TRoP: A bit of dendrology
Nov. 1st, 2024 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe Rings of Power - 2.4 Eldest
This episode picked up steam, although sometimes it was on very diluted fuel, although I'm confused about where they're going with some of it.
It was made clear that Galadriel was going to be the opposite of chill about Elrond being her commander on their mission, while he was going to be a stickler about chain of command. And they’re meant to be centuries old! They got a team together (not much bigger than the couriers that had been sent to Celebrimbor, but at least there was another female Elf), and the first big hitch was when they came to a bridge they’d meant to cross and found it had been destroyed by lightning, or Sauron-enabled ‘lightning’. They could either go north and take the long route, or south and get there quicker, except Galadriel’s ring of power gave her a flash of very bad things coming. Regardless, Commander Elrond said they’d go the fast way, Galadriel sighed like a teenager and said, fine, she’d come along too and try to save their lives.
We were also following Isildur, Estrid and Arondir, and occasionally others, looking for Theo. Arondir quickly discovered Estrid’s attempt to burn the mark of Adar, Isildur’s vanity was very hurt by this. She was tied up as the three main characters went through a swamp, Isildur got sucked in, so did Arondir trying to rescue him. Estrid looked like she was running away, but no, she returned with a long branch and…poked a tentacle monster. Fortunately, the lads hacked their way out of it. Arondir left the decision to free Estrid up to Isildur, who decided he would after all, and got his vanity and feelings hurt as she stole his sword from him. She sounded pretty desperate about her future, Isildur was revealing those feelings when…Ents arrived on the scene.
These were the Ents who had plonked Theo in a tree prison along with his latest mates. One of them was an Entwife, who was shown to be the most upset that her trees had been burned by Orcs. Arondir had to find diplomatic skills from somewhere, did, and would eventually rescue Theo, who thanked his stepdad, but seemed to have taken on new responsibilities. Arondir called him Lord of Pelagir and accepted that he wouldn’t be coming with him to mete out some vengeance on Adar and his Orc kids.
Isildur was having a tender moment, waking up a concussed Estrid, who wasn't opposed to tender!Isildur when it turned out that she had had a fiancé after all, and he was alive. (That was all very rushed!)
The Stranger looked for Nori (and afterthought Poppy), followed a goat, found Tom Bombadil, and even though he was not where he was in The Fellowship of the Ring (or is my geography off?), there was another tree that was doing the Old Man Willow thing (which, what with the Ents, was probably confusing fan service.)
Tom was a bit of a gnomic guide. (I heard the lady’s voice too, Gandalf-to-be!) Apparently, before he can ascend to full wizard-warrior and complete this age’s mission, he needs to be worthy of his staff! I have issues with that mission, which I’ll get to.
Unlike the Stranger, we know what happened to Nori and Poppy, who met a Stoor (like Tom, with a West Country accent) called Nobody. He was very taken with Poppy, who seemed to quite like him too to Nori’s befuddlement, the girls got him to lead them to a…halfling settlement, which was an eyeopener for them. (Given that they were in a desert and stealing water, I was very impressed by the size of their vegetables.) There was a bit of back and forth with the boss lady, but it was established that the nomadic Harfoots had originally led by a Stoor (Lenny Henry’s great grandad) who’d had a vision of a promised land (the Shire by another name.)
The question of what next was forced by one of the dark goons who were chasing the halflings and Istar threatening the village. We’d already seen that the Ciaran Hinds!Sarumanalike was not impressed with his goons for letting the Stranger call up a sandstorm and escape them. He said he’d go after the Istar himself, and his brave/foolish goon could find the strange halflings.
But based on what Tom was saying, he’s a dark wizard (so not the witch king!?), an older Istar, and now I’m really confused, because I thought there were five, and he’s not Saruman (though he’s got the look of him)…and this doesn’t accord with my memories of the Silmarillion or any appendices or footnotes (admittedly patchy). Besides, giving the Stranger who will become Gandalf the mission of fighting this dark wizard AND Sauron is prefiguring the Lord of the Rings in a confusing way, because he’s going to fail, it’s going to be Hobbits later. Sure, he might be able to beat the bad Istar (or memory charm him to become Saruman? What?) but…I is very confused.
And before I forget, some of the dialogue was terrible – I was predicting what some characters would say before they said it.
Commander Elrond led his party to the barrows, one of them (a bit too grizzled to be great casting as an Elf, if you ask me) heard something and saw a pair of glistening eyes. Lo and behold, this was followed by another action scene in the dark, but against barrow wights, who felt like a tribute act to POTC’s zombies. Elrond saved his future mother in law and used some smarts to remember that the only useful weapons against the wrights were their own. They’d lost one member of the party and were heading with even more haste to Eregion when they stumbled across an Orc army.
One of them shot an arrow, which hit one of the redshirty Elves. He made enough noise that the Orcs realised there was someone there. Galadriel’s ring managed to heal the wounded Elf (finally perhaps impressing Elrond that it wasn’t a trinket or evil, I dunno. I was mainly trying to work through the fact that I thought Elrond was the healer, not Galadriel.) Through sheer force of will, Galadriel insisted that Elrond and the rest of the party hauled back to Lindor to warn Gil-Galad that there was an Orc army in Elven lands and that he took the ring.
I loved the insinuation that Galadriel basically thought that she was a better soldier than the others (and as they kept dithering, or pausing to comment on what she was doing, she had a point.) She did some fierce Elf fighting, using various cool weapons, sometimes with fires, but eventually numbers told, and the was lying prone on the ground and Adar was crowing down at her…
I liked whatever they’d done to Elrond’s hair this episode.
This episode picked up steam, although sometimes it was on very diluted fuel, although I'm confused about where they're going with some of it.
It was made clear that Galadriel was going to be the opposite of chill about Elrond being her commander on their mission, while he was going to be a stickler about chain of command. And they’re meant to be centuries old! They got a team together (not much bigger than the couriers that had been sent to Celebrimbor, but at least there was another female Elf), and the first big hitch was when they came to a bridge they’d meant to cross and found it had been destroyed by lightning, or Sauron-enabled ‘lightning’. They could either go north and take the long route, or south and get there quicker, except Galadriel’s ring of power gave her a flash of very bad things coming. Regardless, Commander Elrond said they’d go the fast way, Galadriel sighed like a teenager and said, fine, she’d come along too and try to save their lives.
We were also following Isildur, Estrid and Arondir, and occasionally others, looking for Theo. Arondir quickly discovered Estrid’s attempt to burn the mark of Adar, Isildur’s vanity was very hurt by this. She was tied up as the three main characters went through a swamp, Isildur got sucked in, so did Arondir trying to rescue him. Estrid looked like she was running away, but no, she returned with a long branch and…poked a tentacle monster. Fortunately, the lads hacked their way out of it. Arondir left the decision to free Estrid up to Isildur, who decided he would after all, and got his vanity and feelings hurt as she stole his sword from him. She sounded pretty desperate about her future, Isildur was revealing those feelings when…Ents arrived on the scene.
These were the Ents who had plonked Theo in a tree prison along with his latest mates. One of them was an Entwife, who was shown to be the most upset that her trees had been burned by Orcs. Arondir had to find diplomatic skills from somewhere, did, and would eventually rescue Theo, who thanked his stepdad, but seemed to have taken on new responsibilities. Arondir called him Lord of Pelagir and accepted that he wouldn’t be coming with him to mete out some vengeance on Adar and his Orc kids.
Isildur was having a tender moment, waking up a concussed Estrid, who wasn't opposed to tender!Isildur when it turned out that she had had a fiancé after all, and he was alive. (That was all very rushed!)
The Stranger looked for Nori (and afterthought Poppy), followed a goat, found Tom Bombadil, and even though he was not where he was in The Fellowship of the Ring (or is my geography off?), there was another tree that was doing the Old Man Willow thing (which, what with the Ents, was probably confusing fan service.)
Tom was a bit of a gnomic guide. (I heard the lady’s voice too, Gandalf-to-be!) Apparently, before he can ascend to full wizard-warrior and complete this age’s mission, he needs to be worthy of his staff! I have issues with that mission, which I’ll get to.
Unlike the Stranger, we know what happened to Nori and Poppy, who met a Stoor (like Tom, with a West Country accent) called Nobody. He was very taken with Poppy, who seemed to quite like him too to Nori’s befuddlement, the girls got him to lead them to a…halfling settlement, which was an eyeopener for them. (Given that they were in a desert and stealing water, I was very impressed by the size of their vegetables.) There was a bit of back and forth with the boss lady, but it was established that the nomadic Harfoots had originally led by a Stoor (Lenny Henry’s great grandad) who’d had a vision of a promised land (the Shire by another name.)
The question of what next was forced by one of the dark goons who were chasing the halflings and Istar threatening the village. We’d already seen that the Ciaran Hinds!Sarumanalike was not impressed with his goons for letting the Stranger call up a sandstorm and escape them. He said he’d go after the Istar himself, and his brave/foolish goon could find the strange halflings.
But based on what Tom was saying, he’s a dark wizard (so not the witch king!?), an older Istar, and now I’m really confused, because I thought there were five, and he’s not Saruman (though he’s got the look of him)…and this doesn’t accord with my memories of the Silmarillion or any appendices or footnotes (admittedly patchy). Besides, giving the Stranger who will become Gandalf the mission of fighting this dark wizard AND Sauron is prefiguring the Lord of the Rings in a confusing way, because he’s going to fail, it’s going to be Hobbits later. Sure, he might be able to beat the bad Istar (or memory charm him to become Saruman? What?) but…I is very confused.
And before I forget, some of the dialogue was terrible – I was predicting what some characters would say before they said it.
Commander Elrond led his party to the barrows, one of them (a bit too grizzled to be great casting as an Elf, if you ask me) heard something and saw a pair of glistening eyes. Lo and behold, this was followed by another action scene in the dark, but against barrow wights, who felt like a tribute act to POTC’s zombies. Elrond saved his future mother in law and used some smarts to remember that the only useful weapons against the wrights were their own. They’d lost one member of the party and were heading with even more haste to Eregion when they stumbled across an Orc army.
One of them shot an arrow, which hit one of the redshirty Elves. He made enough noise that the Orcs realised there was someone there. Galadriel’s ring managed to heal the wounded Elf (finally perhaps impressing Elrond that it wasn’t a trinket or evil, I dunno. I was mainly trying to work through the fact that I thought Elrond was the healer, not Galadriel.) Through sheer force of will, Galadriel insisted that Elrond and the rest of the party hauled back to Lindor to warn Gil-Galad that there was an Orc army in Elven lands and that he took the ring.
I loved the insinuation that Galadriel basically thought that she was a better soldier than the others (and as they kept dithering, or pausing to comment on what she was doing, she had a point.) She did some fierce Elf fighting, using various cool weapons, sometimes with fires, but eventually numbers told, and the was lying prone on the ground and Adar was crowing down at her…
I liked whatever they’d done to Elrond’s hair this episode.
