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Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

I've been enjoying it, but I suspect that LotR purists are having fits.

The stories were basically written from whole cloth, based on fairly short mentions, in the four "later" books. From what I understand, they weren't even allowed to use Tolkien's notes.

I haven't encountered anything that has made me think this was a different "universe," but the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing.

For one thing, ol' J. R. R. was more than a little chauvinistic. Women didn't really play much of a part, in his writings, and when they did, they were fairly peripheral, or "objectified" (not necessarily in a sexual manner, but they were obvious stand-ins for some ideal).

I've been enjoying seeing Galadriel as an arrogant ass-kicker, but am a bit disappointed in a flower-sniffing Elrond.

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If you ask me what's making the series unpalatable, it's this.

Make all the women act like toxic men, and make all the men act effeminate.

It goes back to the old line: "Being powerful is like being a woman. If you have to tell someone you are, you aren't." Galadrial in LOTR was an insanely powerful, to the point it was frightening. But she acted like a woman, not an arrogant man.

The writers are so clueless as to how to make a woman be a powerful character, the only way they can figure out how to do it is turn her into Captain Marvel / Rey / Mary Sue.

I don't understand how can a be classified as a Mary Sue if she was wrong about every single thing and every thing she did backfired or failed. And this was pretty much telegraphed by the average writing since episode 01.

It's either a non-text book case or conflating. She's basically that edgy, grumpy, aggressive side character. But instead of a side character, she's a main character. Instead of comic relief, she is serious. Instead of being confronted quickly, the flaws are ignored or presented as beneficial and barely opposed at all.

The archetype itself isn't new. If anything, women were overrepresented in that archetype as side characters for decades. Changing the character's role just doesn't magically solve the need for the archetype to interplay with others in a less brash way.

I enjoyed the first season as well, but not at first. I thought it was too slow, and spent too much time trying to really send the message "we spent a lot of money on this!" Long stretches of not much happening beyond too-long focusing on costuming and sets.

The finale worked for me, though, and retrospectively made the overall narrative flow work for me as well, so that makes it easier to dismiss the self-indulgent deadwood as ultimately I felt the core story was solid and well-told.

On Tolkien's chauvinism, one review I read noted that Tolkien doesn't come across as especially sexist -- as in, he's not anti-woman -- so much as he just kind of forgets about women. Which, granted, is still a form of sexism, but one that leaves a gap that can be filled rather than a hostile rejection that would be difficult to overcome. So like you, I've been enjoying the Galadriel character, and really the general increased peopling of this world overall, and don't feel it necessarily contradicts Tolkien's writings so much as fills them in.

Couldn't stand watching the show in the same vein as I didn't enjoy the Star Wars Sequels. The story is boring, the characters are bland, and the world doesn't feels lived in. LotR has way too many mystery box storylines which don't actually have to be told.

> ...the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing.

Isn't that exactly what is getting Tolkien devotees twisted in knots?

I can empathize both with people who want to see something new in a Middle-earth setting and those who don't want to see anything incongruous. It depends on how happy you are with the original. For example, traditional Westerns bore me to tears, and I only really like Westerns that make a drastic break with tradition, like Cowboys & Aliens (2011).

Have you checked out Outer Range? It's a little weird, but it was a good twist on the genre in the same way as Cowboys & Aliens. You get your usual conflict over land, but the why unfolds with each episode.

It was a bit too strange, for me (I know you didn't ask me, but I like to butt in).

I love the stars, and that was what attracted me.

However, I found myself not liking the characters too much.

> I haven't encountered anything that has made me think this was a different "universe," but the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing.

I don't 100% agree on your take that Tolkein's stories were outright chauvanistic, but I do agree that the tone of the show is different to the books and the movies to its detriment. Rings of Power does not feel like an Epic in the genre sense, like Beowulf, which was a genre and style that Tolkein knew very well. The show feels far too...casual, the dialogue too sitcom-y at times (the dwarf scenes are brutal), and the world too clean and empty. When there are "epic" scenes, they end up feeling more like Disney or power rangers stuff (akin to Legolas riding the shield down the steps, I must admit).

While the effects are, at times, fairly incredible,I also think the writing has been an obvious weakness. The show is just kind of floating along in permanent exposition land. Only when a certain "dark land" is finally created does it actually start to have any stakes at all, but that is 5/6s of the way through the season already. By focusing on 5 distinct storylines for most of the show they keep everything in the shallows.

This is it. The writing is just awful in every sense. I mean, the story begins with Galadriel not wanting to leave Middle Earth. At that point I though: "okay already stranding off canon but let's keep an open mind. So she's going to return to Valinor, have a chat with the Elven higher ups, (maybe even the Valar!) and go back to Middle Earth to continue her mission with renewd support. They're really going to show off with those billion dollar sets of the blessed realm!". But nope, the writers really thought that having her jump overboard the ship into the open sea, just swiming, was a believable thing to write.

You can't write Tolkien elves like that. At this point in the story Galadriel is like 3000 years old yet her dialog is that of an inexperienced teenager when she has already seen everything (or knows someone who has) there is to see in the whole world.

Then there is the tone. The harfoot sections are the most unwatchable with an almost Dinsey vibe. The Numenoreas acting feels like the cringey dialog right before they start singing in a musical.

That's been my experience. I like the show and have largely tried to ignore purist grognards. It's hard when they seem to be well-represented in the media and discussion around the show, but I've managed to go right on enjoying it in spite of their endless negativity.

How well do you like the show? How much would you pay just to see the show?

I'm curious, because aside from the disregarding the lore, attacks on fans, etc., in the end, the show was just boring. Like seriously falling asleep boring.

I don't know much about the lore, don't know anything about attacks on fans, and didn't find it boring. I watched it alongside a rewatch of the entire Stargate franchise now that it's on Prime again with the change in ownership. What response are you looking for here?

>am a bit disappointed in a flower-sniffing Elrond

That's just your toxic masculinity creeping through.

I kid, I kid. The biggest lesson here is calling out these types of absurdities gets you "labeled". This is the real issue.

Women have their own role to play in myth, not just be a woman written as a man.

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