The Lord of the Rings - Second Age - Amazon Prime

[BAYLOR]

That's more of exception than a rule. I can get the hobbit astronomer reference, because there was a vague reference on it in the LOTR, but thing is they came down from Blue Mountains at around the end of Second Age, Beginning of Third.

A fat elf is probably more of an exception than a norm as well. It's still very unlikely to happen in the light of how Tolkien and Fantasy lore has framed them. I also do get that they have to adapt the story or threads of it, since there wasn't time for the Tolkien to fully develop everything.

Who knows, maybe it'll flop and become a monster-of-the-week journey instead of a grand development to fill in the details of why Middle-Earth looks so ruined. And those ruins to look absolutely majestic.

They've got alot riding on this series. It would be a waste if they made it monster of the week.

 

[Judderman]

A fat Elf sounds like a very in vogue contrast to stereotypes. I can see it could happen on occasion. You get bad Elves, depressed Elves, and the occasional overweight one.

 

[Toby Frost]

Is there a button I can press so I never hear about this programme again as long as I live?

 

[ctg]

Is there a button I can press so I never hear about this programme again as long as I live?

Nope, you can't avoid it. You can try, but it'll get filtered through one way or another. Sorry. But you can take it, like I said in the Foundation thread, and assume that they'll do a good job and not too many c*ckups. The purists will always hate, and I, personally, try to avoid it, even though the thoughts sometimes filter through.

 

[BAYLOR]

Is there a button I can press so I never hear about this programme again as long as I live?

This show is destined to divide Tolkien fandom.

 

[Toby Frost]

I just think that risking not just Tolkien purist rage but identity politics rage is less than appealing.

 

[farntfar]

I've decided to give up being a purist. It's too much lie hard work
I can tell the difference between what Tolkien wrote or implied and what Peter Jackson or whoever is running this show does or even one of us lot has written as a sort of fan fiction in the challenges . And now I'm quite ready to accept those inventions as a valid expression of creativity. It doesn't have to detract from JRRT, especially when it's not actually saying that it is a faithful rendering of his writings.

Watching a misrepresentation of the Hobbit was a hard thing, but if it made some people read the book who wouldn't have read it otherwise it might be considered a good thing.

Watching an invention of an age that JRRT has not really defined is certainly not so awful. And I'll accept it in that spirit.
And as for black hobbits and fat elves, I'm pleased to see them. My one problem with Tolkien's work has always been how exclusively thin white middle-class English it all is.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Baylor, divided indeed, though aren't most against it?

Even without getting into the racial stuff (which does lead to the awkward but logical conclusion that the dwarves, humans, and elves must've collectively decided on racial genocide between the show and the LOTR film trilogy...) the lore inaccuracies have annoyed many (Galadriel letting her hair be manhandled, and the notion that making her a warrior somehow makes her look cooler or stronger).

And they could've avoided both by setting it mostly or entirely in Harad! The vagueness of both the Nazgul origins and blue wizard doings make it a perfect setting to fill in blanks without contradicting existing lore.

Instead they've used Tolkien's name and world as a hook then thrown out much of the lore. Unfortunately, the fans (I wouldn't count myself among them, I don't know enough about it) are very into the lore *and* have Peter Jackson's fantastic trilogy as a point of comparison.

Farntfar, some discrepancies have to happen, just because the medium of film or TV is substantially different to books. Classic example would be Tom Bombadil's absence from the films (though the change that annoyed me most was altering Saruman's ending, especially given as it would've been a far more interesting conclusion than the half-dozen endings we got). It does seem, though, that Jackson did his best to translate the world of Tolkien to film and kept all he could. The creators here seem happy to use the name, and equally happy to use their own ideas over Tolkien's.

He did, apparently, write LOTR as a mythology for England (bearing in mind he was born in the 19th century) so having almost entirely white people is no more remarkable or wrong than Norse myths doing so, or Zimbabwean fairytales having exclusively black people, or the (I believe) entirely Chinese cast of Outlaws of the Marsh. But, as I said, lore-consistent non-white places do exist, such as Harad.

 

[farntfar]

No, Thaddeus. I'm sorry. But where do yo get all these facts.
What have I missed.
So far all I've seen are 2 or 3 teasers. And with no plotlines.
You've seen Galadriel looking fierce on a boat which doesn't seem enough to assume she's turned into nothing but a warrior. Although actually she was very much a warrior in the Silmarillion, at Tirion, crossing the crushing ice, and then later in Beleriand.
She definitely preferred peace and nostalgia (see her conversations with Melian for example) but could certainly fight.
And this sudden idea that her hair could not be touched comes from where? Yes it was fine and beautiful, as was that of Luthien, but you remember all the stuff She used her hair for. Beautiful hair can be touched. I have touched some myself.

And then you hold Jackson up as a definition of canon? No comment!

You have destroyed your argument about black hobbits in your own entry.

so having almost entirely white people is no more remarkable or wrong than Norse myths doing so

And lastly I said that I have given up being a purist for exactly this sort of concern. Insisting on canon is never going to work. Just ask Spock.

But enjoy this new series in it's own light. A piece of fan-fiction.
Amazon Prime are callously using it to make money from us. Quelle surprise. If they weren't then they would be breaking out of their own canon.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Farntfar, the hair is from the Silmarillion, in which she refuses it to Feanor, and Lord of the Rings, in which she gave strands to Gimli and cast the level 9 spell "eternal fanboy" on him. She's been seen repeatedly in armour and with a blade.

Fighting sometimes does not make someone primarily a warrior (Gandalf wields a sword and staff, after all).

I did not hold up Jackson as a definition of canon, I said he mostly stuck to the lore with some differences (I highlighted one I thought worked, the absence of Tom Bombadil, and one I did not like, the change to Saruman's ending).

The lore-specified non-white (not sure but I have a vague notion they're meant to be roughly North African/Middle Eastern, someone who knows the books better will be able to say) people are humans in Harad, and to the east. Hobbits, I believe, don't exist or aren't known about at all at this point of the lore.

If you're happy to depart substantially from the lore, then that's fine. It's also fine to dislike what seems to be going on in terms of lore departures.

 

[farntfar]

Fair enough. I don't want to start an argument. Especially as I think we've both reached more or less the same conclusion; that the series has a certain amount of leeway, in that it's showing a period which JRRT didn't really define. But that it should as far as possible stick to what we know.

Allowing black men hobbits and elves certainly seems feasible however, even as immigrants from Far-Harad. And pushing Galadriel's hair out of her eyes after a ducking hardly seems to be manhandling. (It may have been Celeborn, after all.)
I certainly agree about Jackson's treatment of Saruman's tale (and Faramir's too. Grrrr!) And maybe we'll see Bombadil in this series. They're bound to get that all wrong.

Anyway. Let's leave it there.

 

[Judderman]

There should have been more dark skinned characters in the film trilogies really.

 

[ctg]

There should have been more dark skinned characters in the film trilogies really.

There were loads of orcs and some dwarves, who were either blackish or brown.

 

[Toby Frost]

Bearing in mind that the orcs were a race of dim, violent subhumans made from mud, perhaps not something to aspire to.

 

[ctg]

Bearing in mind that the orcs were a race of dim, violent subhumans made from mud, perhaps not something to aspire to.

Nope. They weren't violent subhuman species, at first. It was after they'd been used in Dark Lord's battles that they started to be treated in that way. This is the way how Tolkienists puts it,

It is certain that most Orcs were dependent on the Dark Lords in various ways: after the War of Wrath, the Orcs were confused and dismayed without Morgoth, and were easily scattered by their enemies. In the millennia after his defeat and banishment from Arda, they were without a leader and degenerated into small, quarrelsome tribes hiding in wild places, such as the Misty Mountains and the Mountains of Angmar.

Orcs remained a threat to travelers and isolated settlements, and when united could pose a great regional threat, but they could never amount to the force they were under Morgoth. Only when Sauron returned to power did they begin to reclaim their old power.

The same happened after Sauron's defeat by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men: only under the Witch-King's command, and when Sauron returned as the Necromancer of Mirkwood, did the Orcs become a real danger for all of Middle-earth again.

Orcs were warlike and often cruel, fighting with reckless ferocity and delighting in the slaughter and torture of their foes; many had a cowardly nature however, and were often regarded as inferior, though far more expendable, than the soldiers of Men, Elves, and Dwarves.

It is said that Sauron, at the height of his power, had greater control over his Orcs than Morgoth had had, though this was because he had not yet spent so much of himself in dominating others as well as due to a lesser threat posed by his adversaries than those of his predecessor. Orcs also proved themselves adept at taming and riding Wolves and even Wargs, an ability harnessed by the Dark Lords for their armies.

Orcs - Tolkien Gateway

tolkiengateway.net

They were twisted by dark god and forced into labour. So it became a cultural norm. It's just when the baddies had been beaten, they weren't such a threat, and in theory, given time they could have changed. Tolkien just didn't write them in that way, and a lot of fantasy lore makes them to be total d*cks. In the simplest way, they are muscle, not brains.

Goblins however are the brainy people of orchish races. They can manufacture amazing things and structures, if they have to. It is the manipulation that makes them so evil.

What seems to be the leading theory is that Orcs were originally humans or Elves who had been corrupted and tortured by dark magic. This was suggested in The Silmarillion, so it's likely the best answer for what created them. It's also the accepted origin for the movie versions as well. In Fellowship of the Ring, Saruman confirms that the Orcs were once Elves. Since this seems to be the story that Tolkien settled on, there's a possibility that it could be explored in more detail in The Lord of the Rings TV series.

Lord Of The Rings: Origin Of The Orcs Explained

Orcs are the primary henchmen of the villains in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but where do they actually come from?

screenrant.com

 

[Mouse]

People arguing about the colour of hobbits and none of you have mentioned that Lenny Henry is in it?! To me, that's super weird. That'd be like Jimmy Carr randomly being an elf or something. That seems more out of place than the colour or size of things.

 

[ctg]

People arguing about the colour of hobbits and none of you have mentioned that Lenny Henry is in it?!

I'm really bad with names. So apologies, but it was mentioned shortly after the teaser post. You might have missed it.

 

[Le Panda du Mal]

I have no idea if the new series will be any good but I am skeptical of the ability of big studios to generate decent epic fantasy. The writing always turns out to be poor and almost written by committee.

What I would love to see, and what I think would be much more manageable, is a Tower of Cirith Ungol sitcom that features Shagrat and Gorbag getting into arguments and talking about the "good old days" before Sauron started bossing everyone around.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Not sure if I will or wont watch this.

Never been overly fond of Fan Fiction.

 

[CupofJoe]

What I would love to see, and what I think would be much more manageable, is a Tower of Cirith Ungol sitcom that features Shagrat and Gorbag getting into arguments and talking about the "good old days" before Sauron started bossing everyone around.

The Odd Couple, with the grumpy one and the really grumpy one...