Discussão [1ª temporada] Episódio 8 (com spoilers)

[Béla van Tesma]

Acho que já está na hora de criarmos o tópico "Eu pegava" para a série.

Demorou!

 

[Ilmarinen]

Mas o discurso todo de Adar sobre os orcs na cabana já passa uma quebra de distinção entre o bem e o mal em minha obra, e essa linha tênue acaba não existindo, joga a imagem de ser apenas um "ponto de vista", 'os dois lados da guerra acham que estão certos".
Outra coisa que me incomodou muito foi a influência de Annatar sobre Celebrimbor nesse último episódio, exploraram tantos arcos totalmente inúteis, e algo canônico na história foi feito as pressas, 5 min de papo de bar e pronto, influenciou.
Sem contar que o que passou, é que você poderia trocar o Celebrimbor por qualquer pessoa, que teria êxito no processo.
Foi um monte de fanfic de tempo de tela, quando chegou na história principal, entregaram qualquer coisa.

O lance de Celebrimbor ter sido "escanteado" e sua interação com Annatar ter ficado nos bastidores da notícia, no background, provavelmente tem a ver com o fato do ator do Celebrimbor ter sido MUDADO no meio das filmagens.... Com uma mudança de roteiro importante aparentemente tendo acontecido aí.

Alguém ou achou que os innuendos da interação entre Celebrimbor e Annatar não eram um vespeiro com o qual a série queria ter que lidar... Ou então, o Tolkien Estate NÃO quis negociar essa parte específica detalhada no Contos Inacabados e eles foram forçados a fazer algo vincadamento diferente por conta disso....Mas que, salientemos, ainda NÃO terminou.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LOTR_on_Prime/comments/xitf6t

 

[Ilmarinen]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1554499837873233922

Estou eu e minha amiga aqui engrossando o coro do Ilmarinen... Em uma coisa todos concordamos com relação a esta série.

Na hora que eu vi o paralelo evidente desse gif animado do Halbrand com essa imagem abaixo eu pensei....Vixe, já era pro Homem do Meteoro ser Sauron... A mesma posição do corpo trocada vai lá mas a mesma expressão facial e inclinação de queixo já é demais.... Ainda mais considerando a cena em que Halbrand entra em câmera lenta num shot em Númenor com um fundo diretamente evocando esse outro aí que foi de onde pegaram a imagem da Entertaiment Weekly...



E, a propósito:

LOTR: Rings Of Power's Sauron Actor Didn't Know He Was Sauron Until Episode 3, Reveals Season 2 Details

New information has come to light about one of Middle-earth's greatest villains and their role in the Amazon Studios show.

www.gamespot.com

 

[Ilmarinen]

Mas o discurso todo de Adar sobre os orcs na cabana já passa uma quebra de distinção entre o bem e o mal em minha obra, e essa linha tênue acaba não existindo, joga a imagem de ser apenas um "ponto de vista", 'os dois lados da guerra acham que estão certos".

A intenção parece ter sido dar o eco com esse comentário de Tolkien no ensaio sobre os Orcs:

Mas mesmo antes dessa perversão de que Morgoth era suspeito, os sábios nos Dias Antigos sempre ensinaram que os orcs não foram feitos por Melkor e, portanto, não eram malignos na sua origem. Eles podiam ter se tornado irredimíveis [pelo menos por elfos e homens], mas eles continuavam dentro da Lei. Isto é, que embora sendo necessário [sendo os dedos da mão de Morgoth] serem enfrentados com a maior severidade, eles não deveriam ser tratados com os seus próprios termos de crueldade e traição. Cativos, não deviam ser atormentados, nem mesmo para descobrir informações para a defesa das casas de elfos e homens. Se quaisquer orcs se rendessem e clamassem por misericórdia, ela seria concedida, a qualquer preço. Este era o ensinamento dos sábios, embora no horror da guerra isto não fosse sempre considerado.

Justamente pra enfatizar que os elfos não são exatamente os "santinhos" que ficam aparentando ser na Terceira Era. E onde a preocupação evidente do Tolkien com os Orcs como seres sencientes dotados de alma pra mim ficou patente.

E seu comentário sobre o ponto de vista, ironicamente, evoca JUSTAMENTE uma longa explanação que o Tolkien fez a respeito das Guerras no geral e sobre a definição de quem é herói e vilão falando do Mundo Primário mas dando a entender que se aplica tb até certo ponto ao seu Mundo Secundário:

Na “vida real”, é claro, as causas não são nítidas — ainda que apenas
porque os tiranos humanos raramente são totalmente corrompidos em puras
manifestações de vontade maligna. Pelo que posso julgar, alguns parecem ter
sido muito corruptos, mas até mesmo estes precisam governar pessoas das
quais apenas parte é igualmente corrupta, enquanto muitos ainda precisam que
“bons motivos”, reais ou simulados, sejam-lhes apresentados. Como vemos
hoje. Não obstante, há casos claros: como por exemplo atos de absoluta
agressão cruel nos quais, portanto, o certo está desde o início totalmente de um
lado, qualquer que seja o mal que o sofrimento ressentido pelo mal possa
eventualmente gerar nos membros do lado certo. Há também conflitos sobre
coisas ou idéias importantes. Em tais casos, fico mais impressionado pela
extrema importância de se estar do lado certo do que perturbado pela
revelação da selva de motivos confusos, propósitos particulares e ações

individuais (nobres ou vis) na qual o certo e o errado em verdadeiros conflitos
humanos estão comumente envolvidos. Se o conflito na realidade for sobre
coisas propriamente chamadas de certas e erradas, ou boas e más, então a
probidade ou a bondade de um lado não é provada ou estabelecida pelas
reivindicações de cada lado; ela deve depender de valores e crenças acima e
independentes do conflito em particular. Um juiz deve determinar certo e errado
de acordo com princípios que ele considera válidos em todos os casos. Assim
sendo, o certo permanecerá uma possessão inalienável do lado certo e
justificará sua causa por toda a parte.
(Falo de causas, não de indivíduos. E claro que, para um juiz cujas
idéias morais possuem uma base religiosa ou filosófica, ou de fato para
qualquer um que não seja cego pelo fanatismo partidário, a probidade da
causa não justificará as ações de seus apoiadores, como indivíduos, que sejam
moralmente torpes. Mas apesar das “propagandas” poderem ser aceitas por
eles como provas de que a sua causa na realidade não estava “certa”, isso não
é válido. Os agressores são eles próprios os primeiros a serem culpados pelos
atos de maldade que se originam de sua violação original da justiça e das
emoções que sua própria malícia era naturalmente (pelos seus padrões)
esperada que estimulasse. De qualquer forma, eles não têm o direito de exigir
que suas vítimas, quando atacadas, não exijam olho por olho e dente por
dente.)
De maneira similar, boas ações por aqueles no lado errado não
justificarão sua causa. Podem haver feitos no lado errado de coragem heróica
ou alguns de nível moral mais elevado: feitos de piedade e abstenção. Um juiz
pode conceder-lhes honras e alegrar-se ao ver como alguns homens podem
erguer-se acima do ódio e da raiva de um conflito, ao mesmo tempo em que
ele pode deplorar os atos de maldade no lado certo e afligir-se por ver como o
ódio, uma vez provocado, pode arrastá-los para baixo. Isso, porém, não
alterará seu julgamento sobre qual lado estava com a razão, nem sua indicação

da culpa primária por todo o mal que se sucedeu no outro lado.
Na minha história não lido com o Mal Absoluto. Não creio que haja
tal coisa, uma vez que ela é Nula. Não creio, de qualquer modo, que qualquer
“ser racional” seja completamente mau. Satã caiu. Em meu mito, Morgoth
caiu antes da Criação do mundo físico. Na minha história, Sauron representa
uma aproximação do completamente mau tão próximo quanto possível. Ele
seguiu o caminho de todos os tiranos: começando bem, pelo menos no nível
que, apesar de desejar ordenar todas as coisas de acordo com sua própria
sabedoria, ele no início ainda levava em consideração o bem-estar
(econômico) de outros habitantes da Terra. Mas ele foi além dos tiranos
humanos no orgulho e na ânsia pela dominação, sendo em origem um espírito
(angelical) imortal*. Em O Senhor dos Anéis o conflito não é basicamente sobre
“liberdade”, embora ela esteja naturalmente envolvida

 

[Tsujiro]

Ver anexo 95064

De onde é essa imagem aqui? O site não entra. Só por curiosidade mesmo

 

[Ilmarinen]

De onde é essa imagem aqui? O site não entra. Só por curiosidade mesmo

Do antigo Blog do Valerhon que ainda dá pra acessar via Archive.org.

Home

web.archive.org

A maioria das ilustrações tolkienianas se espalhou pela Internet mesmo depois do deletamento....Pena que a do Aragorn com o Palantír sumiu.

 

[Gandalf The Black]

Assim como nenhum pai deveria ter de enterrar um filho, todos deveriam poder ver um último nascer do sol antes da partida.

 

[Ilmarinen]

Assim como nenhum pai deveria ter de enterrar um filho, todos deveriam poder ver um último nascer do sol antes da partida.

Acho que nessas eles evocaram Fëanor. Pena que deveriam eram ter MOSTRADO o Sadoc morrendo mesmo bem a la final da trilogia do O Planeta dos Macacos. Esse cacoete de não mostrarem ninguém "humano" morrendo de verdade mesmo vai ter que ser descartado o quanto antes.

Then his sons raised up their father and bore him back towards Mithrim. But
as they drew near to Eithel Sirion and were upon the upward path to the pass
over the mountains, Fëanor bade them halt; for his wounds were mortal, and he
knew that his hour was come. And looking out from the slopes of Ered Wethrin
with his last sight he beheld far off the peaks of Thangorodrim, mightiest of the
towers of Middle-earth, and knew with the foreknowledge of death that no
power of the Noldor would ever overthrow them; but he cursed the name of
Morgoth thrice, and laid it upon his sons to hold to their oath, and to avenge their
father. Then he died; but he had neither burial nor tomb, for so fiery was his
spirit that as it sped his body fell to ash, and was borne away like smoke; and his
likeness has never again appeared in Arda, neither has his spirit left the halls of
Mandos. Thus ended the mightiest of the Noldor, of whose deeds came both
their greatest renown and their most grievous woe

Resquícios de Moisés vendo a Terra Prometida de longe aí em cima.

 

[Ilmarinen]

Parece que a Segunda Temporada vai ter de tudo que o @Ragnaros. estava superafim de ver:

‘LOTR: The Rings Of Power’ Season 1 Finale: Showrunners & EP Talk Sauron Twist, Tease “Grittier” Season 2, & New Characters From Tolkien Canon

The end is here for Middle-earth for now, but tonight's 8th episode of the Amazon tentpole unveiled next season & a trio of rings

deadline.com

DEADLINE: After spending your time introducing your main cast over the early episodes, you really packed almost everyone in for this finale with a lot of pivot points for most of them. Why did you take that approach, did you worry it could be too much?

WEBER: You know, we have a big cast, and lots of characters that we love and hopefully the audience loves, and they all needed to have a special moment. In terms of our major plot engine, there’s just big stuff happening, by this point, but you know we wanted a finale that was going to be emotional and delightful, and thrilling, and surprising, and sort of scary and intense, and very dramatic. I think the guys wrote a beautiful script, and it was really well directed and performed, and we really just tried to make space for the actors to do their best work so these big moments could really land and resonate.

Amazon Prime Video
DEADLINE: So, let’s talk about a huge reveal – Halbrand is Sauron. Why did you guys decide to go with that? Did you consider other alternatives? Were there other characters or maybe characters we didn’t even know about who could have been Sauron?

PAYNE: I think from the beginning we wanted to build a relationship between Sauron and Galadriel. There was text that we found to be really, really fascinating from the Mirror of Galadriel, in which she says, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or at least all of his mind, the concerns, the elves and ever does.

So that from the beginning seemed like something really appealing to us. Then the idea of a Tolkienian chance meeting, as he called them, an encounter on the raft felt like it could be a delicious way to start off that storyline. So, that was the story that we went up in the beginning. We thought of ways that there are other characters you might think of for Sauron; the Stranger was certainly always going to be someone who we knew people would be thinking about, given his powers.

DEADLINE: You dropped a lot of clues over this season, are we going to get more into Halbrand’s backstory, how he got there on that raft, and set this up?

McKAY: I would say that those are all good questions and questions need answering. So hopefully those are new layers of the onion we can peel back.

DEADLINE: Where are you at in terms of the second season right now?

WEBER: These first few days are kind of a luxury for us because we’re just beginning and the guys are still writing, you know, polishing the script for Season 2, so they’re writing that. But if you wait a minute, we’ll be scattered to the corners in editing rooms and different sets and different locations, different directors and filmmakers, and prep meetings and post meetings and all these things, and it’s like you have to sort of be an octopus and have a tentacle everywhere at once.

I also think in the beginning of Season 1, there’s just so much that’s new, and you have to see how your actors are going to do, and how the material is going to feel, and how the balance of it works. Going into Season 2, we have the benefit of having built these relationships, both the relationships of the characters and the relationships of the actual human cast, and we’re the incredible beneficiaries of that thing and being this much further down the road.

Amazon Prime Studios
DEADLINE: Let’s shift back up the road to the Stranger and the Harfoots in this Season 1 ender What awaits him and Nori? Is he Gandalf? And, most importantly, will we see Poppy again?

PAYNE: Well, we I think we need to be careful about not spoiling the adventure. I would say, you know, one of the goals from the very beginning for us here was to go to uncharted, unseen corners of the Tolkien map, a huge and tantalizing continent that readers and audiences have never been to.

McKAY: And the idea of a Tolkienian journey and adventure with a wizard and a halfling, it seemed to us like a really exciting and enticing new leg of the journey as it is, as it were. As far as Poppy’s concerned, I would just say, you know, Megan Richards and Markella Kavenagh have an undeniable delight and chemistry, and a friendship that those characters have built and that feels so authentic.

The Stranger’s journey and Nori’s journey with him is one of discovery. And for him it’s one of self-discovery. He has learned that he is ostensibly an Istari, you know, which means wizard. And he’s learning something else from the Mystics when they say he is he is not Sauron, he is the Oher, which sort of implies that potentially his destiny is entwined in some way with Sauron’s. But that’s all he knows at this point. And he’s going to have to go on another journey to learn more and maybe a name or his name becomes a part of that journey.










DEADLINE: Lindsey, looking back now over the season, it seems that episode 6, “Udûn” and its giant battle would have been the place to end things, but that’s clearly not what you guys did. Why did you decide to have two more episodes after the explosion of Mount Doom?

WEBER: I think there are a few things.

We actually felt that from a character’s perspective, we wanted to explore what it meant for Galadriel to, who had been right a lot, to be wrong, really, really wrong for a minute. We wanted her to have to live with those consequences, and in a way that she couldn’t fix in the short term. So, as a thematic exploration, it seemed really important to do that,

Then, you want time after that to see what it means and live with the consequences and follow that emotional journey. So, on a plot perspective and sort of a season engine level, I think JD and Patrick imagined that we should do, this was their version of like an intimate battle. They talked about Stalingrad and Battle in the Streets, not sort of full epic but more hand-to-hand and brutal with surprising twists and turns. So, they were like, oh, we’ll do this little battle in six, and it turned into what it turned into,

DEADLINE: Not a little battle in the end …

WEBER: (LAUGHS) No, but it was meant to be sort of a character gut punch, and obviously, a sea change or land change, I should say, for the characters in Middle-earth. It was always meant to be, you know, primarily a really big emotional blow for our heroes.

DEADLINE: Talking about big emotions, Rings of Power has been NSA-level stuff from the drop. Where are you at now the finale is out there?

WEBER: Honestly, I’m so glad for episode 8 to be out in the world and for us to not have to be the guardians of a bunch of secrets any longer. We really love this episode and the way it all came together, and the people of the world will think everything, love/hate and in between, I’m quite sure, but it certainly seems like everybody’s talking about it and people are watching. I think we always knew there would be a lot of chatter from all corners, and it’s good to be talked about.

Amazon Prime Studios
DEADLINE: I guess your life is deep into Season 2 production, didn’t you consider saving some of what we saw in the J.D. and Patrick penned finale for that?

WEBER: It’s funny you ask that, there are things that we saved that were going to be in the final bit of the season that we thought, oh, just it’s too big right now to do, to fit that in with everything else and let’s save it, and we’re actually doing some of those things now in Season 2.

DEADLINE: Really?

WEBER: Yes, and I think it’s really exciting to be exploring them and have the room to do it the way the way we really wanted to, so we weren’t giving anything short shrift.

DEADLINE: Does that exploration include new characters?

McKAY: Cirdan will be a part of the adventure moving forward in Season 2 We’ve cast a wonderful actor to play him that we will announce at some future date. But part of the fun of telling a story in Middle-earth is that there’s all these wonderful canon characters that you’ve met Season 1 and then there are additional canon characters that we will get to in future seasons. If you know the lore, you know, anybody is fair game who might have been a part of the world at this time.

WEBER: Season 2 is fundamentally different in that our main villain is out and about and doing his thing. I think in some ways, it’s going to grittier, more intense, maybe a little scarier. Certainly, it has a lot of the same other tonal ranges that you find in the show, which we feel are really sort of fundamental to feeling like you’re in Middle-earth, but once Sauron is openly on the move and working his plans, things get rather interesting.

DEADLINE: Sounds like you really have the full five seasons pretty mapped out …

WEBER: You know things evolve a bit, but from even before I signed on for this job, the guys really wanted to devise a story that would work from service level the first time and then would work on a whole new level when you saw it again with the full knowledge of the season. I would even say after you’ve seen future seasons, go back and look on those things again and view them in a new light. They really have a very careful plan, and as a producer, it’s really exciting to work with filmmakers like that because you can do so many exciting things and build so many layers into it. There are lots of things in there that will be a source of debate and fan engagement and discovery for people for a long, long time

DEADLINE: I’ve heard from several people that they’ve been paying attention to Rings of Power, but that they saw Season 1 as four movies, and I’ve heard from others that their plan was always to binge it once the whole season was out …

WEBER: I believe it, in fact, I know it to be true. My assistant, who is younger than I am, tells me that that’s a really important thing to younger people. That her generation, that age group in particular, really just want the immediacy of having it all out there I also love the idea that somebody would think of it as four movies. I’d be interested to go back and think of it that way. Certain episodes certainly do have a duality to them like the, you know, the first two that Jay (director J.A. Bayona) did were very much planned that way and feel that way.










DEADLINE: Speaking of planning, what is the symbolism of the Stranger’s apple, especially in the finale?

PAYNE: Apples have a lot of mythological resonances in cultures really across the world. There’s, obviously a biblical idea. I mean, it’s also commonly associated with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But for a long time, you know, in many languages, the word apple actually could kind of mean any fruit. But in this story, I think you can look at it as one, a symbol of their friendship (between the Stranger and Nori). Food is dear and scarce, and the fact that Nori would still give the stranger one of the only good apples left is an obvious token of friendship.

At the same time, I think you can also look at it, if you want to lean into any, you know, the taking of fruit in a garden setting is something that portends kind of a loss of innocence, a leaving of Eden and heading into the difficult world. And The Stranger has effectively gone through a birth, and is then with the Harfoots, which are, have helped to nourishment, take care of him and, and it’s been a period of innocence for him. You could say he is now leaving that behind and going out into the world. I think as he holds on to the apple, I think friendship, again, is an important thing, is as he considers eating it, he hears Nori’s voice in his head and he thinks about her and, he’s clearly going to be very hungry. He’s been traveling a long time at that point. But rather than eat the apple, he holds on to the apple, as you know, holding onto to the friendship that he has with Nori. As I said, it’s important to him.

Anthony D’Alessandro contributed to this report

 

[Ilmarinen]

Aquilo que a Boskov parece ter achado que era impossível acontecer:

Rings of Power bosses admit what "didn't work" in season 1

"It always has to tie back into the larger stakes."

www.digitalspy.com

E a outra entrevista dada pra Esquire pra ficar fácil de ler:

For the Rings of Power Showrunners, the Road Goes Ever On

J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay dish on the finale's big reveals—and tell us about their scrapped Star Trek film, too.

By Adrienne WestenfeldPublished: Oct 14, 2022

This interview contains spoilers for the Season One finale of Rings of Power.
After five long years spent developing, writing, and filming the most expensive television series of all time, Rings of Power showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have finally reached the end of the road—of Season One, anyway. The explosive Season One finale, full of sound, fury, and shocking reveals, has been a massive undertaking years in the making, but Payne and McKay are only just getting started. As Tolkien himself would tell us, “the road goes ever on and on”—four more seasons lie ahead, meaning that for the next decade, Payne and McKay know where they’ll be hanging their hats. “We were both ready to make that commitment and make that sacrifice,” Payne says, Zooming with Esquire alongside McKay. “It certainly has not disappointed us. It’s been the joy of a lifetime.”

Related Stories​

• Who is The Stranger in 'Rings of Power'?
• ‘Rings of Power’ Season Two: Everything We Know
• The Nerd’s Definitive Guide to 'Rings of Power'

As the season has progressed, viewers have lit up the Internet with questions and theories. Is The Stranger actually Sauron, Gandalf, Glorfindel, or someone else? Could Halbrand’s true identity be the Witch King of Angmar, The King of the Dead, or maybe even big baddie Sauron himself? The finale drops two thrilling reveals: The Stranger is a wizard (presumably Gandalf) and Halbrand is Sauron. (We’ll allow you a minute to let that sink in.) But if you think you have all the answers now, think again—as the showrunners tell Esquire, there are four more seasons of twists, turns, and thrills yet to come. Days before the Season One finale aired, Payne and McKay took us inside the story, from how they planned the big Sauron reveal to what lies ahead for Galadriel. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
ESQUIRE: Of all the forms you could have given Sauron, why Halbrand? Why was that the perfect deception?
J.D. Payne: It always goes back to the books for us. There was one tantalizing sentence in “The Mirror of Galadriel” when Galadriel was talking Frodo and Sam. She says, “I perceive the dark Lord and know his mind, or all his mind that concerns the elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed.” That felt like a really loaded statement to us, speaking to some kind of a relationship. Galadriel also says when she's offered the ring, "Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen." She feels like she's experienced or anticipated this temptation for a long time. All of these things spoke to a long history with darkness, and more specifically with Sauron. So we asked: would we like to figure out some kind of relationship between them? If you could do it in a way where she meets him without knowing who he is, which feels fair given that he's a deceiver and shapeshifter, we felt like there was this opportunity. From there, we started backfilling. What kind of person would he have to be? How would they meet?
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ESQ: There are plenty of clues in the episode that these characters are not who they appear to be. For me, the jig was up when Halbrand says, "Consider it a gift." Lord of Gifts—it’s Sauron! But a viewer who hasn't read the books wouldn't have that reaction. You’ve done a masterful job of creating something that's full of rewards for devoted readers, but still thrilling and surprising for casual fans.
Patrick McKay: That’s the real trick, isn't it? This is something we talk about endlessly. We’re treading on sacred ground here—this is enormously beloved and rich lore. There are thousands and thousands of years of history. This was a man's life's work, and the canon is so labyrinthine. Working on the show has been a joy in seeing that there’s no end to it. There’s no bottom. Every leaf has a story.
It's a little intimidating to create something within the empty spaces that he left. What we found ourselves going back to again and again was this question: how do we honor the spirit of what you feel when you read Tolkien? In other adaptations, where have they been successful in capturing that unique mix of tones and themes that were important to him? The challenge and the opportunity here was to tell a new story in that world, in the spaces he left blank, informed by everything he wrote, but also a story that would be an emotionally engaging, delightful, exciting, thrilling journey as your first step into this enormous body of work. Hopefully we're passing through both checks with fans and non-fans. It’s a constant balancing act and something we never stopped talking about. There are places where we’ll probably look back and think, "We could’ve done better here for the fans, or better here for the non-fans.” It’s hard. But if it was easy, everyone would do it.

Payne and McKay at the Rings of Power world premiere in August.
Jeff Spicer//Getty Images
ESQ: One of my favorite moments of the season was when Adar says to Galadriel, "Perhaps your search for Morgoth's successor should have ended in your own mirror." I loved him forcing Galadriel to confront how her obsession with vengeance has changed her. Obsession is something she and Sauron have in common; they’re both obsessed with “bringing peace to Middle Earth,” although they disagree about what that looks like. What's next for her?
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JP: I think there has to be a reckoning. Even knowing that Sauron was partially involved in the science behind the making of the rings, we see her give the go-ahead to make the rings anyway. She also has to bear some responsibility; “I empowered the Dark Lord. I saved his life on a raft. I was party to him coming from obscurity to head an army.” That’s a lot she has to wrestle with and be accountable for. I think we can expect to see her having to pick up those threads and see how those decisions impact her various relationships.
PM: Season One has been a real journey for Galadriel emotionally. She was so sure that she was right, that this was her destiny, that this is the fight she had to have. When she's watching the ash cloud come toward her in Episode Seven, she really feels what a terrible mistake her pride has led her to make and pull so many people into. I love watching her and Theo in that episode. I really feel her reflecting on her own mistakes and counseling Theo not to make the same mistakes that she has made. But then in the eighth episode, we end with Elrond finding evidence that she lied to him. Her facing the consequences of that has not ended yet.
ESQ: We got a big shocker in that episode when Galadriel revealed that she was once married. Readers of the books were wondering when Celeborn was going to enter the picture, but I think it's safe to say no one expected this. Why did that feel like the right reveal?
PM: We're always looking for ways to plant seeds that can hopefully grow into trees later down the road. We’ve tried to approach the architecture of the entire Second Age as a long-term creative project, so there are canon characters all over Season One. There are additional canon characters that we have yet to get into in future seasons. We also love the idea of Galadriel being so wise already, even as this young, brash version of herself. She's thousands of years old. She was married for maybe a few hundred years, and that's still just a blip to an elf. That's just one more experience, one more tragedy, one more loss that's fueling her. We liked the idea that sometimes you tell a new friend or a stranger something you would never tell your closest friends. Maybe Theo's confessions are provoking confessions from her.

Courtesy of Prime Video
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JP: An elf who's been alive for thousands of years has a bigger Rolodex than a human. In Season One, we were interested in getting to know Galadriel as an individual first because we had a certain idea of the story—especially the idea of her having a relationship with Halbrand, who turns out to be Sauron. We were also interested in telling a story about the friendship between her and Elrond. That felt like a core relation. We asked ourselves: what are the core relationships for Season One Galadriel? As far as Celeborn goes, we wanted to let people know that this is a part of her that could become important later on. We didn't take him off the board and say he's dead. She says, "I never saw him again" and we leave it as an ellipsis. But if and when that comes back, that would be like a freight train crashing into her, if the love of her life is still around. Now that we've spread the foundation of her relationships with Sauron, Elrond, and even Gil-Galad, we have the opportunity in future seasons to see how other relationships, maybe including Celeborn, will continue to show other sides of her.
ESQ: As I’ve followed along with the show, I’ve been fascinated by how you work around the First Age context from The Silmarillion. That material, I’m given to understand, is off-limits. As you crafted this story, did that feel like a limitation or a challenge?
PM: Amazon has licensed the rights to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which includes the appendices at the end of Return of the King, as well as The Hobbit. The stories of the First Age are contained within that material in abbreviated form. So that history and that mythos is part of Lord of the Rings, even if you never read The Silmarillion. Going into the Second Age, we felt that it was important to set context for the audience the same way that the Second Age sets context for the Third Age.
Tolkien talks about “distant mountains”—every place you go in Middle-earth, there's something in the distance, and if you go there, there's something else in the distance. For the characters in this era of Middle-earth, the First Age is in the distance. We like the idea of tantalizing and teasing and alluding to that history, but ultimately that's its own story with its own complexities and richness, told in another book that maybe someone down the road will adapt. But the aspects of it that felt germane to the conflicts and struggles of each of these characters, we felt were important to fill in. For example, the fact that Sauron, at this time in his development, is coming off of being the second-in-command. He’s not yet the Dark Lord. You're going to watch him become that, presumably, over the course of the Second Age and over the course of the show. Even the fact that he had a boss is important context. The fact that Galadriel lived through those wars and lost people to those wars felt like enormously important context.
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JP: I'll make a musical analogy, because music is very important in Tolkien. Think about when you're playing jazz. It's layered. You have a piano that plays with the trumpet, that plays with the bass, that plays with the drums. Imagine if you took away one of those instruments, but you still have the other parts of it. What we try to do is always tell stories that can play jazz with the things we don't have the rights to in the First Age. If you're a fan, your mind will fill in the drumbeat underneath it, because you know what stories were there. With the stories we layer on top of it, you can say, “I see how that adds another tone or flavor on top of the things that are there outside of the rights grant.” It’s a constant dance of wanting to make sure that it harmonizes and doesn't contradict, but also doesn’t use things we don't have the rights to.

Payne and McKay behind the scenes.
Ben Rothstein / Prime Video
ESQ: Season One had a huge responsibility set the table for the new viewer. Now that you've set the table, what do you feel freer to do in the future?
PM: Obviously Sauron is now a chess piece on the board. We felt that it was important not to start this show with Sauron on the rampage, because when you have a villain so compelling and complex and dangerous, he tends to hog up a lot of airspace. So we wanted to earn and work our way to that complexity of evil. But now that he’s a chess piece on the board, there are a lot of dominoes that start to fall. The ring poem is in a song at the end of the eighth episode sung by Fiona Apple and composed by Bear McCreary. Seven rings, nine rings, one ring—each batch could potentially be a new turn in the story and a new turn in Sauron's development through the Second Age. Right there in the eighth episode, there's some hints as to where we might go next. We hope that Season One has invested you in the relationships in such a way that you're along for the journey. But we've been pretty open in the past about where we intend to go: we're going to tell the story of the forging of the rings of power, the rise the Dark Lord Sauron, the fall of Númenor, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. Exactly when and how we're going there, and what hopefully delightful twists come along the way, will be things that people will have to wait and see.
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ESQ: If you were dropped into Middle-earth tomorrow, who would you want to be in this universe?
PM: Well, Númenor is pretty great because it's an island, and there's beautiful beaches, and the people are beautiful, and the architecture is beautiful. It would be pretty sweet to live in Númenor as long as I die at their height, before things start becoming horrible.
JP: I think being a Noldorian Elf would be pretty amazing. If you’re one of the exiles, you've been to Valinor, you know what that’s like, you retain a memory of the joy of Elf Heaven or the place of great light, but you also get to be in Middle-earth, where you’re making a difference in the lives of people. You have an immortal life to learn and experience and grow and see all the wonders of Middle-earth. You could see all these various creatures and you're still vulnerable. But also, being an Istar would be pretty sweet, because you’re able to come back at various points.

Payne and McKay on-stage with Stephen Colbert at San Diego Comic-Con 2022.
Michael Buckner//Getty Images
ESQ: Rings of Power isn’t your first rodeo with a big franchise. What can you tell us about the abandoned Star Trek movie you wrote?
PM: I would love to tell you about it. We worked on a couple of Star Trek movies. The one you’re asking about would have been the fourth in the franchise, reuniting Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pine. The conceit was that through a cosmic quirk in the Star Trek world, they were the same age. It was going to be a grand father-son space adventure—think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in space. We were really thrilled about it. We had an original villain and a really cool 2001: A Space Odyssey-esque sci-fi idea at the core. We worked on it for two and half years with Lindsey Weber, our non-writing executive producer on Rings of Power, and an amazing director, S.J. Clarkson. The movie eventually fell apart and it really was a heartbreak for us. It’s part of what led us here, because it got us thinking, “Gosh, with a big IP title, big movie stars, and a story that we all felt had the chance to be terrific, it couldn't come together.” We felt the winds were shifting against big movies, which is part of what made us start taking TV seriously. That led us to Rings of Power. But we would have loved to make that movie. I want to spoil a piece of it that's exciting—how they end up together. Can we do that, JD?
JP: Sure, why not? There’s an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “Relics” where they find Scotty, who's been trapped a transporter for a couple of decades, and they're able to have cool adventure with him. Our conceit was, “What if right before the Kelvin impacted with that huge mining ship, George Kirk had tried to beam himself over to his wife's shuttle where his son, Jim Kirk, had just been born? And what if the ship hadn’t completely exploded—what if it left some space junk?” Think about when you send a text message and you’ve typed it out, but you haven't quite hit send. On the other side, they see those three little dots that someone has typed. It’s like the transporter had absorbed his pattern up into the pattern buffer, but hadn’t spit him out on the other side. It was actually a saved copy of him that was in the computer.
PM: So the adventure is that Chris Pine and the crew of the Enterprise have to seek out the wreckage of the ship that his father died on because of a mystery and a new villain. In the ship, they stumble across his father's pattern. They beam him out and he has no idea that no time has passed at all, and that he's looking at his son. Then the adventure goes from there.

 

[Ilmarinen]

A Nori é chata justamente porque é uma das personagens mais piegas da série. Tenta passar emoção a todo momento. Mas ao menos a mim, não emociona. Me parece artificial e forçado. O que sobra, no fim, é a chatice.
Foi assim do começo ao fim, culminando naquela despedida insuportável e sem fim.

Lembrando que os "harfoots" parece que estavam incluídos na parte "não negociável" imposta pela Amazon pra todo mundo que se candidatou pra showrunner.

Parece que NÃO era parte das intenções originais deles , mas, se for mesmo o caso, só ficaremos sabendo daqui a anos.

 

[Ilmarinen]

É o tipo de comentário que eu esperaria vir da parte dela e que eu sei que a Boskov é perfeitamente capaz de fazer já que ela mostra isso muito bem nas reviews de House of the Dragon, se ela já não tivesse "desligado os receptores" a essas alturas do campeonato no que diz respeito a Rings of Power:

 

[Finarfin]

Eu não tenho nenhum problema com a existência dos harfoots na série. Gostei da estética, gostei do Sadoc e gostei da trilha. Aquela cena inicial deles se descamuflando foi ótima. Essa relação inicial com um Istar, que tudo leva a crer ser o Gandalf, também é interessante.
O que eu não gostei foi da pieguice. E isso não me parece que era parte inegociável, e sim mau gosto (ao menos em relação ao meu gosto) do roteiro.
O problema não é o que foi feito, mas como foi feito.

 

[Grimnir]

Perfeito o comentário. O problema não são as condições inegociáveis, as referências abusivas a OSdA ou a compressão temporal. O problema é roteiro muitas vezes preguiçoso, para não dizer ruim.

 

[Ilmarinen]

Eu não tenho nenhum problema com a existência dos harfoots na série. Gostei da estética, gostei do Sadoc e gostei da trilha. Aquela cena inicial deles se descamuflando foi ótima. Essa relação inicial com um Istar, que tudo leva a crer ser o Gandalf, também é interessante.
O que eu não gostei foi da pieguice. E isso não me parece que era parte inegociável, e sim mal gosto (ao menos em relação ao meu gosto) do roteiro.
O problema não é o que foi feito, mas como foi feito.

Eu entendo....Eu quis dizer que, em relação ao resto, essa parte pode ser relativamente "improvisada".... Estaria fora de sintonia com o todo como tinha sido planejado se for o caso de ter sido colocada lá por imposição executiva da Amazon. Lembremos que era possível ter O Estranho sem Harfoots mas interagindo com humanos "normais"

Talvez seja por isso que a breguice fica mais evidente. Se bem que partes "bregas" diferentes, como acontece com os livros, como disse o Tolkien, acabam sendo difíceis de suportar em níveis diferentes pra pessoas diferentes. O sentimentalismo excessivo e não-canônico do Durin IV com o Elrond por causa do Mithril, pra mim, foi mais difícil de aguentar do que a Longo Adeus de Nori à tribo harfoot.

 

[Grimnir]

Realmente gosto é que nem cu. Pra mim, qualquer cena com Dúrin é melhor que harfoots.

 

[Finarfin]

Eu achei o sentimentalismo do Durin IV brega também. Esse é o ponto, pra mim, tudo que era pra envolver emoção soa brega e forçado. Não souberam trabalhar isso.
Dá a impressão que foi feito pra criança. Sei lá. Levaram a classificação etária muito a sério.

 

[Ilmarinen]

Realmente gosto é que nem cu. Pra mim, qualquer cena com Dúrin é melhor que harfoots.

Eu achei over the top, até pq resulta de mais uma das "transferências de portfolio" do Celebrimbor original sendo "esvaziado" e tendo suas características transplantadas pra Elrond e Galadriel nesse quesito da amizade com Anãos.

O jeito como fizeram a cena sentimental ser seguida por uma altercação estentória entre os Durins pra mim ficou muito melodramática sem suficiente impacto ou conclusão "definitiva" já que fica postergada pra uma próxima temporada. Isso ao mesmo tempo em que, para usar a expressão do Daniel Stride do Phuulish Fellow, a Disa ganha contornos Lady Macbetianos de uma hora pra outra.

 

[Finarfin]

Não sei se esse lado da Disa vai aflorar mesmo ou se morre ali.
Imagino que o Durin III vá receber um dos Anéis e toda a sua precaução quanto às escavações perigosas vai por água abaixo. Nessa o Durin IV vai nadar de braçada e o que a Disa falou vai ser irrelevante.
Ou o Durin III vai morrer e o Anel vai ser dado pro Durin IV, o que vai ser mais do mesmo. Só instigando ele a fazer o que já queria.
Creio que o Anel na mão do Durin III seja uma opção mais interessante, justamente pra mostrar de forma evidente qual é o seu efeito.

 

[Ilmarinen]

Taí o Daniel Stride comentando os presságios macbéticos do núcleo em Moria

Theodicy with Theo: A Review and Analysis of The Rings of Power, Episode 7

And so we come to the penultimate episode of the first season of Rings of Power. It’s an odd duck inmany respects, and one I found notable for its general unevenness, but structurally I think it is…

phuulishfellow.wordpress.com

Realmente o visual da Disa é bem Lady Gruoch mesmo ( vide Gárgulas* )

*

Gruoch - GargWiki

gargwiki.net

Gruoch - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org