S01.E06: Udûn

[JTMacc99]

Episode Synopsis:

 

Adar and his army march on Ostirith.

Reminder: 

There is open air book talk here. If you are just watching the TV show and you don't want to stumble into any book talk you should leave now. Book Talk assumes you have read any of the related books or stories.

[Anduin]

Hell of an episode! Just... they really went for it. Well done to all the cast and crew.

Adar thinks he killed Sauron. Surely he should know that Sauron isn't limited by possessing a body.

So a sword activated by blood is a key that diverts a river to flow into Mount Doom. Seems a little elaborate. Who created the sword, shaped the river, and built the tower? Sauron is the smart guess, but still, why? Also I thought the tower was built by elves, but clearly not.

[cambridgeguy]

The passage of time seemed a little wonky - it was the middle of the night when Adar and the orcs came to the village but they spent so much time breaking into the tavern dawn broke and the Numenoreans were able to get there.  Don't dither!

So does Halbrand earn the title of fastest rise (stuck on a raft to king?) or is it Galadriel, who goes from tossed in a cell to respected commander?  At least Galadriel's an elf, while Halbrand is just some dude carrying around a symbol.  Who knew that was enough proof?

Looks like this was Mordor's origin story.  Guess you should have unwrapped that mystery item, huh?

Why do I get the feeling the season will end with Sauron chatting with Celebrimbor about how awesome rings are, because there doesn't seem to be time for much more.

Edited September 30, 2022 by cambridgeguy

[PeterPirate]

11 hours ago, Anduin said:

So a sword activated by blood is a key that diverts a river to flow into Mount Doom. Seems a little elaborate. Who created the sword, shaped the river, and built the tower?

This actually may be partially consistent with the canon.  There is this snippet from Appendix A: 

Therefore, after a time (Sauron) made war upon the Exiles, before they should take root. Orodruin burst once more into flame, and was named anew in Gondor Amon Amarth, Mount Doom. But Sauron struck too soon, before his own power was rebuilt, whereas the power of Gil-galad had increased in his absence; and in the Last Alliance that was made against him Sauron was overthrown and the One Ring was taken from him. So ended the Second Age.

The implication is Orodruin was in flames during the First Age, but quiet for a time during the Second Age.  So why not have Morgoth or Sauron put the machinery into place for it to re-erupt.  

Edited September 30, 2022 by PeterPirate

[Anduin]

43 minutes ago, PeterPirate said:

This actually may partially consistent with the canon.  There is this snippet from Appendix A: 

Therefore, after a time (Sauron) made war upon the Exiles, before they should take root. Orodruin burst once more into flame, and was named anew in Gondor Amon Amarth, Mount Doom. But Sauron struck too soon, before his own power was rebuilt, whereas the power of Gil-galad had increased in his absence; and in the Last Alliance that was made against him Sauron was overthrown and the One Ring was taken from him. So ended the Second Age.

The implication is Orodruin was in flames during the First Age, but quiet for a time during the Second Age.  So why not have Morgoth or Sauron put the machinery into place for it to re-erupt.  

I see. Yeah, I still think it's a little elaborate, but I'll go with it. :)

[Camera One]

4 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

The passage of time seemed a little wonky - it was the middle of the night when Adar and the orcs came to the village but they spent so much time breaking into the tavern dawn broke and the Numenoreans were able to get there.  Don't dither!

Yeah, it was confusing since they showed the Numenoreans riding in full daylight and then cut back to outside the tavern where it was still in complete darkness, with no hint of dawn.  It showed the fighting inside the tavern, and then suddenly outside was daylight with the arrival of the horses.  If the Numenoreans came from the east, it could have been, but they were coming from more of a westerly direction?

[silverstream]

This is definitely the episode I liked least so far, though that's also down to personal preference - I'm just not very interested in battle scenes/episodes. I still don't see any reason why what seemed like the no more than 60 or so people stuck in the tower had to return to their destroyed town and fight the Orcs when they could have just left the area and not gotten potentially slaughtered. I'm pretty sure they'd already established that Adar's army had taken everything of value, so it's not like that's where the supplies were. Also, maybe pick a better place to stash your non-combatants than a wooden building when part of your plan includes setting the village on fire?

Lolled when Bronwyn's son was like "tell me what you told me when I was a little kid and had a nightmare!" and Bronwyn launches into some overwrought prose that's definitely not fit for a little kid. I've had less problems with the dialogue writing on this show than some, but that was really bad.

[mrspidey]

So everyone is dead yes? Pyroclastic flows are nasty that way. Not even Galadriel should survive that...

[Jenniferbug]

I thought that episode was pretty intense actually! When they put a new character in danger (Bronwyn), I do actually worry they might die. I genuinely thought they were going for a plot twist where Arondir has to raise and try to keep Theo from darkness after his mother dies. I'm glad it didn't go that way because I like Bronwyn and she and Arondir are so very pretty together. 

I think they need to introduce Celeborn pretty soon...I'm starting to ship Halbrand and Galadriel together a bit (...assuming he's not Sauron, which I'm still hoping he's not). My vote is for Halbrand to be one of the nazgul or possibly that ghost king who ends up fighting alongside Aragorn (I don't remember the details so please tell me if that's not an option). 

Is Celeborn a fairly blank slate as far as canon goes? Despite posting in the book threads, I'm not all that knowledgeable of Tolkien. I know enough about the lore and world that posting here seems safest, but know none of the specifics that many of you do. 

I'd like Isildur's friend (Otamano?) who didn't enjoy battle but likes horses to go off with his fiance and found Rohan. 

I thought it was a bit odd that Miriel summoned Halbrand and was just like "here's your king" without having a conversation with him about it. And that all the people were like "yay! A king!" No one has questions about where the heck he's been? Maybe in story they already know, but it seems odd they wouldn't recognize him then. 

[PeterPirate]

5 hours ago, mrspidey said:

So everyone is dead yes? Pyroclastic flows are nasty that way. Not even Galadriel should survive that...

You can never tell with this show.  Anything can happen.  After last week's flight of fancy with the invention of the Fourth Silmaril, I said the show was off the tracks with respect to canon.  And with this episode, with the three female leads getting blown up by a volcano, I would say the show has gone off a cliff.  

[Anduin]

2 minutes ago, PeterPirate said:

You can never tell with this show.  Anything can happen.  After last week's flight of fancy with the invention of the Fourth Silmaril, I said the show was off the tracks with respect to canon.  And with this episode, with the three female leads getting blown up by a volcano, I would say the show has gone off a cliff.  

In the FOTR movie, Gandalf created a kind of forcefield in Moria. I expect Galadriel will do something like that here.

[WritinMan]

17 hours ago, PeterPirate said:

The implication is Orodruin was in flames during the First Age, but quiet for a time during the Second Age.  So why not have Morgoth or Sauron put the machinery into place for it to re-erupt.  

You'd think a spell or sending a crack team of Balrogs into the mountain would have been easier than creating an evil Rube Goldberg device.

Edited October 1, 2022 by WritinMan

[PeterPirate]

4 hours ago, Anduin said:

In the FOTR movie, Gandalf created a kind of forcefield in Moria. I expect Galadriel will do something like that here.

Works for me.  I am genuinely looking forward to next week's episode.  

Just to clarify my previous post, when I say the show has gone "off a cliff", I mean that in a good way.  This show is better when it is untethered to the canon.  Let's face it, the Second Age was not a happy time, nor did it have a happy ending.  So I'm done pointing out the lack of fidelity to the laws of time and space or to military conventions, and I'm just going to enjoy a show that's not afraid to blow up half of the main characters with a volcano.  

Edited October 1, 2022 by PeterPirate

[quarks]

My mental image of Mount Doom was always something more like Vesuvius - a volcano that kept smoldering but was otherwise mostly dormant in the Second Age and then went BOOM, just in time for Sauron to have a nice hot forge to make a shiny ring. Not so much a lovely, not exactly a volcano mountain that could be activated by an evil sword, but I guess that's the payoff for having all of these Southerners wandering around what will eventually be Mordor, and kinda fits with the general idea that Sauron and his servants turned what was once a pleasant land into Mordor - especially with having a self-admitted Sauron acolyte be the one to set off the explosion.

I was more intrigued with Adar's backstory, partly because this one seemed to step really close to the "uh, you don't technically have the rights to that." The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are both pretty vague about the origins of Orcs and goblins, and the stuff about how, exactly, Morgoth created Orcs is all in the stuff that this show doesn't have rights to - including this story about how some Elves were taken by Morgoth and tortured and twisted, made into a new form of life. Tolkien later contradicted himself on this point, though, so I guess the show can say that they aren't really using stuff from The Silmarillion here since Tolkien was like, yeah, maybe not.

What I am really questioning, though, is a) how Galadriel would have heard this as a child, and b) how Galadriel went through the entire First Age and a great deal of the Second Age without, apparently, ever encountering any of these Moriondor/Morgoth Elves, given her general obsession with hunting down all things evil.  Galadriel was born in Valinor and spent her childhood there; both the books and the show are pretty clear on this point. And Tolkien is pretty clear that the Orcs first appeared after the Eldar went to Valinor, and during Galadriel's childhood, the Eldar had limited to no information about what was going on in Middle-Earth.  I suppose I can handwave this by saying that Galadriel was talking about the stories she had heard about the Elves that vanished on the great trip to Valinor, but then we run into the issue that during much of Galadriel's childhood, Morgoth was in Valinor, pretending to be good, so it seems highly unlikely that people would have been telling stories about how Morgoth was kidnapping Elves and breeding Orcs from them.  

9 hours ago, Jenniferbug said:

Is Celeborn a fairly blank slate as far as canon goes? Despite posting in the book threads, I'm not all that knowledgeable of Tolkien. I know enough about the lore and world that posting here seems safest, but know none of the specifics that many of you do. 

Yes.

Celeborn was not part of Tolkien's original writings on Middle-earth - unlike, say, Tol Eressea, Earendil and the Silmarils, all of which appear in very early writings - and makes only brief appearances in The Lord of the Rings. After LOTR was published, Tolkien realized that Celeborn and Galadriel, as depicted, would have been around in the First Age, and had to be worked into the older stories of the First and Second Ages - but Tolkien never quite figured out how they fit in, so Celeborn never got a clear backstory.  As just one example, in some versions Celeborn is a Sindar Elf who never went to Valinor; in other versions, Celeborn is a Teleri Elf who did go to Valinor - or at least to Tol Eressea. Those contradictions might be one reason why he hasn't yet appeared on the show.

[Anduin]

27 minutes ago, quarks said:

What I am really questioning, though, is a) how Galadriel would have heard this as a child, and b) how Galadriel went through the entire First Age and a great deal of the Second Age without, apparently, ever encountering any of these Moriondor/Morgoth Elves, given her general obsession with hunting down all things evil.  Galadriel was born in Valinor and spent her childhood there; both the books and the show are pretty clear on this point. And Tolkien is pretty clear that the Orcs first appeared after the Eldar went to Valinor, and during Galadriel's childhood, the Eldar had limited to no information about what was going on in Middle-Earth.  I suppose I can handwave this by saying that Galadriel was talking about the stories she had heard about the Elves that vanished on the great trip to Valinor, but then we run into the issue that during much of Galadriel's childhood, Morgoth was in Valinor, pretending to be good, so it seems highly unlikely that people would have been telling stories about how Morgoth was kidnapping Elves and breeding Orcs from them. 

I thought she meant the ones kidnapped from Cuiviénen. And maybe later she heard that they became the first orcs. As for not encountering them, maybe there weren't many and they were all hidden away making the next generation of orcs, rather than out and about making trouble.

[PeterPirate]

2 hours ago, quarks said:

12 hours ago, Jenniferbug said:

I think they need to introduce Celeborn pretty soon...I'm starting to ship Halbrand and Galadriel together a bit (...assuming he's not Sauron, which I'm still hoping he's not). My vote is for Halbrand to be one of the nazgul or possibly that ghost king who ends up fighting alongside Aragorn (I don't remember the details so please tell me if that's not an option). 

Is Celeborn a fairly blank slate as far as canon goes? Despite posting in the book threads, I'm not all that knowledgeable of Tolkien. I know enough about the lore and world that posting here seems safest, but know none of the specifics that many of you do. 

Yes.  Celeborn was not part of Tolkien's original writings on Middle-earth - unlike, say, Tol Eressea, Earendil and the Silmarils, all of which appear in very early writings - and makes only brief appearances in The Lord of the Rings. After LOTR was published, Tolkien realized that Celeborn and Galadriel, as depicted, would have been around in the First Age, and had to be worked into the older stories of the First and Second Ages - but Tolkien never quite figured out how they fit in, so Celeborn never got a clear backstory.  As just one example, in some versions Celeborn is a Sindar Elf who never went to Valinor; in other versions, Celeborn is a Teleri Elf who did go to Valinor - or at least to Tol Eressea. Those contradictions might be one reason why he hasn't yet appeared on the show.

Here is what Appendix B says about Celeborn:  

In Lindon south of the Lune dwelt for a time Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol; his wife was Galadriel, greatest of Elven women. She was sister of Finrod Felagund, Friend-of-Men, once king of Nargothrond, who gave his life to save Beren son of Barahir.  Later some of the Noldor went to Eregion, upon the west of the Misty Mountains, and near to the West-gate of Moria. This they did because they learned that mithril had been discovered in Moria.

750   Eregion founded by the Noldor.

So, yeah, Celeborn should be around in this show.  Then again, "Galbrand" has a nice ring to it.  

(I don't know if there is consensus among the academics as to what constitutes canon regarding Tolkien's writings.  The Appendices were published while Tolkien was alive, so I consider them canon.)

Edited October 1, 2022 by PeterPirate

[cambridgeguy]

10 hours ago, Anduin said:

In the FOTR movie, Gandalf created a kind of forcefield in Moria. I expect Galadriel will do something like that here.

She has no reason to do that - plot armor is stronger than any magic bubble, although they might explain it away as elves and Numenoreans being really tough.  They'll just cover her with some soot, and one shower later she'll look as fresh as ever.

[Anduin]

15 minutes ago, cambridgeguy said:

She has no reason to do that - plot armor is stronger than any magic bubble, although they might explain it away as elves and Numenoreans being really tough.  They'll just cover her with some soot, and one shower later she'll look as fresh as ever.

She might be able to protect the others with a magic bubble. :)

[Aulty]

Someone go and toss an Omeprazole into Mt. Doom, to help with that sudden case of heartburn 🙃

Edited October 1, 2022 by Aulty

[MJ Frog]

14 hours ago, WritinMan said:

You'd think a spell or sending a crack team of Balrogs into the mountain would have been easier than creating an evil Rube Goldberg device.

Yep. Or Sauron would have simply made his way back and flipped on the lights. There's no way he would have left this to chance. They have turned this into Harry Potter. Every non-fantasy writer who tries fantasy turns everything into a YA novel.

[quarks]

11 hours ago, Anduin said:

I thought she meant the ones kidnapped from Cuiviénen. And maybe later she heard that they became the first orcs. As for not encountering them, maybe there weren't many and they were all hidden away making the next generation of orcs, rather than out and about making trouble.

Her dialogue was pretty clear - she heard in her childhood that those Elves became the First Orcs, even though her childhood happened before any of the Orcs appeared. In terms of hiding, I mean, sure, but the show has heavily implied that Galadriel was highly successful at finding and clearing out lairs of Orcs, as well as interrogating Orcs, and has done this for thousands of years. I just find it very unlikely that in all that time she never heard so much of a rumor of these First Elf-Orcs.

All of my quibbles here could be solved with just a tiny dialogue tweak:

"I have heard tales of Elves taken by Morgoth --"

No need to tell us when she's heard those tales. 

[PeterPirate]

Out of curiosity, I went back to the FOTR movie.  Here is what Saruman says:

Do you know how the Orcs came to be?  They were Elves once, taken by the Dark Powers, tortured and mutilated, a ruined and terrible form of life.   

And in this episode Galadriel says:

When I was a child I heard stories of Elves taken by Morgoth.  Tortured.  Twisted.  Made into a new and ruined form of life.  

So that matches, at least.  

[JustHereForFood]

I liked all the battle scenes and the plan on the first night with bringing down that tower was cool. But the last scene was hard to watch, seeing all that nice country being destroyed in minutes and turned into a doomsland. Epic, yes, but sad.

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

But the last scene was hard to watch, seeing all that nice country being destroyed in minutes and turned into a doomsland. Epic, yes, but sad.

I agree it was sad.  That's the problem I have with a lot of prequels, where we know the sad outcome, so it is difficult to find hopefulness while watching, knowing the sad fates of many characters and places.

[Haleth]

Ugh. I had to go to a wedding I didn’t care about last night so I didn’t get to watch until tonight.

 
The good: Very Tolkien, or at least the P Jackson version, from the defense of the tower and later the village, to the arrival of the Numenorans. Lots of callbacks to TTT and ROTK.  And Joe Mawle is always fantastic.

The bad:  At times the cgi was terrible. And seriously, shouldn’t someone have unwrapped the weapon to make sure it was the right one?  Rookie mistake.

I still stand by my thought that all the orcs were cloned from Benjen Adar.

Udun is Utumno (my books are in storage so I can’t check the spelling). It’s far, far to the north, like where Galadriel was in the first epi. It is not Mt Doom.

FotR was on tv today and I’m really sorry to say I had no patience for it. Turned it off after a few minutes. The end is near. 

[Anduin]

2 minutes ago, Haleth said:

Udun is Utumno (my books are in storage so I can’t check the spelling). It’s far, far to the north, like where Galadriel was in the first epi. It is not Mt Doom.

FotR was on tv today and I’m really sorry to say I had no patience for it. Turned it off after a few minutes. The end is near. 

Oh, Haleth, how could you? Not check a wiki, I mean. There's a valley in Mordor by that name, north-west corner. Not quite where the action or Mt Doom was, but close.

FOTR is my favourite LOTR movie, because it's closest to the books. But if you aren't in the mood, then that's fair enough.

[Haleth]

1 minute ago, Anduin said:

Oh, Haleth, how could you? Not check a wiki, I mean. There's a valley in Mordor by that name, north-west corner. Not quite where the action or Mt Doom was, but close.

Ah, ok. I stand corrected. It’s unusual but not without precedent that two locations would share a name. I bow to your expertise, Anduin. 

[Anduin]

45 minutes ago, Haleth said:

Ah, ok. I stand corrected. It’s unusual but not without precedent that two locations would share a name. I bow to your expertise, Anduin. 

I keep the Gateway on the quick link bar, and have a copy of the atlas a couple of metres away. Both have gotten a real workout recently. :)

[Raachel2008]

Between the people who had left and attacked the village, the orcs and the vulcan what are the odds that that baby survived? Also, pftttt. at least the movies had the guts to show that these folks at tons of kids. You know, like when birth control is something that doesn't exist.

I thought the battle scenes were ok. This trully is the moment it should be said that GoT did better. The GCI was pretty bad at times.

When Galadriel was fighting in Numenor so one of the rookies could become a lieutnent, there were several girls/woman in the background in the same armors. How come there wasn't one fighting there? This is the kind of thing that pisses me soooo much.

There isn't a single thing as rushed in this show as 'Halbrand is our king.

I wish we could have see Arondir and Galadriel fighting side to side. That would have been amazing,

Is Ontamo the founder of Rohan or something like that? 

[PurpleTentacle]

That fight was epic, but I could not enjoy the second half. Orcs fighting in the sunlight? No, just no. Am I supposed to believe that these flimsy cloaks protected them? This is just bullshit.

Nobody checked if the sword was actually in that bundle? Yeah, these dumbasses all deserve to die. Sad that we know that most of them survice.

Edited October 2, 2022 by PurpleTentacle

[cambridgeguy]

4 hours ago, Raachel2008 said:

When Galadriel was fighting in Numenor so one of the rookies could become a lieutnent, there were several girls/woman in the background in the same armors. How come there wasn't one fighting there? This is the kind of thing that pisses me soooo much.

Maybe they were hanging back with Miriel?  Because you want the best of the best as the queen regent's personal bodyguard, which definitely explains why stable boy Isildur was back there instead of watching the ships.  In any case, most of the fighters were out of focus and kept their helmets on (a novel thought), so who knows how many women were among them.

[Anduin]

I just rewatched. Galadriel holds onto the package until giving it to Arondir, who gives it to Theo, who unwraps it. Galadriel doesn't care what it is, to her Adar is the prize. And Arondir hands it off straight away.

Also, back in ep 5, Halbrand points out the tower and village on Miriel's map. Things are more clear now. There's probably more elements that will become clearer with rewatching.

I wonder if Charlotte Brandstorm was influenced by Mad Max. George Miller likes to show the secondary effects of actions. It's not enough for one car to crash, he'll often show it veering off and colliding with another car or something similar. In this case, it was someone sliding down the roof after getting an arrow to the chest, the bloodstain on Ontamo's armour, and there was a third moment that has slipped out of my mind. Anyway, it felt Miller-esque, which is no bad thing.

[PeterPirate]

I really liked the part where Theo said he would miss the feeling of power the hilt gave him.   The corrupting nature of power is a central theme of Tolkien.  Unlike most, I like both the character and the actor playing him.  

Halbrand is now King of the Southlands, but what is that worth?  In the previous episode Waldreg referred to the place as "muck and filth".  Halbrand is now the king of slime, the king of filth, the king of putrescence. 

[Haleth]

6 minutes ago, PeterPirate said:

Halbrand is now King of the Southlands, but what is that worth?  In the previous episode Waldreg referred to the place as "muck and filth".  Halbrand is now the king of slime, the king of filth, the king of putrescence. 

And a volcano!

[PeterPirate]

18 minutes ago, Haleth said:

And a volcano!

That volcano is the Mother of All Deus ex Machina.  

[Anduin]

5 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

That fight was epic, but I could not enjoy the second half. Orcs fighting in the sunlight? No, just no. Am I supposed to believe that these flimsy cloaks protected them? This is just bullshit.

There's two moments. First when the Numenoreans charge them at dawn, then a brief tussle when they're cloaked up and under shade, right when Mt Doom starts going off. Otherwise all their scenes are at night. It's been clear that only direct sunlight is a problem. Clouds and shade are all right. And the sky lightens before the actual sun comes up. I'm saying it's all right.

[quarks]

8 hours ago, Raachel2008 said:

When Galadriel was fighting in Numenor so one of the rookies could become a lieutnent, there were several girls/woman in the background in the same armors. How come there wasn't one fighting there? This is the kind of thing that pisses me soooo much.

Not sure what was happening with the Numenorians, but the Southland folks had at least one woman archer and a lot of the fighting villagers were women.  I think it's also at least possible that some of the Numenorians and Orcs were also portrayed by women stunt actors - it was just difficult to tell under all the armor/prosthetics and the dark lighting - similar to the way a number of women portrayed the Riders of Rohan during the horse charge in Return of the King.

[Grimnar]

I enjoyed this episode most so far. Probably because we focused only on "one" storyline and finaly we had some pay off(even when unfortunate for good guys) instead of setup or stalling. 

As someone mentioned in "no book talk", logistic of battle is not great when you think of it(villagers moved from tower to village without encountering orcs, giving up fortified position for village, etc) but it didn't disturb me during watching except of kind of weird cut when Galadriel and co is ridding in full speed in morning while it was still night in village(it didn't appear that sunrise is close) and ocassional bad CGI. Another plus point is that in night battle we still could clearly see what is happening instead of being total dark as is now in every second movie/show. And I learned that "villain throw" is tv trope.

The reveal that in first wave were former villagers was good twist but it could be more impactful if we would get to know some of them more.

Halbrand being promised king was kind of meh for me, I hoped that they would prefer(at least villagers) Bronwyn as their leader since she did most of work in first place.

I wonder if Galadriel will have some change in character after her talk with Adar and that her obssession with vengeance is not good. And little strange that Galadriel didn't check what was so important about the weapon.

Isildur talking about that real Númenor existing no more was little weird when we still even don't know why they hate elves.

Maybe I missed it but do we know who build the dam?

One of the criticism I read and seems kind of valid is that so far the plot in Southland seems very small scale. Like in this battle were involved 300 soldiers from Númenor, around 50 villagers and probably few hundreds orcs and that seems all, like there is no more information that orcs are attacking on villages across whole Southland etc. 

[PeterPirate]

57 minutes ago, quarks said:

Not sure what was happening with the Numenorians, but the Southland folks had at least one woman archer and a lot of the fighting villagers were women.  I think it's also at least possible that some of the Numenorians and Orcs were also portrayed by women stunt actors

I counted six female soldiers in the Queen's Guard.  And two female soldiers in the charge into the village.  

I gotta say, I'm disappointed Queen Naevia Miriel didn't entry the fray until it was over.  

Edited October 2, 2022 by PeterPirate

[quarks]

9 hours ago, Raachel2008 said:

When Galadriel was fighting in Numenor so one of the rookies could become a lieutnent, there were several girls/woman in the background in the same armors. How come there wasn't one fighting there? This is the kind of thing that pisses me soooo much.

So I just rewatched this to check for something else, and although it's definitely a blink and you will miss it moment, starting at the 39:34 moment two women Numenorian soldiers are clearly visible. They pop up again a few seconds later, before the focus returns to the characters with speaking roles. 

[QuantumMechanic]

Worst episode yet. I hate with the fire of 10,000 suns lazy writing that requires the characters to be total idiots, and this episode was full of it.

[PurpleTentacle]

3 hours ago, Anduin said:

There's two moments. First when the Numenoreans charge them at dawn, then a brief tussle when they're cloaked up and under shade, right when Mt Doom starts going off. Otherwise all their scenes are at night. It's been clear that only direct sunlight is a problem. Clouds and shade are all right. And the sky lightens before the actual sun comes up. I'm saying it's all right.

They were still on the ships when the sun came up. There is no way the sky got just light when the charge happened. Unless the charge was a day later. If so they communicated that super crappily. Also it was way too bright for dawn before the sun is above the horizon.

Shade should be fine. If clouds are really enough, that would be really dumb.

Edited October 2, 2022 by PurpleTentacle

[PeterPirate]

7 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

They were still on the ships when the sun came up. There is no way the sky got just light when the charge happened. Unless the charge was a day later. If so they communicated that super crappily. Also it was way too bright for dawn before the sun is above the horizon.

Shade should be fine. If clouds are really enough, that would be really dumb.

Also, when the Numenoreans are charging towards the village, the sun is behind them.  Since they are going eastwards, this means it was the sun setting in the west, and the Numenoreans  galloped through the night (in the dark) in order to reach the village in the nick of time.  

A sharp-eyed expert on Tolkien noticed that at 13:00, the Queen Regent's map of Middle Earth includes a Numenorean settlement at Pelagir.  This contradicts the notion that Numenor had not yet established trade with the indigenous peoples.   

But in the end, they blew up everybody with a volcano.  Best episode yet.

Edited October 3, 2022 by PeterPirate

[Anduin]

I noticed that when the cavalry arrive, they keep their spears pointed up, rather than at the orcs. I get not wanting to skewer the stuntmen, but couldn't they have done some perspective trickery?

[Anduin]

Update to a previous comment: I went back and checked out the Moria scene. Turns out that while Gandalf has a glow around him, it isn't the forcefield I remember. The memory cheats.

So my guess for the next ep, the volcano will have exhausted its strength by the time it reaches the village. A real cloud of ash and smoke, but not a killer. There are four characters we know survive. Unless those humans are a little far away and Galadriel does have magical protection, we aren't getting a large death toll.

[tv-talk]

On 9/30/2022 at 1:00 AM, Anduin said:

Seems a little elaborate. Who created the sword, shaped the river, and built the tower?

The flow into the volcano was done by Adar's crew- that was the ditches they had the elves and other captors digging. His plan all along was to blow up the volcano, probably blot out the sun for years, and decimate the land...so that he and all those orcs could live happily ever after? That is what he claims at least.

[Affogato]

48 minutes ago, tv-talk said:

The flow into the volcano was done by Adar's crew- that was the ditches they had the elves and other captors digging. His plan all along was to blow up the volcano, probably blot out the sun for years, and decimate the land...so that he and all those orcs could live happily ever after? That is what he claims at least.

He does talk about when it is done he will no longer feel the sun and that he will miss it.

1 hour ago, Anduin said:

Update to a previous comment: I went back and checked out the Moria scene. Turns out that while Gandalf has a glow around him, it isn't the forcefield I remember. The memory cheats.

So my guess for the next ep, the volcano will have exhausted its strength by the time it reaches the village. A real cloud of ash and smoke, but not a killer. There are four characters we know survive. Unless those humans are a little far away and Galadriel does have magical protection, we aren't getting a large death toll.

Nuclear winter, though. Famine, etc.

[tv-talk]

2 minutes ago, Affogato said:

So my guess for the next ep, the volcano will have exhausted its strength by the time it reaches the village. A real cloud of ash and smoke, but not a killer. There are four characters we know survive. Unless those humans are a little far away and Galadriel does have magical protection, we aren't getting a large death toll.

They would all be dead, most definitely Galadrial too. The way they had everyone scrambling and her just standing there like she is invincible is more horrible writing for her character. Writing her as CaptMarvel with PTSD was a big mistake. She came off like an Aryan sociopath bent on eugenics when she was telling Adar about wiping his kind off the face the planet. Actually felt sympathy for him! Wasnt he created by something else? Can you blame him for what he is, really? Idk, if they want to put a big twist into the story (given they arent beholden to the books) I would make Sauron's ultimate rise squarely her fault. Then you make that horrifying mistake be  the thing that completely changes her outlook and behavior, allows for her to become the Galadrial we know many centuries later.

[Affogato]

23 minutes ago, tv-talk said:

They would all be dead, most definitely Galadrial too. The way they had everyone scrambling and her just standing there like she is invincible is more horrible writing for her character. Writing her as CaptMarvel with PTSD was a big mistake. She came off like an Aryan sociopath bent on eugenics when she was telling Adar about wiping his kind off the face the planet. Actually felt sympathy for him! Wasnt he created by something else? Can you blame him for what he is, really? Idk, if they want to put a big twist into the story (given they arent beholden to the books) I would make Sauron's ultimate rise squarely her fault. Then you make that horrifying mistake be  the thing that completely changes her outlook and behavior, allows for her to become the Galadrial we know many centuries later.

I think there was one of those quoting glitches where you aren't answering something I said, but something I quoted. That said, I'm pretty sure we can blame Adar for what he is, even if he threw in his lot with an even greater evil.  I also don't see how, looking at the text, you can blame Satan's desire to create hell on earth on Galadriel, even if you think she has stirred up the occasional pot of minions.

[tv-talk]

Adar was captured by Morgoth and transformed into what he is now. If a human is experimented on and turned into an orc, nobody would blame the human for what they did next. For whatever reason, the show decided to depict Adar as this leader or Orcs who just wants a place for them to live. In peace? I dont know, that seems absurd, but it IS the way the show has written it. His plan was pretty clearly to wipe the humans out of the area while blotting out the sun in the area so the orcs would no longer have to hide and could live above ground where humans had been. Is that really so bad? Really? He even claims to have killed Sauron! Idk, to me they managed to make him seem sympathetic when Galadrial was promising to enact a genocide against him and his followers.

13 minutes ago, Affogato said:

I also don't see how, looking at the text, you can blame Satan's desire to create hell on earth on Galadriel, even if you think she has stirred up the occasional pot of minions.

Well first of all, I did say "give they arent beholden to the books" meaning that the writers can do what they want. What I was suggesting was having Galadrial's ptsd driven rage and obsession result in her unwittingly causing Sauron's ultimate rise, perhaps through an action she takes on her own that others advised against. That would be perfectly fitting for her headstrong character other than the fact she'd have had to have made a mistake whereas the show seems to want her to be infallible as well as invulnerable.