Rings of Power is an incoherent mess that force-feeds its watchers with pompous and cringe dialogues while offering plots and characters as exciting as a funeral meal.
Sauron fails to convince Galadriel to be his wife. It devastates him and so he leaves to Mordor. Nori is looking for trouble and wants to go for an adventure. As soon as she manages to bring doom and destruction upon her people, including getting the chieftain killed, Harfoots gladly set her off on a journey who-knows-where with a random older man whom everyone generally hates, and who appeared to be a mute during all the episodes but one. Gladriel, a cold-hearted, self-righteous elf on a quest to hunt down Sauron. Once she realises Halbrand, her close companion, is Sauron, she turns into a lying self-righteous wet pipe and decides to keep Sauron’s true identity a secret. Isildur, whom we all know will ultimately defeat Sauron, is simply an absolute muppet whose friends are bullies.
Rings of Power does a full one-eighty on Tolkien’s reoccurring themes of friendship, kindness and loyalty. The show repeatedly fails to create wholesome and true bonds. Almost every character, and especially Galadriel the protagonist, refuse to trust anyone. They are simply obnoxious, mean to each other and seem to have no friends.
The Harfoots, the wholesome-r subplot of the show, they don’t leave anyone behind. They say that at least a thousand times, just in case you didn’t know how caring they are of members of their community. They lead a nomadic lifestyle, and carry all their belongings in hefty caravans. There are no horses, they use their own muscle power to drag the caravans. But nobody gets left behind. They eat large snails, are mean to each other and are generally a bit of a weird sect. And guess what. They don’t leave anyone behind. Unless you’re Largo and you’ve sprained your ankle. You’ve sprained your ankle, Largo? Dear lord, there’s virtually nobody in this community who can help carry your caravan. And your daughter, who brought in a stranger? Dear lord, she must be exiled. Good riddance and get the hell out, you and your entire family. Close your coffin on the way out and remember that we don’t leave anyone behind.
But this show is not just about sociopathic group behaviours. It’s about big words and big ideas expressed through masterful dialogues. How you ever wondered why a ship floats and a stone cannot? It’s because:
The stone sees only downward. The darkness of the water is vast and irresistible. The ship feels the darkness as well, striving moment by moment to master her and pull her under. But the ship has a secret. But unlike the stone, her gaze is not downward but up. Fixed upon the light that guides her, whispering of grander things than darkness ever knew.
Yeah, it’s an actual quote.
Since Galadriel heard these words as a young elf child, many thousands of years have passed. She got into a business of chasing down Sauron, whom no-one has seen for quite some time, but Galadriel has seen things. Elrond suggests her to take some time off as she’s become a bit tense, mixed up, slightly conflicted.
“Conflicted? I am grateful you have not known evil as I have, but you have not seen what I have seen.”
“I have seen my share.”
“You have not seen what I have seen.”
So what is it that she has seen, and why is she gas-lighting Elrond? We don’t what she has seen as the show never explains it. But boy oh boy, it’s definitely something, something that she has seen and Elrond hasn’t, and we haven’t either. That’s for sure! Perhaps she has seen other dialogue of the Rings of Power? No wonder Galadriel is having a hard time telling Elrond what she has seen.
“You shall not pass” is perhaps Gandalf’s most memorable line, or Lord of the Rings line in general. It’s a testament to how well written the dialogues are in the movie trilogy. Yes, Gandalf never says that in the books. But don’t worry. Rings of Power also has a very memorable line from Gandalf. In a setup very similar to the infamous Khazad-dum bridge scene in the movies, Gandalf pick up a staff and shouts: “I am good!”, then proceeds to destroy three witches who mistook him for Sauron. I am speechless.
Tolkien was a fastidious writer. The Middle Earth was not only designed as a collection of races, languages and themes but also as a real place of exact dimensions. He put a real distance between the Shire and Mordor. So it happens that crossing that distance is a journey long enough to span across three entire books. Do you know why The Hobbit is subtitled “There and back again”? Well, because going from the Shire to the Lonely Mountain and back is a long journey, during which adventures happen. It baffles me that The Rings of Power shrunk the Middle Earth, removed distances, neutered the act of travelling down to teleportation. It takes the pity army of Numenor what seems like a few hours, to cross the near 2000 miles distance between the shores of the Middle Earth and Mordor. Wherever Harfoots are, they are very far away from Mordor, and yet close enough for the erupting Mount Doom to burn their orchards. It is apparently so easy to get from Eregion to Khazad-dum that literally twenty three seconds after casually strolling down to the Khazad-dum’s gates, Elrond asks Celebrimbor to get the hell our of there and buzz back to Eregion. Celebrimbor just shrugs it off and goes the hell back .
Dear reader, I have seen things you have not seen. Let me tell you, it’s nothing good. It saddens me the first entry in this blog is loaded with so many negative emotions. Unfortunately, watching the Rings of Power made me feel my intelligence to be insulted, and I felt a need to put it to words. The show is a devastating mess, even worse than the structure of this essay. If you enjoy intensive eye-rolling training programmes, I can wholeheartedly recommend you to watch it. But if your preferences are to actually enjoy what you watch, please avoid.