Lord of the Rings on Prime

[DavidmeetHal]

New Trailer is out:
2. Trailer von Ringe der Macht veröffentlicht


https://funkenflug.ag/2-trailer-von-ringe-der-macht-erschienen/

As long as you keep in mind that it's Lord of the Rings in name only and nothing else, it doesn't look all that bad.

[Uroc]

Too bad HBO didn't buy the rights. I think they would make at least costumes looks more realistic and whole atmosphere more serious than Amazon. This trailers arousing in me some feelings of too much fantasy fakeness. Like for some children tv show. It is like they are missing some filter or something.

I know someone will think that HBO would put too much nudity but I don't think so. Seems to me they have better visual effect artists.

[Radhruin_EU]

As long as you keep in mind that it's Lord of the Rings in name only and nothing else, it doesn't look all that bad.

Meh, not so much even on those terms. (That won't fix the dubious costumes, the over-reliance on CGI, the daft action scenes it appears to include, nor the wonky dialogue, etc.).

Take these lines: "Ours was no chance meeting. Not fate. Nor destiny. Ours was the work of something greater." Leaving aside how fate and destiny are the same thing, fate represented the will of Iluvatar (Namo and Vairë just kept the books, so to speak) so there wasn't and couldn't be anything greater. So yeah, trying to sound portentous but failing.

I watched the first episode of House of the Dragon yesterday and that seems quite reasonable. I mean yeah, it's essentially GoT-but-earlier but for something that's largely written from scratch (the book it's based on is a history) they've taken a lot more care to have the dialogue have the right ring to it (unlike the later seasons of GoT) and to present complex characters with believable motivations, so it looks like it's got a good chance to be this year's best fantasy series. Certainly not perfect (I was all like "Err, hello, tourneys were sport and weren't fought with live blades, what are you doing?') but still rather promising.

[Melank]

Eh don't think it will be canceled, besides we haven't seen anything much yet until the series fully releases, I recently saw reddit post linking tons of stuff from the year 2000 and 2001 about Peter Jackson and that hes a terrible director and many other things before we've seen it, no different then with this series we haven't really seen yet, (also yes PJ made changes but great films).

Yes.

It amazes me how many haters are among the LotR community, more haters than any other community.

I guess that it's because many are grown up men that idealize so much this stuff that their whole ego feels threatened by the idea of something not matching the ideal on their minds.



Well, it's time to grow up and grow some balls too, rather than complain and hate stuff because it does not match your imagination.

Haters gonna hate.

[wispsong]

Yes.

It amazes me how many haters are among the LotR community, more haters than any other community.

I guess that it's because many are grown up men that idealize so much this stuff that their whole ego feels threatened by the idea of something not matching the ideal on their minds.



Well, it's time to grow up and grow some balls too, rather than complain and hate stuff because it does not match your imagination.

Haters gonna hate.

Has nothing to do with hate. People don't want what their author has written destroyed by 2020 ideas.

[Melank]

Has nothing to do with hate. People don't want what their author has written destroyed by 2020 ideas.

Deconstruction or Destruktion of Western Metaphysics/Ontotheology is older than Tolkien's LotR.

"Being and Time" was published almost 100 years ago, back in 1927. Androcentrism & Eurocentrism are two terms that also pre-date Tolkien's LotR.


So, it's not 2020 ideas.

The fact that genuine ideas take so much fking time to be accepted by society is another issue.

[Radhruin_EU]

Deconstruction or Destruktion of Western Metaphysics/Ontotheology is older than Tolkien's LotR.

"Being and Time" was published almost 100 years ago, back in 1927. Androcentrism & Eurocentrism are two terms that also pre-date Tolkien's LotR.

I rather think you're missing something there. Tolkien was old-fashioned (he was born in Victorian times, grew up in Edwardian times and was already 35 years old in 1927) and well-known for being intellectually conservative even in his day. The charm of his work rests on it seeming timeless, feeling like something that had been handed down from a bygone age rather than being modern. He wrote in a slightly archaic style on purpose. Reflecting or directly addressing modernity is the exact opposite of what he was going for. Those qualities haven't seemingly interfered with his work being immensely popular and relatable world-wide. Just like we saw with the movies. Funny, that. See, that's what you get with tales that have the feel of traditional myth and legend: most people get the idea that while they may relate to a particular place and culture they can embody universal values, and so they can readily relate to them without those stories needing to be 'updated' or 'reflecting the modern world'.

So, it's not 2020 ideas.

Conveniently forgetting that the sort of treatment we can see this getting is very much a modern trend.

Doing things like taking Galadriel, a pre-existing strong female character, and messing her characterisation about by:

- rewriting her as a simplistic sword-wielding "warrior princess' stereotype
- disappearing her husband and daughter because they don't suit the show-runners' action hero narrative
- giving her equally simplistic motivation (revenge for her brothers, who should be long dead) so that she's vengeful and angry
- making her less mature when she's meant to be older and wiser than most

...all considered, is neither big nor clever (and there'll probably be more in that vein once we get to see the series). I have no idea why you seemingly expect fans of Tolkien's work to welcome clunky changes like this.

[Melank]

well-known for being intellectually conservative even in his day.

Yeah, that's what we have to dissociate with. Choosing our heritage means dispensing from what is not productive or necessary for society.

Heidegger (author from "Being and Time") was also a well-known National Socialist and he was also the father of Deconstruction, which seems kinda antinomic, but we took from Heidegger his most influential and important intellectual work and dissociated from his antisemitic idiosyncrasies.

most people get the idea that while they may relate to a particular place and culture they can embody universal values, and so they can readily relate to them without those stories needing to be 'updated' or 'reflecting the modern world'.

This is the discussion between particular vs universal.

What deconstruction does is to expose all the portrayed "universal" values as "particular", to promote a genuine reading of history or a text.

Myths convey values that may be particular to certain contexts and needs from an specific culture and society. For example, Oedipus myth is supposed to deal with the problem of incest to organize Greek societies, but that does not mean that we were born with such prohibition, the prohibition is ipso facto for culture to exist, but not genetical or universal in any transcendent way, it's universal in the sense that cultures need such prohibition to organize themselves.

This is also why I believe that so many religious folks are attracted to Tolkien's work. Because they actually believe in eternal values.

Anti-humanism, on the other hand, exposes how evil "Humanism" can be, thinking in terms of "trascendental truths" or "universal truths" usually leads to genocides and history teaches us that. Or thinking that humans are "better" than animals only helps to promote and justify animals' explotation.

Conveniently forgetting that the sort of treatment we can see this getting is very much a modern trend.

Doing things like taking Galadriel, a pre-existing strong female character, and messing her characterisation about by:

- rewriting her as a simplistic sword-wielding "warrior princess' stereotype
- disappearing her husband and daughter because they don't suit the show-runners' action hero narrative
- giving her equally simplistic motivation (revenge for her brothers, who should be long dead) so that she's vengeful and angry
- making her less mature when she's meant to be older and wiser than most

...all considered, is neither big nor clever (and there'll probably be more in that vein once we get to see the series). I have no idea why you seemingly expect fans of Tolkien's work to welcome clunky changes like this.

Yes, screenwriters have to deal with motivation, obstacles, desires and goals to get the audience to identify themselves with the character's arc.

A character that's eternal, perfect and non-flawed it is not something that the audience can identify with, therefore they will get bored to tears with it.

And that's happening because screenwriters have enough social intelligence to know that.

[Radhruin_EU]

Yeah, that's what we have to dissociate with.

Nuts. Not in a purposely traditional style of story-telling where that's what people like about it, a sense of age akin to what you get from genuinely old stories (but without the truly nasty rough edges that the real thing can sometimes have). It's built into the whole idea of constructed myth and legend: you can't 'modernise' that because it reflects an inherently traditional mindset. If some people don't like that, they should go enjoy whatever style of fantasy they prefer themselves rather than trying to make everything conform to modern ideology.

This is also why I believe that so many religious folks are attracted to Tolkien's work. Because they actually believe in eternal values.

Many religious folks like Tolkien because his work reflects religious thinking and symbolism. He doesn't ram his faith down anybody's throat like his friend C.S.Lewis was wont to but Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and it shows in his work (and he admitted as much).

Yes, screenwriters have to deal with motivation, obstacles, desires and goals to get the audience to identify themselves with the character's arc.

A character that's eternal, perfect and non-flawed it is not something that the audience can identify with, therefore they will get bored to tears with it.

And that's happening because screenwriters have enough social intelligence to know that.

And what has that got to do with them writing her as a noddy "warrior princess" character rather than the 'real' Galadriel? She wasn't perfect, she was proud and ambitious (that's why she could still be tempted by the Ring, much later) and had always wanted to rule over others; that's why it was so damn scary when she did her "all shall love me and despair" speech. This only became an issue because the show-runners were hell-bent on having a female action hero as their lead and shoe-horned Galadriel into that mould (for the name recognition, I imagine) rather than creating an original character. So again, how can you expect Tolkien fans to be happy with such wholesale changes to an existing character, or all the umpteen other things that have been pulled out of thin air? The main reason fandom's up in arms about it is that it's a crummy adaptation that's got very little to do with anything Tolkien ever wrote, just names and places and some few situations, so that they're essentially just using it as a 'skin' or wrapper for this generic fantasy they've written.

[LagunaD2]

Although Tolkien certainly didn't beat us over the head with it, Galadriel is fairly edgy even in the trilogy.

She rebelled against the Valar (and without the "heat of the moment" defense some others could have raised).

Getting her hands on the Ring was clearly something she had thought about before Frodo arrived (she was taken aback that he offered it freely, forcing her to choose before she had completely decided her course of action).

And her incursions - uninvited - into the minds of her guests are the sort of tactic the bad guys would use.

The protestations of a fat, stinky, brain-addled Dorf notwithstanding, Eomer was right to fear her and what she could do.

[Aranaan]

The fact that genuine ideas take so much fking time to be accepted by society is another issue.

If the idea was genuine, the society would have embraced it. Since it didnt, its for a selected few, aka the minority.
Do you know what innovation is? Its not about inventing a new toy or idea, but its a toy or idea the people will want to use.

Anything else goes in the trashbin. You can whine or complain about it, but it will never make the people accept it.
The best way is to drop the issue and move on, because right or wrong, you will loose anyway.

Welcome to the human society!

[TesalionLortus]

Yes, screenwriters have to deal with motivation, obstacles, desires and goals to get the audience to identify themselves with the character's arc.

A character that's eternal, perfect and non-flawed it is not something that the audience can identify with, therefore they will get bored to tears with it.

And that's happening because screenwriters have enough social intelligence to know that.

Different things could have been done with said character, more lore-friendly and equally intriguing - but Radhruin already told you. Let me just say something about that last phrase of yours because I'm perplexed and it's not going to be a metaphysical discussion but the simplest of truths...

By "enough social intelligence" clearly you mean that they're consciously choosing to write these things for the dumbest of viewers, right? Because that's what it is - dumb - if "viewers" (but does it really encompass all viewers or viewers that should matter?) wouldn't be able to enjoy a certain female character of Tolkien if she wasn't showed with a big Witcher's sword in every scene... which appears to be what you're suggesting here and you dare to claim it's so very intelligent of showrunners to try to avoid writing normal characters so, in their vast intelligence and benevolence, they opt to focus solely on simple-minded warrior stereotype so they're consciously writing Tolkien not for normal people but for dumb people (and they count on normal people not to mention fans to just accept it because it bears the name of Tolkien on it). So they don't give a damn, right, because it's all business and Hollywood has "trends" - exaggerations silly tropes they need to adhere to and crowds of activists screaming in their ears? (or even outright hijacking the characters they play which clearly happened here, some of the interviews were self-evident and they hardly talked about Tolkien). And what you're saying is THIS is "normal" and to be expected and how Tolkien's work - of all things, because they finally came after it too - should be treated and it's what fans should welcome? That's normal and intelligent? Not stupid and utterly insane in the slightest?

Ok... I think you're so caught up in all this, sir, that you haven't even noticed... which is most likely true for many of the people involved in production or even the showrunners. But those of us who aren't so caught up in all this will notice the insanity - because you don't even need to be a genius to see it.

Although Tolkien certainly didn't beat us over the head with it, Galadriel is fairly edgy even in the trilogy.

She rebelled against the Valar (and without the "heat of the moment" defense some others could have raised).

Getting her hands on the Ring was clearly something she had thought about before Frodo arrived (she was taken aback that he offered it freely, forcing her to choose before she had completely decided her course of action).

And her incursions - uninvited - into the minds of her guests are the sort of tactic the bad guys would use.

The protestations of a fat, stinky, brain-addled Dorf notwithstanding, Eomer was right to fear her and what she could do.

Which is perfect lore info that you can build upon - but nothing of it screams "chasing revenge for thousands of years! looking for elusive Sauron for thousand of years! no idea what I'll even do after I find him... but as a badass woman I can certainly handle a demigod, easy peasy, everyone follow me!"

Btw, that last one is still one of the most bizarre prospects about this entire premise, something that I haven't really heard many people talk about. Like seriously, what does she expect will happen? She says she isn't a man and she stabs Sauron, all problems solved? Because it should be nearly impossible to damage Sauron permanently before he binds himself to the ring which was like the entire point/irony of his ultimate undoing so sounds like the showrunners are trying to erase that too. Capture is also questionable, he can just bat his way out, not to mention survive without a body. So all of this makes you roll yours eyes already.

As for her occupation in the series, if anything, would be amazing to see her rise the ranks of the court, taking up armor when absolutely necessary (so when they're under siege or something) but normally she has others to do her dirty work for her (see, that's actual agency, people who matter have... other people who do #### in the field for them, plain logic). Also, they could have shown her tempted by her ambition and position of authority, plus training her magical abilities, all of which won't really happen in this series probably... because leading an army and being gnarly about it isn't exactly the same as graceful lordship over your elven followers, with a little bit of tact and smart manipulation behind the scenes. What we have seen of her so far is just angry sword slashing and pretty dumb behavior and jokes about how she slew a troll just to spite in Elrond's face (gosh, the actress even described her as "rush"), almost all of her dialogues come across as super cringe and creepy (also, I just realized this is the actress who player the crazy sister in His Dark Materials S1... and guess what, she acts the same sort of creepy in RoP, who thought THIS was a good idea???).

Well, I guess if they turn all the elves into angry orc-slaying Witchers that could work and then she rises above Gil-galad himself pretty easily... and they're already imperialistic ####s here with the entire "Southlands under elven occupation for thousand of years"... but that's just adding even more skewed images to already extremely altered material (for no logical narrative reason, mind you). Ironically, what they're doing with Gil-galad, that he has this plan against evil, to sustain peace, even if somehow questionable and he doesn't share with others so perhaps even manipulating them - sounds A LOT like what they could have done with Galadriel, in some capacity, only then paint it as integral struggle and her partial motivation is power, not just protection of Middle-earth and the elves. But of course that's not what they'll do with her... I bet the creation of Lothlorien will be treated as some sort of well-deserved retirement after she finally put her sword down *sight* or she will outright lead the remaining elves towards what will become the Golden Wood with that giant sword on her back. Or something

[LagunaD2]

Btw, that last one is still one of the most bizarre prospects about this entire premise, something that I haven't really heard many people talk about. Like seriously, what does she expect will happen? She says she isn't a man and she stabs Sauron, all problems solved? Because it should be nearly impossible to damage Sauron permanently before he binds himself to the ring which was like the entire point/irony of his ultimate undoing so sounds like the showrunners are trying to erase that too. Capture is also questionable, he can just bat his way out, not to mention survive without a body. So all of this makes you roll yours eyes already.

I'm not so sure here.

Saruman, who admittedly, on his best day, was never as mighty as Sauron (and Saruman's best day was long behind him), was felled by a bottom-feeder like Grima.

You're probably right that if Sauron believed himself in mortal danger, he would be smart enough to flee (which he did, in fact, when the White Council showed up at his door).

[TesalionLortus]

I have "potential spoilers" to share (which might be fake, they come from 4chan, so be warned) but I found them interesting enough to post in case someone is interested in such curiosities and finds fun in wondering what might actually happen... because a part of me wonders whether... ugh, maybe it IS true? Because some of it would make ironic sense, and Disa's speech to Durin in the recent trailer came across as.. idk, kind of a power temptation maybe?

So in case some people here are interested, but I don't want to for you to be exposed if you don't want to, SO SPOILERS BELOW.
Text in black below so is harder to read, just highlight (I think it's not possible to hide something under wraps here?)

>Sauron isn't shown at all in the first season. All of the characters are red herrings.
>The Stranger is a Maiar and a former servant of Morgoth who seeks redemption.
>The Dwarven princess is from a clan who secretly served Morgoth. She and her clan will once again be swayed by a Ring of Power to swear fealty to Sauron.
>The series actually takes place in TWO timelines - the events on Middle-Earth are set around the creation of the Rings and the War of Elves and Sauron, whilst the events on Numenor are around the time of Numenor's second intervention under Pharazon. This is why Galadriel is the only common character - Amazon wants to make this a big reveal.

What I find especially curious is the two timelines (which would make a lot of sense, if they want to have at least some semblance of time passage on this show, and Sauron being able to... start Barad-dur construction right?) and The Stranger being Morgoth's servant on a redemption path, which makes sense so they wouldn't actually go overboard and have Gandalf or something, but at the same time... they're also "justifying it" by answering the question of what might have happened if Sauron genuinely progressed with his remorse and received judgment at Valinor (which is of course stupid, better to give the actual Sauron on the show some depth rather than split him into two characters, but I wouldn't really say it would be... uncharacteristic of the choices on this show, so it's believable too). Halbrand framed as maybe he is Sauron but he turns out to be Witch-king or something is also the kind of needless/stupid I could see happening. And then Disa... now that one makes you roll your eyes and say haha this is some stupid fake sh*t from 4chan, of course it is! But hmm... I wonder, maybe the show really has A LOT of weird, needless surprises in store and Disa will also get a ring here and turn evil/greedy/Dourhand mode, ha ha ha would have been hilarious actually.

[TesalionLortus]

I'm not so sure here.

Saruman, who admittedly, on his best day, was never as mighty as Sauron (and Saruman's best day was long behind him), was felled by a bottom-feeder like Grima.

You're probably right that if Sauron believed himself in mortal danger, he would be smart enough to flee (which he did, in fact, when the White Council showed up at his door).

Except Istari willingly tied themselves to their mortal bodies to limit the temptation of power and domination, so Saruman was essentially in the "damn it, how stupid of me, shouldn't have done that!" kind of situation once he turned evil. Not to mention he already lost his powers by that point, so was essentially just mortal + the voice

[Radhruin_EU]

Which is perfect lore info that you can build upon - but nothing of it screams "chasing revenge for thousands of years! looking for elusive Sauron for thousand of years! no idea what I'll even do after I find him... but as a badass woman I can certainly handle a demigod, easy peasy, everyone follow me!"

This is a really good point. As it is, it reminds me of what Feanor did, becoming so obsessed with revenge on Morgoth he went fey and appeared to have a deathwish. Going after the Big Bad with only a few companions doesn't exactly come recommended, since it'd be asking to get horribly owned and die a stupid death. With her ill-fated uncle as a cautionary example that Galadriel would be only too well aware of as well as what had happened to her brother Finrod, I find the idea of her doing a Feanor by pursuing Sauron to the ends of the earth to be particularly unlikely.

What I *can* perhaps imagine is her obsessively poring over maps and intelligence reports to try to piece clues together as to where he might be and what he might be up to.

[Somedudeoverhere]

Yeah, that's what we have to dissociate with. Choosing our heritage means dispensing from what is not productive or necessary for society.

Heidegger (author from "Being and Time") was also a well-known National Socialist and he was also the father of Deconstruction, which seems kinda antinomic, but we took from Heidegger his most influential and important intellectual work and dissociated from his antisemitic idiosyncrasies.




This is the discussion between particular vs universal.

What deconstruction does is to expose all the portrayed "universal" values as "particular", to promote a genuine reading of history or a text.

Myths convey values that may be particular to certain contexts and needs from an specific culture and society. For example, Oedipus myth is supposed to deal with the problem of incest to organize Greek societies, but that does not mean that we were born with such prohibition, the prohibition is ipso facto for culture to exist, but not genetical or universal in any transcendent way, it's universal in the sense that cultures need such prohibition to organize themselves.

This is also why I believe that so many religious folks are attracted to Tolkien's work. Because they actually believe in eternal values.

Anti-humanism, on the other hand, exposes how evil "Humanism" can be, thinking in terms of "trascendental truths" or "universal truths" usually leads to genocides and history teaches us that. Or thinking that humans are "better" than animals only helps to promote and justify animals' explotation.





Yes, screenwriters have to deal with motivation, obstacles, desires and goals to get the audience to identify themselves with the character's arc.

A character that's eternal, perfect and non-flawed it is not something that the audience can identify with, therefore they will get bored to tears with it.

And that's happening because screenwriters have enough social intelligence to know that.

Twitter is that way ---->,your blue checkmark means nothing here. Make sure to stock up on crayons for your safe space.

[Pontin_Finnberry]

For those interested you can read reactions from those who saw the first two episodes from premiere, mainly its just a lot of hype saying it good TheOneRing.net - First impressions of The Rings of Power as social media embargo lifts

[Melank]

If the idea was genuine, the society would have embraced it. Since it didnt, its for a selected few, aka the minority.
Do you know what innovation is? Its not about inventing a new toy or idea, but its a toy or idea the people will want to use.

Anything else goes in the trashbin. You can whine or complain about it, but it will never make the people accept it.
The best way is to drop the issue and move on, because right or wrong, you will loose anyway.

Welcome to the human society!

So, in your conception of things, giving rights to black people in the US was a bad move because almost half of the population was incredible racist and didn't agree with that at that moment in time?

In fact KK K was born the next day after the US goverment gave all citizenship rights to black people. So, does it mean that black peoples' rights should go into a trashbin?



Besides that, "Being and Time" argument and Deconstruction is indisputable at this point.

Mainly because logic supports it, and since logic is the science of what's real, it should be taken as face value. We Westerners used to believe that everything was built on "trascendental meaning" and binarisms because we were dumb and deluded by our own language and social constructions, and now we know that opposite binarisms are just ways in which our lazy subjectivity tries to create meaning on things "men as the opposite of women" or "women as the opposite of men", etc, to organize them.

Now, if you actually believe that trascendental meaning and binarisms actually exist, as many people do, well, you should go a grab a book and educate yourself on XX century logic, ontology & epistemology.

[Melank]

Nuts. Not in a purposely traditional style of story-telling where that's what people like about it, a sense of age akin to what you get from genuinely old stories (but without the truly nasty rough edges that the real thing can sometimes have). It's built into the whole idea of constructed myth and legend: you can't 'modernise' that because it reflects an inherently traditional mindset. If some people don't like that, they should go enjoy whatever style of fantasy they prefer themselves rather than trying to make everything conform to modern ideology.

There are like 20 versions of Romeo & Juliet and Frankenstein. Embrace post-modernity and liquidity.

If Amazon actually tried to do 2000 PJ's version of LotR now in 2022 It would fail misserably, they're not dumb enough to lose money from a larger audience just to make happy 5 or 10 conservative LotR fans.

[LagunaD2]

Suppose a mid-20th century African writer composed a fictional epic involving the mythology of a sub-Saharan African culture around the first century B.C.E., before any contact with non-Africans. This work is recognized as one of the greatest literary works of its genre.

Now suppose a modern derivative of this is being prepared as a TV mini-series.

How do you suppose it would be received to insert actors of European heritage, with light skin, into roles that the original author imagined being African, for the sake of making this epic more relatable and marketable to non-African audiences?

Do you suppose fans of the original epic would be on-board with this sort of "improvement" on what they consider a classic?

Or would it be (rightfully) condemned as "cultural appropriation" and defilement of the original?

[miriadel]

I have "potential spoilers" to share (which might be fake, they come from 4chan, so be warned) but I found them interesting enough to post in case someone is interested in such curiosities and finds fun in wondering what might actually happen... because a part of me wonders whether... ugh, maybe it IS true? Because some of it would make ironic sense, and Disa's speech to Durin in the recent trailer came across as.. idk, kind of a power temptation maybe?

So in case some people here are interested, but I don't want to for you to be exposed if you don't want to, SO SPOILERS BELOW.
Text in black below so is harder to read, just highlight (I think it's not possible to hide something under wraps here?)

>Sauron isn't shown at all in the first season. All of the characters are red herrings.
>The Stranger is a Maiar and a former servant of Morgoth who seeks redemption.
>The Dwarven princess is from a clan who secretly served Morgoth. She and her clan will once again be swayed by a Ring of Power to swear fealty to Sauron.
>The series actually takes place in TWO timelines - the events on Middle-Earth are set around the creation of the Rings and the War of Elves and Sauron, whilst the events on Numenor are around the time of Numenor's second intervention under Pharazon. This is why Galadriel is the only common character - Amazon wants to make this a big reveal.

What I find especially curious is the two timelines (which would make a lot of sense, if they want to have at least some semblance of time passage on this show, and Sauron being able to... start Barad-dur construction right?) and The Stranger being Morgoth's servant on a redemption path, which makes sense so they wouldn't actually go overboard and have Gandalf or something, but at the same time... they're also "justifying it" by answering the question of what might have happened if Sauron genuinely progressed with his remorse and received judgment at Valinor (which is of course stupid, better to give the actual Sauron on the show some depth rather than split him into two characters, but I wouldn't really say it would be... uncharacteristic of the choices on this show, so it's believable too). Halbrand framed as maybe he is Sauron but he turns out to be Witch-king or something is also the kind of needless/stupid I could see happening. And then Disa... now that one makes you roll your eyes and say haha this is some stupid fake sh*t from 4chan, of course it is! But hmm... I wonder, maybe the show really has A LOT of weird, needless surprises in store and Disa will also get a ring here and turn evil/greedy/Dourhand mode, ha ha ha would have been hilarious actually.

the first one was confirmed by the showrunners, the villain for season 1 is Adar the corrupted elf leader of orcs

as for the other ones, seems some people just like to make stuff up and pass it on as a rumor, but it's even more far-fetched than the most far-fetched things we already know of the confirmed storyline

[Melank]

Suppose a mid-20th century African writer composed a fictional epic involving the mythology of a sub-Saharan African culture around the first century B.C.E., before any contact with non-Africans. This work is recognized as one of the greatest literary works of its genre.

Now suppose a modern derivative of this is being prepared as a TV mini-series.

How do you suppose it would be received to insert actors of European heritage, with light skin, into roles that the original author imagined being African, for the sake of making this epic more relatable and marketable to non-African audiences?

Do you suppose fans of the original epic would be on-board with this sort of "improvement" on what they consider a classic?

Or would it be (rightfully) condemned as "cultural appropriation" and defilement of the original?

Honestly I don't care, many people use these ideas wrongfully because they're ignorant, and reduce the whole argument to virtue signalling and a moralist standpoint which is not what deconstruction means.

In fact you can deconstruct the argument of those people that do virtue signalling by exposing the oppositions within their own discourse, but many people won't do that because they're afraid of being exposed or criticized. They're cowards basically.

"Better than renounce who can't unite to his horizon the subjectivity of his time."

[wispsong]

For those interested you can read reactions from those who saw the first two episodes from premiere, mainly its just a lot of hype saying it good TheOneRing.net - First impressions of The Rings of Power as social media embargo lifts

It's New Yorkers judging here, and they are into the modern. Most are really taken by the visuals, no mention of story. I definitely will look at the last person giving the review, good and bad.

My daughter is taken aback by some of the actor interviews and the trailers are very action-oriented and filled with too many women, but we will be watching the first episodes and make up our mind then.

The show can be really good, and the best fantasy show out this decade, the problem is that with the name Tolkien attached, there are certain expectations. And the interviews give the impression that it has been very modernized to today's standards.

[TesalionLortus]

as for the other ones, seems some people just like to make stuff up and pass it on as a rumor, but it's even more far-fetched than the most far-fetched things we already know of the confirmed storyline

Yes, far-fetched, but... there is a part of me that doesn't think anything seems too far fetched or too contrived to those showrunners so... who knows. Btw, that info wasn't passed as a rumor, it was an anonymous user and they described themselves as someone involved in the production offering some spoilers. I haven't really seen any "rumors" and multitude of fake "reveals" before (I guess people are so focused on Tolkien's legacy that rumors and troll fame don't matter as much as it's usually the case?), so this single one suspiciously sticks out in a unique way, didn't even get any traction on 4chan but made me wonder... I guess better prepare for even more far-fetched just to be safe :P I don't want to die from laugher, for starters