Respectful debate and discussion are invited on this thread. Do you agree that these characters were a big improvement over the last season? Or do you feel my analysis is too generous?
Sadly respectful debate is impossible as you probably know deep down. As someone who has enjoyed the show i know this only too well. Enjoyed your vid tho.
Charles and Charlie were phenomenal in their last scene together! I love how with his final breath Celebrimbor managed to reverse their respective roles of manipulator and manipulated, tricking Sauron into a fit of rage in order to be spared the promised days of torment and probably even being "kept alive" as a wraith. His words _"soon I shall go to the shores of the morning, born hence by a wind that you can never FOLLOW!"_ work both as a curse and a stunningly accurate prophecy for Sauron's termination. A swift wind bore Celebrimbor to the Halls of Mandos, _One alone_ prove Sauron's utter ruin: _... it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed..._
It was an improvement for sure, but unfortunately the core problems of the show persist. Bad writing, some poorly cast actors and horrible worldbuilding with a rushed timeline😊
I'm afraid it is very difficult when someone takes the story of an accomplished author and rearranges it to portray something that is illogical, to then take a few scenes and say it was promising. It was garbage that had a few scenes that might have proven entertaining if they had created their own franchise. The attempt to win a new audience was an affront against those who had hoped for a portrayal of the second age.
Many of us are really enjoying it, it was obviously made for those that just enjoy the world of middle earth and arnt engulfed in Tolkien lore/history. If you don’t like it that’s cool, you’ve always got his books to enjoy and nothing will change that.
As someone that was largely disappointed by the show, I can also admit that there were glimpses of great writing and acting between those two, during this season
When the best thing in the show is a realationship that should've happened in the first season but the show-runners wanted to create helbrand God knows why, rushing into showing how Sauron influence is evil, instead of slowly building up trhough out seasons, telling us he's a "bearer of many gifts" instead of showing us and earning that title. Not leting Elrond to get to Celebrimbor bc they went on foot instead of horses (but in the battle the elves have millions horses) eventhough it's urgent, the whole reletationship feels force and contrived imo. Great video btw.
The answer is simple as to why this felt like the best part of the show: Because Anatar and Celebrimbor IS the real story of this age. Tolkien's story is complicated, long-arc gold. The manipulation is subtle, takes decades to foment, and deals with really interesting questions of creation, control and ambition. Especially when you understand Celebrimbor to be the grandson of Feanor, which they barely mention. To be honest, though, even if this is the best part of the show, it still fell flat, with a severely truncated timeline, bad dialogue - and Anatar's plan simply not making any sense. Celebrimbor's motives and decisions in the show make him seem a complete fool. They also tore the lore to shreds. Considering Amazon seemed to boast of the price tag for the IP, and for the cost of the show in general, people expected a work of quality that shines a light on how good Tolkien's world building really was. Instead it feels like the writers thought they could do better, and demonstrated the opposite. I think if you're trying to find something good, you can find it, and I guess this was the "best" part of the show. But best comparatively only to it's other parts. When viewed from the perspective of other fantasy media, or just TV shows in general - it's still, from my perspective, bad and disrespectful to the source material.
Yeah that's the feeling I had too - that maybe this would have been better as a film that focuses mainly on this story. In the context of all the other fluff going on in the show, this story was BETTER but still had major problems. I wonder if, as a standalone film, it might have given us a better picture of the second age. Anyway thanks for being cool with me taking a somewhat contrarian view. I wondered if this video would get downvoted into oblivion lol
I think this was the only story that the series managed to tell with above average quality, I agree. The actors who played these two characters also played a role in this. But I think what is really important is what Tolkien wrote. The only subject that was as faithful to the original as possible in the series was Annatar's deception of Celebrimbor and the making of the rings. They changed the plot again, but the motivation of the characters was parallel to what Tolkien told. So I think the right thing the series did was not in their ability to write this, but in their ability to be faithful to what Tolkien wrote for once. Because I think they failed in almost all of their free writing choices.
@@bryanwigmore7224 Well...at least, if you're going to make stuff up to continue the plot, at least follow the spirit of the original material. Lord of the Rings Online, for example, has made new material following the spirit of the original, and done very well with it.
2:07 “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history - true or feigned- with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.” -J.R.R. Tolkien
@@troupemusographes2460 His quote would be easier if you read it this way: "Of course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but A STORY of Power." I don't think he was suggesting his story was an allegory. Just like in the Bridge of Khazad-dum chapter, he was alluding to the darkness around the balrog being LIKE two vast wings, not actual wings. He could have worded it better in both instances.
It's really nice watching a video where someone is actually being positive about this show. I don't get me wrong I've got many problems with it, but there are a few strands of gold weaved in if you are willing to look. The last three episodes were absolutely fantastic, still not completely a tier, but it's giving me lots of hope for season 3
I think Charles Edwards put in a fantastic performance as Celebrimbor which helps with engagement. However, I am not so sure I would describe Celebrimbor as the protagonist of the season. The protagonist is arguably Sauron. He deceives Celebrimbor and uses his skills to his own ends. If Sauron had not been there, there would have been no rings and no plot. It sounds strange to call the villain the protagonist but he is undeniably the most proactive character.
I had the same thought when he asked who the protagonist was - Sauron's the one whose goals are driving the plot forward. It's not unheard of - Thanos is unquestionably the protagonist of Infinity War, even though he's also the villain.
@@antilles58 True, and I guess of course you want a proactive villain in your story. But you also run the risk of making the hero(es) less compelling to watch if they're mostly just reacting to what the villain is doing. At some point they should catch up and overtake, I think.
Interesting point. Agreed about Charles Edwards' performance, especially in that last scene. Your theory is supported by the fact that the season opens with that little vignette about Sauron being betrayed and turning into that crawly creature.
Finally a well thought out video, I am so done with all those "omg rings of power sucks" videos. This series brought out such toxic, blind, simple-minded channels. At least I can filter them out more easely.
@@moon-moth1 i know I am the first one that wants those Hobbits gone from the show all togheter or feels like Numenor's plotline pacing is all over the place
I'd actually say it's the most broken relationship in the season, one with the most potential and some of the best acting but it left me with why would they ever structure it like this impression Why would sauron appear in the same form after revealing his identity to galadriel? Dose he relay on her having such a huge ego that she won't tell others who he really is? Sauron's angelic form should've been the first time they ever met, cut the halbrand crap off completely He shouldn't ask or even suggest making rings for men and dwarves, all rings were initially meant for the elves because he only cared about controlling them at the time, he'd look too suspicious in their eyes if he just appeared with a load of magic rings so he made it look like an artistic collaboration, he dosen't need that disguise for men and dwarves so if they were actually his goal then he shouldn't even be in eregion because he can forge the rings himself The forging of the rings should take more time, they shouldn't forge a whole set of them off screen, and they should be more gradual, first they make lesser experimental rings, then the great 16 rings, then celebrimbor on his own makes the 3 which is supposed to be the peak of his craft and character arc, have sauron actually teach him something, have them exchange some knowledge Sauron acts so needlessly suspicious all the time, I swear he just wants to he caught, he constantly changes his backstory, his manipulation is blatant and easy to see through, he takes massive risks for no reason like how he revealed his true form for one of the elves and she just glanced over it because plot He should not have artificially opposed a time limit on himself, he wants eregion to be sieged but at the same time wants it intact for the rings to be made (that confirms the time frame for making the rings is like a day which is insane) Credits where credit due celebrimbor's actor is the only improvement I can think of over the first season, I hope he gets a better job with a better script because this is not doing him justice
@@GILGAMESH069 very good points, that add up on the points I made somewhere in the comments here. I find this supposedly dramatic interaction between the two just laughable. It is all constructed by defying logic. Everything is meaningless, the narrative make the characters act naive and stupid like small kids would. But I praise the actors here tbh.
Something else that Rings of Power does well is the music. I have multiple videos on my channel about Bear McCreary's score, it you're interested. I appreciate and agree with your take in this video. The Annatar/Celebrimbor story was great. Good luck with the comments section of this video!
Haha thanks! I'll check out your videos. And yeah, feels like the majority of people on this platform feel quite strongly that this show is irredeemable. My video criticizing it got literally a hundred times the number of views lol.
@@theartofstorytelling1 I agree with Nerd of the Rings that the show is *uneven* rather than a simple good or bad. Season 2 is better than season 1, but too many people are blinded by their hate of season 1 to give 2 a fair chance.
The Halbrand theme is nice, but there was way too much emotional reaction writing instead of bringing an overall arc through the music. But that could be due to what the producer requested, I don't blame the composer for that... didn't like the overly epic music though and why did they put weird metal music in the end credits of episode 7?? 😂
It's hard to find positive videos about this show. Thank you. I enjoyed your take on it. Honestly I thought Celebrimbor should have been the main character from the beginning. We didn't need their version of Galadriel messing up the Lore. I wanted to see Celebrimbor with a group of smiths and have it be a mystery as to which one was Sauron.
Hard agree, character-centric storyline of Celebrimbor and Sauron just worked. Insane how much better the show could get with better script. I root for season 3 to get better writers.
Yes, credit to the writers and to the two actors. This was the central arc, and it's good that it had the high quality it had. The arc of the Durins had good moments too.
They did set up Celebrimbor as ambitious in season 1, but it requires a decent memory. Having so many characters and having a payoff be potentially seasons away makes it difficult to not get frustrated with something that seems in the moment like a dead-end. A little more work in making the manipulations particular to a character would have avoided the criticism that he was less a dark lord and more of a mean girl at school. I'd agree that people misunderstood the tear as trying to paint the dark lord as sympathetic. But I read it more as self-pity that he had to kill one of his better toys. Given the earlier line about the deceiver lying to himself, that made sense to me.
Yeah, this is the unfortunate thing about the series. On the whole, it's just not good, so the parts that ARE good don't matter in a way. It's funny - while I was editing this video I made a timeline of JUST the scenes with Annatar and Celebrimbor, and i watched it all back to back. It worked as a self-contained story! Made me think it might have made a good standalone film. But with all the other storylines spread across multiple seasons, it really is just taxing. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Mixed reviews is a funny way of saying they lost the majority of their audience and they singlehandedly created a YT genre of people mocking the show. Billion dollar show with worldwide publicity by one of the largest companies on Earth, an IP with a massive built-in fandom, a massive flop by any standards.
Knowing an audience kept watching beyond season 1 was already kind of surprising. They had long lost the gigantic potential audience this show could've had, for sure, and it's understandable
Great analysis! I haven't watched the show - I've been too heavily dissuaded by other people I see discussing it - but I respect your drawing attention to the part of it that did work. I think that's useful.
Funny cause I actually had to think of one of your vids watching the show, the last episode to be precise. At one point someone said „i choose friendship over power“ (or something close to that). You spotted that moral (friendship over power/standing) as the central one of LOTR and I agree. But I always find it a sign of bad storytelling if you have to say the message of a story out loud, because you are not able to convey it through actions etc.
It's very telling that the Annatar/Celebrimbor story is the strongest material and the show had to damn near retcon the first season for it to even happen. What a bizarre show this is.
Thanks for this. I really appreciate your balanced, reasoned reviews of this series. As a big fan of the books, and only slightly less so of PJ's first three films, I share your criticisms of the show.
Really appreciate the points you've made! Just finished watching both seasons. My expectations were very low, so didn't really get disappointed by the show. Still I felt annoyed by a big part of the series, but have to admit this issue was mostly noticeable in season 1. Wouldn't say that season 2 was good, but think that "okay" kinda fits. Celebrmibor's arc felt more or less genuine, and think was one of the things that kept me watching. Think that creators did a pretty good job portraying what manipulation can look like, and can say that Sauron's character definitely had its moments. My main motivation to watch the series was curiosity, along the lines of "let's see how this show with insane budget and terrible reception looks like, and what went wrong", and think that I learned a thing or two from the experience. Don't really believe that the show could become good in the next seasons, given the foundation it already has, but still I might watch it - I find it quite intriguing to see results of corporate greed and incompetence on this scale :D
I discovered your channel 2 days ago and binge watched your whole content, because I found it incredibly insightful, topics well analysed and explained and your way to approach complicated issues I really appreciate. However here I have to clearly disagree the first time with you: What you point out here is more the idea of the writers behind the applied story of Celebrimbor and Anatar, which might have been good. But the way this story is displayed and imbedded in the overarching narrative, just don't transport the good aspects that you point out here. Because RoP manages to make nearly everything completely meaningless and unimmersive by having logical flaws nearly every minute of screen time, displays completely weird, naive and simply silly choices by the characters. If you, as the viewer, reallize these flaws again and again and the inconsistency, it's nearly impossible to really be engaged into the feelings, motivations etc of the characters. For example: Celebrimbor looks like the most naive, most stupid elf alive that let himself gaslight like a 12 year old over and over again, instead of being shown as this thousands of years old, majestic, wise, mature, powerful, mythic elven being. He doesn't reallize the candles don't burn down, until after a very long time he paints a mark on one? He can forge the rings normally in the illusion despite his whole forge being destroyed? The illusion is being destroyed by destroying a window? This all is inconsistent and doesnt even make sense. He doesn't know what an alloy is? He doesn't know how to really forge at all and needs his trainee to tell him how really forge the rings? Why does Sauron need him in the first place? He cuts his finger, instead of trying to cut his chains (I mean he is the master smith and in his damn forge man). He says "Hallo Mr. Mouse." what would fit to a naive little hobbit and not to his persona at all. He is portrayed so incompetent and miserable. How can you then expect viewers to really be engaged at all in this story, if they get pulled out of their immersion every few minutes? In contrast to your recation, I found it incredibly bad and somehow laughable when he cried and Sauron aswell. Because they made it meaningless before there was even a chance that I would have been engaged. The only good thing I can say here is the acting of the two men that played Anatar and especially Celebrimbor. It seems like Celembrimbor's actor acts out his very soul to make an incredibly bad written script somehow good. I respect him a lot for that.
Thanks for sharing, especially being a fan of the channel. I hope I didn't lose your trust! Nothing wrong with disagreeing, in my view. You make good points - Celebrimbor is definitely not very elf-like, and definitely doesn't come across as one of the GREATEST elves. One does need to overlook some inconsistencies in logic to get immersed in this story. I think for me, it was mainly that by COMPARISON to the rest of the show, I felt that this was done better - mainly because the other storylines are just so empty and meaningless, and often downright cringey. I had to look past a lot of bad to find the good, for sure.
I think the hate mongering around this show and others like it show exectly how easy it is to manipulate people. If you're someone who has the right personality type, or maybe has the right misconceptions, it's very easy to be conditioned by the many rage baiting videos to think that every word is bad and everything is a logical flaw (by people whose only motivation is views). In fact, we're all manipulated all the time, even if we think we aren't, and it's not our intelligence that is the flaw, it's our tendency to trust and our emotions. The techniques Annatar uses on Celebrimbor will be well known to anyone with a good grasp of sociology, and I suspect all too familiar to people (and no, not just 12 year olds) who've been in abusive relationships. So why do you need to make the supposedly wiser-than-human elf fall for manipulations like a normal dumb human would? For the same reason you can't make a night time battle scene too realistic. The audience can't see it! If you're writing a manipulation so subtle that only someone wiser than the wisest human could recognise it, how are we as a human audience supposed to understand it? Dumbing it down to a certain extent is how you let the audience become part of the manipulation, and the trick is to make it feel both intelligent and relatable. I don't know if the writers quite got that balance right, but it was pretty close. To your comment about logical flaws, many of these so-called flaws break down with a more nuanced view. The hammer shattering the window is as much symbolic as literal. The whole scene was about the manipulation finally being broken down, and the hammer through the window was both the literal and symbolic shattering of the barrier between the created world and the real one. The sounds of the battle outside was the final part of an entire process that had been happening over the whole scene. He can forge the rings normally in a damaged forge? No, he probably can't, but I don't think the illusion is like a hologram or anything like that, it's something that's affecting his coscious mind, not his eyes. Unconsciously he'd be aware of the truth and working around the damage, without those actions intruding on the illusion. This is actually quite Tolkienian in that magic is not an external force, but a subtle way of affecting the minds and emotions of others. You do need to interpret these, which requires effort, but I don't think you need to suspend reality or stretch your logic too much. By the way, I'm not saying that all your criticisms are invalid, or that there are no logical flaws (someone commented on the logic of the 9 being made even after the failure of the 7, and I agree with that one - the in-show explanation seems like too much of a stretch to me), PS. I like your phrase "pulled out of their immersion". I'm truly enjoying the show and I think the themes are very Tolkien, but the immersion is broken for me at least once per episode. I think Rings of Power is perfectly watchable, but I am disappointed it's not a masterpiece of television. It really could've been much better and I would have loved to see that.
@@mtank31 I really like that you try to apply a nuanced view to the show and I appreciate your long thought through comment. But I disagree with your premise that the main reason why people hate on the show comes from manipulation. As good as that I explanation I could simply say: People only like the show due to manipulation of reviewers and creators that are inclined to show the series in a good light because by a billion dollar company, which could have benefits for them. But I don't say this because I can't prove it and I also don't think this is a fair viewpoint. Wouldn't the hate towards the show be easier to explain by people simply being frustrated with poor writing and decisions of the show runners that these people really didn't like? If you listen to the so called "rage reviews" then yes, some things are nit picks and some things are maybe not fair. But many points they make do make sense, follow logic and rationality, instead of being born out of pure emotions. Despite this viewpoint I, for example, didn't watch any reviews or opinion statements at all when I watched the first season of RoP. I watched it alone, without any input from outside. I didn't see ratings, comments, twitter about it, nothing. And what I watched, was in my opinion, one of the worst examples of modern media that I have ever experienced. Which I have to admit made me mad, seeing the immense potential of such a great foundation laid by Tolkien wasted. And when I saw creators criticizing the show, they spoke out of my heart by expressing points that I already had made in my head, only confirming what I already thought. In addition they pointed out even more questionable points that I didn't realize the first time watching, that helped me to understand better than before what exactly is the difference between good and bad storytelling. And this is no manipulation, but the illumination of the foundations of good story telling itself and it's pitfalls. So many of these "rage view" creations have indeed didactic value, if they deliver a well thought through analysis. To your point of dumbing down the manipulation technique used by Annatar towards Celebrimbor: You don't need to be wiser than the wisest human could imagine in order to create and understand a believable intelligent manipulation sequence of an incredible wise and intelligent being like Celebrimbor. You only need to show the audience information, that Celebrimbor doesn't have. You can apply much more nuanced manipulation techniques that the audience will understand as well. A good example for that are many plots in Game of Thrones, which are undoubtedly on a much higher level than this simplistic, not well thought through, often illogical dialogue between Celebrimbor and Annatar. To your point with the shattered window serving as metaphor: It is clear to me, that this shattering is used a symbolism of the illusion finally being destroyed. But you could have used this, or a similar metaphor or symbolism WITHOUT inserting a logical flaw and inconsistency. To the thing with the forge: You are right, it isn't meant to be a holographic illusion and I also could accept that in his illusion he is unconsciously working around f.e. destroyed parts or rubble, I give you that. But it isn't believable when you can clearly see that his stations, tools and in particular his very forge itself with the fire he needs to be physically able to forge the rings are in reality all being completely unusable by the destruction. Showing this only serves the purpose to make the reveal of the reality more sensational by sacrificing the internal logic and by that it makes it immersion breaking (you can use this as a metaphor on a meta level for the viewer). Besides that, there were even much more inconsistencies building up to this point, like for example with the created problem, a whole episode was revolving around, of not having mithril, while sauron could have just used his blood for this from the beginning, making it look like mithril. Also the rings were not even finished, as Celebrimbor said himself in one scene etc etc And all of these points here are just the surface of the problems and inconsistencies of the writing and the disregard of fundamental rules of storytelling. In whole I think why this show makes me mad the most is, that in my opinion it is completely anti-Tolkienian. The very essence of Tolkien and why his world and story telling resonated with so many people is completely twisted and misunderstood by the writers. For example Tolkien hated allegories: “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history - true or feigned- with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.” The show runners explicitly stated that they want to convey allegories. Just one example, next to the modern sociological influences, the Balrog should be an allegory for global warming. It's not my interpretation, it's what they stated themselves! Another example: Tom Bombadil says the famous phrase: "Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life." in a life-opposing context of saving the two "hobbits", (while stripping Gandalf of being the creator of this phrase.) While Gandalf used this phrase in a life-affirming context of not killing Gollum because his life has value: "Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the wise cannot see all ends." I could continue with many many other problems like the want-to-seem epic phrases that are completely empty, the insanely unlikable character of Galadriel, the implementation of modern political sociological viewpoints, the decisions of different wise elves, the completely inconsequential bad behaviour of main characters, the tower that is hold together by one rope, the not using of horses when characters have to travel quickly, the instant teleportations over huge distances, the meeting of two groups that physically shouldn't be able to meet if you look at the map, the completely unrealistic and unbelievable fight scenes, the blocking of the mining endeavours of a whole dwarven city by a singing lady with bats, the destruction of the concept of good and evil, the fact that the show creates more reasons to empathize with the orcs than with the elves, the high frequency of random encounters that conveniently serve the plot progression, the fact that nearly every main character has some convenient magical visions etc etc. But what repels me the most are extreme anti-tolkienean ideas of the show. I think the reason why "rage-viewers" get so much attention by engagement is not because they manipulate viewers for views, but viewers engage with them because they address what a huge portion of the viewers think. And I think these examples I made are reasonable and my disliking of the show is because of these examples and not due to manipulation by some random youtube creators.
@@DieBieneFranz I appreciate your well thought out reply as well. I won't go too much into the detail, except to say that some of your comments I agree with, some I disagree with, and others I agree with in principle but disagree with in application :) One pet hate I have when discussing Tolkien is the quote about allegory. Tolkien could have said that as much as he wants, but there are clear and undeniable allegorical elements in his works. The most obvious one I can think of is "machinery = bad" and "being nice to trees = good". In that respect, I don't think it's necessarily anti-Tolkienian to use allegory, but I must agree that things like "the Elves will take our job" was a particularly bad use of it (I assume that's what you're referring to when talking about modern sociological influences), and one that I think doesn't belong in the show, especially when Tolkien provides a perfect reason for the Numenorians' resentment in the "elves are immortal and we aren't" idea. I hadn't heard about the Balrog being used as a metaphor for climate change, but I also didn't notice it, so I figure at least it's not being shoved down our throats. I think subtle allegorical elements (emphasis on subtle) can only elevate this kind of show. I get that there's plenty of valid criticism for the show, and I also know there are good faith videos that are highly critical, and that;s fine. There's clearly clickbait rage-baiting too, and I'm only seeing more of them as I engage with content, even if I'm trying to avoid the overly negative ones. I can't see that trend as not having an effect on people's opinions (but clearly not yours as you yourself said). I see that as both a cause and a symptom of our modern society where we have to pick a side now. Like it's not OK to give RoP a score out of 10, you either need to be in the "for" army of the "against" army, so nothing can be OK anymore. I know this show is not one of the best ever produced, but for me that's OK. I disagree that it's anti-Tolkien, and I understand the logic behind some of the decisions that are being made. One of the major themes is how seeking good ends by questionable means is wrong (which is very much a Tolkienian concept), and it's pretty clear to me that this is the sole reason for the fairly boring hobbit/Gandalf story to exist. I'm finding the show is watchable, and because I think it is giving some interesting thematic interpretation of the history of Middle Earth (which is admittedly delivered clumsily on occasion), that's what is keeping me watching it. On the other hand, you seem to have a very negative view of it, and I wonder if it's because you expect perfection or near perfection from an adaptation of Tolkien's work and nothing else is good enough. That's OK, but I guess it shows the contrast between how we view the show. I note you compare the dialog to Game of Thrones, which I'd consider some of the best dialog ever to be shown on television, so you're setting a pretty high, if not unreachable, bar. Again, thanks for the discussion
Yes, exactly this! The show doesn't pull off any of it's other character arcs. But this one I can really buy, Anatar believing his own propaganda felt real and so did the way he subtly twists the lady smith-elf who works with Celebrimbor. The basic arc is good; the way it's written is good; the way it's performed is great; the way it weaves in (without throwing in our faces) a range of themes about responsibility, deference to authority, and even mental illness is good. The only negative is that it makes me wish that that had been Season 1! Season 2 could have been about a Celembrimbor broken mentally and physically agonising about whether he should make the 3 elven rings. Yes, I know that would also break canon, but less so than the ordering the show did (not that I consider following canon the top priority anyway).
Thanks for the positivity. I know this series isn't for every one but I have a hard time hearing meople hating it completely. There are some good elements in it. The music for once is excellent. I really appreciated the main plot just like you and I think it's also due to a strong acting. We're sorry for Celembrimbor bc we saw he meant well and Charlie Vickers is so subtle that at time I'm wondering if he's so bad (I know he is). I think we just need true hobbits, peaceful people living a quiet life until they're projected in the wild world. Unfortunately, we can't bc they don't have a home yet. That's what they must fix.
I agree that this was the most compelling story line of the show, but I think you're projecting the depth that you would expect from a story like Celebrimbor's onto the show. What you would have written sounds awesome, but it is much much richer than what the show actually gave us.
this show actually had so much potential, only if the main character was celebrimbor (and if they styled and wrote him more accurately, example: more powerful, treated with more respect, appearing with long black hair etc) because him and annatar's actor has really good chemistry on screen. and i think the other actor embodied sauron pretty well, even with the horrible dialogue they were given to work with, he still acts very well. just wish they hired better writers, and try to not stray away too much from the lore (a little is okay, after all peter jackson weren't fully devoted either, but ROP literally feels like a tolkien based fanfiction 95% of the time lol) and also, like i said, if they kept celebrimbor as the singular protagonist instead of forcing other characters in that has nothing to do with the whole story line, expect for elrond & isildur.
Another great video that put into words what I've been feeling about this season. I was actually moved when Annatar cried. Also, thinking he lost an ally, or a good friend, and perhaps, if you want to interpret it that way, a partner. I'm pretty sure Sauron can feel some weird love emotion in some sense, and that it doesn't matter which gender he falls for. Perhaps he felt that him and Celebrimbor should rule all of middle-Earth. Just a thought!
@@moon-moth1 Interesting! Haven't read the books. There's another great video from The Art of Storytelling where he goes into that Tolkien made the moral of the story that evil doesn't really never disappear, it's not a finite ending in the books, with The Shire still being defiled after they destroyed the one ring. But would you say, with regards to Sauron, that that character in some way is written as pure evil, more a black and white perspective, as if Sauron don't have the same open writing as Tolkien put into the conflicts of Middle earth?
Interesting chat, so I'll chime in with a thought. My view is that the writers of RoP are bound to humanize the character of Sauron more than Tolkien did, merely by the fact of the different formats they're working in. A TV show isn't especially well-suited to the kind of mythological storytelling that we find in Tolkien. In something like the Simlarillion, an almost "biblical" kind of storytelling about Middle Earth, Sauron can be purely evil. But in a TV show, viewers have certain expectations about drama and character. It doesn't really work to have a character that is simply purely evil, because that character isn't dynamic enough to sustain something like a 5 season arch. Bottom line, they need to give Sauron at least SOME humanity for us to relate to, otherwise it's really hard to construct compelling dramas that involve his character. I can see why many Tolkien fans don't like this characterization of Sauron, and I tend to agree that it puts in the realm of "fan fiction". BUT that doesn't mean that the writers of RoP didn't also create an interesting and compelling version of the character. My interpretation of the tear is that Annatar respected Celebrimbor, and felt genuine sadness at beholding his own evil when he killed him.
@@theartofstorytelling1 Thanks for the input! Interesting points. I'm trying to think of other characters that have been fleshed out in TV och film versions, that are more black-and-white in their original version. In Harry Potter, the characters are very human to begin with. Too bad some of the critics then, or at least the nerdy part of the audience doesn't recognize how hard it is to bring these characters to life in a TV format. Are there any characters on screen that are very black-and-white, just pure evil or whatever, that we still can relate to? Or is that just very hard to do? Like every bad guy I come to think of has a reason for they to be that way. In some way, they believe they are the hero in their version of the story. Thanos has a plan to DO GOOD, the Joker (Heath Ledger) believes in chaos and the bad in people, so you get where he's coming from. He's just not "bad" or "crazy" in general. He actually believes in something.
In consideration of this video, I feel it reflects on an audience that has more of an appetite for fast food, then a well prepared 3 or 4 course meal. The critical railed with the original LOTR trilogy; many couldn't wait to get to the last one. The art of story telling is more than getting to the punch line. It's a journey and the Rings of Power are just that. I recognized Sauron as the main thread - we all do. The other thread was of Adar. The journey of someone who gave as much as he could, who found clarity just before he was betrayed. The greed of Durin, who faced the Balrog. The interplay with Pharazon and Kemen. To focus only on Sauron and Celebrimbor is myopic view of story telling. This is how I see many who've read the books, or feel their telling could be more dynamic. Can it be told in 2 seasons? No.3 seasons? A jaded audience is quick to dismiss any attempt while failing to see and appreciate the entirety of the story. We all know the story, yet someone had to tell it. Allow the story to unfold and enjoy it. I did. Can't wait for season 3.. and 4 and 5.
So many are pretending Jackson’s LotR trilogy is now some gold standard for adaptations. It takes huge liberties. New things are made up, like the warg attack and Aragorn’s fall in TTT, and lots of characters and events are omitted. The worst offender is RotK - Beregond, Bergil, Imrahil, Ioreth, Ghan-buri-Ghan… and other characters’ personalities are completely changed, like Denethor and Faramir. How is RoP any worse just because it has more wiggle room?
So many people whiff on this simple concept: A film adaptation of a novel has never--and will never--match the novel detail-for-detail. The concept of converting an art form of prose, word-for-word, into the art form of film, and preserving every last detail, is not only unrealistic, it is madness. No novel has ever been translated so perfectly into film, because the two artistic mediums are that different. Sure, both are narrative art forms, but the length and style of their presenting their narratives are vastly different. The second point is that film adaptations--especially of famous 1,000+ page novels--are made for one purpose only: to make massive amounts of profit. The fact that virtually every attempt to do so has resulted in, at best, mediocrity, leaves it almost miraculous that Peter Jackson managed to be as faithful to the novel as he was while dealing with a corporation breathing down his neck. SO, instead of complaining about the relatively small amount of new plot contrivances to help along the adaptation to a shorter artistic medium, you should be thankful it was not only well-written for a film script, but as wildly successful as it was, fueling a renaissance in interest over Tolkien's works--his original literary works, which (surprise, surprise!) remain pure and unchanged and still very much available for people to read in their unabridged form.
@@rikk319 So the Amazon showrunners do not have other parties breathing down their neck? Of course no adaptation can be an exact copy of the source material. I am questioning the discrepancies in the trolls' logic. What is RoP doing wrong that LotR did well? If anything, Jackson created many more contradictions simply because he had more material to use. And don't get me started on the Hobbit trilogy, which some now pretend is better than this series. It is mindboggling.
Hi, It's a fair question you ask. I liked the Jackson movies very much, especially most of the casting, the score, and the costumes, though I also had problems with the liberties taken that you mention. Comparisons between LOTR-the-Movie and ROP are inevitable. Re-makes and spin-offs get compared to the originals--people put art and literature and movies in contexts. The changes that ROP made in its adaptation of Tolkien's texts are far more numerous and drastic than the changes made in LOTR-movie, and fans heartily disliked most of those changes (similarly to your unhappiness with Jackson's adaptations). Try this. Two scenes not in the original texts: characters fall from cliffs. An uninjured Aragorn falls into deep water and, not being weighed down by heavy armor, survives. Okay, that's plausible. Galadriel, seriously, even mortally wounded, falls and strikes rocky ground. How does she not shatter her skull and break every bone in her body? Nope, not buying Galadriel's survival. (I also didn't buy the volcano survival.) For ROP, the list of "I didn't like" is longer than the list of "I like." FYI, I also dislike "The Hobbit," for many of the same reasons I dislike ROP. My list of "I didn't like" is longer than the list of "I liked."
@@RigelDeneb172 How do you quantify those bullet points? I have numerous tiny issues with LotR as well as RoP, like Galadriel's fall that you mention. But unrealistic physics do not take away significantly from my viewing experience if the writing and performances are good, Morfydd Clark being a case in point this season. I was not sure about her or Charlie Vickers in season 1 but I think they both killed it this season. Is that one point on my "Like" list? Two? Or one point for every good performance in every episode, to balance out other issues? I don't even mind Legolas' goofy stunts in The Hobbit too much - what bothers me is the lack of engagement I feel with the main characters aside from BIlbo. I also feel this waste with e.g. Denethor, who is a grey character in the book and could have been much more compelling, noble but misguided, in the film. On that note, he should not have been able to run hundreds of meters while on fire.
4:28 the plot makes sense as you've described it until he decides to make the nine. There's no logical connection why, upon learning that his lies corrupted the seven, Celebrimbor agrees to lie more to create the nine. Unless he's just 100% under sauron's control, in which case we didn't need to see all the episodes leading up to it of Sauron wheedling and conniving and using Celebrimbor's faults against him.
I agree, that part was weak. I was surprised when Celebrimbor went along with the nine. It made him less plausible as an intelligent elf. I wish there was more justification - more about him thinking it was the ONLY way to undo the damage of the seven, and being extremely desparate. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Thanks for watching!
Not only this part of the season was brilliantly wrightten but also the actors showed so much range while being in litteraly one room for 6 episodes. I am so sad that people hates on this amazing series while enjoying that riddiculous GoT spin-off.
I like this show. It has its issues and its challenges. It's based on beloved and wildly in depth source material which is always going to be hard to stick the landing. But it's fundamentally not bad. There is so much garbage on TV that to simply dismiss this show entirely feels wrong. I enjoyed the relationship mentioned here and I get the criticisms too. But I'd take 3 more seasons of this over more vanilla StarWars, Marvel or The Witcher.
I do agree this was the only part of RoP they got right. This show would have had a stronger start if s2 had been s1. But Celebrimbor is dead. Now what?
That's what I was wondering. Where does it go now? I guess the focus now will be on the nine and the fall of Numenor, but without Celebrimbor I'm definitely less excited.
1:20, If we're talking about these characters in regards to central motif or theme, it's the reiterated theme being able to distinguish good from bad by having experience with both (2:48, which is embodied by Sauron himself being disguised as Halbrand first before updating his disguise to be Annatar, as flawed as this whole story still is), like being able to distinguish light and darkness, as well as the failure to do potentially being devastating. In theory, this would be an elf with bad tendencies learning to recognize and overcome her flaw while another with no experience with such tendencies being completely naive to the idea he or any of his kind could ever be used to enact great harm to others. It would connect to other works in this franchise by highlighting how just as the jealousy of humans, the greed of dwarves and the fear of hobbits are flaws these individuals must grapple with and overcome, so too can elves suffer from pride due to their perspective, so to can they be flawed, just as Sauron was once an angel that served the creators of this universe before another rebelled and converted him to his cause.
Pacing is an issue in this series. The Harfoot plot just takes too long, and we don't really [want to] know how it ends. The Numenor parts, i feel, are actually too rushed! I personally love the Akallabeth, and by season two, the persecution of the faithful is already happening? And the men of the Southlands story is just...idk, just there? The anxiety, of what we know will happen, is what engages us: Elves: Eregion is destoryed, they aided in the forging of the rings, and Galadriel founds Lothlorien. Men: Will fall corrupt to the Nine rings. And Rohan will probably show up somewhere. Dwarves: will be driven out by the Balrog. Numenoreans: is destroyed and Elendil takes some faithful to ME, eventually forming Gondor and Arnor. Harfoots:.....become...Hobbits, I guess? And the wizards are...there? I was actually engaged with the Celebrimbor scenes (except for the elf maiden), and wanted more of it. It was also better to have Galadriel as a side character, because she is able to shine more like that.
At last somewhere I relate without fear of assassination, I'm thoroughly enjoying this show, movie magic doesn't upset, Galadriel moves from Lindor to Eregion in just 1 scene I'm not to critised the minutiae of the show , I happily overlooked the queen of the Aliens learnt to use a lift somethings you have bleep & move to enjoy the show in its entirety
Lovely to see that your channel has been growing since last I stumbled upon it a few weeks ago. I always enjoy your thoughtful analysis and look forward to more great videos from you. Unfortunately, I think I'm giving up on ROP after season 2. None of the wildly disparate narrative threads in this show have been very compelling in my opinion and I agree that focusing on fewer characters and storylines would have been a much better approach. Sauran/Annatar has been depicted this season as wielding the immense power to regenerate, shape-shift, alter reality, and basically use the force in a very Star Wars kind of way, so the rings of power as objects which he needs to fulfill his plans seem very arbitrary to me. Also, the first episode of this second season featured a pretty interesting piece of dialogue where the man on the boat talks to Helbrand about the daily opportunities to choose good over evil, but it doesn't seem that Sauran/Annatar really wrestles with that conflict in any meaningful way, so the scenes with Annatar and Celebrimbor tend to feel pretty flat to me. Celebrimbor feels too easily swayed by Annatar's pretty clear lies.
Thanks for your kind words. Actually, a lot of my new subscribers are from the video I made criticizing Rings Of Power, and it's interesting to see that many of them feel let down by my decision to praise this aspect of it. One of many interesting lessons in my TH-cam journey so far. And yes, I've really struggled to stay with this show. Season One was downright cringey. I don't have a ton of confidence that Season 3 will redeem it.
@@theartofstorytelling1 Expressions of fandom are vast and interesting indeed. Our favorite stories tend to connect so personally and can elicit such passionate responses. I like to focus on what draws me in to art and storytelling in the first place, the beautiful exploration of the human condition. LOTR is a story that champions goodness, friendship, hope, and courage among many other themes. I feel that any critique that I express whether positive or negative must account for those values that connect me to that story. In all of your videos that I've seen, your analysis comes across thoughtful, insightful, and fair. I have tremendous respect for you and all of the other artists and storytellers out there who have the courage to create something and then share it with the rest of us. Keep up the good work.
Although I agree that the Celebrimbor storyline is the by far the most engaging and enjoyable storyline in an otherwise wholly un-enjoyable show, I just cannot help but feel like the stakes are so low - or made to feel so low. A story about Second Age should be the story of larger-than-life characters doing deeds and actions that shape the very history of Middle-Earth. However, every storyline, conversation, and event in the show just feels so "Everyday-like" and insignificant in this grand tale... This might just be because Tolkien's work in its essence is hard to adapt to TV in general (Films obviously worked though, PJ proved that). Idk.. everything just falls flat of it's face in this show.. such a shame.. it's so bad lol...
I'm not wasting my time with the show, so I won't judge how well the actors played their relationship overall, but from all the clips I've seen and summaries of the plot I've watched, their relationship sounds ridiculous. Sauron's not even really manipulating Celebrimbor much more than he was in the first season where he just wandered into the forge and told him what an alloy was. Half the time everyone's just doing exactly what he wants and he's arguing with them against his own interests as if he can't believe how dumb they are. And in all the clips I've seen, they sound like an old married couple bickering. I'm yet to hear anyone say anything about this show that gives me any reason to think there's anything worth watching it for, the best most people can say for it is that it's better than nothing, which is literally the lowest bar possible. So at least you're trying harder than that, I'll give you that.
@@GibsonFender I've yet to see anything would lead me to believe that. The bits of dialogue I've heard and clips I've seen just make this look like some kickstarter show funded by "fans" and written by middle-schoolers.
For anyone who has ever felt unqualified or incapable of doing a job just look to the inspiring tale of the ROP show runners plowing blindly ahead with zero 💩 given.
bro, don't tell me you fell for the old "people walking and talking dramatically through dark corridors" trope that game of thrones invented and then abused the shit out of? It's nothing more than a trope and indicative of bad writers, writers with such little imagination that instead of doing cool stuff with their characters, they show us characters talking to each other, some times for a whole season with nothing ever happening except within the first and second to last or last episodes... Fantasy shows that fill their time with characters talking politics is a trademark of bad writing. What will you talk about next? How much you liked Legolas platformer section in the Hobbit?
Game of Thrones invented that? I guess you haven't seen the West Wing, which is coincidentally a show that is mostly about talking politics and walking, but also happens to be almost universally acclaimed. You're wlecome to your opinion, but the major difference between the excellent early seasons of GoT and the decidedly inadequate later seasons was that all the fast travel eliminated the walking and talking.
@@mtank31 West wing isn't a fantasy though, it's a show about politics, what else would it show? Game of thrones realized they can pad their runtime with useless walking and talking so that they can make ~10 episode seasons for 8 years, when in fact the whole story could've been condensed and told in 2 seasons and it would've been much better. Rings of power is a whole other level of garbage. Its whole existence should never have even happened in the first place.
@@sbonel3224 You could also argue that Game of Thrones is a show about politics. To your wider point, dialog is important, especially for a Tolkien adaptation, and especially for a television show. Name a good television drama, fantasy or otherwise, where great dialog wasn't a huge part in the success of the show (and no, I don't think it should be different for fantasy). Yes, the LOTR movies cut out a lot of the talking, but they were movies, telling a story at least as big as Rings of Power, but in only 9 or so hours, so skipping from action scene to action scene is OK. Television is designed to tell a story that's a slower burn, over a longer period of time. PS, if you wanted a 2-season GoT with the dialog cut out, I also think that would have been a great story to tell, but you've gotta understand that would be a different show (or more likely a 3-movie trilogy) that would appeal to different audiences. Both are valid, but only one was made, for better or worse.
Thank you! At last! Yes! It is quite a specific TV show but there are things that are definitely well done and heroes (anti-heroes mostly) that were amazingly portrayed.
Nonsense. With as greedy as corporations are, there's much, MUCH better ways to get a bigger bang for your advertising buck. Not to mention Amazon is already one of the most well-known companies in the world. More likely this was some idiot convincing a starry-eyed CEO that buying the intellectual rights to this Tolkien material would lead to massive and long-lasting profits, the positive example being Disney buying Marvel, or the negative being Disney buying Star Wars. As soon as some bigwig in an executive office gets dollar signs in their eyes, what little common sense was present flies out the window.
Grandma-brinbor and Halbrand were sooo poorly cast and acted (not considering the childish dialogues and character development) that I swear it looks like a CW show.
I agree that there is something worthwhile in this relationship, in RoP. There are moments where it works like you describe it. More or less. But you’re also doing a lot of heavy lifting yourself. You’re talking about the relationship and character arcs as you, as a writer, can imagine them. I’m not talking text and subtext here; I think you’re adding stuff that just isn’t there, but could have been. And you’re also ignoring the scenes that usually comes right before or after the good ones, where all the qualities of the good scenes are undermined or wasted. On the whole I think S2 of RoP is more uneven. Where S1 was consistently awful, S2 has - as you say - moments of workmanlike craftsmanship and even beauty, but also scenes and moments that are even worse than the awfulness of S1. Cheers
I can't speak on the overall quality of the show but from everything I've seen, you're definitely being incredibly generous. Everything about this show is nothing but massively wasted potential.
@@djoxer Nah, as you said - the show has good "bits." A show with this storyline and budget should be amazing from start to finish, not show "glimmers" of a good show. The show as a whole definitely sucks.
So you can't speak on it but he's definitely being generous? 😅 This show is mostly baffling, but credit where due, the Annatar/Celebrimbor scenes were really solid, with good performances.
lmao the only good part about the show was the part that was actually part of the lore and not made up. The gandalf and harfoots, galadriel, aorrondier and all that jazz, just get rid of it. Its jazz. To many chords. Give me the solid sweet 4 chord pop music.
I agree with you that there are too many plot lines… would’ve been so much better to focus on one at a time. (Though I am happy whenever the hot elf is on screen 😁)
You're really stretching with this one. The actors did their best, but the writing and characterizations were bad. Celebrimbor came across as a tired, OLD (!!!???), beta moron. He was born in Valinor in the Time of the Trees, grandson of Feanor, fought Morgoth's armies in the first age, a was leader of an incredibly prosperous realm, but was fooled by Sauron over the cours of a couple of months because he told him about alloys, something this craftsman that was thousands of years old never though about trying.
Thank you for being normal and not just shitting on the show. I don’t think it's very good but it’s exhausting watching people who don’t have constructive criticism spew hateful rhetoric.
Thanks for saying so. There's a ton of culture war content on this platform on already, and that's perfectly fine. Those critiques are valid. It's just not what I'm primarily interested in on this channel. Unfortunately, some shows/movies (such as Rings Of Power) get caught up in that. I can see why. But I agree it's not the ONLY thing to talk about. Anyway, thanks for your comment. It gives me faith that my channel can survive haha.
It is ironic that Amazon bears so many parallels between itself and the bad guys of LotR. The rampant industrialism, the founder's obsession with wealth at the expense of the wellbeing of its workers, pushing an obsession for material things onto its customers, etc. Like, Bezos, if you were in Lord of the Rings, you and your company would be a fine stand in for Sauron/Saruman/Smaug.
I mean, you're literally lying when you say it "has nothing to do with Tolkien". That would be a fair statement to make about, say The Fast and the Furious franchise, or Home Alone to name a few movies that have nothing to do with Tolkien, but the Rings of Power most defintely has something to do with Tolkien lol
People are so unwilling to give this show any credit, but I think you're bang on with this. I don't like the context around these generally, BUT the scenes themselves with Annatar and Celebrimbor are executed quite well, especially in the acting department.
Respectful debate and discussion are invited on this thread. Do you agree that these characters were a big improvement over the last season? Or do you feel my analysis is too generous?
Sadly respectful debate is impossible as you probably know deep down. As someone who has enjoyed the show i know this only too well. Enjoyed your vid tho.
Charles and Charlie were phenomenal in their last scene together! I love how with his final breath Celebrimbor managed to reverse their respective roles of manipulator and manipulated, tricking Sauron into a fit of rage in order to be spared the promised days of torment and probably even being "kept alive" as a wraith. His words _"soon I shall go to the shores of the morning, born hence by a wind that you can never FOLLOW!"_ work both as a curse and a stunningly accurate prophecy for Sauron's termination.
A swift wind bore Celebrimbor to the Halls of Mandos, _One alone_ prove Sauron's utter ruin: _... it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed..._
It was an improvement for sure, but unfortunately the core problems of the show persist. Bad writing, some poorly cast actors and horrible worldbuilding with a rushed timeline😊
I'm afraid it is very difficult when someone takes the story of an accomplished author and rearranges it to portray something that is illogical, to then take a few scenes and say it was promising. It was garbage that had a few scenes that might have proven entertaining if they had created their own franchise. The attempt to win a new audience was an affront against those who had hoped for a portrayal of the second age.
Many of us are really enjoying it, it was obviously made for those that just enjoy the world of middle earth and arnt engulfed in Tolkien lore/history. If you don’t like it that’s cool, you’ve always got his books to enjoy and nothing will change that.
As someone that was largely disappointed by the show, I can also admit that there were glimpses of great writing and acting between those two, during this season
When the best thing in the show is a realationship that should've happened in the first season but the show-runners wanted to create helbrand God knows why, rushing into showing how Sauron influence is evil, instead of slowly building up trhough out seasons, telling us he's a "bearer of many gifts" instead of showing us and earning that title. Not leting Elrond to get to Celebrimbor bc they went on foot instead of horses (but in the battle the elves have millions horses) eventhough it's urgent, the whole reletationship feels force and contrived imo.
Great video btw.
I REALLY liked this season. All archs were handled statisfyingly, and believable.
The answer is simple as to why this felt like the best part of the show: Because Anatar and Celebrimbor IS the real story of this age. Tolkien's story is complicated, long-arc gold. The manipulation is subtle, takes decades to foment, and deals with really interesting questions of creation, control and ambition. Especially when you understand Celebrimbor to be the grandson of Feanor, which they barely mention.
To be honest, though, even if this is the best part of the show, it still fell flat, with a severely truncated timeline, bad dialogue - and Anatar's plan simply not making any sense. Celebrimbor's motives and decisions in the show make him seem a complete fool. They also tore the lore to shreds. Considering Amazon seemed to boast of the price tag for the IP, and for the cost of the show in general, people expected a work of quality that shines a light on how good Tolkien's world building really was. Instead it feels like the writers thought they could do better, and demonstrated the opposite.
I think if you're trying to find something good, you can find it, and I guess this was the "best" part of the show. But best comparatively only to it's other parts. When viewed from the perspective of other fantasy media, or just TV shows in general - it's still, from my perspective, bad and disrespectful to the source material.
I appreciate you taking a different tact, though, given all the negative attention this show gets.
Agreed - it seemed a bit easy for Anatar
Yeah that's the feeling I had too - that maybe this would have been better as a film that focuses mainly on this story. In the context of all the other fluff going on in the show, this story was BETTER but still had major problems. I wonder if, as a standalone film, it might have given us a better picture of the second age. Anyway thanks for being cool with me taking a somewhat contrarian view. I wondered if this video would get downvoted into oblivion lol
Anatar's plan made sense though. And you are totally incorrect on what you said about Celebrimbor.
I think this was the only story that the series managed to tell with above average quality, I agree. The actors who played these two characters also played a role in this. But I think what is really important is what Tolkien wrote. The only subject that was as faithful to the original as possible in the series was Annatar's deception of Celebrimbor and the making of the rings. They changed the plot again, but the motivation of the characters was parallel to what Tolkien told. So I think the right thing the series did was not in their ability to write this, but in their ability to be faithful to what Tolkien wrote for once. Because I think they failed in almost all of their free writing choices.
This is a good point. Maybe this story works the best simply because it is the most faithful to the source material. Thanks for watching :)
Good point. Similar to how GoT went off the rails when the showrunners made up their own stuff.
@@bryanwigmore7224 Well...at least, if you're going to make stuff up to continue the plot, at least follow the spirit of the original material. Lord of the Rings Online, for example, has made new material following the spirit of the original, and done very well with it.
2:07 “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history - true or feigned- with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.” -J.R.R. Tolkien
"Of course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power." (JRR Tolkien, Letter #186)
@@troupemusographes2460 His quote would be easier if you read it this way: "Of course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but A STORY of Power." I don't think he was suggesting his story was an allegory. Just like in the Bridge of Khazad-dum chapter, he was alluding to the darkness around the balrog being LIKE two vast wings, not actual wings. He could have worded it better in both instances.
It's really nice watching a video where someone is actually being positive about this show. I don't get me wrong I've got many problems with it, but there are a few strands of gold weaved in if you are willing to look. The last three episodes were absolutely fantastic, still not completely a tier, but it's giving me lots of hope for season 3
I think Charles Edwards put in a fantastic performance as Celebrimbor which helps with engagement. However, I am not so sure I would describe Celebrimbor as the protagonist of the season. The protagonist is arguably Sauron. He deceives Celebrimbor and uses his skills to his own ends. If Sauron had not been there, there would have been no rings and no plot. It sounds strange to call the villain the protagonist but he is undeniably the most proactive character.
I had the same thought when he asked who the protagonist was - Sauron's the one whose goals are driving the plot forward. It's not unheard of - Thanos is unquestionably the protagonist of Infinity War, even though he's also the villain.
@@antilles58 True, and I guess of course you want a proactive villain in your story. But you also run the risk of making the hero(es) less compelling to watch if they're mostly just reacting to what the villain is doing. At some point they should catch up and overtake, I think.
Interesting point. Agreed about Charles Edwards' performance, especially in that last scene. Your theory is supported by the fact that the season opens with that little vignette about Sauron being betrayed and turning into that crawly creature.
@@antilles58 A protagonist doesn't have to be a hero, true.
@@rikk319 That is true, but the question who then is the antagonist will become quite loaded then.
Finally a well thought out video, I am so done with all those "omg rings of power sucks" videos. This series brought out such toxic, blind, simple-minded channels. At least I can filter them out more easely.
@@moon-moth1 i know I am the first one that wants those Hobbits gone from the show all togheter or feels like Numenor's plotline pacing is all over the place
I am wholly convinced 90% of the hate is unsubstantiated and just bandwagoning. The show and certainly the second season are really not that bad.
I'd actually say it's the most broken relationship in the season, one with the most potential and some of the best acting but it left me with why would they ever structure it like this impression
Why would sauron appear in the same form after revealing his identity to galadriel? Dose he relay on her having such a huge ego that she won't tell others who he really is? Sauron's angelic form should've been the first time they ever met, cut the halbrand crap off completely
He shouldn't ask or even suggest making rings for men and dwarves, all rings were initially meant for the elves because he only cared about controlling them at the time, he'd look too suspicious in their eyes if he just appeared with a load of magic rings so he made it look like an artistic collaboration, he dosen't need that disguise for men and dwarves so if they were actually his goal then he shouldn't even be in eregion because he can forge the rings himself
The forging of the rings should take more time, they shouldn't forge a whole set of them off screen, and they should be more gradual, first they make lesser experimental rings, then the great 16 rings, then celebrimbor on his own makes the 3 which is supposed to be the peak of his craft and character arc, have sauron actually teach him something, have them exchange some knowledge
Sauron acts so needlessly suspicious all the time, I swear he just wants to he caught, he constantly changes his backstory, his manipulation is blatant and easy to see through, he takes massive risks for no reason like how he revealed his true form for one of the elves and she just glanced over it because plot
He should not have artificially opposed a time limit on himself, he wants eregion to be sieged but at the same time wants it intact for the rings to be made (that confirms the time frame for making the rings is like a day which is insane)
Credits where credit due celebrimbor's actor is the only improvement I can think of over the first season, I hope he gets a better job with a better script because this is not doing him justice
@@GILGAMESH069 very good points, that add up on the points I made somewhere in the comments here. I find this supposedly dramatic interaction between the two just laughable. It is all constructed by defying logic. Everything is meaningless, the narrative make the characters act naive and stupid like small kids would. But I praise the actors here tbh.
Something else that Rings of Power does well is the music. I have multiple videos on my channel about Bear McCreary's score, it you're interested.
I appreciate and agree with your take in this video. The Annatar/Celebrimbor story was great. Good luck with the comments section of this video!
Haha thanks! I'll check out your videos. And yeah, feels like the majority of people on this platform feel quite strongly that this show is irredeemable. My video criticizing it got literally a hundred times the number of views lol.
@@theartofstorytelling1 I agree with Nerd of the Rings that the show is *uneven* rather than a simple good or bad. Season 2 is better than season 1, but too many people are blinded by their hate of season 1 to give 2 a fair chance.
The Halbrand theme is nice, but there was way too much emotional reaction writing instead of bringing an overall arc through the music. But that could be due to what the producer requested, I don't blame the composer for that... didn't like the overly epic music though and why did they put weird metal music in the end credits of episode 7?? 😂
It's hard to find positive videos about this show. Thank you. I enjoyed your take on it. Honestly I thought Celebrimbor should have been the main character from the beginning. We didn't need their version of Galadriel messing up the Lore. I wanted to see Celebrimbor with a group of smiths and have it be a mystery as to which one was Sauron.
Hard agree, character-centric storyline of Celebrimbor and Sauron just worked. Insane how much better the show could get with better script. I root for season 3 to get better writers.
Okay, exactly this! Granted, I'm enjoy most parts of the ride of ROP, but this is where ROP is rising up to shine.
Next video: What Sharknado does right
Unironically a great movie night with friends
It's great fun! End of. 😂
Yes, credit to the writers and to the two actors. This was the central arc, and it's good that it had the high quality it had. The arc of the Durins had good moments too.
The writers deserve exactly zero credit. Small children could have crafted a narrative of equal quality.
They did set up Celebrimbor as ambitious in season 1, but it requires a decent memory. Having so many characters and having a payoff be potentially seasons away makes it difficult to not get frustrated with something that seems in the moment like a dead-end. A little more work in making the manipulations particular to a character would have avoided the criticism that he was less a dark lord and more of a mean girl at school.
I'd agree that people misunderstood the tear as trying to paint the dark lord as sympathetic. But I read it more as self-pity that he had to kill one of his better toys. Given the earlier line about the deceiver lying to himself, that made sense to me.
Yeah, this is the unfortunate thing about the series. On the whole, it's just not good, so the parts that ARE good don't matter in a way. It's funny - while I was editing this video I made a timeline of JUST the scenes with Annatar and Celebrimbor, and i watched it all back to back. It worked as a self-contained story! Made me think it might have made a good standalone film. But with all the other storylines spread across multiple seasons, it really is just taxing. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Mixed reviews is a funny way of saying they lost the majority of their audience and they singlehandedly created a YT genre of people mocking the show.
Billion dollar show with worldwide publicity by one of the largest companies on Earth, an IP with a massive built-in fandom, a massive flop by any standards.
Knowing an audience kept watching beyond season 1 was already kind of surprising. They had long lost the gigantic potential audience this show could've had, for sure, and it's understandable
If your only source of information is the Lotr_on_prime subreddit, you'd think this show was better than the books.
@@corentinm.105 I've continued to watch it in a morbid way, like watching a 12-car pileup in a NASCAR race.
Shadow of War/Mordor did an order of magnitude better job for a fraction of the cost
Great analysis! I haven't watched the show - I've been too heavily dissuaded by other people I see discussing it - but I respect your drawing attention to the part of it that did work. I think that's useful.
Funny cause I actually had to think of one of your vids watching the show, the last episode to be precise. At one point someone said „i choose friendship over power“ (or something close to that). You spotted that moral (friendship over power/standing) as the central one of LOTR and I agree. But I always find it a sign of bad storytelling if you have to say the message of a story out loud, because you are not able to convey it through actions etc.
It's very telling that the Annatar/Celebrimbor story is the strongest material and the show had to damn near retcon the first season for it to even happen. What a bizarre show this is.
Thanks for this. I really appreciate your balanced, reasoned reviews of this series. As a big fan of the books, and only slightly less so of PJ's first three films, I share your criticisms of the show.
Really appreciate the points you've made! Just finished watching both seasons. My expectations were very low, so didn't really get disappointed by the show. Still I felt annoyed by a big part of the series, but have to admit this issue was mostly noticeable in season 1. Wouldn't say that season 2 was good, but think that "okay" kinda fits. Celebrmibor's arc felt more or less genuine, and think was one of the things that kept me watching. Think that creators did a pretty good job portraying what manipulation can look like, and can say that Sauron's character definitely had its moments.
My main motivation to watch the series was curiosity, along the lines of "let's see how this show with insane budget and terrible reception looks like, and what went wrong", and think that I learned a thing or two from the experience. Don't really believe that the show could become good in the next seasons, given the foundation it already has, but still I might watch it - I find it quite intriguing to see results of corporate greed and incompetence on this scale :D
I discovered your channel 2 days ago and binge watched your whole content, because I found it incredibly insightful, topics well analysed and explained and your way to approach complicated issues I really appreciate. However here I have to clearly disagree the first time with you:
What you point out here is more the idea of the writers behind the applied story of Celebrimbor and Anatar, which might have been good. But the way this story is displayed and imbedded in the overarching narrative, just don't transport the good aspects that you point out here. Because RoP manages to make nearly everything completely meaningless and unimmersive by having logical flaws nearly every minute of screen time, displays completely weird, naive and simply silly choices by the characters. If you, as the viewer, reallize these flaws again and again and the inconsistency, it's nearly impossible to really be engaged into the feelings, motivations etc of the characters. For example: Celebrimbor looks like the most naive, most stupid elf alive that let himself gaslight like a 12 year old over and over again, instead of being shown as this thousands of years old, majestic, wise, mature, powerful, mythic elven being. He doesn't reallize the candles don't burn down, until after a very long time he paints a mark on one? He can forge the rings normally in the illusion despite his whole forge being destroyed? The illusion is being destroyed by destroying a window? This all is inconsistent and doesnt even make sense. He doesn't know what an alloy is? He doesn't know how to really forge at all and needs his trainee to tell him how really forge the rings? Why does Sauron need him in the first place? He cuts his finger, instead of trying to cut his chains (I mean he is the master smith and in his damn forge man). He says "Hallo Mr. Mouse." what would fit to a naive little hobbit and not to his persona at all. He is portrayed so incompetent and miserable. How can you then expect viewers to really be engaged at all in this story, if they get pulled out of their immersion every few minutes? In contrast to your recation, I found it incredibly bad and somehow laughable when he cried and Sauron aswell. Because they made it meaningless before there was even a chance that I would have been engaged.
The only good thing I can say here is the acting of the two men that played Anatar and especially Celebrimbor. It seems like Celembrimbor's actor acts out his very soul to make an incredibly bad written script somehow good. I respect him a lot for that.
Thanks for sharing, especially being a fan of the channel. I hope I didn't lose your trust! Nothing wrong with disagreeing, in my view. You make good points - Celebrimbor is definitely not very elf-like, and definitely doesn't come across as one of the GREATEST elves. One does need to overlook some inconsistencies in logic to get immersed in this story. I think for me, it was mainly that by COMPARISON to the rest of the show, I felt that this was done better - mainly because the other storylines are just so empty and meaningless, and often downright cringey. I had to look past a lot of bad to find the good, for sure.
I think the hate mongering around this show and others like it show exectly how easy it is to manipulate people. If you're someone who has the right personality type, or maybe has the right misconceptions, it's very easy to be conditioned by the many rage baiting videos to think that every word is bad and everything is a logical flaw (by people whose only motivation is views). In fact, we're all manipulated all the time, even if we think we aren't, and it's not our intelligence that is the flaw, it's our tendency to trust and our emotions. The techniques Annatar uses on Celebrimbor will be well known to anyone with a good grasp of sociology, and I suspect all too familiar to people (and no, not just 12 year olds) who've been in abusive relationships. So why do you need to make the supposedly wiser-than-human elf fall for manipulations like a normal dumb human would? For the same reason you can't make a night time battle scene too realistic. The audience can't see it! If you're writing a manipulation so subtle that only someone wiser than the wisest human could recognise it, how are we as a human audience supposed to understand it? Dumbing it down to a certain extent is how you let the audience become part of the manipulation, and the trick is to make it feel both intelligent and relatable. I don't know if the writers quite got that balance right, but it was pretty close.
To your comment about logical flaws, many of these so-called flaws break down with a more nuanced view. The hammer shattering the window is as much symbolic as literal. The whole scene was about the manipulation finally being broken down, and the hammer through the window was both the literal and symbolic shattering of the barrier between the created world and the real one. The sounds of the battle outside was the final part of an entire process that had been happening over the whole scene. He can forge the rings normally in a damaged forge? No, he probably can't, but I don't think the illusion is like a hologram or anything like that, it's something that's affecting his coscious mind, not his eyes. Unconsciously he'd be aware of the truth and working around the damage, without those actions intruding on the illusion. This is actually quite Tolkienian in that magic is not an external force, but a subtle way of affecting the minds and emotions of others. You do need to interpret these, which requires effort, but I don't think you need to suspend reality or stretch your logic too much. By the way, I'm not saying that all your criticisms are invalid, or that there are no logical flaws (someone commented on the logic of the 9 being made even after the failure of the 7, and I agree with that one - the in-show explanation seems like too much of a stretch to me),
PS. I like your phrase "pulled out of their immersion". I'm truly enjoying the show and I think the themes are very Tolkien, but the immersion is broken for me at least once per episode. I think Rings of Power is perfectly watchable, but I am disappointed it's not a masterpiece of television. It really could've been much better and I would have loved to see that.
@@mtank31 I really like that you try to apply a nuanced view to the show and I appreciate your long thought through comment. But I disagree with your premise that the main reason why people hate on the show comes from manipulation. As good as that I explanation I could simply say: People only like the show due to manipulation of reviewers and creators that are inclined to show the series in a good light because by a billion dollar company, which could have benefits for them. But I don't say this because I can't prove it and I also don't think this is a fair viewpoint. Wouldn't the hate towards the show be easier to explain by people simply being frustrated with poor writing and decisions of the show runners that these people really didn't like? If you listen to the so called "rage reviews" then yes, some things are nit picks and some things are maybe not fair. But many points they make do make sense, follow logic and rationality, instead of being born out of pure emotions. Despite this viewpoint I, for example, didn't watch any reviews or opinion statements at all when I watched the first season of RoP. I watched it alone, without any input from outside. I didn't see ratings, comments, twitter about it, nothing. And what I watched, was in my opinion, one of the worst examples of modern media that I have ever experienced. Which I have to admit made me mad, seeing the immense potential of such a great foundation laid by Tolkien wasted. And when I saw creators criticizing the show, they spoke out of my heart by expressing points that I already had made in my head, only confirming what I already thought. In addition they pointed out even more questionable points that I didn't realize the first time watching, that helped me to understand better than before what exactly is the difference between good and bad storytelling. And this is no manipulation, but the illumination of the foundations of good story telling itself and it's pitfalls. So many of these "rage view" creations have indeed didactic value, if they deliver a well thought through analysis.
To your point of dumbing down the manipulation technique used by Annatar towards Celebrimbor: You don't need to be wiser than the wisest human could imagine in order to create and understand a believable intelligent manipulation sequence of an incredible wise and intelligent being like Celebrimbor. You only need to show the audience information, that Celebrimbor doesn't have. You can apply much more nuanced manipulation techniques that the audience will understand as well. A good example for that are many plots in Game of Thrones, which are undoubtedly on a much higher level than this simplistic, not well thought through, often illogical dialogue between Celebrimbor and Annatar.
To your point with the shattered window serving as metaphor: It is clear to me, that this shattering is used a symbolism of the illusion finally being destroyed. But you could have used this, or a similar metaphor or symbolism WITHOUT inserting a logical flaw and inconsistency.
To the thing with the forge: You are right, it isn't meant to be a holographic illusion and I also could accept that in his illusion he is unconsciously working around f.e. destroyed parts or rubble, I give you that. But it isn't believable when you can clearly see that his stations, tools and in particular his very forge itself with the fire he needs to be physically able to forge the rings are in reality all being completely unusable by the destruction. Showing this only serves the purpose to make the reveal of the reality more sensational by sacrificing the internal logic and by that it makes it immersion breaking (you can use this as a metaphor on a meta level for the viewer). Besides that, there were even much more inconsistencies building up to this point, like for example with the created problem, a whole episode was revolving around, of not having mithril, while sauron could have just used his blood for this from the beginning, making it look like mithril. Also the rings were not even finished, as Celebrimbor said himself in one scene etc etc
And all of these points here are just the surface of the problems and inconsistencies of the writing and the disregard of fundamental rules of storytelling.
In whole I think why this show makes me mad the most is, that in my opinion it is completely anti-Tolkienian. The very essence of Tolkien and why his world and story telling resonated with so many people is completely twisted and misunderstood by the writers. For example Tolkien hated allegories:
“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history - true or feigned- with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
The show runners explicitly stated that they want to convey allegories. Just one example, next to the modern sociological influences, the Balrog should be an allegory for global warming. It's not my interpretation, it's what they stated themselves!
Another example: Tom Bombadil says the famous phrase: "Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life." in a life-opposing context of saving the two "hobbits", (while stripping Gandalf of being the creator of this phrase.)
While Gandalf used this phrase in a life-affirming context of not killing Gollum because his life has value: "Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the wise cannot see all ends."
I could continue with many many other problems like the want-to-seem epic phrases that are completely empty, the insanely unlikable character of Galadriel, the implementation of modern political sociological viewpoints, the decisions of different wise elves, the completely inconsequential bad behaviour of main characters, the tower that is hold together by one rope, the not using of horses when characters have to travel quickly, the instant teleportations over huge distances, the meeting of two groups that physically shouldn't be able to meet if you look at the map, the completely unrealistic and unbelievable fight scenes, the blocking of the mining endeavours of a whole dwarven city by a singing lady with bats, the destruction of the concept of good and evil, the fact that the show creates more reasons to empathize with the orcs than with the elves, the high frequency of random encounters that conveniently serve the plot progression, the fact that nearly every main character has some convenient magical visions etc etc. But what repels me the most are extreme anti-tolkienean ideas of the show.
I think the reason why "rage-viewers" get so much attention by engagement is not because they manipulate viewers for views, but viewers engage with them because they address what a huge portion of the viewers think.
And I think these examples I made are reasonable and my disliking of the show is because of these examples and not due to manipulation by some random youtube creators.
@@DieBieneFranz I appreciate your well thought out reply as well. I won't go too much into the detail, except to say that some of your comments I agree with, some I disagree with, and others I agree with in principle but disagree with in application :)
One pet hate I have when discussing Tolkien is the quote about allegory. Tolkien could have said that as much as he wants, but there are clear and undeniable allegorical elements in his works. The most obvious one I can think of is "machinery = bad" and "being nice to trees = good". In that respect, I don't think it's necessarily anti-Tolkienian to use allegory, but I must agree that things like "the Elves will take our job" was a particularly bad use of it (I assume that's what you're referring to when talking about modern sociological influences), and one that I think doesn't belong in the show, especially when Tolkien provides a perfect reason for the Numenorians' resentment in the "elves are immortal and we aren't" idea. I hadn't heard about the Balrog being used as a metaphor for climate change, but I also didn't notice it, so I figure at least it's not being shoved down our throats. I think subtle allegorical elements (emphasis on subtle) can only elevate this kind of show.
I get that there's plenty of valid criticism for the show, and I also know there are good faith videos that are highly critical, and that;s fine. There's clearly clickbait rage-baiting too, and I'm only seeing more of them as I engage with content, even if I'm trying to avoid the overly negative ones. I can't see that trend as not having an effect on people's opinions (but clearly not yours as you yourself said). I see that as both a cause and a symptom of our modern society where we have to pick a side now. Like it's not OK to give RoP a score out of 10, you either need to be in the "for" army of the "against" army, so nothing can be OK anymore.
I know this show is not one of the best ever produced, but for me that's OK. I disagree that it's anti-Tolkien, and I understand the logic behind some of the decisions that are being made. One of the major themes is how seeking good ends by questionable means is wrong (which is very much a Tolkienian concept), and it's pretty clear to me that this is the sole reason for the fairly boring hobbit/Gandalf story to exist. I'm finding the show is watchable, and because I think it is giving some interesting thematic interpretation of the history of Middle Earth (which is admittedly delivered clumsily on occasion), that's what is keeping me watching it. On the other hand, you seem to have a very negative view of it, and I wonder if it's because you expect perfection or near perfection from an adaptation of Tolkien's work and nothing else is good enough. That's OK, but I guess it shows the contrast between how we view the show. I note you compare the dialog to Game of Thrones, which I'd consider some of the best dialog ever to be shown on television, so you're setting a pretty high, if not unreachable, bar.
Again, thanks for the discussion
Yes, exactly this! The show doesn't pull off any of it's other character arcs. But this one I can really buy, Anatar believing his own propaganda felt real and so did the way he subtly twists the lady smith-elf who works with Celebrimbor. The basic arc is good; the way it's written is good; the way it's performed is great; the way it weaves in (without throwing in our faces) a range of themes about responsibility, deference to authority, and even mental illness is good.
The only negative is that it makes me wish that that had been Season 1! Season 2 could have been about a Celembrimbor broken mentally and physically agonising about whether he should make the 3 elven rings. Yes, I know that would also break canon, but less so than the ordering the show did (not that I consider following canon the top priority anyway).
Thanks for the positivity. I know this series isn't for every one but I have a hard time hearing meople hating it completely. There are some good elements in it. The music for once is excellent. I really appreciated the main plot just like you and I think it's also due to a strong acting. We're sorry for Celembrimbor bc we saw he meant well and Charlie Vickers is so subtle that at time I'm wondering if he's so bad (I know he is). I think we just need true hobbits, peaceful people living a quiet life until they're projected in the wild world. Unfortunately, we can't bc they don't have a home yet. That's what they must fix.
I agree that this was the most compelling story line of the show, but I think you're projecting the depth that you would expect from a story like Celebrimbor's onto the show. What you would have written sounds awesome, but it is much much richer than what the show actually gave us.
this show actually had so much potential, only if the main character was celebrimbor (and if they styled and wrote him more accurately, example: more powerful, treated with more respect, appearing with long black hair etc) because him and annatar's actor has really good chemistry on screen. and i think the other actor embodied sauron pretty well, even with the horrible dialogue they were given to work with, he still acts very well. just wish they hired better writers, and try to not stray away too much from the lore (a little is okay, after all peter jackson weren't fully devoted either, but ROP literally feels like a tolkien based fanfiction 95% of the time lol) and also, like i said, if they kept celebrimbor as the singular protagonist instead of forcing other characters in that has nothing to do with the whole story line, expect for elrond & isildur.
Another great video that put into words what I've been feeling about this season. I was actually moved when Annatar cried. Also, thinking he lost an ally, or a good friend, and perhaps, if you want to interpret it that way, a partner. I'm pretty sure Sauron can feel some weird love emotion in some sense, and that it doesn't matter which gender he falls for. Perhaps he felt that him and Celebrimbor should rule all of middle-Earth. Just a thought!
@@moon-moth1 Interesting! Haven't read the books. There's another great video from The Art of Storytelling where he goes into that Tolkien made the moral of the story that evil doesn't really never disappear, it's not a finite ending in the books, with The Shire still being defiled after they destroyed the one ring. But would you say, with regards to Sauron, that that character in some way is written as pure evil, more a black and white perspective, as if Sauron don't have the same open writing as Tolkien put into the conflicts of Middle earth?
Interesting chat, so I'll chime in with a thought. My view is that the writers of RoP are bound to humanize the character of Sauron more than Tolkien did, merely by the fact of the different formats they're working in. A TV show isn't especially well-suited to the kind of mythological storytelling that we find in Tolkien. In something like the Simlarillion, an almost "biblical" kind of storytelling about Middle Earth, Sauron can be purely evil. But in a TV show, viewers have certain expectations about drama and character. It doesn't really work to have a character that is simply purely evil, because that character isn't dynamic enough to sustain something like a 5 season arch. Bottom line, they need to give Sauron at least SOME humanity for us to relate to, otherwise it's really hard to construct compelling dramas that involve his character. I can see why many Tolkien fans don't like this characterization of Sauron, and I tend to agree that it puts in the realm of "fan fiction". BUT that doesn't mean that the writers of RoP didn't also create an interesting and compelling version of the character. My interpretation of the tear is that Annatar respected Celebrimbor, and felt genuine sadness at beholding his own evil when he killed him.
@@theartofstorytelling1 Thanks for the input! Interesting points. I'm trying to think of other characters that have been fleshed out in TV och film versions, that are more black-and-white in their original version. In Harry Potter, the characters are very human to begin with. Too bad some of the critics then, or at least the nerdy part of the audience doesn't recognize how hard it is to bring these characters to life in a TV format.
Are there any characters on screen that are very black-and-white, just pure evil or whatever, that we still can relate to? Or is that just very hard to do?
Like every bad guy I come to think of has a reason for they to be that way. In some way, they believe they are the hero in their version of the story. Thanos has a plan to DO GOOD, the Joker (Heath Ledger) believes in chaos and the bad in people, so you get where he's coming from. He's just not "bad" or "crazy" in general. He actually believes in something.
In consideration of this video, I feel it reflects on an audience that has more of an appetite for fast food, then a well prepared 3 or 4 course meal. The critical railed with the original LOTR trilogy; many couldn't wait to get to the last one. The art of story telling is more than getting to the punch line. It's a journey and the Rings of Power are just that. I recognized Sauron as the main thread - we all do. The other thread was of Adar. The journey of someone who gave as much as he could, who found clarity just before he was betrayed. The greed of Durin, who faced the Balrog. The interplay with Pharazon and Kemen.
To focus only on Sauron and Celebrimbor is myopic view of story telling. This is how I see many who've read the books, or feel their telling could be more dynamic. Can it be told in 2 seasons? No.3 seasons? A jaded audience is quick to dismiss any attempt while failing to see and appreciate the entirety of the story. We all know the story, yet someone had to tell it. Allow the story to unfold and enjoy it. I did. Can't wait for season 3.. and 4 and 5.
So many are pretending Jackson’s LotR trilogy is now some gold standard for adaptations. It takes huge liberties. New things are made up, like the warg attack and Aragorn’s fall in TTT, and lots of characters and events are omitted. The worst offender is RotK - Beregond, Bergil, Imrahil, Ioreth, Ghan-buri-Ghan… and other characters’ personalities are completely changed, like Denethor and Faramir. How is RoP any worse just because it has more wiggle room?
So many people whiff on this simple concept: A film adaptation of a novel has never--and will never--match the novel detail-for-detail. The concept of converting an art form of prose, word-for-word, into the art form of film, and preserving every last detail, is not only unrealistic, it is madness. No novel has ever been translated so perfectly into film, because the two artistic mediums are that different. Sure, both are narrative art forms, but the length and style of their presenting their narratives are vastly different.
The second point is that film adaptations--especially of famous 1,000+ page novels--are made for one purpose only: to make massive amounts of profit. The fact that virtually every attempt to do so has resulted in, at best, mediocrity, leaves it almost miraculous that Peter Jackson managed to be as faithful to the novel as he was while dealing with a corporation breathing down his neck.
SO, instead of complaining about the relatively small amount of new plot contrivances to help along the adaptation to a shorter artistic medium, you should be thankful it was not only well-written for a film script, but as wildly successful as it was, fueling a renaissance in interest over Tolkien's works--his original literary works, which (surprise, surprise!) remain pure and unchanged and still very much available for people to read in their unabridged form.
@@rikk319 So the Amazon showrunners do not have other parties breathing down their neck? Of course no adaptation can be an exact copy of the source material. I am questioning the discrepancies in the trolls' logic. What is RoP doing wrong that LotR did well? If anything, Jackson created many more contradictions simply because he had more material to use. And don't get me started on the Hobbit trilogy, which some now pretend is better than this series. It is mindboggling.
Hi, It's a fair question you ask. I liked the Jackson movies very much, especially most of the casting, the score, and the costumes, though I also had problems with the liberties taken that you mention.
Comparisons between LOTR-the-Movie and ROP are inevitable. Re-makes and spin-offs get compared to the originals--people put art and literature and movies in contexts. The changes that ROP made in its adaptation of Tolkien's texts are far more numerous and drastic than the changes made in LOTR-movie, and fans heartily disliked most of those changes (similarly to your unhappiness with Jackson's adaptations).
Try this. Two scenes not in the original texts: characters fall from cliffs. An uninjured Aragorn falls into deep water and, not being weighed down by heavy armor, survives. Okay, that's plausible.
Galadriel, seriously, even mortally wounded, falls and strikes rocky ground. How does she not shatter her skull and break every bone in her body? Nope, not buying Galadriel's survival. (I also didn't buy the volcano survival.)
For ROP, the list of "I didn't like" is longer than the list of "I like."
FYI, I also dislike "The Hobbit," for many of the same reasons I dislike ROP. My list of "I didn't like" is longer than the list of "I liked."
@@RigelDeneb172 How do you quantify those bullet points? I have numerous tiny issues with LotR as well as RoP, like Galadriel's fall that you mention. But unrealistic physics do not take away significantly from my viewing experience if the writing and performances are good, Morfydd Clark being a case in point this season. I was not sure about her or Charlie Vickers in season 1 but I think they both killed it this season. Is that one point on my "Like" list? Two? Or one point for every good performance in every episode, to balance out other issues? I don't even mind Legolas' goofy stunts in The Hobbit too much - what bothers me is the lack of engagement I feel with the main characters aside from BIlbo. I also feel this waste with e.g. Denethor, who is a grey character in the book and could have been much more compelling, noble but misguided, in the film. On that note, he should not have been able to run hundreds of meters while on fire.
While some of Jacksons changes spun a bit away from the "core"...ROP has shot off into deep space.....
4:28 the plot makes sense as you've described it until he decides to make the nine. There's no logical connection why, upon learning that his lies corrupted the seven, Celebrimbor agrees to lie more to create the nine. Unless he's just 100% under sauron's control, in which case we didn't need to see all the episodes leading up to it of Sauron wheedling and conniving and using Celebrimbor's faults against him.
I agree, that part was weak. I was surprised when Celebrimbor went along with the nine. It made him less plausible as an intelligent elf. I wish there was more justification - more about him thinking it was the ONLY way to undo the damage of the seven, and being extremely desparate. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Thanks for watching!
A big shout out to all the "one wig to rules them all" comments. You guys could not be more spot off.
Not only this part of the season was brilliantly wrightten but also the actors showed so much range while being in litteraly one room for 6 episodes. I am so sad that people hates on this amazing series while enjoying that riddiculous GoT spin-off.
I like this show. It has its issues and its challenges. It's based on beloved and wildly in depth source material which is always going to be hard to stick the landing. But it's fundamentally not bad. There is so much garbage on TV that to simply dismiss this show entirely feels wrong. I enjoyed the relationship mentioned here and I get the criticisms too. But I'd take 3 more seasons of this over more vanilla StarWars, Marvel or The Witcher.
I do agree this was the only part of RoP they got right. This show would have had a stronger start if s2 had been s1. But Celebrimbor is dead. Now what?
That's what I was wondering. Where does it go now? I guess the focus now will be on the nine and the fall of Numenor, but without Celebrimbor I'm definitely less excited.
Agreed. It was interesting how much better it was than the rest of the show
1:20, If we're talking about these characters in regards to central motif or theme, it's the reiterated theme being able to distinguish good from bad by having experience with both (2:48, which is embodied by Sauron himself being disguised as Halbrand first before updating his disguise to be Annatar, as flawed as this whole story still is), like being able to distinguish light and darkness, as well as the failure to do potentially being devastating.
In theory, this would be an elf with bad tendencies learning to recognize and overcome her flaw while another with no experience with such tendencies being completely naive to the idea he or any of his kind could ever be used to enact great harm to others.
It would connect to other works in this franchise by highlighting how just as the jealousy of humans, the greed of dwarves and the fear of hobbits are flaws these individuals must grapple with and overcome, so too can elves suffer from pride due to their perspective, so to can they be flawed, just as Sauron was once an angel that served the creators of this universe before another rebelled and converted him to his cause.
Pacing is an issue in this series. The Harfoot plot just takes too long, and we don't really [want to] know how it ends. The Numenor parts, i feel, are actually too rushed! I personally love the Akallabeth, and by season two, the persecution of the faithful is already happening? And the men of the Southlands story is just...idk, just there?
The anxiety, of what we know will happen, is what engages us:
Elves: Eregion is destoryed, they aided in the forging of the rings, and Galadriel founds Lothlorien.
Men: Will fall corrupt to the Nine rings. And Rohan will probably show up somewhere.
Dwarves: will be driven out by the Balrog.
Numenoreans: is destroyed and Elendil takes some faithful to ME, eventually forming Gondor and Arnor.
Harfoots:.....become...Hobbits, I guess? And the wizards are...there?
I was actually engaged with the Celebrimbor scenes (except for the elf maiden), and wanted more of it. It was also better to have Galadriel as a side character, because she is able to shine more like that.
Mixed reactions, varying between scolding wrath on the one hand and sarcastic condemnation on the other.
At last somewhere I relate without fear of assassination, I'm thoroughly enjoying this show, movie magic doesn't upset, Galadriel moves from Lindor to Eregion in just 1 scene I'm not to critised the minutiae of the show , I happily overlooked the queen of the Aliens learnt to use a lift somethings you have bleep & move to enjoy the show in its entirety
Lovely to see that your channel has been growing since last I stumbled upon it a few weeks ago. I always enjoy your thoughtful analysis and look forward to more great videos from you.
Unfortunately, I think I'm giving up on ROP after season 2. None of the wildly disparate narrative threads in this show have been very compelling in my opinion and I agree that focusing on fewer characters and storylines would have been a much better approach. Sauran/Annatar has been depicted this season as wielding the immense power to regenerate, shape-shift, alter reality, and basically use the force in a very Star Wars kind of way, so the rings of power as objects which he needs to fulfill his plans seem very arbitrary to me. Also, the first episode of this second season featured a pretty interesting piece of dialogue where the man on the boat talks to Helbrand about the daily opportunities to choose good over evil, but it doesn't seem that Sauran/Annatar really wrestles with that conflict in any meaningful way, so the scenes with Annatar and Celebrimbor tend to feel pretty flat to me. Celebrimbor feels too easily swayed by Annatar's pretty clear lies.
Husband and I are huge LOTR fans and have given up after episode 4… it’s just too boring
Thanks for your kind words. Actually, a lot of my new subscribers are from the video I made criticizing Rings Of Power, and it's interesting to see that many of them feel let down by my decision to praise this aspect of it. One of many interesting lessons in my TH-cam journey so far. And yes, I've really struggled to stay with this show. Season One was downright cringey. I don't have a ton of confidence that Season 3 will redeem it.
@@theartofstorytelling1 Expressions of fandom are vast and interesting indeed. Our favorite stories tend to connect so personally and can elicit such passionate responses. I like to focus on what draws me in to art and storytelling in the first place, the beautiful exploration of the human condition. LOTR is a story that champions goodness, friendship, hope, and courage among many other themes. I feel that any critique that I express whether positive or negative must account for those values that connect me to that story.
In all of your videos that I've seen, your analysis comes across thoughtful, insightful, and fair. I have tremendous respect for you and all of the other artists and storytellers out there who have the courage to create something and then share it with the rest of us. Keep up the good work.
So how many seasons do they need before the whole show become good?
Oh this is just getting worse with every season 😂 what a shit show
Totally agree
Never seen this show, but this is a very interesting and engaging analysis :)
Unlike the show
Although I agree that the Celebrimbor storyline is the by far the most engaging and enjoyable storyline in an otherwise wholly un-enjoyable show, I just cannot help but feel like the stakes are so low - or made to feel so low. A story about Second Age should be the story of larger-than-life characters doing deeds and actions that shape the very history of Middle-Earth. However, every storyline, conversation, and event in the show just feels so "Everyday-like" and insignificant in this grand tale... This might just be because Tolkien's work in its essence is hard to adapt to TV in general (Films obviously worked though, PJ proved that).
Idk.. everything just falls flat of it's face in this show.. such a shame.. it's so bad lol...
Willem Defoe would have been a perfect Celebrimbor.
Yup I can see it
I'm not wasting my time with the show, so I won't judge how well the actors played their relationship overall, but from all the clips I've seen and summaries of the plot I've watched, their relationship sounds ridiculous. Sauron's not even really manipulating Celebrimbor much more than he was in the first season where he just wandered into the forge and told him what an alloy was. Half the time everyone's just doing exactly what he wants and he's arguing with them against his own interests as if he can't believe how dumb they are. And in all the clips I've seen, they sound like an old married couple bickering. I'm yet to hear anyone say anything about this show that gives me any reason to think there's anything worth watching it for, the best most people can say for it is that it's better than nothing, which is literally the lowest bar possible. So at least you're trying harder than that, I'll give you that.
Right there with you.
It’s actually better than you’d think
@@GibsonFender I've yet to see anything would lead me to believe that. The bits of dialogue I've heard and clips I've seen just make this look like some kickstarter show funded by "fans" and written by middle-schoolers.
Definitely generous
For anyone who has ever felt unqualified or incapable of doing a job just look to the inspiring tale of the ROP show runners plowing blindly ahead with zero 💩 given.
bro, don't tell me you fell for the old "people walking and talking dramatically through dark corridors" trope that game of thrones invented and then abused the shit out of? It's nothing more than a trope and indicative of bad writers, writers with such little imagination that instead of doing cool stuff with their characters, they show us characters talking to each other, some times for a whole season with nothing ever happening except within the first and second to last or last episodes... Fantasy shows that fill their time with characters talking politics is a trademark of bad writing. What will you talk about next? How much you liked Legolas platformer section in the Hobbit?
Game of Thrones invented that? I guess you haven't seen the West Wing, which is coincidentally a show that is mostly about talking politics and walking, but also happens to be almost universally acclaimed. You're wlecome to your opinion, but the major difference between the excellent early seasons of GoT and the decidedly inadequate later seasons was that all the fast travel eliminated the walking and talking.
@@mtank31 West wing isn't a fantasy though, it's a show about politics, what else would it show? Game of thrones realized they can pad their runtime with useless walking and talking so that they can make ~10 episode seasons for 8 years, when in fact the whole story could've been condensed and told in 2 seasons and it would've been much better. Rings of power is a whole other level of garbage. Its whole existence should never have even happened in the first place.
@@sbonel3224 You could also argue that Game of Thrones is a show about politics. To your wider point, dialog is important, especially for a Tolkien adaptation, and especially for a television show. Name a good television drama, fantasy or otherwise, where great dialog wasn't a huge part in the success of the show (and no, I don't think it should be different for fantasy). Yes, the LOTR movies cut out a lot of the talking, but they were movies, telling a story at least as big as Rings of Power, but in only 9 or so hours, so skipping from action scene to action scene is OK. Television is designed to tell a story that's a slower burn, over a longer period of time.
PS, if you wanted a 2-season GoT with the dialog cut out, I also think that would have been a great story to tell, but you've gotta understand that would be a different show (or more likely a 3-movie trilogy) that would appeal to different audiences. Both are valid, but only one was made, for better or worse.
I thought Sauron was the protagonist, to be honest.
Thank you! At last! Yes! It is quite a specific TV show but there are things that are definitely well done and heroes (anti-heroes mostly) that were amazingly portrayed.
Guys, this project was Never intended to succeed. It‘s only a Billion Dollar advertisment for Amazon
Nonsense. With as greedy as corporations are, there's much, MUCH better ways to get a bigger bang for your advertising buck. Not to mention Amazon is already one of the most well-known companies in the world. More likely this was some idiot convincing a starry-eyed CEO that buying the intellectual rights to this Tolkien material would lead to massive and long-lasting profits, the positive example being Disney buying Marvel, or the negative being Disney buying Star Wars.
As soon as some bigwig in an executive office gets dollar signs in their eyes, what little common sense was present flies out the window.
Is this reviewer Jimmy Fallon in disguise? Is that beard real?
Is he secretly the Dark Lord of late night talk shows?
I have many names.
@@theartofstorytelling1 😱
Grandma-brinbor and Halbrand were sooo poorly cast and acted (not considering the childish dialogues and character development) that I swear it looks like a CW show.
I agree that there is something worthwhile in this relationship, in RoP. There are moments where it works like you describe it. More or less.
But you’re also doing a lot of heavy lifting yourself. You’re talking about the relationship and character arcs as you, as a writer, can imagine them. I’m not talking text and subtext here; I think you’re adding stuff that just isn’t there, but could have been.
And you’re also ignoring the scenes that usually comes right before or after the good ones, where all the qualities of the good scenes are undermined or wasted.
On the whole I think S2 of RoP is more uneven. Where S1 was consistently awful, S2 has - as you say - moments of workmanlike craftsmanship and even beauty, but also scenes and moments that are even worse than the awfulness of S1.
Cheers
Morfydd Clark could have made an excellent Arwen. Casting in this show was horrible.
Nah but the way the writers bent him over for sauron 😭 i dont need shadow of mordor celebrimbor but jesus what a loser
What the Rings of Power got right? This should be a short video...
I can't speak on the overall quality of the show but from everything I've seen, you're definitely being incredibly generous. Everything about this show is nothing but massively wasted potential.
nah the show has good bits. Durin plot was very good. Second season was a huge improvement.
@@djoxer Nah, as you said - the show has good "bits." A show with this storyline and budget should be amazing from start to finish, not show "glimmers" of a good show. The show as a whole definitely sucks.
So you can't speak on it but he's definitely being generous? 😅
This show is mostly baffling, but credit where due, the Annatar/Celebrimbor scenes were really solid, with good performances.
lmao the only good part about the show was the part that was actually part of the lore and not made up. The gandalf and harfoots, galadriel, aorrondier and all that jazz, just get rid of it. Its jazz. To many chords. Give me the solid sweet 4 chord pop music.
I agree with you that there are too many plot lines… would’ve been so much better to focus on one at a time. (Though I am happy whenever the hot elf is on screen 😁)
What plotholes? the plotholes in your empty deluded head of yours?
The best thing ROP could do is to cease existing.
Nothing: end of video.
💯
I thought season 2 was way better than 1 - huge improvement. I didn’t hate season 1, but it felt meh
Good for taking a different route. I think we all agree it sucks overall, but your insights are valuable! Thanks!
the show is irredeemable at this point.
The entire writing team was sacked except one. Very telling.
You're really stretching with this one. The actors did their best, but the writing and characterizations were bad. Celebrimbor came across as a tired, OLD (!!!???), beta moron. He was born in Valinor in the Time of the Trees, grandson of Feanor, fought Morgoth's armies in the first age, a was leader of an incredibly prosperous realm, but was fooled by Sauron over the cours of a couple of months because he told him about alloys, something this craftsman that was thousands of years old never though about trying.
Thank you for being normal and not just shitting on the show. I don’t think it's very good but it’s exhausting watching people who don’t have constructive criticism spew hateful rhetoric.
Thanks for saying so. There's a ton of culture war content on this platform on already, and that's perfectly fine. Those critiques are valid. It's just not what I'm primarily interested in on this channel. Unfortunately, some shows/movies (such as Rings Of Power) get caught up in that. I can see why. But I agree it's not the ONLY thing to talk about. Anyway, thanks for your comment. It gives me faith that my channel can survive haha.
All bad, ring of unpower.
It’s also disrespectful towards everything Tolkien ever created. WEAK!!!
It is ironic that Amazon bears so many parallels between itself and the bad guys of LotR.
The rampant industrialism, the founder's obsession with wealth at the expense of the wellbeing of its workers, pushing an obsession for material things onto its customers, etc.
Like, Bezos, if you were in Lord of the Rings, you and your company would be a fine stand in for Sauron/Saruman/Smaug.
"What Rings of power doesn't completely butcher, and therefore compared to the rest feels great" should have been the title
You, sir, got my sub last week, and lost it today.
I think he'll bounce back, Let's give him another chance. One too charitable of a take does not a bad channel make.
The whole show is crap, has nothing to do with Tolkien and trying to find anything that is remotely good in it is grasping at straws.
I mean, you're literally lying when you say it "has nothing to do with Tolkien". That would be a fair statement to make about, say The Fast and the Furious franchise, or Home Alone to name a few movies that have nothing to do with Tolkien, but the Rings of Power most defintely has something to do with Tolkien lol
@@MK-cm6xo You are the reason gatekeeping is a good thing. You would consider a turd with the shape of Middle Earth a good thing, just unbelievable.
Absolutely Nothing.
People are so unwilling to give this show any credit, but I think you're bang on with this. I don't like the context around these generally, BUT the scenes themselves with Annatar and Celebrimbor are executed quite well, especially in the acting department.
Amazon check came through
Absolutely nothing. There saved y'all 7.44 minutes of a simp waffling.
Nothing
😂