TV: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - Amazon Prime Series

[Jack Straw]

They have full rights to the Hobbit, LOTR, and the LOTR Appendices, so they do have rights to Gandalf. The Blue Wizards are also right in the appendices.

They have access to everything Gandalf says in the books so if they wanted to just parrot his lines onto another wizard, they can. They've done it so far, for example, the first line of the series "Nothing is evil in the beginning" said by Galadriel is actually said by Aragorn in the books.

Actually, it’s said by Elrond in the books. In the council at Rivendell.

 

[beowulf]

So looks more and more like Starfall guy is Gandalf even if they do not say it explicitly but his air smells better over here comment kinds of seals it I think....not a fan of them bringing him in way earlier than in Tolkien's works.

The Sauron reveal made some sense and they followed the idea of him tricking the elves into making rings but it was not exactly right which does suck. This season also ended with so many open questions, stuff that would have made sense to close up at least a little more.

I was reading that one of the show runners I think mentioned how the first season is like 1 long pilot for the show and things will be different going forward but I don't know.

 

[Tawnos]

*Except Elvish immortality isn't "manufactured" either. It's part of who they are, and it doesn't require them to be in Valinor (and the show's invention that it does is just silly). The reason that the men of Numenor sail West to Valinor is Sauron's manipulation. We already have hints of Al-Pharazon's position regarding the immortality of Elves in the show (even if half of it is the "Elves took errr jerbs!" bit, with the other hint being the Immortality in Stone comment from the finale) matching that of the books. He doesn't need some silly mithril-based plot contrivance.

*Gandalf's full quote is regarding all of his nicknames (actually Faramir quoting Gandalf) - "Many are my names in many countries. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkun to the Dwarves, Olorin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incanus, in the North Gandalf, to the East I go not." That's not a "I don't go there anymore" quote about the East, that's a "here are all the placed I have been and what they called me there" quote.

There are multiple statements regarding when the Blue Wizards arrive. I'm totally fine with the showrunners choosing the Second Age for a blue wizard. That would be adopting a storyline of which we know little, and contrasting even less. A perfect candidate for adaptation. Making the Stranger into Gandalf conflict much more directly, both with timelines, but also major plot points. As I've stated before, Gandalf being present in the second age would make the fact that he doesn't recognize the One Ring when Bilbo finds it utterly ridiculous.

*Except he wasn't helping them to win any manipulation contests. Nobody would have thought any less of Halbrand if he doesn't save Elendil in the heat of battle. Nobody in the entire world would have known that he didn't save Galadriel. In the case of Elendil, I highly doubt the show will ever even reference the fact that Sauron saved his life in that battle ever again.

*Then that's even sillier. If Mithril has that kind of power, why do they need to make three rings?

*Every part of the dispossessed king storyline was a tenuous stretch. The only indication we get in the first six episodes that the Southlanders are awaiting a king is a single throwaway line said to Arondir in the very first episode in the tavern. Other than that, they do nothing to set up that the Southlanders actually expect a King to return, that they know what that pouch or its symbol is, or why they would all immediately defer to him (even when proclaimed by Numenor). They wanted a "Return of the King" element, and shoe-horned this in.

*I didn't say their immortality was manufactured, I said the salvation or preservation of that immortality is manufactured... because it literally was. The elves weren't going to die anyway, they were going to need to leave Middle-Earth. The rot, or whatever you want to call it, was just a blunt metaphor for the reasons Tolkein gave for the creation of the three rings, which was weariness associated with the accumulation of regret, sadness, and the damage from experiencing evil.... a weariness that ultimately requires them to travel to Valinor. I'm not going to claim that was well-done, or even well-explained in the show. It wasn't. But the need to manufacture a way to preserve their ability to stay in Middle-Earth, and therefore remain "immortal," is something Tolkein established... and the three rings were how they did it. All I'm saying is that knowing how they preserved their immortality in Middle-Earth potentially gives a way for men to gain some knowledge about what makes it possible in the first place. For the elves, that outcome of being to stay in Middle-Earth is also why Galadriel is still willing to allow for it to happen, with her own twist, despite knowing their forging is a plot of Sauron's. Another piece not especially well-explained.

*I know what the full quote is, but I still don't think it necessarily implies that he never went to the East in his time. That's one possible interpretation, but another one is simply "I don't want to talk about the East."

*You may be right that it's never mentioned again, but I'm not going to predict what these writers will do. For now, Sauron's setting up pieces on the board. If he wants to set up Elendil for something later, it makes sense to save him now. We know Isuldur is corruptible on some level, and perhaps he sees the same in Elendil. There's still story to tell. To the point... saving Galadriel because he sees her as a potential partner is paid off in the finale. Letting her die wouldn't be the point, saving her in order to manipulate her to a place where she would be tempted to join him would be. Sauron, but more likely the people running the show, jumped the gun and did it too early IMO, though her discovery that the line was broken brought things to a head maybe earlier than he planned. And Sauron wanting a partner to begin with is... a stretch, to say the least... but that's where they went with it.

*Forging magical items is about a lot more than simply working with metal. Elven smithing is supposed to be partially enchantment, so it's not just the metal that goes into the forging of those rings. Plus, mythril is a magical substance, but as Halbrand points out, magical substances can be amplified by combining with others. Given how little they had, they *needed* that amplification. Though, I would never claim that some of what goes on between him and Celebrimbor is particularly believable either. I could come up with some stuff about it making sense that an elf, with ideals of purity, wouldn't think of creating an alloy because that would make the result "impure." That would provide a reason why Celebrimbor didn't think of it... but I'm not sure I would believe it while I said it.

*I thought the indication that they were waiting for their king was far more in Galadriel's knowledge they were waiting for their king. It's constantly there in her interactions with Halbrand. That's by proxy, for sure, but I never felt any doubt that they were.

 

[ChaoticOrange]

I think where I come down on that season is - I liked it, I thought it was good, but there were things I didn't like and wish some things were done differently. Between a 6 and a 7 / 10 for me.

Durin and Elrond's friendship was my favourite part of that season.

 

[tacogeoff]

wow just wow. i came in having criminally low expectations based on all the complaints and whining about the show and was blown away. easily an 8/10 for me for the first season. I ended up putting the house of dragons on the shelf to finish up this series instead. really well done.

 

[4thline]

wow just wow. i came in having criminally low expectations based on all the complaints and whining about the show and was blown away. easily an 8/10 for me for the first season. I ended up putting the house of dragons on the shelf to finish up this series instead. really well done.

Did you have any firm expectations/ prior knowledge of the canon material this series is based on?

I'm the exact opposite. I chose to do Rings of Power weekly, then switch to House of the Dragon afterwards. Rings of Power was fine(ish). I think I would like it a lot more if I didn't have a pretty clear idea of what "should" be happening, but as it was... I don't think I could have binged it, an episode a week was enough. Difference between a 6/10 and 8/10.

On the other hand, 4 eps of HoD last night, didn't want to stop. Much better adaptation of source material, much better execution.

 

[tacogeoff]

Did you have any firm expectations/ prior knowledge of the canon material this series is based on?

I'm the exact opposite. I chose to do Rings of Power weekly, then switch to House of the Dragon afterwards. Rings of Power was fine(ish). I think I would like it a lot more if I didn't have a pretty clear idea of what "should" be happening, but as it was... I don't think I could have binged it, an episode a week was enough. Difference between a 6/10 and 8/10.

On the other hand, 4 eps of HoD last night, didn't want to stop. Much better adaptation of source material, much better execution.

I have read all the loTr series, hobbit and simarillion books.....maybe about 12 years ago or so. I have not read the others though. So i guess i would have just the knowledge that these books have provided. So i am not grounded in the lore or should i say i am more flexible... in terms to where the story is heading and how it gets there?

I found the house of the dragon to be too predictable to my liking but with the RofP I found more interesting as I didn't dive back into the Middle Earth world before i watched it so it was a bit more engulfing of my attention.

 

[Blender]

Catching up here, but I'd give the season a 6.5-7/10 really. There was stuff I liked quite a bit and some of the new characters were quite interesting, and there were some big aspects I disliked. Overall the season was wildly inconsistent, which was the biggest problem.

Galadriel was also a terrible main character, and you can't have a show carried by a bad main character that works.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

Catching up here, but I'd give the season a 6.5-7/10 really. There was stuff I liked quite a bit and some of the new characters were quite interesting, and there were some big aspects I disliked. Overall the season was wildly inconsistent, which was the biggest problem.

Galadriel was also a terrible main character, and you can't have a show carried by a bad main character that works.

I think that it is mostly that the actress had not charisma/charm.

Elrond, in contrast, is not written to be much more interesting, yet, I think the actor does a great job making him sympathetic.

 

[Blender]

I think that it is mostly that the actress had not charisma/charm.

Elrond, in contrast, is not written to be much more interesting, yet, I think the actor does a great job making him sympathetic.

I thought Elrond was much better written. Galadriel was all over the place and often her actions did not fit who she was even supposed to be.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

I thought Elrond was much better written. Galadriel was all over the place and often her actions did not fit who she was even supposed to be.

He is better written, I agree, especially his relationship with Durin.

Galadriel had a lot of "potentially good" plot points, but, to me, the actress was so wooden that I did not care. Or maybe it is just that her arc is not really interesting so the performance seems worse than it really is.

 

[mcdraividmoto]

wow just wow. i came in having criminally low expectations based on all the complaints and whining about the show and was blown away. easily an 8/10 for me for the first season. I ended up putting the house of dragons on the shelf to finish up this series instead. really well done.

It’s fun reading the comments on this show versus HOTD. Any gripe in this show and everyone jumps all over it, but with HOTD when they have obvious major issues with their time jumps and character inconsistencies and it gets a pass.

My family and I (all Tolkien fans) have been watching both series and we’ve found RoP to be far more enjoyable with better overall writing and acting. I’m not looking for a word for word from the source material as that would be bland and wouldn’t translate well, but I’m looking for it to match the overall theme, which it has. I highly recommend watching the Rings and Realms analysis on YouTube as it shows a lot of the subtlety that seems to be getting missed by some.

Also, we have to remember there are 5 seasons and the writers have the whole thing planned out. So “this is dumb I can’t believe they didn’t show this” only works once the whole show is done.

 

[beowulf]

He is better written, I agree, especially his relationship with Durin.

Galadriel had a lot of "potentially good" plot points, but, to me, the actress was so wooden that I did not care. Or maybe it is just that her arc is not really interesting so the performance seems worse than it really is.

What is interesting with their friendship, Galadriel and Elrond, in the show so far is the huge age difference. Elrond was born towards the ear of the First age and is about 1500 years old at the time of the show. Galadriel on the other hand was born during the Years of the Trees and is about twice as old or about 3000 years!

 

[Ben Grimm]

1. Gandalf is an angel.
2. Viggo Mortenson was not the original Aragorn.

 

[hotcabbagesoup]

Some interesting quotes from the showrunners. Their justifications are disappointing. Seems like they are making decisions based on hitting a middle ground for fans rather than doing what's right. They remind me of D&D from GOT and I hate it so much.

-. -. -. -. -. -. -. -. -. -. -. -. -.

Source:

‘The Rings of Power’: The Showrunners Unpack That Twisty Finale (Published 2022)

Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne have had to thread a difficult needle, satisfying Tolkien die-hards and average viewers. The finale gave everyone plenty to mull.

www.nytimes.com

Winning over those average viewers wasn’t easy, though, said Patrick McKay, one of series’s two showrunners, in a group phone call on Wednesday. “It seems such a heavy lift to go, ‘No, you’ll understand; you don’t have to speak Elvish.’”

This week’s season finale neatly underscored the challenge: When Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), one of the apparent central heroes of the series thus far, was revealed to be the supervillain Sauron, it put to rest what, for many fans, had been a season-long guessing game. But how to make those big moments land on multiple levels, when much of the audience may not even have realized they were supposed to be guessing?

“It’s a question we’re still searching for the answer to,” said the series’s other showrunner, J.D. Payne, who was also on the phone call. “It’s something we’ve talked about a lot throughout the process.”
The solution has been to attempt to tell a story that allows both levels of fandom to meet in the middle, with clear emotional dynamics for everyone and extra lore for the hungry book readers. For example, the writers originally planned to have Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) pursue rumors about a possible successor to Morgoth, whose existence and identity was still unknown. But then McKay and Payne realized they could make Galadriel’s mission much more specific — and more emotional.
They worked backward to develop her personal stakes, tying Sauron to the death of her brother, Finrod.

“Even if you know nothing about Tolkien’s Legendarium, you can tell, ‘OK, this guy Sauron is bad news,’” Payne said. “And if you do know, you’ll be like, ‘Oh, Finrod was killed by werewolves that were controlled by Sauron.’”
Taking a break from production for Season 2 outside London, McKay and Payne discussed several revelations from the finale, including the big news about Sauron. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

​

As you know, there are multiple Saurons: Sauron who seeks redemption; Sauron the deceiver; Annatar, the lord of gifts. Which Sauron is this?

PATRICK McKAY Those are all ideas we talked about, the idea that he went through a period where he wanted redemption, the idea that he is a deceiver, in disguise, and an opportunist. Sauron might say to Galadriel: “Look, I was ready to walk away. You pulled me into this.” But if you look at the chain of events, he’s been greasing the wheels. He’s been encouraging her.
You could make a really good case that he was at a low point on that raft, and then the magic golden ticket showed up. He was playing hard to get. How many times does he say, “When are you going to get that army?” There’s a really good case to make where he was manipulating and deceiving her every step of the way.
To what extent is he an improviser, an opportunist, a master planner? The missing piece of this guy you’ve gotten to know as Halbrand, who has all of these qualities about him, is that he has another name, and it’s Sauron. And now everything you’ve learned about him means something a little different.
J.D. PAYNE A way we commonly talked about Sauron is that he’s a power addict. There’s a couple of ways we toy with his desire to go on the wagon, so to speak, to renounce power and seek healing. You can view his actions the way you view an addict’s actions because every step they take, they wonder, “Am I getting closer or further away from a fix?” They can always rationalize it: “Oh, I have control over this. I’m fine. I can go to that grocery store.” And the liquor is on Aisle 20. There’s always the addict in Sauron pushing him toward getting into places of power.


What is the nature of Sauron’s relationship with Adar (Joseph Mawle)? Was Adar’s story another lie?


McKAY: The whole idea of Season 1 being an origin story for Mordor, in a way, was one of the early ideas in the writers’ room that we all felt a lot of gravity pulling toward. There are core thematic ideas in the lore about destruction of the environment and evil rising and falling again. Mount Doom goes fallow and then awakens again. There is a cycle that plays out through the centuries. Dramatizing one of those reawakenings felt in harmony with canon to us and potentially delicious.
PAYNE: Adar co-opts the plan for his own purposes, but it still was, basically, Sauron’s plan. If one person designs the car, and the other person builds it, whose car is it? There are multiple ways to read that.
Sauron unlocks the dam, as they put it, with the mithril. How much manipulation happened behind the scenes?
McKAY: That’s an honest breakthrough. Celebrimbor [Charles Edwards] has an idea about creating things that are so beautiful, they could heal the world. On the other side of the map, Sauron is trying to build a power of the unseen world. It’s peanut butter and jelly.
Sauron is powerful, but he is not so powerful that he can engineer everything. We talked a lot about the idea of Steve Jobs over here, Bill Gates over there, and it’s not until the two come together with the right technology that this new power can be harnessed. Sauron needs Celebrimbor as much as Celebrimbor needs the right metal and Sauron’s inspiration for it to all come together.



Let’s talk about how mithril is supposed to cure the sudden fading of the elves, which has been a somewhat controversial addition.

McKAY: There’s this poetic idea in Tolkien about the fading of the elves, that elven immortality has a time limit. It felt important to us to turn up the heat on the frog in the pot, because part of what the rings do is halt this fading. So some of how we came to the mithril and a legend about how it might well actually have magic in it was all a way to wrestle with the canonical problem of elven fading, and how the rings stop it.
PAYNE: In terms of the time scale, the elves in the Third Age are getting ready to leave Middle-earth because whatever happens with the One Ring, their fate is sealed. Their rings become ineffective, or everybody is screwed. So what was the fading like right before the rings hit pause? They could have been in a desperate place.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Thought it was pretty good and got better as it went along. I have not read any books

 

[Jack Straw]

Some interesting quotes from the showrunners. Their justifications are disappointing. Seems like they are making decisions based on hitting a middle ground for fans rather than doing what's right. They remind me of D&D from GOT and I hate it so much.

-. -. -. -. -. -. -. -. -. -. -. -. -.

Source:

‘The Rings of Power’: The Showrunners Unpack That Twisty Finale (Published 2022)

Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne have had to thread a difficult needle, satisfying Tolkien die-hards and average viewers. The finale gave everyone plenty to mull.

www.nytimes.com

Winning over those average viewers wasn’t easy, though, said Patrick McKay, one of series’s two showrunners, in a group phone call on Wednesday. “It seems such a heavy lift to go, ‘No, you’ll understand; you don’t have to speak Elvish.’”

This week’s season finale neatly underscored the challenge: When Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), one of the apparent central heroes of the series thus far, was revealed to be the supervillain Sauron, it put to rest what, for many fans, had been a season-long guessing game. But how to make those big moments land on multiple levels, when much of the audience may not even have realized they were supposed to be guessing?

“It’s a question we’re still searching for the answer to,” said the series’s other showrunner, J.D. Payne, who was also on the phone call. “It’s something we’ve talked about a lot throughout the process.”
The solution has been to attempt to tell a story that allows both levels of fandom to meet in the middle, with clear emotional dynamics for everyone and extra lore for the hungry book readers. For example, the writers originally planned to have Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) pursue rumors about a possible successor to Morgoth, whose existence and identity was still unknown. But then McKay and Payne realized they could make Galadriel’s mission much more specific — and more emotional.
They worked backward to develop her personal stakes, tying Sauron to the death of her brother, Finrod.

“Even if you know nothing about Tolkien’s Legendarium, you can tell, ‘OK, this guy Sauron is bad news,’” Payne said. “And if you do know, you’ll be like, ‘Oh, Finrod was killed by werewolves that were controlled by Sauron.’”
Taking a break from production for Season 2 outside London, McKay and Payne discussed several revelations from the finale, including the big news about Sauron. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

​

As you know, there are multiple Saurons: Sauron who seeks redemption; Sauron the deceiver; Annatar, the lord of gifts. Which Sauron is this?

PATRICK McKAY Those are all ideas we talked about, the idea that he went through a period where he wanted redemption, the idea that he is a deceiver, in disguise, and an opportunist. Sauron might say to Galadriel: “Look, I was ready to walk away. You pulled me into this.” But if you look at the chain of events, he’s been greasing the wheels. He’s been encouraging her.
You could make a really good case that he was at a low point on that raft, and then the magic golden ticket showed up. He was playing hard to get. How many times does he say, “When are you going to get that army?” There’s a really good case to make where he was manipulating and deceiving her every step of the way.
To what extent is he an improviser, an opportunist, a master planner? The missing piece of this guy you’ve gotten to know as Halbrand, who has all of these qualities about him, is that he has another name, and it’s Sauron. And now everything you’ve learned about him means something a little different.
J.D. PAYNE A way we commonly talked about Sauron is that he’s a power addict. There’s a couple of ways we toy with his desire to go on the wagon, so to speak, to renounce power and seek healing. You can view his actions the way you view an addict’s actions because every step they take, they wonder, “Am I getting closer or further away from a fix?” They can always rationalize it: “Oh, I have control over this. I’m fine. I can go to that grocery store.” And the liquor is on Aisle 20. There’s always the addict in Sauron pushing him toward getting into places of power.


What is the nature of Sauron’s relationship with Adar (Joseph Mawle)? Was Adar’s story another lie?


McKAY: The whole idea of Season 1 being an origin story for Mordor, in a way, was one of the early ideas in the writers’ room that we all felt a lot of gravity pulling toward. There are core thematic ideas in the lore about destruction of the environment and evil rising and falling again. Mount Doom goes fallow and then awakens again. There is a cycle that plays out through the centuries. Dramatizing one of those reawakenings felt in harmony with canon to us and potentially delicious.
PAYNE: Adar co-opts the plan for his own purposes, but it still was, basically, Sauron’s plan. If one person designs the car, and the other person builds it, whose car is it? There are multiple ways to read that.
Sauron unlocks the dam, as they put it, with the mithril. How much manipulation happened behind the scenes?
McKAY: That’s an honest breakthrough. Celebrimbor [Charles Edwards] has an idea about creating things that are so beautiful, they could heal the world. On the other side of the map, Sauron is trying to build a power of the unseen world. It’s peanut butter and jelly.
Sauron is powerful, but he is not so powerful that he can engineer everything. We talked a lot about the idea of Steve Jobs over here, Bill Gates over there, and it’s not until the two come together with the right technology that this new power can be harnessed. Sauron needs Celebrimbor as much as Celebrimbor needs the right metal and Sauron’s inspiration for it to all come together.



Let’s talk about how mithril is supposed to cure the sudden fading of the elves, which has been a somewhat controversial addition.

McKAY: There’s this poetic idea in Tolkien about the fading of the elves, that elven immortality has a time limit. It felt important to us to turn up the heat on the frog in the pot, because part of what the rings do is halt this fading. So some of how we came to the mithril and a legend about how it might well actually have magic in it was all a way to wrestle with the canonical problem of elven fading, and how the rings stop it.
PAYNE: In terms of the time scale, the elves in the Third Age are getting ready to leave Middle-earth because whatever happens with the One Ring, their fate is sealed. Their rings become ineffective, or everybody is screwed. So what was the fading like right before the rings hit pause? They could have been in a desperate place.

I read that interview a few days ago and my takeaway was that they didn't trust the source material, and decided that instead of treating like mythology or folklore, they would turn it into a soap opera.

 

[Magic Man]

This was good TV. It had 70+ minute episodes and seemed really well done from a visual perspective, I thought even better than House of the Dragon. I'm pretty surprised by the 6.9 IMDB rating. Anything less than an 8 is a bad view. That's really low, so many worse shows score higher than that, but personally I liked this more than most of them.

Look forward to several more seasons of trolls, elves and goblins.

 

[Knave]

This was good TV. It had 70+ minute episodes and seemed really well done from a visual perspective, I thought even better than House of the Dragon. I'm pretty surprised by the 6.9 IMDB rating. Anything less than an 8 is a bad view. That's really low, so many worse shows score higher than that, but personally I liked this more than most of them.

Look forward to several more seasons of trolls, elves and goblins.

I agree with you here. I found it more compelling than House of the Dragons but I wouldn't say either was great. I'll have to catch up on House of the Dragon. I'm several episodes behind at this point and I don't feel compelled to watch.

In a world of inflated ratings then yeah I could see an 8/10 or in that 8-8.5 range. In a world where the audience are more discerning critics not giving freebee points because they like it then I don't see what's so bad with essentially a 7/10?

It's an average fantasy TV show and a 7/10 is a B-.

 

[DanielPlainview]

If you give this anything more than a 1/10 you’re a child lol

 

[Osprey]

I finally made it through Episode 6. The writing is so cliched. I counted three times that a hero came in at the last second to save another from an enemy's killing blow and twice that one stopped another hero from killing an enemy. Once is excusable, but it seems like it's the only way that these writers know to create intense situations and "surprises." It's especially lazy when we know that these characters aren't going to die. Speaking of which, what was the point of that cliffhanger ending when we know that she lives for thousands of years after this? From what I'm reading, it sounds like the question of another character's fate gets drawn out through Episode 7, as well. It feels like the writers don't have much respect for viewers' intelligence and knowledge.

 

[TonySoprano]

It was a tough watch

 

[soothsayer]

Ignoring the source material issues or whatever people have been complaining about on that front, from a purely aesthetic point of view, the show is very bad.

I don't even know where to start, but I guess I would point out the horrific acting, except for Charlie Vickers, who plays Halbrand; the extremely basic plot; the uncomplicated and uninteresting characters; the janky camera shots (why the random and extremely close shots of the actors' faces during conversations?); and, probably worst of all, the nearly unbearable dialogue--btw, how many times in one episode can the director have two people engage in a supposedly momentous section of dialogue while a crowd of random people stand around, listening and weirdly reacting ("huuuhhhhh, "ohhhhhh!," "oh no," *gasps, etc), as a cheap (and totally transparent) way to make up for the actors' and writers' inability to express the significance of the words being said to the overall plot?

Anyways, I think this series is maybe a 5/10. It's as if a first-year English or film student watched the first six seasons of Game of Thrones and thought "I can do that," and lobbed an absolute turd with all the trappings of an amateur's attempt to re-create something that was actually good. The series is just a mess.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

Tolkien's linguistic expertise also help paint the picture. The peoples of western ME have names of Celtic and Germanic origin, in a general sense (Elvish based on Finnish and Welsh, strong Anglo-Saxon origins for Gondor/Rohan, etc.) This harkens back to Tolkien's displeasure with the lack of mythology for England and its affects on the English language. There are writings or speeches about this from him, even laying out his desire to write such a mythology himself. He had big aspirations in this regard, but also acknowledged it would be an absurd undertaking. Still, he put a lot of that desire and effort into the Lord of the Rings universe.

What's the issue with being faithful to Tolkien's story? Why shouldn't characters be as described? I really don't understand the desire to make such changes or complaints about characters being white. It wouldn't be that difficult to write in Easterlings and Southrons into the story if you really care that much about skin color representation.

Tolkien based the Dwarves on the Jews. I think it's safe to say a lot of Jews (HIstorically and presently) are not white. But the majority of the Dwarves in a lot of LOTR media, especially the nobility, have been depicted as white.

Do you have a problem with the earlier depictions of Dwarves in LOTR media as small statured white men?

 

[DanielPlainview]

Tolkien did not base the Dwarves on Jews. The only thing he ever said about it was he saw Dwarves being like the Jews in regards to their relationship with the world around them; diaspora and their lost/ regained homelands. Toklien was famously against anti-Semitism. "Anti-racism" grifters trying to drag his name through the mud for clout are the sources of this ridculous claptrap.