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Notes -
There's so much "it gets worse." On the one hand, they slip in references to at least medium-deep lore with no show-internal explanation, so only fairly invested Tolkien fans will even recognize that a point was being made, but on the other hand, you've got major lore-breaking points shoved in your face right and left that are obvious to more casual fans. (Was that a bit of casual flirting between Galadriel and Elrond? Did I just throw up a bit in my mouth?)
Like introducing a fourth Silmaril to support the 'origin' of mithril through philosophical dualism that is completely anathema to Tolkien and his works...and never once mentioning Feanor. Or the famous motto of the Numenoreans, "The sea is always right." Or the infamous teleporting armies problem straight out of GoT S8. Or the greatest smith of the Second Age having to be handheld through the concept of "this is an alloy," and the importance of (fuck me) and I quote "coaxing" metals together instead of "forcing" them.
They actually have disguised-Sauron describe his little "alloy" tip to Celebrimbor as "a gift." That only lands if you know that Sauron is supposed to be disguised as Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, BUT HE ISN'T! Who is that for?! The only thing I'm left with is that the Easter eggs hidden in the show are intended as calculated insults to fans of Tolkien's actual work. No presumption of charity can or should stand against the mountain of contrary evidence.
@FarNearEverywhere is welcome to her claim on the blood of the showrunners, but I would at least like to watch.
That's what had me banging my head off the desk; they throw in little snippets of lore that only the book nerds will get (the set-up for 'is this the Oath of the Feanorians?' in the trailers, the items in the King's tower in Númenor that have you going 'That's Dramborleg!!!!', the Bough of Return on the ships) so they've plainly done the reading, and they're trying to coax us in like laying a trail of breadcrumbs.
And then the cage comes down!
And we get Elrond "I'm nobody important, just the King's speechwriter, which is why I'm not even invited to the banquet" - what? This is the guy who has the blood of a Maia in his veins, the descendant of both the Mortal and Elvish noble houses, someone who if he wanted to cut up rough could lob in a claim for the High Kingship! Then to make up for this, they give all the best bits to him from what Celebrimbor should be doing (so no Celebrimbor and Narvi, now it's Elrond and Durin Jr.) so the greatest smith of the current generation has nothing better to do than wander around in a granny bathrobe and need to be taught about "alloys" by a scruffy Mortal.
Gil-galad at least looks like an Elf, this younger generation with their rebellious short haircuts, but his main purpose is to be pompous and anti-Dwarven.
It takes Galadriel five episodes to remember she has a husband. Maybe. If he's not dead. She has no idea, she was too busy wandering the world for centuries looking for Sauron and couldn't take six months out of that to see if her husband was alive or dead or off fathering kids in that Southland village (who is Theo's dad? we know Mom has an eye for the Elf boys, her and Arondir, the most unsexy, lacking in chemistry, bloodless 'forbidden love' grand romance you could hope to see). Against that, mangling the lore and character of Finrod is a smaller matter.
If I believe the rumours about the second season, they did give in to the loud complaints about WHERE THE ANGBAND IS ANNATAR??? and now we're going to get not one but two Saurons. One as Halbrand still mooning around, one as Annatar (of course they had to cast a British Indian actor for that part, but I don't care so long as he can act, unlike Arondir's guy. He's a RADA grad so maybe?). Possibly three if the wilder rumours are right and he turns up in a third version as pretending to be Celeborn ("honey I'm home, did you miss me?" "remind me again, who are you?").
I wonder if we will ever get to see the second season? They ploughed ahead at the end of season one with "Well it doesn't matter if you hated it, we're already filming the second season, so yah boo to you toxic trolls", but even with that, they may decide to just write it off, use it as a tax loss, and not go ahead with something that isn't looking like it will improve on the first season reception and might indeed sink the streaming service if they make it the flagship show.
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