**Spoiler Warning** Rings of Power, S2E7 - "Doomed to Die"

[Huinesoron]

I found this episode very frustrating. The moral of it appeared to be "even if you reject evil you are still utterly in its power": except for Celebrimbor while in his vision, everyone Sauron directly controls is someone who has recognised him, rejected him, and is actively working against him. The second message is "faith in your friends is folly"; see Elrond's final sequence.

At almost every point, I feel like Tolkien would have done, not just something different, but the opposite of this. Specifically including the random pointless murder of Mirdania; I don't like random punishment deaths, and there's at least two in this episode.

In the spirit of balance, I appreciated the Gondolin echoes, with Galadriel standing in for Idril and being told to lead the refugees out through a tunnel. I'm not sure how much of that is in the appendices, but it felt deliberate. And I think 'pretend to kiss her to distract from handing her the brooch' was tolerably clever (and, 'not idly do the leaves of Lindon fall...').

Ultimately, I think my wife had the best final comment on episode seven: "Nothing in this makes me want them to save Middle-earth."

hS