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"I was like 🤭🤭🤭" ▸ The Rings Of Power's Morfydd Clark & Charlie Vickers diiscuss the Elrond & Galadriel kiss with Screen Rant ▸ December 2024

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the possibility that we might actually be getting a storyline about:

sauron and galadriel communicating and interacting in the mind-palace

sauron tempting galadriel to succumb to the darkness, pulling as she pushes

galadriel getting powers as the side effect of being stabbed by morgoth's crown

is genuinely so exciting!!!

and again, sauron x galadriel mind-bond storyline would be enjoyed by everyone! shippers and non-shippers alike, lore nerds and general audiences alike! it is a very appealing idea full of potential!

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even without any explicit eroticism, haladriel in s3 has a potential to be giving nosferatu:

the wound left by morgoth's crown having dark side effects on galadriel's powers and psyche, connecting her and sauron's minds

sauron tempting galadriel to succumb to the darkness through their mind-bond and galadriel struggling to fight the darkness with her light

galadriel - ellen hutter

sauron - count orlok

elrond (platonically, bc i dont want teleporn to be back) - thomas hutter

gandalf - prof. albin eberhart von franz

and from everything i have heard about nosferatu 2024, i know that haladriels are going to love it. it seems that ellen takes a more central stage than she had in previous adaptations which is great!

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Note to keep in mind

I am manifesting hope that those with any reading comprehension will understand that the only reason why the showrunners didn't have Sauron pay a nice little visit to see both his exes on their camping trip was because they wanted to build up anticipation and significance for their inevitable reunion, and not that they didn't think Sauron wouldn't do it.

You can bet that there was a finished draft at some point for them to even bring this up in an interview, even if they 'quickly' dismissed it. They wanted to see if they could fit them into the sequence of events sooner, but due to other considerations, and for the sake of hyping up their meeting, this was cut.

"But if they collided early, it would rob some of the power of that final meeting. So...for that and many other reasons having to do [with] character and proximity, they were going to be ready only then."

By character, they didn't mean it would've been 'out of character' for that to happen. If that was the case, they wouldn't have even given this a second thought, much less bother to look at other media enemy relationships to compare to. Proximity means that Sauron is anxiously waiting on his Amazon rings delivery, and he needed to be there to sign for the package. They mean that both Galadriel and Sauron needed to go through more experiences individually first before they would be fully ready to confront each other.

Bonus: For S3 and beyond, we know Charlie 'I would write more of them meeting if I was in charge' Vickers is on board though if this ever pops up again (spoiler alert: it will).

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

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There’s been a lot of talk about “misogyny” and “sexism” these past few days in the “Rings of Power” fandom concerning Sauron x Galadriel.

Quite conveniently no one is talking how male heroes get to flirt, kiss or even fuck with hot female villains without having their “heroism” put into question (literally ever action male hero ever created by Hollywood), but when the roles are reversed and it’s the female hero flirting with the hot male villains it’s suddenly “problematic” and we “need to talk about it”, and the villain has to be redeemed otherwise it’s “abusive”, and we need to “protect the women and children” from these representations.

And the medias where this happens are guilty of the same bias, mind you. Perhaps one day the film/TV industry will award the female heroes the same treatment as the male heroes. Until then, spare me the virtuous and patronizing speeches.

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"Her time with Halbrand was a time where she was very much herself in some ways because she was an Elf alone. She wasn't following the rules of her people at that point. So, he knows a part of her that other people, other beings, don't, and there's a tragedy to losing that, and through losing him, she's also lost that part of herself. " --Morfydd Clark

I thought we were done with LA press day bounties and the latest drop brought the most devastating line yet. 😭 I could go on and on about this aspect of Galadriel's characterization and in particular what being around Halbrand/Sauron brings out of her compared to how she acts when she's back in the 'nest' as it were. I don't know if it's intentional or not but something about the way they've written Galadriel reintegrating back into her community just felt subtly stifling and like that'd be one thing if the writers were self-aware about it but I got the impression it's meant to be this 100% good/wholesome thing about maturation and growth. I think this is the first time someone from the show has spoken of it differently, because there is a Loss there too. A pretty profound one.

Yes she had reasons to feel guilty and that would mean a humbled Galadriel in season 2, but I couldn't help but also notice the way she holds herself, bites her tongue, struggles to contain her anger and pain, are all pretty similar to how she acted around the elves in season 1 before she was exiled. And we subsequently saw her really sparking and expressing everything she felt after jumping off that ship, meeting Halbrand, causing a ruckus on Numenor, etc etc. (With Habrand especially, I think the way I described it once when watching s1, the reason the dynamic really grabbed me and what I saw as Galadriel coming alive, is that he spoke to her like she was just a woman, the real flesh and blood person in between the black sheep of the elves or the untouchable Lady of Light. It's no wonder he got her to bare her soul in that forge.) I reject the idea that all of that was just this flawed part of her she needs to erase from her character to become the true Galadriel. Character growth should temper her more impulsive and reckless traits but not figuratively lobotomize her.

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I zeroed in on Morfydd saying that she was very much herself in some ways because she wasn't conforming to the rules of her people.

The implication then is to be part of the elf community again, she's had to suppress parts of herself.

If you've watched enough stories with female characters, you'll often see this pattern emerge of conformity and repression for the female character and how they relate to their society. Screen writers use freud's theory of id, super ego, and ego and what it means for female repression like they studied under the man.

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hey i saw you across the room at the devil's sacrament and loved your vibe

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she whooped ur ass black and blue with your own words and you literally don’t have an answer lmao it’s okay lmao id be embarrassed at such public humiliation too. don’t have anything to say so it’s the typical “im feeling so attacked right now” bullshit

Let me clarify, again.

(So many explanations these days... I don't know if I'm not making myself clear or some of you are being obtuse. Maybe both. Maybe neither. I don't know anymore)

I didn't speak up because I wanted popularity or to gain attention. I did it because people answered under my posts calling me names for a different opinion. Because some Tumblr users (even one I had blocked) made long ass posts repeating my words to confute them (😂). And this pissed me off. Because I like being upfront irl and on line. So either tag me or ignore me. Like I do most of the time. And when I started to see that some fans were afraid to express their opinions, I decided to speak up. Because I'm not gonna let some wannabefamous blog silence me or others. That's it.

From now on, anon hate messages will be deleted. So spend your time doing more joyful activities. I'm not afraid of some Tumblr users screaming at me 😂. I'm just doing you a favour. You'll be screaming into the void.

(and I'll keep tagging my posts as haladriel and saurondriel because they are my otp on the show. I urge you to block me if you have a problem with that).

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Let me clarify, again.

(So many explanations these days... I don't know if I'm not making myself clear or some of you are being obtuse. Maybe both. Maybe neither. I don't know anymore)

I didn't speak up because I wanted popularity or to gain attention. I did it because people answered under my posts calling me names for a different opinion. Because some Tumblr users (even one I had blocked) made long ass posts repeating my words to confute them (😂). And this pissed me off. Because I like being upfront irl and on line. So either tag me or ignore me. Like I do most of the time. And when I started to see that some fans were afraid to express their opinions, I decided to speak up. Because I'm not gonna let some wannabefamous blog silence me or others. That's it.

From now on, anon hate messages will be deleted. So spend your time doing more joyful activities. I'm not afraid of some Tumblr users screaming at me 😂. I'm just doing you a favour. You'll be screaming into the void.

(and I'll keep tagging my posts as haladriel and saurondriel because they are my otp on the show. I urge you to block me if you have a problem with that).

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Let me clarify, again.

(So many explanations these days... I don't know if I'm not making myself clear or some of you are being obtuse. Maybe both. Maybe neither. I don't know anymore)

I didn't speak up because I wanted popularity or to gain attention. I did it because people answered under my posts calling me names for a different opinion. Because some Tumblr users (even one I had blocked) made long ass posts repeating my words to confute them (😂). And this pissed me off. Because I like being upfront irl and on line. So either tag me or ignore me. Like I do most of the time. And when I started to see that some fans were afraid to express their opinions, I decided to speak up. Because I'm not gonna let some wannabefamous blog silence me or others. That's it.

From now on, anon hate messages will be deleted. So spend your time doing more joyful activities. I'm not afraid of some Tumblr users screaming at me 😂. I'm just doing you a favour. You'll be screaming into the void.

(and I'll keep tagging my posts as haladriel and saurondriel because they are my otp on the show. I urge you to block me if you have a problem with that).

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I’m sorry the age rating increase is necessary even without the sex scenes.

you cannot get steamy moments or even stuff implied or let Sauron be a proper terrifying villain without it.

Well atleast if you want something substantial and not just another crown fight with nenya being vaguely used to signify galadriel and I personally cannot handle being called delusional and being gaslit about this ship anymore.

Idc if it’s disrespectful to Tolkien he’s gone and this is a adaptation of is work that can be removed far from the meager source materials, it already is. If Amazon wants to compete with its competitors at HBO who are not shying away from anything in the new Dune Prophecy show (one that’s earned the new game of thrones in space moniker) then it needs to leave the 1930s mentality of Tolkien behind. This isn’t 20 years ago when the PJ movies did well. This is a post Game of Thrones era of streaming and clutching your pearls will get them nowhere with a 35% audience decrease beating their ass.

Do I think we’ll get a haladriel sex scene? Unlikely. But can things still be implied? Very easily. Wilder things have happened in television and that crown fight was already sexually charged and would’ve been more if we didn’t have the fucking age rating restrictions.

On another note: asking Sauron to navigate numenor court politics and keep it PG and bring it down in a good honoring way….I need everyone to step back and ask themselves how they’d feel watching him run circles around Pharazoan like he did celebrimbor without anything to spice it up. Nobody in the general audience is gonna sit down for that shit. Especially since game of thrones managed to give audiences court politics with steaming drama that helped further the plot. Also he’s goes to numenor in canon and convinces them to sacrifice humans to morgoth. How do y’all think that’s going to look without a higher rating? How will that even be possible?

Besides that, are we forgetting Sauron quite literally strung up a bloody celebrimbor from the rafters? That wasn’t very age appropriate now was it. Gore and blood being okay for Tolkien but nothing remotely sexual seems very hypocritical for the show already and it’s this type of pussyfooting that’s throwing the general audience off. I say this with all respect screw Tolkien’s catholic purity. If ppl want that go reread the books and watch the movies. They’re that long for a reason.

I don't want to hold my hopes high, but this is interesting.......

I disagree about the age rating btw, it would make no sense to me at least as far as Saurondriel is concerned, because we'll never get a Saurondriel sex scene. Galadriel won't have sex with Sauron, like, it's not going to happen, even if they raise the age rating. The best we could have would be a flashback scene showing that Galadriel and Halbrand had sex ? I vote for. But if they raise the age rating just to give us an Isildur/Estrid sex scene, or a Galadriel/Celeborn one (this one would be the moment I'd fall asleep, probably), they can keep the PG 13, thank you very much.

No, what's interesting is that The Great is basically an Haladriel AU, and as for Industry :

Industry is now in my "next watch" list, I've seen a couple a scenes from it and the dialogues are... Great. If they hired the woman who wrote the lines I've heard, it's a very good sign for TROP season 3.

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Maybe I've missed the posts on Tumblr but if you're not on Twitter you might have missed the marketing on the official social media accounts. I'll post some. Amazon knows the Haladriel fanbase exists. That's what the marketing told me: they've learned what's popular and what gets them views. I don't know how much of what's popular will influence the writing and I'll do a post on my speculations in light of delayed renewal- things I've said on Twitter for 2 months.

But right now here's some of the digital marketing:

On the official The Rings of Power account, The Haladriel Nation tweet (4.1k likes) and the tweet with the BTS video of Charlie Vickers and Morfydd Clark (6.9k likes) were among the posts that got the most engagement.

The only two posts with greater likes were a BTS video about the Siege of Eregion (5.7k likes) and one thanking viewers (7k likes). Their other posts average around 2k likes.

The shift was unmissable when Prime Video was comparing Sauron and Galadriel to Daisy and Billy from Daisy Jones & The Six, a romantic couple.

Another account (Amazon MGM Studios) in on the action.

The Rings of Power account social media manager addressing us as Haladriel Nation on the official account and then on his personal account. He got people trying to get him fired for this post by the way.

International Prime accounts on Twitter, TikTok, Insta, and YouTube Shorts.

Prime Mexico calling Sauron and Galadriel "my parents"

Prime Video Brazil made a YouTube Short saying "the love of Sauron and Galadriel speaks louder"

The Rings of Power account on Instagram:

Prime Video Australia/NZ posting Haladriel edits on TikTok:

There are a lot of official accounts associated with Prime Video, Amazon MGM, and then there's the TROP account. They've all been posting edits of the fight from different angles regularly and this is just some of the digital marketing. They do post other dynamics of course but none this shippy and none as much as the Haladriel dynamic. The TROP account started a Fan Artist Friday 3 weeks ago to highlight fan art. They picked a canon compliant non-shippy Silvergifting fan art and they did the same for the Haladriel fan art as well. It was definitely carely chosen to avoid accusations of bias Irving Lopez got over the official account shouting out Haladriel Nation lol. The rest were just character art- they posted Adar fanart last Friday.

Unlike other marketing formats which requires more planning and time to coordinate, digital marketing is the most reactive to fan response. These official accounts were lurking on Haladriel fan accounts and responding to them during S2, and reposting Haladriel fans but it shifted post-s2 into overtly shipping material.

And baiting only works for so long before folks stop buying. I've said this before. When people hear there's only one scene, they'll just watch that scene on YouTube or TikTok. This happens a lot with other fandoms. Folks posting YouTube scene playlists and TikTok outright posting everything. But I'll save this for a post about PR in the context of the flux the show is in.

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i know i have talked about this already, but there is not much else to talk about at this point and i still can't get over how much ick s2's finale gives me when it comes to galadriel's storyline.

everyone except for sauron invalidated galadriel's trauma and treated her like a burden in s1, then they shamed and humiliated her in s2. and it all could have had a good narrative reason... if it hadn't led to a really sexist conclusion.

the whole narrative of the good guy who slut-shamed her "fixing" her, resulting in her putting down the sword and putting on the dress instead? yikes...

i love galadriel's characterization in trop. she is a perfect blend of feminine + masculine. saying this could get me crucified but i think she is much more queer-coded than sauron is; in a way that i can see her being nonbinary-coded. she is gender-nonconforming! she is abrasive and proud and a leader!

and this makes the insinuation of that ending all the more painful - from being this authentic, complex character to being... a tradwife to be.

she did not actually turn into a tradwife ofc. now that would be a real blasphemy against tolkien, lol. as galadriel was always a leader first and foremost, never defined as a wife/mother. but narratively, it felt like that was what happened.

some people will say that it's her transformation, that she must learn not to rely on her sword, yada yada. and sure, it can be a character development. BUT! in what direction? they have to be very careful with this direction if they don't want it to come off as a regressive and bio-essentialist "embrace your inner divine feminine, woman" conservative propaganda. it can be done if they lean into "the witch galadriel" arc.

and man, it's somewhat a similar case to killing eve. one reviewer of ke's finale said that women live their lives told to sit still, be accommodating, be self-sacrificial, and there comes a point in their lives where they have to decide if they are going to conform to all that even if it's inauthentic to who they are. villanelle recognized eve's darkness (which really was her authentic self) and wanted to nourish it. so the framing of eve "surviving" villanelle and being cleansed of her "darkness" felt wrong to many.

in many ways, that's how trop s2 finale felt to me. it's so interesting how haladriel's dynamic turned out subtextually. sauron saw galadriel's trauma, her darkness and yet he alone saw galadriel's greatness in her authenticity, and offered her authority - something that all others stripped her off of. yes, he stabbed her (and villanelle shot eve, btw), but told her that he would make her into an overlord of the universe at the same time, lmao.

worst of all, it doesn't make sense legendarium wise - galadriel is going to continue being a leader; yeah, she is not going to be as abrasive, but she will grow into a stone cold bitch (affectionate) instead; she is going to have a push-pull dynamic with sauron till he evaporates. so what was all that supposed to mean? i do believe they catered to the whiny "make galadriel tradwife again" crowd, and maybe inserted a mormon propaganda where it's the most misogynistic in its' message.

anyways, i still have my fingers crossed that they redeem the story direction in s3 by dismissing the undertones of s2 finale. or else it would really leave a sour taste in my mouth.

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I read a post claiming fan engagement doesn't matter. Fan engagement is a factor in 2024, and especially for Amazon Studios, a reactive company. I watched Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime give into their biggest fanbase after years of saying it wouldn't happen.

Amazon has a consumer research department that gives Jennifer Salke head of Amazon Studios feedback about TROP consumers (screenshot below).

McPayne have said they listen to feedback and that S2 was shaped by S1 response- they also make note that S2 was written before S1 (screenshot below).

Just last week, Amazon sent out TROP surveys through Amazon Preview asking opinions on characters, storylines, and what people would like to see in future episodes. They said this feedback would be passed along to the writers.

Amazon has other shows that have responded to fan demand. The rumors around Mrs. Maisel were that Amazon execs mandated making Lenny/Midge canon after years of denial because of the Midge/Lenny fanbase (screenshot below).

The Artful Dodger's showrunner came out citing the show's fan engagement as the reason they got renewed.

I'm plugged into metrics as a PR professional so if anyone wants me to make a post detailing positive engagement for Haladriel via TV publications like The Hollywood Reporter highlighting Haladriel in s1 and missing their scenes in s2, Reddit (yes), Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, I will.

If you don't want to engage in this aspect of fandom, don't. No one can force a stranger on the internet to do anything. And the ship does fine on its own. I disagree with some of the frantic messaging about producing content because we don't need it!

And by the way, no one pays attention to Tumblr or AO3, other than the fairly young on these teams. Social media analytics for entertainment typically include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok, and of course all official accounts. TROP also pays attention to Reddit and Tolkien influencers, as well as TV critics. These all matter just as ratings do. They might not listen to every voice but yes it matters.

Haladriel art is getting 67,000 likes on Instagram in 4 days (screenshot below). Haladriel content consistently goes viral on Twitter, Tiktok and Insta. Interviewers were constantly asking about Haladriel in pre-s2 interviews and the TROP cast and showrunners got questions about them at SDCC in July.

We're fine.

Correction to the original post: It was The Artful Dodger's showrunner who cited fan engagement and TikToks as the reason the show got renewed. Not My Lady Jane.

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W.H. Auden review of “Return of the King” (1956): “evil loves only itself”

Tolkien reply (Letter 183): look, pal, that’s a very narrow and basic view of good vs. evil. I don’t agree with that, at all. I’m not a simple-minded adolescent. I don’t deal with absolute evil in my work, by the way. I’m going to write an entire essay politely telling you to f*ck off.

Tolkien/RoP fandoms for the next decades: evil loves only itself!!!

Tolkien in the afterlife, probably:

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too many girls who like snoopy and poetry and healing. personally I never heal and all I think about is the flaming skull