#justice for Valandil

[ohno-elrond]

If you could nominate anyone - either in front of or behind the camera - for unsung hero, who would it be?

[ladycauthon]

Just caught up with the latest episode of Rings of Power and seriously fuck Kemen!!! And Elendil's daughter who I don't know the name of. Both of them suck but especially Kemen what a dickhead

[melenae]

that julius caesar ass wannabe kemen needs to get got

[aadmelioraa]

When your oldest brother dies on a religious crusade just as you feared he would and your father refuses to deal with his grief just as he refused to deal with it when your mother died (you were a baby btw) and then again when your other brother left home (because your dad was impossible to live with) and in spite of feeling entirely abandoned by your dad you use your newfound higher status to put yourself out on a limb in order to downgrade his punishment and that of your close friend despite grieving their involvement with the queen who led your brother to his death but instead of your father acknowledging your pain and your attempts to do what you believe will bring justice he lashes out at you by comparing your current position to the horrific way your mother died…just Eärien things

[isilwhore]

@tolkienfamilyweek Day 6: Ancestors and their Legacy

Valandil, third king of Arnor, and his mother hear the terrible news

Valandil was never supposed to be a king, but like his father and grandfather, is thrown into this new fate by tragedy. And as he grieves, he wonders: how he will carry forth the legacy of the great kings from across the sea? How can he honor his father? What does the future hold for his line?

[ghostofashina]

months after rings of power season two, i have to be honest. they tried so hard to appease the so called hardcore fanboys by erasing, sidelining, killing non-white characters they shot themselves in the foot.

this is will be a long rant, but mind you: i do not hate nor am i an anti-rop. quite the contrary: i loved the show. and especially because i loved it, i am TRULY disapppointed with what they did this season.

first things first, what the actual fuck did they do to arondir? and please, do not blame it on bronwyn's actress leaving the tv show. let's face it as it is: incompetence from writers.

they had a whole vengeance arc right in front of their faces. they had all that ent-wives scene that would've worked wonders with a vengeance arc. and they chose to do nothing with it.

they sidelined arondir to the point he was basically a babysit to isildur and his new girlfriend — fine, he felt responsible for theo, but theo himself was also wasted. you only had arondir coming to scenes to show up some cool tricks and gone for the entire season.

where's the weight of his loss? where's the impact of this loss on his character? there's nothing. nothing. the character is empty. they did no justice for a character who spent the entire season fighting to protect people he lost!!!!

and yeah, what about his entire arc with adar, the main antagonisty and biggest conflict? oh yeah, they gave it to galadriel. :D

i am sorry but that ""alliance"" between adar and galadriel meant nothing to me, it spoke nothing to me, because that wasn't her arc. it was arondir's. if we wanted to bring adar close to the main cause in defeating sauron, arondir was the best choice. he faced adar as an equal, he earned his admiration, they've built an entire connection throughout season one and you want me to care about his union to galadriel?

and yes, their union would've worked better with arondir between them. because unlike galadriel, he had the nuance to see adar as an equal since the start even when they were enemies.

and it's so fucked up that the whole conflict they settled up since season one meant NOTHING. like, if you were not gonna make the whole forgiviness thing REAL, than at least make the vengeance real. they faced each other ONCE in the entire season and it's so fucked up, so rushed, arondir is deadly injured in one second and the next he's totally fine, as if nothing happened.

where does it make justice to that character? where is the justice to his development? you take his whole arc and give it to another character, and now you can't even give him a proper ending to his conflict? you can't even build a decent continuity?

i could make a whole other dissertation of how adar also felt flat because his arc was attached to galadriel that way, with no weight with the development of their connection. and how that betrayal was not only rushed, but it showed how galadriel wasn't made for that union — she had zero fucks to give about him in the end.

and i'm not gonna even bring valandil to the conversation, because he is another non-white character that they just discarded at the first opportunity. they acted as if valandil always knew isildur was alive, for the amount of no fucks he seemed to give. once again, no weight for the loss those characters faced.

this is so awful i feel like the first season with all its problems is still better than the second season with all its glory. and not only that, but as someone who truly enjoyed that show, it killed my entire hype and joy in watching it. i'll give another chance when season three arrives. but i'll not trust it. i don't think they'll do it any more justice.

[elswing]

another thing i find strange about the eärien backlash is that she hasn't actually done much except look smug and be a little annoying. valandil's death was horribly upsetting, but it was kemen who killed him. all she's done so far is cause the coronation riot, but in the dinner scene she looked hesitant to even mention the palantir to pharazôn and it seemed more like a last, desperate resort to seek what she's been manipulated to believe is justice against her brother's killer

also, just because i haven't seen anyone else mention it -- we don't know what eärien actually SAW in the palantir last season. elendil seeing something different than what míriel and galadriel did means that there's infinite possibilities other than the fall of númenor, which could add another element to her anti faithful allegiance

[anittmyer]

RoP s2 ep5, Spoilers

I carry Elendil, Miriel, and the Faithful tenderly in my hands as I watch Nùmenor be swallowed up by the ocean as they deserve after their behavior in the latest episode! Tsk Tsk!!

Also not Elendil having to speed run grief on basically all his children! Isildur is thought to be dead, his daughter is... well. And then my boy Valandil!😭😩

Also Kemen is giving Joffrey, so.... 🖕🖕🖕

Justice for Elendil man!

[karinamay]

Questions 24 and 30 for the RoP Ask Game. :-)

ooh thanks for asking <3 let's see

24 - What's your favourite storyline in RoP

Gotta just be Galadriel's storyline. I love her a lot as a character, I love seeing her struggle with her own nature. Her storyline shows that age old choice between what you want and what is right. I also very specifically love her storyline with Elrond. The development of their friendship and it moving through their disagreements is amazing, 10/10, please give me more.

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

Okay so I feel like doing this for RoP specific characters:

Arondir: 1) cares about the people he protects, even if they don't always appreciate him 2) 10/10 good dad. 3) he's so gentle. with people, with nature.

Mirdania: 1) goddamn courageous: saw the true form of Sauron, scariest thing in the world, and threw a hammer at it, which is legendary and will forever remain my favourite thing. 2) not afraid to speak up to her betters to protect the other smiths. 3) is literally just a smith but is helping to coordinate the siege of eregion and that's just badass (justice for Mirdania)

Valandil: 1) this man is actually a really damn good friend. 2) he's selfless as heck he does what is right for people (not just Númenor but everyone, regardless where they're from) and he will go down swinging. ahem. 3) loyal. maybe to a fault, but he will not stray. 4) he beat up Kemen how can I not love him

[aadmelioraa]

Eärien and Valandil parallels Rings of Power Season 1

[anittmyer]

Rings of Power S2 E5 Spoilers!

Isildur would be ashamed of Eärien if he knew...

Eärien claiming she's (in my opinion) betraying her family, helped usurp the rightful queen, stripped her friend and father of their rightfully earned ranks, all for the sake of "grief"? And because she thinks Elendil isn't grieving how she thinks he should, and in the name of Isildur she is acting this way.

Uh... Isildur willingly, WANTED to go to Middle Earth and fight to prove himself. He wouldn't want his queen usurped, and closest friends and father stripped of rank. Isiludr would be ashamed of Eärien's actions thus far.

Anyway...

Justice for Valandil, Elendil, Miriel, and the faithful!!!

Everyone one else can be swallowed up by the sea!😊🌊

[ohno-elrond]

JUSTICE FOR VALANDIL

[aadmelioraa]

Hello my pal, how are you?

I was wondering, what do you expect for the future of our boi Valandil when Númenor falls? Do you think he'll be pharazonized and die, or he will like, change his mind at the last minute and fly with the Elendils or else?

Have a nice thursday!

Hiiii thank you!! I hope you have a nice Thursday too!! Funny you should ask, I was just thinking about Valandil (I say, as if I am not always).

I think they've set up a really interesting arc for him, potentially. I wasn't expecting him to have the level of narrative importance that he ended up having in the latter half of the first season, and given his closeness with Isildur, but also Elendil and Míriel at this point, there's a lot the writers can do there. 

I can definitely see him siding with the King's Men for a time, and it does seem almost certain he will meet a tragic end of some kind…we know Isildur will name a son after him, so it's likely Valandil won't be around for that :(  To be clear, I am obsessed with that angst potential, it feeds me, I will be super happy if he has a tragic but satisfying arc...I am an Isildur girlie for life, I am here for the tragedy.

I would love it, personally, if Valandil was aligned with the King's Men by the time Isildur returns from Middle-earth. I am really hoping the show gives us a nuanced treatment of the religious divide, and having sympathetic characters like Valandil on the other side is a great way to do that. A lot does hang on exactly what will go down…no idea how truly grim they're gonna go with the cult of Morgoth stuff, it's hard to imagine current Valandil being ok with what happens in book canon, but he's already undergone a lot of trauma and growth over the course of the first season...still, there are some optics to consider there, and I hope the writers handle that stuff with the appropriate sensitivity and complexity.

Anyway, my current favorite possibility is: Valandil is aligned with the King's Men for a time but then switches sides as things in Númenor under Pharazôn become more dire…if King's Man!Valandil is the reason Isildur survives after stealing the fruit of the white tree, and if that's a turning point for Valandil, wouldn't that be sooooo good?? I don't know how likely that actually is (very unlikely), but I am obsessed with it so I'm writing a fic to get the idea out of my brain and cope with the hiatus lol. Even more unlikely, but I'd love to see him make it out with the Elendili and be involved in the foundation of Gondor, even if he dies prior to the Last Alliance.

On the other hand, It's possible he will survive the the Fall of Númenor because he's aligned with Sauron. I could go either way on that…I'm not opposed to a corruption arc for him, but I'm more interested in the way we get there, I want it to feel earned and do his character justice. I have to admit I get annoyed when people are only interested in his storyline with relation to him becoming a Nazgûl…this happens with other characters too, of course, I just find it especially annoying with regard to my fave. I'm invested in Valandil's development, not just interested in speculating on the end of his arc and working backwards. But tbh I think the only writing choice that would be truly disappointing, for me, is making him part of the assault on Valinor...they could make it work, but it would bum me out personally lol.

How about you, do you have any Valandil theories? 👀

[marshmellin]

She’s right and she should say it. 👏

If you could nominate anyone - either in front of or behind the camera - for unsung hero, who would it be?

[love-and-doom]

She is truly one of us 💜

If you could nominate anyone - either in front of or behind the camera - for unsung hero, who would it be?