[SPOILERS] Impressions of Gundabad epic quest chain

This post contains plot spoilers for the Legacy of Durin and the Trials of the Dorfs questline in Gundabad.

On the positive side, it was imaginative and not predictable.

But a number of aspects just felt wrong - sometimes jarringly so - to me.

The middle books of the story kept me moderately interested.

Book 5 was pretty standard fare reminiscent of Moria's Books 1 & 2. Instead of box lunches and pickaxes, we hand out shovels and pickaxes. Chipping away at ice instead of rock. Instead of fighting the Watcher, we get a front-row seat for a name-calling match with the Angmarim version of Colonel Klink. And then a bunch of running around in the first zone.

Book 6 was a weird digression and felt like filler. Why not just start with the plucky, Mary Sue sculptors' apprentice instead introducing a throw-away sad-sack brother for her to replace?

Book 7 begins the introduction of deus ex machina that will eventually be used to resolve the plot, in the form of the room with the mosaic. It also has lots of running around and fighting all over the map for no apparent reason. We learn that the Angmarim have stolen Durin's anvil for some nefarious purpose (which is ultimately revealed in Book 11). We also learn that the Angmarim are moving around some *other* terrible artifact that makes people see visions of dead people they knew. This is *exactly* what happens to Durin in Book 10, but is apparently (and confusingly) unrelated.

Book 8 starts with us defeating Gorgar and his forces, and then letting him escape when a too-observant-for-its-own-good dorf notices Gorgar carrying a mithril weapon. It ends with a bunch of running around accomplishing nothing in yet another zone. At this point, with three books left, the player certainly has little inkling of what's to come.

Things started to go off the rails for me when the goblin was captured at the start of Book 9. The goblin session play itself is probably the most plausible piece of the quest chain, even if it was never explained what the goblin was doing when he was captured. I hated being ordered to kill a helpless prisoner and relying on someone else to object for me. I tried declining the quest, hoping that would trigger the opportunity to beat down Durin or some alternative dialog. Unlike Durin, that goblin is one of Illuvatar's children, and deserves pity. Sadly, there was no choice but to accept the quest, which angered me greatly because I don't take orders from fat, stinky dorfs who hear voices in their head. Terrible quest design here.

By the start of Book 10, after we retrieved the MacGuffin, which was foreshadowed as some kind of talisman against the dragon's mind control, I figured it would use it as some kind of talisman against the dragon's mind control. Instead, the last two books remind me of the final season of Game of Thrones: a blur of contrived, illogical and heavy-handed plot resolution crammed into an artificially short timeline. The Mary Sue manages to recreate perfectly a piece of ancient artwork she has never seen. OK. That absurdity pales in comparison to the next plot device pulled out of thin air, Motsog.

Motsog and his story are entirely SSG's creation. This dorf, who we have no previous connection to or emotional investment in (unlike Veamacil/Vagari and Earnur/Gothmog in BBoM) shows up out of nowhere and somehow has exactly the right set of magical powers (nevermind that dorfs are unmagical) to wrap up the whole plotline in one marathon cutscene. And the final touch ("I've been around since before the moon rose, but to manufacture artificial drama and plot urgency, I'm going to vanish forever, for no reason, at sundown TODAY!") veered into self-parody.

While a few elements of BBoM rubbed me the wrong way lore-wise and story-wise, it had an elegance and coherence that LoDatTotD entirely lacks.