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I love the idea of thousandyear old elves doing menial manual labor for low wages for the purpose of...sending the wages back to Valinor??
It makes absolutely no effin' sense at all. This rabble-rouser (who the show sets up is probably in cahoots with Pharazon to push a populist agenda and oust the Queen, and honestly that's about the most subtle and developed the show gets in how it does it - just shows Pharazon and Rabble-rouser exchanging Significant Glances after Pharazon takes the opportunity to come in and calm things down with a 'reassuring' speech about "Númenor belongs only to Men and we'll keep it that way", then calls for drinks all round and servants with trays of drinks come out and hand around glasses of wine to everyone, so clearly this was all set up in advance) was one of the blacksmiths' guild who got into a punch-up with Halbrand (currently languishing in jail) because Halbrand wanted to starting smithing something, was told he couldn't get into a forge without the guild badge, and stole the badge from Rabble-rouser, hence the punch-up.
So it would make more sense for Rabble-rouser to try and stir up the people of Armenelos about "bringing in Men from Middle-earth to replace us skilled workers" and recount the story of how Halbrand tried to set up as a smith and stole the guild badge, but no. The showrunners (and since they co-wrote the script, if not the greater part of it, I am laying the blame squarely on Payne and McKay) remembered the bit about the King's Men falling out with the Elves, but couldn't work out how to simply transcribe what Tolkien wrote. So they take something out of 2016 presidential election (and maybe, with all the Democrat speechifying still obsessing over Trump, what is current) and give us "Pharazon is setting himself up as head of a populist movement which is racist fascist anti-immigrant just like Donald Trump and MAGA".
Somebody in a comment on Youtube said they expected Pharazon to wear a red hat next, and that is what made me notice that in Pharazon's speech about "Númenor for Númenoreans", he is wearing a red cloak around his blue robes. Subtle!
It is So. Goddamn. Stupid. I'm not quite at the point of clawing at my face, but it's a near thing. As you say - why the hell are Elves going to come in and do this kind of "dey took er jerbs" work? If they want, they can trade with Númenor for high-quality products. If the Elves want, they can push on and colonise all of Middle-earth, because the Men still remaining there are in no position to resist them. There is no reason for them to try and migrate to Númenor to take over as cheap labour.
It's like the only thing the showrunners can understand is "King's Men = populist movement, populist movement = MAGA". I don't know if it's Hollywood Liberal brain rot or what, but it is NOT TOLKIEN.
The Númenoreans were long-lived, prosperous, and as time went by, they wanted to live longer and longer to enjoy their fortunate lives. They saw that Elves were immortal, and gradually they envied them, and fell out of friendship with them, and turned in on themselves and starting tyrannising the lesser Men of Middle-earth, setting up a mini-empire there. Their greatest point of power and achievement was also the point of greatest decadence, and they were seduced and betrayed by Sauron due to their pride, envy, and arrogance.
They did not try to invade Valinor because they were afraid of hordes of tireless, unsleeping Elves who could work day and night manufacturing products to undercut Númenorean wages.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is replacing mithril with cheap chrome plate that peels off in no time, the way they are replacing the themes Tolkien set out with their own themes. Bezos got taken for a ride with this production and while I don't regret him getting bilked out of a fortune, I do bitterly regret what they are doing to the work.
They managed to confuse Tolkien's Elves with Santa's Elves.
So not alone will they take the Númenorean jobs, they will then go on to do the most evil of all evil actions....
UNIONISE!!!!! 🤣
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