CNN: Rings of Power delivers spectacle, lacks dramatic power

Moreover, your attempt to apply modern anthropology here is utterly untenable.

From the rising of the Sun (and the awakening of the Second-born) to the end of the War of Wrath (when the Elf-friends of the Edain were rewarded) was less than 600 years!

Men can only be physically diverse if they were created that way.

Ditto for hobbits and dorfs, who can't have been around much longer.

Elfs have had more time, but with their low fertility, there can't have been many more generations than the shorter-lived mortal races.

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Originally Posted by TesalionLortus

The warg is funny because you immediately notice the awkward movements right after it appears, like it's a C grade monster movie or something. I like the looks though or at least the general idea behind it but... it's still kind of awkward. Everyone complains about CGI in Hobbit movies but somehow they managed to make it look and move worse in RoP and some people don't even bat an eye. Strange

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Some wag's christened that Warg 'Sonic' - look at its face, there is a resemblance. Cannot unsee.

Something else I cannot now unsee is how Harfoot life is sheer existential horror. A true and hideous dystopia. Why? Because despite the cries of "nobody walks alone", if something goes wrong on the trail they appear not to help each other. Each family group seems to be on its own and if they fall behind, they get left behind to die. It gets worse the more you think about it: they get old? They're dead (kind of like Midsommar, without the jumping-off-a-cliff ritual). Get sick at the wrong time? Dead. Lame or otherwise physically disabled in any way that means they can't keep up? Dead. So there's Lenny Henry's character Sadoc capering around and teaching the young hobbits how they're all going to die, sooner or later, because Harfoot society is fundamentally broken. It's horrible. And they all sit around while Sadoc does his 'Read Us the Book of the Names of the Dead' thing, except it seems they only remember the people who had bad luck and all the people who simply got left behind are seemingly forgotten. Like they probably just don't talk about that. And it gets worse: that group of Harfoots is also too small to avoid inbreeding, so you can guess how that'd end up. All in all, the Harfoots are effectively a death cult with Sadoc as its high priest.

So now you know why those hobbits didn't make it into the Third Age ;)

In E3 it was the first time I skipped parts of the show... That harfoot stuff is beyond cringe.

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Originally Posted by LagunaD2

What would be contrived would be to insist on a homogeneous cast and exclude many actors from consideration, when characters' skin color is unimportant to the story.

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I don't think you really understand the story. There's way more to it than RoP will ever show, part of which is a savage dig at colonialism (something Tolkien was very much against) as part of showing how the supposedly enlightened people of Numenor had lost their way, and of course that wouldn't come across well with a wildly diverse Numenor. They're also downplaying the Numenoreans' obsession with death and the whole religious angle.

Also, one look at the casting should tell you that it's neither colour-blind nor purely on merit, it's ticking off specific boxes on a checklist.

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Moreover, your attempt to apply modern anthropology here is utterly untenable.

From the rising of the Sun (and the awakening of the Second-born) to the end of the War of Wrath (when the Elf-friends of the Edain were rewarded) was less than 600 years!

Men can only be physically diverse if they were created that way.

Ditto for hobbits and dorfs, who can't have been around much longer.

Elfs have had more time, but with their low fertility, there can't have been many more generations than the shorter-lived mortal races.

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I think you missed the point... all of this is in a secondary world, it derives from how the primary world (the real one) ended up, and what sort of people ended up living where. It's not some completely separate thing, it's meant to seem familiar so it reflects some things about the real world. The 'European' bit of Middle-earth has 'European' guys living there. Harad as the 'African' bit has it's own equivalent of North Africa (Near Harad) and sub-Saharan Africa (Far Harad) with the differing peoples you'd expect from that. And so on, and so forth. And the whole tale of where Men came from is mythological within the setting so it isn't necessarily literally 'true' even to them. Because it's a 'European' mythology (myths are always culturally specific), it places the origin for Men over in the east and that reflects where the RL ancestors of modern Europeans came from, way back when. That however isn't necessarily 'true' and other Men might have their own version, their own myths - we've only heard the 'European' version as known to the Elves and the Dunedain.

Yes, in a 'creationist' scenario like this Men would be diverse because they were made that way and it'd have to be part of the 'grand design' that people would end up where they did, to reflect (after a fashion) what the world actually looked like in the past. The show-runners and producers have instead forced it to be more like the modern world, so instead of telling a timeless tale it's shot through with contemporary ideas and it won't age well. You'll always be able to tell when RoP was made.

If you look at LOTR Appendix A (the material the show-runners can actually use) you'll see that the Edain don't represent all Men, they're three specific (and related) peoples who'd escaped Morgoth's dominion, moved westwards and encountered the Elves. And while the Akallabeth and UT obviously go into much more detail about Numenor, the salient points are summarised in LOTR and it's clear that the show-runners are deliberately ignoring or downplaying much of it to suit themselves, not because its a story you couldn't tell to a modern audience but because it's simply not the sort of story they want to tell.

Do any of you know the offline RPG "Kingdom Come: Deliverence"? The game is based on historical events in Europe in the early 15th century. The setting is medieval Bohemia. As real as possible without any fantasy.

There it was also said when the game was new or in development "Meh, there are only white people there." And the studio said, "Yeah, because that's the way it was."

I'll use the game as an example because it shows what I think RoP is doing wrong.
If the developers of KCD had said ok and included black people, then should this have been a big, fleshed out, interesting quest line about a cool group of traveling dark-skinned, foreign people? In which you learn a lot about them, about their travels, about their culture, about their homeland. You become emotionally connected with them and eventually have to fight together, side by side.

Or should they have simply made the father of the main protagonist "Henry" black. Maybe one or the other priest, a herbalist, a few city guards here and there and then call it a day, without any sense behind it?

RoP does the latter. And for me, at least, that prevents most of my immersion.
They could have just respected the world that Tolkien and his son brought to life, with the rules and events set in place, and still put their own stamp on it.
It's perfectly fine to bring PoC into the cast, then give them roles and write the story around them in a way that makes sense within this world. Dark-skinned humans live in Harad. Then take that as a basis for writing a great plot and letting these people shine. At least the good guys who don't want to serve Sauron later. Even if there are few in the end.
Show what went through Samwise's mind later in Ithilien:

“It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would rather have stayed there in peace.”

And for other races. Give it a backstory. LOTRO has now also shown dark-skinned dwarves. Surprise, they come from somewhere else.
If you want to give this world modern values, then also make this world believable. It's not believable when people have completely random skin colors, especially in families or ethnic groups. Show the world, explain the world and it's people. Make Middle-Earth or Arda somewhat real. If they think they can do better than Tolkien, then show what you can. Prove it. So far the writing is abysmal, in every aspect. Characters, dialogue, screenplay, cutting, pasing.

And overall: For me, a different message in a medieval world would have been much more valuable, because sadly such problems still exist today: "Yes, there are differences, but none who looks different is automatically evil or less valuable. And now that it matters (Galadriel: "But Sauron...". She's right, we know it, but damn this character s*cks so hardcore), you have to come together and work together. Sauron's goals may be global, the folks aren't globalised. But it can be, after that. And that would be a good thing.

IMHO, their proclaimed diversity is a facade. We're talking about Amazon, who have been in the media for years because of poor working conditions and not paying taxes. Diverse cast... I haven't seen any Asian people in leading roles yet. And certainly not handicapped. Even if they were just crippled veterans. We have now met the cruel Harfoots. Seems that's how inclusion works in "modern Middle-earth."

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

I don't think you really understand the story. There's way more to it than RoP will ever show, part of which is a savage dig at colonialism (something Tolkien was very much against) as part of showing how the supposedly enlightened people of Numenor had lost their way, and of course that wouldn't come across well with a wildly diverse Numenor. They're also downplaying the Numenoreans' obsession with death and the whole religious angle.

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Tolkien was categorical in his disgust for allegory, so I don't accept your attempt to turn his work into what he despised.

But again, you try to project modern attitudes toward race where they don't belong. The Numenoreans came to look down on and oppress non-Edain. And that's exactly what they did on-screen in E3. It's not about skin color, per se, in Tolkien, and it's not about skin color in RoP, either. It's about tribe, which is often correlated to race in our world, but need not be.

I've explained a number of times how to eliminate your confusion: ignore the skin color of the actors, which has no significance on-screen.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

Something else I cannot now unsee is how Harfoot life is sheer existential horror. A true and hideous dystopia. Why?

All in all, the Harfoots are effectively a death cult with Sadoc as its high priest.

So now you know why those hobbits didn't make it into the Third Age ;)

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Worse, they're moving in the wrong direction... towards Rhun and Feminem club. Good luck with that...

But yeah, I've just watched it in its entirety with another person and we laughed our ###*ss off. Harfoots are beyond cringe and just a true horror story. But we've realized what the reason might be... 1) they wanted call backs 2) they needed a reason to start naming hobbits, like Bilbo in his speech, and a "dramatic" reveal for us to learn about F-Sam's parents 3) they had this cool idea for the Harfoot "culture" so it allows them to name a bunch of dead hobbit names during the "ceremony." 4) they made it extra cringe with death cult so there is a reason for Nori's family to be left behind and run into wargs (or wolfs, or whatever). They're literally working backwards with every idea they have here, that's why none of it makes sense. Here is the footage from the set of the Rings of Power.

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Originally Posted by LagunaD2

Tolkien was categorical in his disgust for allegory, so I don't accept your attempt to turn his work into what he despised.

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You kidding??? His disgust refers to something like if you tried to find needless metaphors such as Mordor being Russia or race swapping something to make a needless irl statement and writing something in a specific politically correct way, literally what Amazon has done everywhere in their series. Whereas he actually wrote Numenoreans into what they were in canon and nowhere in it he suggested they were of VASTLY diverse makeup. In fact, he does refer to differences between his fictional peoples and ethnicities, because it's like, something like common sense. So of course he wasn't an idiot and would mention some of that.

But apparently you lack such common sense. You're literally making contrived, empty excuses for them at this point. And yes, it does distract from what I am watching because it's BS. It's the same as saying I shouldn't complain about race swaps and plastic race diversity in something like Total War factions even though it hardy makes sense + takes away from the flavor of AOR (area of recruitment features, with auxiliaries hired from conquered cultures and ethnicities). Something like this is never being done in such games of course because the medium is free of such insanity but serves as a great example of the kind of insanity you preach.

Gosh, I'm glad we have LOTRO. Seeing some darker-skinned (even black) Gondorians here and there, different ethnicities and skin colors for different dwarven clans, peoples of the steppe and people of Far Harad... sweet sweet honey, a welcome embrace of a normal world.

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Originally Posted by LagunaD2

Tolkien was categorical in his disgust for allegory, so I don't accept your attempt to turn his work into what he despised.

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It's not an allegory. It's one of those 'applicable' things.

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I've explained a number of times how to eliminate your confusion: ignore the skin color of the actors, which has no significance on-screen.

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Or so you keep trying to pretend, but there's clumsy messaging and imagery associated with it and as it seems I'm not the only one who's noticed that, I really don't think I'm imagining it.

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Originally Posted by TesalionLortus

they made it extra cringe with death cult so there is a reason for Nori's family to be left behind and run into wargs (or wolfs, or whatever).

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Yeah, it does look like one contrivance after another, working backwards from a set point at the end (the Stranger meeting up with Feminem and her pals and us finding out who he is. I bet). And wasting a ton of time in the meantime (it''s like they have so little story that they're having to pad it out). And yes, we know Nori is going to run into more of these 'wolves' because there was that still of her hiding amid some trees with the Stranger standing in between her and them. Yet another callback, by the looks of it.

On the death cult front, it's a mystery to me how more of them haven't already been eaten. Never mind wolves, what about bears? They're out in the wilds and they appear to keep food all over the place in their camp, so guess what could happen at night? And hobbits back then should also have been properly tooled up, spears and bows and whatnot but oh no, because that wouldn't look quaint. And why don't they at least have dogs? The more I think about it, the odder it gets.

They'd probably be anything but quaint if it were realistic, because we know hobbits weren't above nicking stuff that didn't belong to them and in a scenario anything like this they'd probably *need* to steal from Big Folk. Speaking of which - the scene with the blackberries at the old farm - rather Peter Rabbit when they went through the gate. Having the Harfoots pull off an actual heist to top off their supplies for the winter would have made for a fun scene. Take what you can - give nothing back! ;)

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

And why don't they at least have dogs? The more I think about it, the odder it gets.

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I've got my own headcanon and it helps a lot (so like Galadriel is possibly schizophrenic, that's why she sees that mark everywhere, Elendil looks at her like she a bit crazy, not to mention she jumped into the ocean to take a swim back, can't trust her POV and "hunt for Sauron" plot reveals) but I must say, I can't find anything good for the Harfoots. Maybe they're just what becomes a Hobbit Blue Caste, except with Gandalf taking dominion over Rhun with his "leave everyone behind" dangerous hobbit cohorts? So Shire will never exist in this universe.

But in general... oh well... so many years of waiting and the limitless potential of a tv series down the drain (and no one else brave enough to try again, probably). Back to just waiting for "what happened in Rhun" and for other stories by SSG, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

Or so you keep trying to pretend, but there's clumsy messaging and imagery associated with it and as it seems I'm not the only one who's noticed that, I really don't think I'm imagining it.

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It's all in your mind.

Free it.

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"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." - MLK

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Originally Posted by LagunaD2

I've explained a number of times how to eliminate your confusion: ignore the skin color of the actors, which has no significance on-screen.

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Actually, it does have a significance on screen. It makes absolutely no sense in this story. You're not gonna have Hispanics, Caucasians. or Asians in an African mythos are you? Do you see any non Asians in all those fantasy movies and shows set in Asia? Not a one.

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Originally Posted by DavidmeetHal

Actually, it does have a significance on screen. It makes absolutely no sense in this story.

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That's because you're paying attention to it when you shouldn't.

There are no Africans, Asians, or Hispanics in Middle-earth.

And no Europeans, either.

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Originally Posted by LagunaD2

That's because you're paying attention to it when you shouldn't.

There are no Africans, Asians, or Hispanics in Middle-earth.

And no Europeans, either.

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"You're paying attention to it when you shouldn't. There are no laser beams and machine guns in Middle-earth, free your mind!" as justification for guns and laser beams in RoP. Sure.

So you're just being a troll. Give it a break. Such nonsense... especially when Tolkien himself talked about what all these people were based off and what his world was supposed to represent in his mind.

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Originally Posted by LagunaD2

It's all in your mind.

Free it.

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And now you're trying to gaslight me. How about no.

It has significance on-screen because they've attached significance to it there. There's no subtlety to it whatsoever, it's very on the nose and I can't unsee it.

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That's because you're paying attention to it when you shouldn't.

There are no Africans, Asians, or Hispanics in Middle-earth.

And no Europeans, either.

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Literally? No. Obviously intended equivalents, both in appearance and in culture? Absolutely. 'Nuff said. And as I said, they're purposely drawing attention to what they've done with RoP so it's no good you being all "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" about it.

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Originally Posted by Radhruin_EU

There's no subtlety to it whatsoever, it's very on the nose and I can't unsee it.

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How's your theory about the Queen-Regent, based on her skin-color and sex, looking after E3?

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Originally Posted by LagunaD2

How's your theory about the Queen-Regent, based on her skin-color and sex, looking after E3?

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Not sure where you think you're going with that, but for the record I think that she's secretly an Elf-friend, and that she's been hiding it for political reasons. She's pretty sure Elendil is an Elf-friend so she asks him to be Galadriel's keeper. Now she's dreading the decision she'll have to make about whether to help Galadriel or not, because if she does it'll mean big trouble politically and if she doesn't she'll be turning her back on the Elves.

She'il help Galadriel, and I imagine at some point that'll lead to Pharazon deposing her and taking over.

Great summary of RoP...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_Zf36uQp8o

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Originally Posted by TesalionLortus

Great summary of RoP...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_Zf36uQp8o

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Too funny!

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Originally Posted by LagunaD2

That's because you're paying attention to it when you shouldn't.

There are no Africans, Asians, or Hispanics in Middle-earth.

And no Europeans, either.

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Oh, the cast is paying more attention to their skin color than I ever did. They're acting like 2022 is the first year that a non Caucasian has ever had the lead part in a role. If anyone needs to have the race card pulled out, it's Lenny Henry and the lady that plays the dwarven queen, I cannot recall her name right now. Seriously, those two give the show a bad name.

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Originally Posted by LagunaD2

That's because you're paying attention to it when you shouldn't.

There are no Africans, Asians, or Hispanics in Middle-earth.

And no Europeans, either.

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Actually, this is clearly written as an Anglo-Saxon centered mythology for England, taking place mostly within a similar Biome to that of Northern Europe. Meaning that modern cosmopolitan globalism, is a foreign element to the logic behind the world building. Because people behave like they did before modern transportation. And stay more like they did in medieval times, according to the climate, geography, and the culture they belong to.

Additionally, Tolkien describes what people look like. He make very clear linguistic and cultural parallels. He also made genealogies to show that he cared about this. And he was inspired by Northern European myths and legends. As opposed to African myths and legends. Or Asian myths and legends. Or present day urban Hollywood propelled narratives. Which absolutely never belonged in the world of Tolkien. Because this was written before it. And thus should not be part of it. The people the books *focus on* are by nature taken from North European imagery, be that myth or other stories, because that is the region the work is meant for. The target audience. As opposed to any other region. More specifically a reflection of the region as it used to be, in the past.

It's not cool to culturally appropriate region-specific work, and ignore the roots. That goes for any culture and any people, and any region. You cannot have a unique stories, when you remove what is unique about it. That is globalism. That is post-modernism. Tolkien never was about that. He always wanted to write English stories, for England. So this is exactly that, and should not be perverted or hijacked by others. But rather enjoyed as-is. Nobody seemed to be bothered about the origins, up until now. So this is artificially inserted revisionism. AKA cultural vandalism.


But this TV-series is not Tolkien in any way shape or form. So there is that. They just slapped his name on it. And turned it into a modern political display. Contrary to the Author's wishes. It is also not cool to pervert the author's intentions. BTW. He wanted an English story for England. Not a future anachronistic display of political preaching for the urbanized crowds, everywhere, and yet nowhere.


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Originally Posted by DavidmeetHal

Oh, the cast is paying more attention to their skin color than I ever did. They're acting like 2022 is the first year that a non Caucasian has ever had the lead part in a role. If anyone needs to have the race card pulled out, it's Lenny Henry and the lady that plays the dwarven queen, I cannot recall her name right now. Seriously, those two give the show a bad name.

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I don't doubt that they've talked about it, at one point or another.

But, having never gone searching for it, I've never seen it.

Thus, it must be easy enough to ignore, unless you've got a political chip on your shoulder and are looking for a grievance to nurture.

I re-iterate that nothing on-screen has referred to the skin-color of the actors, and it's the haters who keep injecting it into the discussion (as in this thread, continually).

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Originally Posted by Secantur

But this TV-series is not Tolkien in any way shape or form.

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That must be why his grandson, Christopher Tolkien's eldest son, agreed to work on the project and be credited as "Creative Consultant".

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Originally Posted by LagunaD2

That must be why his grandson, Christopher Tolkien's eldest son, agreed to work on the project and be credited as "Creative Consultant".

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Understand that you do not inherit the values of those who went before you, unless you want to. Simon clearly did not.

He thinks the Jackson-Movies stayed too close to the books. He is not a traditionalist, at all. For Jackson strayed a lot from the narrative in the books. But Jackson did not put his own mundane baggage into it, the revisions were intended to improve the flow. And as such, the material was not altered into something else, entirely.

There is no automatic virtue in this world. Sadly.



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