#also Arondir is fine??? Apparently??? Like completely fine???

[mistwalkers-menagerie]

TRoP Season Finale spoilers under the cut

Fuck this show.

If this was fanfic I'd gobble it the fuck up but these people are writing official Tolkien stuff. Half-assed bluster poetics ain't really gonna cut it for me even though I'm not a Tolkien purist.

Rest in peace Adar, you would've loved the Tragedy of Julius Caesar (not)

[shinylitwick94]

Final thoughts on The Rings of Power season 1 while still fresh

Spoilers for the whole season and book stuff

It was worse than I hoped but better than I feared, and overall a solid 6/10 for me. Maybe it will even be a 7/10 if in the morning I’m feeling nicer.

There were things I absolutely loved but also things I hated so so much.

There’s definite potential for future seasons if they clean up some of their mistakes, but also some things that will be hard to fix overall.

The bad

The elves will fade in 3 months story. Like, I get the elves fading, being afraid and wanting to stop it. I can work with that. The mithril myth is still ridiculous but I could work with that. The only way I could justify the 3 months was if it was Sauron’s idea. Which apparently it clearly wasn’t. So, I kind of hate that part.

How long they dragged out the Sauron thing. I’m actually surprisingly fine with Halbrand being Sauron. It’s the amount of time we spent dealing with this and the fact that it sidetracked the whole season that really bothers me. I’d rather have known from the start and watched him play everyone around him. Likewise, I’d rather they got the Stranger’s storyline moving faster instead of making it drag so we could have Sauron reveal drama on the final episode.

Pacing issues. The series is all over the place in terms of pacing and rhythm. Sometimes it’s fine, but other times it’s also just plain weird and distracting.

Weird logistic choices in key action moments. Sadoc in this episode is a great example - he’s dead, but then he isn’t, but then he is again? What? Just confusing and unnecessary, and there were moments like that in other episodes too.

The uncalled for and bizarre lore-breaking. In particular the weird mithril thing, but also more importantly for this episode, the contraction with what is said in canon about Galadriel and Gil-Galad mistrusting Annatar. Also Annatar as a whole because I’m assuming he can’t be involved in the forging of the other rings as per canon like this? The Celeborn thing as a whole... Very strange and unconvincing choices. Also some good ones, mind you, but the bad ones naturally stick out more.

And the number one offender: the sheer insufferable amount of PJ movie references. The first few episodes were fine, but these last ones? They just would not stop quoting, either visually or in the script. And a reference here and there is fine but like this it’s just painful and cringey and the main thing putting me off this show.

The good

The acting is wonderful throughout, and the dwarves in particular are complete scene stealers. Wonderful job by all the actors, especially with a script that sometimes really was not helping them (Galadriel and Elrond in particular).

The worldbuilding and the visuals are amazing, colorful(!!!everyone is not wearing black and brown and the screen is not blue/grey all the time, take note other fantasy shows!!!), textured, and it just looks spectacular overall. The costumes are also out of this world and sometimes even quite clever in how they relate to the characters and their backgrounds. I think people make some very fair criticisms of this show, but ‘it doesn’t look/feel like ME’ is one I 100% disagree with. 

The soundtrack is also spectacular. Not as iconic as the PJ movies, perhaps, but that’s an impossibly high bar to clear. The Valinor theme, the one that plays in the Adar chase, the numenor theme, all of the dwarven themes, nampat, the wandering days song, so so many wonderful tracks.

For all that they make some weird lore choices, they also have some nice and clever moments of using it well, in particular in Elrond and Durin’s interactions (so much about Earendil...), and in that amazing conversation between Galadriel and Adar. The whole character of Adar, really.

Speaking of which, it turns out I actually love most of the new characters. Adar is very obviously the best of them, but I also really enjoyed the Harfoots which I expected to hate, and Arondir and Theo. Even Mr Totally-not-Sauron, who makes me want to do a rewatch with that in mind. (Seriously, once we do find out Halbrand is Sauron? He’s doing some A+ Sauron mindfuckery).

There are also specific scenes and moments which are just wonderful, and I don’t just mean the admittedly cool Mt Doom fireworks, but some of the scenes in Numenor, the dwarves overall, Galadriel and Theo, many of Arondir’s scenes even if I wasn’t too sold on the romance, the Harfoots especially early on.

There’s a lot to like here, but also a lot of work to be done.

They NEED to stop doing shout-outs to the PJ movies. I was watching with a mixed audience and the normal people didn’t get the references, and the people who did get the references were all getting extremely annoyed by them. Just STOP.

They also need to tighten up the pacing and the writing quite a bit. There’s some storylines and choices that don’t make sense, and far too much was sacrificed this season to keep us guessing about Sauron (Harfoots especially).

I have no idea where they’re going next season, and they have a lot of time to work on it, but I do hope that it improves on some of the stuff that has been iffy.

I also sincerely hope the fandom calms down a bit by the time the next season comes out, because this has been a grueling month and a half so far.

And if it doesn’t, at least we got some gorgeous visuals and the most adorable take on Elrond ever, so that’s a win for me.