#rop crit

[edennill]

Watched the new RoP trailer after much deliberation (don't want to increase their views but I'm still somewhat curious about the trainwreck)

Could have been worse, but I'm not convinced that this season will be any better than the last.

[southfarthing]

on tolkien reading day of all days i get this advert..... lord of the rings sponsored by capitalist giants <3 poor jirt im sorry they did this to you king 😔

[tathrin]

Gonna rant a bit, feel free to skip. I just have to say this to someone, even if it's just the empty void of the internet lol.

So, Rings of Power Season Two. I'm quite enjoying their Annatar, and the way they've wrought his influences on Eregion's people (even if it is all very truncated and consequently without any real subtlety haha), and the Celebrimbor-pulls-a-Maedhros moment was utterly fantastic. 10/10 screaming on the couch, no notes.

But ughhh I wish Celebrimbor looked like Celebrimbor.

By which I mean, I wish he looked at least a little bit like Fëanor.

Instead he looks more like Bilbo than anything else. I look at this dude and I don't see somebody who seems like they're on the brink of getting caught-up in a massive forging project or about to start spouting some epic song he learned in the First Age; I see someone who looks like he wants to pour me a cup of tea and settle down by the fireside to tell me a pleasant little story.

Which is a lovely vibe, but not very Celebrimbor-ish imo.

(Actually the lack of elves-being-elf-like overall is one of my biggest irritants with this show. And yes I will forever be irritated over the stupid hair, but right now I'm talking mainly body language. Some of them are doing it—Galadriel, Arondir, Gil-galad, etc—but for the most part, the elves just move and act like people. Normal, everyday, ordinary human people. Having Sauron around being Annatar instead of doing his Halbrand thing highlights this even more in the second season, because he's acting so delightfully not-human with the way he moves and stands and emotes that their basic total-human-ness is all the more glaring in contrast.)

Where is your vaguely-ethereal grace, your strangely light posture, your ancient-being aura? When you stand still do it like you've got a presence! When you walk give me some spring, or some glide, or something! Put your shoulders back, raise your toes, hold your arms with some deliberation! Do something. Orlando Bloom didn't put all that work into [cat] body-language to have y'all turn around and just move like normal folks.

But I digress.

Back to Celebrimbor! This guy is supposed to evoke the memory of Fëanor, an elf driven by so much fire and passion that he spat in Morgoth's face and nearly set the whole world to ruins in his wrath. And instead they designed his look and attitude to be "friendly non-threatening uncle" I guess? What were they thinking?

I know we don't know much about Celebrimbor as a person, and lots of different interpretations are valid; but come on. They could have given us SOME sort of fire to him, surely!

Where is the Celebrimbor who is always chaffing for more, to prove himself worthy of his lineage? Where is the Celebrimbor who has spent centuries swallowing shame over the blood on his family's hands? Where is the Celebrimbor who refuses to be ashamed, and instead flaunts the Star of his House proudly right there on Durin's Door? Where is the Celebrimbor so passionate about his craft that he'll walk through the distrust of Doriath to befriend dwarves again? Where is the Celebrimbor who is afraid of his own power and passion, having seen where those things led his forebears? Where is the Celebrimbor determined to prove himself equal to Fëanor and Curufin; or even their better? Where is the Celebrimbor who wants, so badly, to make the world better that he ends up falling headfirst into Annatar's schemes like a silmaril scorching the hand of a kinslayer?

Where is the Celebrimbor who burns so brightly that he'll go to his death with his last secret unspilled?

I think the actor is a good actor, don't get me wrong. And I think he's doing a very good job of playing the character he's been given. (I think Charles Edwards would do a good job playing an elf, too, if this show had bothered to have all their elves be elves, and not just the few whose actors I guess decided to play it that way on their own or something???) I just wish the character they'd given him had been a little bit more Celebrimbor, scion of the House of Fëanor. Both in looks and in attitude.

Seriously why was Benjamin Walker the only male elf in the whole damn first season they managed to put some damn elf-hair on? Why does Celebrimbor have Hobbit curls? I was genuinely so confused when he walked on screen because he looks like a Hobbit! That is Hobbit-styling going on there, you have established that as Hobbit styling, what are you doing costumers???

When I look at Annatar, or Galadriel, or Arondir, etc, I feel like I'm looking at the character. I buy it! I'm on board! I'm invested. When I look at Celebrimbor, I just feel like I'm looking at an actor.

A good one, mind you! His emotional journey has been magnificent. But I still feel like I'm watching an actor perform a role, rather than seeing the actor as the character.

And I really wish it was otherwise.

Because this has been such a delightful surprise of a season, the Eregion bits especially. (Which is not to discount the dwarves, who are my other favorite storyline, but not really on-topic for discussions of elves and elvish-smiths haha.) But whenever I see guy-playing-Celebrimbor, the illusion breaks.

And that's a fucking bummer.

[thefollow-spot]

I think the writers of Rings of Power really fucked up when they decided to make Galadriel the only elf with substantial trauma about the War of Wrath/the war in Beleriand in general. This was a long war in a culture with a long memory, and so much of the Second Age can be read as a direct (traumatically influenced) response to those wars. To make Galadriel out as not only unusual, but unreasonable for holding onto this trauma is a massive blunder.

[emyn-arnens]

I’m sorry he’s what now

[langwrites]

Lang Plays Fire Emblem: Three Houses

So a while ago I said I was planning on playing the story routes in this order: Blue Lions, Black Eagles, Church of Seiros, and then Golden Deer.

The Golden Deer made a liar out of me.

So, here’s an approximation of What Happened During Verdant Wind.

So many spoilers below the cut, you guys. I do a lot of route comparisons.

Okay, I’ve been staring at the “which house do you want” selection screen for an embarrassing amount of time.

This shouldn’t be hard. I had a plan.

But no.

I clicked the Golden Deer, just like that. What the fuck, Claude. I blame you.

Immediately upon talking to this rop of students again, I can feel the difference in the social group from what the Lions were like. The latter were really a bunch of noble kids around their prince, and they felt really tight-knit. Classic Fire Emblem starter crew.

The Golden Deer is the fucking Scooby Gang.

First impressions of individuals:

Raphael, thank goodness, is the one character who absolutely has his shit in order. Sure, he’s bad at book work and thinks everything comes down to MUSCLES, but all of his emotional issues are handled by the time he arrives at Garreg Mach. He’s the brightest of sunshines.

Ignatz needs some more confidence in his art, and also I want to see his painting of Seiros. Now, if only both of his offensive stats and growths weren’t incredibly bad.

I was so close to making him my dancer. Just because he sure as hell wasn’t gonna be useful anywhere else.

Lorenz! I don’t like him. His haircut is a monstrosity.

Leonie! We are going. To be. Besties. Even though the timing of your support conversations are incredibly bad.

Marianne no please don’t be sad everyone loves you

Hilda is the greatest enabler I have ever seen. By which I mean she enables other people to do all her work for her.

Lysithea is going to have the last word with God. And especially he Death Knight.

And finally Claude! Teamwork makes the dream work, so obviously meme work does the same.

I’m sorry.

PRE-TIMESKIP

Mock battle! Marianne’s great and I love her and also the only healer oh god.

OKAY. I have access to New Game+ bonuses. What do I do first?

Immediately crank the Professor Level stat to max to avoid ever having to run short of activity points again.

Next, raise all skills I can’t easily get to at least Rank D+. HEAVY ARMOR IN PARTICULAR.

Third: Boost supports with people whose support ranks are an absolute pain in the ass to earn. Lookin’ at you, Rhea.

Also, put glasses on Byleth (named “Yuri” for this playthrough). Glasses are the bomb. I am the evil genius.

LEVEL GRINDING TIME.

It’s a lot harder with Blacksmith access being story-locked, but I can do this!

As a direct result, every single battle after this point is a complete curbstomp in my favor. Because the grind don’t stop.

I broke a lot more weapons than last time, though.

I will befriend Leonie and Ferdinand if it’s the last fucking thing I do. I will befriend everyone, and I will not get timeskip-locked out of supports! >:(

Ferdinand was my first recruit. Oh dear.

Okay, there are like five born cavaliers in this game. Leonie, Ferdinand, Lorenz, Sylvain, and I guess Dimitri if you’re on the right route.

Last time, Sylvain was a great paladin and a decent Dark Knight before he started getting one- or two-stat level ups for like thirty levels. Similarly, Dimitri was great until all his ultra-secret-awesome promotions didn’t use a fucking horse.

Contrast Leonie who, despite sitting out 99% of the game out of spite from me getting locked out of her support chain, went to endgame with a ten-level deficit and still rocked.

Ferdinand didn’t count since I failed to recruit him last time and he died. These two facts are directly related.

I didn’t use Lorenz at all; I recruited him to keep from having to kill him later.

This time, Lorenz straight-up sucks, Sylvain did the terrible level dance for like the entire game, and Dimitri’s not recruitable.

Contrast, again, Leonie. Her support chain with the player character is hot garbage, but she plowed through most of the game as a mainstay of my team and made it to Bow Knight first out of anyone.

Bernadetta and Ashe as Bow Knights don’t even come close to being as durable as she is, except for Ashe’s absolutely bananas Resistance. 29?! WHY?!

And Ferdinand is also awesome. His only real weak point is Resistance, but he doesn’t need it. He dodge-tanks everything, is faster than Leonie, and has two Saints’ relics he unknowingly stole from Seteth.

He still talks in MLA format, though.

I started putting off recruiting people so I wouldn’t have to level-grind them up to par with the rest of my team.

But if these people wanna join, of course I’m saying yes.

Lord Lonato’s rebellion and Miklan yoinking the Lance of Ruin feel way less relevant on a Golden Deer playthrough than on a Blue Lions one. None of the Herd really know who the hell these people are.

I say that despite having already recruited Sylvain for this playthrough and deploying him in the relevant level. He wasn’t treated as there by the game’s preamble cutscenes.

At least the Holy Mausoleum stuff feels more...handled? Claude actually asks questions about rebellion and about the ��assassination plot,” where Dimitri didn’t really.

OKAY SO there’s this whole plot thing where Flayn goes missing for a month. With the Blue Lions, this is handled like a manhunt. Dimitri’s seriousness about the issue rubs off on everyone except Sylvain, and Felix actually correctly identifies the culprit almost instantly. He doesn’t know he’s done it, though, because basically everyone is just throwing out accusations. Manuela is the real MVP.

CONTRAST THE DEER. The very first meeting reads like a Scooby Doo episode, when they’re piling up clues and throwing out suggestions like the gang of goofball teenagers they are. Claude’s got this group running like Persona 4′s Investigation Team. None of them are jaded or frantic, they’re just doing this.

Why did Rhea entrust the investigation to a herd of teenagers.

Anyway, the rest proceeds as usual.

I don’t know why the game tries to drop the same set of hints for each route. “OoooowoooooOOOOoooo, your house leader might be the FLAME EMPEROR.”

The Flame Emperor wears heels. And is still too short to be either Claude or Dimitri. Especially Dimitri. Who the fuck let this kid get so tall.

The only real result of all this bullshit is that my wyvern-riding sniper of doom is not available during the first map where Yuri personally beat the Death Knight into the ground.

Which, by the by, was hilariously cathartic.

It doesn’t exactly matter, since the only unit who can make real use of the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes is unrecruitable, but bragging rights.

Remire Village’s drama is about as bad while playing as the Golden Deer. One of the foreshadowing cutscenes, though is excellent:

Claude actually finds a book that depicts The Immaculate One before its debut, only to have it confiscated by Seteth and learn that it wasn’t a library book at all; it belonged to “Tomas.” Like, all of his suspicions--which he shares with the player--start lining up. Censorship! Monsters! Sword of the Creator! What the hell is going on here??

Dimitri’s version of the cutscene involves him being caught investigating Lord Arundel by the player and Sothis. Which--since his route doesn’t meaningfully deal with the Morlocks faction aside from steamrolling them as incidental opponents--seems kinda useless.

Kicked the Death Knight into submission again out of spite.

Sylvain was useful! Mostly because I had him sit there and distract the incidentals while Claude and Lysithea cleaned house, but still!

Claude is the only lord character who seems to understand that the transforming Morlock faction probably needs to be taken more seriously. For the remainder of Part One, no one does so.

Rhea you’ve got some ‘splainin to do.

Marianne’s my team’s dancer this time. She’s a sweetheart. She seemed happy to be asked and to pursue the lessons, and being able to use Physic is a good trait in someone who’s nearly always going to be waaaaay behind the rest of the group.

Dad-stabbing happened.

Again.

Boop boop Solon’s dead.

Again.

Dear diary: I learned the definition of irony and set the Flame Emperor on fire.

I kid.

But Claude took her out in one completely overpowered shot, because crits are a thing, Flame Emperor class skills don’t reduce damage enough to survive it, and his Dex stat is through the fucking roof. And he was on a wyvern at the time because fuck it, why not.

Claude’s reaction to all of this is a minor letdown compared to the fully-rendered cutscene in the last route.

This would become something of a trend--taking out OP bosses with unexpected critical hits.

I didn’t expect to like Lorenz and now I do. How.

This is hilarious simply because he seems to be the only character that Mercedes hates. What the fuck, man.

Once again, Edelgard invades! Once again, I drop someone unexpected on her head!

Not really. It was Yuri.

Yuri does the timeskip shuffle and we’ll see everyone again after a nap.

FIVE YEARS LATER.

Aw, Claude was waiting for Yuri to show up. Adorable.

The post-meetup fight is actually harder than it was in the BL route, despite excessive level-grinding. This is due to three factors:

Claude is automatically on a wyvern, meaning that he has inherent class vulnerability to archers on a map with at least five of them. And less range than they did, for some fucking reason.

Lorenz and Ignatz started out on the same corner of the map and both of them are shitty offensive units who could barely kill a mage between them. (Neither of Ignatz’s offensive stats cracked 20 for another thirteen levels.)

I don’t have Ashe and his personal skill Locktouch, and nobody started with a Chest Key or Door Key, which meant I had to keep various enemies alive long enough to steal all of their stuff. And the enemy item drops came up one short of the number of chests on the map. I want my stuff, dammit.

LET’S MAKE A SCENE.

Randolph, as a boss in Verdant Wind, did not get any better at figuring out when he’s outmatched. Therefore, I killed him with Raphael again.

At least he straight-up died this time.

Claude didn’t even get to set the damn place on fire.

Ingrid is turning out to be way better of a unit this time than she was last time. She’s a little slower, but a lot stronger.

FELIX, WHERE THE FUCK WAS ALL THIS STRENGTH HIDING LAST TIME. YOU’RE TEN POINTS AHEAD OF THE GUY WHO HAS STORY-BASED SUPER STRENGTH.

AND SPEED.

Iiiiiiiiit’s JUDITH!

She only shows up on one map in the entire Azure Moon route, and that’s a damn shame. She’s so cool in Verdant Wind.

A lord-class character who isn’t also a Lord! WOO!

Also her spies are better than anybody’s apparently.

I am choosing to believe that because Ingrid’s family is related to Judith’s, her badassery in this route is the direct result of meeting her distant cousin and absorbing badass radiation.

There’s something funny about having to pull one over on Lorenz’s dad to get anything done. The Great Bridge falls not to power, but Claude baiting Count Gloucester’s entire army to be somewhere else. (FEAR THE DEER.)

As a result, Ladislava dies alone. (As opposed to taking Ferdinand with her due to plot shenanigans.)

Lysithea and Ferdinand’s paralogue was really quite sad, for all that the only named guy who died was deeply unsympathetic. Ferdinand’s dad was an asshole, but he wasn’t the asshole for this particular scenario, and now both of his parents are gone. :(

Felix...hasn’t heard from his dad in a while. Worrying.

Oh, and Caspar’s uncle is still dead, in case we were keeping track of that.

Dorothea’s happier with Ferdinand alive. She did an impression of the Gatekeeper. :3

Gronder Field! FUCK.

I delayed playing this chapter for two solid days because I already knew what was gonna happen. Specifically: Edelgard gets injured and evacuated, and Dimitri drops of exhaustion just in time to get run through like ten times by the Emperor’s rearguard.

I eventually got my shit together enough to do the thing.

Marianne, Raphael, and Ferdinand went after the Kingdom army first. Leonie and Felix hung back and then reinforced them after taking out the archer on the central hill.

Claude killed everyone in the center of the map, which meant Edelgard set the entire hill on fire and if Bernadetta had not been recruited she would’ve burned to death there on the spot.

Ahem.

I sent Yuri to clear the entire left side of the map by herself.

She succeeded.

Raphael KO’d Dimitri with a luck Gauntlet crit, got blasted down to half health by a Warlock, then plunked ineffectually at Dedue until Marianne used her Levin Sword to sort him out.

Ferdinand killed everyone else on that side of the map.

Claude once again got the kill on Edelgard with a lucky crit, after Yuri had killed everyone else (up to and including the Demonic Beasts) single-handedly.

And then the plot moved on. Hilda’s account of Dimitri’s death was awful, Dedue’s reaction was worse, and off we go to punch Edelgard’s teeth in.

Again.

Annette’s dad is probably dead now.

Felix’s, too.

(I THOUGHT WE WERE DONE WITH THE DAD-STABBING.)

FOOOOOORT MERCEUS.

No matter how many times I think about it, Claude’s Almyran army reinforcements only make so much sense. How the hell and fuck did he manage to sneak an entire foreign army across a whole country to help with one battle?

But hey, they’re here, and Claude almost admitted the reason why he could do that. And the arrow greeting between him and Nader was cool.

(Spoiler: On top of being the Alliance’s leader, he’s also the crown prince of Almyra!)

The Death Knight had the gall to run from my army.

Yuri punched his ticket for the third time, which was not the charm.

And then Fort Merceus took an intercontinental ballistic missile and suddenly defeating the fort’s garrison feels a lot less triumphant.

Spot the miscolored eyes in this cutscene!

Welp. Fuck it, we’re off to Enbarr. Time to also punch Hubert this time! What a change of pace.

Eyyy, it’s the Enbarr map. I totally forgot to bring Seteth and Flayn along to check out the opera house, despite a whole bunch of characters talking about how they totally wanted to check that place out at some point. No room for deadweights in a map that has SO MANY ARCHERS.

Managed to get the special dialogue between Ferdinand and Hubert, and now I’m sad again.

Killed Hubert with Claude.

And because this is a two-part map, we immediately run off to chase down Edelgard. Due to the player army not doing a really weird 180 in the middle of the plot to kick Cornelia out of Fhirdiad, she didn’t have time to turn into a giant demonic thing! She just has WAY TOO MANY MAGES.

Strategy: Forget what Door Keys are, split the team by Avoid rating, and go to town.

Claude nearly died thanks to a critical mass of Gremories and Mortal Savants (and still, what the fuck is that name), but Dedue-as-guest-character didn’t, so I count that as a win! His defense was so high that the Giant Demonic Beast couldn’t even scratch him.

Claude, Petra, and Ingrid all having Alert Stance as a skill means dodge-tanking is hilariously easy.

Also, Ingrid was supposed to just take a chunk out of Edelgard’s HP bar for the final assault and ended up crit-killing her on the first attack. With a bog-standard silver lance.

Weird as the situation turned out, I guess that means one of Dimitri’s friends really did avenge him after saying they would. Even if Dedue was the only one who had a special cutscene about it.

We rescued Rhea! And the characters being happy about it doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I want answers, same as Claude, and being forced to RP Yuri being oh so worried about Rhea’s safety felt incredibly disingenuous.

Claude actually yells at her over the “...” she seems to think is an explanation. THE TIME FOR SECRETS IS PAST.

WHY DID ALL THIS SHIT HAPPEN.

WE’VE BEEN AT WAR FOR FIVE YEARS.

A WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE DIED HORRIBLY FOR BASICALLY NOTHING.

Incidentally, this is why I didn’t end up playing Edelgard’s route as planned. Her logic for kicking two other sovereign countries in the balls felt incredibly self-centered.

At least Catherine’s happy. Same with Alois and the rest of the Church crew.

They are soon going to be not as happy.

I’m filling out the ENTIRE support log before endgame. I have absolutely no idea what characters are going to end up together as a direct result.

The last conversation? Seteth and Manuela’s A+ support!

Because so many of the support conversations are romantic at A/A+ level, I guess we’ve managed to turn this ragtag army into a polyarmory.

Oh boy, Thales sure is a sore loser.

I say, as though I didn’t kill EVERYONE he knew over the course of an hour and also split his skull open under Seteth’s axe. His racism would have keeled his ass over before death set in.

That sure is a ICBM.

GOD DAMMIT RHEA, THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A Q&A SESSION AFTER THIS.

WHY DOES EVERYONE WHOSE JOB IS EXPOSITION UP AND DIE.

Meanwhile: THE UBER-DEAD PEOPLE.

Claude, your route is batshit. What is this genre anymore?!

I wanna point out that, despite seeing Rhea/Seiros do the dragon thing, the player character never told Claude what the fuck that was about. I feel like one of the first things I would have done after the class reunion would be going, “By the by, did anyone else notice the fucking dragon?!”  WHO IS ALSO THE POPE???

Bah.

ANYWAY. Looooong-overdue exposition time!

I notice that Rhea didn’t out Seteth or Flayn, which was nice of her.

Claude, she can turn into a fucking dragon. I don’t think immortality is that far from being plausible.

GOD DAMMIT NEMESIS, CAN YOU FUCK OFF FOR TEN MORE MINUTES.

Uuuuuuugh fine, fuck everything, I’m putting your head on a pike.

CLAUDE, THE SWORD OF THE CREATOR LOOKS LIKE A SPINE.

OF COURSE IT’S MADE OF BONES. A BUNCH OF THE HEROES’ RELICS MOVE ON THEIR OWN!

The frantic music is not helping.

Time to kill a bandit king.

“My flabber is completely gasted by now.” Okay, that made me laugh.

Nemesis’s boss mechanic is pretty neat. To kill him at all, you need to kill all of the minibosses in the level and take down his friendship-based-plot-armor.

Or it would be, if I didn’t already make a habit of steamrolling everyone else on the field before tackling the boss at the end.

CUTSCENE.

Cutscene lesson: “Fuck honor duels.” It’s time for CHAIN SWORD LIMBO.

Claude, your bow shoots LASERS. SINCE WHEN.

Also getting kicked across the field by a dude twice his size didn’t seem to actually affect his mood much.

Awww, Yuri smiles now. Adorable. :D

AND THAT’S A WRAP.

Pairings: Yuri/Sothis (mostly to get them out of the way and see what everyone else would do), Claude/Petra, Raphael/Marianne, Catherine/Shamir, Lorenz/Mercedes, Ashe/Annette, Felix/Sylvain (bad end; the former straight up disappears), Seteth & Flayn wander off, Manuela/Dorothea, Lysithea/Linhardt (again), Leonie/Ignatz, Ferdinand/Bernadetta, Caspar/Hilda, and a couple of people are alone. Cyril gets to actually be a student after the story’s done, though!

Whew, that was fun. Gonna mix up the pairs a bit next time I play through the endgame and see what happens.

[southfarthing]

wait people are actually shippjng djdvdudgdisbdjd

[southfarthing]

yeah as far as ive gathered she travelled with a man for a while trying to avenge finrod and he turned out to be Sauron in disguise (so annatar basically??) and he was into her I guess. like I said I cant judge cause I haven't watched but its very much giving She was fearless and crazier than him. She was his queen, and God help anyone who dared to disrespect his queen energy

yeah fdngsdjdb I watched it actually!! but just wasn't feeling this at all lmao 😩

[southfarthing]

dont have it blocked but Galadrielxsauron is going strong I hear

you come into MY ask box,,,

[edennill]

I really don't understand why Amazon did not make a TV series taking place in the Third Age which they actually have the rights to. Like, there isn't much more information about the second (especially since they can only use like 1/4 of it) and also imagine a show about the Gondorian kin-strife.

Quick summary: A prince of Gondor married a woman of the "Northmen" (ancestors of the Rohirrim or sth), Eldacar was their son and when his time came to inherit there was a civil war because some Gondorians didn't want a mixed-blood king. A relative named Castamir usurped the throne and got Eldacar's son killed. Eldacar himself escaped and with the help of his mother's people and a fair part of Gondor that was still loyal to him reclaimed his birthright after many years of war -

And anyway it seems like the whole concept should be something that would appeal to today's audiences (say what you will about Tolkien and racism, but there are themes in the text that disdaining people because of their ancestry is just wrong) but they missed the chance -

Or they could have done it about something else from the Third Age -

Or if they had to do it about the Second (but doing that without the rights to the Silmarillion isn't the best idea), they could have absolutely done so much better.

I realized just now thinking about this - there are like no themes or motifs in the series at this point. It's just a mindless rehash of the Lord of the Rings movies without any of the depth, as if they only had the most shallow and hazy memory of the film.

And - I don't think a work has to be about current problems. But. If they wanted they could have inserted hot topics- there is colonialism etc, they could have also made a point about how society views aging - and they decided to include a line about "elves stealing jobs" instead which was just about the dumbest thing in this show for me.

No depth in a work based on Tolkien's Legendarium of all things!

Tldr, Amazon should have made the show about the Third Age and if they were doing it about the second they could have one it so much better. And if you want to make it about current issues - there were so many ways to do that

[edennill]

silm adaptation of my dreams - miscellaneous thoughts:

so I've already said that somewhere, but I really might start it with a little galadriel being told the tale of creation and about the awakening of the elves, the great journey etc.

this would not be in the same continuity as the pj movies/rop but I think it would make a nice callback/contrast to her narrating the prologue in all the other adaptations.

rop got a lot of crit for making the elves more earthly, emotional, but whatever my own criticisms of it, that is the way to go, just with better writing. there should be a balance between that fantastic aura and the, for lack of a better word, 'humanity' that would be difficult to achieve, but it's better to err to the side of the latter if need be, true elvishness being impossible to portray in any case.

the first season would obviously focus a lot on the tensions within tirion, but I would also give some screentime to the arafinweans in alqualondë. the kinslaying should hurt.

the swanships would have to be among the set pieces made with most care and detail (hey, we've got a dream budget). the burning has to feel like a profanation of sorts. but the sentimental value should also be emphasised.

in a way for the arafinweans this is the continuation of the kinslaying and their childhood burning okay

now that I think about it, the participants are all grown up, in some cases married, but this is also a coming of age tale of the darker sort

you know how the hunger games movies came with music albums of related songs? this is absolutely happening here

[southfarthing]

if bezo$ is allowed to make money off tolkien fanfiction then why cant i

[southfarthing]

this is the FUNNIEST thing I've seen all day lmao the girlies are fighting!!!!!

[thefollow-spot]

Okay but the Halbrand!Sauron reveal is so weird because like, in canon, Sauron had a beautiful, charismatic manipulator persona and he had a name and we know what it is—Annatar. But for some reason the writers of RoP wanted this to be a surprise to us so they just? Changed his name? Like imagine if you went to the theatre to see Chamber of Secrets and the characters are all running around freaking out about the magic diary that used to belong to, fuckin, Jeremy Reid. And then at the climax they're like, surprise, Jeremy Reid is Voldemort! And there's no mention of Tom Riddle at all. That's what this is like.

[thefollow-spot]

As an avid writer of fanfiction, I resent Rings of Power for doing what so many fans do for free, in obscurity, out of love and passion for MONEY, for AMAZON, with entitlement to praise, recognition, and canonization. Shitty headcanons and shitty AUs and dialogue that doesn't quite have a grip on how to write high-fantasy without sounding pretentious is fun and amazing and I have spent years of my life consuming it and producing it, but it belongs on ff.net, not in the public consciousness, not in paid ads, and definitely not on Amazon Prime.

[thefollow-spot]

(This is about Rings of Power) If they're going to make Elrond so fucking cavalier about swearing an oath that has the power to, "doom [him] and [his] kin to sorrow to [his] last day," the least they could have done is given me a shirtless Halbrand in that jail scene