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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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Also, the Thor comic books only have a passing familiarity with the actual fables/myths. If someone was actually trying to dramatize the Poetic Edda, transracial casting would be a bigger deal.

There's no pretense that they're adapting the actual Norse myths, everyone knows it's the comics. So that at least is honest.

And if they were trying to do the myths, they'd have to have Loki transforming into a mare and giving birth to the eight-legged horse that Odin then rides, as well as Thor cross-dressing to be a giant's bride in order to get his stolen hammer back. Real mythology is way wilder than a few feeble attempts at "we are thoroughly modern Millie".

Even this show chickened out of showing the First Kinslaying, so we get the comic scene of the Elf-fleet sailing after Morgoth to Middle-earth For Great Justice (if you believe the voice-over in the prologue) with nary a word about all the Elf-on-Elf murder and theft. I know in large part it's because they don't have the rights to the material, but they shouldn't have touched any First Age stuff at all then. They have the simple plot-line of Elves Good, Sauron Bad and they're sticking to it desperately.

This is the real bone of contention. There is material there to do a Second Age story, but first they don't have rights to the source material so they're stuck with what is in the Appendices and second, they don't really want to do the story as it is in canon. They want their Generic Epic Fantasy Game Of Thrones Rip-off, just with names like Galadriel and Elrond pasted on the characters.

I could accept the compressed timeline and having Galadriel and Tar-Míriel and all the other characters interacting, because I realise that's necessary for the adaptation to television. I can't accept Bitchy Galadriel and Warrior Queen Regent.