here, when she finds the symbol on a page along with a convenient inscription, she finally, after centuries and centuries, thinks to turn the symbol sideways, which makes here realize that it is a location on a map. Even though she carried a map with her for who knows how long, even though she has surely seen other maps in that long stretch of time, even though this is roughly how the symbol was oriented on her brother from her standpoint in that scene after he died, ONLY NOW does she think to rotate the symbol 90°. And when she does, she immediately recognizes that it is a place on the map of Middle-earth, specifically the Southlands (or rather, part of the Southlands, since this show can’t keep straight what the Southlands are). Also, it is entirely unclear what the point of the one other mountain in the symbol on the outside of what would become Mordor is, since that is just at the end of a different mountain range. It seems like it would only be useful if you are looking at a specifically oriented map. (I must say it is also odd that the central part of the symbol represents a mountain completely different from Orodruin/Mount Doom, the significance of which for Sauron I should not need to explain.)
Fifth, I already noted in the episode 1 review how the symbol has multiple different functions, but why does its orientation matter this much? It was not upright on Finrod (in fact, it is upside down on his torso), it was upright on the altar/table but only from the camera’s/Galadriel’s perspective, and it is upright on the sword Theo has. But if the orientation is the key to figuring it out, why does it vary in other contexts in which we have seen it? More likely, it is just the writers trying to obfuscate to keep a mystery alive. It is not as if turning the symbol should make it inscrutable to everyone but Sauron’s servants (who are not supposed to be that much smarter than Galadriel and all the wise people she consulted), so by itself it should not be especially helpful for maintaining secrecy from … whoever Sauron is trying to hide this from. But this inconsistency in orientation also raises questions again about why that symbol was placed where it was. Why was it branded on Finrod so that it faces down? Why was it left on the altar/table (and, as far as we can tell, nowhere else in that castle)? Why is it on the sword, where it would be even less useful as a way to point to the land where Sauron will make a kingdom? Also, why is it drawn differently here so that it has rounder edges and does not have the trail off of that part of the symbol in the middle, unlike when it has been made previously?
Sixth, Galadriel acts like this is some profound revelation, but based on episode 1, should she not have already figured this out? I don’t mean this in the sense of “why has she not figured it out in centuries?” Rather, she said that the mark in that fortress in the Forodwaith was supposed to be left for Orcs to follow. There was no reason she should have known that, given the different functions of the symbol, but should she not have deduced that, if it is something to follow, you could find something that looks like it on a map? Well, the explanation for this is simple: Galadriel is simply not good at her job.
Seventh, Galadriel is able to form this conclusion with the help of the map on the table nearby. This is a particularly incomplete and oddly oriented map of Middle-earth compared to what the show has given us and what anyone in the audience can readily access. It is almost as if it was constructed just for the purposes of this scene. But surely such a notion would be absurd. I mean, it is not like we have seen any other examples of contrivance in this show, right?
Eighth, unsurprisingly, the chronology involved with this discovery raises problems. The folded page she finds the symbol and its inscription on must be pretty old, presumably from before Morgoth’s defeat. Somehow this page and some other stuff was preserved to keep in a bound volume, which is supposedly later than the scrolls we see in this part of the hall. But if the information is this old, then surely it must go back to when Elros assembled this library. If Galadriel knew Elros and no doubt Elros knew of Galadriel’s quest, why did he not tell her of this information he could have seen about the symbol, or at least tell her about the hall? If it came to Númenor after that point, how could it have done so? Are we supposed to buy that, conveniently, this one sheet that contained the information that Galadriel needed was lying around somewhere in Middle-earth, was picked up by someone who knew nothing about its significance (and thus did not report it to any of the Elven leaders), and was then brought specifically to Númenor? And if it was later and someone made the king at the time aware of the discovery, why would he say nothing to Elven friends and allies? If it was brought to Númenor so late that it was after the Elves were no longer welcome, then are we supposed to believe that this information was lying around somewhere for centuries upon centuries and some random person who had a connection with Númenor happened to find it, but Galadriel, who has been on an obsessive quest for any and all information about Sauron and his whereabouts, never got a hint of it?
Ninth, let’s say a bit about the inscription on this page. Galadriel says, “It speaks not only of a place, but a plan. A plan by which to create a realm of their own, where evil would not only endure, but thrive. A plan to be enacted in the event of Morgoth’s defeat.” It is odd to say “a realm of their own,” as if they did not have their own realm under Morgoth or that it would somehow be a different state for them with Sauron in the lead. Obviously, this is talking about founding Mordor. Why would a plan need to be enacted for this in distinction from identifying a gathering place? Did whoever wrote this inscription think that otherwise the Orcs would come to the Southlands and just hang around? Or how detailed is this plan? How much can fit on that page? Most importantly, the verbiage is notable here. The phrase of “a plan to be enacted in the event of” indicates a contingency plan. Thus, we are supposed to believe that this plan was formulated with an expectation that Morgoth could lose. And this symbol was devised long enough before Morgoth’s defeat that it was branded on Finrod. When this was supposed to have happened cannot be reconciled with Tolkien’s timeline, since Morgoth only increased his dominance after Finrod died, after the point that Sauron fled (of course, this involves the story of Beren and Lúthien, which we will not get into here). Thus, we have here another fundamental irreconcilability with Tolkien’s lore. Nor does it make sense in light of anything else we have been told thus far. Everything about the information from the inscription breaks down on further examination, from its apparent detail to its supposed difference from the previous state of affairs to its description in terms of a contingency plan. The last problem could have been addressed easily enough with slightly more competent writing to phrase it as, “a plan that was enacted after Morgoth’s defeat,” but the best solution to this problem and the others is to have just gotten rid of this idea altogether.
Tenth, we are told that this was written by a spy in the Black Speech. This raises questions about how they got a spy to do this or if the writers are just ripping off an idea from Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor here, but those questions are not especially important. What is important is why … OH WHY … did nobody bother to read this note from a spy who was obviously doing some important work? You would think this would be some need-to-know information for somebody in power, but no one, absolutely NO ONE read this and thought to say anything about it. Alternatively, someone did read it, said nothing to Galadriel (presumably because they just don’t like her), or anyone else for that matter, and it just got passed along somehow until it ended up in a random book in Númenor. This is what it looks like when a show has incompetent writers who do not draw on the source material they are given and instead go with their own ill-conceived ideas. This show is the storytelling equivalent of a basketball player missing an easy alley-oop pass for a slam dunk so badly that they instead dropkick a fan in the front row.
Eleventh, and finally, despite the fact that this symbol is a symbol of (part of) the Southlands, the symbol has been around for who knows how long, and it has been who knows how long since Sauron has been seen, only now, ONLY NOW, are the Southlands apparently in grave danger. What took Sauron and the Orcs so long to start causing trouble in the Southlands? You would think that Galadriel would have heard something about things happening in the Southlands before the main story started, considering how long she has been hunting Sauron. At this rate, the Southlands, at least the part within the mountains of Mordor, should have been wiped off the map.
Nasty Harfootses
After all of that, this big reveal scene is followed with … an awkward transition to the festival of the Harfoots. They are wearing these weird, awful-looking costumes and repeating this mantra in a procession led by Sadoc: “Nobody goes off-trail, and nobody walks alone.” I guess that doesn’t count those scattered Harfoots we saw earlier who were away from the crowd doing their own thing, but whatever. This mantra is what Marigold had said to Nori earlier, and it is further supposed to signify how the Harfoots have each other, how they look out for each other, and how this is a tight-knit community. It’s just too bad that we get too much evidence to the contrary. We saw it rather dramatically in the last episode when no one even tried to help Largo hold up the post, or even just tell him to drop it like he should have. And this episode itself will show how bad of a community this is.
In fact, we do not even need to get out of this scene before this impression is undermined. Because while everyone else is participating in this ritual, we cut to Marigold and Largo alone in their hut with Marigold saying that Largo is going to be left behind. Even though we know they have carts upon carts (and this will become even clearer later in the episode) and so many Harfoots to pull them, we need to pretend that he is at serious risk of being left by himself to die. Marigold says they can’t carry the cart without him, and presumably no one in this tight-knit community would be willing to help. As we will see later, that is exactly the case. People in this community do not help each other.
Largo also reassures Marigold that they have Nori. As he says, “Once that girl puts her head to something, nothing can stop her.” This is an issue with characterization in this show, especially with Nori’s plotline. People tell other people what they should already know, and the characteristics need to be told to the audience more than they need to be shown. In every episode of Nori’s plotline, the show has had this clunky dialogue that is there for the audience who (apparently) need this explained (but not so many other things that require explanation), which is meant to shove the characteristic in your face, just in case you don’t get it.
When we cut to Nori, we see that she is once again on a mission to help Asteroid Man. We find out that migration is tomorrow, and so she insists that she needs to do something for him now. That “something” turns out to be finding Sadoc’s star charts, which are supposed to help Asteroid Man find his home, but if they just show depictions of the constellations and not where they are in relation to any land, I am not sure how they are supposed to be helpful. But anyway, she feels obligated to do this rather than pointing Asteroid Man to the nearest village of Men, because she thinks he doesn’t belong there (how she knows is anyone’s guess). Oh, and Poppy is here, too, doing what she always does whenever she shows up in a scene (as I described in the review for episode 2). Nori even blackmails her to keep her from telling anyone, even though Poppy obviously has the upper hand on this point; she just goes along with everything because that’s what her character function is. And in case we have not already seen what a terrible friend Nori is, something the show will tell us later will throw this fact into stark relief.
Of course, the writers want to fit in a semi-comedic caper here, so we need to have Sadoc come to his place to go over his speech that he will deliver later in the night. The whole sequence is not particularly clever or funny. It simply relies on Sadoc being conveniently unaware of his surroundings, like he was when the firefly lanterns were taken in episode 2. Credit to Megan Richards for trying to make lemonade out of this lemon of a script with her performance of her interaction with Sadoc, but she can only do so much. (Also, on a minor note, when Sadoc leaves, he pulls a rope to close the curtain entrance to his house, but it only slightly narrows the entrance instead of closing it. I’m not sure if it is supposed to be that dysfunctional and, if so, what the show is trying to communicate.)
Anyway, when we actually get to Sadoc’s speech, we see some more major evidence that this is not a good community. He reads out of a book of the left-behinds (the book is described that way later). This ceremony is a memorial where the community acknowledges that in life they did not wait for these Harfoots, we don’t even know that they bury them, but now they remember them with the refrain “we wait for you” as the names are read out. But they did not just die, they were left, as they are implying that Largo could be, too. We do not know how many names are on there, but what he reads of the list is pretty short, so maybe these were those who died in the last year? It is uncertain, but in any case, he notes who died and how they died, including by being stuck in snow, eating poison berries, being stung by bees (which causes these people to laugh, apparently because that guy died just like the idiot he was), and somehow dying making a sculpture. Sadoc lost one of his relations, presumably his wife, to wolves. But the grimmest of all is when we hear about how all of Poppy’s family, her parents and three others (presumably her siblings), were “taken by a landslide one rainy winter day.” Good golly! Why do you writers hate this character so much? And in case there is any doubt that she is by herself in this community, she sits by herself and has to pull her cart by herself near the end of the episode. I’m not sure if the writers intended this, but this context puts Poppy and her relationship with Nori in a new light. Poppy has no family, no particularly close bond with anyone, except for Nori. She doesn’t want to do anything to potentially jeopardize her friendship with Nori, because then she wouldn’t be close with anyone else, so she just goes along with everything Nori wants. And it’s not as if Nori is unaware of Poppy’s situation, so she is quite clearly exploiting her insecurity and fear of losing people close to her to make her an unwilling servant to her own ends. Honestly, there is plenty that has made me not like Nori as a character to this point, but this revelation and the context it provides makes me dislike her even more.
Meanwhile, Asteroid Man sneaks into the camp, because apparently he has no light to read the star charts otherwise, and Nori was paying zero attention. So rather than trying to find one of the many firefly lanterns around the camp (or even Nori taking him one), he finds a fireplace and sits down next to it. He holds the star chart directly over the fire, and by now it is obvious to everyone what is going to end up happening. Of course, not only does Asteroid Man catch the paper on fire and apparently has no idea of how to put a fire out (isn’t contrived amnesia convenient?), but he also has so little control over himself that he causes all the fires in the place to grow. If this is Gandalf, like they seem to be indicating that he is, I really hope that they are not going to have some storyline where the Harfoots teach him something about controlling his powers. Of course, his inability to exercise such control has thus far been a contrivance for visuals, and only now is it useful for forcing plot development. He then bumbles and stumbles through the camp, until eventually outing Nori as the one who has been helping him.
The dialogue that follows is clunky, makes Nori look foolish for being secretive, and illustrates how we are not dealing with a good community here. Concerning the clunky dialogue, someone tells Nori that she is wrong for wanting to be friends with Asteroid Man because, “We don’t need friends, girl. We need to survive.” Nori’s response is, “Without friends, what are we surviving for?” All the lady had to say was “We don’t need other friends, girl. We have each other.” That would fit with what we have been told already about the Harfoots, but it would not set up what the writers thought was a good line for Nori. Instead, it makes it seem as if the Harfoots don’t need friends at all, not just friends from outside their kind, and Nori’s response implies that it is not worth surviving for each other; they need to look outside their group to make friends that validate their existence. Another example of clunky dialogue is that they call the punishment for breaking the law being “de-caravaned.” I suppose being “exiled” did not sound exotic enough, even though it is the same thing, and so the writers felt impelled to invent a nonsense word.
Concerning how the scene makes Nori look foolish, we find out that Nori has broken the law, though we are not told explicitly what the laws are. I guess it is that no one is supposed to bring in any outsiders and no one is supposed to steal from other Harfoots. Sadoc also says twice that she lied, but they can’t point to a single lie she actually told. We have seen her be secretive, but we have not seen her tell a lie to anyone except Poppy when she said she wasn’t “looking for this.” In fact, it’s the secrecy that has caused all this trouble. There was no reason for her not to tell everyone about Asteroid Man. If she had, she would not have broken any laws, she would not have put her family at risk of exile, and she would not have put the whole community at risk from what is clearly a potentially dangerous individual.
Concerning how this shows that we are not dealing with a good community, I can of course turn your attention to the line quoted above, as well as to what we have seen thus far in this episode. But beyond that, they say that their way has kept them alive for 1,000 years (which means little in the face of the mess that is the chronology), and part of what helps them do this is how they treat their law and its violators. The random old lady says, “Our laws are clear. Any Harfoot that breaks them is to be de-caravaned.” There is not even a scale of punishment here. And it is effectively a death sentence. It makes as little sense as when I first saw a similar premise in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s episode “Justice.” Yeah, this is supposed to be a tight-knit community, but you cross them—no matter how exactly you do it—and they will leave you to die. Sadoc tries to soften the blow against Nori and her family only superficially, since she is young. He says that they will not be de-caravaned, but that they will be forced to walk at the back, which as far as they know is going to amount to leaving them behind. The effect will be the same, but this punishment also torments them with the possibility of staying with the group while being unable to do so. Of course, this punishment too is an artificial setup that will allow Asteroid Man to come along for the next stage of the journey and for the Brandyfoots to stay with the group, so that they end up not being effectively punished. But from the intentions of Sadoc and the rest of the community, the intention was definitely to punish them, even to the extent of letting them fall behind and die.
Elendil (a.k.a. Look How They Massacred My Boy)
When we cut back to Númenor, we see that apparently there was no consequence for the fact that Galadriel was allowed not only out of the palace grounds, but out of the city. Either no one saw them or no one cared. I know the writers didn’t care, but I’m not sure why the people in the story didn’t.
And because decently functional families are not allowed in this show (with the exception of Durin and Disa), we get a dose of some Númenórean family drama. Here it is implied that there is some deep-seated conflict between Elendil and his son Anárion, but they say nothing about what happened or what the nature of their relationship is. Nor is it clear where he is in the family line. In the original story, he is Isildur’s younger brother, but the way they talk about it almost makes it seem like he is the older one. Otherwise, why would he know better than Isildur that Elendil deferred twice before joining the navy? He comes up in the conversation because Isildur wants to defer joining the navy, and it is not clear what he wants to do instead, but he apparently wants to join Anárion in whatever he is doing (in other words, he wants to do something good that is out of the ordinary and out of other people’s comfort zone). But whatever estrangement they have, it is one piece of a general impression this scene gives us that Elendil is not a good father, as he pays little attention to his children, and they need to talk to each other instead of talking to him.
And because Anárion is brought up in the conversation, Elendil says he will tell Isildur what he told Anárion. Here is where we get one of the most anti-Tolkien lines thus far in the show. I call it anti-Tolkien not only because of its message (since anti-Tolkien lines in that sense would surely be allowable for villainous characters), but because of who says it in contradiction to how Tolkien wrote him. He says, “There is nothing for us on our western shores. The past is dead. We either move forward, or we die with it.” This is said by one who Tolkien wrote was a leader of the Faithful dedicated to the ancient traditions of Númenor and the still more ancient wisdom they were formed in relation to. You could not have found a worse fitting line for such a character. While there was plausible deniability before about the ambiguity of his responses to Míriel, this clearly dissociates him from the Faithful. Why change this character on such a fundamental level? What good could possibly be achieved by this that would not be achievable by following the source material? What good could possibly be achieved by this change that is greater than following the source material?
I know that some may defend this decision as providing a dynamic character arc for Elendil. But this is a lesson that amateur writers especially need to grasp: there is no need to overuse the device of the dynamic character arc. Not every character needs to start at the opposite end of where they will eventually go (as would be the case also with Amazon Galadriel, if the writers are trying to convince us that this version of Galadriel could turn into the more familiar one). In fact, when fidelity is one of the defining characteristics of your character, that is one of the best reasons you can provide for having a static character. That character is one who will stay true to who they are and what they believe when the world around them pressures them to change. Static characterization like this is essential to the effectiveness of so many martyrdom stories. But it is also in plain sight in plenty of popular media. Gandalf is a static character. Maximus Decimus Meridius is a static character. The aforementioned Iroh is a static character. There is nothing wrong with keeping characters static if the story and their personal characteristics warrant it, which they do in the case of Tolkien’s writing of Elendil. If the story you are telling requires you to change him on such a fundamental level, it would have been best if you left him out of your story, or go back and change your story so that it suits his role in it.
Aragorn Halbrand the Lost King
Now Amazon Galadriel is back, which means we can expect another wellspring of non-Tolkien foolishness. But first we need to get a visual that does not seem well thought out. When Galadriel goes to visit Halbrand in jail (which I am guessing is not at palace grounds, but no one seems to care anymore), we see what is certainly a cool-looking statue. I am not sure who/what it is supposed to be representing exactly (Uinen, maybe), but it is of a woman with long hair that has these watery, flowing lines chiseled into the stone. How they made such a thing with their tools I have no idea. But that is neither here nor there. What I am really wondering is: why is it here? Why is this beautiful statue in the center of this jail? What purpose is it serving by being here of all places? Who knows? I am probably thinking about this more than the director and/or writers.
We find out in this conversation that at some point after Galadriel made her major discovery, she did not respond with any further urgency that she needs to get back to Middle-earth. Instead, off-screen, she made another request of the librarian to look up another symbol. I mean, why not? He has an impeccable archival memory the likes of which you will probably never see again, so why not get more information from him? Well, I would think the urgency of the situation would dictate otherwise, but whatever, we needed an artificial reason for another big reveal. This time, the revelation is that Halbrand’s symbol that he wears is that of the King of the Southlands. It was worn by a man who united the scattered tribes of the Southlands under one banner. I cannot explain who he is because Tolkien did not write of any such character. And it is unclear what purpose he would serve but as a distraction to help pad the runtime of the show as a whole. After all, we know from later history that there is no King of the Southlands who resists Sauron, successfully or unsuccessfully, so we know he is going to fail, and his name will be forgotten one way or another. But leading us into a narrative cul-de-sac will take up time, so here we are.
The writers also try to force a connection here between Galadriel and Halbrand by reminding us that Halbrand’s ancestor swore an oath of allegiance to Morgoth. We already talked about this idea in the ep. 1 review, so I will not revisit it here. But Halbrand’s line ends with the note that his family lost the war and Galadriel follows that up with saying her family started it. HUH? No, Morgoth clearly started the war in both the original story and this show. Nor do we get anything in this show to indicate that the Elves started the war for no good reason. We hear nothing of the contents of the Oath of Fëanor and all the consequences it wrought, which they legally can’t really lay out the contents of (since it is in The Silmarillion), but that is from her more distant family anyway. And if we’re going to pretend for one second that Morgoth would not have done anything evil if you just left him alone, then you have only confirmed you are delusional, and no one should be listening to you.
She then goes on to try to reinforce this connection with this statement: “Ours was no chance meeting, not fate, nor destiny, nor any of the words that Men use to speak of the forces they lack the conviction to name. Ours was the work of something greater. You must see it.” It sure is rich to say that these words are used by Men to speak of the forces they lack the conviction to name … and then she doesn’t name whatever force she is talking about. I have an idea because I have read Tolkien’s work. But if she is saying Eru Ilúvatar brought them together for some great purpose, it only proves her lack of wisdom compared to her counterpart from Tolkien. After all, we know whatever she has planned is going to fail, one way or another. So what is the point of this line if it will not ultimately be to illustrate her foolishness?
In response to this line, Halbrand says, “All I see is an Elf who won’t put down her sword.” What a contrived line. This is obviously meant to form a connection with what Elrond said in episode 1. But unlike Elrond, Halbrand has actually never seen her use a sword even once. He has seen her bear a dagger, but she has not used it around him. So why say “sword” and not another weapon of war? He only says it because the writers want to contrive a motif, even when it does not fit the story to do so.
Speaking of things that don’t fit the story, Galadriel tries to motivate Halbrand to come with her so that “together we will redeem both our bloodlines.” But in the context of the show, what is there to redeem for her bloodline? Again, I know how to construct an answer to this if we are to appeal to The Silmarillion, but we can’t. This line is only to contrive a connection between her and Halbrand.
Wrapping Things Up
Fortunately, that is the last we will see of Amazon Galadriel and her cockamamie plotline for the rest of the episode. Unfortunately, the episode is not over, as we have three more bases to cover. First, we see Míriel going to visit her exiled father. She tells him, “It is here, Father. The moment we feared. The Elf has arrived.” This line indicates that there is some prophecy (or, as we will learn later, a vision) that foretells doom for when an Elf arrives. Maybe we will get details next episode, but for now all we need to know is that this has contradicted how Míriel has treated Galadriel. You would think that if the presence of an Elf on your island meant this moment that you feared may be around the corner, you would actually have all the more reason to get her off your island as quickly as possible to avert the foretold doom. Instead, it is Míriel herself who says that Galadriel must stay on the island. Why act in such a self-destructive and self-contradictory manner? The episode does not give us a chance to find out.
Second, we cut back to the heartless Harfoots. We see here how Poppy has to pull her cart by herself. I guess some Harfoots really don’t have each other. And she is the only one who cares enough to look back for the Brandyfoots, who are falling well behind. They find out only now, ONLY NOW that the reason they are having trouble moving the cart is because Asteroid Man has stowed away in it. Somehow, they never voiced the thought in however much time they have pulled the cart that “Hey, this cart seems way freaking heavier than I remember the last time we pulled it. Maybe we should check this out.” You would think the most obvious idea would be to put Largo in the cart and pull him with the stuff, at which point they would have realized that Asteroid Man had stowed away. But no, this was all contrived for extra drama to surround a revelatory moment.
An Action-Packed Finale That Goes Nowhere
Third, we return to Arondir’s plotline for some goofy combat. It starts with him and Revion using their long chains as weapons. If they were capable of doing this the whole time, why did they not try it sooner? You would think that someone, whether among the Orcs or their leaders, would have thought of the concept of the chain gang. When you use that, you don’t risk this happening, and it also makes it harder for people to escape because they are all chained together. Instead, they have these long, and thus incredibly loose, chains that serves no particularly good purpose in the story, but it does serve to set up the action scene.
In fact, we see the exact reason why they have these long chains and why the Orcs have this canopy setup rather than doing anything more logical (like digging at night). It is a contrivance for a goofy action moment from Arondir to use his Level 5 Elf Jump (after a pointless twirl with an axe he picks up) and it is super effective. With one strike of his axe, he brings a large section of the canopy down, since it was that structurally weak.
So while the Orcs regroup, which just requires them putting their hoods over their heads (in the context of the show, not as accurate to Tolkien), they release a Warg to deal with the prisoners as they try to break their chains and escape. This Warg design … is just awful. Not only does it look incredibly fake and out of place in its scene (so that they even need to animate a rather obviously fake spear to kill him later), but the basic design is that of a jumbo Pug dog who has just eaten a full bowl of PCP.
But anyway, he starts slaughtering the nameless individuals in this scene, starting with a woman who grabs a spear and twirls it unnecessarily. He punishes her for this offense by killing her almost instantly. Eventually, Arondir does his silly jump from one of the trailers and gets the Warg trapped within the tree roots, along with some help from the chain the Warg still has attached to it. Arondir will then fly one more time as the Orcs pull him by his chain and he flies backwards, but not before grabbing a skinny part of a tree root that he uses to kill one of the Orcs (but it will turn out next episode that he is just mortally wounded).
Then after Arondir kills the Warg when it tries to attack Revion, he climbs up to see that Revion has taken an arrow to the chest. He will take another in a little bit, but I am surprised this Elf veteran goes down so easily when Boromir kept fighting with multiple arrows in his chest. But that is beside the point. The real problem is that this scene in particular shows that these Elves had no plan. And this is especially on Arondir, who was the one who climbed to the top of this trench in the first place to get a look around. Did his Elf eyes not see the Orcs who would shoot anyone who got out? If he did see them, why did they do nothing that showed awareness of them? If the Orcs somehow outsmarted the Elves just by having the most basic security, what does that say about these Elves? The writers clearly wanted a prison break scene, but they only put thought into what action set pieces they wanted, not into the actual thought processes of the characters. Also, I guess the Orcs that shot him don’t need to worry about the sun.
Adar and Sauron
Anyway, the episode that was 64 minutes and almost 30 seconds ends with Arondir being right back where he started at the beginning of the episode. But his plot armor protects him from being killed as he logically would be, because some Orc has the idea of bringing him to Adar. If this is not Sauron, as so many have claimed, then the show has gone to unnecessary lengths for the fake-out to make him look like Sauron with having his same armor. And instead of explaining his blurred but clearly Elf-life appearance as being his “Annatar” look, which he will use when approaching the Elf leaders, no, they just want this to be a new character. At least, that is what is being reported (and will be confirmed next episode). But the writers need red herrings for the audience, not for the people within the story.
I have heard speculation that Halbrand is actually going to turn out to be Sauron (note that I wrote this the week after episode 3). Like I said, if Adar is a red herring, they are going out of their way to make this red herring if this guy is wearing Sauron’s armor (we will see later it is just the similar gauntlet). I am not saying either of these characters needs to be Sauron, as neither of these names were ever attached to Sauron or an alter ego of his, but I would say that Halbrand seems more reasonable as a red herring, given how convenient everything about his story is and the fact that he is apparently skilled in forging things, which I think people have tried to squeeze too much inference out of. But let’s say it does turn out to be the case that Halbrand is Sauron in disguise. I must ask: to what end? If he did all this just to set a trap for Galadriel, that would require a boatload of convenience. He would need to know that she would be on a ship to Valinor, that she would abandon it at the last possible moment, that in the vast Sundering Seas she would be in the path of a makeshift raft made from the remains of a ship that he was on, which he would need to know would be in the right area of the vast Sundering Seas in the first place, and that they would be picked up by Númenóreans. And if his purpose is to kill her, why go through all of this? If he wants her dead, the sea would have taken care of that if he did not intervene. I will say, though, that if it turns out that Halbrand is Sauron, if for no other reason than that there is no Halbrand or equivalent in Tolkien’s stories, this would be the peak demonstration of how contrived the writing is. It would also be the peak demonstration of how little insight into people Galadriel has. That she would be traveling with the enemy she has been pursuing for an absurdly long time, not realizing that her enemy is right under her nose, so to speak, would do more to show what a dolt Amazon Galadriel is compared to Tolkien’s Galadriel. Also, the idea that she attributes their meeting to a greater power would ultimately be undermined in a most hilarious demonstration of her incompetence. Or it would be hilarious if it did not turn out that she caused such an incomprehensible scale of suffering by helping him like she has. But again, this is all assuming that one buys the theory that Halbrand is Sauron. I am not convinced, but I would not put it past these writers either.
[Update after the season finale: Rather than retract this claim that I was wrong about, since Halbrand is Sauron, I want it to be on record that I was wrong. I want it to be on record that I gave these writers the slightest benefit of the doubt about this major mystery of theirs and I was wrong. I want it to be on record that these writers cannot be trusted, even when given this slightest benefit of the doubt. This is one major reason why I will not be returning for season 2.]