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Notes -
So, I watched the first two episodes of the Rings of Power -- and it wasn't that bad.
For the record, I thought Wheel of Time was pretty horrible, and while it was far from the only problem, the woke aspects (forced diversity, all men have to suck, all women have to rock) was definitely a big part of the issue. RoP has some forced diversity as well, but it's somehow not as bad. The black elf is one of the few elves who actually seems attractive and somehow beyond human -- the others come across as Roman Senator types.
Galadriel is a Mary Sue, but I guess she is in the books too. We'll see how her story develops.
I'm not happy with the proto-hobbits, and of course, the one who pushes the rules and is clever and daring is a woman, but that's mostly okay.
Dwarves -- well, of course the woman gives wise council to her buffoon husband, but it was still fairly well done I thought.
The visuals were great, and you did somehow get a sense of fleshed out, interesting and complex world. I'm very cautiously optimistic. Miles and miles ahead of Wheel of Time.
For the record, I'm /u/The-WideningGyre on reddit, but felt like grabbing one of the more common usernames I use on the new Motte.
I'm really disappointed by the weird groupthink shitshow I feel like 'normal' reddit has become, so I will do what I can to support this new Motte. Thanks /u/ZorbaTHut and other creators!
In the books this works because Tolkien understands narrative. There's a clear plot point that prevents Galadriel from just orc punching her way to Mordor - namely that once she possesses the Ring, she may become ultimate warrior princess (which she was not in the books!), but it'll be warrior princess with Sauron-characteristics. As a result she's in maybe two scenes and primarily illustrates just how deep in over their heads the hobbits are - setting the stage for their heroic journey.
It's much the same reason why Superman sucks, but Watchmen was good. Superman punches people but can't hurt them cause also superman and - cue dramatic music and Henry Cavil emoting - finally punches the bad guy really hard and wins. In contrast, Watchmen made Dr. Manhattan a mysterious godlike figure and told the story through the lens of mortals. Manhattan could punch the Soviets really hard, but isn't doing that for his own reasons.
You can't make Galadriel, Gandalf or Tom Bombadil the main character in any kind of hero journey - it's too late, the journey is over for them. A story about them is a fundamentally different thing and probably too niche to justify the price tag.
What you say about storytelling is true: to optimize for drama and thrills and edge-of-your-seat uncertainty, you're going to want to write an underdog story. Ooh, how's our hero going to get out of this one? You've only got the faintest clue, and you're watching with breath absolutely bated to see if you've guessed correctly or not.
The problem is that the Underdog Story may not be the best lens through which to view the world. Or at the very least, it shouldn't be the only lens through which to view the world.
The Underdog Story has its upsides in terms of life lessons, like self-reliance in the face of tough challenges, proactivity about doing the right thing, and so forth.
But it also has its downsides, and one of the most important is the plot-driven necessity that anybody powerful be somewhere between evil and useless, so never good. A heroic overdog would be boring, after all: no uncertainty about how he'll get out of this one.
But what happens when we marinate our minds in this narrative structure, over and over and over again, in a relentlessly-optimized fiction market? Maybe find ourselves inexorably associating "power" with "evil" and "weakness" with "good?" "The status quo" with "the evil empire" and "anything right and decent" with "us chosen-one rebels?"
Perhaps we'd end up thinking that way: living out a perpetual rebellion, as the only stories that matter are about the conquest, about supplanting the powerful. What happens after - the actual ruling, the use of that hard-won power? Well, feh, that's always just skipped over in the epilogue. "And they lived happily ever after." Once we win, there'll be utopia! Who cares about the details? They never need to in the stories.
So somebody with power who is not presiding over a utopia needs to be torn down. Every generation sends up its heroes to tear down the last generation's and be torn down by the next generation's in turn. Nice and dramatic: how's it going to go this time? And maybe there really is improvement ratcheting upward each cycle - either way, every generation can always imagine it's the chosen one that will really fix everything this time, and can always explain away their failures once they're apparently on top by appealing to some unseen ever-more-powerful foe that must be holding them back.
Not good for stability, though. No telling what hard-won good will end up as collateral damage in any given revolution. Our Heroes' victories don't tend to last long if there are sequels.
The tagline to 1978's "Superman" was "you'll believe a man can fly." With special effects these days, that's trivial; much more impressive would be to show us how someone can be both that strong and that good. Such a character's Hero's Journey may be over, but that just means that the really important part has begun.
Tougher to sell tickets to that, though, so maybe we're stuck this way.
(Hello, all! I've lurked since before there was a Culture War Roundup thread but never posted at all. Thought I would try to help get the new site running, but I don't expect my courage to last.)
You've made a very good comment and I encourage you to not let courage be the barrier to your further posting. Those of us making smaller, more mundane, comments can often be the magic catalyst that sparks off truly great comments and discussions. You will at the very worst be forgotten.
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