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The Rings of Power - Discussion
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To some degree the fawning over feudalism is something I accept as a genre convention within fantasy. I won’t say it doesn’t bother me, it’s one of the things that makes me not entirely engage with the genre, but I kind of accept it going in. For all the things I dislike about A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin does undercut this in interesting ways at various points (and was quickly followed by a legion of imitators who did it less well, just like Tolkien).
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@Third-Eye I really wish that more governmental systems were explored in fantasy rather than strong-state hereditary feudalism, especially the kind that tends to downplay or eliminate the role of guilds, militaries, and cities. There were so many interesting possibilities even around the same time period that most of these fantasies draw from, and if you’re adding magic, then things should be different!
Which is not as relevant to a Tolkien adaptation, but still.
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@Pyrephox said in The Rings of Power - Discussion:
@Third-Eye I really wish that more governmental systems were explored in fantasy rather than strong-state hereditary feudalism, especially the kind that tends to downplay or eliminate the role of guilds, militaries, and cities. There were so many interesting possibilities even around the same time period that most of these fantasies draw from, and if you’re adding magic, then things should be different!
Which is not as relevant to a Tolkien adaptation, but still.
I think Sauron starts a jeweller’s guild at some point, and I’m looking forward to seeing the Apprentice style politics of Celebrimbor’s inexplicable mad scientist energy trying to get them all in line.
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@Wizz said in The Rings of Power - Discussion:
I hate when people and publications act like there’s some sort of rivalry between this and GoT or like you have to choose one over the other or whatever because that is just endlessly dumb, but I do think in this one area you could actually make the case that GoT is the better series in that on the whole it doesn’t mimic Tolkien’s weird glazed-eye fawning over feudalism like so many other fantasy series and presents it at least fairly realisticly as deeply flawed and problematic instead.
Even though I agree, I think there are two important caveats here.
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Tolkien specifically and intentionally created a world, and its stories, based on myth and legend rather than realism. He drew his inspiration heavily from great epic poems of the past which showcased outdated ideals - even for his own time.
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George Martin - and he says this himself - got to draw and write based on what other authors before him had created. For example his famous question (“Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?”) takes ‘advantage’ of the fact Middle Earth exists in the zeitgeist. When Tolkien wrote his own books there was much less he got to build on top of; he was the pioneer. Of course newer works will be rich in different aspects.
What’s interesting though is TV shows and movies shape culture much more than books can - they simply expose a greater audience to the material. In a way I’d argue, for many people, Rings of Power will become the default baseline for the Second Age than the Silmarillion ever could.
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@Arkandel said in The Rings of Power - Discussion:
Tolkien specifically and intentionally created a world, and its stories, based on myth and legend rather than realism. He drew his inspiration heavily from great epic poems of the past which showcased outdated ideals - even for his own time.
And he did this in part because he deeply despised modernism and everything that came with it, and longed for an idyllic, imaginary past. We all know he had his reasons, but there’s no real caveat there that I can see – he wrote the fantasy as much for himself as for us, an idealized feudal world, as if feudalism isn’t intrinsically awful no matter how you portray it.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love Tolkien and his works, he is undeniably one of the most influential authors of the 20th century and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I just also really dislike that particular aspect of what he wrote and think fantasy as a genre is better off without it.
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Tolkien was a weird and complicated man. I imagine that you have to be very weird and complicated to conjure up a fantasy world as extensive as his, when in your real world, such works are viewed as entirely the purview of little children.
Politically speaking he identified as a “philosophical anarchist”, but he was also explicitly a monarchist. This makes him the only public figure I can name from history who could be described as an anarcho-monarchist, which I would otherwise believe to be purely an internet meme, because it intuitively sounds so oxymoronic. As a catholic he believed in the divine right of kings, and that the strife-filled world he lived in would be better and happier if instead of small mortal men leading others to their death in cruel and unjust wars, all people were “free” under the unified banner of a pure and just messenger of God. Service to any master other than God is unnatural, immoral and unjust. I don’t share this view at all, but I do find it entirely fascinating.
Here is one quote:
“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … The most improper job of any man … is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
I enjoy reminding/informing people of Tolkien’s anarchism because, aside from neatly bringing together two of my biggest passions, the “reject modernity, embrace tradition” facet of his personality has the unfortunate side-effect of drawing in a large subset of fans whom I suspect Tolkien himself would want nothing to do with, and harshly rebuke if he ever encountered. Fans like this one, to whom he responded following an inquiry as to his “aryan” heritage. And fans like the ones whose inane diatribes I’m sure we’ve all been unable to escape on any app/website that provides recommended links to the talk of the day, ever since the first promotional materials for Rings of Power have been published, featuring women in armour and anyone with evidence of melanin in their skintone. It’s a very entertaining way to make their heads explode.
I really enjoyed the recent episode, and especially the Galadriel swordfighting scene. I enjoyed it all the more imagining the amount of butthurt it must have caused to triggered boys on Twitter. I don’t think this is Galadriel as we know her, and I have ample criticisms of my own for the show, which I feel frustrated at being unable to express without presenting myself as a homing beacon for those other fans to glom onto. But I’m actually glad with a number of changes (and even ordinary casting decisions, like brown Harfoots who are supposed to be brown) that are alienating long-term fans, because frankly I don’t want to share a fandom with them anymore.
I think that to their credit — and I don’t give Amazon credit often — the makers of this show know what they’re doing and who they’re annoying, and are consciously doubling down. I just can’t picture that the Galadriel scene was filmed without everyone involved knowing exactly how it’d go down in the public eye. And, good. More of this, please. More doubling down, fewer concessions.
Regarding Halbrand, I think this fan-theory might be an interesting twist/subversion of the whole “feudalism is good actually” narrative, if it proves to be correct. Potential spoilers, though. (I think that even without clicking the link, mouseover to view the URL says enough.)
Sidebar, I really love all the bestfriendships on this show, and this is something I like about House of the Dragon too. Romantic couples are boring. Laenor + Rhaenyra, Nori + Stranger, Durin + Elrond are all my OTP. (One True Platonic.)
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@Kestrel said in The Rings of Power - Discussion:
Sidebar, I really love all the bestfriendships on this show, and this is something I like about House of the Dragon too. Romantic couples are boring. Laenor + Rhaenyra, Nori + Stranger, Durin + Elrond are all my OTP. (One True Platonic.)
I think that the world could use more stories that incorporate non-romantic relationships. Tolkien was really, REALLY good at incorporating them into his own works, and I’m glad that Rings of Power is showing that at least a little.
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@Kestrel said in The Rings of Power - Discussion:
Sidebar, I really love all the bestfriendships on this show, and this is something I like about House of the Dragon too. Romantic couples are boring. Laenor + Rhaenyra, Nori + Stranger, Durin + Elrond are all my OTP. (One True Platonic.)
I admit in the context of a TV show I’m not that much into the Harfoot storyline since it seems to be dragging its feet at least until they reveal who/what the Stranger is. It’s just a bit too disconnected from the overall story so far for my tastes. But the impact ‘common people’ have on the world is profoundly thematic, and I’m curious to see how it unfolds.
Just get on with it, dammit.
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Episode 6 was the best one so far.
If they are doing what I think they are with Sauron it might a much more interesting, nuanced take on the character than I thought they would.
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@Arkandel said in The Rings of Power - Discussion:
Episode 6 was the best one so far.
If they are doing what I think they are with Sauron it might a much more interesting, nuanced take on the character than I thought they would.
As someone who has not read the books but has somehow managed to absorb far more information about Tolkien’s universe than you would assume someone who has never read the books would be familiar with…
…I blame nerd osmosis, just like how I could quote "Monty Python and the Holy Grail before I ever saw the movie…
I actually really like what they’re doing with the foundation of Mordor as a long-desired homeland for the tortured creatures that Morgoth created. I mean, yes, orcs (uruk!) are definitely still violent, murderous, and cruel, but there’s sound reason behind their motivation beyond just the ontological cycle of:
“They’re evil!”
“Okay, but why?”
“Because they were made to be evil!”
“Yeah, but what was the reason for making this whole race of universally evil creature?”
“Because the god that made them was evil!”Especially when compared against the elves, whose defining characteristic seems to be “We are pure and good and better than you at everything, including morality, no matter how much we act like dicks.”
Now, please note that I’m not saying I dislike Tolkien or that I don’t recognize that the man essentially laid the foundation for a solid 50% of the media I consume and at least a quarter of my hobbies, but. Even he recognized some of these problems in his writing within his own lifetime and I’m happy to say that I feel like a century or so of letting the source material permeate the culture has resulted on improvements to some of the issues it contained.
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I found the explosive ending a little goofy, but like…nuanced take on the bad guys?? IN MY TOLKIEN??? Yes please. Very much looking forward to it, even if the payoff may not be all that profound.
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@Wizz I wish we had spoiler tags! Next week I’ll write about some parallels I really liked.
But two episodes to go. I expect there will be two reveals before the season ends; Sauron and the Stranger. I think by now the interwebs have cracked the latter open pretty much, as amusing as it is to speculate how everyone we meet might be him.
Including, apparently, most animals. After all he could take animal forms! Maybe Galadriel’s horse where she had that one goofy smile in that one weird scene was Sauron.
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@Wizz I’m starting to think the person I thought was Sauron is not Sauron after all.
Is Sauron the Enemy we made along the way?
Also I dearly hope we’re not heading into a really weird-ass love triangle down the line.
Also also come on, Rings of Power. We kinda know the person who’s supposed to be dead isn’t actually dead. If you’re going to fake a character’s demise at least don’t pick one of the Big Names.
… In fact two of them, if one only through exposition.
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@Arkandel said in The Rings of Power - Discussion:
Also I dearly hope we’re not heading into a really weird-ass love triangle down the line.
Also also come on, Rings of Power. We kinda know the person who’s supposed to be dead isn’t actually dead. If you’re going to fake a character’s demise at least don’t pick one of the Big Names.
… In fact two of them, if one only through exposition.
I will riot if Galadriel ends up with anyone other than
Tar-Míriel, played by the indomitable Cynthia Addai-Robinsonher trad husband Celeborn like the books intended. -
@Kestrel Okay, okay, okay.
What would cause the most internet outrage? Galadriel hooking up with a woman or with literally Sauron?
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I can’t be the only one getting a little bit of hey mama energy from her.
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A friend of mine is unhappy that Galadriel isn’t exactly as Tolkien wrote her in the books.
I told him that if they’re going to be making changes in the name of representation, then I would like them to address the distinct lack of lesbians in Middle-Earth with a bit of gayladriel.
