The Circles of Rote
Last night's Rings of Power was the best visually and the worst in terms of writing so far. I was finally able to really see the budget onscreen when Galadriel and Halbrand got to Numenor. It looks like a Pre-Raphaelite Ancient Greece, like a Lawrence Alma-Tadema painting.
Unfortunately, the Numenoreans turn out to be a bunch of broadly written twits whose slogan is "The sea is always right." Oh, boy. Are you sailors are bellhops?
Galadriel and Halbrand get to talk to the Queen Regent. Halbrand advises the Elven noblewoman hundreds of years older than him to kneel but the Queen Regent tells them no-one kneels in Numenor. There's a handy way to show your guests the disrespect of trashing their voluntary signs of respect. It makes the Queen Regent look like a jerk to me but I live in Japan, where everyone still bows to each other, so I think we're meant to think she's very wise and egalitarian.
The real disaster on this show is Galadriel who seems to despise everyone she speaks to. And there was a really strange, slow motion, horseback riding scene that lingered on her unflattering facial expression.
Some of this might be intentional. I noticed a few of the people working on this show also worked on Outlander, which also features a female protagonist who is abrasive while also being constantly in the right among groups of men who are persistently wrong for no logical reason. This is a staple of women's pulp fantasy. Mind you, not feminist fantasy, but the cheap wish fulfillment kind. I think that's the genre and target audience the makers of this show are aiming for. It shows with the Harfoots, too, where Nori is quickly being established as the Lone Troublemaker Woman heroine type amid a community of proto-hobbits who apparently abandon their weak for dead in a somehow traditional migration.
The show is riddled with many other logical problems and bad dialogue but this is all beside the point. A lot of money was spent to make this a cheap indulgent fantasy. It actually makes a bit of sense, it may even turn out to be a sound investment if the right kind of viewer is attracted to this fluff. I find it difficult to believe anyone working on the show likes Tolkien's books, though.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: The Power of Rings: Of Sovereign Rings: The Rings of Rings: Ringo la Bingo is available on Amazon Prime.
Twitter Sonnet #1620
The swirling dust was trapped above the room.
The whisp'ring guests began to fear the dark.
No shadow jumped but told the souls of doom.
Eleven strikes then softly burned the mark.
The odd appendage burst the brick and stone.
A crimson glow defined a graven cage.
The safest house became a brittle bone.
A stalking threat condemns the holy base.
The standard goblin snarl was lacking blood.
Eternal rage consumed the swimming elf.
The withered hands of paper soaked the mud.
A broken skull observed from lofty shelf.
Above the fragile roots are cotton skies.
In cakey veins the cherry river lies.