During the kiss scene, I thought Elrond was going to use that opportunity to give Galadriel the ring 💍 in her mouth so she could help them win the battle. I wasn’t expecting the lock-pick tool exchange.
I feel like that much aggressive tongue would have made an already *blink...blink* scene into something where Adar suddenly becomes the principal in an 80s high school movie separating the head cheerleader and the quarterback. And that...might have been world breaky...
Ah yes, those were specially designed catapults, that can shoot rocks for miles in a straight line. And the mountainsides were really precarious. It's a wonder that they hadn't fallen before and completely dried up the riverbed in a few hours. 😂😂😂
@@phenolicresinoid I can appreciate that orc music should sound unpleasant, but I think it could have worked a little better if it didn't sound so synthetic.
Yea the wizard build up is such a waste of screen time. Like it's gonna take him three seasons to realize he is Gandalf 😂 or possibly more seasons. But I guess they had to tell the hobbit story someway too and the wizard tie in was a good one.
I actually don’t mind the Wizard storyline but I am completely baffled as to why they made him so clearly Gandalf. The early references I thought were to get people to think he was Gandalf-like (an Istar, but for the casual audience to understand), but the “gand” and “grand-elf” are just too much to deny it anymore. With a blue wizard they have a blank slate, the audience has no clue what will happen (or even if the blue wizard wins, stays faithful to the task, etc)… As Gandalf-lore issues, everyone knows he is good and all will turn out ok with him in the end, etc.
Why not have CELEBRIAN as the main character of the show then? You can have your kiss with Elrond and you can have the main character being a little immature without taking away from Galadriel or Celeborn. It would also make sense for a young Celebrian as the main character to be more vulnerable to Sauron and have scenes where she asks her parents for guidance. It seems like they wanted the Galadriel name because she's known but they didn't want her actual character, maturity and actual family. It's SO weird to me
@@NerdoftheRings LOL I swear I hadn't seen your video prior to posting this. I've just felt that the main character being Celebrian all along instead of Galadriel would've been FAR better if you analyze every scene since Season 1. Perhaps it would be a cool video to make. Meanwhile, the real Galadriel was away searching for Celeborn, not giving up on her love for him. Cheers, man!
Galadriel is the person for the main character. She becomes a leader. Yes, she spent time learning from her elders, but that doesn't automatically mean we know her temperament during this time. I think it's cool they give us something to watch as far as speculation across all story lines. Yes, they should have chosen something other than the kiss, and some actors are not great, but Peter Jackson omitted some lore as well. He just did it in spectacular fashion 😂
@@rbq426 Galadriel spent most of the First Age in Doriath with Melian the Maia. People really think she wouldn’t be more mature in the Second Age? She’s already thousands of years old. And Morfydd is also too small for Galadriel who is said to be tall 🤷♂️
It's starting to feel like they wrote the role of Galadriel originally for her daughter, with a romance and all with Elrond. Then some idiot came in and said they needed to use Galadriel because they thought it would make more money. Galadriel was probably a side character and they simply merged the two roles
Good point. Many things would make more sense if "Galadriel" was actually Celebrian. This show feels like it has many different writers who don't talk to each other.
7:30 this is a general problem of this show. It feels like there are only 100 people in middle earth in total. 30 in Numenor. ( Edit note: from 1000 to 100)
It seems smaller to me😂I’ve only started watching the show after getting into the recaps.”Where is everyone?”It seems like they got all the extras to play Orcs! I can understand the Elves. Might’ve been too hard to get good looking,tall extra’s for the parts!
Medieval archaeologist here, and I can't say I know of any siege devices that bolt onto a wall and rip it apart. Historically, it was easier to beat them down or circumvent them in other (more conventional) ways. Ladders, digging tunnels to weaken the structure, breaking through the gates, or cannons and bombards (in later ages) are what we mostly see.
@@isaiahmaness9593 Thanks! Tthat's exactly what I thought seeing the scene where they break through and a bunch of orcs are seemingly smashed by their own doing...
Someone who understands basic physics here. Isaiah is correct from the historical perspective, but I'll add to it with a little bit of logic and simple physics. You hammer the stakes into the wall. You either split the stones themselves or whatever is doing the hammering is powerful enough to drive the spikes between the stones of a fortification, which has all the weight of all the stones above it. At that point you're better off just attacking the wall directly. Let's ignore that for a moment and say you've driven the stakes of this ridiculous contraption into the wall. You attach the chains and trigger the device. Put simply, the stakes don't have anywhere near enough friction. Without barbs (that wouldn't work on rock) or something to "grab" the stones of the wall it'll just pull out immediately. Even if we ignore that problem we still have a siege engine capable of pulling stones out of walls, why not just turn it loose on the wall directly and skip having to pound the stakes? To book end the whole series, we can explain so many things from the 20' tall pile of elf helmets to this thing simply with "someone thought it would look cool" regardless if it makes sense or not.
"As for me, I pity even his slaves" This quote rang in my head every time I saw Glűg interact with Adar. Also, at first I thought the kiss was for show or cover, but then...well...ok your point is taken. One more thing: I was a TV news editor for 35+ years, from pre-1980 until my retirement. May I say that I am professionally impressed at your ability to bang these well-written, insightful breakdowns together and post them in what can't be more than a couple of hours. I take off my hood to you. Get some rest.
@@araucariapasquale1 U sincerely think he is paid to say good things about the show? Someone who have dedicated most of his life to the work of tolkien. Idk man.
@@CFFViddeit’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is quite common for content creators to get advance copies of books and shows and movie. Kind of like pre screening. Dos t mean he can’t voice his opinions for or against the content
@@CFFVidde he gets interviews with Charlie Vickers and Robert Aramayo on the day of the Finale and he is not in with Amazon? Maybe, but the evidence strongly suggests otherwise.
This show should have started with season 2. Celebrimbor should have been our main character, a tragic fellow who wants to redeem his lineage. He dies in s1 or start of s2 by finally redeeming himself with the elven rings AFTER making the other rings. We should have seen Numenor at the very peak of its power. There's orcs and corrupt men rising from the east and South. The men and dwarves of the West come to the elves begging for help. Celebrimbor is concerned that these forces are an indication something is wrong. Sauron shows up as the master of disguise to convince him to help the free people with rings of power. Galadrial and Gil Galad are skeptical of Anatar & seek to help in different ways. Each season should jump a few hundred years. The elves are the constant characters. Numenorians we're familiar with are shown during seasons 2-3 as very young and then hundreds of years later as their grown selves. Normal men come and go each season showing their mortality. Very slowly we see Numenorians become envious of the elves. We never learn where all the rings go but we do see the Numenorian monarchy set up colonies in what will be Gondor and Arnor to fend off the orcs/goblins. Elrond would be the character that connects the Numenorian and elvish plots to reflect his own lineage. No wizard subplot. Just my thoughts
That's a Rings of Power show that I'd watch lol. Not this drivel we're being fed. I watched the first season but refuse to watch the second. Amazon and the femboy showrunners can go F themselves.
@@bevmaloney I bet it was the higher-ups who thought that having time jumps would be too hard to follow for viewers. Most shows now suffer from this. No respect for the audience, everything has to be dumbed down. But it didn't even have to be time jumps. Elves lives are long. They should have just followed the elves and have the human characters changed between seasons. Only introduce Elendil in season 4 for example.
Yes. Her death was supposed to be impactful but it was kind of a big nothing because there was no character development. Same with Elrond’s horse. Why was he so upset about a rando horse he got assigned 5 minutes ago?
As soon as the kissing scene happened, I immediately hit paused and look at the mayhem it caused on the internet. Kissing her in the forehead could have worked better instead of kissing your future mother in law in the lips.
Because they wanted it to look intimate so the others would momentarily look away, or divert their attention to the kiss and not the handoff. Do you have to have everything spelled out for you? Sheesh!
I don’t like the way elves are portrayed in this show, they just feel like humans with pointy ears. And it made it even more obvious when comparing the elves in the battle of eregion with the elves in the battle at helm’s dream. They lack that discipline, deadly precision, and ethereal feel.
I totally see this as well. They definitely don’t have much distinguishing them from men aside from their ears and attire. I think Arondir is definitely the one exception who just *feels* elven in his demeanor and performance.
Elves in the Silmarillion book don't feel like the elves in the Lord of the rings either. They are very flawed and act horribly. These elves could be prettier, but othervice I don't have complaints.
I was pissed that Sauron who promised her that she'll be "duly rewarded" in an earlier scene, casually tossed her over the wall (through Calebrimbor's hand) to her death. I felt at that moment that Sauron truely is irredeemable.
Too many subplots in an already rushed show with less than ten episodes per season. As a result, characters feel half baked. There's no sense of scale in the time spent or locations presented. Not to mention unnecessary callbacks to the movies. I won't dive into differences with the books as that's common with any adaptation.
The 24:30 kick mid-air that the horse does in the battle scene is a real type of exercise that horses were trained to do in history. It takes a very special type of built and training so it’s very rare there days but it’s called a Capriole 😊 there is also a Levad where the horse rears its front legs while remaining balanced on its back legs!
Well, Damrod never killed Sauron, so he couldn't live, Troll CGI is expensive, so he couldn't be in it long, we're in the penultimate episode of the season and have that breakneck pacing on the Eregion plot that gets ground to a halt by the Wizard plot...
I thought that too but apart from that one shine of the sun where they were expecting the dwarves, you can see the clouds moving with the orcs as they enter the city
In answer to your question regarding the siege machine. No, nobody would have used siege machines that require you to stand under a wall and hammer chains and have to yank them out a piece at a time. The defenders would have unlimited amounts of time to rain, rocks, oil, fire, arrows, whatever else they want on top of you. It just takes way too long to be effective.
@@annabizaro-doo-dah I started watching Shad for his castle and combat content. His media analysis is fine, but he can't stop banging the "anti-woke rage bait" drum. Him constantly dropping the r-slur and calling Galadriel a cow is incredibly off-putting. His analysis of RoP is what finally pushed me to click the "Don't recommend this channel" button.
He looked like he wanted to kill them for touching him. I kinda wish all the actors could express themselves as that actor did. The show would be upped ten fold.
In episode 3 he commented that she had a passing resemblance to Galadriel especially their hair color. I kinda feel like he was projecting his ‘feelings’ or sentimentality he has for Galadriel onto her.
Was it just me who thought that the war/fight scenes lacked a lot of anticipation, weight and the heavy feeling that sits at the bottom of your stomach? It felt so messily put together for a penultimate episode.
I think in general they are not good at showing a fighting scene, large or small scale. The actors are not athletic enough, except for Arondir, to fool us into believing that they are actually fighting. My wife is better with a katana than Morfydd is with a sword.
@@Enerdhil I agree to an extent, but I don't think it's a matter of their lack of athleticism as opposed to how the scenes themselves are shot and transition into one another. It lacks the scale and grandeur and focuses a bit too much on the flashy bits.
Totally agree here. It felt so small. The one time any scale was shown was the calvary charge and it was stopped, which ruined the battle for me before it even started. It felt like the city had 20 defenders somehow holding the wall.
@@jeremymangalsinghAgree, the cuts made it weird. Going from one scene to another with weird skirmishes here and there. No real consistency on the status of the battle. For example, the archer having to take the shot to save the day (which implies they were just a few behind enemy lines). Then they immediately charge to take the position and we are suddenly in the core of the battle.
"The elves avoid a 1000 horse pile up" that was exactly my thought when watching it. They went from full tilt to full stop within 10 feet in like 1 second. This and the Numenorean horse charge both seem almost comical, cartoonish. It seems they focused way too much on minute details and callbacks and threw good story, characterization, and *gasp* geography out the window.
Its not even the fact that 'Metal' doesn't belong in a Middle-Earth series. There's a band called 'King Buffalo' that wrote an Song called 'Balrog' that would've fit the tone Ep7's ending far better. There's even band called 'Blind Guardian' that did a very nice song straight called 'Lord of the Rings'. This was just ORC Music!
The battle just seemed so so small, I think this show really misses those wide aerial shots just to get a scale of how many Orcs and Elves are actually fighting in the battle, everything is just a couple of people in the shot fighting, practical effects is great for that, but CGI could have been used for the wide shots to create scale…. Also we get a theme song for a Troll that doesn’t do anything to help the siege and dies after 2 mins?
This is typical in movies that want to save money. Wide shots are expensive. Close range stuff you can shoot it in a studio with green walls everywhere.
I hate that the elves just seem like humans. They're etheral eternal beings but for 95% of the battle they spent it running back and forth in the town square squealing Also whats with the elven guards being against celebrimbor yet after galadriel speaks to them for 30 seconds they're suddenly back on his side? I understand Sauron is the deciever but it would not be that simple to have the elven guard switch their cloaks on someone they would have served with for 1,000 years at Eregion.
@@bradley7240 somewhat correct, but broadly elves are not as you describe. Let’s start with the ethereal thing. Tolkien never thought as elves as being otherworldly. In “On Fairy Stories” he describes them as “natural”, more natural than man as they are bound to the world. Furthermore, since they are bound to the world, they can’t leave it at death as man can until the world ends. Hence, true death is called “the gift of man,” since presumably that means that men can be with Iluvatar before the elves can. In the books’ representations of elves, they are graceful, sure, but also funny and always willing to crack a joke at the expense of the characters. They are, for lack of a better word, down to earth. As for the guards, if one of the children of Finarfin tells you something, you listen
For the guards mabey they were trying to protect him and also it was during a siege so its not like you want someone who could be having a few problems to be your leader. Galadriel is like very important so mabey that changed thier minds. Mabye they reliezed they know calebrimbor more than the new guy, annatar.
I absolutely agree! These are the dumbest elves I've ever seen portrayed. They wouldn't even have made it to the second age. Morgoth would've wiped them out in the 1st. I will say I think Arrondir represents them the best in this show.
I read a great comment about this earlier today. In the LotR, it's a story from the Hobbits point of view. So to the Hobbits Elves look almost Godlike in what they do. In this series, specifically this battle you're seeing it from the point of view from the elves. And when elves are watching themselves fight, it's nothing out of the ordinary because they can all do the same thing making them seem much more human. I thought it was an interesting take on it.
While the action definitely isn’t up to PJ’s standards, and MY ERU was that kiss awkward, Sauron continues to shine. And by now he’s basically the series’ protagonist for me, so his scenes are mostly THE good reason I need to keep watching.
For me Sauron is totally distracting with those hideous bulging colored contacts and the high forehead they have him. And none of his dialogue is memorable either.
Anyone can shine if you don't allow Galadriel to tell Celebrimbor that Halbrand is Sauron, make Celebrimbor the proudest, clueless Elven jewel smith in the Legendarium. And then at the end, he admits that he knew something was wrong with Annatar from the beginning.🙄 All to make some cool dialogue. I could have convinced that Celebrimbor to make the Nine Rings of Power.
@@jaykay3615 he is doing really well. I quite liked the old adar, but the new guy is even better and a little bit more likeable, for want of a better word.
The kiss may have been for the broach hand-off, but the music was absolutely SCREAMING about how romantic is was supposed to be. Such a weird, unprepared moment.
Actually they do have lots of extras, more than most movies of the genre at least. It's the fact that they don't use very much cgi that makes the battle look very sparse, which is commendable, but then again, you'd need A LOT of extras to pull that off efficiently
Time to watch LotR or even the Hobbit battle scenes for a cleansing. The lack of scale here is brutal. These look like skirmishes, not battles between two armies.
Celebrimbors meltdown and crying after discovering Eregion is in shambled and realising he has been deceived was TOP acting of the actor. Brilliantly done. Really shows the horrors of Saurons deception and its destructive power
Except Celebrimbor was not deceived, nor did he breakdown, nor was he a wimp and afraid of anything... He was a great warrior who had to be tortured and killed and still didn't give up the rings. Plenty of characters Sauron fooled in the books, why they had to do this to Celebrimbor's book is beyond me.
@nerdoftherings I have a MA in History, and as far as I know, there are no real world examples of what appears to be a reverse Ballista. The Ravager looks like one but reversed, connected to a wooden pole to pull backwards with the chains. This would be ineffective in real life, as most medieval sieges usually dug underneath a section of wall and used fire to heat/loosen the earth underneath the foundation stones.
Added bonus of engineers not taking arrows while they work if they tunnel. Downside being the chances of cave ins are just as if not more deadly. But being this is a riverbed the ravager kinda makes more sense than tunneling.
@@henryrichardson3938 this is a one off case. You don’t see it used in the Medieval world, your source (Wikipedia) uses an ancient Roman source for one battle.
@@tristencunningham oh wow. if you learned about orcs and fairies in your MA history program ask for your money back buddy, you've been conned into a mickey mouse degree.
he had sacrificed his integrity, and now shills for some of the worst writing he's ever seen. He has gone from loving a master, to shilling for vandles.
@@mish375 Yeah same. Well I will say the fight sequences for the siege were borderline slapstick in terms of their quality, but I actually was enjoying the moments between Sauron and Celebrimbor.
Nobody talking about the sheer extreme range of the trebuchets that these orcs have? And for real taking down a whole mountain and blocking a river? Like, that's one hell of a trebuchet, and they have a bunch of them.
Would have been cool to have him use Feanor’s hammer to break the shackles. A nice moment of redemption. But nope, he threw it out the window. They had to put body horror in middle earth.
I also felt really strange watching Elrond and Galadriel kiss. Wasn't it like 10 minutes ago we were told Galadriel found Elrond as a baby and raised him ? Shades of House Targaryen... really not enjoyable and completely off-lore.
How is their kiss any different from Arwen kissing and marrying Aragorn? She saw him grow up since childhood yet nobody is giving the OG trilogy or the novels flack for that? At least between Elrond and Galadriel it’s not sexual or romantic. These elves live in a society completely beyond our own social conventions. They can express love in several ways our society would consider weird because they have their own set of beliefs and practices. You and the rest of viewers are just projecting your own sourness onto the scene.
@@AmorphousGoob Wrong, they met when Aragorn was 20. An adult already. Galadriel will also become Elrond's mother-in-law later in lore. Saying "you can't understand" because you cannot possibly understand what these fictionnal characters made by humans do is completely unrealistic. That scene is yet another exemple of the show going for audience score instead of adapting the lore to TV.
New theory: Galadriel is actually Celebrian; in a future episode we will discover Galadriel and Celeborn are already in retirement, and sent Celebrian to act as if she were Galadriel. “But Mom, what will I say when they ask about Dad?” “Just tell them he is dead.”
@@BlueforReasonOf course I don’t, just posted for comedic relief. But the fact that it is consistent with what has occurred (headfakes on who is Sauron set the precedent, plus the kiss and the “Celeborn is dead” shock we know is not true) make the humor of such a post too much to resist suggesting.
More ridiculous theory: Mirdania is actually Galadriel in disguise, which is why Celebrimbor struggled to remember her name. Ok overall I am loving the show, but can’t help it here. The kiss is too much.
No wonder there is so little written about the Second Age. Elrond would clearly have been the author, and would he want everyone to know he kissed his mother-in-law? He had hoped that secret sailed away with him to Valinor…but now we know, Elrond…now we know…
20:36 This sentence is why I hate how Galadriel is portrayed in the entire series. One of the biggest parts of her character is the time she spent with Melian learning from her and her wisdom. According to this show, Galadriel learned absolutely nothing from Melian if she ever met her.
we’re not sure if she even married to celeborn who is supposedly dead/lost….i bet they’re gonna bring him in towards the end in a “surprise surprise, honey, i’m home” plot twist.
@@monicad99 which will be fun since the elves never marry in times of war. And it takes an incredible amount of time for them to have children. Then the children have a very long adolescence.
Yeah, see I thought her time with Melian happened a few thousand years after the events of this series but I was wrong. It was the one thing that kept me excusing how she is portrayed in ROP because I thought she hadn't met Melian yet.... The whole point of their time together is that it gave Galadriel perspective and inner peace, she even learned how to bake Lembas bread from Melian. Really is a bummer.
I really appreciate how measured and balanced you are in talking about this show. For some reason UA-cam is full of people just absolutely hating on this show to a point that is getting ridiculous and coming across as very immature. Very refreshing the way you are willing to say both what you like and what you dislike - you know, like a normal person.
22:38 That's the look of someone in their head saying "I'm your MOTHER.. In law.. BUT STILL" As I said on the live stream, it's a fairly standard trope to use a kiss to pass something to a prisoner, however. It's not the only one, sure there was another that could have worked fine if not better.
Not necessarily though. The show states he was among the first elves captured by Morgoth. So he might likely be Avari type, never went to Valinor, where the first took place and in the Beleriand wars never involved in Noldor affairs due to fighting for their enemy
@@VolkerWendt-vq8pi If Adar knows the beauty and wisdom of Melian, then I think it's obvious that he's not among the very first elves captured by Morgoth. He must have been among these elves that took part of the Great March or one of their descendants. Adar being among the first orcs is just Galadriel's assumption during their conversation in the Southlands. However, Adar never confirmed that, as he only stated that they preffer being called uruk.
@@gzagorov Melian's reputation struck fear into Sauron and Morgoth (he never attacked Doriath even after he lost a Silmaril because he knew he himself would have to have attacked to have any chance of success and that he would be in some peril if he did so) so Adar hearing about her while in Morgoth's service would be more likely.
Disa hears an evil growling echoing from the deep when she finds and the drops the tuning stone - and she tells Durin IV who tells Narvi and King Durin III - the king is warned not to delve too deep but he says he can see the depths of the mountain and there is no threat there.
I was thinking that scene with Narvi is a hallucination caused by Sauron. The scene ends by cutting to him opening his eyes as if he's just been doing an intense spell.
This is the first time we have seen any actual smithing going on in this forge, and that just contributes to the world not feeling real or lived in. Any scene in the forge shows the smiths standing around talking, in lovely flowing robes and clean hair and faces. There needed to be some hammering, clanking, and grime to make it feel believable, but it never did
To be fair, gold and silver smithing is a *much* cleaner process than blacksmithing. You need coal or charcoal to work steel properly, which is where a lot of the mess comes from. A jeweler being fairly clean is one of the most realistic aspects of the show.
Yeah at the end I was sure he was going to be stabbed by Adar but he just threw him away. I guess he could be more useful to him alive since he lost Galadriel as a prisoner.
Celebrimbor should have tried using that cutter to cut off that chain first... I mean, if it could cut through his thumb, it might have a chance against that chain.
@bojangles4398 why make a drastic choice? Probably because the dark lord has him chained up and had been inside his brain for a while causing him to lose it
Yeah I was thinking oh he's going to try to cut the chain, but then I was like no the way they're holding the scene on the chopper is too dramatic and they're about to imply he's going to cut his finger off
Just rewatched the episode I just feel like it was a bit messy, things just don’t flow right with the battle. Characters coming in here and there and back again random cuts to Gil-Galad who’s sort of involved in the battle and then he isn’t it’s just kind of odd. Do the show runners not know he is literally one of THE most important characters. It’s like the battle got cut up massively. I feel like the scale seemed small as well Eregion had like 30 odd elves on the walls the scale felt so off. I keep trying to give each episode a chance and the series in general a chance but I think for all its visual beauty some great acting I feel like the writing of events and the pacing etc is kind of horrible though I will say some of the dialogue between Celebrimbor & Sauron is good though I still cannot really see Celebrimbor in that actor just for me that’s not what he’d look like.
@@araucariapasquale1 I don’t think he’s a bad actor but purely on appearance I just do t see that charter when I look at him, like a lot of the elves to me just don’t look like elves they look like humans you’d find anywhere in Middle Earth. A lot of people talk smack about the hobbits films but at least Elves looked ethereal and distinct from other races
These random cuts and the editing are so off-putting to me. I feel like at least 10 minutes of additional scenes or transitions could have done so much for not only this episode, but the whole season.
@@Nivalyr Plus so many of the battle scenes were very dark. I had to turn the brightness up to 100% and it was still difficult to make out some things.
Some showrunner somewhere is surrounded by crumpled up bits of paper with Rivers, mountains and armies drawn on them. He has his head in his hands, weeping.
This episode shows that the main problem with this show. They should never have had these 3 distinct stories in the same series, happening at the same time! The fall of Numenor was a slow process that happened over hundreds of years. It was completely seperate from the forging of the rings. Farazon was the last Numenorian king in a long line of kings and queens who grew so proud that they became jealous of the elves, contemptuous of regular humans and gradually led into worship of evil. And the whole prehistoric halflings meet Maybe-Gandalf story is so damn distant and detached its impossible to connect them.
This is most likely because the original actor who played Adar did this scene, and they had to cover his face up with the other actors face. I noticed this too and was like wtf. This is even more likely considering they planned for 5 seasons and they might be filming things simultaneously.
Honestly, have tried to like this show despite the breakaway from proper Tolkien lore. One can look past some of the issues and enjoy parts of it. But, this show’s writers have put it on the same level of a Roadrunner vs Coyote or Bugs Bunny vs Yosemite Sam cartoon, it’s become ridiculous whether one knows Tolkien lore or not. I just can’t anymore…..
It still works amazingly and makes sense that Adar attacked from the river side because the walls there would be less reinforced structurally and he knew the guards would assume the river would protect them. Some guard I think at some point I remember actually said it out loud. So instead of trying to rip down a wall that was meant to be sieged and withstand MAJOR punishment that is not only extremely tall and wide. Adar being a strategic genius first gives them a false sense of security, followed by the sense of dread and hopelessness when he uses the river AGAINST them. Targeting the weakest parts of the wall. Genius
Yeah that siege engine doesn’t make sense. Why bother trying to tear the wall down? Just send a battering ram towards the gate, which is most often the weakest part of any wall. Or maybe try to aim your catapults at a single part of the wall and hit it again and again until crumbles. The orcs could also try to undermine the walls and cause the foundation to collapse.
I mean, call me dumb, I may be. But isn't trying to dam the river completely useless if you don't divert it as well? (not to mention that a river can't be blocked by some pieces of rock thrown in there, water would find a way through anyways). Some decisions are not very logical
@@Freedom-lh3gtwhile I don’t see the siege engine as a big immersion breaker, there are reasons why things like this ravager device never existed. You won’t get enough grip on the wall with some hammered anchors and you don’t have enough force to pull out stones. It’s for show and I thought it was fun. But stupid nonetheless.
They don't show the dried up river that much, but logic tells us that the banks on both sides are steep, so how could they roll those siege engines and wall-knockers across the river, even after damming up the river? Also the river bed would be very soft, so those things would get stuck trying to cross. I guess the less you think about what you are hearing and seeing, the more you can enjoy the series.
@@Enerdhil looooool you are thinking about how the river banks would be steep? The writers thought a couple of rocks would dam a river mate, they can't get at your level
So, according to this show, there were two elven rings of power in the battle, one with Elrond and other with Gil-Galad. One was lost to an orc and the other was of no use.
I’m not a huge fan of of Amazon Rings of Power but I try to pick the positive traits out of this season. Season 2 is definitely better than season 1 but it still has major flaws IMHO. First of all , the compression of timeline, and secondly the too many storylines. . I don’t care about all the stuff regarding the Harefoots, , the guys in the Easr, Tom Bombadil and the stranger playing Yoda and Luke. I’d like that the useless screen time given to those storylines were used to complete the Numenor part of the plot. I certainly do not appreciate all the lore infractions, however if they had concentrated on the making of the Rings in Eregion, the relationship between Annatar and Celebrimbor being one of the strong points of the season, the Khazad Dum part and Numenor , they would have given us a good and compelling fantasy show, although non canonical. One last remark I have not recoverd yet from the shock of Elrond and Galadriel kissing
I like how everyone is freaking out about the kiss and not the 50 billion plot holes , stupid ass scenes like instantly stopping a charge and continuity error and teleporting that happens in this episode
Instantly stopping the charge isn't stupid considering they're elves that had better reflex than all the other races. Other than that, yeah there's a lot of strange choices in this show
The Charlies are the absolute highlight of the season for me, their performances are phenomenal, and knowing how Brimby's story inevitably ends I know it will be an emotional devastating blow. Also 26:07 No, unfortunately no meat on the menu this time, they only opened orc's restaurants during the third age I've heard
2 Points: - The kiss was just a way to pass the lock pick to Galadriel, nothing else. - Was the reason of Durin not coming to the battle also an ilusion made by Sauron? We can see him with the eyes shut once the Khazad Dum scene cuts back to him…
![The Complete History of the Rings of Power [COMPILATION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rsCaXGvMypM/mqdefault.jpg)
![The History of Morgoth [COMPILATION] | Tolkien Explained](/img/n.gif)
Who hasn't thrown their grandfather's mythical hammer out a window in frustration?
RIP ancient irreplaceable hammer
The same sorts of people who don't snog their mother in law 💀
Pretty sure it was an illusion. The hammer that is
Al Bundy? Oops that was his dad's hammer 🛠 lol 😂
@@alphabarre9096 Curufin is Celebrimbors father, Fëanor is Curufins father so Fëanor is Celebrimbors grandfather
Celebrimbor was like : bro you're so good at gaslighting, you even gaslight yourself
That was hilarious!!! I was gone...😂😂😂
Celebrimbor hasn’t met a toxic female in 2024 otherwise he’d realize how common it is
pure zinger moment. Gotcha b*tch
that was so real
@georgegach7 It really was!!! I'm just going to say it....I've really enjoyed the acting chops of these two.
During the kiss scene, I thought Elrond was going to use that opportunity to give Galadriel the ring 💍 in her mouth so she could help them win the battle. I wasn’t expecting the lock-pick tool exchange.
I feel like that much aggressive tongue would have made an already *blink...blink* scene into something where Adar suddenly becomes the principal in an 80s high school movie separating the head cheerleader and the quarterback. And that...might have been world breaky...
Same lmao
And Adar just falls for it despite being 5 feet away... right. Okay
That would have been much better
Nah, Galadriel’s role was depicted well this episode - she guides. And I’m glad they gave Elrond his due as the warrior he is
Catapults can destroy the mountain but not the wall?! 🤔
Not walls, specifically designed to resist siege engines and built by elves, i'd suspect.
Ah yes, those were specially designed catapults, that can shoot rocks for miles in a straight line.
And the mountainsides were really precarious. It's a wonder that they hadn't fallen before and completely dried up the riverbed in a few hours. 😂😂😂
can destroy a mountain in miniutes by the way.
Not to mention the river would soon overflow the rocks blocking the river.
A mountain that didn't exist in first season
Adar has one ring, galadriel has 9 rings and celebrimbor has 9 fingers is Pulitzer Material!
Adar and Galadriel will switch rings
@@VojislavVajic-en1wy And then they'll switch vows.
@@Nosyaj1941🤣🤣🤣
@@VojislavVajic-en1wy😂😂😂
Emmy material.🙄
Is anyone else gonna talk about that end credits song?!
Ugh. It was very frustrating to reach the end of the episode only to have that garbage assault my ears.
Orc metal?
@@phenolicresinoid I can appreciate that orc music should sound unpleasant, but I think it could have worked a little better if it didn't sound so synthetic.
o God I wanted to puke.....
they did the same thing on Games of Thrones when Jamie Lannister had his hand cut off.
Hawkeye Elf get Boromired is the funniest thing I heard all day lol
Yes!
And the quip about Brimby's 9 fingers 😂
I couldn't help but laugh
the way she looked around for a while to make sure people would witness her heroic death was giving "WITNESS ME!!!!"
@@Sam-ey2ns Ikr 😆
You would have been great at delivering announcements on the Titanic. "Everything is OK." "Nothing to worry about."
best comment right here
This episode flows so much better without the wizard story. We aren’t thrown away from the tension of Sauron and Adar to cave hobbits
I didn't even notice their absence until I saw your comment lol
Yea the wizard build up is such a waste of screen time. Like it's gonna take him three seasons to realize he is Gandalf 😂 or possibly more seasons. But I guess they had to tell the hobbit story someway too and the wizard tie in was a good one.
100% the Harfoots / Stranger storyline is the worst thing about this series!
I actually don’t mind the Wizard storyline but I am completely baffled as to why they made him so clearly Gandalf. The early references I thought were to get people to think he was Gandalf-like (an Istar, but for the casual audience to understand), but the “gand” and “grand-elf” are just too much to deny it anymore.
With a blue wizard they have a blank slate, the audience has no clue what will happen (or even if the blue wizard wins, stays faithful to the task, etc)…
As Gandalf-lore issues, everyone knows he is good and all will turn out ok with him in the end, etc.
It was a good editing decision to leave that out. Makes me feel the last episode will have a lot jammed in now though.
Why not have CELEBRIAN as the main character of the show then?
You can have your kiss with Elrond and you can have the main character being a little immature without taking away from Galadriel or Celeborn. It would also make sense for a young Celebrian as the main character to be more vulnerable to Sauron and have scenes where she asks her parents for guidance. It seems like they wanted the Galadriel name because she's known but they didn't want her actual character, maturity and actual family. It's SO weird to me
100%
@@NerdoftheRings LOL I swear I hadn't seen your video prior to posting this. I've just felt that the main character being Celebrian all along instead of Galadriel would've been FAR better if you analyze every scene since Season 1. Perhaps it would be a cool video to make. Meanwhile, the real Galadriel was away searching for Celeborn, not giving up on her love for him. Cheers, man!
Galadriel is the person for the main character. She becomes a leader. Yes, she spent time learning from her elders, but that doesn't automatically mean we know her temperament during this time. I think it's cool they give us something to watch as far as speculation across all story lines. Yes, they should have chosen something other than the kiss, and some actors are not great, but Peter Jackson omitted some lore as well. He just did it in spectacular fashion 😂
@@rbq426 Galadriel spent most of the First Age in Doriath with Melian the Maia. People really think she wouldn’t be more mature in the Second Age? She’s already thousands of years old. And Morfydd is also too small for Galadriel who is said to be tall 🤷♂️
Who?
In all fairness, Celebrembor discovering Annatar is Sauron doesn’t bother me because….well…he doesn’t exactly have a chance to tell the other elves.
"Who's will is mightier?" is such a hard line while cutting your thumb off, especially when it's in defiance of literal, actual Satan.
It's starting to feel like they wrote the role of Galadriel originally for her daughter, with a romance and all with Elrond. Then some idiot came in and said they needed to use Galadriel because they thought it would make more money. Galadriel was probably a side character and they simply merged the two roles
Good point. Many things would make more sense if "Galadriel" was actually Celebrian.
This show feels like it has many different writers who don't talk to each other.
It would had made better writing.
I would've enjoyed this so much more & could probably look past more stuff
Makes sense. Good point.
Don't know about Celebrian as a character, but it would have been cool to see her instead of Gal
19:05 “Does he [Adar] expect the elves to kill other elves!”
Well, he did live through the First Age and three kinslayings.😂
Great point, he was around during the darker times, when relations between ruling factions were much "GameofThrones ISH".
three? i can only think of two, but maybe my lotr knowledge is rusty
nah he didnt live through any of the kinslayings hes of the avari and had never been to valinor
@@mikeyA435 I more meant he was alive during them, so he would have heard about them.
@@ralucaanamaria2582 There are three. One in Valinor, one in Doriath, and one at the Havens (which causes Earendil to get the help of the Valar).
7:30 this is a general problem of this show. It feels like there are only 100 people in middle earth in total. 30 in Numenor. ( Edit note: from 1000 to 100)
It seems smaller to me😂I’ve only started watching the show after getting into the recaps.”Where is everyone?”It seems like they got all the extras to play Orcs! I can understand the Elves. Might’ve been too hard to get good looking,tall extra’s for the parts!
Agree
im sure they could hire people for that job.. im sure many would go for free if they got them tickets! 😂😂
my thought excatly
Yes it's like someone is defrauding Amazon and doing it on the cheap.
Medieval archaeologist here, and I can't say I know of any siege devices that bolt onto a wall and rip it apart. Historically, it was easier to beat them down or circumvent them in other (more conventional) ways. Ladders, digging tunnels to weaken the structure, breaking through the gates, or cannons and bombards (in later ages) are what we mostly see.
I'll also add that it's usually preferable (as the attacker) if the shrapnel and debris from the wall falls towards the defenders, not your own troops
@@isaiahmaness9593 Thanks! Tthat's exactly what I thought seeing the scene where they break through and a bunch of orcs are seemingly smashed by their own doing...
Someone who understands basic physics here. Isaiah is correct from the historical perspective, but I'll add to it with a little bit of logic and simple physics.
You hammer the stakes into the wall. You either split the stones themselves or whatever is doing the hammering is powerful enough to drive the spikes between the stones of a fortification, which has all the weight of all the stones above it. At that point you're better off just attacking the wall directly.
Let's ignore that for a moment and say you've driven the stakes of this ridiculous contraption into the wall. You attach the chains and trigger the device. Put simply, the stakes don't have anywhere near enough friction. Without barbs (that wouldn't work on rock) or something to "grab" the stones of the wall it'll just pull out immediately. Even if we ignore that problem we still have a siege engine capable of pulling stones out of walls, why not just turn it loose on the wall directly and skip having to pound the stakes?
To book end the whole series, we can explain so many things from the 20' tall pile of elf helmets to this thing simply with "someone thought it would look cool" regardless if it makes sense or not.
Legolas would’ve killed that troll within 15 seconds
lmao 😂😂😂😂😂
ONG 😂
Yes, but it would still count as one :)
Legolas vs orcs from shadow of war
Legolas gets clapped respectfully especially by the feral tribe
Legolas was elite even among the elves. More or less elf special forces.
Season 1: Orcs can’t stand sunlight.
Season 2: No problem ✌️🙄
I forgot to bring this up during the stream but worked it in here. Especially the sunrise at the end, they seem totally cool with it.
They are just being consistent about being inconsistent in their storytelling.
@@NerdoftheRings No, they were covered with clothes.
@@Enerdhil No, they were covered with clothes.
@@rafaeldoo9108
They are always covered with clothes, but their faces weren't cover. They need sombreros.🤣
"As for me, I pity even his slaves" This quote rang in my head every time I saw Glűg interact with Adar. Also, at first I thought the kiss was for show or cover, but then...well...ok your point is taken. One more thing: I was a TV news editor for 35+ years, from pre-1980 until my retirement. May I say that I am professionally impressed at your ability to bang these well-written, insightful breakdowns together and post them in what can't be more than a couple of hours. I take off my hood to you. Get some rest.
He gets the shows in advance. He is paid by Amazon.
@@araucariapasquale1 U sincerely think he is paid to say good things about the show? Someone who have dedicated most of his life to the work of tolkien. Idk man.
@@CFFViddeit’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is quite common for content creators to get advance copies of books and shows and movie. Kind of like pre screening. Dos t mean he can’t voice his opinions for or against the content
@@CFFVidde he gets interviews with Charlie Vickers and Robert Aramayo on the day of the Finale and he is not in with Amazon? Maybe, but the evidence strongly suggests otherwise.
This show should have started with season 2. Celebrimbor should have been our main character, a tragic fellow who wants to redeem his lineage. He dies in s1 or start of s2 by finally redeeming himself with the elven rings AFTER making the other rings.
We should have seen Numenor at the very peak of its power. There's orcs and corrupt men rising from the east and South. The men and dwarves of the West come to the elves begging for help. Celebrimbor is concerned that these forces are an indication something is wrong. Sauron shows up as the master of disguise to convince him to help the free people with rings of power. Galadrial and Gil Galad are skeptical of Anatar & seek to help in different ways.
Each season should jump a few hundred years. The elves are the constant characters. Numenorians we're familiar with are shown during seasons 2-3 as very young and then hundreds of years later as their grown selves. Normal men come and go each season showing their mortality. Very slowly we see Numenorians become envious of the elves.
We never learn where all the rings go but we do see the Numenorian monarchy set up colonies in what will be Gondor and Arnor to fend off the orcs/goblins.
Elrond would be the character that connects the Numenorian and elvish plots to reflect his own lineage.
No wizard subplot.
Just my thoughts
I agree ☝️
It'd be a better pacing and overall plot, yes. These writers are hacks. 😩
@@jennifermel687 Or, the producers decided how they wanted the story to go and gave the writers an impossible task.....
That's a Rings of Power show that I'd watch lol. Not this drivel we're being fed. I watched the first season but refuse to watch the second. Amazon and the femboy showrunners can go F themselves.
@@bevmaloney I bet it was the higher-ups who thought that having time jumps would be too hard to follow for viewers. Most shows now suffer from this. No respect for the audience, everything has to be dumbed down.
But it didn't even have to be time jumps. Elves lives are long. They should have just followed the elves and have the human characters changed between seasons. Only introduce Elendil in season 4 for example.
Why did Adar's face look so horribly animated when he's holding up Elrond? It was quite noticeably worse than the rest of the cgi
I noticed this too!! He looked horrible those last couple of shots
I noticed that too, sad they're not using prosthetics anymore
Maybe it was a different actor so the face was CGI'd
Same here.
It was absolutely horrendous. It looked like they pulled him straight out of a video game cut scene
Anybody else feel it would’ve been more impactful if Arondir shot that flaming arrow rather than a random Elf that we’d seen for about 5 minutes
Yeah, specially if they were going to kill him..
Yes. Her death was supposed to be impactful but it was kind of a big nothing because there was no character development. Same with Elrond’s horse. Why was he so upset about a rando horse he got assigned 5 minutes ago?
As soon as the kissing scene happened, I immediately hit paused and look at the mayhem it caused on the internet. Kissing her in the forehead could have worked better instead of kissing your future mother in law in the lips.
Been waiting for someone to say this. They would even get another scene steal from the PJ films when Galadriel kisses Frodo on the head.
It was a fake! So Elrond could give her the pin!
@@lordbarco8337 so why not kiss her on the forehead as is established in the lore and the real world?
Because they wanted it to look intimate so the others would momentarily look away, or divert their attention to the kiss and not the handoff. Do you have to have everything spelled out for you? Sheesh!
@@pmcswain358 I know that it's purpose is to divert the orcs attention. Is there no other way to divert their attention than kissing?
I don’t like the way elves are portrayed in this show, they just feel like humans with pointy ears.
And it made it even more obvious when comparing the elves in the battle of eregion with the elves in the battle at helm’s dream.
They lack that discipline, deadly precision, and ethereal feel.
I totally see this as well. They definitely don’t have much distinguishing them from men aside from their ears and attire. I think Arondir is definitely the one exception who just *feels* elven in his demeanor and performance.
Elves in the Silmarillion book don't feel like the elves in the Lord of the rings either. They are very flawed and act horribly. These elves could be prettier, but othervice I don't have complaints.
Poor Mirdania RIP hopefully somebody remembers your name at the funeral 😢
I was pissed that Sauron who promised her that she'll be "duly rewarded" in an earlier scene, casually tossed her over the wall (through Calebrimbor's hand) to her death. I felt at that moment that Sauron truely is irredeemable.
Who was Mirdania?
@@tintiniitk It's Sauron what did you expect 😂 The moment he said that I went alright he's gonna 100 percent cause her death
Yes. Since his previous master tormented Hurin for ages. I agree with you😊
Mirdania's fëa will be out of Mandos and reembodied in no time.😁
For a second I thought Galadriel will kiss Celebrimbor too
Hahahaha yeah right mate?
They should have make it happen.And that black elve to...Make Galadriel whore to mock Tolkien,was their idea...
I thought they were gonna kiss lmao
God I hope not haha. Celebrimbor is related to Galadriel. He like a great great grandfather to her.
@@andrewvincent7299 that won't stop her
For all of this show's faults, Adar's the only original character I find compelling. Hazeldine's really good.
I actually do like Adar and he's relatively a very interesting character
@@bmabs35 I enjoy Galadriel’s character and Arondir the warrior elf in this series. The actress and actor for these roles are phenomenal!
What faults, please educate me
Too many subplots in an already rushed show with less than ten episodes per season. As a result, characters feel half baked. There's no sense of scale in the time spent or locations presented. Not to mention unnecessary callbacks to the movies.
I won't dive into differences with the books as that's common with any adaptation.
The 24:30 kick mid-air that the horse does in the battle scene is a real type of exercise that horses were trained to do in history. It takes a very special type of built and training so it’s very rare there days but it’s called a Capriole 😊 there is also a Levad where the horse rears its front legs while remaining balanced on its back legs!
Kinda disappointed the troll died so easy, they could have at least let him fully bring down the wall
It's 2024 we don't call them trolls anymore.....they are called Karens
Well, Damrod never killed Sauron, so he couldn't live, Troll CGI is expensive, so he couldn't be in it long, we're in the penultimate episode of the season and have that breakneck pacing on the Eregion plot that gets ground to a halt by the Wizard plot...
Why was he laughing? WHY WAS HE LAUGHING!
He should’ve just ran and headbutt the wall
I've been waiting for Damrod to appear, hoping for a 1 v 1 like the classic Lotr vs giant trolls, elephant, but died easily because he's expensive.😂
Guess the orcs kinda forgot that they hated sunlight.
Adrenaline will do that to you
literally
My question too!!!
I thought that too but apart from that one shine of the sun where they were expecting the dwarves, you can see the clouds moving with the orcs as they enter the city
@@joshcullins3217 yep, anything to say the show is bad… 🙄
The kiss has been deleted from the hard drive and there are no backups
Nope I am keeping it to expose this sin to the world to show even the defenders of this show should be ashamed!
@@Tallacus NOOOOOOOOO!
All a ruse. Even Galadriel looked surprised.
@@Tallacus There's no problem with that kiss.
You can clearly see her flinch when he passed the thingy to help her escape
In answer to your question regarding the siege machine. No, nobody would have used siege machines that require you to stand under a wall and hammer chains and have to yank them out a piece at a time. The defenders would have unlimited amounts of time to rain, rocks, oil, fire, arrows, whatever else they want on top of you. It just takes way too long to be effective.
Have you seen Shadversity laying into this particular piece of technological genius?😂😂well worth a watch!
@@annabizaro-doo-dah I started watching Shad for his castle and combat content. His media analysis is fine, but he can't stop banging the "anti-woke rage bait" drum. Him constantly dropping the r-slur and calling Galadriel a cow is incredibly off-putting. His analysis of RoP is what finally pushed me to click the "Don't recommend this channel" button.
Did you all notice how disgusted Annatar looks when someone´s touching him? Great acting by Charlie Vickers!
It looks like he's thinking, "This inferior being dares touch ME?!" It gives a layer of otherness to Sauron that's both deep and subtle.
Those orcs touched him hard ,when they killed him easily
He looked like he wanted to kill them for touching him. I kinda wish all the actors could express themselves as that actor did. The show would be upped ten fold.
Autistic Sauron confirmed
I hope he wins an award for his role, I'm in love with his acting skills! He acts with his whole self, not just his words.
Oh no Saurons girlfriend died ….. anyway
He sensed that his baby mama was comin' home early, so he needed to dump the look-alike stat!
Sauron is pretty cold if he keeps throwing his girlfriends off ramparts he's gonna be alone forever
In episode 3 he commented that she had a passing resemblance to Galadriel especially their hair color. I kinda feel like he was projecting his ‘feelings’ or sentimentality he has for Galadriel onto her.
No worries. Mirdania's fëa will follow Sauron forever.🧚😍🥰😘❣️
😂😂
Was it just me who thought that the war/fight scenes lacked a lot of anticipation, weight and the heavy feeling that sits at the bottom of your stomach? It felt so messily put together for a penultimate episode.
I think in general they are not good at showing a fighting scene, large or small scale. The actors are not athletic enough, except for Arondir, to fool us into believing that they are actually fighting. My wife is better with a katana than Morfydd is with a sword.
@@Enerdhil I agree to an extent, but I don't think it's a matter of their lack of athleticism as opposed to how the scenes themselves are shot and transition into one another. It lacks the scale and grandeur and focuses a bit too much on the flashy bits.
@@jeremymangalsingh yh it seemed like this was a skimish, both the armies seemed really small too. Strange.
Totally agree here. It felt so small. The one time any scale was shown was the calvary charge and it was stopped, which ruined the battle for me before it even started. It felt like the city had 20 defenders somehow holding the wall.
@@jeremymangalsinghAgree, the cuts made it weird. Going from one scene to another with weird skirmishes here and there. No real consistency on the status of the battle.
For example, the archer having to take the shot to save the day (which implies they were just a few behind enemy lines). Then they immediately charge to take the position and we are suddenly in the core of the battle.
18:38 How does he stop the 1000 horses charging without even one collision between horses and enemy orcs?
Did you watch it bro?? They stopped when they saw "Gladimnotreal" in the cage.😂
@@SK4M_Freal Like... wouldn't it have been smarter to mow down all the orcs around the cage and save her then and there? Lol
Elves have special horse whispering skills and their horses are known to be more skilled /smarter. Much like Isildur's buddy.
"The elves avoid a 1000 horse pile up" that was exactly my thought when watching it. They went from full tilt to full stop within 10 feet in like 1 second. This and the Numenorean horse charge both seem almost comical, cartoonish. It seems they focused way too much on minute details and callbacks and threw good story, characterization, and *gasp* geography out the window.
Nazgûl traffic report: We got a 1000 horse pile up at Eregion.
Best part is the Annatar to Celebrimbor manipulation, the actor is fantastic!
They both play it to perfection
Agreed. They really nailed this part of Sauron!
Best part of the show!
They are the best scenes in eps 6 and 7. Masterful job by the actors.
I feel bad for celembrimbir.period
Elrond to Celebrian at their first night: I kissed your mom
"We apologize for the end credit song, those responsible have been sacked!"
Its not even the fact that 'Metal' doesn't belong in a Middle-Earth series. There's a band called 'King Buffalo' that wrote an Song called 'Balrog' that would've
fit the tone Ep7's ending far better. There's even band called 'Blind Guardian' that did a very nice song straight called 'Lord of the Rings'. This was just ORC Music!
The battle just seemed so so small, I think this show really misses those wide aerial shots just to get a scale of how many Orcs and Elves are actually fighting in the battle, everything is just a couple of people in the shot fighting, practical effects is great for that, but CGI could have been used for the wide shots to create scale…. Also we get a theme song for a Troll that doesn’t do anything to help the siege and dies after 2 mins?
Whine whine whine y'all can't help yourself but to whine at the smallest mishap
whaat? we see so many wide shots cmon. and the troll destroys the wall after all soo...watch the ep again😉
@@ilyamacintosh303 You're silly.
This is typical in movies that want to save money. Wide shots are expensive. Close range stuff you can shoot it in a studio with green walls everywhere.
Agreed, we saw 10 Elves on the same wall. I wanted to like this show so much but they have really dropped the ball
Are we just going to ignore the fact that those catapults can bring down parts of the mountain, but are not strong enough to breach the wall? 😂
Hello random Asian elf.
Ok bye.
Wtf
Well, they all have to be Caucasian by the third age, so goodbye black elf, asian elf, native american elf etc.
This comment is stupid
Asian Female Elf*
@@oldskoolordie at this point, if you’re still commenting on this, you need help
DEI hire
I hate that the elves just seem like humans.
They're etheral eternal beings but for 95% of the battle they spent it running back and forth in the town square squealing
Also whats with the elven guards being against celebrimbor yet after galadriel speaks to them for 30 seconds they're suddenly back on his side?
I understand Sauron is the deciever but it would not be that simple to have the elven guard switch their cloaks on someone they would have served with for 1,000 years at Eregion.
@@bradley7240 somewhat correct, but broadly elves are not as you describe. Let’s start with the ethereal thing. Tolkien never thought as elves as being otherworldly. In “On Fairy Stories” he describes them as “natural”, more natural than man as they are bound to the world. Furthermore, since they are bound to the world, they can’t leave it at death as man can until the world ends. Hence, true death is called “the gift of man,” since presumably that means that men can be with Iluvatar before the elves can. In the books’ representations of elves, they are graceful, sure, but also funny and always willing to crack a joke at the expense of the characters. They are, for lack of a better word, down to earth.
As for the guards, if one of the children of Finarfin tells you something, you listen
For the guards mabey they were trying to protect him and also it was during a siege so its not like you want someone who could be having a few problems to be your leader. Galadriel is like very important so mabey that changed thier minds. Mabye they reliezed they know calebrimbor more than the new guy, annatar.
I absolutely agree! These are the dumbest elves I've ever seen portrayed. They wouldn't even have made it to the second age. Morgoth would've wiped them out in the 1st. I will say I think Arrondir represents them the best in this show.
Our city is under attack and the enemy has been with us the entire time!
Appropriate reaction. I hate when characters underreact to things!
I read a great comment about this earlier today. In the LotR, it's a story from the Hobbits point of view. So to the Hobbits Elves look almost Godlike in what they do. In this series, specifically this battle you're seeing it from the point of view from the elves. And when elves are watching themselves fight, it's nothing out of the ordinary because they can all do the same thing making them seem much more human. I thought it was an interesting take on it.
While the action definitely isn’t up to PJ’s standards, and MY ERU was that kiss awkward, Sauron continues to shine. And by now he’s basically the series’ protagonist for me, so his scenes are mostly THE good reason I need to keep watching.
Did we really 'need' Elrond snogging his mother in law set to her sweeping, emotional, romantic character motif?
@@Blisterdude123ya always need a love triangle. Elrond-Galadriel-Sauron anyone?!?
@@richardwallis9374 Elrond-Durin-Sauron-Pharazon-Gil-Galad
A love pentangle
For me Sauron is totally distracting with those hideous bulging colored contacts and the high forehead they have him. And none of his dialogue is memorable either.
Anyone can shine if you don't allow Galadriel to tell Celebrimbor that Halbrand is Sauron, make Celebrimbor the proudest, clueless Elven jewel smith in the Legendarium. And then at the end, he admits that he knew something was wrong with Annatar from the beginning.🙄 All to make some cool dialogue.
I could have convinced that Celebrimbor to make the Nine Rings of Power.
The guy that plays Adar is seriously talented
The performances across the board are actually pretty fantastic.
@@jaykay3615 he is doing really well. I quite liked the old adar, but the new guy is even better and a little bit more likeable, for want of a better word.
He’s the only good actor and black Legolas Sauron turned into Sharron 😂
He, Celebrimbor and Sauron were excellent this season
@@niklass.8699I would add Elendil and Durin
6:55 "Hado I Phillinn" is also said by Elrond in the opening scene of Fellowship.
And by Aragorn on top of the Deeping Wall at the first volley. He also shouts “Hado!” (Halt/hold) when the old man has his premature release.
When you get old, you’re lucky to release at all. 🎉
Well, it's a conlang with a developed vocabulary and grammar, why would such a ubiquitous order be given differently in a military?
Isn't another phrase ¨Leithio i philinn¨ meaning ´let loose the arrows´?
they shout leithio i phillinn. Hado I phillinn is a mistake
Hey remember when Elrond yells, LOOK TO THE NORTH and you see the RISING SUN... lol
The kiss may have been for the broach hand-off, but the music was absolutely SCREAMING about how romantic is was supposed to be.
Such a weird, unprepared moment.
This show really lacks extras for the battles. It just looks sparse all the time.
It isn't Middle-earth, its Extra small-earth.
Did we watch different episodes?
Actually they do have lots of extras, more than most movies of the genre at least. It's the fact that they don't use very much cgi that makes the battle look very sparse, which is commendable, but then again, you'd need A LOT of extras to pull that off efficiently
@@riccardomartina9517 they lack extras even for the crowds.
Why the hell would Elrond discuss the battle plans in front of Orcs? What the hell was Elrond doing in an orc camp 😂😂
Time to watch LotR or even the Hobbit battle scenes for a cleansing. The lack of scale here is brutal. These look like skirmishes, not battles between two armies.
Don't ask questions.
Consume product.
What about the weird part where the elves charge, then stop, then charge again, and then stop again?? Like wtf was that all about? 😂
Celebrimbors meltdown and crying after discovering Eregion is in shambled and realising he has been deceived was TOP acting of the actor. Brilliantly done. Really shows the horrors of Saurons deception and its destructive power
I agree. One of the few times I felt genuinely moved by the show.
Yes!!
Maybe my favorite scene of the entire show so far.
Except Celebrimbor was not deceived, nor did he breakdown, nor was he a wimp and afraid of anything... He was a great warrior who had to be tortured and killed and still didn't give up the rings. Plenty of characters Sauron fooled in the books, why they had to do this to Celebrimbor's book is beyond me.
@@andreidinu7316 we all know they’re not following the lore. OP is just saying that for what they were going for, it was a good scene.
"That being said, I can't go so far as to say that excuses it." 😅 I'm completely with you.
@nerdoftherings I have a MA in History, and as far as I know, there are no real world examples of what appears to be a reverse Ballista. The Ravager looks like one but reversed, connected to a wooden pole to pull backwards with the chains. This would be ineffective in real life, as most medieval sieges usually dug underneath a section of wall and used fire to heat/loosen the earth underneath the foundation stones.
Thank you! I came to the comments specifically for this answer lol
Added bonus of engineers not taking arrows while they work if they tunnel. Downside being the chances of cave ins are just as if not more deadly. But being this is a riverbed the ravager kinda makes more sense than tunneling.
Romans used hooks on long poles to pull stones from walls. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_hook
@@henryrichardson3938 this is a one off case. You don’t see it used in the Medieval world, your source (Wikipedia) uses an ancient Roman source for one battle.
@@tristencunningham oh wow. if you learned about orcs and fairies in your MA history program ask for your money back buddy, you've been conned into a mickey mouse degree.
I find that you give this show way too much leeway beyond it being a mess lore-wise. There are so many illogical moments.
he had sacrificed his integrity, and now shills for some of the worst writing he's ever seen. He has gone from loving a master, to shilling for vandles.
I try not to curse as much as I can but when Elrond kissed Galadriel I audibly asked, “What the f**k??” 😭
The weird freaks at Hollywood with their fetish
I did the same. Like, I'm enjoying the show overall, but that moment I was like "Ugh, what is he doing? Wtf? She's supposed to be his mother in law!"
@@mish375 Yeah same. Well I will say the fight sequences for the siege were borderline slapstick in terms of their quality, but I actually was enjoying the moments between Sauron and Celebrimbor.
Nobody talking about the sheer extreme range of the trebuchets that these orcs have? And for real taking down a whole mountain and blocking a river? Like, that's one hell of a trebuchet, and they have a bunch of them.
Sauron did nothing wrong. He brought industry and jobs to middle earth. Elves and men deserved what they got.
They are stealing our jobs!
He filled said jobs with his Orc legacy hires. Lol
Hes only trying to make middle earth great again
Capitalism king sauron 😂
He will later go on to build a great big gate. A beautiful gate. Some say the best gate to ever be created.
Lets just ignore the absurdity of the River being blocked by a few falling rocks
right, and in an hour
I'm kinda bothered when Celebrimbor was shackled, he's a smith and should have the knowledge on how to break it, but cuts off his thumb instead
Would have been cool to have him use Feanor’s hammer to break the shackles. A nice moment of redemption. But nope, he threw it out the window.
They had to put body horror in middle earth.
1) He tried and it failed.
2) The chain could be magically protected. Sauron is not stupid ;-)
The kiss that broke the internet. Good grief. I don’t even have words.
I also felt really strange watching Elrond and Galadriel kiss. Wasn't it like 10 minutes ago we were told Galadriel found Elrond as a baby and raised him ? Shades of House Targaryen... really not enjoyable and completely off-lore.
How is their kiss any different from Arwen kissing and marrying Aragorn? She saw him grow up since childhood yet nobody is giving the OG trilogy or the novels flack for that? At least between Elrond and Galadriel it’s not sexual or romantic. These elves live in a society completely beyond our own social conventions. They can express love in several ways our society would consider weird because they have their own set of beliefs and practices. You and the rest of viewers are just projecting your own sourness onto the scene.
@@AmorphousGoob Wrong, they met when Aragorn was 20. An adult already. Galadriel will also become Elrond's mother-in-law later in lore. Saying "you can't understand" because you cannot possibly understand what these fictionnal characters made by humans do is completely unrealistic. That scene is yet another exemple of the show going for audience score instead of adapting the lore to TV.
New theory: Galadriel is actually Celebrian; in a future episode we will discover Galadriel and Celeborn are already in retirement, and sent Celebrian to act as if she were Galadriel.
“But Mom, what will I say when they ask about Dad?”
“Just tell them he is dead.”
Lol are you for real? You cant possibly believe thats the direction the show is going
@@BlueforReasonOf course I don’t, just posted for comedic relief. But the fact that it is consistent with what has occurred (headfakes on who is Sauron set the precedent, plus the kiss and the “Celeborn is dead” shock we know is not true) make the humor of such a post too much to resist suggesting.
More ridiculous theory: Mirdania is actually Galadriel in disguise, which is why Celebrimbor struggled to remember her name.
Ok overall I am loving the show, but can’t help it here. The kiss is too much.
@@mrsamtheman80 😂😂😂the fact that this is plausible isn't even funny. 🤣
No wonder there is so little written about the Second Age. Elrond would clearly have been the author, and would he want everyone to know he kissed his mother-in-law? He had hoped that secret sailed away with him to Valinor…but now we know, Elrond…now we know…
20:36 This sentence is why I hate how Galadriel is portrayed in the entire series. One of the biggest parts of her character is the time she spent with Melian learning from her and her wisdom. According to this show, Galadriel learned absolutely nothing from Melian if she ever met her.
we’re not sure if she even married to celeborn who is supposedly dead/lost….i bet they’re gonna bring him in towards the end in a “surprise surprise, honey, i’m home” plot twist.
@@monicad99 which will be fun since the elves never marry in times of war. And it takes an incredible amount of time for them to have children. Then the children have a very long adolescence.
Yeah, see I thought her time with Melian happened a few thousand years after the events of this series but I was wrong. It was the one thing that kept me excusing how she is portrayed in ROP because I thought she hadn't met Melian yet.... The whole point of their time together is that it gave Galadriel perspective and inner peace, she even learned how to bake Lembas bread from Melian. Really is a bummer.
“Melian? Don’t you mean Orome?”-The Writers of ROP.
@@terrasur4168 hahahaha for real tho. I shudder to think what the Valar would be like in an Amazon show.
I really appreciate how measured and balanced you are in talking about this show.
For some reason UA-cam is full of people just absolutely hating on this show to a point that is getting ridiculous and coming across as very immature.
Very refreshing the way you are willing to say both what you like and what you dislike - you know, like a normal person.
Bring on good boy Huan already! Who else can say that he managed to bite Sauron into surrender?
He ded, 1st age, gone.
@@davids640 First Age didn't have a high rate of survival
@@PiscatorLager Celeborn made it.
@@davids640 Yeah, Galadriel as well. Cirdan just camped through the ages. Glorfindel respawned.
22:38 That's the look of someone in their head saying "I'm your MOTHER.. In law.. BUT STILL"
As I said on the live stream, it's a fairly standard trope to use a kiss to pass something to a prisoner, however. It's not the only one, sure there was another that could have worked fine if not better.
Just kiss her forehead. Or even just press their foreheads together lingeringly. The whole scenario is stupid, but that way would be less awful.
They want those tiktok edits😂😂
They wanted to show middle finger to everyone who take this seriously
Adar probbaly seen three kinslayings... Elves killing Elves I think is not strange to him
Not necessarily though. The show states he was among the first elves captured by Morgoth. So he might likely be Avari type, never went to Valinor, where the first took place and in the Beleriand wars never involved in Noldor affairs due to fighting for their enemy
Why would Adar have witnessed the kin slayings?
@@VolkerWendt-vq8pi If Adar knows the beauty and wisdom of Melian, then I think it's obvious that he's not among the very first elves captured by Morgoth. He must have been among these elves that took part of the Great March or one of their descendants. Adar being among the first orcs is just Galadriel's assumption during their conversation in the Southlands. However, Adar never confirmed that, as he only stated that they preffer being called uruk.
@@gzagorov Melian's reputation struck fear into Sauron and Morgoth (he never attacked Doriath even after he lost a Silmaril because he knew he himself would have to have attacked to have any chance of success and that he would be in some peril if he did so) so Adar hearing about her while in Morgoth's service would be more likely.
Bless your heart for all the nerds still watching this show we salute.
At what point did the dwarves become aware of the existence of the Balrog for Narvi to mention it? I'm confused.
Same
I'm guessing he was referring to the thing in the water that Disa found, not the balrog
Disa hears an evil growling echoing from the deep when she finds and the drops the tuning stone - and she tells Durin IV who tells Narvi and King Durin III - the king is warned not to delve too deep but he says he can see the depths of the mountain and there is no threat there.
I was thinking that scene with Narvi is a hallucination caused by Sauron. The scene ends by cutting to him opening his eyes as if he's just been doing an intense spell.
And is the Balrog trapped down there? Why is it underground? How does it survive?
Tolkien wrote about orc-cults after lotr, before the New Shadow sequel. He was likely thinking about these showrunners
and the shills that would peddle this crap
This is the first time we have seen any actual smithing going on in this forge, and that just contributes to the world not feeling real or lived in. Any scene in the forge shows the smiths standing around talking, in lovely flowing robes and clean hair and faces. There needed to be some hammering, clanking, and grime to make it feel believable, but it never did
Smithing always seems like such a cool hobby I agree
First time? Clearly you've not been paying enough attention.
@@scotty455 they are working BETWEEN the episodes :)
To be fair, gold and silver smithing is a *much* cleaner process than blacksmithing. You need coal or charcoal to work steel properly, which is where a lot of the mess comes from. A jeweler being fairly clean is one of the most realistic aspects of the show.
@@ImminDragon Great comment! I did not know any of that. Happy to be corrected
Great recap! Keep up the good work.
That was a pretty tame battle if you ask me. Elronds plot armor is something to be studied.
Yeah at the end I was sure he was going to be stabbed by Adar but he just threw him away. I guess he could be more useful to him alive since he lost Galadriel as a prisoner.
Come on. How many much plot armor did Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimili have? The double standards is ridiculous
Celebrimbor should have tried using that cutter to cut off that chain first... I mean, if it could cut through his thumb, it might have a chance against that chain.
Exactly my thought while watching that part. Why make such a drastic choice?
@bojangles4398 why make a drastic choice? Probably because the dark lord has him chained up and had been inside his brain for a while causing him to lose it
@@richardsamson4079right
Yeah I was thinking oh he's going to try to cut the chain, but then I was like no the way they're holding the scene on the chopper is too dramatic and they're about to imply he's going to cut his finger off
@@eqx7168 i thought he would cut his whole hand off
Just rewatched the episode I just feel like it was a bit messy, things just don’t flow right with the battle. Characters coming in here and there and back again random cuts to Gil-Galad who’s sort of involved in the battle and then he isn’t it’s just kind of odd. Do the show runners not know he is literally one of THE most important characters. It’s like the battle got cut up massively.
I feel like the scale seemed small as well Eregion had like 30 odd elves on the walls the scale felt so off.
I keep trying to give each episode a chance and the series in general a chance but I think for all its visual beauty some great acting I feel like the writing of events and the pacing etc is kind of horrible though I will say some of the dialogue between Celebrimbor & Sauron is good though I still cannot really see Celebrimbor in that actor just for me that’s not what he’d look like.
The actor is good I believe, but they make him overact and facial tics every time he says anything. Totally distracting.
@@araucariapasquale1 I don’t think he’s a bad actor but purely on appearance I just do t see that charter when I look at him, like a lot of the elves to me just don’t look like elves they look like humans you’d find anywhere in Middle Earth. A lot of people talk smack about the hobbits films but at least Elves looked ethereal and distinct from other races
These random cuts and the editing are so off-putting to me. I feel like at least 10 minutes of additional scenes or transitions could have done so much for not only this episode, but the whole season.
@@Nivalyr Yeah its a serious issue that takes me out of everything feel like you say a lot has been cut and moved around
@@Nivalyr
Plus so many of the battle scenes were very dark. I had to turn the brightness up to 100% and it was still difficult to make out some things.
Some showrunner somewhere is surrounded by crumpled up bits of paper with Rivers, mountains and armies drawn on them. He has his head in his hands, weeping.
This episode shows that the main problem with this show. They should never have had these 3 distinct stories in the same series, happening at the same time!
The fall of Numenor was a slow process that happened over hundreds of years. It was completely seperate from the forging of the rings. Farazon was the last Numenorian king in a long line of kings and queens who grew so proud that they became jealous of the elves, contemptuous of regular humans and gradually led into worship of evil.
And the whole prehistoric halflings meet Maybe-Gandalf story is so damn distant and detached its impossible to connect them.
What about the trash cgi out of nowhere from adars face as he holds up Elrond
If trash CGI was a problem then the entire LOTR trilogy would be bad. Let's not nitpick here.
Those movies are 20+ years old.@@isaacm2374
@@isaacm2374the trilogy is more than 20 years old...
This is most likely because the original actor who played Adar did this scene, and they had to cover his face up with the other actors face. I noticed this too and was like wtf. This is even more likely considering they planned for 5 seasons and they might be filming things simultaneously.
@@deceiver444 People are being petty. CGI and visuals of ROP are great apart from Adar scene for a few seconds.
Honestly, have tried to like this show despite the breakaway from proper Tolkien lore.
One can look past some of the issues and enjoy parts of it.
But, this show’s writers have put it on the same level of a Roadrunner vs Coyote or Bugs Bunny vs Yosemite Sam cartoon, it’s become ridiculous whether one knows Tolkien lore or not.
I just can’t anymore…..
exactly
It still works amazingly and makes sense that Adar attacked from the river side because the walls there would be less reinforced structurally and he knew the guards would assume the river would protect them. Some guard I think at some point I remember actually said it out loud. So instead of trying to rip down a wall that was meant to be sieged and withstand MAJOR punishment that is not only extremely tall and wide. Adar being a strategic genius first gives them a false sense of security, followed by the sense of dread and hopelessness when he uses the river AGAINST them. Targeting the weakest parts of the wall. Genius
Yeah that siege engine doesn’t make sense. Why bother trying to tear the wall down?
Just send a battering ram towards the gate, which is most often the weakest part of any wall.
Or maybe try to aim your catapults at a single part of the wall and hit it again and again until crumbles.
The orcs could also try to undermine the walls and cause the foundation to collapse.
bro there is a drawbridge infront of the gate. And also the weapon they used wasnt that bad like what kind of stupid takes are these
I mean, call me dumb, I may be. But isn't trying to dam the river completely useless if you don't divert it as well? (not to mention that a river can't be blocked by some pieces of rock thrown in there, water would find a way through anyways). Some decisions are not very logical
@@Freedom-lh3gtwhile I don’t see the siege engine as a big immersion breaker, there are reasons why things like this ravager device never existed.
You won’t get enough grip on the wall with some hammered anchors and you don’t have enough force to pull out stones.
It’s for show and I thought it was fun. But stupid nonetheless.
They don't show the dried up river that much, but logic tells us that the banks on both sides are steep, so how could they roll those siege engines and wall-knockers across the river, even after damming up the river? Also the river bed would be very soft, so those things would get stuck trying to cross. I guess the less you think about what you are hearing and seeing, the more you can enjoy the series.
@@Enerdhil looooool you are thinking about how the river banks would be steep? The writers thought a couple of rocks would dam a river mate, they can't get at your level
Plot twist - the ravager is actually Mary Poppins
The Rings of Power is to Tolkien as Raygun is to break-dancing.
"Her job was just to announce things." 😂 That's almost as brutal as Sauron killing her.
"I've got one job on this lousy ship. It's *stupid* but I'm gonna do it, okay?" 😁
The kiss was weird.
So, according to this show, there were two elven rings of power in the battle, one with Elrond and other with Gil-Galad. One was lost to an orc and the other was of no use.
It's like they forgot. Keep coming back to the same conclusion, the billion dollars did not go to an editing and continuity team
Well really Nenya wouldn't be much use in this context either.
Did anyone else just hate the music that ended the episode?
Didn't even notice because the show was good😅
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Felt so out of place
Elrond: "Durin will come."
Messenger: "You wanna bet?" 😂
The kiss was unfortunate
I’m not a huge fan of of Amazon Rings of Power but I try to pick the positive traits out of this season. Season 2 is definitely better than season 1 but it still has major flaws IMHO. First of all , the compression of timeline, and secondly the too many storylines.
. I don’t care about all the stuff regarding the Harefoots, , the guys in the Easr, Tom Bombadil and the stranger playing Yoda and Luke. I’d like that the useless screen time given to those storylines were used to complete the Numenor part of the plot.
I certainly do not appreciate all the lore infractions, however if they had concentrated on the making of the Rings in Eregion, the relationship between Annatar and Celebrimbor being one of the strong points of the season, the Khazad Dum part and Numenor , they would have given us a good and compelling fantasy show, although non canonical.
One last remark I have not recoverd yet from the shock of Elrond and Galadriel kissing
I like all the story lines, but not the lore infractions
The compression of timeline is probably the only way a movie or show could be made based on the source material.
Part of me is hoping Arondir is okay. I want to see him participating in The War of The Last Alliance in the finale!!!
He dies
@@sergey777-d9k thank godddd
Sauron will first bring the downfall of Numenor
@@sergey777-d9kdoes that happen in the book? I’m in the process of reading the books but I want to know about Arondir
@@sydwhatley Arondir is not even in the book. He is just a made-up character with no sense at all.
my exact reaction when Hawkeye elf was killed in dramatic fashion
"wish I knew her name"
I like how everyone is freaking out about the kiss and not the 50 billion plot holes , stupid ass scenes like instantly stopping a charge and continuity error and teleporting that happens in this episode
Instantly stopping the charge isn't stupid considering they're elves that had better reflex than all the other races. Other than that, yeah there's a lot of strange choices in this show
@@bojangles4398 I think regardless of the elves reflexes, it was such a bizarre change of pace, and kind of robbed us of an epic moment for Elrond..
The ravager would be usless against a fort, when medieval forts had ditches. :P
For a second I thought the orcs dug a pit to catch that Elven cavalry charge. Ditches are OP!
Except you don't tend to dig a ditch when you have a river...
The Charlies are the absolute highlight of the season for me, their performances are phenomenal, and knowing how Brimby's story inevitably ends I know it will be an emotional devastating blow.
Also 26:07 No, unfortunately no meat on the menu this time, they only opened orc's restaurants during the third age I've heard
2 Points:
- The kiss was just a way to pass the lock pick to Galadriel, nothing else.
- Was the reason of Durin not coming to the battle also an ilusion made by Sauron? We can see him with the eyes shut once the Khazad Dum scene cuts back to him…