The Rings Of Power is really good (The Lord Of The Rings) @O_I

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Niemand
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Re: The Rings Of Power is really good (The Lord Of The Rings) @O_I

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oneClimbs wrote: September 26th, 2022, 12:45 am Thus far, I’ve enjoyed the show. I get some of the criticism, but overall I think the characters are interesting and the cinematography is really well executed.

Galadriel does come off abrasive but what is interesting is that nobody in her world likes her either because of it! She pretty much rubs everyone the wrong way.

But she does get knocked down a few notches and has to start relying on others and listening to them to accomplish her aims.

So she does have somewhat of an arc but also she’s lived for thousands of years so she’s gained skills and knowledge which makes her formidable but they really skim over that growth pretty fast so we don’t really get a chance to see that arc. We kind of fast forward to where she has risen to a high level of achievement.

So really the only thing that makes sense is to knock her down a few notches which is what happens. I think if they keep knocking her down far more that would make the story more interesting. People could relate to her and cheer for her but she needs to achieve that underdog status. Maybe she will.

I’m interested to see what they do with the characters.

The fact that they’ve introduced other ethnicities doesn’t bother me. It may not be “cannon” but I think it makes the characters more distinctive and easier to all tell apart.

It think it would make more sense to have the tribes be more homogeneous. Like it would have made more sense for the Harfoots all one ethnicity; make ‘em all “black.” I don’t see how it makes sense to have such a variety of ethnicities in such small tribes.

A whole nation of “black” elves, why not? We have multiple ethnicities all over earth, why not middle earth?

But still, that’s something I could really care less about.

I do think that they did this on purpose to intentionally create and fuel controversy to drive discussion. Disney does this too and it is all a pretty disgusting way to push views and such.
This would have made more sense. They are using the mixture in modern western societies as a template for other things. For example, the Dwarves and Numenór have visible multiculturalism (for want of a better word)... in reality, the various elements of such societies would have blended together over vast eons of time, each of the groups would have interbred. The only way round that would be a strict caste system, but none of these societies seem to have that.

The BBC did an adaptation of His Dark Materials recently and had similar issues. The sad thing was that the casting had been done by quotas. It was as if someone had said every tenth character had to be black. Which knowing BBC bureaucracy they probably did. And even though the UK has significant long established Indian & Pakistani communities, and Chinese, there were little to no characters of South or East Asian appearance. Instead it was nearly all white and black. Weird.

ROP has one notable character of east Asian appearance in it (the human who goes back to the village), but this is all very odd... if they're going to run with this thing, mankind has at least three or four different main types, and the Chinese and Indians by themselves make up nearly half the human race.

And then if anyone criticises it – and there are legitimate criticisms – they blame racism and sexism and censor reviews. Typical big tech.

They may wish to avoid ethnic stereotyping, but they seem more than happy to do that as regards Scottish and Irish people. The dwarves are dumpy wee things with horrible fake Scottish accents and red beards, and the dreadful Harfoots are quasi-Irish who look like they never wash and are not very bright (another Irish stereotype.)

As for the canon thing... I'm not against some changes, but this is all over the place as regards Tolkien. I wish sometimes they'd do their own thing anew instead of leeching off another like this or Star Wars. At least Game of Thrones, daft pornography aside, is its own thing and doesn't pretend to be Tolkien. GoT has much more rounder female characters than JRRT does for one.

Sorry excuse the long post...

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A lot of the reviews on YouTube are just people who make a living now off of complaining about shows or movies. Started with Star Wars final trilogy, definitely a train wreck. Rolled on to the new Marvel movies, which have been crap. Now for clicks they must review every episode of Rings of Power and tell people. "Ehrr my gawd, this is so bad and woke! Doogie Elrond is so gay. Come back tomorrow for my recap about how bad the Pinocchio live action movie is, don't forget to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications. And as always, I'll be back again next week to review episode 7, to tell you how bad that was.". The sport of disliking something becomes the entertainment unto itself.

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Lexew1899 wrote: September 26th, 2022, 4:00 am A lot of the reviews on YouTube are just people who make a living now off of complaining about shows or movies. Started with Star Wars final trilogy, definitely a train wreck. Rolled on to the new Marvel movies, which have been crap. Now for clicks they must review every episode of Rings of Power and tell people. "Ehrr my gawd, this is so bad and woke! Doogie Elrond is so gay. Come back tomorrow for my recap about how bad the Pinocchio live action movie is, don't forget to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications. And as always, I'll be back again next week to review episode 7, to tell you how bad that was.". The sport of disliking something becomes the entertainment unto itself.
A market place of recreational offense

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They're not wrong, though.

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marc wrote: September 26th, 2022, 7:16 am They're not wrong, though.
Sometimes the criticism is justified. Other times its a 15 minute soliloquy about how triggered they were because they didn't like a trailer. If they are actually that offended, they are becoming the woke garbage they claim to be rallying against.

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Lexew1899 wrote: September 26th, 2022, 8:16 am
marc wrote: September 26th, 2022, 7:16 am They're not wrong, though.
Sometimes the criticism is justified. Other times its a 15 minute soliloquy about how triggered they were because they didn't like a trailer. If they are actually that offended, they are becoming the woke garbage they claim to be rallying against.
Kind of like this... But first, here's my ad for hogwash and VPNs...

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I have read the books. I love the LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy. I have watched two episodes of this series. It was ok. And just ok isn't good enough to keep me watching. The dialogue is stilted at parts and things are not explained well. And this is from someone who knows the lore.

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I just can't do it until feminism and racial quotas are done away with. No cable, no Netflix, no Amazon Prime video, no Disney+, no Paramount, none of it. I gave Star Trek Picard a chance and it failed miserably. I tried Disney's Star Wars fanfiction and it was pinpoint antithetical to everything positive about Star Wars. No more. If Square Enix produced a live-action Final Fantasy VII tie-in series that was said to be guilty of any of it, I wouldn't even give it a try.

That said, I do consider creator's opinion valuable. I'm slightly interested in what symbolism he speaks of that he enjoys regarding the characters.

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Lexew1899 wrote: September 26th, 2022, 8:16 am
marc wrote: September 26th, 2022, 7:16 am They're not wrong, though.
Sometimes the criticism is justified. Other times its a 15 minute soliloquy about how triggered they were because they didn't like a trailer. If they are actually that offended, they are becoming the woke garbage they claim to be rallying against.
Sometimes I just want to relax and be entertained (in between all of the serious stuff like family, work, gospel, liberty, etc.). I don't necessarily care about picking things apart to critique. If it keeps my interest and entertains me, that's enough. If I find some interesting symbolism or any actual moral lesson learned from it, even better (that's obviously more and more rare these days).

I do try not to get too involved in entertainment, especially with how bad hollywood is, but sometimes it's just nice to relax.

#BreadAndCircuses

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Lexew1899 wrote: September 26th, 2022, 4:00 am A lot of the reviews on YouTube are just people who make a living now off of complaining about shows or movies. Started with Star Wars final trilogy, definitely a train wreck. Rolled on to the new Marvel movies, which have been crap. Now for clicks they must review every episode of Rings of Power and tell people. "Ehrr my gawd, this is so bad and woke! Doogie Elrond is so gay. Come back tomorrow for my recap about how bad the Pinocchio live action movie is, don't forget to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications. And as always, I'll be back again next week to review episode 7, to tell you how bad that was.". The sport of disliking something becomes the entertainment unto itself.
Well, easy pickings then considering these productions are designed to provoke controversy, and are only using the source material as a means to generate profit... without considering their philosophical and cultural implications.

An unkind person might spot that there are more parallels between Sauron and Amazon, even down to the last syllable of their name... than between the good guys and Amazon. After all Amazon seeks total power over the land, and wants to know everything about everyone with its all seeing eyes and ears. So any such project subconsciously takes Amazauron's POV. 😆

There are A LOT of problems with Rings of Power. It falls into all the fashionable traps of today. In this situation, Amazon Prime is behaving like the nouveau riche, thinking that throwing lots of money at a project will make it good. Instead you can end up with something that looks extravagant yet vulgar. You need a lot more than that and you need to have the right people to steer it. In this case, two major problems are that a) those responsible have little feel or sympathy for Tolkien's works, and b) many of them are inexperienced and it shows.

A lot of people love Tolkien and a lot don't know him. Who this is for is unclear. The Tolkien fans are mostly pissed off, but the newbies are often bewildered by bad storytelling.

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Niemand wrote: September 26th, 2022, 4:30 pm
Lexew1899 wrote: September 26th, 2022, 4:00 am A lot of the reviews on YouTube are just people who make a living now off of complaining about shows or movies. Started with Star Wars final trilogy, definitely a train wreck. Rolled on to the new Marvel movies, which have been crap. Now for clicks they must review every episode of Rings of Power and tell people. "Ehrr my gawd, this is so bad and woke! Doogie Elrond is so gay. Come back tomorrow for my recap about how bad the Pinocchio live action movie is, don't forget to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications. And as always, I'll be back again next week to review episode 7, to tell you how bad that was.". The sport of disliking something becomes the entertainment unto itself.
Well, easy pickings then considering these productions are designed to provoke controversy, and are only using the source material as a means to generate profit... without considering their philosophical and cultural implications.

An unkind person might spot that there are more parallels between Sauron and Amazon, even down to the last syllable of their name... than between the good guys and Amazon. After all Amazon seeks total power over the land, and wants to know everything about everyone with its all seeing eyes and ears. So any such project subconsciously takes Amazauron's POV. 😆

There are A LOT of problems with Rings of Power. It falls into all the fashionable traps of today. In this situation, Amazon Prime is behaving like the nouveau riche, thinking that throwing lots of money at a project will make it good. Instead you can end up with something that looks extravagant yet vulgar. You need a lot more than that and you need to have the right people to steer it. In this case, two major problems are that a) those responsible have little feel or sympathy for Tolkien's works, and b) many of them are inexperienced and it shows.

A lot of people love Tolkien and a lot don't know him. Who this is for is unclear. The Tolkien fans are mostly pissed off, but the newbies are often bewildered by bad storytelling.
Yeah, they probably intend to make money from it. Most movies and shows do that. Tolkien isn’t scripture or anything, he even said himself he hates when people try to make more out of his story, than just being a good story. Here’s a great interview where the interviewer tries to bend over backwards to get Tolkien to say it’s an allegory, it’s symbolic of xyz, you’re trying to say something profound, and Tolkien’s basically like, I wrote it to be an entertaining story.
It’s not like I think it’s the best show of all time. It’s just not that bad. I’m sure if Jurrasic Park came out today people would be like, OmG, shiver, did you hear what Jeff Goldbloom said on Twitter? Boycott.

It’s just stupid at this point.

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I don't care for it because I am tired of every myth and story from western culture being rewritten through a multi-cultural and diversity lens. They are doing this in a very systematic way, and the long term result is an implosion of the values, principles, and ideas that have allowed underpin the constitution and natural rights.

I realize that Amazon wants to make money with this. But the people writing and producing the show are making sure that their values and virtues will now dominate those Tolkien wished to express. Where they align, you will find things you like. But where they are opposed, you will not see western values represented, but find them replaced with a progressive rewrite.

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Lexew1899 wrote: September 26th, 2022, 5:18 pm Yeah, they probably intend to make money from it. Most movies and shows do that. Tolkien isn’t scripture or anything, he even said himself he hates when people try to make more out of his story, than just being a good story. Here’s a great interview where the interviewer tries to bend over backwards to get Tolkien to say it’s an allegory, it’s symbolic of xyz, you’re trying to say something profound, and Tolkien’s basically like, I wrote it to be an entertaining story.
It’s not like I think it’s the best show of all time. It’s just not that bad. I’m sure if Jurrasic Park came out today people would be like, OmG, shiver, did you hear what Jeff Goldbloom said on Twitter? Boycott.

It’s just stupid at this point.
Tolkien used to tell C.S. Lewis off for writing allegory... and claimed he was against it yet he used to write it all the time unconsciously.

There comes a point when something is so far removed from the source material that one wonders why they bothered naming something after it. The Rings of Power is riding on Tolkien's coat tails, but it is based more on Peter Jackson's films than it is on Tolkien. It does a hundred things which are nothing like Tolkien. Tolkien's cultures have a massive depth to them, with their own distinct languages etc — no sense of that in RoP.

On the money thing... some people are saying this thing is a massive tax write off, or a form of money laundering for Amazon. A sort of real life analogy to Springtime for Hitler in the Producers.

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.The meat line is real. :D
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creator wrote: September 24th, 2022, 2:52 pm I keep seeing that some (many?) Lord of the Rings fans don't like The Rings of Power show but I'm really enjoying it. And I appreciate the symbolism found in the characters/lore.

I've never read any of the LotR books but am somewhat familiar with the mythology/history that Tolkien based his characters on.


@Original_Intent (and others), why don't you like it?

(¬‿¬)
I watched the first episode and actually really enjoyed it. I'll likely watch the rest of em 👍 I also can appreciate what I view as symbolism in the show. And the things folks seem to NOT like about it don't really bother me about the show. I can understand why folks wouldn't like those things, but for me they just don't factor into the entertainment equation on this one.

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Cruiserdude wrote: September 28th, 2022, 8:40 am I watched the first episode and actually really enjoyed it. I'll likely watch the rest of em 👍 I also can appreciate what I view as symbolism in the show. And the things folks seem to NOT like about it don't really bother me about the show. I can understand why folks wouldn't like those things, but for me they just don't factor into the entertainment equation on this one.
There are numerous issues like jumping off a ship mid ocean. Not a good idea.
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Niemand wrote: September 28th, 2022, 9:57 am
Cruiserdude wrote: September 28th, 2022, 8:40 am I watched the first episode and actually really enjoyed it. I'll likely watch the rest of em 👍 I also can appreciate what I view as symbolism in the show. And the things folks seem to NOT like about it don't really bother me about the show. I can understand why folks wouldn't like those things, but for me they just don't factor into the entertainment equation on this one.
There are numerous issues like jumping off a ship mid ocean. Not a good idea.
Hermano, I'll admit right off the bat that I am NOT a good critic.
Don't judge me too harshly, I even found the Hobbit movies entertaining.
I think it mostly stems from not really having any expectations that can be disappointed as I haven't read the books.... and when it comes to entertainment, I'm easily entertained.
Don't judge me bro! 😉😁

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Cruiserdude wrote: September 28th, 2022, 10:06 am
Niemand wrote: September 28th, 2022, 9:57 am
Cruiserdude wrote: September 28th, 2022, 8:40 am I watched the first episode and actually really enjoyed it. I'll likely watch the rest of em 👍 I also can appreciate what I view as symbolism in the show. And the things folks seem to NOT like about it don't really bother me about the show. I can understand why folks wouldn't like those things, but for me they just don't factor into the entertainment equation on this one.
There are numerous issues like jumping off a ship mid ocean. Not a good idea.
Hermano, I'll admit right off the bat that I am NOT a good critic.
Don't judge me too harshly, I even found the Hobbit movies entertaining.
I think it mostly stems from not really having any expectations that can be disappointed as I haven't read the books.... and when it comes to entertainment, I'm easily entertained.
Don't judge me bro! 😉😁
I'm a fan of the Ralph Bakshi version of forty odd years ago. It has its faults, and some of it now looks dated, but I have a soft spot for it. I'm in a minority with that one. (I didn't mind the Hobbit films too much but they were stretched a bit thin)

https://screenrant.com/ralph-bakshi-lor ... -good-bad/

The Shire
Image

It depicted evil well – the Ringwraiths (Jackson reused some of the storyboarding here)
Image

And my favourite version of the Orcs.... who often act like brainless street thugs more than Jackson's ant armies.
Image

I think the problem with ROP is that it pisses off most hardcore fans in a way Jackson didn't. (I am a Tolkien fan but apart from the Silmarillion last year... the last time I sat down and read LOTR was while Reagan, Gorbachev and Thatcher were in power. So I know it but not to an obsessive level.) The other problem is that I think the plot would be confusing to many people. You're not coming to it blind because you've seen the Jackson films...but a newby? Who knows?

Since I'm going to be writing a chapter of a book on LOTR soon, I'll have to go back to it soon. RoP doesn't really belong in Tolkien territory – the folk in charge of the project neither know nor seemingly like him.

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I like it more than I thought, though it's still not that great a show. The writing is terrible. Some of the lore is off, some I don't like, though I am ok with some of the lore being off. Having a film adaptation of an index that spans thousands of years will necessitate some lore-breaking. There is some wokeness and diversity that was plainly forced for no reason other than to be woke.

The glaring issue is that none of the characters have much growth. They aren't progressing any, so I can't name anyone I am actively rooting or caring for.

Galadriel is awful. Another Mary Sue. She has no real motive, other than some revenge for a nameless brother. A character assassination for the actual character. Her relationship with the Queen Regent doesn't make sense. Great hate, then suddenly the Queen Regent does what Galadriel wants?

The Harfoots are a little boring. Not-Frodo and Not-Samwise are forgettable. They should also all be darker skinned.

Don't care about the elf/dwarf relationship much.

Don't care about Isildur much (way out of the timeline of lore, iirc). His father, Elendil I enjoy.

The rating goes up a little if you don't think of it as a Middle Earth Tolkien story.
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The ESG casting requirements of idiot hollywoke "entertainment" companies are ignorant of history and human societies or worldbuilding. They assume the same situations people find themselves in today are similar to hundreds of years ago. They are clearly not. The writers are bunch of urban millenials who could not be bothered to read some history or even the vast amount of source material. If you really want to have characters who are multiple ethnicities, don't adapt stories set entirely in midieval worlds where they don't exist. Most primitive societies were very similar in ethnicity and were usually extended families. If you set a story in a primitive tehcnology level, you have to provide the reason why these people who look radically different and who have radically different cultures and were adapted to different parts of the world get together. You can do it, but you will need to have them start out in a metropolitan trade city where lots of different cultures mix and interact. You have to provide them a reason why they are getting together. None of these things are present in Middle Earth. These are all closed societies.
If they read the SOURCE MATERIAL, they would know these facts:
Numenor, until they decided to try conquering some parts of middle earth, was very insular, and the people were physically different than other humans on middle-earth (much taller and lived for 2-3 hundred years!). They were powerful, terrifying fighters that scared Sauron's armies. This was essentially Tolkien's "Atlantis" before being destroyed for their hubris and Sauron's corruptive influence. They had a high level of advanced magical technology that was jealously guarded (they have the Palantiri and other artifacts). They are described as being decended from one of three families, two of which were pale and blond, one of which was pale and dark haired.

Harfoots are essentially a large extended family of hobbits. They would ALL LOOK THE SAME. So if they were going to be dark skinned, all of them would be.

Elves are immortal beings from the same small family, from the same island (Valinor) who reproduce very slowly and have no kin who lived or adapted to the southlands since they are immortal, unchanging creatures! They would all look the same. Since they are immortal creatures they would have a very unified society with very few cultural differences among them.

Dwarves were created out the rock by Uru as one family. They would all look the same and would not have different racial identities. Nor would it make sense for a people who were adapted to living underground have a large amount of melanin in their skin. Like other northern peoples they would be pale to absorb every bit of Vitamin D they they could get when the opportunitiy arises.

If you want a mixed race fantasy story, go adapt one. There are many many many written in the last 20 years to choose from. I can even reccomend one. The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes. It's set in an urban metropolitan republic. Roughly 1920's tech but using magic. Stop trying to shoe horn your woke ideas into stories like LoTR where they dont make any sense, hollywoke.

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Rings of Power has inadvertently turned the villains into heroes, by giving them better motivations and justifications than the heroes. The Orcs have been given light skins in this portrayal and are shown to be easily burnt by the sun. Their allies are pale, white men. But the writers have (un)wittingly linked them to black people now.

I also can't help wondering whether by trying to make the Orcs sympathetic, the creators haven't exposed a few unconscious racist traits of their own. They may have colour blind casting, but drawing parallels between Orcs and black people is not a good choice. Orcs are pretty repulsive sun-shy creatures with no redeeming features.

In my view, the Orcs represent Industrialised, mechanised humanity as opposed to the more earthy hobbits, or artistic elves, or hardworking dwarves. Not a racial stereotype, but a critique of dehumanisation and authoritarianism.

https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/t ... ority.html
The sixth episode of the series, “Udûn” has now raised what will no doubt be a contentious question: are Orcs an oppressed minority?
This most recent episode of The Rings of Power finally shed some Goblin-burning light on a number of matters that fans had been debating, most importantly, the nature of Adar, the apparent leader of the Orcs in the Second Age. While The Rings of Power did not go so far as to reveal whatever former identity Adar (portrayed by British actor Joseph Mawle in a standout performance) had, it confirmed fan theories that he was an ancient Elf who had tortured and transformed by the original Dark Lord Morgoth into the first Orc (or at least, one of the first). As of right now in The Rings of Power, it appears he perceives himself as the protector of Orckind, who in his view has been brutalized by literally everyone.
But what The Rings of Power presupposes is, what if they are not? Specifically, what if Orcs had their own inner lives and did not deserve to be fodder in anyone’s war. As Adar (whose name means “father” in the Elvish language of Sindarin and is treated as such by the Orcs) tells Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), he grew tired of Sauron’s relentless torture of his “children” in pursuit of power, and slew the Dark Lord. To hear Adar tell it, the Orcs are treated as disposable minions as much by the forces of evil as they are by the side of good.
Thusly, Orcs may have been created for dark ends, but they ultimately derive from the same universal creation story of Tolkien’s Silmarillion (which Adar obliquely references in The Rings of Power). They were born into bondage (whether by biological or other means, Tolkien variously gave contradictory origins) and spend their lives being faced with death on both sides of the moral divide. Why should Adar not want to give them a better life and their own safe space?
This is complicated by the fact that even in The Rings of Power, there is no indication of any redeeming virtue in Orcs or a sign that they could act except in the nature that Morgoth twisted them into. Tolkien described Orcs as being rational beings (that is, not mindless automatons or non-sentient animals) and it is clear they have some elements of culture, such as languages and clan loyalties. But does that make them different from how they are perceived by Elves and Mankind?
At the end of “Udûn,” Adar has activated some kind of ancient engineering system that creates a massive volcano (most likely Mount Doom). It is now clear that The Rings of Power is depicting the creation of Mordor and some fans have theorized that the resulting cloud of ash is an intentional protective shield over the sun-averse Orcs. Adar is trying to create a homeland for his people, who he sees as tormented from every side.

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abijah
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Re: The Rings Of Power is really good (The Lord Of The Rings) @O_I

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Niemand wrote: October 5th, 2022, 6:56 am Rings of Power has inadvertently turned the villains into heroes
sweet summer child.. :P

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