[Pitchwife]

I've been in two minds for some time about whether or not to watch this, not because woe it's going to suck and sully Tolkien's memory forevah but because I've become a bit detached from genre fantasy in general over the years - but that hasn't kept me from watching and enjoying GoT and The Witcher, and we have Prime anyway, so why not. So I've now watched the first two episodes and found them far from my new favourite thing, but entertaining and *gasp* in some parts even enjoyable.

I think part of my approach to this is distinguishing between
a) Tolkien's writings, born from his very personal creative vision and love of language, which I'm convinced have now deservedly attained their place in the canon of 20th century literature, and
b) the multimedia franchise that has grown around them, which is ruled by capitalist market forces. Some may regret that b) ever came into existence, but that ship sailed long ago (with the release of MERP at the very latest).
No matter which antics b) gets up to, I'm confident that a) will endure and continue to enchant readers long after Peter Jackson, Jeff Bezos and all participants in this discussion are dead and dust, and if some of these readers sought out the books after watching some movie or series and discover that they have much more to give than they were led to expect, so much the better.

So I never expected RoP to be anything but Mr Bezos's personal Tolkien fanfic and was therefore willing to be pleasantly surprised. (I think Bêthberry's distinction between fan fic and alt fic is useful, but I'm afraid I can't really be bothered to go into this.)

And pleasantly surprised I was! I mean, I could get my knickers in a twist nitpicking any number of details they got wrong (starting with Finrod calling his sister Galadriel), and 10 or 20 years ago I probably would have, but I've become much less obsessive-compulsive about Tolkien's worldbuilding than I was, and honestly, at 60 time is too preciousss for that. I'm not too happy with some of the names (Elanor Brandyfoot? Bronwyn? Theo?) and some casting choices (Gil-galad and Celebrimbor looking older than Galadriel?), but that's no big matter. (Actually I think Theo is defendable - it's probably short for Théodwurst or some such, like Tolkien used other RL names and retconned an alternative etymology for them, whereas Bronwyn is not only out of place but also bad Welsh.) Not too happy with Scottish Dwarves stuffing themselves with salted pork and malt beer, but very happy with Dísa, although some more facial hair wouldn't have hurt.

I can forgive the makers for making things up to fill in the gaps between the scraps of material they have the rights to, and also for some canon-violating temporal condensation. Would I rather they'd made a 100 season series faithfully covering both the First and Second Ages? Well of course, but since that's unlikely to happen in our lifetimes...

I can live with RoP's Galadriel, although she reminds me more of Avatar Korra than of Tolkien's White Lady of Lórien, but if we see her maturing from her present self into the Sorceress of Dwimordene in the course of the series I'll be happy. (Actually, come to think of it, Morfydd Clark would make a stellar Éowyn IMO.) I'm fine with her being a swordswoman - I mean, yes, there are other ways of portraying a strong female protagonist than making her an armed fighter and a rebel against authority, but they've got that covered with Nori and Bronwyn, and if someone must needs be the action girl young Nerwen Artanis is not a bad choice. (Of course she should be beyond that stage at this point in her life, but since we can't have Melian, oh well.) I do hope that we'll still see Celeborn though - maybe even Celebrian? She is mentioned in LotR after all.

Does the whole plot around Galadriel, Gil-galad and Elrond make a lot of sense? Not really. Is the dialogue sometimes cringy and overly expository à la "As you know, Elrond..."? Quite.

The Harfeet, like many others have said, are the big heartwarmer and major forte of the series so far, and yeah, the Stranger is probably Olórin, who obviously has no business being there, but if they limit his role to protecting the proto-Hobbits without meddling in the larger affair of the Rings directly it'll be fine. If the makers are messing with us and he turns out to be Sauron I'll be seriously grumpy. Or he could be Catweazle marooned not just in the wrong time but wrong continuum too. We'll see.

The plot around Arondir and Bronwyn could go interesting places, giving us a close glimpse of Sauron's rise to power in the South-east. Yes I know, there have only ever been three unions between Elves and Men... that we know of. (What about Mithrellas?) Good choice making it an Elven man and mortal woman for a change, we haven't seen that since Andreth and Aegnor.

One thing they've got resoundingly right so far is the visuals. The glory of light and colour in the scenes set in Valinor, and to a slightly lesser degree in Lindon and Eregion, captures the essence of Elvishness better for me than anything in Peter Jackson's movies. You get an impression of the Light the Elves wish to restore and conserve, the Light that is spiritual, not just physical. The scene where the ship sails to Valinor conveys that this is as much a spiritual journey as a physical one for the Elves, that the Blessed Realm is more than just another shore, and even if Valinor was at this point still part of the physical plane(t) I'd rather have that notion in the wrong place than not at all.


That's probably quite enough for now. Let's see what happens on Friday.