#rop negativity

[mag-lore]

Amazon: we're making our show diverse to represent the modern world through rings of power !!

Also Amazon: gives almost all the male elves short stereotypically masculine haircuts while the female elves all have long hair. Ignoring the fact that all elves have long hair and all look very similar and androgynous. Gives the female dwarves no facial/body hair and stereotypically feminine clothing, ignoring the canon fact that dwarf women are indistinguishable from dwarf men and therefore look very manly. Removes all the queer coding from Sauron's character, making him a cisgender man who looks very stereotypically masculine and has a beard. Also gives him a forced heterosexual love interest. Makes him and Ar-Pharazon have virtually no interaction and therefore a completely different relationship than they have in the canon. Casts Celebrimbor much older than he is written and removes almost all of his scenes and interactions with Sauron, replacing him in almost all of the canon scenes they have together with Galadriel.

Seems like your "diversity" excludes anything queer coded that exists in the canon as well as relationships that could be and often are read as queer. Painting middle earth as aggressively cisheteronormative even if that means fundamentally changing existing characters and races.

[soul-spices]

watch me age 10 years after reading the short interview with ROP’s script writers

they are so lovingly applied, they aren’t even visible. Amazing.

having to take the passive aggressiveness of a 40+ year old white man-child in a Tolkien adaptation is something I never thought I would experience, but here we are, Mister Payne.

also, can you maybe stop using the “Well Tolkien never mentioned x thing” argument? You can use this as a template excuse to justify basically anything. Which is probably why you’re overusing it in the first place.

 the hairstyles changing over time seem to apply solely to male elf characters, who now sport short, gelled up hair, mullets, fades and buzzcuts; and not the female elf characters, who still have long hair. How very gender normative of you! Truly, the public applauds you for your backwards views in this very contemporary adaptation.

amazing Mister McKay. I’m left in awe at your lore knowledge, yet I cannot help but notice you didn’t gave Galadriel her iconic braided crown hairstyle; the hairstyle that TOLKIEN DESCRIBED HER WEARING during the first age. You show that you know the lore, yet you seem to have put little of your knowledge into the show itself. This is truly and quite an amazing feat. Bravo.

i forgot who created this month old meme, to credit them, but it seems to be still valid to the discussion:

firstly, the fault is not that Galadriel is portrayed as a warrior. The issue is how piss-poor you’ve written her as one ( among other things I won’t go into here). You’ve basically written her as the most generic and unlikable manchild-warrior-protag ™

secondly, Nerwen is not a “nickname”, it is the name given by her mother because Galadriel was the tallest female elf among her peers ( and in all ME history, if we’re going meta), and because she was athletic, and liked partaking in sparring with other elves. She wasn’t called Nerwen because she was manifesting the manchild-warrior-protag ™  vibes you cursed her with. Maybe Mister Payne is projecting his own inner man-child into the character he’s likely writing for the script.

thirdly, since we are playing ‘taking the names as literal as physically possible’ game, did you know that her birth name, Artanis, means “noble woman” in elvish? Funny how we don’t see any of the diplomacy of a noble person in her character during your show. Interesting how you wrote her character to be brash and muscle headed :) with the social skills of a petulant child.

no. no, I don’t think I have anymore patience for this.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter Interview

[first-son-of-finwe]

Okay, I'm gonna do a bit of Rings of Power negativity here so scroll away if you don't want it.

I am once again wondering what the heck they spent all that money on. I'm finding it hard to believe it was on good visuals or costuming.

I mean, LOOK at the Argonath in LOTR. Look at how real they look. Do you remember that moment of wonder you felt when the Fellowship sails past that huge stone foot? Because it looks so real?? You can fully believe that a civilisation carved these images into stone on these cliffs. You feel like you could reach out and touch them.

So, by contrast....WHAT IS THIS?! Why does it look like a videogame visual? Where did all that money go, Bezos? Where did it go???

[thelordofgifs]

🌶️?

(drop a 🌶️ and optionally a character/subject in my inbox and I’ll respond with a Tolkien spicy opinion!)

this one is a free shot SO I’m going to dive right in with something definitely controversial – I actually enjoyed the Rings of Power show! With caveats because I’m not insane. In fact, the first couple of episodes are what made me reread the silm and get into the fandom in the first place, for which reason I’m very grateful.

Things I like about the show: the location shots are very pretty, Númenor looks gorgeous. Elrond is very precious and I love his friendship with Dúrin (not a huge fan of the oath-swearing though especially how he totally broke his oath but everyone was acting as though he kept it??). Elendil is awesome. Isildur is a whiny brat but kind of sweet at the same time so I’m fine with that? Although if they call him “Isil” one more time I may stab someone. Most controversially, I like ROP Galadriel – or rather, I don’t like her, which is a good thing. She’s ridiculously proud and prickly and imperfect, which is much more interesting than the pure and wonderful moral centre she’s sometimes portrayed as.

Things I didn’t like: the pacing is terrible, it makes no sense to forge the three rings first instead of last, the Harfoot storyline is dull and pointless, for some reason Galadriel is treated by other characters like an annoying child instead of the immensely old and powerful member of the House of Finwë she is, the mithril subplot is so stupid. Among many lore inaccuracies, the one that bugs me the most is that for some reason every elf speaks Quenya? Even the Silvan elves?? Thingol is rolling in his grave??? (Actually maybe that’s a good thing tbh I support most things that annoy Thingol)

Things I can’t forgive it for: WHAT DID YOU DO TO TYELPË. This one is particularly egregious bc when I watched the show I barely knew anything about him and didn’t care! Then I read more about the Fall of Eregion and I was like. my baby. And they ruined him!! He’s just kind of this vaguely mean and vaguely stupid guy! And the whole Annatar storyline is gone so ???

Overall, though, I’m very grateful that watching the show inspired me to get back into Tolkien and actually join the silm fandom! And, despite my reservations, I’ll watch season 2.

[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.

[incorrect-lord-of-the-rings]

i’m sorry this will be angry and long

Criticisms of ROP ep 5

why are the numenorian boats so tiny how is a whole ass army supposed to fit on three tiny ass boats

why are the harfoots there 

why is elrond being kinda dumb (”did the dwarves find that metal” “i made a promise i wouldn’t say anything about it” writers wtf)

??????? pharazon?????

THE LORE???

Why is that Harfoot like “one of the mothers or children could die because of the Brandyfoots! We could take their wheels and have them die” MURDER??? YOU WANT MURDER???? WHAT IS IT WITH THE HARFOOTS AND DEATH??????????

THE NUMENORIAN ARMOR IS SOOOO BAD IT LOOKS SO AWFUL IT’S LITERALLY LIKE GOT PRINTED FABRIC ON THE ARMS AND SIDES THAT’S SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE ARMOR IT’S CHEAP AS HELL

oh my god istg i need a character in a tv show to stop being like “stand and fight!” and start going “let’s scheme and try to escape.” because COME ON PEOPLE there’s like 30 of you vs a hundred orcs YEAH that’s gonna end well also... don’t give up??? i don’t get anything here.

i... 

*sigh*

It took me so long to get through this episode because I kept having to turn it off because it was boring and annoying.

also Galadriel’s fight scene with all the Numenorian guys? not great

what’s with the Stranger... (wtf)

okay ALL the armor except Galadriel’s armor looks bad and like... plasticky and stuff. It looks fake and like something you’d wear to comic con instead of actually to battle.

why is gil-galad like... a dick... a little bitch...

i just want good costumes and hair is that too much to ask

it feels like they’re just pulling plot lines out of their asses

durin says “shit” but elrond cuts him off

NOTHING against the actors, they’re doing well. It’s the directors and writers and costume and hair people I have problems with. The actors have no say in this. If you send hate to the actors (or really anyone else don’t send hate) then please stop because that won’t solve any problems

damn the writers are not doing well. i just. as someone who likes to analyze films and stuff. uh. yike.

isn’t like... oath-breaking like super bad in middle-earth???? like... um remember the oath-breakers??? the dead guys?? um gil-galad? is a bitch? and a screwy politician?

galadriel saying “come at me” unironically brought back many bad memories of 2015 Elsa memes.

doesn’t Numenor have like... barracks or quarters for their soldiers instead of a market square thing?

“galadriel may be no different from the evil she is fighting”  ಠ_ಠ huh

WHERE THE FUCK IS CELEBORN?!?!?!?!!?????!?!??!!?!???

other criticisms of other ROP episodes

why is it so funny that one of the harfoots died by bees. why do they laugh at this death. “yes let us mourn those we lost except this guy lols he got kills by bees, the dumbass” and now they want murder

i hate theo. i just cannot stand that kid. he’s so annoying. like yeah he’s fourteen but he doesn’t even have a fun personality. he’s just dumb and an unlikeable character

WHY is galadriel like this. WHY

also why was she just going to Valinor? Wasn’t she banished? And then was allowed to go back after being tested by the Ring in FOTR? Idk my Galadriel lore is still underbaked, like dying Easy Bake Oven baked.

the weird punishment for isildur being all daydreamy is like.... his friends had like nothing to do with him and their captain was like “oh GOOD WORK, CINDERSLUT, you ruined me FINE SHIP” and banished all his buddies like???????????

[why-what-no]

https://youtu.be/hpo01KAs_i8

For my fellow Tolkien fans & followers:

A review of the first two episodes of the Rings Of Power show from the only Tolkien fan bro that I trust.

(He confirmed that I don’t have to be too worried about them ruining my boy Celebrimbor, which was a relief)

[ausefulblogforputtingthingsin]

The Harfoots teaching Gandalf about killing and dying and being good like he's the Iron Giant smh...

[thethirdromana]

I finished watching The Witcher: Blood Origin last night, which was a delight, but it also got me thinking about some of the consequences of the no-new-stories world of TV and especially film that we're currently experiencing.

What I mean by no-new-stories is the way that our media is becoming ever-more dominated by pre-existing IP - sequels, prequels, adaptations etc. In the 1980s, of the top 10 highest grossing films worldwide, 5 were original stories. In the 2010s, none were. You have to go down the list as far as the 14th top grossing film, Frozen, to find anything that's not a prequel, sequel or adaptation from some earlier IP; the fact that half of the top 10 are Marvel movies obviously doesn't help. I think the trend is at its worst among films, but it exists across most media.

Blood Origin reminded me of a show I watched in 2021, Foundation, very loosely based on the Isaac Asimov series. I enjoyed it, but it felt like two different stories shoved together: the story that Asimov tells, and a Warhammer-esque science fantasy story about the challenges and decline of a millennia-old monarchy. I liked them both, but I'd have preferred to watch them separately, and it often felt like the show was more interested in telling the original story, rather than the story of Foundation. @inkskinned wrote this great post about how Glass Onion, unlike a lot of modern media, loves its audience back. I didn't get the impression that Foundation actively disliked fans of Isaac Asimov's original series, just that it wasn't much interested in them or what they wanted.

Some of the criticisms of Blood Origin suggests that a similar thing has happened there. It's supposed to be a Witcher prequel, but it isn't much interested in telling a story that's consistent with previous Witcher IP. Instead it was a fun fantasy romp in Witcher branding. (I've read one Witcher book and played about 2 hours of The Witcher 3, so I can't say for sure how true this is, but equally I haven't seen anyone disputing it).

Possibly the same is also true of Rings of Power? I'm less confident here because I enjoyed Foundation and Blood Origin, and I hated Rings of Power, which affects my ability to analyse it, but I think it does follow the same pattern of existing IP + new story that feels a bit like it was shoehorned in where it doesn't quite fit.

(Sidenote: among the changes across all three series are a considerable increase in diversity. In the novel Foundation, I don't think a woman so much as speaks until about two-thirds of the way through. Obviously, changing that is a very good thing. It also makes a lot of the criticism of these shows difficult to parse; sometimes fans say "this isn't consistent with the source material" and mean "I am upset that the elves are brown now". I hope it's clear that this kind of change isn't what I mean here, but I do think these phenomena are related: the showrunner who's happy to insert new storylines wholesale into an existing IP is also going to be the one who'll be happy to upset the racist and misogynistic parts of its fandom; the showrunner who is very keen to stay true to an existing IP will also be inclined to stay true to its more problematic aspects.)

I think in the world of no-new-stories, we'll keep seeing more and more of new ideas being inserted into existing IP, whether they fit or not. It's easy to see why: I watched Foundation because of its Foundation branding, even though I enjoyed the new elements more than the Asimov parts. I'm not sure if I would have watched it if it had had the Foundation trappings removed and been billed as an entirely new Warhammer-esque science fantasy show. And I'm quite certain that Apple wouldn't have spent $45m on a brand new untested story. But it would be nice to experience stories in the way that makes most sense for the story, not for commercial needs, all the same.

[gi-nathlam-hi]

ROP production team literally can't win. People were complaining last season that they de-yassified Sauron and made him look like a boring-ass straight white boy (okay, fair). Now I keep seeing people getting mad that he looks like Legolas bc of the long blond hair and the ears 🙄 grow up.

[mag-lore]

Are my Sauron and Silvergifting fans doing alright right now? No? Yeah, me neither. Sorry guys

[symphonyofsilence]

So, now, according to TROP, Finrod, in Valinor calls Galadriel 'Galadriel', which is a name given to her by her husband after she goes to Middle-earth and sees him there. the aforementioned husband has not been mentioned in the show so far. instead, Galadriel flirts with an original character and to a lesser extent, with her future son-in-law who is generations younger than her and is apparently her bestie now. (But they don't even mention that Galadriel is Gil-Galad's aunt cuz God forbid she actually has some of the caliber that she canonically had. Nobody listens to her, nobody looks up to her, nobody even calls her "lady".) She doesn't even inform her husband and says goodbye to him when she decides to go to Valinor. She doesn't go to see him when she apparently comes back from years of expedition.

(And Galadriel and Halbrand accidentally hold hands in their sleep in the concept art so make of that what you will.)

Also, Galadriel is the Sindrin form of "Alarariel". The Noldor of Valinor, including Finrod, didn't know Sindarin, a language spoken by the elves of Middle-earth.

Then how should have they shown that this child is Galadriel you might ask? Well, they didn't have any problem showing her with the same shift she was wearing in her childhood flashback when she was grown up! But actually, I say, change that whole scene! The point of the scene was probably Finrod's dialogue about the buoyancy of the stone and holly shit! Was that bad! The dialogues are so trying to be philosophical and epic and end up so cringe!

And apparently, Finrod had sworn to find Sauron?? And Sauron found him first?? And killed him?? After the first age??

And look, there is "breaking lore" and then there is "eliminating the whole Akallabeth" which the show is about.

Finrod dies saving Beren. If Finrod wasn't with Beren in the quest for Silmarils, Beren would have died. (Since Beren managed to get that close to Sauron because of Finrod's shapeshifting arts, he might have died sooner.)

And had Beren died, there would have been no Dior. No Dior, no Elwing. No Elwing, no Elrond and Elros.

Elrond is now in the series, and Elros is the first king of Nomenor, which is the subject of a large part of the series.

And it may seem that this will just eliminate the first king of Numenor. But no. There will be no Numenor at all.

Had Beren died, the Silmaril would not have been taken from Melkor's crown and gone to Doriath. The sons of Fëanor wouldn't attack Doriath. Elwing, who would not exist in this scenario, even if she did, wouldn't have gone to Sirion and would not meet Eärendil, and once again, Elrond and Elros wouldn't exist. But more importantly, the sons of Fëanor wouldn't attack Sirion, and therefore Elving wouldn't throw herself into the sea with the Silmaril, so Earendil wouldn't know that his land was gone and that his children had probably died, and reached his last straw and gone to Valinor to ask for help, and because the Silmaril wasn't with him he wouldn't have managed to reach Valinor.

So Eärendil wouldn't have reached Valinor to ask for help, the War of Wrath wouldn't have happened, Beleriand would still be in Melkor's grasp, and the men wouldn't have helped the Valar during the War of Wrath so the Valar wouldn't create Numenor as a reward for them.

Therefore, a huge part of the series should not exist.

But no, apparently the showrunners thought it was more important to change Finrod's death to motivate Galadriel's absurd plotline, in which the wisest of the Eldar throws herself into the ocean and sidestrokes her way from Valinor to Middle-earth. (Valinor that Galadriel was not allowed to go to in the first place... so the whole point of the scene where Galadriel passes her test by rejecting the ring and succeeds in going to Valinor is lost. After removing the story of Galadriel's ambition and that she had come to Middle-earth to rule a land of her own and spent the Second Age looking for that land, and replacing it with this pointless plotline, removing both Galadriel's arc and the weight of the scene that she rejects the power of the ring.)

Also, apparently, Finrod took the oath of Fëanor. Yes, technically, that wasn't the oath of Fëanor. That causes its own problems but I understand that they didn't have the rights to some things but then THEY SHOULD HAVE LEFT IT ALONE! But a bunch of elves holding their swords out while the narrator is talking about how the Noldor swore to defeat the enemy and went to Middle-earth is alluding to the oath! They knew what they were doing when they added it!

And they could have just added a bunch of elves crossing ice with Galadriel, Finrod, and a dark-haired man in blue leading them?! Show the Noldor coming to Middle-earth, strong Galadriel being a leader, Finrod coming to Middle-earth, and a little cameo of Fingolfin without basically showing Fingolfin if they hadn't had the rights (just like how they showed little ginger children in Valinor probably with Amrod and Amras in mind) and stay true to the lore!

Also, with that hairstyle, show! Finrod looks like a popular but bullying captain of a high school's basketball team who would bully book! Finrod for being a theater nerd.

Oh, and, Celebrimbor apparently doesn't have any relationship with the dwarves before Elrond's arrival.

And Elrond, the heir to the Sindarin throne via Thingol, Noldrin (Gil-Galad's heir) via Turgon, and all the houses of the Edain is not an "elf lord" enough!

And yes! That was important! Cuz Elrond, the heir to any thone that there is, CHOSE instead become a healer, minstrel, linguist, loremaster and basically hotel manager. (I like what Robert Aramayo did with the role though. Elrond, Durin, and Disa were the only characters I liked.)

They keep needlessly going against canon! Not having the rights to this book and that book is not an excuse to willfully go against anything the books say!

And you might say that these go against the books, but are not bad writing.

Well, there is bad writing, too.

Show! Galadriel is SUCH a one-dimensional, unlikable, unrelatable character. All she was during the whole thing was angry and in posession of a dagger. With a single purpose and one thing to do. Making bad decisions while pretending to be wise. And the acting doesn't help it at all.

And jumping from the edge of a sword?! Listen, either your world has rules different from ours, or it's the same and you can't break physical rules in such a world! When you establish swords and people's wrists in your world as something that can be deflected with other swords, you can't say that they can endure (the weight of a person+ their armor)×(the acceleration of that person+ g) AND navigate a distance (r×teta) while enduring this weight to give that person an acceleration!

And you can't make people care about your characters and thus their plotlines with 5 minutes at most for each of them in every episode! There's not enough time for anyone to get invested. They don't have any filler scenes to show their characters and their relationship and make us care about them.

And that going to Valinor scene?!

We KNOW Galadriel wouldn't go to Valinor. So if you're choosing that bold plotline (going against the canon and logic along the way) the focus shouldn't be on whether or not she would go, but HOW she wouldn't go! I guess it was supposed to have the emotional weight of someone rejecting heaven for a cause or a person or something but it didn't work. Cuz we didn't know this show's Galadriel. We didn't know much about her adventures in Middle-earth and her relationship to the land, how she fought for it, who she had there (like...you'd think adding Celeborn and Celebrian would have helped), and her cause, keeping Finrod's oath did not work cause FINROD DIDN'T HAVE SUCH AN OATH!

And there is a LOT OF telling and not showing.

So yeah, to answer the showrunners question "can we make the novel that Tolkien never wrote?", yes, you can. You just did. Tolkien never wrote any of these. And would never.

[nateofgreat]

Okay, okay. While I don't think I'll ever stop coming up with new jokes for how absurd Sauron first disguising himself as Halbrand, getting caught, leaving, and COMING BACK IN A DIFFERENCE DISGUISE TO DO THE SAME THING is. I want to elaborate on why this is such a stupid decision.

1: Man, do they hate book Galadriel.

For all the talk about how they love the books, Galadriel, etc. They've done a heck of a job of reinterpreting basically about her into being something detestable. For those of you who don't know, in the book Galadriel's one of the only ones who was capable of seeing through Sauron's tricks. To the point that Sauron avoided her the entire time he was disguised as Annatar because he knew she'd expose him immediately.

The show has reinterpreted Galadriel's knowledge from being because of her wisdom... to her simply already knowing from how Sauron blew his cover to her earlier. So now she's either withholding that knowledge to save her reputation (our hero) or we're doing the whole "no one believes Galadriel :(" plotline again.

Then there's the way they reinterpreted her speech from being her resisting the ring to her thinking about the time Sauron hit on her.

2: Repetitive

Sauron's seriously just doing the same exact thing he did in the first season with a different disguise.

3: The showrunners said they thought the Annatar plot was dumb, but now they've actually made it dumb.

In the official ROP podcast, the writers Payne and Mckay openly mocked how the Annatar plot was written in the book, saying no one would ever fall for it. The actions of true fans lol.

Now however, they've actually made it stupid and unbelievable.

You see in the book, Annatar approached the elves with a proposed solution to the fading magic of Middle Earth. This led to the forging of the rings under his supervision.

Now, they've changed it so that Sauron first shows up as Halbrand to help them forge the elven rings, thus solving the problem. Then leaves and comes back as Annatar with, I guess, a proposed solution to an already solved problem and nobody sees a problem with this.

In other words, despite laughing at how stupid they think the original is they've gone and actually made it something stupid and unbelievable. Congratulations boys! How's the "book Tolkien never wrote" coming along?

[fixing-bad-posts]

From your tags: "if anyone wants to ask me about rings of power please do because i have thoughts™" This is me asking. (Also love your blog!)

i love you for asking, thank you 💛💛💛 this will be part three: parting thoughts & the funniest details from rings of power (part one; part two).

some parting thoughts:

i absolutely hate that all critics of the show are labelled as racists, misogynists, and anti-progressives, especially when the show’s treatment of women is tokenizing and pitiful, and it does nothing revolutionary nor makes a meaningful statement on issues of marginalized race. they don’t get to position themselves as champions of diversity just by doing the bare minimum and casting poc in side-roles, and having one original-character black elf whose plotline is tragically underwritten. they’re already taking vast liberties with the source material—why not a black galadriel? why not an asian elrond?

with that out of the way, some of my favourite* parts from rings of power:

* when i say "favourite" i mean i'm about to make fun of the show.

i love the part in the show where galadriel spends years of her life tracking down the ‘mark of sauron’—which looks like a little stylized pitchfork—only to discover it’s actually not a sigil. it’s a map, turned sideways, and sketched in modern minimalist style with the least helpful, least detailed, least interpretable shapes because apparently morgoth was really really bad at drawing mountains. and sauron, for some reason, is so forgetful that he carves this “map” into dead bodies and his tables and weapons and gloves so that he? won’t forget which mountain range he’s trying to conquer? wants to give his enemies fun clues about his favourite piece of real estate? unclear.

i love that one scene where galadriel and halbrand are on a raft and the set designers/director did not give morfydd clark enough stage business so she spends the whole scene pulling the same piece of rope tight, and then loosening it, and then pulling it tight again, on a random piece of wood.

in the same vein, i love the part where a conversation between nori and her mom happens except the stage business they were given for the scene was apparently… rub a rock on a piece of wood. and they just have to do that for the entire scene as if it’s normal.

i love the part where the writers seemingly forgot to actually go in and edit their placeholder dialogue and they have gandalf yell, “i’m good!” when he’s mistaken for sauron in the finale.

i love the part where galadriel discovers who sauron is and then goes inside and does not tell anyone what she learned for some reason. and elrond asks her what’s up and she’s just like, there’s no time to explain. and then never explains ever.

i think it’s really funny that the writers want sauron to be “like walter white, tony soprano and the joker,” when these characters have nothing in common except being well-written characters. i like to imagine they sit around the writers’ room examining every single piece of well-written television, marvelling over the very idea of multifaceted characters—a concept completely foreign to them.

and, for posterity—i have fun criticizing rings of power. i like to think i gave rop a fair shot—when i started watching it, i was fully hoping it would be well-done. when i heard the show was coming out, it gave me an excuse to re-read the silmarillion for the first time in years, and has connected me with the tolkien fandom on tumblr. i’m also a script writer irl and, so it’s been a fun exercise to pick apart why the show didn’t work for me both from a fan’s perspective and a writer’s perspective. a lot of tolkien fans are deeply hurt by this show and hate its existence and its fans—that’s not me. i would not be engaging with this material if i wasn’t having a good time doing it.

that's all for me, folks—thanks for tuning in; i'll shut up about this now haha.

[lordgrimwing]

I'm glad I will be spending all day in the field tomorrow so i can't look at tumblr at all after the Rings of Power season 2 trailer comes out

[mistergandalf]

ULTIMATE TOLKIEN BLORBO: ROUND ONE

MAEDHROS vs. CELEBRIMBOR

See the ULTIMATE TOLKIEN BLORBO MASTERPOST for details and follow #ultimate tolkien blorbo to cast your vote for the blorbiest blorbo of all!