I truly don't understand how they can try to convince people they have anything but CONTEMPT for Tolkien! The things they've done to the lore and to a world he spent DECADES creating are simply abhorrent. They deliberately inserted their views and politics into material of an author that stated, on the record, that he despised allegory and people corrupting his life's work. Their hubris is simply staggering. Great video, though, Erik. Was really hoping you'd do one on this article.
you have spoken true and we have the answer in our EXSURGE TOLKIEN counter rings of power heresy series. Contempt is exactly one of the heresies we defined on 25March, one of four.
Their views are also morally abhorrent, the hobbits are straight up social darwinists and they are supposed to be the good guys! They leave an injured man AND HIS FAMILY INCLUDING A SMALL CHILD! Behind to die!
I'm genuinely heartbroken by this show, and Amazon's obvious attempts to split the fandom, up to an including calling fans 'fascist-adjacent'. Your opinions are well thought out, and I will be looking for your articles in the future on all topics.
I am surprised I have enough time in the day really to be homephobic transphobic xenophobic misogynistic chauvinistic stupid fascist ( and fascist adjacent) no knowledge of the books and also a book purist not to mention patently evil a man-baby a troll and mass murderer as well as anti woke maga and a colonialist and right wing. Oh and old fashioned.
I love when they state as fact “Attracts Fascist adjacent fans” with absolutely no facts. It’s absolutely despicable. Thank you Eric for calling these people out.
Maybe next time hire people who have an idea of what they're getting into and it's not a "learning experience" when it comes to a 1 BILLION DOLLAR project involving a well-known and beloved fantasy franchise
Creating a new character Halbrand and then thinking it’s clever writing that he turns out to be Sauron and thinking no one could ever see that coming is not just a crime against Tolkien but also a crime against imagination.
Loved this video, not only for your reaction to the honesty of the show runners (holy moley) but it's always great to hear insight into how Prof Tolkien's very conservative views still definitely did not place him into ugly territory, and more so how he definitely did not fit into the very modern boxes of 2022's political battlefields. Reading mass in Latin ftw
@@ErikKain I can immediately picture that lol! Very kind of you to reply :) While I have a chance, it's going back a few years but I always appreciated you sticking up for Rey in Star Wars, I was with you all the way. Hope you carry on commenting on 'Rings', if this thing runs for years it may be a sometimes tiresome but honourable commitment! Thanks again
There are some elements of Tolkien’s worldview (the innate blood-based superiority of the Numenoreans, for example) that I find problematic. I can live with that. But he was a complicated character and he was the least agenda driven writer that is possible to imagine.
Speaking for myself, the diversity in the show isn't a "people of color cant be elves or dwarves because I don't like people of color" issue, it is that the series put them in bizarre places or contradicts the lore. Diversity is a good thing and can be done properly but in the Rings of Power there is nothing to distinguish one human faction from another half way around the world. Game of Thrones had a diverse cast but they were smart enough to hire actors that fit with the geographic location they were set in: people from the north tended to be fair skinned because it's cold and dark all the time (for instance), people from southern regions like Dorne tended to have a Mediterranean look, whereas to the east in the desert lands in Essos had middle eastern or African look. A point I am trying to make is that GoT doing it this way helped the show feel more immersive whereas in RoP any human faction can look like anything. RoP could have done that approach, perhaps include areas and peoples such as the haradrim, Umbar, etc, but the approach they took makes the show seem less "real". With regards to the lore aspect, since this story is supposed to take place before The Hobbit and LotR, the makeup of the societies depicted, as well as the specific characters that we know from LotR, are absolutely affected by what's happening in this series. Playing roulette with the skin colors of races that have very clear descriptions in Tolkien's work is actually making a statement that affects the original material and film adaptations. Where did all the Hobbits and Elves with different skin tones go in the intervening years? Is Arondir from a different house or region? As a fan of the lore these would be discussions I would be interested in having versus assume its so because fantasy. Does their absence in the movies or books now not strike people as very odd or suspicious? Was there a genocide? Who knows? The whole point of having the different races in the original material was to critique people without making it specifically about real world physical characteristics. Fictional stories actually need to stick by their rules (canon) because they don’t have the benefit of actual rules that non fictional stories do. It will jar the audience if you’re breaking your rules left and right. The showrunners are just tone deaf.
Great points, Erik! I genuinely wanted to give the show a shot as well because we all win if the show is a hit but unfortunately, like you, I have grown weary of how the show turned out. I do understand that there's some vitriol over the show but they're just making it an excuse now and it's just sad that they're relying on some hate comments to justify how poorly they executed some of the aspects of the show. I appreciate all of your honesty from day one and I also share the view that it was promising to begin with but it's just hard to love the show at this point. Thank you for the video and I also enjoy your written works, cheers!
I wonder how long it will take media execs to realize that ignoring critiques of bad writing also hurts their desire for diversity and makes it look like disingenuous virtue signaling. This article reminded me in all the bad ways of what John Boyega said about his experience with Disney's Star Wars. ‘WHAT I SAY TO DISNEY IS DO NOT MARKET A BLACK CHARACTER AS IMPORTANT AND THEN PUSH THEM ASIDE’. Disney just wrote a terrible character arc for Boyega that didn't go anywhere. It was mainly a writing problem. I'm actually more scared if the show runners really believe they are being faithful to Tolkien. If you can't understand a literary work, its main themes and its aesthetic appeal, (even if you disagree with it), it makes me question your ability to understand people outside of your bubble and POV. Accepting someone and understanding are often conflated, but substantively different. If you can't exhibit an ability to understand the show's own source material and write complex characters then any appeal to diversity in defense feels unearned.
Yep. Here's the thing: If you want to push back against critics of diversity, then you'd better make a damn good show with the best actors you can find and give them a good script to work with!
I have the depressing feeling that JJ Abrams, destroyer of franchises as another commenter said, wrote Boyega’s character out because he wanted to avoid the backlash. And ended up with that critical and popular favorite, Rise of Skywalker.
That paragraph about noone knowing what they were doing was the most revealing one. The more I acquaint myself with the showrunners the more I see they're kinda basic and out of their depth. The author's line about fascist adjacency is just lazy.
The most hillarious thing about that article, was how it starts in the writers room. The *war room*, as they describe it. Where Season 2 is being meticulously planned out. Hillarious, because the current season has all the hallmarks of being desperately rewritten on the set! Like they've got all the set-pieces planned out ahead of time. But have no idea how they're going to get from one to the other! "Oh, you couldn't traverse Middle-Earth, West to East in an afternoon? Sucks to be you, Hobbits and Dwarves. grow longer legs, i guess!"
I agree, when they say "oh we're doing a two episode battle" I don't doubt they'll start filming it before they're even sure what it's supposed to be about.
The word "Adjacent" in this kind of context means "we want to lie about you but we also don't want to get sued" Saying you're something requires evidence, saying you're adjacent to something could mean anything.
Found out about your content after reading your "inexplicably bad writing" piece, and just gotta say - glad to see someone provide a rational voice to the many conversations we're having culturally about our entertainment. It's not single sided, just well reasoned. Good stuff dude.
This is Simon Tolkien’s baby ..his shot at leaving a legacy like his father and grandfather. His resentment and lack of love for middle earth is obvious in his interviews.
I prefer someone who liked the show and then grew to notice the problems than people critical from before it even aired. I tried to give it a shot, and I agree. Every episode it is getting worse. It's like following a close friend through the woods who has a map. You notice the same trees time after time and ask if we are lost, and they just chuckle and say No, or (worse) trust me! After 6 hours you start to get ANGRY. You snarl at them that we are obviously lost, and they turn and snarl back that you must hate them because you are biased against them in some way. That is what this show is doing to me. It gets worse every show. No one acts intelligently, things just happen because they must, people do things because they must and on and on to keep the story plodding along. Episode 6 was rough. Very hard to sit through (I yelled at the TV often).
The evidence was already abundant that the show would be a disaster before the first promotional images even came out. I'm sorry that you had to endure all of that, though.
You and me both. I kept hoping it would get better. I watched it twice and it was slightly better the second time because I didn’t have to endure the bloody mystery boxes. I fast forwarded all the Harfoots though. But then I watched Andor and that was when I became *really* angry. Andor did a better job of world-building, with brutalist architecture and good costuming, and with a fraction of the mountain of money (more than the Jackson movies *combined*) that RoP had, than the Awkward Squad the Tolkien Estate entrusted their Second Age rights to.
I was writing an elaborate reply about how ROP raises an interesting question on what is the right way of casting an adaptation set in a fictional world with clearly defined races and their skin tones, without limiting opportunities for real actors in the real world whose skin tone might be misaligned with this of the made up fantasy source material. Then I realised, that the Rings of Power is so outlandishly horrible, no matter what interesting questions are being posed by its existence, they will never lead to a wider discussion that might have an actual positive outcome. These discussions will we washed away like a spring rain over the bones of a spoilt carcass. So instead, my question is, where do they keep all the horses in the six of the three remaining ships of the great navy of Numenor?!
Ha, way to sneak that quotation in there! And yes, this is the important question. My theory is that they have the shrinking machine from Honey I Shrunk The Kids and they just shrink the horses down before sailing and size them back up after they disembark.
If I, as a white guy, were an actor I would not expect to be cast in a fantasy epic told in a medieval Japanese setting based around 1000AD. The answer is that there is more than one fantasy setting, and I might act in one based off of European fantasy like LotR. What this means I think is that we need more stories from different places told; we need those Japanese fantasy epics, those African mythologies. Tell stories where it makes SENSE to have casting of people with different appearances. Even in Middle Earth, instead of having odd, misplaced diversity in places where it doesn't fit (why are there white people, black people, asian people all in one little village in the middle of nowhere that has like 100 people living in it?) Instead, they should tell stories in Harad, in actual Southron, in Rhun. Show where the Blue Wizards went and the people around them. Show the massive port city of Pelargir that would have people from all over living in it. And as an added benefit, because those places are not filled out in Tolkien's writings, they would have much more leeway to write what they wanted instead of wrecking existing canon. Honestly, if the writers aren't good enough to make diversity shown on screen believable in the setting, they shouldn't be writing on that show.
I mean race switching characters is not a good thing. If a white guy was the protagonist of a movie based on a mayan myth, the backlash would be colosal.
@@ErikKain that's too sophisticated.. we already know they can teleport freely in middle earth so the horses weren't even on the boats. The ship scenes were made for dramatic effect and the horses already halfway into the "Southlands"
Good stuff man. It's good to hear a clear voice on an issue that isn't just bigger than RoP but the very reason why this topic has hit critical mass in the entertainment industry. If this doesn't change the way or direction Hollywood is going. Then I don't know what will.
Once out of boredom, I read about 1000 RoP reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Only 2 of them mentioned race - which is because this show has much bigger problems than that. People complained the most about boredom, bad writing (of story and characters). And the inconsistency with what Tolkien wrote. If you take the time to read even only 100 reviews from there then you'll see what I'm talking about 😊 If Amazon employees had devoted their time to read it, they would have known about all the problems of the show, without paying for expensive market research - they have all the data at hand. In user reviews.
Folks, you should actually read the Hollywood Reporter article. Sycophancy & sucking up to Amazon notwithstanding, you’ll be shocked at the lack of experience these clowns brought to the writing table. It reminded me of that product launch in that movie “Barbarians at the gate” ☺️☺️
This is very much Simon Tolkien's Tolkien Estate now. He seems to be very much a business man. He was a career lawyer who aspired to write thrillers and who I'm certain has eyed the financial potential for his grandfather's legacy for a while now. His opinions on the Jackson films is that they were "too faithful" to his grandfather's books, and his involvement and ideologies surrounding his grandfathers work caused Christopher Tolkien to cut off Simon's inheritance, which, of course, was later reconciled. I'm not here to slander the man, Lord knows J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn't want random folks on the internet berating his family. I'm just pointing out that he's clearly got very different priorities from his father Christopher Tolkien, who seeked to maintain a stewardship regarding how J.R.R. Tolkien's work and creative licensing was handled and how this effected the cultural consciousness' of those works. Ultimately, it seems the dispute with Simon was resolved and reconciled, and understandably--regardless of the details, familial ties make sense to prioritize over creative licensing of an intellectual property. And back to Simon Tolkien's priorities, it seems he's wanting to just open up the business opportunities and financial gain that he can weild with his inheritance of The Estate, and faithfulness in the sense the fans hope for is not the same faithfulness that Simon is concerned about. Hollywood corporate executives really just don't understand this sort of stuff, so, since Simon went out vetting his father's work for adaptation and essentially got: PJ reboot, MCU style LOTR, or newly made up stories in Tolkien's pre-established framework with a promise of some kind of relataionship with the estate, it makes sense he chose this. I think he jumped the gun. There were ways to go about this, especially with the Saul Zaents rights that came into a bidding war... Capitalism and a for-profit mindset doesn't guarantee bad entertainment, but there are plenty of examples where it blinds folks along the way and brings in bidders and businesses who fundamentally misunderstand what they're buying. I'm not a fan of what's been produced in the least, but looking back on things... it makes sense.
I think we can solidly lay the blame for this entire fiasco at the doorstep of Simon Tolkien. "I have enjoyed assisting Amazon Studios in connection with the series, and in particular providing input to JD Payne and Patrick McKay on matters including my grandfather’s original writing.”
We called this in Exsurge Tolkien, since 25 March, now its a full apostasy of power, The evidence is clear, and none can deny that "ROP" is not of Tolkien. Our EXSURGE TOLKIEN that makes robustly clear the heresy of the showrunner's mouths and hearts. They probably know nothing of Tolkien's masterpiece, as evident from their interview in the Vanity Fair Article. For "they who proclaim to loveth Tolkien, yet understandeth, not his world view can neither hope to create a new film, show, or series of his secondary world." "Auta i lóme!" and" Aurë entuluva!"
Amazon did the same nonsense with Wheel of Time. Picked an inexperienced showrunner who was fake fan and wanted 'modernize' the story in his talentless image. Did faux diversity for the sake of 'diversity' rather than simply leveraging the diversity already in the world - which only diminished the story and world building and created confusion. Blamed their hubris and incompetence on the fans for pointing out the issues. And ultimately produced a sub-par product that looked and felt cheap and delivered boring and confused plot and characters. How do there studios keep making the same mistakes over and over without ever holding anyone accountable. It's obviously a top down issue somewhere in the chain
The part of the Tolkien estate Amazon is dealing with, Simon, doesn't give a damn about "fidelity to Tolkien" as he has been very vocal about his hatred for his grandfather and father.
I don't think they had a pitch that was sold well. I think both showrunners know people in the top ranks of Amazon and won. It has to be nepotism. Inexperienced writers do not start out with such a big project. They get awarded small things like scenes and episodes and work their way up.
@@ryannewman4412 ironically the show runners had….*slightly* more experience. One of them wrote a scene or two in the Troy movie with Brad Pitt in it. The Amazon guys? No experience whatsoever. With the GoT show runners, it’s akin to an intern of one company jumping up to the position of CEO for another company, while Amazon guys walked in as the CEO after doing….nothing related to the position they just got.
@@beckyweiss6072 now that I think of it they worked with JJ Abrams and did mention they asked him to call and give them a good recommendation. They even said "we think that really turned the needled."
Hi Erik, is there anyway you can get some natural or warmer light in your new setup? In the previous setup your face had a more natural glow; this setup is very bright...If not, don't worry about it, I'll still watch the videos 😄 Really enjoying the content. 👍
Writing a bunch of movies that never got made is the same as applying to a bunch of jobs and not getting hired... Yeah the inexperience oozes from every scene. My expectations were not high considering almost all previously made "Amazon Originals" productions have pretty bad writing/directing/acting. This one is just on par with the rest of them.
As someone mentioned already, after Christopher died, all bets were off. I could give a damn about Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Society and other so-called "Tolkien Experts". I have Tolkien's books, and that's all I need. His work has stood the test of time, and will continue to do so for generations to come, while this crap show will be forgotten. Thank you for speaking out against this vandalism though. I often read your blog but I had no idea you had a YT channel as well. Subscribed.
For season 2, I hope we see the following: 1: There was no magic tree. An elf, maybe glorfindel, summoned lightning using a silmaril as a focus, which he was trying to smuggle away from feanor, to kill the balrog intercepting him (maybe riding a dragon, why not?). When the balrog corpse sank into the molten rock created it became the mithril. the elf died in the process and Feanor's house took the silmaril back. Gilgalad or his forebears made up the tree story to cover up the theft for political reasons. 2: The elves are not losing their immortality, they're being tricked by some illusion of Sauron to get the forge built. 3: A small party of survivors will have to venture east into the deserts of Harad to escape Mordor, so we see a more interesting place than crappy rohan, I mean the southlands. 4: Celeborn should be introduced as a main character. They altered the lore so Galadriel isn't married yet, which should at least implied to be corrected, and galadriel needs someone to drive her to change as a character.
A tryst between Galadriel and Halbrand as Sauron. By Eru, no! If they alter the parentage of Celebrian, yt will burst into flames hotter than that of a Balrog!
Good comment on the article. 🙂 As for the new setup - looks good in general, but I think the camera was out of focus? It looks more like the picture on the wall were in sharper focus than you.
Yep I mention this in the video description. It was in focus at first and then just randomly went out of focus, but I was like "NOPE. Not re-recording the whole damn thing." But I'll definitely have to figure that out for the next one. Annoying!
i am neither white nor english is my native tongue and still i am more furious than most of the native english over this ambomination because tolkien's litrature have made my prespective of the real world depite being fictional! “evil cannot create anything NEW, they can only CORRUPT and RUIN good forces have invented or made” -the professor
It’s easier to call people awful names than to accept that you aren’t good at something. the greater the ego, the more fragile the person. The vast majority of people aren’t racist, sexist, blah blah blah. They just want to be entertained. The Tolkien fans want the work respected and the normies want compelling entertainment. No one is winning here.
The trolls who review bombed the show on sites like imdb and rottentomatoes because they can't stomach Black people in Middle Earth or women protagonists are making it more difficult for actual real criticisms of the show's writing, pacing, etc. to be taken seriously because they are the loudest and most vicious so it's best to call that stuff out and not to minimise it imo.
GoT/HotD gets more praise than RoP because it's actually watchable. RoP is just flat out difficult to sit through because of the poor writing and acting. If RoP had the same/similar story line, similarly "diverse" cast, but actually had well written scenes with good acting then the audience would generally like it. Sure the lore would be criticized, but people wouldn't be making 4 hour long videos literally mocking every single scene for how bad the writing/acting is.
Btw another reason to believe creators didnt read any Tolkien at all - i just recently decided to read lotr in english (im from Poland) and in the preface Tolkien is explaining how this story is not based on world war II events - and that he doesnt want people to search for allegories of lotr events in Real life. But here the creators state that Lotr is lnspired by WWI xd just read two Pages of preface guys!
Hey Erik, the focus on your camera is off. Do you have facial recognition? Otherwise you can try to make your background darker than your face or manually focus it to a certain distance. As much as I love that art behind you, just thought i'd mention it.
The Truth is if we allow Amazon to continue This behaver Like Hire not Experienced ShowRunners &Writers Director all That will happen is allow it to Continue the laziness Even though you Remove Tolkien all Rings of Power Lazy We have to Fight back Now Then they can do it again . fight back
Thanks Erik. Great musings as usual. I think RoP is terrible, but it has diverse casting and strong women, so I must be an ist and a phobe, right? But I'm loving House of the Dragon, so there goes that accusation.
Hey dude, dig the new set-up. I agree that a lot of those things in the piece are kinda just "hinted" at rather than expounded on and explained. You could say that because so many more reviews were tossed at ROP that by nature it probably has more 'trolls" but that's hard to substantiate. It could be possible that because of the older and definitely more conservatives (anti-woke for sure) parts of the fanbase that might contribute as well, it's just hard to measure. I would however caution you when lumping Giorgi Meloni (the new Italian Premier) in with all the rest as she has a pretty intensely documented history of being what most people would at least consider "facetious adjacent" it's a long history since she was about 19. I despise the word Facetious currently because it honestly doesn't mean anything really, it's as overused as "nazi" is, but for her the actual definition fits pretty well. Anyways brother, been following you for a really long time, good to see your YT outreach growing. GG.
Oh I totally agree she's more fascist-adjacent and I wasn't meaning to lump her in with the rest. I just mean that while there ARE surely fascists in the fandom, there are likely just way more conservative or anti-woke types. Speaking on the fly sometimes I realize I don't convey this kind of thing clearly enough!
Episodes 1-5 was when Rings Of Power was trying, and failing, to be Game of Thrones. Episode 6 was when RoP went full "Season8" and I think that's why it won over so many people. All attempts at world-building, character development and narrative went out the window in favour of brain-off, nonsensical action scenes. Episode 6 was an episode aimed squarely at the kind of people who went to their local bar to watch GoT Season 8 with their friends to talk over the dialogue and erupted into cheers when Arya dropped out of the sky like the start of a Fortnite game, dagger in hand. The irony is that the problems that have plagued RoP since the start were thrown into such sharp focus in this episode its now impossible to look past them, yet that's exactly why these people liked it. This show wasn't made for us, it was made for them. Something we're just going to have to accept.
I find the show has poor writing, poor plotting, poor costumes, a terrible story and only the teeny, tiniest bit of anything Tolkien in it (largely names). Guess that makes me an evil, racist troll.
It always cracks me up when Leftists try claim that LOTR was somehow Woke 😆. Just like you stated, Tolkien was ULTRA Conservative and took his spirituality and religious beliefs very seriously. He was also extremely anti-government.
Bro. You can see Erik's descent into depression with every passing day. It's in his eyes. So sad. Dude was super positive about the show before it released, and now it's like, folks have to keep calling Erik's phone every day to make sure he hasn't done something to bad to himself
I hope season two is better then season one. I just want to see the series stic to the cannon. And as for all the black characters, I don’t care about the race thing,I don’t care if the cast is all white. Stic to the cannon. I’m a proud black man and I don’t care to see a black elf, just stic to the cannon .
That’s what I thought bro - ‘fascist-adjacent’ is newspeak. These asses and their “show” are both antithetical to Tolkien’s morality and morality in general.
There are similarities between Tolkien and fascists, both of them criticize capitalism not from a progressive standpoint, aka a socialdemocrat or communist one, but a reactionary one, which would be going back to feudalism, and this is especially true for German nazis. The main difference between them, which makes nazis evil and Tolkien not, is that Tolkien also rejects industrialization, the nazis don't! They wanted feudalism with machine guns.
Tolkien fans: "Hey! Stop violating Tolkien's text, it's not his fault ancient Europe just happened to be filled with all white people. Your woke leftist agenda wasn't in Tolkien's books!" Studio and Producers: "So, you're ok with women having beards right? Cause that was in Tolkien's books too." Tolkien fans: ***silence*** What most people don't realize is that racism and sexism comes from both the audience and the studio. It's not mutually exclusive. Maybe instead of asking if something is racist, ask how instead? As long as the question is "if," the answer will always be "no."
Poor Tolkein. He imagined an elaborate fantasy world primarily as an excuse to create imaginary languages from scratch. The rest was fun but the languages were serious. And now his politics is being dissected to justify or attack the Amazon excrescence. Sigh.
Great video, Erik. I noticed that you 'colleague' Paul Tassi has been surgically detached from his place in Disney's human centipede of media shills so that he can soften the effects of your justifiable criticism of The Rings of Power on behalf of Forbes. I can only imagine how that conversation went.. My condolences on being the unfortunate messenger.
Nah, Paul just has his own views. Oddly he was more critical at first and has moved toward liking it with this latest episode. I've gone the opposite way. Forbes doesn't care about our opinions.
I don’t like the show because it’s a bad show, but the fact that my opinion makes them think I’m patently evil and a racist is horrible. They don’t know me, they only know how to make trash.
Also, I *do* think there is a massive organised troll-based bashing mob, which started screeching before the series aired. But that doesn’t mean that a fuckload of people who eagerly waited awake until 4:00am to watch the show and were willing to forgive a lot ended up incandescent with rage, not because of ethnic diversity or girl boss power but because the showrunners are incompetent, inexperienced beginners devoid of talent or humility who extruded an embarrassingly bad show.
When they made the deal Christopher was still alive and after he passed amazon fired and hired alot of the crew at that time supposedly. So if that's true I think any reasonable person can read between the lines
Hi! Italian fan here. Yes, the relationship between Tolkien and Italian far right movements is kinda complex and an unicum I believe. Basically when Tolkien’s first translations reached the country in the 70s (yep quiet late) the Italian mainstream literature was greatly characterized by a Marxist materialistic approach and thus strongly focused on treating political and social issues. Tolkien fantasy was quickly (and mistakenly) discarted as futile fables ignoring the real concrete problems of the Country. The far right forces, largely marginalized at the time and with poor literature of reference, appropriated The Lord of the Rings and used it to foster their nationalistic ideas (the battles against the evil, heroes defending their , exc.). Fortunately with the arrival of Peter Jackson’s trilogy and the larger diffusion of the Professor’s work, the fandom clearly expanded and the study of Tolkien’s literature developed beyond the simplistic politicized approach. Tolkien hated contingent and agenda-serving allegories of any kind wrongly extrapolated from his work and instead aimed at creating a universal story. The peculiarity that many I Think struggle to understand is that yes there are traceable themes and images referring to a, for instance, catholic and Norse culture. Yet these represent solely the means helping the construction of a totally separated world through which reaching a pure and liberating escapism. Helping the others, for example, can be associated to a Christian value system, but Tolkien is not here trying to ask us to be Christians (critic that J.R.R. Moved to C.S. Lewis). The author is depicting, instead, a value traceable in its invented world which appears us, hence, close to ours and realistic even if fantastic. Politicizing Tolkien is wrong for any ideological direction this intention may be directed. Probably there are fascists and racists who are criticizing the show on these premises. Yet responding to all critics uniquely applying this political dialectic signals two worrying hypothesis: - the show runners did not study Tolkien in depth and thus are not able to actually distinguish between political and non-political criticism - the showrunners use this political defense to cover the evident structural and technical problem of the shows
There are a TON of facists who REALLY love Pink Floyd. So much so, in fact, that Roger Waters even alluded to this "problem" in The Wall. Does that make Pink Floyd a fascist band? Is anybody who likes Pink Floyd a potential target to be called an "ist"? Ridiculous, obviously. But this is the world we apparently live in, now.
I saw the concept art for how some of the scenes were supposed to be depicted. They were way better than what was actually filmed. Quite a few of us agree that the only good things in the show are Elindil, Durin and Disa despite some of the crap dialogue they were given. That's despite us thinking that Durin & Disa's characters break lore. If they were going to create black dwarves..why is there only one. It makes the poor woman stick out like a sore thumb.
Everything seems to be binary these days. You either love something or you hate it. You are either for it, or against it. If you're not IN the tribe, you are so obviously against the tribe. I think there are plenty of us who just sit on the fence and like to watch the sunset...
Can anyone tell me why there's a black actor playing the part of Earendir? What's up with that? Why? I mean, really, why? (And why not is not a good answer.)
You mean Ëarendil? He’s already sailing the sky by the time RoP opens. If you mean Arondir, please point out the place where Tolkien says all Moriquendi are white.
I like the music of Wagner so it must follow that I'm a Nazi sympathiser. Guilt by preference or association. Honestly, you would think by now people would have moved ahead of this type of infantile thinking.
You spent a lot of time talking about Politics and even lost yourself in Roman Catholiscism in early 20th century Britain. Tolkien was a philologist and enjoyed languages. Some of his desire to retain Latin, apart from being a Conservative would reflects this. You sounded very out of your depth at times. In Britain in the early 20 century You were franklyfloundering about in subjects you clearly had only very superficial knowledge at best. Conversely you spent very little time addressing the subject of your vid which you entitled " Rings Of Power Creators Break Silence Over Fan Backlash!" That was what I'd come for and what your reported was intersting. Just to give you a hint or two about what you found attempted to discuss other than that: Being a Conservative in early 20th century Britain and Europe which had just come out of a World War, with a long history of a monarchy was very, very different from, I'm guessing, what you understand by Conservatism and experiencing currently with Trump and the GOP in early 21st century in a nation that is only 250 odd years old. As to Italy. I thought that your comment was a bit off, saying 'come on Itallians'. I know you don't mean any ill will in this respect will but please do try to be a bit more careful. Do your homework,l. People have feelings. Great swathes of Italians, including some of my realtives do not welcome a Fasicst leader in a place of power at the current time, Stick to Tolkien's literary works, his amazing stories and his ability to have built up a mythical Wolrld which has entranced millions .If you do, I'll press that like button and might even subscribe.
‘We understand the Themes of Tolkien’
*BURNS AN EAGLE 5 MINUTES INTO THE SHOW*
we see exactly what your intentions were.
I truly don't understand how they can try to convince people they have anything but CONTEMPT for Tolkien! The things they've done to the lore and to a world he spent DECADES creating are simply abhorrent. They deliberately inserted their views and politics into material of an author that stated, on the record, that he despised allegory and people corrupting his life's work. Their hubris is simply staggering. Great video, though, Erik. Was really hoping you'd do one on this article.
Thanks. Hubris is exactly the right word.
you have spoken true and we have the answer in our EXSURGE TOLKIEN counter rings of power heresy series. Contempt is exactly one of the heresies we defined on 25March, one of four.
@@ErikKain Hubris is the fourth heresy we define in the counter series .
great comment, I feel the same way about this show,, it was made with ill intent.
Their views are also morally abhorrent, the hobbits are straight up social darwinists and they are supposed to be the good guys!
They leave an injured man AND HIS FAMILY INCLUDING A SMALL CHILD! Behind to die!
I'm genuinely heartbroken by this show, and Amazon's obvious attempts to split the fandom, up to an including calling fans 'fascist-adjacent'.
Your opinions are well thought out, and I will be looking for your articles in the future on all topics.
I am surprised I have enough time in the day really to be homephobic transphobic xenophobic misogynistic chauvinistic stupid fascist ( and fascist adjacent) no knowledge of the books and also a book purist not to mention patently evil a man-baby a troll and mass murderer as well as anti woke maga and a colonialist and right wing. Oh and old fashioned.
Same!! I so wanted to like it!! im a huge LOTR and Tolkien fan, so im completely disappointed
on the plus side it's clearly not working. There is no divide in the fandom, there's just an even clearer divide between the fans and the posers
They actually described some fans as "evil". I think they are utterly delusional.
I love when they state as fact “Attracts Fascist adjacent fans” with absolutely no facts. It’s absolutely despicable. Thank you Eric for calling these people out.
Maybe next time hire people who have an idea of what they're getting into and it's not a "learning experience" when it comes to a 1 BILLION DOLLAR project involving a well-known and beloved fantasy franchise
Creating a new character Halbrand and then thinking it’s clever writing that he turns out to be Sauron and thinking no one could ever see that coming is not just a crime against Tolkien but also a crime against imagination.
He might be the witch king .... But no matter what, Do we really care now? Whatever... Shit show.
Loved this video, not only for your reaction to the honesty of the show runners (holy moley) but it's always great to hear insight into how Prof Tolkien's very conservative views still definitely did not place him into ugly territory, and more so how he definitely did not fit into the very modern boxes of 2022's political battlefields. Reading mass in Latin ftw
He would say the words in Latin loudly also. To make his point haha.
@@ErikKain I can immediately picture that lol!
Very kind of you to reply :) While I have a chance, it's going back a few years but I always appreciated you sticking up for Rey in Star Wars, I was with you all the way. Hope you carry on commenting on 'Rings', if this thing runs for years it may be a sometimes tiresome but honourable commitment! Thanks again
@@timkinss thanks! And hey, at least it's fun to talk about even if the show is bad!
There are some elements of Tolkien’s worldview (the innate blood-based superiority of the Numenoreans, for example) that I find problematic. I can live with that. But he was a complicated character and he was the least agenda driven writer that is possible to imagine.
Thank you for continuously lending your voice, Erik. Know that it is much appreciated and needed.
Speaking for myself, the diversity in the show isn't a "people of color cant be elves or dwarves because I don't like people of color" issue, it is that the series put them in bizarre places or contradicts the lore. Diversity is a good thing and can be done properly but in the Rings of Power there is nothing to distinguish one human faction from another half way around the world. Game of Thrones had a diverse cast but they were smart enough to hire actors that fit with the geographic location they were set in: people from the north tended to be fair skinned because it's cold and dark all the time (for instance), people from southern regions like Dorne tended to have a Mediterranean look, whereas to the east in the desert lands in Essos had middle eastern or African look. A point I am trying to make is that GoT doing it this way helped the show feel more immersive whereas in RoP any human faction can look like anything. RoP could have done that approach, perhaps include areas and peoples such as the haradrim, Umbar, etc, but the approach they took makes the show seem less "real".
With regards to the lore aspect, since this story is supposed to take place before The Hobbit and LotR, the makeup of the societies depicted, as well as the specific characters that we know from LotR, are absolutely affected by what's happening in this series. Playing roulette with the skin colors of races that have very clear descriptions in Tolkien's work is actually making a statement that affects the original material and film adaptations. Where did all the Hobbits and Elves with different skin tones go in the intervening years? Is Arondir from a different house or region? As a fan of the lore these would be discussions I would be interested in having versus assume its so because fantasy. Does their absence in the movies or books now not strike people as very odd or suspicious? Was there a genocide? Who knows? The whole point of having the different races in the original material was to critique people without making it specifically about real world physical characteristics.
Fictional stories actually need to stick by their rules (canon) because they don’t have the benefit of actual rules that non fictional stories do. It will jar the audience if you’re breaking your rules left and right. The showrunners are just tone deaf.
Great points, Erik! I genuinely wanted to give the show a shot as well because we all win if the show is a hit but unfortunately, like you, I have grown weary of how the show turned out. I do understand that there's some vitriol over the show but they're just making it an excuse now and it's just sad that they're relying on some hate comments to justify how poorly they executed some of the aspects of the show. I appreciate all of your honesty from day one and I also share the view that it was promising to begin with but it's just hard to love the show at this point.
Thank you for the video and I also enjoy your written works, cheers!
I wonder how long it will take media execs to realize that ignoring critiques of bad writing also hurts their desire for diversity and makes it look like disingenuous virtue signaling. This article reminded me in all the bad ways of what John Boyega said about his experience with Disney's Star Wars. ‘WHAT I SAY TO DISNEY IS DO NOT MARKET A BLACK CHARACTER AS IMPORTANT AND THEN PUSH THEM ASIDE’. Disney just wrote a terrible character arc for Boyega that didn't go anywhere. It was mainly a writing problem. I'm actually more scared if the show runners really believe they are being faithful to Tolkien. If you can't understand a literary work, its main themes and its aesthetic appeal, (even if you disagree with it), it makes me question your ability to understand people outside of your bubble and POV. Accepting someone and understanding are often conflated, but substantively different. If you can't exhibit an ability to understand the show's own source material and write complex characters then any appeal to diversity in defense feels unearned.
Yep. Here's the thing: If you want to push back against critics of diversity, then you'd better make a damn good show with the best actors you can find and give them a good script to work with!
I have the depressing feeling that JJ Abrams, destroyer of franchises as another commenter said, wrote Boyega’s character out because he wanted to avoid the backlash. And ended up with that critical and popular favorite, Rise of Skywalker.
JJ Abrams, destroyer of franchises.
But for reals.
Found your channel via this Rings of Power stuff. Subscribed. Really like your perspective and level-headedness.
That paragraph about noone knowing what they were doing was the most revealing one. The more I acquaint myself with the showrunners the more I see they're kinda basic and out of their depth. The author's line about fascist adjacency is just lazy.
Thank you Eric. I find your commentary to be thoughtful and pointful. I have subscribed.
Thanks!
The most hillarious thing about that article, was how it starts in the writers room. The *war room*, as they describe it. Where Season 2 is being meticulously planned out.
Hillarious, because the current season has all the hallmarks of being desperately rewritten on the set! Like they've got all the set-pieces planned out ahead of time. But have no idea how they're going to get from one to the other!
"Oh, you couldn't traverse Middle-Earth, West to East in an afternoon? Sucks to be you, Hobbits and Dwarves. grow longer legs, i guess!"
I agree, when they say "oh we're doing a two episode battle" I don't doubt they'll start filming it before they're even sure what it's supposed to be about.
The word "Adjacent" in this kind of context means "we want to lie about you but we also don't want to get sued"
Saying you're something requires evidence, saying you're adjacent to something could mean anything.
Thankfully I'd set my coffee down before your "Volcanoes! Yay!" line! 'Got a good laugh out of that one.
Found out about your content after reading your "inexplicably bad writing" piece, and just gotta say - glad to see someone provide a rational voice to the many conversations we're having culturally about our entertainment. It's not single sided, just well reasoned. Good stuff dude.
Your analysis is reasoned and intelligent.
Great stuff Erik. Keep up the good work!
This is Simon Tolkien’s baby ..his shot at leaving a legacy like his father and grandfather. His resentment and lack of love for middle earth is obvious in his interviews.
The previous serup was better, chiller, cosier, and closer to us tue viewers!! Thanks for the great videos :)!
I had to stop watching because I found myself clenching my jaw the whole time.
Those two showrunners buffoonery and goofyness deserve The disrespectful treatment for insulting Tolkien,as the saying goes"karma begets karma"
I prefer someone who liked the show and then grew to notice the problems than people critical from before it even aired. I tried to give it a shot, and I agree. Every episode it is getting worse. It's like following a close friend through the woods who has a map. You notice the same trees time after time and ask if we are lost, and they just chuckle and say No, or (worse) trust me! After 6 hours you start to get ANGRY. You snarl at them that we are obviously lost, and they turn and snarl back that you must hate them because you are biased against them in some way. That is what this show is doing to me. It gets worse every show. No one acts intelligently, things just happen because they must, people do things because they must and on and on to keep the story plodding along. Episode 6 was rough. Very hard to sit through (I yelled at the TV often).
"I prefer someone who liked the show and then grew to notice the problems"
I puked after 10 minutes of the first episode.
The evidence was already abundant that the show would be a disaster before the first promotional images even came out. I'm sorry that you had to endure all of that, though.
What can I say, I just have good prophetic powers...
You and me both. I kept hoping it would get better. I watched it twice and it was slightly better the second time because I didn’t have to endure the bloody mystery boxes. I fast forwarded all the Harfoots though. But then I watched Andor and that was when I became *really* angry. Andor did a better job of world-building, with brutalist architecture and good costuming, and with a fraction of the mountain of money (more than the Jackson movies *combined*) that RoP had, than the Awkward Squad the Tolkien Estate entrusted their Second Age rights to.
Show runner: have you ever read any of Tolkien books?
Actors: never.
Show runner: you're hired! Never ever read that books.
Keep writing those Forbe articles, they are great
I was writing an elaborate reply about how ROP raises an interesting question on what is the right way of casting an adaptation set in a fictional world with clearly defined races and their skin tones, without limiting opportunities for real actors in the real world whose skin tone might be misaligned with this of the made up fantasy source material. Then I realised, that the Rings of Power is so outlandishly horrible, no matter what interesting questions are being posed by its existence, they will never lead to a wider discussion that might have an actual positive outcome. These discussions will we washed away like a spring rain over the bones of a spoilt carcass. So instead, my question is, where do they keep all the horses in the six of the three remaining ships of the great navy of Numenor?!
Ha, way to sneak that quotation in there! And yes, this is the important question. My theory is that they have the shrinking machine from Honey I Shrunk The Kids and they just shrink the horses down before sailing and size them back up after they disembark.
@@ErikKain ahhh, the legendary shrinks of power!
If I, as a white guy, were an actor I would not expect to be cast in a fantasy epic told in a medieval Japanese setting based around 1000AD. The answer is that there is more than one fantasy setting, and I might act in one based off of European fantasy like LotR. What this means I think is that we need more stories from different places told; we need those Japanese fantasy epics, those African mythologies. Tell stories where it makes SENSE to have casting of people with different appearances.
Even in Middle Earth, instead of having odd, misplaced diversity in places where it doesn't fit (why are there white people, black people, asian people all in one little village in the middle of nowhere that has like 100 people living in it?) Instead, they should tell stories in Harad, in actual Southron, in Rhun. Show where the Blue Wizards went and the people around them. Show the massive port city of Pelargir that would have people from all over living in it. And as an added benefit, because those places are not filled out in Tolkien's writings, they would have much more leeway to write what they wanted instead of wrecking existing canon.
Honestly, if the writers aren't good enough to make diversity shown on screen believable in the setting, they shouldn't be writing on that show.
I mean race switching characters is not a good thing. If a white guy was the protagonist of a movie based on a mayan myth, the backlash would be colosal.
@@ErikKain that's too sophisticated.. we already know they can teleport freely in middle earth so the horses weren't even on the boats. The ship scenes were made for dramatic effect and the horses already halfway into the "Southlands"
The JJ Abrams connections explains the dumb mystery box method the show runners are using.
Good stuff man. It's good to hear a clear voice on an issue that isn't just bigger than RoP but the very reason why this topic has hit critical mass in the entertainment industry. If this doesn't change the way or direction Hollywood is going. Then I don't know what will.
Once out of boredom, I read about 1000 RoP reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Only 2 of them mentioned race - which is because this show has much bigger problems than that.
People complained the most about boredom, bad writing (of story and characters). And the inconsistency with what Tolkien wrote.
If you take the time to read even only 100 reviews from there then you'll see what I'm talking about 😊
If Amazon employees had devoted their time to read it, they would have known about all the problems of the show, without paying for expensive market research - they have all the data at hand. In user reviews.
Folks, you should actually read the Hollywood Reporter article. Sycophancy & sucking up to Amazon notwithstanding, you’ll be shocked at the lack of experience these clowns brought to the writing table. It reminded me of that product launch in that movie “Barbarians at the gate” ☺️☺️
This is very much Simon Tolkien's Tolkien Estate now. He seems to be very much a business man. He was a career lawyer who aspired to write thrillers and who I'm certain has eyed the financial potential for his grandfather's legacy for a while now. His opinions on the Jackson films is that they were "too faithful" to his grandfather's books, and his involvement and ideologies surrounding his grandfathers work caused Christopher Tolkien to cut off Simon's inheritance, which, of course, was later reconciled. I'm not here to slander the man, Lord knows J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn't want random folks on the internet berating his family. I'm just pointing out that he's clearly got very different priorities from his father Christopher Tolkien, who seeked to maintain a stewardship regarding how J.R.R. Tolkien's work and creative licensing was handled and how this effected the cultural consciousness' of those works. Ultimately, it seems the dispute with Simon was resolved and reconciled, and understandably--regardless of the details, familial ties make sense to prioritize over creative licensing of an intellectual property. And back to Simon Tolkien's priorities, it seems he's wanting to just open up the business opportunities and financial gain that he can weild with his inheritance of The Estate, and faithfulness in the sense the fans hope for is not the same faithfulness that Simon is concerned about. Hollywood corporate executives really just don't understand this sort of stuff, so, since Simon went out vetting his father's work for adaptation and essentially got: PJ reboot, MCU style LOTR, or newly made up stories in Tolkien's pre-established framework with a promise of some kind of relataionship with the estate, it makes sense he chose this. I think he jumped the gun. There were ways to go about this, especially with the Saul Zaents rights that came into a bidding war... Capitalism and a for-profit mindset doesn't guarantee bad entertainment, but there are plenty of examples where it blinds folks along the way and brings in bidders and businesses who fundamentally misunderstand what they're buying. I'm not a fan of what's been produced in the least, but looking back on things... it makes sense.
I think we can solidly lay the blame for this entire fiasco at the doorstep of Simon Tolkien.
"I have enjoyed assisting Amazon Studios in connection with the series, and in particular providing input to JD Payne and Patrick McKay on matters including my grandfather’s original writing.”
Yeah, he bears a lot of the blame as far as I concerned.
We called this in Exsurge Tolkien, since 25 March, now its a full apostasy of power, The evidence is clear, and none can deny that "ROP" is not of Tolkien. Our EXSURGE TOLKIEN that makes robustly clear the heresy of the showrunner's mouths and hearts. They probably know nothing of Tolkien's masterpiece, as evident from their interview in the Vanity Fair Article. For "they who proclaim to loveth Tolkien, yet understandeth, not his world view can neither hope to create a new film, show, or series of his secondary world." "Auta i lóme!" and" Aurë entuluva!"
Amazon did the same nonsense with Wheel of Time. Picked an inexperienced showrunner who was fake fan and wanted 'modernize' the story in his talentless image. Did faux diversity for the sake of 'diversity' rather than simply leveraging the diversity already in the world - which only diminished the story and world building and created confusion. Blamed their hubris and incompetence on the fans for pointing out the issues. And ultimately produced a sub-par product that looked and felt cheap and delivered boring and confused plot and characters.
How do there studios keep making the same mistakes over and over without ever holding anyone accountable. It's obviously a top down issue somewhere in the chain
Erik, I'm going to be happy to say I was amongst your first 10K subs when this channel blows up like Mount Doom (but in a good way).
Thanks for sharing your perspective. You seem like a nice person, who also critically-thinks about things; seems a bit rare these days.
Thanks! As Frank from MASH says: "It's nice to be nice to the nice." ;)
The part of the Tolkien estate Amazon is dealing with, Simon, doesn't give a damn about "fidelity to Tolkien" as he has been very vocal about his hatred for his grandfather and father.
Nice and clean new setup. 👌👍
I don't think they had a pitch that was sold well. I think both showrunners know people in the top ranks of Amazon and won. It has to be nepotism. Inexperienced writers do not start out with such a big project. They get awarded small things like scenes and episodes and work their way up.
GOT had 2 guys without experience. I think Amazon was just trying to follow GOT formula step by step
@@ryannewman4412 ironically the show runners had….*slightly* more experience. One of them wrote a scene or two in the Troy movie with Brad Pitt in it. The Amazon guys? No experience whatsoever. With the GoT show runners, it’s akin to an intern of one company jumping up to the position of CEO for another company, while Amazon guys walked in as the CEO after doing….nothing related to the position they just got.
@@beckyweiss6072 now that I think of it they worked with JJ Abrams and did mention they asked him to call and give them a good recommendation. They even said "we think that really turned the needled."
@@ryannewman4412 I wonder what they worked with him on…
@@beckyweiss6072 Star Trek I think, as uncredited writers in their words they "punched up stories" which means they probably barely contributed
What you say at 8:01 sums up the article perfectly for me.
jj abrams and his famous mystery box approach to everything
Hi Erik, is there anyway you can get some natural or warmer light in your new setup? In the previous setup your face had a more natural glow; this setup is very bright...If not, don't worry about it, I'll still watch the videos 😄 Really enjoying the content. 👍
The walk-in dead died when Rick disappeared. But I’ll still watch it
Writing a bunch of movies that never got made is the same as applying to a bunch of jobs and not getting hired...
Yeah the inexperience oozes from every scene. My expectations were not high considering almost all previously made "Amazon Originals" productions have pretty bad writing/directing/acting. This one is just on par with the rest of them.
The person sitting at the bonfire looks like Brienne of Tarth in her starter armour.
Same Hue
I've written a lot of texts I've never sent so pay me to write a novel please. Come on!!!
the first thing i heard about the show from the press was about how diverse the show is
you know it's a code word for how shitty it will be
No, it isn’t. Andor was diverse, and it wasn’t shitty. Same with HoD. Stop giving Amazon ammunition.
As someone mentioned already, after Christopher died, all bets were off. I could give a damn about Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Society and other so-called "Tolkien Experts". I have Tolkien's books, and that's all I need. His work has stood the test of time, and will continue to do so for generations to come, while this crap show will be forgotten.
Thank you for speaking out against this vandalism though. I often read your blog but I had no idea you had a YT channel as well. Subscribed.
For season 2, I hope we see the following:
1: There was no magic tree. An elf, maybe glorfindel, summoned lightning using a silmaril as a focus, which he was trying to smuggle away from feanor, to kill the balrog intercepting him (maybe riding a dragon, why not?). When the balrog corpse sank into the molten rock created it became the mithril. the elf died in the process and Feanor's house took the silmaril back. Gilgalad or his forebears made up the tree story to cover up the theft for political reasons.
2: The elves are not losing their immortality, they're being tricked by some illusion of Sauron to get the forge built.
3: A small party of survivors will have to venture east into the deserts of Harad to escape Mordor, so we see a more interesting place than crappy rohan, I mean the southlands.
4: Celeborn should be introduced as a main character. They altered the lore so Galadriel isn't married yet, which should at least implied to be corrected, and galadriel needs someone to drive her to change as a character.
All great ideas. But wait for tonight's episode for your last bullet point. It will...well you'll see!
A tryst between Galadriel and Halbrand as Sauron. By Eru, no! If they alter the parentage of Celebrian, yt will burst into flames hotter than that of a Balrog!
Oh and wait for tonight's episode on your second bullet point.
I heard some wild rumors on this episode
@@ErikKain well they put an arrow in pretty much all of those.
Good comment on the article. 🙂
As for the new setup - looks good in general, but I think the camera was out of focus? It looks more like the picture on the wall were in sharper focus than you.
Yep I mention this in the video description. It was in focus at first and then just randomly went out of focus, but I was like "NOPE. Not re-recording the whole damn thing." But I'll definitely have to figure that out for the next one. Annoying!
i am neither white nor english is my native tongue and still i am more furious than most of the native english over this ambomination because tolkien's litrature have made my prespective of the real world depite being fictional!
“evil cannot create anything NEW, they can only CORRUPT and RUIN good forces have invented or made” -the professor
It’s easier to call people awful names than to accept that you aren’t good at something. the greater the ego, the more fragile the person. The vast majority of people aren’t racist, sexist, blah blah blah. They just want to be entertained. The Tolkien fans want the work respected and the normies want compelling entertainment. No one is winning here.
Damage control with two episodes to come, am sure we will not see Sauron at all and some really egregious plot points are on their way lol
Stoked to hear your thoughts on that article dude! Hahaha
The trolls who review bombed the show on sites like imdb and rottentomatoes because they can't stomach Black people in Middle Earth or women protagonists are making it more difficult for actual real criticisms of the show's writing, pacing, etc. to be taken seriously because they are the loudest and most vicious so it's best to call that stuff out and not to minimise it imo.
Yes, this!
great conent as always
@1:58: And that's exactly the problem.
GoT/HotD gets more praise than RoP because it's actually watchable. RoP is just flat out difficult to sit through because of the poor writing and acting. If RoP had the same/similar story line, similarly "diverse" cast, but actually had well written scenes with good acting then the audience would generally like it. Sure the lore would be criticized, but people wouldn't be making 4 hour long videos literally mocking every single scene for how bad the writing/acting is.
Btw another reason to believe creators didnt read any Tolkien at all - i just recently decided to read lotr in english (im from Poland) and in the preface Tolkien is explaining how this story is not based on world war II events - and that he doesnt want people to search for allegories of lotr events in Real life. But here the creators state that Lotr is lnspired by WWI xd just read two Pages of preface guys!
Hey Erik, the focus on your camera is off. Do you have facial recognition? Otherwise you can try to make your background darker than your face or manually focus it to a certain distance. As much as I love that art behind you, just thought i'd mention it.
The Truth is if we allow Amazon to continue This behaver Like Hire not Experienced ShowRunners &Writers Director all That will happen is allow it to Continue the laziness Even though you Remove Tolkien all Rings of Power Lazy We have to Fight back Now Then they can do it again . fight back
Thanks Erik. Great musings as usual. I think RoP is terrible, but it has diverse casting and strong women, so I must be an ist and a phobe, right? But I'm loving House of the Dragon, so there goes that accusation.
Hey dude, dig the new set-up. I agree that a lot of those things in the piece are kinda just "hinted" at rather than expounded on and explained. You could say that because so many more reviews were tossed at ROP that by nature it probably has more 'trolls" but that's hard to substantiate. It could be possible that because of the older and definitely more conservatives (anti-woke for sure) parts of the fanbase that might contribute as well, it's just hard to measure.
I would however caution you when lumping Giorgi Meloni (the new Italian Premier) in with all the rest as she has a pretty intensely documented history of being what most people would at least consider "facetious adjacent" it's a long history since she was about 19. I despise the word Facetious currently because it honestly doesn't mean anything really, it's as overused as "nazi" is, but for her the actual definition fits pretty well.
Anyways brother, been following you for a really long time, good to see your YT outreach growing. GG.
Oh I totally agree she's more fascist-adjacent and I wasn't meaning to lump her in with the rest. I just mean that while there ARE surely fascists in the fandom, there are likely just way more conservative or anti-woke types. Speaking on the fly sometimes I realize I don't convey this kind of thing clearly enough!
Also thanks!
@@russ254 autocorrect owned me, but if you look at her history it’s pretty striking.
@@ErikKain yeah, I totally get it.
She shouldnt have even been mentioned.Her politics has not a damn thing to do with this awful show.
Celeborn was Galadriel's husband.
Episodes 1-5 was when Rings Of Power was trying, and failing, to be Game of Thrones. Episode 6 was when RoP went full "Season8" and I think that's why it won over so many people. All attempts at world-building, character development and narrative went out the window in favour of brain-off, nonsensical action scenes. Episode 6 was an episode aimed squarely at the kind of people who went to their local bar to watch GoT Season 8 with their friends to talk over the dialogue and erupted into cheers when Arya dropped out of the sky like the start of a Fortnite game, dagger in hand. The irony is that the problems that have plagued RoP since the start were thrown into such sharp focus in this episode its now impossible to look past them, yet that's exactly why these people liked it.
This show wasn't made for us, it was made for them. Something we're just going to have to accept.
Hey man why not adding the subtle mediaeval/ tavern background music in your videos anymore,
I find the show has poor writing, poor plotting, poor costumes, a terrible story and only the teeny, tiniest bit of anything Tolkien in it (largely names). Guess that makes me an evil, racist troll.
Audio sounds way better my man.
Wait we want to hear your takes one the walking dead too!
They can say whatever they want, but they're not making a Tolkein story. Tolkein already did it and no one is changing it.
It always cracks me up when Leftists try claim that LOTR was somehow Woke 😆. Just like you stated, Tolkien was ULTRA Conservative and took his spirituality and religious beliefs very seriously. He was also extremely anti-government.
Bollocks. Tolkien was a complicated character and his fiction is way more complex than 21st century libertarian America.
*moves hands*
Bro. You can see Erik's descent into depression with every passing day. It's in his eyes. So sad. Dude was super positive about the show before it released, and now it's like, folks have to keep calling Erik's phone every day to make sure he hasn't done something to bad to himself
Such a huge article with these two wannabe's, thanks for reading it for me.
I hope season two is better then season one. I just want to see the series stic to the cannon. And as for all the black characters, I don’t care about the race thing,I don’t care if the cast is all white. Stic to the cannon. I’m a proud black man and I don’t care to see a black elf, just stic to the cannon .
That’s what I thought bro - ‘fascist-adjacent’ is newspeak. These asses and their “show” are both antithetical to Tolkien’s morality and morality in general.
Terrible writing. These writers should be ashamed.
There are similarities between Tolkien and fascists, both of them criticize capitalism not from a progressive standpoint, aka a socialdemocrat or communist one, but a reactionary one, which would be going back to feudalism, and this is especially true for German nazis. The main difference between them, which makes nazis evil and Tolkien not, is that Tolkien also rejects industrialization, the nazis don't! They wanted feudalism with machine guns.
Only way some1 sane would spent billions and put on the hands of some1 who never wrote shiet is to MONEY LAUDERING...
Tolkien fans: "Hey! Stop violating Tolkien's text, it's not his fault ancient Europe just happened to be filled with all white people. Your woke leftist agenda wasn't in Tolkien's books!"
Studio and Producers: "So, you're ok with women having beards right? Cause that was in Tolkien's books too."
Tolkien fans: ***silence***
What most people don't realize is that racism and sexism comes from both the audience and the studio. It's not mutually exclusive. Maybe instead of asking if something is racist, ask how instead? As long as the question is "if," the answer will always be "no."
Poor Tolkein. He imagined an elaborate fantasy world primarily as an excuse to create imaginary languages from scratch. The rest was fun but the languages were serious. And now his politics is being dissected to justify or attack the Amazon excrescence. Sigh.
The only thing they listen to is money... so don't give it. Done 👍😁
Great video, Erik. I noticed that you 'colleague' Paul Tassi has been surgically detached from his place in Disney's human centipede of media shills so that he can soften the effects of your justifiable criticism of The Rings of Power on behalf of Forbes. I can only imagine how that conversation went.. My condolences on being the unfortunate messenger.
Nah, Paul just has his own views. Oddly he was more critical at first and has moved toward liking it with this latest episode. I've gone the opposite way. Forbes doesn't care about our opinions.
Forbes just cares about us making them $$$.
I don’t like the show because it’s a bad show, but the fact that my opinion makes them think I’m patently evil and a racist is horrible. They don’t know me, they only know how to make trash.
Also, I *do* think there is a massive organised troll-based bashing mob, which started screeching before the series aired. But that doesn’t mean that a fuckload of people who eagerly waited awake until 4:00am to watch the show and were willing to forgive a lot ended up incandescent with rage, not because of ethnic diversity or girl boss power but because the showrunners are incompetent, inexperienced beginners devoid of talent or humility who extruded an embarrassingly bad show.
Tolkein was an ACTUAL antifascist. Lol
Just lazy showrunners, it's just ignorance.
When they made the deal Christopher was still alive and after he passed amazon fired and hired alot of the crew at that time supposedly. So if that's true I think any reasonable person can read between the lines
Side note, isn't it funny how fantasy shows that stay true to the source material tend to fair better and I'm being generous I think
Hi! Italian fan here. Yes, the relationship between Tolkien and Italian far right movements is kinda complex and an unicum I believe. Basically when Tolkien’s first translations reached the country in the 70s (yep quiet late) the Italian mainstream literature was greatly characterized by a Marxist materialistic approach and thus strongly focused on treating political and social issues. Tolkien fantasy was quickly (and mistakenly) discarted as futile fables ignoring the real concrete problems of the Country. The far right forces, largely marginalized at the time and with poor literature of reference, appropriated The Lord of the Rings and used it to foster their nationalistic ideas (the battles against the evil, heroes defending their , exc.).
Fortunately with the arrival of Peter Jackson’s trilogy and the larger diffusion of the Professor’s work, the fandom clearly expanded and the study of Tolkien’s literature developed beyond the simplistic politicized approach.
Tolkien hated contingent and agenda-serving allegories of any kind wrongly extrapolated from his work and instead aimed at creating a universal story.
The peculiarity that many I Think struggle to understand is that yes there are traceable themes and images referring to a, for instance, catholic and Norse culture. Yet these represent solely the means helping the construction of a totally separated world through which reaching a pure and liberating escapism. Helping the others, for example, can be associated to a Christian value system, but Tolkien is not here trying to ask us to be Christians (critic that J.R.R. Moved to C.S. Lewis). The author is depicting, instead, a value traceable in its invented world which appears us, hence, close to ours and realistic even if fantastic.
Politicizing Tolkien is wrong for any ideological direction this intention may be directed. Probably there are fascists and racists who are criticizing the show on these premises. Yet responding to all critics uniquely applying this political dialectic signals two worrying hypothesis:
- the show runners did not study Tolkien in depth and thus are not able to actually distinguish between political and non-political criticism
- the showrunners use this political defense to cover the evident structural and technical problem of the shows
Thank you, excellent summing up.
Looks like the focus on your camera is a bit off.
There are a TON of facists who REALLY love Pink Floyd. So much so, in fact, that Roger Waters even alluded to this "problem" in The Wall.
Does that make Pink Floyd a fascist band? Is anybody who likes Pink Floyd a potential target to be called an "ist"?
Ridiculous, obviously. But this is the world we apparently live in, now.
I saw the concept art for how some of the scenes were supposed to be depicted. They were way better than what was actually filmed.
Quite a few of us agree that the only good things in the show are Elindil, Durin and Disa despite some of the crap dialogue they were given. That's despite us thinking that Durin & Disa's characters break lore. If they were going to create black dwarves..why is there only one. It makes the poor woman stick out like a sore thumb.
Concept art sounds nice.
Where'd you see it? Curious to take a look myself.
@@MrImastinker shoot. I can't remember what youtube channel it was right now. Let me check.
@@MrImastinker looked it up. Council of the rings is the channel.
@@toodlescae Cool, thanks!
@@MrImastinker no problem
The Walking Dead 🤦♂️🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮
Everything seems to be binary these days. You either love something or you hate it. You are either for it, or against it. If you're not IN the tribe, you are so obviously against the tribe. I think there are plenty of us who just sit on the fence and like to watch the sunset...
...or the world burn.
Can anyone tell me why there's a black actor playing the part of Earendir? What's up with that? Why? I mean, really, why? (And why not is not a good answer.)
You mean Ëarendil? He’s already sailing the sky by the time RoP opens. If you mean Arondir, please point out the place where Tolkien says all Moriquendi are white.
I like the music of Wagner so it must follow that I'm a Nazi sympathiser. Guilt by preference or association. Honestly, you would think by now people would have moved ahead of this type of infantile thinking.
You spent a lot of time talking about Politics and even lost yourself in Roman Catholiscism in early 20th century Britain. Tolkien was a philologist and enjoyed languages. Some of his desire to retain Latin, apart from being a Conservative would reflects this. You sounded very out of your depth at times. In Britain in the early 20 century You were franklyfloundering about in subjects you clearly had only very superficial knowledge at best. Conversely you spent very little time addressing the subject of your vid which you entitled " Rings Of Power Creators Break Silence Over Fan Backlash!" That was what I'd come for and what your reported was intersting. Just to give you a hint or two about what you found attempted to discuss other than that: Being a Conservative in early 20th century Britain and Europe which had just come out of a World War, with a long history of a monarchy was very, very different from, I'm guessing, what you understand by Conservatism and experiencing currently with Trump and the GOP in early 21st century in a nation that is only 250 odd years old. As to Italy. I thought that your comment was a bit off, saying 'come on Itallians'. I know you don't mean any ill will in this respect will but please do try to be a bit more careful. Do your homework,l. People have feelings. Great swathes of Italians, including some of my realtives do not welcome a Fasicst leader in a place of power at the current time, Stick to Tolkien's literary works, his amazing stories and his ability to have built up a mythical Wolrld which has entranced millions .If you do, I'll press that like button and might even subscribe.
Thanks for speaking up for the majority of Italians who didn’t vote the fascists in!