**Spoiler Warning** Rings of Power S2E2 - "Where the Stars are Strange"

[Huinesoron]

Okay, episode 1 was surprisingly okay, so what about episode 2? I can't remember the order of any of this, but:

• Some beautiful interior views of Khazad-Dum. They have hanging gardens, how lovel-- NOPE they're gone.
• I'm glad the Dwarves are back, but the feud stuff is kind of dull.
• Whyyyyyy did Cirdan shave?? He looks weird now.
• Gil-Galad really can't decide if he trusts Galadriel. I mean... in context he is completely right, she is thoroughly under Sauron's influence. So why did he go immediately with her response to the military question? Why is she still Commander of the Northern Armies at all - surely someone else got the job when she sailed to Valinor!
• My wife was annoyed that Celebrimbor's fall seemed to be starting because he showed mercy. They pulled back slightly from that, but the show does do it a fair bit, starting with Galadriel helping someone who turned out to be Sauron. I don't think Tolkien would approve of "mercy is a weakness to be exploited".
• Why... is Saruman in this? That's blatantly Saruman. I mean, it obviously can't be, but!
• Do you think Peter Jackson is happy to have permanently added "magic moths" to the Middle-earth bestiary?
• Okay I actually did love "is this my stick? Nope, it disintegrated and I killed my friends, oops!". It was very silly. The Harfeet have been lacking in silliness this season.
• The Annatar reveal was... good, but a bit odd. Sauron went to great lengths to convince Brim he was there as a partner, a friend, a cool buddy... and then named himself "Lord". Brim looked distinctly unimpressed, as I recall.

Overall thoughts: I liked this one as I watched it, but looking back it did make some weird decisions.

hS

[Oddwen]

RIP Cirdan's beard, we hardly knew ye.


Oh wow, an interesting woman who recently lost her spiritual link to the stone, they could go some interesting places with this....annnnnnd she is primarily focused on fixing some mens' emotional issues. Groundbreaking stuff.



Rhun magic is kind of cool. I'm choosing to watch this part of the series as an 80s fantasy movie that never was. Pallandatar is our third "The Terror" alum, Ciaran Hinds, and the true bearer of the name "Mothrandir".

Originally Posted by Huin

My wife was annoyed that Celebrimbor's fall seemed to be starting because he showed mercy. They pulled back slightly from that, but the show does do it a fair bit, starting with Galadriel helping someone who turned out to be Sauron. I don't think Tolkien would approve of "mercy is a weakness to be exploited".

I agree. It's possible it could be linked back (forward?) to Gandalf's words to Frodo regarding Gollum (Because he began ownership of the Ring so - with pity and mercy).

Originally Posted by Huin

Do you think Peter Jackson is happy to have permanently added "magic moths" to the Middle-earth bestiary?

Better than "Burping Man with Carrot".


I think the Annatar reveal scene was done pretty well. Celebrimbor seems a bit at a loss after the emotional shift of finding out if the elven rings worked. Getting a "messager from the Valar" must have been both overwhelming and an ego boost.



If Celebrimbor had invented cell phones or if palantir use was more wide-spread they wouldn't have this "I didn't specifically tell Celebrimbor that Halbrand was explicitly Sauron" plotpoint.



I can't quite tell if I like Elrond's resistance to the elven rings. He's right to be suspicous, but he's being very dramatic about it haha. Most of that is knowing he becomes a ringbearer in the future. I wonder how they'll resolve that. Plus the whole marrying the daughter of the fried he's suspicious of deal.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Oddwen

Plus the whole marrying the daughter of the fried he's suspicious of deal.

Ooofff...

And with Galadriel somewhat juvenated by making younger than Gil-galad, not having Celeborn... and the Second Age being about 2 years long... I wonder if they're just not going to address who Arwen's mother is.

Anyway, I've now watched the second Episode--baby in hand, notes on phone, but with fewer typos, so we'll go straight to the straightened out notes:

1. Have we seen the front (east) gate of Moria before? I like it, I think...
2. "Collapsing vesife in khkazduim is a but much like movie" okay--I can figure everything out here but the most important word: "vesife"
3. Opening credits have changed from Season 1. I still like the music.
4. Galadriel's dream/vision is a start toward her mirror, I suppose.
5. "Two spiders with one boot" is another of those obviously-reverse-engineered modern phrases. Just say you can do two things at once--don't make an idiom of it.
6. Gil-galad, you annoy me when your role in the story is just to be a source of resistance for Galadriel. I much prefer Gil-galad when he's talking of what the Ring has shown him. That felt much better.
7. I like the sharpness of rejection in the Elves that "he is Sauron": the stark respect/fear/sense of "we cannot treat with him" is a corrective, maybe, to the Halbrandiness of Season 1, but it's welcome anyway.
8. So we're just going to kill anyone going to Eregion? There is osanwë is this world, right? Or is it only post-Rings?
9. Caras Gaer? Who named something in Rhûn in Sindarin? Or is this supposed to be its western name?
10. The mothwizards divination--revivification?--of spirits--is a strange touch.
11. Is that "names have magic" I see you hinting at, Meteoruman?
12. Why are you afraid of hooves? What do you know? (I mean, turns out you're not wrong...
13. I daresay that it'd be easy to starve out the dwarves now?
14. Narvi--what an accent!
15. I don't hate the idea of singing to "read" the mountain, pure innovation though it is, but there's too much witch (whether it's Macbeth or Hocus Pocus in the hand gestures in the singing here. Maybe it's the church choir singer here, but I'm not see what the hand gestures add in-universe.
16. I'll say this for the darken Dwarrowdelf plot: at least I have some sense now of why they will want to accept the dwarf rings. It seems "building hoards of gold" isn't going to be the plot there, though maybe it'll still be the effect of the rings.
17. Elrond/Durin parallels, I see you there.
18. Steadfastness of a politicians? Is that supposed to be some elven-specific truth? Because if *I* want steadfastness here in the world of men, politicians are the last to whom I would go. Also: "politician" grates on the ears as a way to refer to Elrond even more than "commander" does for Galadriel. For a show that lavishes so much on Tolkien and shows clear meditative concern for some of his themes, there's a tin ear for nomenclature at times.
19. I love the ambiance of the ship workshop and I don't hate that Elrond is banished or exiled here.
20. Well, how Elrond gets a ring is obviously going to be one of our journeys. Is it just going to be Gil-galad saying "Elrond, you are the only who distrusted the Rings enough to be trusted with one--DYING GASP!"
21. Why is Círdan shaving?!?!?!
22. Good literary crit theory there, Círdan.
23. Círdan, this trustingness of things does not entirely seem to befit the canny survivor of the First Age and all its kjnslayings
24. Well, that's an ominous bell on that well.
25. The flag the Easterlings are flying sure looks like the Eye of Sauron.
26. Istar without wisdom seems to defeat their purpose: like, the point isn't send powerful magic wielders to Middle-earth as though their mere power will fix things: their power is veiled, but they bring WISDOM (or are supposed to)
27. Celebrimbor should be manipulated by Sauron, I suppose. I guess...
28. Good subtext in Celebrimbor's excitement at his success: the undertones of "I've finally matched/beaten Fëanor" make sense.
29. Rings for Men makes sense (in this alternate continuity): the whole narrative of the Southlands and Adar's menace and Halbrand wanting to avail himself of it.
30. Never mind, I guess Halbrand is actually dropping being a man and pretending to be an Istar (which is actually a really clever choice! Even if the word "Istar" was only coined in the Third Age for Saruman et al, the idea that Annatar presented himself "as" as Istar does work--and in at least one conception, the Blue Wizards were 2nd Age Istari.
31. Manwë, you really gotta be less subtle! Or more subtle. (Or am I the only one who read that into the weather?)
32. Annatar's reveal is good, I think--or at least adequate.
33. Big map on Gil-galad's wall? I don't know that I like it. It's the set-dressing version of a modern idiom translated backwards.
34. Gil-galad are you TRYING to foster infighting?

And... that's it. So far, I think I like Season 2 better than Season 1 just because more of the glaring problems the writers have with understanding geographic scale and military tactics are more easily hidden, even if they're still very much there. I like that identifiable canonical events, however grossly distorted, can be sort of recognised to be happening, which in Season 1 seemed to peter out after the the "prologue" elements.