[Formendacil]

Well, I've finally watched the first episode of RoP. They've been kicking off these seasons at a bad time of year for me to watch things, but there's also a solid layer of "meh, I'll get to it when I get to it," which is not a good sign. At least last season, I had some urgency to know what insanity they were going to come up with next. I took some notes, but, uh, I was typing one-handed on my phone while holding a baby (do not blame the baby for my lack of RoP-excitement: this is all on Season 1):

Originally Posted by Formendacil typing one-handed on his phone while holding a baby

like the look of earlier Sauron
Adams betrayal not bad
Rebuilding body very creepy
Staring down. Fish
What's with the contrived enmity betwixt Galadri and Elrond?
Golgalad having a daunting elderness to Gaaldreil.is wrong.
They said weeks!!
Far above uournpagrsade,Eornd!
Cast them into the fir, Erind--err, river.
Adar is much darker this season
Who is tThmmT spying on meteor man??
Nori, eating termites is NIT the answer
Deducted saruman vibes
Curdna!
Calling her commandw rnwver feases to amaze me
I a. Listening to it and I already forget this s dialogue.
Poppy shock
Like the personification of the sea
Adar = Maedhros?

Which... I think means something like:

1. I like the look of earlier Sauron. Indeed, this actor gets much closer to my mental picture of Annatar than Halbrand does--or than I expected them to get at all.
2. Adar's betrayal not bad. Granting the utter non-canonicity of Adar (though rooted in a canonical fact), the idea that Sauron might have experienced pushback from the leftover remnants of Morgoth's forces in the 2nd Age is... interesting. It doesn't seem LIKELY to me: we're talking about one of the most powerful Maia who would have had ZERO problem daunting his subjects into submission... but it's interesting, and it's of a piece with the RoP writers having, overall, a strong fascination with what the orks are and what makes them tick.
3. Sauron's rebuilding body is very creepy. I'm not sure if this serves where he's supposed to be in the story well or not: we're being given a Sauron who appears to have some choice in whether he's going to be evil or not in this flashback. Given that we already know what Halbrand ends up choosing, there's not a TON of suspense there, so adding in his literally evil "true nature" of sorts here doesn't quite work for me. But it IS visually striking--if also goofy.
4. Sauron staring down the leviathan is... well, it stuck in my thoughts, but I'm not sure: goofy? Unlikely? Ulmo or "the sea" seems to be a bit of a theme this episode--is this part of it? Is the ship wrecked because Ulmo won't like Sauron cross and recognises him or because Men can't seek Valinor? Sauron's attempt at being a good guy lasted, what--three and a half heartbeats?
5. What's with the enmity betwixt Galadriel and Elrond? No really thoughts here--but after they were shown as friends in Season 1 and we know they're top allies in LotR, I'm not sure that I love this opposition here. I think it wouldn't have made more sense for them to have not known each well, or not been friends, or whatever in Season 1, develop to true opposition here, and leave the mature understanding of each other for the future as something OTHER than a restored friendship... but what do I know?
6. Gil-galad being the daunting elder to Galadriel is wrong. Wherever you place Gil-galad on the Finwëan tree, he should be junior to Galadriel. Galadriel's whole thing in Tolkien's mindset is that she's the one Rebellion Generation Noldo left in Middle-earth after the 1st Age, and they just erase it, and I'm not over it yet.
7. They said weeks! At least we know it actually took weeks rather than hours to forge the Three.
8. Far above your paygrade, Elrond! (Sometimes, there are lines that were CLEARLY reverse-engineered from a modern idiom, and this is one. I can't help but thinking of Tolkien's letter to Hugh Brogan about how Théoden's speech lines up idiomatically with how he THINKS.
9. Cast them into the fire, Elrond--err, river. I fully expected Elrond to chicken out with this Isildur parallel--but he didn't! The writers have made Elrond very much the most principled of all the Eldar, and although the turns of the story make me roll my eyes, I do like that, since I think it would be easy to work backwards from LotR and have a far less respectful impression of the Son of Eärendil.
10. Adar is much darker this season. I don't know if this is the change of actors or a writing emphasis, or both, but he seemed more sad as portrayed last season, more angry this season. Not a complaint so much as an observation.
11. Who is that spying on meteor man?? The designs of the East are very different from the movies: both this masked guy and last season's white sorcerers.
12. Nori, eating termites is NOT the answer!
13. I'm getting Saruman vibes more than Gandalf this season.
14. Círdan! I liked his portrayal, even if I can't say say he matched my preconceived vibes. Unlike Galadriel, he has the right "generation" to him. It's also quite in-character to me that he'd have been off-screen all first season: doing his own thing away from others is right.
15. Galadriel being call commander never ceases to sound wrong to me.
16. I am watching the show right now and I am already forgetting the dialogue.
17. Poppy shock (sarcastic shock at Poppy appearing)
18. I like the suggestion of personification of the sea--especially connected with Círdan. But should we take this as Ossë, Uínen, or Ulmo? And is the sea right?
19. The idea that Adar's torment that led him to become an ork-father is that same as the torment of Maedhros has some interesting implications.

And then for the last 10 minutes or so, I wrote no notes. It is interesting to me that we aren't giving Gil-galad two Rings (in the books, he has both Narya and Vilya, though it's not 100% clear until when). Sauron returning to Eregion really does seem to make his detour to Mordor and Adar really pointless, though I think they're trying to set up the destruction of Eregion at the hands of Sauron's armies later.

I enjoy the acting with Nori and Sarumeteorman, but I can't take it seriously at all: nothing happens (which I seem to remember being a problem last season too) and we don't even have wildly speculative Harfoot culture to explore. The idea that the song is a guide to the desert didn't come across successfully to me at all: more like something out of a Magic Treehouse book than Middle-earth, even if songs as remnants of an earlier time is SUPREMELY Tolkienian.

I'm not rushing to watch episode 2... but I'm not dropping it either, so--success?