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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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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!