misspieckfinger

[misspieckfinger]

From a pagan view the idea some whimsical nature god fiddling with shiny stuff will murder you if they save your life & you don’t follow instructions is pretty accurate.

That last scene with Celebrimbor.

That "Look what you've done to yourself" line

And all my brain could think was—

[misspieckfinger]

Fire cow is my first thought as well when I can’t sell short dudes with beards back their own rocks.

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐄 𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐑/𝐒𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐍

#when you imagine a scenario after getting rejected.

[misspieckfinger]

This is too upset for an analysis about a fictional character. I understand it’s my analysis that’s why I posted it.

You were telling people to stop seeing him as an anti hero, I think that people are free to see him through the lease that make sense to them & you need to take your own advice.

I was trying to let you know that nicely & find a middle perspective. The definition of an anti hero is someone who does good through bad means. He did save the elves with his knowledge, for selfish reasons, through deception, but he did save them. He meets the criterion for an anti hero who can be completely amoral & still fall into this category.

Saying anti villain which examines his means as more important than the results he gets was a compromise. He meets the technical requirements for an anti hero, from an academic perspective, that’s really end of. An anti villain does evil but means well, they have good motives & want to help but go about it through evil means. An anti hero does good but through evil means, as Sauron presents a question of ends justifying means . This is Tolkien’s critique of a nihilistic mind over matter approach from a Christian perspective, it’s a concept Nietzsche called “will to power”.

Tolkien described him as having gone the way of wholly evil because he wants to help but he’s also bossy & has the patience of a toddler on speed. He wound up trapped with Satan because he thought he could get more shit done that way. He’s not remarking on whether Sauron ever did anything helpful or good, he’s remarking on his methods of being a relentless task master who won’t stop jumping up & down in the back seat asking “are we there yet?”.

Can we stop treating Sauron like he is some kind of tragic antihero? I think it's time to accept the villain for what he is, i.e. THE VILLAIN.

[misspieckfinger]

The problem with what you’re saying is that Tolkien allegedly drew inspiration from Lovecraft’s Mythos. In it the Lovecraft devil Nyarlathotep is the son of & ensksved by the demon sultan Azathoth who dwells in the void. Azathoth is kept asleep by the playing of flutes & the food Nyarlathotep brings him, he is nuclear chaos, blind & mindless but omnipotent & when he wakes in the void he will destroy the Lovecraft universe.

Reading between the lines I’m going to go out on a limb her & say the void in Lovecraft & the void containing Melkor are the same thing. From there was can deduce that Sauron may have a similar role to Nyarlathotep. It’s said when Melkor comes back it will be the end of the Tolkien world. Given the rate at which Sauron feeds Melkor & how he was bound too tightly to return to Valinor I think he at least knows something about Melkor. I wonder if he didn’t do something to put Morgoth there in the first place.

Additionally his rings he taught the elves to make actually saved them, I think when Galadriel confronted him he was hoping she’d wait until he could prove the rings work. Which would be a means to verify he didn’t intend harm, in Lovecraft Nyarlathotep likes to live among humans. He just finds people interesting. I think Sauron thought it was a win win like he’d help the elves (& everybody) then he’d have stuff they need & get to rule over them. Tolkien writes by the end of the second age Sauron had become greater than Melkor, I think he’s got a secondary goal he doesn’t talk about. But I do think he imagined this scenario where he’d be this benevolent god who was a bossy, scheming, if pleasant, figure.

Emergency Awesome hypothesized he may be doing something to keep Melkor away. I think given what successful blue prints have looked like for this archetype in the past that’s not unlikely.

Sauron is a conniving pain in the rear but he’s capable of helping & wants to try. He’s like an anti villain he does bad things but not necessarily for bad reasons.

Can we stop treating Sauron like he is some kind of tragic antihero? I think it's time to accept the villain for what he is, i.e. THE VILLAIN.

[misspieckfinger]

Sauron the Magic Meow Meow was conceived by Tolkien as a real cat.

Before Sauron was Sauron Tolkien imagined him as a cat deity called Tevildo, a magic cat spirit while Morgoth remained his human master.

We think of him as a wolf guy, but he’s actually supposed to be cat like which is likely where his slitted eye form comes from.

Here is Tevildo in concept art.

[misspieckfinger]

I’m opening an ROP match up ask box. Send me some stuff about your personality & I’ll match you to a character.

Some good things to include would be any physical attributes you feel are relevant, your personality, your interests, occupation, that kind of thing. Feel free to add stuff that’s not on the list.

-I like socionics so give me your socionics type

-MBTI too if you want

-Big 5

-If you’re comfortable I’d love a political spectrum result since the story is about authority vs liberty.

[misspieckfinger]

Now say it like you don’t mean cook her & put her on a plate.

Saladriel dinner with Gil-Galad, Elrond, Celebrimbor, Durin and Disa

All is well AU

Galadriel: This food is too hot, I can't eat it

Sauron: You're very hot and I still eat you

Galadriel:

The others:

(I couldn't find Disa drinking scene :()

[misspieckfinger]

Non toxic relationship? 😍

𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐋 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐀𝐑-𝐌𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐋

[misspieckfinger]

Reminder you are not the Asshole if you don’t want to spend all your time listening to angry, upset, hyper emotional people fall apart all day. You do not lack empathy because of their failure to respect the fact that you have things to do, places to go, other people to which you would rather devote your time, things you’d prefer to be doing.

What does display a lack of empathy is a person who assumes you will spend your time consumed with the very negativity they complain is hurting them. There are people that get off on trying to push their problems onto other people, that is not healthy & you’re not a bad person for not liking it.

You have your own stressors, feelings, hopes, dreams, desires & everyday you get up & you be strong, you use your reason, you use your discipline & you don’t spew misery everywhere you go. The other person is just as capable of doing so. They could go educate themselves, they could independently learn techniques for managing their emotions just like you did, they can control themselves. They’re not because they find the idea of causing chaos & upset in other people’s lives more emotionally satisfying for some reason & that is not your fault. You didn’t make them that way, it’s not your job to fix then. You have your own issues that could have sent you that way if you were a different person. You’re busy fixing you. Everybody is busy with their own life’s work on themselves.

A covert narcissist will be the first person to call people unenlightened, unfeeling, unempathetic, when they aren’t being given the option to swallow up another person’s life with their upset. It’s important to look at whether they’re being empathetic to you & your time & your desires to determine if they’re telling the truth or if this is hoovering. Their whole construct is “im special because I feel so deeply, that’s why I’m so emotional like this & if that bothers you then you’re just not sensitive like me”.

That person is sensitive to their own emotions only. Show them one of yours & see if they don’t immediately try to divert the conversation back to how THEY feel & their needs. A real empath will keep track of the conversation & take the time to equitably respect & entertain your feelings without making it about themselves or getting triggered. A fake empath with a PD won’t be able to do that & if you point that out they’re going to cry about “keeping score” & try to accuse you of being the problem. You’re not.

There is no amount of gentle working out of the covert narcissist’s emotions that will make them stop being a black hole of directionless upset. If you offer understanding they get upset & you don’t understand. If you express a solution they’re triggered by it & you’re still the bad guy. They don’t feel better if you talk to them, they are prodding you for something else to get upset about so they can cry “how could you say that to me”.

This isn’t your fault & you have to understand the routine as part & parcel of their disorder. They have something wrong with them & it has nothing to do with you. Even animals out in the wild that live in groups understand that considerate & empathetic rapport is a give & take. Don’t doubt yourself don’t let them convince you, it’s like a glitch with them. If you say “I think you’re being too much” they’ll tell you that doesn’t count you’re not a therapist, if a therapist tells them the same they’ll have an issue with that particular therapist, if a better therapist also tells them their behavior is bad they’ll have an issue with therapy as a field. If god himself told them they’re being nasty to deal with they’d have a problem with religion. If Hawking rose from the dead & told them the constant upset makes them a jerk they’d have a problem with physics.

The constant game of thinking other people’s perceptions shouldn’t count is what makes them difficult & unhealthy in the first place. Don’t get upset, it’s not personal they have problems & you didn’t create those problems, they’re just proving your point by doing that. They would have you believe everybody’s feelings are wrong but theirs, they’re the ones who are wrong. It’s never we all have feelings & we can all have subjective value to ourselves, it’s they think your feelings are wrong & theirs are right-they’re not & you don’t need a dozen experts to verify you don’t feel good around someone. All you need is the feeling you don’t like them & if that upsets the covert narcissist let’s be honest, they were going to find something to get upset about anyway. If somebody can’t find positive things in life with all its beauty, all the good things in it that’s abnormal & there’s something wrong with that person.

Do some people get depressed & experience temporary lack of enjoyment? They do. But those people largely, entirely actually don’t sit around & try to make other people feel at fault for that. They remember good things, they want things to be good again, they understand the negativity to be a problem.

If you encounter somebody who thinks everything is bad, always was bad & tries to convince you that’s normal that’s a different mental disorder & run. A person with empathy doesn’t seek to convince other people life is horrible & they should see everything as horrible. That’s a bad person who wants people to suffer & that’s not permissible. No just depressed person actively tried to spread their hurts to others. Somebody that does that is wrong a different way & do not get sucked in.

[misspieckfinger]

Questions 7, 9 and 24 for the RoP Ask Game. :-)

7. More dwarves, they need some political landscape to elevate the storyline.

9. I actually liked the numenorian armor, it looks comfortable to move around in. So I want some.

24. I’m a horror nerd, I liked the Balrog under Khaza Dum storyline. I hope as we go they lean into making it creepy.

Noodle Sauron also made me crack up.

[misspieckfinger]

Don’t forget proposing because he got caught with a fake ID.

I’m not sure which mental illness he has specifically but it’s hilarious. Something in there is WEIRD.

The valar swat team sent their best agent Galadriel Elf Cheeks and the whole thing backfired.

[misspieckfinger]

From a writing perspective, that sequence bugs me.

I don’t condone harassing the actor.

That said, I think what he said was unbelievably stupid. If the writers back him up that’s even dumber. You can have a complicated, dark dynamic without taking it to sexual exploitation & intimate violence. This isn’t most viewer’s first rodeo, we can work out what this part is supposed to subconsciously suggest. They picked a very charismatic & conventionally attractive actor to play Sauron. They clearly wanted us to find him at least as likable as we do hate-able. They set the story up to get the audience to emotionally relate to him through his interactions with her. He is given sympathetic motives, we are clearly meant to feel for his hardships. Asking the audience to do so for a sexual exploiter is not an acceptable thing to ask one’s viewership to do.

The problem is right now this “more layered” Sauron they set up has his complexity hinged on his relationship with Galadriel. If that relationship is gender based sexual harassment the likes of which Sauron did not insofar inflict on Gil Galad or Elrond that’s not a more nuanced portrayal than in the books. He didn’t sexually harass her AT ALL in the books, that was added for the show so if that is in fact what he was doing it is really uncomfortable to think about THAT being the thing these people invented to spice up Sauron & make him seem like a more developed character. Sexual exploitation isn’t an interesting &/or relatable thing to do.

You can have a story about authoritarians being wrong without adding in things like sexual misconduct. That’s isn’t spicy, that’s cartoonish. There is plenty of material about anti-authoritarian thought without throwing the mistreatment of a woman in the mix & holding it up as if that’s supposed to “humanize” the perpetrator. A villain can be ideologically wrong without being a caricature of a mustache twirling villain. Throwing in the personal mistreatment of a woman dressed up as an “exciting” subplot is gratuitous. If they’re having a genuine social relationship then write that, if they’re not they needed to stick to cannon & not this card isle romance novel language around the sexual targeting of a military leader who happens to be female. Keep it authentic or keep it professional but trying to ride the middle on that is taking a guy who was merely wrong before & adding unnecessary violence physically, emotionally & sexually instead of the interplay of philosophical & political differences. Which removes any interest on the part of the viewer in Sauron, his motives & this interpretation of him as a character. This is painfully unoriginal. This type of character that the actor suggested he’s playing hasn’t been sympathetic for several decades. He isn’t sympathetic now based on that statement.

Not only is it misogynistic to hold up misogyny in a character as steamy it has underlying tones of misandry to suggest that this iteration of Sauron loses something in adaptation because he feels a full spectrum of human emotions. If Stalin has a wife & can be remembered as he is by our real world this character isn’t nerfed by having registered positive emotion at least once in his millennia long existence.

The Head Tilt

He literally went:

@ Galadriel and it's been sending me ever since. The amount of ATTITUDE. He's such an evil little Barbie

Gif by @elena-gilbert

[misspieckfinger]

Questions 2, 10 and 12 for the RoP Ask Game. :-)

2. Tar Miriel is just permanently unfazed

10. Durin-Construction Company

Disa-Momfluencer/Family Therapist

Adar-Non profit organization

12. Teal

[misspieckfinger]

RoP Ask Game!

We thought it might be a fun to do an ask game. If you want people to send you an ask, simply reblog this post. :-)

THE QUESTIONS

How did you find out about Rings of Power? What was the one thing that drew you to the show?

Who is your favourite character and why? 

If you could spend one day with a character, who would it be? What would you do together?

What’s your favourite location in RoP? 

What’s your favourite song or piece of music from RoP? 

Where would you most like to live in RoP and why?

What minor character would you like to see more of? 

What accessory would you like most to own? (sword, brooch, crown, etc.)

Whose costume would you like most to try on?

Choose three characters. What jobs would they have if they lived in our time?

Which social media site would your favourite character use the most?

What colour do you associate with your favourite character?

There is a lot of music in Tolkien. What character would you wish to sing in RoP? What would they sing about? To whom?

Do you have a song you associate with a favourite character?

Who would you write a poem for in RoP and why?

Name three characters that have dog energy and three that have cat energy.

What do you think “Halbrand” said to the warg puppy?

Which character would you most like to go to a pub with?

Which characters who haven't shared screen time yet would you most like to meet one another?

Name three of your favourite scenes (or lines, or scenes and lines).

Based on the various dinner scenes we have seen so far, to whose table would you most like to be invited as a guest?

Were you familiar with Tolkien's writings before you watched RoP? What’s your favourite, or what might you like to read after seeing the show?

If you could give a present to a favourite character, what would it be?

What is your favourite story line in RoP?

What people or community in Tolkien’s world is your favourite and why?

If you could ask the creative team behind RoP one question, what would it be?

Which person involved in the show would you most like to meet in person? What would you say to them?

Do you have any headcanons about a character, or the world? What are they? 

Describe your favourite character using three emojis.

Choose three characters (not necessarily your favourite ones). Say three positive things about each of them.

[misspieckfinger]

That’s really tricky because while we can see Eru is supposed to be Christian/Abrahamic good boy defining who Satan is takes a lot more work. We could be referring to Asmodeus, Belial, Lucifer, Samael. Moloch who is referred to by the Hebrew MLK meaning sacrifice is also a viable candidate for Melkor. And then there’s a whole structure under each demon that differs by source & so narrowing it down is kind of iffy business.

If they made Charlie read off paradise lost there are still four options. Lucifer, Baal, Moloch & Belial. Moloch is the human sacrifice guy but hones in more on Christian children, so unlikely. Belial is the lie demon & didn’t want to go fight, that’s on the table.

Lucifer states famously that the mind can make a hell of heaven or a heaven of hell & with Sauron’s illusion powers that also fits.

Beelzebub suggests demons go corrupt people so that also fits.

This is the tricky thing with this character, he’s a trickster & you don’t know what is him & what is his facsimile of other demons. So it’s not the most productive thing to ruminate on.

If I knew what part the actor read & if that came from the directors or Tolkien I could tell you who is interpreting him how but unless Tolkien said something you can’t narrow it down past what that particular person sees. You can’t land on one element without ignoring the others, does anybody have the audition tape? I could say from that the show runners view him as this particular archetype. I don’t know about the author.

Update: Found It: He’s reading as Lucifer. The show runners see him as Lucifer & the sun angel was Halel at one time which made me think that’s the direction they went.

Some basement swelling misogynist just tried to tell me he thinks Eru Illuvatar & Sauron are the same character. NO. I don’t know what kind of stuff that guy is smoking but literally, it melted his brain. This psycho has been bothering me for a date for like months & generally being creepy. He condescendingly tried to convince me of his failure to understand the two basic sides in the main story. Roast him

[misspieckfinger]

That sad. Why not just ask her what she thought the difference was between ruling & helping? For a professional talker he needed to communicate better. Dude.

I have no doubt he misses her terribly

[misspieckfinger]

Some basement swelling misogynist just tried to tell me he thinks Eru Illuvatar & Sauron are the same character. NO. I don’t know what kind of stuff that guy is smoking but literally, it melted his brain. This psycho has been bothering me for a date for like months & generally being creepy. He condescendingly tried to convince me of his failure to understand the two basic sides in the main story. Roast him