How We Read Rings of Power

[Galadriel55]

First and foremost:

Originally Posted by Legate

I personally would cheer for the plot twist that he is the Balrog.

++Legate for script writer.

Originally Posted by Bb

Oh my, you are quite angsty aren't you? Will you be calling down a fatwa on the showrunners and writers even before you view any of the series? Because really you are not here talking knowledgeably about the actual TV series itself but about the epitexts which preceded it. I guess this is your statement about what you will bring to viewing the series, but it really does not tell us anything about the series itself.

Indeed. It's well and good to say you'll be starting to read/watch something without any expectations, but the truth is, you always bring some expectations, even if you think you know nothing about what you're about to see. Not judging books by their covers is not really a thing; best you can do is give it a chance in spite of the cover. But "covers" are also created with the knowledge that they will be the first impression, they set the tone that determines the audience (perhaps based on the audiences' pre-existing preconceptions) and creates the audience's expectations. It is quite possible that the cover is not representative, but, on the whole, covers are meant to be judged: that is, in fact, their purpose. The show's "cover" has been the various trailers, but also the PR campaign they've been doing these past few months. And while I had mixed thoughts on the trailers and have been able to reconcile the negative knee-jerk emotions, I had largely negative reactions to their PR position which just sunk me into deeper disappointment. I started out with a pretty positive outlook of how this could be a good semi-Tolkien fanfic-y fantasy show, which has gradually deteriorated the more they talked about it. So their "cover" has effectively filtered me into a subset of the population who would not be particularly lured by the product, and who does not expect to find the product much to their liking. What am I going to do about it? Since I wouldn't be paying any more or less money either way, I will still watch it to give it that try. I will be ranting about all the things that bug me most before I watch the show, to get it out of my system and come in with as little of a negative bias as possible. I am purposefully spoiling the first two episodes and reading people's commentary here so that I would be prepared for the bad elements and look forward to the good ones, so that I would be prepared to look past things like awful haircut choices to try and appreciate the larger story. And then I will see how I feel about it after the (unspoiled) third episode, by which point I expect the story to start unfolding sufficiently to be past the obligatory "intro stage" and start evolving into a more concrete form. Then after that I plan to post my impressions on the corresponding threads, and loop back here with more of a self-reflection on what "expectation baggage" might have been behind which reaction and how that changed from reading the comments and then seeing the show itself.