Results 61 to 90 of 94
-
2024-05-21, 08:59 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2019
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
Sauron defeated Finrod and Beren, and only bested by Luthien and Huan. He was the one saved Morgoth's ass from Ungoliath by ordering to send help. Gothmog and Glaurung only take the limelight after his fled to the east.
-
2024-05-21, 09:19 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2020
-
2024-05-21, 10:31 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2013
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
I am putting on my Pedantry Hat. You have been warned.
Sauron can't be a deus ex machina because while he arrives via unlikely and unsatisfying means, his role is to cause problems, not solve them. This is just a plot contrivance.Last edited by Ionathus; 2024-05-21 at 03:46 PM.
-
2024-05-21, 11:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- Raleigh NC
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl
"As for the rest, I'd like to take a moment to compliment your dedication to rational discussion. You are a gentleperson and a scholar, and I salute you."
-- DaedalusMkV
-
2024-05-21, 03:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2013
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
A beret, obviously
In honor of the country that actually thinks you can have "an authority" on what your language is and how it works. Adorable.
I mean seriously, Académie Française actually expends energy trying to prevent lexical drift! King Canute had better luck with the tides.
-
2024-05-21, 03:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2016
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
To be even more pedantic, his sudden and unlikely arrival would be considered the inverse, a Diabolus Ex Machina.
-
2024-05-22, 05:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
Well, that depends what you count as a "win" and what as a "loss". You say that Sauron has done very little. To me that stands in stark contrast to the setting-bending impact that Sauron objectively has in the Third Age.
Sauron effectively shuts down the utopia creating power of the Rings of Power. Isn't that a "win"?
Sauron has sucessfully subjugated large parts of the world population (Harad, Rhun etc.). Isn't that a "win"?
-
2024-05-22, 05:48 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
That is all way later, when he is acting on his own. We were speaking about the effectiveness of Morgoth's lieutenants. As such he pretty much just sat around as a fortress administrator, and not stopping the heroes who would eventually steal a stone from Morgoth's crown (though Morgoth did not stop them, either, nor anyone else).
He had some good results as an independent evil overlord, especially in the third age.
Was the ring project a win, though? His goal was to subjugate the elven leaders, and that was a complete failure, that even gave the elves the means to preserve their kingdoms until the end of the third age. The scrapped plan of using the rings on dwarves and humans was also a partial failure. The master ring did not do much, either. He lost both times an army showed up to challenge him, while he had the ring.
-
2024-05-22, 06:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2008
- Location
- Texas
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
He also wrecks Eregion, which was apparently the most powerful elven kindom of its time in the 2nd Age (at least it's the largest geographic area, compared to Rivendell, the Grey Havens, or Lorien), and completely corrupts and brings down the entire isle of Numenor and almost all of the Dunedain who lived there.
This may be a reflection of Tolkien's values and religious beliefs (which I share) in that Sauron is at his worst when doing open warfare, and is at his best and most successful when he is instead deceiving people, tricking them, and twisting the truth gradually into lies. During his very limited screen time in the First Age we see him (A) Deceive the Valar sufficiently and say he was repentant enough that they let him stay [is this in Unfinished Tales? it's not in the Silmarillion, which I just read] and (B) Have his epic song battle with Finrod Felagund:
"He chanted a song of wizardry
of piercing, opening, of treachery,
revealing, uncovering, betraying."
His primary tool even in a song battle against a lesser race (Mair vs. Elf) is all about spying and betrayal rather than brute force.
He also was, IIRC, the most talent of Aule's students in terms of making things, especially with fire - but for bringing down enemies, he's best not trying for open battle.Things published on DM's Guild
Campaign Logs:
Baldur's Gate 2 (ongoing)
Castle Dracula (Castlevania)
Against the Idol of the Sun (high level hexcrawl)
-
2024-05-22, 08:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- Raleigh NC
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
It's shown in the Akallabeth; certainly it's in the published Silmarillion, as I've read it there. It doesn't say he 'persuaded' them. It says he made a show of repentance but was unwilling to come back with them to Valinor and abide the judgement of Manwe, so he went into exile and there "fell back into evil, for the bonds Morgoth laid on him were very strong."
So it wasn't that Sauron made a "show" of repentance. He made an earnest attempt at reforming himself. The problem is , in the world of LOTR, Evil thrives on compulsion. Morgoth compels Sauron, as Sauron compels the ringwraiths. Evil, like death, is all but irresistable to the unaided mortal. This is why no one can wear the Ring -- it will eventually overcome any who wear it, regardless of their initial strength or good purpose. It's also why the orcs are irredeemable -- Morgoth broke and twisted them, but it's no more repairable than you can make an omelet back into an egg.
It takes... grace? To overcome and resist evil. Merely human or merely maia attempts at self-reformation are destined to fail. It takes the otherworldly grace extended by the Powers, as symbolized by the Lembaas bread, to finally overcome evil of this magnitude.
So perhaps a minor note of sympathy is in order for Sauron. It wasn't that he was shamming good, he really was trying to be good, but he was measured against an enemy beyond his strength, just as Frodo was. Had it been Gandalf in his shoes, the outcome would have been the same.
ETA: here's the quote from Akallabeth in the Silmarilllion.
Originally Posted by Akallabeth
There's a certain irony here, because he was forced to humble himself in the face of Numenorean invasion and be taken captive to Numenor. If he'd gone willingly with Eonwe at the first, possibly he'd be less humiliated than he eventually was and the world would be a better place for many people, not least for him.
Respectfully,
Brian P.Last edited by pendell; 2024-05-22 at 09:08 AM.
"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl
"As for the rest, I'd like to take a moment to compliment your dedication to rational discussion. You are a gentleperson and a scholar, and I salute you."
-- DaedalusMkV
-
2024-05-27, 11:21 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2012
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
I still maintain that the following is one of Tolkien's marvelous little jokes (admittedly, it's from the Silmarillion - I'm not sure where the exact corresponding passage in HoME is):
Now the Elves made many rings; but secretly Sauron made One Ring to rule all the others, and their power was bound up with it, to be subject wholly to it and to last only so long as it too should last. And much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that One Ring; for the power of the Elven-rings was very great, and that which should govern them must be a thing of surpassing potency; and Sauron forged it in the Mountain of Fire in the Land of Shadow. And while he wore the One Ring he could perceive all the things that were done by means of the lesser rings, and he could see and govern the very thoughts of those that wore them.
But the Elves were not so lightly to be caught. As soon as Sauron set the One Ring upon his finger they were aware of him; and they knew him, and perceived that he would be master of them, and of all that they wrought. Then in anger and fear they took off their rings. But he, finding that he was betrayed and that the Elves were not deceived, was filled with wrath; and he came against them with open war, demanding that all the rings should be delivered to him, since the Elven-smiths could not have attained to their making without his lore and counsel. But the Elves fled from him; and three of their rings they saved, and bore them away, and hid them.
-
2024-05-28, 04:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2015
- Location
- Texas
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
The majority of Sauron's 'wins' came at the expense of Men, not Elves, with the notable exception of the delayed win when Numenor showed up and owned him. His delayed win, which was an own goal committed by Ar-Pharazôn due to vanity, resulted in the fall of Númenor.
Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2024-05-28 at 04:06 PM.
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
-
2024-05-29, 04:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- Raleigh NC
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
Well, that's a development
Originally Posted by About Amazon
It does sound like they have to take the focus off of Galadriel just a little bit, but I'm curious to see how they will fit Tom into the story anywhere. I remember the proto-hobbits from season 1 and shudder. Hopefully this turns out better.
Respectfully,
Brian P."Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl
"As for the rest, I'd like to take a moment to compliment your dedication to rational discussion. You are a gentleperson and a scholar, and I salute you."
-- DaedalusMkV
-
2024-05-30, 12:46 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2012
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
Might wanna hold onto your butt then. Given we see Not!Gandalf and Tom Bombadil together at least some of the season will probably be focused on settling the harfoots into the Shire. I don’t know how many seasons it’ll take for that particular storyline to reach completion but it’s probably the whole reason there are hobbits in the show in the first place, to show how they got to the Shire before all hell breaks loose and Tom Bombadil keeps them safe.
"Don't think of it as dying," said Death,
"Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush."
-
2024-05-30, 01:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
Not exactly impressed - leaving anything related to the timeline and such aside (since we know RoP ignores it), Tom feels wrong on two accounts. First, while technically they may have used the colors Bombadil was described wearing, they did their best to use the most drab, dour and washed down variants possible. Secondly, while we didn't see much, not one picture shows him smiling/happy. Which is basically Tom's shtick - he is always laughing, singing and generally being the most joyous being around. I admit it may be a case of them just choosing pictures that don't show it, and he'll actually be different in the series itself, but I'm not willing to give RoP the tiniest bit of benefit of doubt.
-
2024-05-30, 03:40 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2015
- Location
- Texas
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
What if Tom was a dour spirit until he met Radagast, who showed him a few new ways to use herbs.
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
-
2024-05-30, 10:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
"Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow."
-
2024-05-31, 02:36 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Gender
-
2024-05-31, 05:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2020
- Location
- United States
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
I am really looking forward to the Tom Bombadil vs Sauron fight. It will start with a lightsaber duel between Tom and Sauron over a lava lake at the bottom of Mount Doom. Sauron will disarm Tom and the two will continue fighting using Kung Fu. The battle will end when Tom kicks Sauron really hard in the crotch and he retreats to Baradur.
-
2024-05-31, 05:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
Ho Tom Bombadil, Ring-a-dillo-diglies
Merry Tom, Jolly Tom,
Kicked Sauron in the jigglies.Last edited by Eldan; 2024-05-31 at 05:55 AM.
Resident Vancian Apologist
-
2024-06-03, 03:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- Raleigh NC
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
So I was recently watching a cutscene from the 2014 video game Shadow of Morder which predates Amazon by many years. It isn't at all faithful to the source material at all.
Spoiler
The protaganist, Talien, is killed at the start of the game and fuses with the wraith of Celebrimbor to forge a New Ring and conquer Mordor from the Dark Lord. Essentially the plotline of LOTR if Boromir had had his way , only centuries early.
Oh, and Shelob turns into a smexy woman for some reason.
The Tolkien purist in me is appalled. Nonetheless, I still find it delightful as a kind of fan fiction.
...
Is it possible to enjoy the RoP the same way? As something inspired by Tolkien , but ultimately fan fiction and not an actual continuation of the original story?
After all, the video game commits Crimes Against Tolkien every bit as great as those of the series, yet there's no fan rage over it. Perhaps because we just don't take it seriously.
Respectfully,
Brian P.Last edited by pendell; 2024-06-03 at 03:56 PM.
"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl
"As for the rest, I'd like to take a moment to compliment your dedication to rational discussion. You are a gentleperson and a scholar, and I salute you."
-- DaedalusMkV
-
2024-06-03, 04:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2015
- Location
- Texas
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
-
2024-06-03, 04:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Location
- Tail of the Bellcurve
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
It helps that the Shadow of ___ games have you play as a very white dude who merges with an extremely white dude to kill/dominate very not white dudes and therefore did not run afoul of the most boringly predictable rage mob on the internet. Also if you like Assassin's Creed type of games, they're pretty good versions of that with a couple genuinely unique and clever features. And nobody ever takes videogame expansions of any given universe seriously because videogames are pretty much inherently silly outside of their own context.
None of these factors are in favor of RoP. In particular it just isn't very good in ways that have nothing to do with being an "adaptation"* of Tolkien or set in Middle Earth. I read a lot of fantasy from the last hundred odd years, and RoP is very much a 50th percentile sort of work, the characters are not well drawn, the plot sort of clunks along driven not so much by character action or internal logic as the next setpiece the authors thought of, and it just never gels into a coherent whole. Put differently, after watching the first season show I cannot tell you what the themes are, what the character arcs are (exception, Elrond and Durin actually manage a halfway decent arc) or really much more than a plot summary of "and then some stuff happened" and lots of the stuff does not matter. I get that Asteroid-Gandalf is setup for a future season, but there's too much dead end content for that to be satisfying, and most of it isn't very good anyway.
If RoP was a book, I'd probably stop reading at about the 60% mark, or else finish it out of bloody minded spite.
This is a real shame, because there's a huge amount of talent and effort in the production and the performances are generally solid, and I don't want to discount that. The show looks gorgeous, and really nails a high fantasy aesthetic as well as just about anything committed to film, and the production and art teams absolutely deserve credit for that. But it's in service of nothing. It's the TV equivalent of a launch title on a new console, it looks great, but it has no virtues besides that, and so in 5 years nobody is going to remember it. Well, in 5 years people will probably still remember it solely because Amazon is likely to still be cranking this thing out and so every year or so your Amazon orders will show up in a box advertising it, but that's about it.
*I refuse to think of working off few pages of appendix as an adaptation. It's basically writing an entire new thing based on something scribbled on a bar napkin.Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.
-
2024-06-03, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2020
- Location
- United States
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
-
2024-06-03, 04:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
-
2024-06-03, 05:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
- Location
- Israel
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
I was very amused by how they made a game about how badass it is to have the one ring and dominate things. Like. Wow. Talk about getting it wrong. That said I loved sieges in the second game and I enjoy the faux arkham style combat. I enjoyed the gameplay and I was amused by the terrible choices, so overall I like the games. I would not recommend them to anyone looking for any good tolkien adaptation.
Ceika made my avatar over a decade ago and the link has expired since, but people should still appreciate their work.
-
2024-06-03, 06:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2023
-
2024-06-03, 10:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2012
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
I've played Shadow of Mordor (and quite liked it both as a game and as Tolkien fanfic), although I never got around to playing through the sequel (mostly because I don't console game much anymore). Here's where I see the difference:
Monolith created Shadow of Mordor pretty much ex nihilo, using Tolkien's world as a backdrop. Their Mordor is quite deliberately informed by Jackson's films, but they also made it their own thing. They're certainly telling their own story, and while uses bits of the legendarium and it doesn't mesh perfectly with other versions, it is also told in way where it doesn't really need to. And all of this is pretty clear going in. And it was pretty fun to play.
Rings of Power didn't pitch itself as "hey, this is a fanfic set in the Second Age". It was presented as "this is the story of the Rings of Power". And it failed at telling that story, and instead chose to tell the showrunner's own story, which wasn't particularly good. And, I think this is the biggest difference, it wasn't fun or rewarding to watch. It was moderately frustrating and often joyless. (People focus on and tend to really like the small, sparkling exceptions, but they're not enough to come anywhere near elevating the whole work.)
Think of it as the difference between going to see two plays. The first is billed as "a modern story in the style of Shakespeare". It has Shakespearean dialogue, it hits enough of the right notes that it feels like Shakespeare, the costuming is great and feels right (even if you're not sure exactly what it should be), the iambic pentameter is decent to good, and the actors are at least pretty fun to watch on stage. Sure, the femme fatale was a little out of left field, but she pretty much worked. You leave satisfied with how you spent your night, in no small part because it matched or exceeded your expectations.
The second play is billed as "William Shakespeare's lost play, performed for the first time!" But the plot is more late 19th or early 20th, with a heavy dash of mystery, and very little of it seems like Shakespeare at all, although they borrow some classic names (Falstaff makes an appearance). The dialogue is off, with non-Shakespearean vocabulary choices all over the place and nary a whisper of iambic pentameter until the last act, when there's an out of place soliloquy, before everything ends in a big cheery musical number. You leave deeply unsatisfied, because it wasn't remotely what it told you it was going to be, and wasn't that good overall, either.
Editing and adding one other point:
No matter how you feel about Shadow of Mordor, it was never going to be the only LotR video game, nor the only take on those parts of the legendarium. (Heck, RoP itself has a whole different take on Celebrimbor!) But for the big story of the Second Age, done with a large budget? This is the only version many of us are ever likely to see on screen. That makes seeing it done poorly a painful lost opportunity.Last edited by runeghost; 2024-06-03 at 11:11 PM.
-
2024-06-04, 04:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
Resident Vancian Apologist
-
2024-06-04, 04:43 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2012
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: The Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power Season 2 [airs August 29th]
"Don't think of it as dying," said Death,
"Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush."