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Old 08-26-2022, 08:03 AM   #5
Huinesoron
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Huinesoron is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Huinesoron is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Kuruharan's "Middle-earth: Off the Map", Episode 1 - "The Path Always Continues Onwards and Onwards"

A review by an overly-antagonistic self-proclaimed Tolkien Scholar

This show is a traversity. Where do I even START? According to the showrunners, it is supposedly "suggested by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien" (they couldn't even be bothered to write his full name!), but how does it start? With attractive people casting lustful glances at each other. Everyone knows that Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien was a Catholic, and Catholics would never have sex. It's in Letters, and if you've read my latest blog article you'll know that it's reflected in every aspect of Middle-earth (see: LaCE, Sam Gamgee, the Female Orcs question, etc etc).

Our setting is apparently Harad, or "Harad", because it's nothing like the real one. The "characters" we meet are human, when RotK tells us exactly what they should be: "half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues". I'm not racist, but it's pretty clear JRRT was describing every non-white person in Middle-earth here, so the fact that "Pro" and "Auntie" are both attractive is in clear defiance of JRRT's written, canonical words.

The language used is 110% wrong too. Tolkien translated Westron into English, but left all other languages untranslated. That means these Fauxradrim should be speaking Haradrim - we know it exists because Gandalf had a name in it, "Incanus", so the so-called showrunner should have used this language for everything.

The "Wheel" family is a particularly egregious misnaming, because it is obvious that the Haradrim never had wheels. All technology in Middle-earth came from the elves or the dwarves, neither of which ever went anywhere near Harad, and they're never described as using wheels in the books. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure they shouldn't have swords, armour, houses, or clothes either; they clearly stole those inventions from Gondorians. I'm not racist in saying that - it's not because they're black, it's because only white people invent stuff in Middle-earth.

Coming back to the so-called "plot", it is all completely wrong. If this is the late Second Age, then all the Haradrim should be slaves of Sauron who have been taken as slaves by Numenor and are basically just whipped all day, because Numenoreans are entirely evil by this point (it's in the books). Tolkien once described Numenor as exactly like Egypt, so we know that the slaves would have been treated like the Hebrews in Prince of Egypt. But without the singing, because if there's one thing Tolkien would hate it's songs in his stories.

My point is, I watched the whole first episode and it is ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that the so-called showrunners (if that's even their real name) have written both Numenor and Sauron out of existence. It's therefore obvious that they're going to have these Haradrim invade and conquer Lindon, probably because they're racist against white people. I don't understand how they can pretend to like Tolkien when they're definitely going to do this thing that I've just made up in my head for them to do!

I could go on. This show is a horrible mismatch of non-Tolkien ideas (Auntie says "gods" once, when there is no paganism in Tolkien's "fundamentally Catholic work"), incorrect understanding of Tolkien (Auntie says "gods" once, which is an old word Tolkien used early on but later replaced with "Valar"), and Tolkien's writing but in the wrong place (Auntie says "gods" once, but the Fauxradrim should never have heard of the Valar). The only redeeming feature is that by boycotting it I can personally prevent anyone ever adapting Tolkien ever again and get Kuruharan fired, possibly into the sun.

Tune in next week for my review of episode two, "I Chanted About Twigs, About Twigs Which Were Metallic Yellow".

-Overly-Antagonistic Self-Proclaimed Tolkien Scholar
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