Transcript
[0:00] Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre. For fantasy, my name is Julia Golding. I'm an author and I run the centre. And today I'm joined by my frequent podcast pal, Jacob Rennaker. Um if those of you who are watching this on uh youtube will see that he's in the sunshine and i'm in the dark so it gives you the clue um that he is uh over in america so jacob um welcome we've been waiting to do our joint review uh having watched the second season of the rings of power, and just so you know folks where we're going on this we thought we would deal quite quickly with the sort of production value side of it because this is quite similar to the previous season they haven't done vast changes of um you know style and tone in that way so we'll just hit those points um quickly and then we'll move on to um, the meat of it you know what they've done with the story structure and then we'll look at how it relates to the Tolkien source material and then we'll look at the characters particularly.
[1:21] Thinking about those which are in the the canon or in the Tolkien world and those which are made up for purposes that they are fulfilling in the story and then we'll end up by giving it our rating out of 10 rings which i'm justifying as the nine rings plus the one to be made because i thought how much if you add them all up it's sort of somewhere in the teens isn't it and that didn't work out as a rating so we'll go with 10 right so jacob um first of all what did you make of seasons two production values all those people beavering away in the background building armor and.
[1:59] Sets and costumes and special effects how did you find all of that uh it's yeah they're they're not wanting uh for funding uh for these uh for these projects so that's everything was beautiful i yeah there was in terms of like overall production phenomenal again like the practical sets right uh you know uh kelle brimbor's uh furnace uh you know kind of workshop area that got a lot of a lot of screen time this time it uh for me like you could tell the practical nature of the set as kind of being a lived in especially when he towards the end kind of is spending so much more time just there and and by himself and uh it almost it it actually becomes a character in you know episode seven or so or eight that this this this this space itself so yeah they've clearly put an awful lot of time into that um that was one of the I think the sets where they put the most love into.
[3:00] So physical production, phenomenal costuming, uh weapons you saw perhaps more weapons on the uh the elf side uh and the dwarf side than we saw before uh by nature of the events that were happening so yeah the so weaponry again like it's something that's easy to compare to other uh you know film adaptations of lord therhings uh and i think that that was one where that where peter jackson's films shown was in the you know physical tactile uh weaponry armor and that sort of thing and i thought they did a really good job Granted, things look a lot more, not quite as lived in. They seem brighter and less tarnished. Whereas some of the Peter Jackson films, there was a more, you know, like lived in, grittier, even a little bit. But, I mean, elven accoutrement is going to always be shining and sparkling. It has some sort of dirt repellent that I think is inherent to elf clothing and equipment. But overall, yeah, so I think it's definitely brighter, shinier.
[4:10] If you're looking at kind of like Star Wars prequels versus the original trilogy.
[4:16] And perhaps that you kind of have this series that's taking place before it's a prequel, it's leading up to a more well-known story and so I suppose there's something to be said for.
[4:27] The shininess, brightness, clean put together nature of it but it definitely makes it look a little less lived in than just pretty set design. Same thing with Numenor, even though it's been there for a while and they want to say that there's statues that are kind of decaying or that have been there for a while they still look really well maintained so whoever's maintaining those city streets in numenor like my my hat is off to them and their crew i haven't seen them in the background but they're doing a really knock down job of scrubbing the walls and keeping everything nice and tidy how about you julia what did you think of overall like aesthetic physical aesthetic i was just trying to think where the external scenes are in this one um they made a lot of use of some kind of forest which was used a lot for the external scenes for the battle sequences and what have you um they had the the scenes which were in the desert in rune but i don't know how much of that is actually a lot of it was on a set as opposed to outside a couple of outside shot but mainly on the set and then there were some nice new places like uh pelagia and um kia down the shipwrights um a sort of early version of the grey havens um and i thought that you.
[5:49] Well, also, I thought that it didn't feel as much open air. Because one of the things that you notice in a lot of the Rings films is you felt like you were outside in Middle Earth. I didn't feel that as much in this season.
[6:03] Now I come to think of it. We did see much more of Khazad-dûm, which was nice. I liked the detail of how they grew their vegetables and the lights and the mirrors and all of that. And we saw some more details about other rooms in Numenor, like the sort of the boat docked down in the bottom of the city and that kind of thing. Oh, there was another outside scene there, wasn't there, with the sea monster. But on the whole, it felt quite a lot of interiors or forests, so limited vistas. I would say I've got one issue when I'm watching it, which is there never seems to be enough people for crowd scenes. Yeah, that's right. You know, they have a...
[6:49] They have a coronation. So compare in your mind the coronation of Aragorn and Arwen with the failed coronation of Muriel. It's basically a number of people gathered in a room. This could be a cost thing. Right. Because even though they've got a huge budget, they obviously are doing many more hours than a film. Right. But I did wonder if there could not be cleverer ways of suggesting more people, like noises off, crowds outside or the use of the kind of i don't know if it's still the software but the massive or the equivalent software which populates um digital sets with people because i just i just don't see it feel as though there is enough people around and it it worries me it's the same in casa dum though they did have a.
[7:41] They had a small speech at one point and then yeah at the very end oh there's lots more people there they could have done an establishing shot with the lots more people exactly um so we haven't got the sort of covid issue anymore so i don't know why there aren't more people around yeah i if anybody uh is listening to this i would just suggest that they um get some more, supporting actors or um use some digital creation just to make it feel as though it it's middle earth in its high days because this is it's on the way up middle earth um it should be feeling there's more and more people coming not.
[8:22] Empty vastness right it does feel it does feel like a just post-covid uh middle earth and numenor where like people are starting to come back to work they're starting to go out in public so you have like a middling because like right so so season one was filming during uh covid so so they have like so in linden in particular right it felt like linden was kind of a ghost town not only because of the little strange veils that were the she elves were wearing um on the ship but because you only had you know a handful a smattering of people who are quite distant um but now yeah so coming out of that into you know uh situations where you can deal with lots of people um uh film wise uh it should be yeah and if and if there are constraints uh budget-wise in terms of like actual actors i think you're absolutely right so doing something to be able to suggest and we did they and you're right that they they did that to a degree with the the scene with uh duran the fourth uh prince duran or sorry yeah prince duran who then yeah that's to be actually during the fourth of the variant um but he starts out you know talking to a small group of people and i understand they're the kind of like movement there from talking to a small group of people to then kind of expanding that there are more people that are listening to him give this speech.
[9:46] And then he looks over and he's wondering, is this actually going to do any good? Then he looks out and everyone's kind of listening with bated breath outside there. So I get that kind of like movement and progression from him personally. And like the payoff that, oh, he's not, this isn't just going to be falling on the ears of 10 people, but there's a whole group that's been inspired by this. And then it is kind of undercut by the revelation that, wait, you can't just go out and fight the elves because there's something that's worse that's happening inside. So I feel the trajectory there. But like, you're right, but with the coronation, and even the trial by trial by water, trial by valor, sort of thing, like, it seems like that's a big deal where you're putting the captain of the guard. A.
[10:30] You know essentially a public execution um possibly that that seems like if if numenor is a place that we're going to expect to kind of turn to be kind of like a mass you know mob mob mob mentality where things are going to be going hill so far and so steeply and so quickly that then the valor have no option but to bury the entire city then you're going to expect to see more than just a handful of people that are out here just kind of like curious about like well what do you have on the schedule today it's like well there's a trial by valar at 11, but i really i have yeah you know i got a book club or sorry a scroll club uh that we're talking about you know uh baron and luthien uh it's a really steamy part right now and we're really hoping to get back so yeah like there's it seems yeah that there isn't you don't have that sense of uh yeah of like a fullness of the world it very much seems like there's you know the camera is following people closely but to suggest even then that's fine that you know we need close camera work and intimate settings but we also need to see like that this matters not just to the.
[11:35] Half you know two dozen four dozen people that we've seen so far but this is epic in nature right the sauron isn't just enslaving the 30 humans that we've seen he's on the path a trajectory of enslaving an entire land with thousands, millions, hundreds of thousands of millions of people. I don't want to labour this point and we'll just make one more thing on this. So the people who escape to Rivendell, compare the way that's filmed to the people escaping from Rohan.
[12:11] Where you suggest a long line of people and you suggest the line goes off out of camera shot. Um you could do just it doesn't necessarily mean there are more people in the shot it just means you've you've shot it differently to suggest there are more that's what i was actually getting at but they did they were quite keen on static crowd scenes a bit like they were in the hobbit um at, in lake town it was better outside lake town but there was often like static scenes of just people in a town square it felt like there was a lot of town square meetings in this anyway never mind um My strongest, my vote for strongest costume was Sauron as Annatar. I rather liked his snake costume. Did you have a favorite costume?
[12:57] Oh, boy. I don't know. I do. I mean, it's kind of a, yeah, a small, a small detail that I like is an Elrond's armor that you have this kind of wing imagery that on one shoulder also, which is kind of in some ways kind of a foil to uh anitar's uh you know kind of like scaly or at first i was thinking that was kind of almost like crow feathers but you really don't have that uh it is definitely more kind of serpentine uh the closer you look um but having you know on one side you know kind of a serpent and on the other side a bird as you know elron as uh you know a tribute to his mother uh who ultimately turns into a bird uh and and flies off and so i think that's kind of like a subtle touch uh there was was nice uh yeah no i i i think that if you free-trained quite a few shots you'd get so much more detail they looking at the sort of supporting making of type um productions i haven't seen anything that goes deeply into what the production team are doing I don't know if that's in some kind of specialist release they'll do, but I am interested to see the wonderful work because it's so short period of time on screen. I know that there'd be much more for me as a Tolkien fan to get from that.
[14:22] Anyway, let's move on to the main. So basically it still looks great, but have a think please about how you do your crowd scenes because it's just falling a bit flat in these amazing settings as far as I'm concerned. Okay, to the meat of it.
[14:37] And season one was all over the place. And my general feeling is the way they handled the story structure in season two was hugely important. A huge improvement. It was much more coherent.
[14:52] However, hang on. I have broken down when I was preparing for this, the number of storylines. So keep count, Jacob, and see if I've missed one.
[15:04] I think there is a kind of elves in Linden and slash havens, which means Gil-galad, Elrond, Galadriel, brief appearance from Círdan. And they're the three rings the three elven rings that's story number one story number two is the dwarves the two times durin plus disa and then we've got dwarven rings which brings them in relationship to story number three which is kelle brimble um played by the wonderful charles edwards um and annatar played by the equally wonderful charlie vicars and that's obviously saron and overall ring plot so three strong storylines but on we also have pelagir with theo and isildur and arondir until he goes somewhere else um hanging around at the well basically hanging around uh and there's a bit of an ent story here and a sort of love with the lady from that part and the mysterious disappearance of Bronwyn. Story number five is Numenor, where we have Muriel Ar-Pharazon and Elendil and Elendil's daughter and the faithful, that storyline. Then we have story number six, which is Adar and the Orcs.
[16:33] And looking at it from the point of view of someone trying to help rescue save make a decent life perhaps is best way of putting that for the orks the urk and then we've got story number seven which is the stranger um who is walking eastwards with nori and poppy and teasing whether or not he is Gandalf or not or Blue Wizard and there is this mysterious dark wizard played by the wonderful but underused Kieran Hines and also intersects with Tom Bombadil played by Rory um what's his name um Kinnear Rory Kinnear the wonderful Rory Kinnear, So I make seven separate storylines of which the first three are the ones which relate most faithfully or closely to the theme of the whole series, which is Rings of Power.
[17:35] And my problem is with stories four, five, six, and seven not really connecting. The first three connect. The last three, the last four, are tendentially connected connected and right problematic because they might be good stories within themselves and certainly the numeral story is really important but but they still trying to do too much, and that's how i felt about it how about you yeah yeah yeah no that's really yeah that's good that yeah for a show called rings of power the the primary movers and shakes like now we actually get you know we got the the creation of the three rings at the very the tail end of uh season one and then season two is really about the fuller production of rings with uh annatar uh being involved there and so that makes that makes a lot of sense having around there it's clear yeah that so those other storylines the non-direct rings of power those are clearly storylines that are going to be paying off uh in further seasons so this is almost you know uh.
[18:43] So one of the things that I did appreciate about the kind of long view that you're able to have, that Amazon can have, when you've already invested and you say, like, we commit to five seasons. Oh, yes. No, no, no. But let me stop you there. They haven't. They've said they want to do five, but season three has only just been greenlit. Yeah. And it reminded me a bit of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, which said, oh, yes, this is going to be five films, and this kind of fizzled at three.
[19:15] So I think we're okay at the moment, for those who want to see a sort of complete story, because this was a better season and just much more, just better to watch than the first one. Yeah, that's the hazard. So that's the hope and the hazard that you have of that. If you say like, okay, this is going to five seasons. So the temptation is going to be to like string certain things alongside, okay, we can afford the time to spend on these kind of tangential lines that if you watch the whole series, let's say, we're just going to assume that we're getting five seasons. So we can just kind of spread things out and looking at the whole five season instead of looking at individual seasons as kind of like self-contained and being valuable in and of themselves. Themselves so there's two different ways of thinking right if you're if you're just having to prove your value and then you don't know if you're going to be renewed the next season that's a different mode of storytelling because you have to have it you have to be able to wrap it up at the end of the season if you find out that the show is going to be canceled you have to have somebody to pivot to be able to wrap it up in a satisfying or relatively satisfying way.
[20:23] But so you see as one of the things i think that you see the long term the like the investment that they're making or the assumption that they're going to get five seasons is in these inclusions of the Numenor having it just kind of like trailing along the rune. Everything with the stranger and Norian Poppy, that's clearly like has just kind of been a little something that's going to be bringing in, hopefully, at the end. So they're assuming that they're going to have that time rather than saying, okay, how do we develop these characters? What do we need for a satisfying, compelling season in and of itself to be a coherent whole that then and also can fit together and build on previous seasons, rather than saying, okay, we have five seasons, let's have this plot go all the way through to the, you know, from season one to five, this one is kind of going in and out here.
[21:10] There's, you know, there's benefits to that sort of long-term storytelling, like we see with the wandering song, Then season one was just, you know, kind of like a nice melody and something they're singing, but then it actually turns out to be plot critical in season two, whereas there was no inkling of it necessarily being plot critical. It just seemed to be some traditional song, but then they're able to use that as an actual plot point in the second season. That's something that's a nice luxury to have. If you can think if you like are fairly certain that you're getting a next season, you can start seeding things in. But then the danger is that you're not paying enough attention to the season that's at hand and making sure that it's a coherent, cohesive piece of storytelling. You get too caught up in the broadness of the big picture, this broad canvas. So it's definitely a dance. And there's a lot that you can do if you do have that or feel relatively certain that you have that sort of long time frame. But it seemed like you said, it was only just greenlit. And so if this turns out to be a financial sinkhole for Amazon, because of viewership or for whatever, you know, a number of different reasons that are outside that could be outside their control, they could have to, they might require them to shut it down, they might have to financially.
[22:28] Whatever, like they might have to shut that down. And if they do, then there's going to be all these plot lines that are just kind of like dangling and unsatisfying resolutions because you're not focused enough on individual seasons.
[22:42] So that's, yeah, that's kind of, it's, it's kind of, it's, it's definitely a two edged sword, having that sort of money behind you where you have the kind of tacit, the implication that this is going to go to five, but there are then the realities, logistical realities that this is a company, this is a business. And if it's not, if they're not turning a profit on it, they're going to cut it. And so what do you do then with this masterful, you know, big picture storytelling, when you have to then wrap it up after, say, three, you know, less seasons than you're hoping. I think if they'd done another season one, I would be surprised if they did commission. But I think because they've done a better job on season two, maybe it will survive.
[23:24] Well, it's going to be another season. So some of the answers will come along. But I think the problem about this long view, the 40 to 50 hours worth of material that they're aiming for.
[23:38] Um you as a weekly experience you get episodes which just don't feel very coherent because you aren't watching it as a great massive box there yeah um and i was thinking that the episodes where i thought oh this is a good episode uh episodes five and seven when you look at them they actually basically just stay with my my ring plots um more or less and they go and visit the hobbits or, You just stay with the dwarves, the elves, the orcs that are attacking. And it works much more like a story that's wound together. What's so frustrating is that the way to make your ambitious plot lines of seven different plot lines work is already...
[24:30] There for you to learn from which is you go and look at lord of the rings and think how did tolkien do this because of course his plot line splits up into equal numbers of individual stories with little sub stories like um erwin and faramir sort of woven in all sorts of lovely little things going on and how he does it is he makes sure you know where the center of the story is.
[24:55] And one of the problems about season one was you never knew where the center was it was kind of but it kind of wasn't um at least with season two i had a stronger sense actually the center of this story is sauron right and if you follow that logic um it does hang together a bit better but he's your anti-hero he's your bad guy he's your villain and the potential.
[25:25] Heroes the ones you sort of care about and invest in are still divided and scattered and some of them haven't met each other yet so it seems as though whilst they've got excellent source material to adapt they haven't adapted the storytelling lessons so right the the horse has gone from this that particular stable um but i would have started i wouldn't have started from here is the classic you know thing you know very different um okay so thinking about uh the overall structure i think that the way they wound up season two suggests that they were wanting to give it a full stop of a certain kind a yes and so there were more answers given in this series than there was in the last and it wasn't as rushed as the previous season so i felt it was a more exciting last couple of episodes to watch as a result um Mm-hmm.
[26:29] But this moves us on, I'm presuming people listening to our verdict on this will already know some of the major answers that are given. But if you don't, I would suggest maybe some plot spoilers in what we say now, because we're going to talk about where it's following what Tolkien suggests is a story and where it's departing and just doing its own little tap dance sort of thing. Um we don't we both jacob and i we don't mind if people leave behind the story if it's a better choice the problem is when it's a worse choice i think is that fair to say that's your yeah yeah yes um and on that note i would say that the the completely understandable departure from the law is running the story the story lines not on the timeline provided by.
[27:27] Tolkien but concurrently so Numenor happening at the same time as the Celebrimbor story but within that there were some odd diversions from Tolkien's version of it for example Celebrimbor I'm afraid is dead he's gone um in a very moving dramatic scene with Sauron um but in what we know of and you might be you're the more expert on Tolkien's law than me but I thought Keller Brimble perceived that Sauron was who he was when he put on the one ring and there is no sign of the one ring having been right yeah so I think that comes up at the I don't know where it comes up in the council of Elrond or something anyway um yeah uh it's it's clearly stated that the one ring was in existence before keller brimble dies and that would have it's kind of meant that that ring making the ring is is going to be um separate from the relationship with keller brimble and the, that whole moment because that's been destroyed and i don't really get why that's happened.
[28:45] No these are good yeah no that's a great question i think and you know so that yeah the the trouble with uh with the trouble with elves is they live a really long time uh and the trouble with humans is they don't that's also the gift of iluvitar right is that they actually don't live for millennia so like yeah so i so i see the necessity of storytelling to kind of overlap to compress timelines to move certain things so that you're not having a new human cast every season yeah having that turnover he's another king of numenor to deal with right yes yeah so who's the king this season um i guess look you know uh game of thrones did that uh right so you know with with rapid turnover of uh you know successive rulers but uh but yeah so i get them wanting to you know maintain uh build investment in a core cast of like human characters who are interacting with.
[29:41] Elves and who can both progress whose kind of character arcs are on the same are in the same time frame and trying to figure out where okay so how do we need to kind of fudge the human timeline to fit in with what's happening with kelle brimbor and the development of the rings with with uh the dwarves and kaza doom like what's happening there how do we get everything so that we can converge all of these three at the same time and so yeah i i understand the yeah the necessities of of the storytelling there but it does yeah it um it's it certainly follows a different path and that's where this is the adaptation kind of requires some yeah jiggling and juggling yeah it's back Back to the thing is, is it a better choice by doing that?
[30:28] And this one is, I'm not sure it's a better choice because there was a lot of wonderful acting tension between Sauron and Celebrimbor. Yeah. To actually say, you know, here's the master ring. Here's the one ring you've been had, yeah.
[30:46] That is, that's the utter... Yeah the extreme point for both characters and it's not going to be available to them yeah that's a good that's a good thought so thought experiment what if yeah so so how would that have changed how do you feel julia that would have changed the kind of emotional dynamic that's one of the things that i thought was the most you know emotionally kind of compelling uh exchange and relationship was between kelle brimbor and anatar where anatar is doing this insidious manipulation right where he's you know you're leading kelle brimbor to feel that it was you know his fault right kind of shifting the blame for putting there this is this is all yeah you did this this is you right right so this is and just like keeps like doing that just kind of like subtly and kind of stream that off you know meeting after meeting and just looking at that kind of emotion that emotional manipulation um uh and then having him so with yeah so.
[31:45] So the way that i saw you know the way that kind of plays out without the one ring it gave kelle brimbor at least a sense of victory that he got rid of the the nine rings uh for for mortals uh and or mortal men and then he's you know then he's like you're lord of the you know kind of mockingly right like you're you're the lord of these rings that i've sent out um and so he had like he did something heroic that he was dying at least he felt you know i think felt like it gave him an emotional way to end not necessarily like redemption but some sort of like positive end as opposed to yeah so if he if he's showing the ring at the end so he has hope that like okay at least i got rid of these and then annatar says oh by the way i've also been making this one ring that has control over all of them and then dashes everything so like that so that's that's kind of like different so i gave kelle brimbo i think by not doing that it gave kelle brimbo a kind of more a sense of like heroic like upward trajectory instead of them like crushing and having more of a it was tragic but it was there was at least a positive kind of like at least a light of hope or glimmer that he had emotional wise but i don't know i want to hear you so yeah i'm a game yeah.
[33:05] Different from that that's more emotionally the stronger choice. I thought the strongest thing that Keller Brimble said in that scene, which I think is the best scene in the series is that.
[33:20] And this goes to the bigger theme about are these rings good or bad?
[33:26] So this is pushing the distrust that Tolkien had of artifacts. He says that Lord of the Rings is a quest to get rid of a treasure and not to gain it. So I can see why they had the Elrond doubting the power of the ring, the dwarves getting more and more greedy over their rings, even though that's not really necessarily something I know that's sourced in Tolkien's ideas, but it's a logical extension of some of the things Tolkien feels about treasures.
[33:58] But Celebrimbor, in his final sort of, I think it's possibly not even the death scene, it's just shortly before, he says you are the slave of these rings. You think you rule them, but actually you're the slave. I think it's the conversation before uh episode before um forgive me if i got that slightly wrong but i remember that line i thought that's a really good line so if saran is there saying an aha um you know i for all of all that you've done has just put all these rings under my power because here's the one ring kind of thing but better phrase than that um the the the clap back from keller brimbo is you've just made your own fetter there you are fine you've made your own fetters um because you've put yourself into and it's true that is the point of the ring he in his overreach for power he makes his greatest vulnerability and keller brimbo would be victorious by actually perceiving that and seeing it and himself coming out of his own, obsession with making treasure and it's very important that he lets them go because Fieno, I'm not quite sure how to say his name, Fieno with the Silmaril is all about getting them back. Exactly.
[35:22] Whereas Brim is about letting them go. He doesn't wear one himself.
[35:28] So those were the themes I would have.
[35:33] Thought it would work so i'm not sure the choices of the handling of the big overall ring thing was totally, satisfactory because of the missing out of the one ring potential but we'll see i mean they've got to now they've done that choice they'll need a new choice about how to make sense of its um, how it how it arises in its place i thought that, One more thing which they could have looked at a bit, given a bit more time, is there was a big thing about Elrond distrusting the ring, the elven rings, these are. And the turnaround is in order to save Galadriel's life.
[36:17] What about the kiss? Just sidebar. If they get Galadriel's life, he puts her ring on to reverse the effect of evil from a uh a more i think it's from the crown the crown of morgan has a kind of morgan blade effect on her and it's a huge moment but it isn't quite there wasn't quite enough screen time, for him to sort of say yes you know he's compromising it's like i'm compromising because i can see that what you're what you've been saying all along is that these have a potential for good and bad and right now the potential they have is for good doesn't mean they can't also have a potential for bad which is the story of the elven rings so when frodo is talking to um no again it comes up again and again in lord of the rings but certainly in, council of elrond and also galadriel it's the idea is what happens when the one ring is just is destroyed um to the other rings and it could be like the the cascading effect that everything comes to an end or we will just fade so they are both good and they are also bad so yeah, I just thought that that scene, because it felt as though it was like the culmination of the Elrond story in this season, could have done with just a bit more.
[37:43] Yeah, a bit more handling. I don't know, what about you? Did you feel that they did enough to explore the Elven Rings? Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, because this is, and this is interesting because like the order that they have the rings made in as first, right, you have the Elven Rings with their, you know, kind of manufactured threat of uh this you know kind of creeping black uh infection of the trees of linden and that this is somehow uh precipitating some sort of fading of the elves and that we need mithril is the solution uh so kind of like so so it's it's it's preventative um uh and that's created first and then now that you have these rings then like okay who else needs help if this if we're doing this as a larger project okay dwarves uh because they're the means for mithril like is mithril so if mithril is what we need then we have to clothe all the elves in mithril as much as possible so that they can prolong their lives so mithril becomes kind of your mcguffin that this is what everything is kind of centered around that's supposed to be like moving the plot forward and that's where you get the dwarves coming in. And so then, yeah, so it's the dwarven rings are.
[38:59] More of a like strategic uh you know kind of an extension of the elf rings and then the then i think i didn't appreciate you know kelle brimbor as like being resistant to the idea of rings for mortals uh for for humanity was interesting right because he didn't have palms with that for elves because he's an elf and he trusts elves but then the dwarves.
[39:29] Yeah okay they've been helping with the mind you know that they're a means of production and we need them from mithril like that makes sense but then for humanity then like ah they're not quite worthy that these these could be these could this could turn out really wrong he didn't quite have those qualms with the dwarves right and then and hardly at all with the l with the elves But it's just so inserting that kind of mistrust between races was it was interesting, but also kind of like the moral question of what are these rings doing? Where does power sit? Who is worthy of power? Who can you trust with power? Those are some questions that I think that Caleb Brimbor raised that are that are good questions that should have been asked the same sort of thing at each stage with those rings. But he was trusting of his own kind and then ultimately gets to that point and that's where Sauron was kind of trying to the more involvement that Sauron has the more it seems that he's kind of apparent that.
[40:34] He is involved and there's something that's not quite right. Sauron seems to be pushing for this more and he's less and less comfortable with it. So whereas if you have the Elven Rings as kind of the solution to Sauron Rings, instead of having Elven Rings first and everything else is kind of an iteration of Elvish Rings, right?
[40:54] If you have the Elven Rings as being kind of created, if you have the bulk of the rings with the one ring, they're created, but then later you have, if you have them the the elven rings that are created in response to that as kind of the corrective to the other rings that's a completely different dynamic right um yeah so now this is haven't taken that um that possibility so just on another sort of law issue i mean we're fine.
[41:20] Okay the choice is choices are choices that's fine um and then they the onus is to make it work once you've shut a door on something um so there are more controversial choices like the introduction of the stranger who um this is where there is a plot spoiler who at the end of this season is revealed to be gandalf now this isn't a known route for gandalf in uh in anything and they were they did have the possibility of making the two wizards in this blue wizards who are not really written up uh at all or only briefly by tolkien so there's much more sort of space there for elaboration but i can see the okay so we want gandalf in because we know he's alive and we know he's one of the most popular characters so let's as you know tom bombadil he's also alive he's also popular and not been used let's put him in as well right um i can see the sort of writer's room thought about that and then you think well we've got proto hobbits as well so let's do a long arc for the founding of the shire which i think was um what was.
[42:38] Kind of i imagine is the end of right season five i mean i think that's going um but does this work for you having gandalf wandering around spending all the time trying to work out who he is.
[42:54] Yeah like so it it it doesn't i mean that's like that that is interesting and we see just shades of that in uh in lord of the rings itself right when gandalf is coming back as Gandalf the white, especially, you know, depicted in as depicted in the films where he's a minute, you're like, Oh, well, yes, Gandalf, that was my name, right? Right? Like, Oh, like, that's what you called me. And so you have kind of like a slow, it's not a complete memory white. But it seems to be that he's still kind of settling into his body and reorienting himself to this kind of mortal uh frame that he's uh been kind of reinserted within but yeah so so i get like i appreciate the the impulse to show the development of a character um but it's, it's one of the challenges that you that you face there that this is something and i hate to keep bringing star wars up uh here but something that where they've had to do certain right prequels uh or prologues to different series, different approaches, right? So with the Han Solo movie that's dedicated to.
[44:14] How did this character become the, you know, roguish smuggler that we all know and love? There's a pain that was taken there to introduce, you know, to explain everything. So you have, you know, where did his last name come from? It was from a passenger, you know, he's signing up and he didn't have a last name and he was going by himself. And so he said, OK, your name is Han and your last name is going to be Solo. The questions that nobody's asking, there's a need, I think, a felt need to explain everything, to say, here's everything. How did he get his blue hat? How does, let's explain where he got these, you know, and even the phrases that you hear Gandalf saying that he is hearing from Tom Bombadil, right? We need to have an answer for basically explain everything that we see Gandalf do. We have to explain all of that. And I think that's the tendency that that's where they're kind of like leaning towards, which is difficult when you're working within a known canon, for lack of a better term. We have expectations. People know and love these characters. So there's only so far that you can go.
[45:30] Whereas if you're doing something completely different, if you're following this character in a different storyline, you can do things. You still have to keep the core of the character the same, but you can do different things and do interesting things that people aren't expecting that you don't have to feel the need to shoehorn in.
[45:50] Quotes and equipment and different things into the one storyline that allows more room to breathe and things to be more organic um so once you choose where this is going to be gandalf we're doing how gandalf begins you're kind of locking yourself into a certain type of storytelling that is kind of feels the need to provide precursors for everything that you know and love about this character in the present day but that's not the only way to do that there's different ways that you can do that um but this is the way that they chose and it's for for people that do know and love the character or they even appreciate the larger lore around the character uh then this can be off-putting or this can be where those folks really kind of we can rub them the wrong way yeah i mean the problem i have here is i actually really like daniel wayman i think he's a fantastic younger casting for gandalf um yeah i mean it's no it's not a problem with him um it's i think it is the problem of they're giving answers to why gandalf is such a big is such a thing which don't actually aren't tolkien's answers so tolkien's had other ideas about this character and they're inventing things which don't necessarily feel as though they're.
[47:11] Write for it i know they have got i think simon tulkin is an associate uh sort of like an advisor so possibly that they feel that they can run it by him and he'll say it's fine okay um.
[47:23] But I suppose it comes down to, as we are mainly about sort of creativity, this podcast, that the problem is that Gandalf, Poppy and Nori's story do not intersect with the ring story. And they're going to change how the age ends. They don't have a big role in that either. So I'm not kind of sure how it's almost like it's doing its own thing on a separate track. Right. On the rune, yeah. So it's the big showdown. They're kind of setting up Gandalf now to be setting up against the other dark wizard. And then maybe that's going to be its own storyline, but there's no even, the only Inklings that we really get, or maybe I should use a different word from Inklings, the only, you know, kind of premonition that this is going to tie into the others, right? When the dark wizard is talking about, you know, we have, you know, Sauron is rising. How he knew that was happening is a different question and where news of this is coming to them here far away in the east.
[48:30] But the kind of intersection that it looks like it is these are the Easterlings these are people that if these people here in Rune could be part of Sauron's army they could be, swayed to his cause and then there would be no hope for Middle-earth because this is, a large, presumably large population, really haven't seen anybody in Rune other than a handful of, you know, our proto hobbits and these masked, I love the character design on the, you know, there are masked figures on the horsebacks and that, that's really fun, but there's only a handful of those. So does this wide open space that we're supposed to be worried that is a threat to all of Middle Earth is consisting of.
[49:17] People with house staff in those kind of temple-like buildings. And the Nazcals, of course. Yeah, right. And so, to tell you the truth, for me, where I see, some of the greatest investment that I have or what I think is the funnest for me is when they're developing new characters, right? So those, yeah, the Nazcals, we have your your acolyte and your shield men but the the three uh kind of sorcerers that were out looking for the stranger and then go back to being yes exactly yeah yeah so those like so that's fun like that's like fantastic i love like that and you can build up more like additional kind of uh adjacent lore that's inspired by and they could be doing something having some sort of different story these these masked figures uh some there's some storyline that's happening there that would be great and compelling as its own kind of thing right this is a uh people painting on tolkien's broader canvas right that he was saying you know he was hoping to do you know make a myth for um for england but there was so broad uh in its uh in its vision that other people would kind of take things up and add a corner here and there and so you clearly have lots of of opportunities for We're creating compelling characters within that.
[50:42] So those are some of these things that are creative and seeing what do you do in a Tolkien world that isn't necessarily just following and tracing people that we know and love and we know what's going to happen to them. What are the fates of characters? So Erendir, he's not in Lord of the Rings. We don't know what happens to him. So that's kind of a, again, forgive me for another Star Wars kind of tying back to their storytelling strategy. But the Andor, right? So it's taking one character that you know, is not going to end up, it's not pivotal, it's not like meeting, this character doesn't have to meet Obi-Wan and Yoda and Darth Vader, he doesn't have to have all these. So because this character is not kind of obligated to intersect with all of the other characters that you know and love, you can do more emotional, you have more creativity and flexibility, storytelling wise, to make stories for the sake of stories that happen to inhabit this world. That's what you can do more with those sort of characters. This is not Legends of the East or Adventures in the East. This is Rings of Power. So you can't. So if you're going to do like that, almost has to be a separate project to kind of bring that in and flesh that out. And this is about Rings of Power and you're committed to following the story, then you really need to hew closely to that as being your kind of like guiding principle in North Star. And we're back to the, okay, if you've got five seasons, you could probably rope in this story by having...
[52:06] These being, you know, potentially Sauron's allies, which would fit with what we do know about the history there. But it's a long way, a long time for us to wait without really feeling engaged in that story. And I just want to do a shout-out to anybody who's writing a fantasy script. Please, can you not do Old Friend? Ah, all these things. Oh, you come to see me, old friend. All these it's just that came from the um saruman and gandalf dialogue from fellowship of the ring and it just crops up everywhere the whole time you don't go around saying old friend very often um but it's like this little mushroom growth that sprouted up in high epic fantasy so let's talk about the characters i'm in brief we want to sort of wrap this up now and we've talked about a lot of them already um we do have i thought there was my overall feeling before i give it his rating is that actually for me um this was a series where the parts are greater.
[53:14] Than the sum there were bits of it which i really liked and this was usually down to performances um so i thought that charlie vicars was really watchable wonderfully nuanced particularly rakella brimble um charles edwards character so even if charles edwards looks sort of a bit old to be an elf you know what i mean the kia dan character when he came in who had the um he was old but also elven uh i was thinking oh but then because charles edwards who i've seen in things like the crown and other things so i've got you know i know him already to look at i thought okay fine we'll just go with him being killer brimble and his performance sort of wiped out the fact that i thought he's got a lot of lines on his face you know that kind of you know superficial reaction to me yeah good for him he showed that age didn't matter um and i thought that as we've already mentioned that those those scenes where he's um being duped but also giving his sort of prophecy, strong and very watchable. I thought the Durins were great and Deesa, I liked all of them. Um...
[54:34] It wasn't really a character where I thought, I don't like your casting. It was more of, do you have to be here? Like, I don't understand Theo and I don't understand Arondi, who I quite like, but I don't know what they were making of him. I did like Adar, who, for those of you who are deep in your lore, Adar is one of the names of Tom Bombadil, isn't he? Ben Adar. native fatherless i think it means fatherless and when he um is wearing the ring in the last episode and he reverts to his unspoiled elven face i really wanted galadriel to recognize him she didn't but yeah right right really great if these nameless elves who then became the fathers of the hawks she says oh that's you know we play together yeah uncle uncle so-and-so So it would have been an interesting development there because that's the sort of one of the ideas of where they came from. So I've picked those out. Oh, and for baddies, I think Leon Wadham as the horrible Kemen, who is our Farazhan son. He's great. Everybody hates him. Well done. Well done, Leon. You're really good at being a very annoying person. So well done you. Have you got any other characters that you'd want to give a shout out?
[56:03] Uh no you've you've covered i think you've you've covered it largely that i think the, relationship the dwarf like the dwarf relationships are just phenomenal just the father-son you know these two you know emotionally closed off uh men that are kind of just just kind of butting heads and trying to and then one of them trying to reconcile and maybe the you know the son wanting to reconcile the father wanting to reconcile but neither one of them can kind of quite say it and so just like that tension and then even like the reversal of you know first, durin uh the third right king durin who says no we're not gonna you know no rings no anything we're not you know first dismissing everything we're not gonna give me thrill no and then, you know, Prince Durin saying, no, we need to do this. We need to help the Ls. But then they're taking opposite positions then during this season, right? So swapping is having to change their reasoning rationale, just showing kind of that kind of polarity shift in what they want and keeping that tension between the two of them with that polarity shift and just emotionally, it was just phenomenal seeing them in that light. So that's Peter Mullen as King Durin III.
[57:21] And Owen Arthur as just to give them their dues. Yeah, that's phenomenal. I just want to do your view on Elendil played by Lloyd Owen, who I think is another really bright point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So seeing again, these familial relationships that are just, right, so you have right are Elendil who as a father figure has lost a child, who is starting to well with Isildur who is kind of starting to like kind of rebellious not quite doing what father wanted him to, but him then losing this child him kind of following in his footsteps him kicking him out of the guard but then him finding Isildur finding his way back into the guard as an emergency conscript for the war And then father like taking, you know, being responsible for him as a soldier, but then him falling. And then right with the scenes, you know, like the funeral memorial scene where the other emotional for him, letting go of him and then having this other son figure with Valendil, who is kind of the son as he wanted, the Elendil kind of wanted, but then having that son who's being faithful and they're present.
[58:40] Being, you know, murdered in cold blood. And just like his performance there, right? With just like this grief of loss there and then having to then turn around and essentially like, almost like see him losing his daughter at the same time of losing his biological son losing his kind of proxy son uh uh and then kind of this wedge loss of his daughter and his daughter choosing something you know choosing a different kind of father authority figure than him just like yeah so i thought he did really well of staying the course if this is going and this is going to turn into a lore wise story of the faithful versus the kingsmen uh Right in Numenor. And so having him as this figure, his speeches, you know, kind of like little monologues, or mini monologues, mini logs about what it means to be faithful, right? Is this that he's not compromising his faith, he will renounce what he did, but he will not renounce this core of like his belief. And this belief that's not lived is no faith at all, right? So I think he does a strong, strong job there. So do you think the Rings of Power has a female problem?
[59:54] I'm beginning to think that maybe they're not doing the best by their female characters, having put in quite a few.
[1:00:01] So a particularly strong actress is Cynthia Adai Robinson as Muriel, but they've blinded her so that her reactions as an actress are necessarily going to, she's got to act blind. Right. which isn't necessary for i'm not sure why they've done that it's not necessary for the story, um i suppose i'll suggest that this is the reason why other people can sort of put one over on her but i'm not i don't i'm not sure about that choice um then we've got uh the two girls who are the proto hobbits um who had much more, I'm not sure they've had much range in this season or importance. And then I suppose the big problem is Galadriel. Yeah. I actually quite, I like Morphid Clark. I think she's great, but I don't like the characterization of Galadriel. She feels very similar to Tariel in The Hobbit. Yeah, right, right, right.
[1:01:05] And so sometimes she's revered and what have you. And like at the end where Gil-Galad turns around and says, oh, what do you think? And they suddenly remember, oh, yeah, she's an elder. Another time, he's like this rebellious commander. Right, right, right.
[1:01:21] And her fight with Sauron at the end, the sort of climactic fight, though it has some nice concepts in it, I didn't feel the chills down my spine that I felt when Dumbledore fought Voldemort, you know, for example, in that.
[1:01:38] In um whichever one is harry potter the one in the ministry of magic um it felt as though there could have been i don't know i i wonder if they need to think about their women um because they're suffering in right contrast to lots of really strong male characters yeah i mean let's look at what happened in um the kelle brimble annatar story you have i can't even remember her name but helper elf who spent most of her time making public announcements on the saying oh they're coming and, you know kind of lord kelle brimble isn't doing what he should you know that that lady i can't remember her name the one who was being slightly romanced by the saron figure and then she just eyes suddenly but she doesn't have any sort of life beyond this sort of cipher and um it i don't know we lost bronwyn who in the first season was a strong female character and with her role i seem to be taken by um the lady who caught isledur's eye i'm trying to remember what her name is um do you remember her name i see i can't even remember her name which is it was shows it's a problem estrid right um i i think that anyway so my diagnosis is of season two is that they having repaired some of the problems of season one they now got a female problem.
[1:03:07] Yes. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, no. And then Disa being the strongest, like, I think in terms of like your female characters, Disa as being the one who's having the most impact on events other than like Galadriel and like, and even like emotional impact, right? So this is a character, again, this is and here's a character that was not, you know, doesn't exist that they're fabricating this character for this. But she's the dynamic between her and Prince Durin and just how she's she's she's like an active participant.
[1:03:39] You know, she's not just a cipher. She's not just there as a love interest. She's not just there as as a boy, as a foil, you know, just kind of just to or as a prop for the male character. She's there. She's pushing Durin Durin. There's this collaboration between the two of them. Um and i i like i love seeing that you usually don't see uh husband and wife characters and like it's definitely not like two parents with children we haven't been able to see their you know children right at work yet but uh yeah we know they exist i think we saw two of them running playing with helmets yeah in the first season which was fun um so yeah so i think disa is a good model for the type of like strong character that can like that has an impact on the plot and uh bronwyn i think we saw that unfortunately you know the character you know the actor um decided to step away from acting to pursue her uh her kind of passionate calling and activism with uh iran um but so unfortunately they lost her not because of the plot they would love to have her so she was kind of shaping up to be a character i think that could have done a lot and probably give an Erendir something more to do than just, but because taking her out of the equation, you have to fold him in quickly to one of the other storylines. That explains why Erendir is just wandering around looking for something to do.
[1:05:06] Sadly because that wasn't the original plan yeah unfortunately so i would i would criticize them for actually doing some really cliche things with galadriel putting her in a cage the princess in a cage thing come on guys and uh and the oh she can only get out because um the clever guy comes and smuggles her a brooch pick lock yeah with a kiss yeah right i mean i thought oh come on come on anyway so um yeah let's let's challenge them i'm going to send the challenge out on the airways to repair what they're doing with their female characters because having a couple of um leaders of the hobbits being women isn't sufficient uh really isn't um we haven't mentioned just before we go we haven't mentioned gil gallard benjamin walker i think for me his high point in the season was um his song he's got a great voice yeah um i also like robert aramayo as alrond who has the most northern like in real life he's got a sort of sean bean accent so he's doing really well i was real shocked to see interviews with him i like both of them um though i would say i would suggest the costume designers because uh.
[1:06:23] Gil-galad has a round face around friendly face which seems more man than elf um that they could do some um he looks better in armor rather than a robe he he he doesn't sort of immediately shout as sort of elf looks at in the you know at you um so i think they could improve the way he's presented so you know he's gonna he's gonna be a big part of the sort of military leader i'd love to have seen an establishing he spends all his time being middle management in boardrooms i would love to have seen him um introduced where he is in the sort of practice yards with his lance which was keen um doing a sort of amazing routine where he's taking down uh all the other people practicing against him to show that he is this wonderful warrior king as well they've made him quite middle-aged in the sort of tone that's been set for him. Right, yeah. Because he is a fighter. And why he turned up, it's my last gripe, why did he turn up at the battle with nobody else with him? Or next to nobody? I thought this is really not a good plan, Gil Gallad. But anyway, I think Benjamin Walker, more singing, please, and perhaps a rethink on the wardrobe and hairstyle.
[1:07:47] And bring out a bit more of the the fighting side but no that's just me um okay so now to the crunch the moment of truth uh how many rings are you giving this are you distributing to the faithful um out of 10 rings from your forge yeah i um.
[1:08:12] I think a seven. I think I'm going to go with a seven because it was, there were, again, I think you put it really well that the parts were sometimes greater than the sum total. If it would have hung together with all of these different parts being mutually reinforcing all of these incredible performances, these kind of really incredibly bright spots of performance, not spots, they were like, I mean, we'll see these performances, sections of performance that were really, that were truly excellent and compelling. I think i just kind of strung those together uh better um uh or yeah in in a more organized way again like pacing wise anytime the the story went to uh rune or like any like you when you were outlining kind of the seven plot lines anytime it wandered from the main three or to the top you know four or so um then the pacing kind of slowed and especially when they're going all the way to the east because it's not directly relevant there's no kind of ticking time bomb necessarily for what that's what's the end there and so it just kind of seems to be more meandering so if there was something the more like that line was kind of trimmed out or at least kind of uh subsumed into collected it just needs to be and off the game hands.
[1:09:36] Yeah, exactly. It's kind of like it was an isolated something, and then that's what they focus on. If you're just like, yeah, everything needs to be pushing you towards a particular end for that finale. And so bringing the dwarves in, right? The Elven Three, the Three Rings, where are those going to be?
[1:09:51] What's the state of Eregion? Are the trolls, are Adar and his group, right? So that's the fourth, the big fourth movement there. Are they going to converge? All those things are converging together. uh then yes like that's where i'm really picking up and invested and it's compelling me to watch um so yeah if you could do more of that then i would get up into the eight nine uh area so i put the question out on our social media following to see what people thought and our social media following skews towards tolkien fans and um i was you know you get those who don't like it at all and hate it and wish it didn't exist i think that someone actually said that um but you know you people said that about the peter jackson films as well and you get a few people who absolutely love it and i can see why because anything which just means you spend more time in something that's quite close to tolkien's world even if not really fully talking is is nice you know in terms of the options of what you're going to stream that evening i found uh i like the fact that it was weekly episodes i look forward to it i discussed it with the members of the family i was watching it with we discussed it afterwards it was much more of a watching experience so it was far more enjoyable than season one which i just felt like i was kind of let down by it um.
[1:11:17] After having been blown away by visually just finding this my struggles with the story kind of you know weighed in me so i would say that i give it um i was i'm not allowed to break up a ringing in half am i so i would go um seven rings as well i was thinking 6.5 really but you're feeling charitable today yeah and i think you know you're having pity pity will save upwards downwards so i know that patrick mckay and john d pain who were the showrunners and writers with their band of fellow writers and the direction the directors they have a lot of them are directed by charlotte brand's brandstrom um particularly the finale was hers i think but there's some um other directors as well involved i know that they have such a difficult job to do and easy for us to sit in our studies just saying oh yeah you've done this they should have done that should have done that um so i'm also want to sort of add inject a bit of humility there that i guess they're.
[1:12:24] They're for me they're doing better and that's great so by season five guys we should be saying nine ten rings you know so let's hope for the the trajectory carries on upwards um and i'm a little bit more hopeful that that's a possibility i think that's the final sort of word on it yep yep agreed so thank you so much jacob for talking to me at this length it's i think it's worth really it's enjoyable to chew it all over so um it is yeah so thank you so much for joining me on this and um well i don't know when season three is coming out it could be another two years but we look forward to it when it does come out thank you.
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