Mass Media Mass Imagination

I have decided to drop Rings of Power, and I'm glad to have now that I read of some of the nonsense the show is putting into the Tolkien fanspace about elves and mithril. This will be uncritically accepted by folks who haven't bothered to actually read anything and they will push it in any online discussion of Tolkien's writings.

Some folks are just happy to have any kind of story and visuals to fill their need for ever more material in their fan universe as they passively consume whatever crap the production studios push out. Lot's of thigs I just don't care, I enjoy the show, eat my snack and laugh at the silliness. But Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth are just far to big a psychological touchstone for me to put up with bad writing, poor characterizations, plot holes and changes to the lore.

But what bothers me, is how pervasive movies get in the fanspace. You can't imagine Aragorn now without Viggo Mortensen's face can you? Hard isn't it? People tell me "Oh it's just fanfiction, enjoy it!" Fanfiction is easy to ignore. But once some bad fanfiction is made into a show, well it gains a lot of weight in the on line community.

We run into this all the time on the Wargaming in Middle Earth Facebook group. We try to be very clear that we want to preserve a space for miniature wargames inspired by the books, not the movies, because there already are loads of Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game groups on Facebook for those players. But regularly someone comes along, wanting to discuss MESBG and talk about the official GW models (or worse, IP stealing knockoffs!) and we get accused of being elitist gatekeepers when we ask them to take that somewhere else.

It's really hard now to Google any images for The Hobbit without having to filter through the movie. Rings of Power will do the same for the rest of Middle Earth I fear. Instead of finding art by Alan Lee you'll just find stills from the show. When you try to talk about the Valar, elves and the philosophical underpinnings of Tolkien's writings, some show-fan will say that the show is now just as valid a source material as the writings of the person who created the setting. Honest, I had it happen with some chap when discussing the Scouring of the Shire. He called me a "elitist of shallow intellect" because I insisted that the books should have primacy when actually trying to talk about Tolkien's themes (not Peter Jackson's interpretation). I had, by the way, already agreed that for the movie structure the Scouring had to be cut out. But the removal does affect the themes, doesn't it?

And if you voice the opinion on line now that you dislike the show, you get jumped on. And blanket accused of not having watched it, but just being an elitist snob, or worse racist, hater. So even though I'd love to discuss Tolkien and his writings on line, I avoid the fanspace because one becomes a target if one doesn't just enthusiastically and uncritically lap up the next bit of media that Big Media shoves at us.

Now, I'm going to go back to painting my very not movie Rohirrim. And I have some very not movie Dwarves coming in the mail.

Rings of... *shrug*

Spoiler Alert: Unless you've already read The Silmarillion (and honestly, why haven't you?) then I might spoil a few things for you. Read on at your peril!

I was anticipating The Rings of Power with a mix of trepidation and cautious hope. A "Let's wait and see" approach.

I mean, it couldn't be anywhere near as bad as that pile of flaming poo that was The Hobbit movies, right? 

Right?

Parts are really quite good, and yet other parts are really quite bad. Grand CGI visual landscapes and a very fine soundtrack are nice, but only good writing can make a good story. 

The Professor once described his mythical world as a vast tapestry and he had made the main branches of the story, but around the edges where things were vague, he felt there were places for other creative people (painters, musicians) to participate in the work of sub-creation. He distrusted drama for odd reasons, even though he was an enthusiastic participant in student amateur dramatics.

Recently acquired after much searching. Highly enjoyable and provided many insights.

Read Leaf by Niggle to get an idea of Tolkien's view of the artist, the artistic vision and process, and it's spiritual merits.  Tldr: Art, as an act of sub-creation, participates in, and with, the Divine Creation.

The origins of the Hobbits, as portrayed by the Harfoots, is quite canonical, but was only vaguely described by Tolkien, so there's lots of room to play about in. I'd like more time with them. Lenny Henry as the leader of the Travelleresque Harfoots is quite brilliant. But no, we go straight to a very headstrong Galadriel jumping off a ship on it's way to Valinor and trying to swim back to Middle Earth! Then a whole episode wasted with her on a raft in the middle of the ocean. And there's only going to be what? 6 or 8 episodes? Looks like we're plunging towards the Numenoreans capturing Sauron and bringing him back pretty quickly. Sauron corrupting Ar-Pharazon and bringing about Numenor's fall will be the plot arc for Season 2 I'm guessing.

It seemed a cheap way to get Galadriel to Numenor, and thereby getting the Numenoreans into the story. Numenor is quite well portrayed, just the way I imagined it really. But it is the center of a vast globe spanning seafaring empire, so Numenoreans showing up in Middle Earth to trade with the elves and dwarves isn't a stretch is it?

The dwarves are OK. But when did dwarves become comic-opera Scotsmen? It's a cliché really. Even though Amazon seems to have set up race-baiting to shut down any criticism of the show, I really think they missed a diversity point by not giving Disa (Durin's wife) a very canonical beard. Doesn't have to be a great big bushy beard, but a short, soft, feminine beard would do, maybe with some gems braided into it. The character is still quite good though. Although we already know that they're going to release a Balrog, probably in the season finale. Although maybe they'll save that for Season 2, but I've seen a Balrog in clips for the show. Thus is a perennial problem with prequels anyway.

Elrond's hair bugs me too. I guess the Second Age is the Age of the Mullet. The elves in general bug me. As usual they've gotten the whole motivations of the elves and their relationships with men, Middle Earth, and the Valar rather out of tune. Galadriel is portrayed as way too immature and headstrong to have been around since the first rising of the moon.

Some people who are also Tolkien fans, love the parts I hate, and I hate the parts they love. I remember when Ralph Bashki's Fellowship of the Ring came out a reviewer observing that you can't make every Tolkien fan happy with your portrayal of the imagined.  Rings of Power, I think, is having the same problems.

I don't know. I'll keep watching, I guess. I don't hate it, but it doesn't excite me like The Expanse did.

Or perhaps eventually the irritating niggling details will bug me enough that I'll take Gandalf's advice and ignore it.