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Notes -
I realise I'm a little late to the party, but I want to talk about Tolkien and RoP.
One of the themes of Lord of the Rings is the idea that the smallest, the humblest person can change the destiny of the world, and become a hero. The Hobbits represent small, humble, ordinary people. They don’t lust for power or fame, or aspire to do great deeds. Thus the Ring can’t corrupt them in the way that it would corrupt Boromir or Galadriel, although it can make them covet it as a possession. We see this when Sam willingly gives it back to Frodo, even though we have seen others kill for it having been exposed to it for far shorter periods. Bilbo manages to give it up, after having owned it and been subjected to its influence for 60 years, and Frodo manages to bear it right into the heart of Mt Doom, with the Ring fighting him all the way.
The Ring works by tempting its owners, offering them ways to get what they desire most. The Wizards want to make the world a better place. The Elves want to stop the decay of the world. Men desire power and the ability to defeat their enemies. Dwarves desire treasure. All of them want something they don’t already have, therefore the Ring has something to work with, something to offer them. While Hobbits are content creatures: “But where our hearts truly lie is in peace and quiet and good tilled earth. For all Hobbits share a love of all things that grow. And yes, no doubt to others, our ways seem quaint. But today of all days, it is brought home to me it is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.”
Galadriel was never some paladin of light. She is the ultimate redemption arc. Someone who had many of the same flaws as Sauron, but who came back. Sauron had a chance for redemption, but couldn't follow through due to his pride. Like Galadriel he was told to come back to Valinor. He didn't want to leave his powerbase or his pride behind however. The character who some consider to be the ultimate hero of the tale, who gets the last scene is not Aragorn the King or an immortal elf. It's the family man with scars, who lost his friend, and who comes home to his family and does the best he can.
It seems Amazon Studios never bothered to understand when they decided they'll make Galadriel a sort of "girlboss" claiming to save the world but with the writers' focus being on her path to glory like most woke cape blockbusters these days. Given how literarily significant Tolkien is world over, its so bizarre that they'd try to pick apart his legacy and crap all over him. Within my reading circle in India, LOTR is a favourite. The supposed racism doesn't even register. The last RoP trailer in regional languages here also got ratio'd on YouTube. I don't know what Amazon was thinking. They said this is the most expensive show ever and that the future of the studio itself relies on its success, and yet they decide to check the woke quotas instead of giving Tolkien fans what they want. Did they really just not expect this level of blowback? Its so unfathomable to me that the answer is that simple, could it be something else?
Okay, but what’s actually wrong with Galadriel?
It’s one thing if her “path to glory” is too much like capeshit. I have no idea how one could make a Marvel movie in Middle-Earth, so if they really tried to do that, I wouldn’t be surprised that it’s trash.
Of course, that would be true regardless of the political slant.
“Path to glory” power fantasy isn’t new to the setting. It’s the default for video games, of course. Shadow of Mordor trampled all over Tolkien’s themes and worldbuilding, but after a few months of grumbling, the intended audience decided it was kind of badass. This suggests that the problem with RoP runs deeper.
On the political side, there’s a difference between woke casting and woke writing. Gender-flipping or race-swapping a character doesn’t necessarily change their arc (even if it pisses off fans). Writing the plot into a corner to score ideological points is a bigger problem. I have yet to see examples of RoP screwing the latter up.
So how much of the backlash is political, and how much of it is about general writing quality? Did wokeness somehow prevent a decent show, or was it incidental? What did Galadriel do?
This may be hard to explain to somebody seeped in certain type of culture, but for other people the themes are grating and obvious to see. What did Galadriel do? As with all feminism Galadriel is perfect example of what if gender swapped would be seen as "toxic masculinity" only written badly. She is bitchy, disrespectful and overall pain in the ass. She constantly mansplains to everybody her point, like the "you have not seen what I have seen" to Elrond, a character who was literally out there fighting Morgoth. She is always angry and her solution to problems is either violence, or angry demands to speak to management to do her bidding. Her scene with Regent Murielle was one long cringe pissing contest. She is for some reason instantly liked by important characters like Elrond, Gil-Galad or Elendil for no reason despite her acting like a bitch - in case of Elendil even threatening him with dagger for which he conveniently shows her Numenorian secrets in their library or whatnot.
But there are other stupid and self-serving cameos in the show so far. One of the "original characters" showrunners invented was Elendil's sister (I won't bother looking her name), in their own words to "introduce some feminine energy into the family" or some such. And her main cameo in the show was bragging that they accepted her to the university or something like that. It is so on the nose and stupid beyond belief, but I guess for some people it is absolutely normal writing.
Thanks for elaborating.
That sounds absolutely abysmal, and definitely crosses the bar for blue-tribe pandering.
Even if we take out what I am being forced to conclude is indeed "Woman always right, Man always wrong" writing, the rest of it just dumps all over the character.
Take the scene in the audience hall of Númenor when she is speaking with Tar-Míriel. She recites a list of her titles, which should mean that she knows how to behave - both politically and as a matter of courtesy - when speaking to someone in that context. She should be diplomatic, she should be polite, she should behave like a civilised person. But instead she demands passage back to Middle-earth and manages to get everyone's back up with the way she does it. When it falls to the ragged guy pulled off a raft in the middle of the ocean to be emollient and diplomatic, then that's bad writing. It may be supposed to hint that Halbrand is not what he claims to be, that he too has had the training of a noble line, but it only works because Galadriel is so arrogant, rude, and flat-out stupid.
The writing is just poor all round. Fake profound statements that are idiotic (nobody is going to stop mocking the "do you know what the difference between a stone and a ship is?" speech) and too much jumping forward without explaining. If you know the lore, you know why Galadriel says "my family started this", but if you're a casual viewer who just tuned in to watch some fantasy TV and you maybe watched the movies years back, you have no idea what that is about, because the only mention of family you have seen so far is her brother, who was killed by Sauron. So how did they 'start this'? Did Finrod (and we don't even get his name mentioned) start this? What happened?
No time to explain who the Faithful are and why would they be considered traitors, but we got plenty of time for a slo-mo horsey ride!
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