#i already miss human halbrand

[jpgrina]

The Rings of Power feat. Just Normal Dude Halbrand’s Adventures in Númenor  (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

[payidaresque]

i really don't think all galadriel feels is pride though. sure, her pride got hurt because sauron decieved her (and she trusted him), and she wants to slay him because she wants to say "i am nothing like you see me" (which is not entirely true, by the way), but her feelings are actually much more complex than that and it can't be categorized and narrowed down to one word. which is why i love her: she is just as complex as sauron

she trusted him. and as far as i've known this galadriel, trust is not something that comes easy to her. and she's not exactly a "chatty type" either, but somehow (let's put aside all the "evil incarnate" bs for a second, and just look at this as if it's a relationship between 2 normal people), she met someone (halbrand) who understood her, is probably as stubborn as her, someoone who didn't tell her what to do (and she's been told what to do by EVERYONE: elrond, gil-galad, her brother- and who knows who else), and just... accepted her for who she was? even tho they weren't nice to each other at first

halbrand helped her, she considered him a friend, they fought beside each other, she opened up to him about her feelings (which is not an easy thing to do even for a human, not to mention an elf). she felt the connection between them when he was just a human to her

so yeah, hurt pride is involved for sure, but beneath that is so much more: the pain, because galadriel feels like gave sauron too much and he exploited it, the anger, because she feels that even though she knows who sauron is now, she misses that feeling she had when he was halbrand, and she's not supposed to miss it, she's supposed to despise sauron and everything related to him now, but as i already explained in this post, she can't do that, because the connection they had (still have — but it's sort of a different connection now) is too strong, and it's fear because she also knows that not everything sauron said on that raft is a lie (which is partially confirmed by adar's speech from ep 6 by the way)

yes, she wants to slay sauron because he is a threat to her kind and all ME, but she also wants to slay him because in her mind, that way she'll be free of him and every feeling she has for him.

but whether it'll solve the matter or not, is actually up to Galadriel herself: slaying him won't change anything if she doesn't want to forget him

anyway. i love me a complex female character ✨

[rey-jake-therapist]

I noticed a lot of discussion around the ending (will Galadriel leave with Sauron?) but not about the “last temptation” itself, and I’m so curious and excited by this scene? Sauron will play some mind palace shenanigans on Galadriel to persuade her into being his queen. What will he play at this time?

I think the Halbrand vision of Ep.4 was a preview for this scene, and Sauron will come back to his human form for her. He’s also wearing his numenorean armour, and they already teased the “I felt it too” scene with Galadriel in Ep.2. Will Sauron have them return to this memory, and show her what could have happen if they hadn’t been interrupted? Can this be the shocking kiss scene?

One of your anons talked about some cool points. Tempting Galadriel with power didn’t work on S1 finale, and he might take the love and family angle this time. I would love to see that! How would it play out: them ruiling together and there’s a child (or children)?

Sauron will bring out the big guns this time, no doubt. Recently I reblogged a great analysis of the track "Last Temptation"... It shouldn't be hard to find.

We know he'll taunt her with her memories of Halbrand, or why would he change from Annatar to Halbrand? I *hope* he will remind her of their moment on the log, even make her relive it, tease her with what could have happened if they hadn't been interrupted... But then, it's what *I* would write if I was in the writers' room. I'm still skeptical about the idea that they will dare to make their connection explicitely romantic. I'd never be so happy to be wrong though !

Anyway, recently an anon suggested that maybe Sauron would disguise as Celeborn, like he did with Finrod, to trick her into giving in. But honestly, I don't think he would even consider it. Not because "he would never do that to her" lmao But he wouldn't do it because it wouldn't serve his purpose in the long term.

When he pretended to be Finrod, it was because he knew that Galadriel loved and missed her brother very much ; Sauron's smart, so he assumed that if he pretended to be Finrod and that Finrod told her only good things about Sauron, she would respect his opinion and change her mind. His purpose was not to become her brother lmao It could have worked, if he hadn't played the "creepy brother" card at the very end...

But what would he gain in pretending to be Celeborn in a vision? She would follow him believing he's Celeborn maybe, but then what? As soon as the vision stops, she'll see he's not Celeborn but Sauron, she'll realize he tricked her again and it will have been all for nothing. Not to mention that Sauron will probably not try the same trick that he used the last time : she may expect this and it will backfire on him. And even us, the audience, expect him to try a different method this time because we don't wan't to see the same game with different players... No, really, I don't think the writers had him impersonate Celeborn.

[lady-of-imladris]

How to recognize AI "Art"

A post I have wanted to make for a long time because I think it's important to know! Please mind that this is not 100% accurate and I am by no means an expert on AI art. My knowledge on the topic comes from a semester of research on the development of AI art and how it has improved over the years. I wrote a pretty intense paper on it (I got an A on this!) and I am now using this knowledge to help identify AI art.

I often ask myself "did an actual person make this art or did they just generate it?" because I WANT TO SUPPORT ARTISTS WITH A REBLOG BUT AI "ART" IS NOT ART!!!!

Image description and tags, other posts by the same user If there is no image description by OP, that's usually a bit sketchy. Also read tags other people have added in their reblogs! And look at other posts from the same user!

Features blending In an image where a person is wearing glasses, do they maybe merge into the skin a bit? (see Image 9)

Circular artefacts TBH I forgot why they happen but one paper I studied discussed ways to remove them because they are an obvious giveaway that an image is artificial (see Image 10)

Image 1: Circular Artifacts [1]

4. Problems with text or other "logical composition stuff" (sorry I'm bad at words) AI is bad at generating text! It looks like words, but it makes no sense. In Image 3, where does the cat's paw come from? (Also note here that DALL-E puts those coloured squares in the bottom right corner).

Take a closer look at the hands of the women in the image on the bottom right. How many are there? Hands are also a good indicator!

Image 2 [2], Image 3 [3]

Image 4 [4], Image 5 [5]

5. mismatched earrings/eyes... ("long range dependencies") Human faces are symmetric, we (usually) have two eyes, two ears... That's a problem for AI. Earrings and eyecolours usually have to match. Either side may look perfectly fine, but when you look at is as a whole, it does not always work.

6. seems "too smooth"? I've noticed a lack of texture. Brushstrokes are missing, everything seems just a little flat. There are definitely generative models that can emulate brush strokes, but watch out for backgrounds. They sometimes give it away!

7. read this article for a lot of additional information!

8. something I found in this article that is not mentioned: the harsh contrast I have taken the below pictures from that article, and you can see some very "harsh" areas around the irises in the pictures with the eyes, or around the kids

Image 6, 7, 8 [6, 7, 8]

In the two images below, I have just marked some areas that seem off and I will briefly discuss why:

Image 9, Image 10 [9, 10]

Left (Image 9): In Halbrand's hair, there seems to be part of a crown or some other adornment, but it's not quite there. You can also see the general "smoothness" in this image. Another suspicious looking area is Galadriel's neck. Between their faces, you can see the mountain range in the background continue, but it stops exactly where the strand of hair is. On the right side of the image, there are some bright spots on the rocks that also look a bit weird.

Right (Image 10): I have marked some spots that I think look a bit like circular artifacts (that have probably already been "treated" by the generative model). On the bottom left side I have circled this jar? vase? Whatever. You can see that the lid and the rest of the object don't align.

Once again: DISCLAIMER - I could be wrong! This is really hard because the generative models get better.

Sources:

[1] D. Stap, M. Bleeker, S. Ibrahimi, and M. ter Hoeve. Conditional image generation and manipulation for user-specified content. arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.04909, 2020.

[2] A. Ramesh, P. Dhariwal, A. Nichol, C. Chu, and M. Chen. Hierarchical text-conditional image generation with clip latents. arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.06125, 2022.

[3, 4] Generated by me using DALL-E for research purposes.

[5, 6, 7, 8] from this article, accessed on August 15 2023

[9, 10] posted by Tumblr user @ fandomfatale, accessed on August 15 2023

[3rdbogwitch2theleft]

Watching The Rings of Power So You Don’t Have To - Episode 2

Welcome back to another episode of “Watching The Rings of Power So You Don’t Have To” where I sit through 8 hours of television to answer the question nobody asked “Is this show fun if you know who Sauron is the whole time?” 

I wrote out a whole recap complete with gifs, but it was so long and literally no one is asking for that. So here’s 10 notable things from episode 2.

1. I like the hobbits and Amnesia Gandalf story. Even though he is (fairly obviously) Gandalf, the juxtaposition of the sweet interactions between him and our plucky teen hobbits and the somewhat ominous way his powers seem to work creates a pretty compelling story. A story that I wish wasn’t sandwiched between all the other storylines in this show.

2. The characterization in episode 2 is a massive improvement from episode 1. A significant number of the characters actually relate to one another and their interactions have stakes.

Durin & Disa, Durin & Elrond (You missed his wedding, Elrond! Bad friend!), Poppy & Nori, Nori & Gandalf, Nori & her family, Galadriel and Dollar Store Aragorn aka Halbrand aka Sauron. Gal finally comes alive and we see on screen some of that passion that’s been prompting her to chase Sauron for 1000 years

3. HIRE INTIMACY CHOREOGRAPHERS. Some minor changes to the blocking could fix the Bronwyn x Arondir romance. It’s truly baffling how they are missing the ball here

4. Bronwyn finds her hometown in ruins and has no energy about it. She knows and loves the people who live there, she’s in this demolished house and she knows its occupants by name, but there’s no sense of urgency. What?? Just calmly saying “no bodies, no wounded” like she’s saying “no eggs at the market today” 

Why would you tell us this is the village she was born in if it doesn’t matter to her at all?

She and her son do kill an orc later in the episode though and that’s fun. 

5. ^This shot slaps

6.  The stage-y Scottish accents for all the Dwarves combined with the stage-y Irish accents for the Hobbits is... certainly a choice

7. Could be gayer all around. Even the ways the source material plays with gender (Elf men have long hair, Dwarf women have beards) have been removed. 

8. Can they Sauron? Can they?

I feel like I can hear the writers giggling. And know what? I’ll give them this one. This is not subtle but it is genuinely funny (to me).

9. Music. Truly wild music. 

Here is what I mean. 

On the raft there’s a bad storm. The remains of the mast Gal tied herself to is struck by lightning and she starts sinking to the bottom of the sea. Her theme places as she sinks. Discount Aragorn aka Halbrand aka Sauron dives in after her and as he’s coming down the Southlands them starts to play. Their themes sort of blend together and then once they both surface the theme changes to include triumphant horns.

So, I think, what they meant to do is say “these two are connected and he is the king of the Southlands” musically. Their themes play together, sure makes sense. And adding triumphant horns to a theme makes it sound heroic and/or kingly. (If you’re ever like “why do horns do that tho?” this video explains that pretty well.) But that’s not all the themes are saying. Again the Southlands theme plays most over the elf x human love story. They are explicitly (though maybe accidentally???) connecting these two stories. We’re already primed to see warrior princess elf and scruffy displayed “king” and go “Aragorn and Arwen”. This is by design and clearly part of the deeply cynical checklist of things they brought over from the Peter Jackson films. But, and I cannot stress this enough, he is SAURON. Just WILD.

10. The camera is loud. 

It really really wants to tell you Halbrand is important. It will not let you forget. 

So.

Is this show fun if you know who Sauron is the whole time?

So far, yeah, it gives me a chuckle. Though some of the creative choices do bring out my inner Benoit Blanc 

[chirpovs]

to summarise ROP episode 5: I thought I’d made my peace with the creative liberties but now I’m just ?????

The Good

- Arondir + orc plot is definitely the best plot going on here. It seems to be the only one where they have made a new story and it’s not dumb as fuck

- The Harefoot plot has been lacking to me recently, but I really enjoyed Poppy’s song

- Elrond and Durin friendship my beloved

- Numenor still looks great and seems to be the only location that’s even vaguely fleshed out

The Bad

- Halbrand’s transition was really funky cause it’s literally only explained in passing that he bargained for his freedom

- Isildur’s sister being pro-Pharazon seemed so out of nowhere? maybe I missed something but that came up and I was just wait what?

- I keep flip flopping on whether I like Galadriel? Some scenes she’s cool and shit and in others she’s just cringe. I dunno, I really want to like her but I’m Struggling

- Gil-Galad: Anything you want to tell me about your time with the dwarves Elrond?

Elrond: I promised I wouldn’t

Like my dude, be more subtle

- uhhh Earendil wasn’t human? I guess it makes it simpler but also they’ve already introduced that Elrond is a half elf so it’s not like it’s a new concept

The Ugly

- the whole ass silmaril bit had me just ??????? absolutely none of that makes sense? There was a silmaril in the tree? And when Glorfindel fought the Balrog lightening struck the tree and created mithril?????

- following on from that, the light of the eldar is fading and bathing in the light of mithril is going to fix that?????? I don’t even know where to start with that. that has never been how elves work and why would mithril light fix that. if they wanted to make the elves desire mithril there are so many other motivations they could have gone with that wouldn’t have been so fucking stupid. Literally the only way to make this plot point not dumb af is for Sauron to be in his manipulation phase and whispering into Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor’s ears

- characters are still flat af, nothing new here

Other thoughts:

- I personally think that it would be funny if the Stranger was Saruman

- I’m not sure if this is good or bad but I feel like Isildur would definitely keep the ring, but I also feel like he would not be able to get it off Sauron

- Adar seems to not be Sauron which personally makes more sense to me