16: Looking Ahead... and Looking Behind, getting excited for Season 2

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_05]: I know you believe this ring is deceiving me, but I believe it is guiding me.

[00:00:53] [SPEAKER_04]: All this may be by his design. These rings may be how he attains power.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_04]: They must be destroyed.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_04]: We will discuss the rings once you have answered the question.

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Who is this man?

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_05]: He is no man. He deceived me.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, I will.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Greetings, mysterious wizards Alvin Smiths and Naz Gales. Welcome to our podcast. I'm Anwen.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm Penny.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is the Cast of the Rings, Episode 16.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_03]: In this episode we're going to discuss our thoughts on Season 1 of the Rings of Power after both of our recent re-watches and our hopes and predictions for Season 2.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_02]: The time is nearly on us. I can't believe it. After that two year wait, it's so amazing that we're going to get to watch this next week. How are you feeling about it?

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_03]: It's perfect timing because I have been in House of the Dragon withdrawal since the season ended and this is the perfect replacement.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Like it's epic and grand and there's mythical creatures and magic and huge, you know, sweeping storylines. I am so excited.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_02]: It's so awesome, isn't it? I think last time there was a slight crossover with the two shows playing for a little bit at the same time and I remember getting a little bit confused sometimes.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, which crazy witch lady or dragon or wizard am I talking about today?

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly. Wait, long blonde hair means Legolas. No, it means Dave and Targaryen.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Is it a wolf? Is it a Targaryen? They're both pretty. They're both a bit haughty.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly. That's very cool. So welcome everybody and hopefully you're as excited about the Rings of Power coming up as we are.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And you may have listened to our episode that we dropped a couple of months ago just in a little bit of buildup.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_02]: We've got a whole bunch of news to talk about today and we're going to do a little bit of a not really a recap but more of a kind of where did we leave the characters last in season one?

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to have a chat about what we thought about watching season one kind of all at once.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And then, of course, we're going to have our spoiler section later on as well based on some background that we've read or maybe a bit of speculation about upcoming plots.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So stick around for that one as well if you don't mind being spoiled on stuff that might happen.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So what did you think overall, Peony, after your rewatch of season one?

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_03]: I was surprised first of all at how much I had forgotten. You know we watch it very, very closely in order to podcast on it.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_03]: We watch each episode several times and then we talk about it and think about it.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And I had forgotten so many things that happened. So I kept being surprised again and again which was great.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I had forgotten how unbearable Galadriel can be.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_03]: She's so snotty and haughty and superior.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, oh, that's right. I remember being annoyed by her the first time around.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Knowing that Hallbrand turns out to be Sauron is really fun to watch from the beginning because the second you see him, you're like, how is he being deceptive?

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_03]: How is he being sneaky?

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_03]: I was less interested in the Harfoots.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I think the first time around I really wanted to love them because I loved Hobbits so much in the past.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And this time around I was like, these aren't, these characters aren't really going anywhere.

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_03]: So I sort of would lose interest there. How about you? How did it go for you?

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I really enjoyed watching it in a couple of weeks instead of a couple of months.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like the same. I did forget a little bit, but also less pressure.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So without having to podcast and research and get your thoughts together in a logical way, you could just experience it, which was really fun.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And instead of spending that time wondering where they were going with the story as well, which I did a lot of last time I realized.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Whereas now I knew where they were going with the story so I could just enjoy it.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I had the same thoughts as you about Galadriel, but also the opposite thoughts at the same time.

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_02]: So I actually I was reminded how annoying she was, but I also found her overall more appealing because I knew her arc.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So that first time she was so strident and so determined and I did find that really hard to watch at times.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_02]: But this time I got more of a sense of that darkness within her, which we sort of learn about throughout the season.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_02]: She was searching for evil for so long that there is darkness in her and she's tempted a little bit by it.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So I found that more fascinating this time to go actually, I get more of a sense of her.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Whereas the first time those first several episodes were just wow, she's annoying.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_02]: But I actually really loved it this time and knowing that sort of softness that we see her and her in the end, I applied that to her at the start and I enjoyed her a lot more.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_02]: The Hal Brand thing was interesting. I know you and I were pretty sure that he was Sauron from pretty early on.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But when you read interviews with Charlie Vickers who plays him, it's really interesting that he didn't know he was Sauron until sort of the second episode that he was in,

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_02]: which is quite amazing because they I think they obviously knew he was but they didn't tell him.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And in his interviews, he's talking about how he was, you know, in his auditions, he was asked to play like Richard III and like all these other really dark characters.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: He kind of had a clue. But yeah, it was interesting to see him develop as well.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think the half wits for me. Yeah, it's there's always been a little bit of controversy with some of the fans as to why they're in this story because and I think you and I've talked about it before,

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_02]: but that they don't show up in any of the writings until the third age.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And so by their very nature of not being noticed by Sauron, which is one of the main reasons why Frodo can carry the ring to Mordor,

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_02]: is that he doesn't really pay any attention to them. They don't figure on his radar.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we can't have that in this first series of the first several seasons of The Rings of Power. We can't have him be affected by them or notice them.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And so they kind of do sit outside the story. And I think there's two main reasons why they put them in.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_02]: One is that we're really familiar to us. Lord of the Rings means hobbits, you know, that we're really familiar with them.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And the second one is that they needed a bit of a vessel for whatever is going to be happening with this stranger character and, you know, potential other wizards as well.

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So we needed a way for the audience to interact with them that was familiar to us.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So I can see why they did it. And I enjoy them for what they are. But, yeah, it was different.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_03]: They needed a group of people who are innocent and not power players. Right?

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, wharves have a power structure. Humans definitely have power structure and ambition.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Elves have this whole we're the best people and should be in charge of everything thing.

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_03]: And the hobbits or the harfoots are like, we like vegetables and being in the garden.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_03]: And so you feel protective of them in a way that you you aren't even of other humans as humans.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Like there's something about those characters that lets you feel like pure nurturing protectiveness about them.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're childlike and we want to be able to relate to them as some race that we can identify with because we've all been children at some point.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So it is really appealing and they're cute and funny.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_02]: What did you think of looking back? I know that the first watch around you were really loved the dwarves.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Was there anything different for you this time with the dwarves?

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_03]: I love the dwarves so much again.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_03]: I was so excited when Diza came on screen the first time because I was like, oh my God, she's so cool.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_03]: I am still annoyed that we haven't met Duren's children.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Like they're off screen and she talks to them, but we don't get to see them.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And I find that very frustrating. But I love Duren.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like he's an incredibly well-rounded character.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_03]: He has this relationship with his father that is so believable and relatable.

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And yet it's also this epic problem of like king under the mountain.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And are we going to mine for Mithril or not?

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_03]: There's all these big issues wrapped up in this very real, like classic father son struggle.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I am excited for more Duren versus Duren in the next season.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Definitely. They're so fascinating to watch.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And I love how it's not just one dimensional.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It would be very easy to go this intergenerational thing.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_02]: The dad wants the old ways, the son wants the new ways.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_02]: We've seen that a million times, but I love how they also have a warmth to them.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's quite a few scenes where you can see how close they are.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's quite beautiful to watch, especially amongst two extremely masculine, staunch, bearded dudes.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I really like that. It's really cool.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I loved the dwarves again and seeing that development of Disa as being from just the strong character,

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_02]: but mostly wife and mother to understanding about her role within the dwarf community of the resonating that she does.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And then towards the end, we actually see her ambition as well.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So that was really cool to watch again.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_03]: I love that.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And I love the battles as well.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, anything with Arondir.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I just want lots more of him on screen. He's so amazing.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I love him.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_03]: And they gave him, he gets to do all the really cool elf stuff, right?

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Like Galadriel gets a few moments of really cool elf, like flipping around and battle the swords and stuff.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_03]: But Arondir, he does all the Legolas classics, right?

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_03]: The like being lighter than air when he tries to walk on things and being able to jump huge distances and shoot his arrows with amazing accuracy and all that like cool, like high adventure parts of the Lord of the Rings, the Middle Earth world that we love.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_02]: That's great, isn't it?

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's got a, you can, they've kept consistent enough with that elf style, but they've given him his own style of fighting and moving as well.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's much more so the different types of elf and Legolas is a lot more sort of, I don't know, he's a bit more floaty and airy fairy and sort of just, I think Arondir is much more grounded.

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_02]: He's a, he's a, he's a Sylvan elf and he's part of the forest and he's really, he seems more grounded and connected to the forest and the earth.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And his fighting style, I think reflects that a little bit.

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_02]: He's, he's a, he gets quite low almost like, I feel like, not Aragon, I feel like Legolas kind of floats around and is like you say, is quite aerobatic.

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And yes, Arondir definitely does a lot of the, you know, they use wires and all that kind of stuff in real life to make him look like he's flying.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But he does a lot of flipping and turning and but he's quite low and crouchy kind of thing when he's fighting.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's more muscular, right?

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Legolas has that like, that thin svelte look.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_03]: He's a pharaoh, yeah.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_03]: He's a prince, right? And he carries himself in that way, whereas Arondir is a foot soldier.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Right? They address it in one episode that he's, he's, you know, sort of a commoner amongst the elves and that when he returns from this assignment, supposedly that's going to increase his status among the elves.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And so you get the sense that he didn't have a privileged youth, the way that probably Legolas, you know, learned from the most wise elves and studied the scrolls and knows all the elf history and all that stuff.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Whereas Arondir, you get the sense that he, you know, worked with the forest and is a little bit more of a common elf.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_03]: And we never get to meet common elves. Like all the other elves are royalty that we've met.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_02]: They all wear a lot of silk velvet and have very shiny hair. And that's why I love him. He is down and dirty and grounded.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And I also really love watching some of the background stuff where the actor did almost all of his own stunts.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: He did a lot of the wire work and it just looks really cool when you get to see that on screen.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And based on the trailer, I guess we're going to get to see quite a bit more. So that's exciting.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I am excited about that. I have to say one thing that that made me a little bummed when I was doing the rewatch is just how magnetic Bronwyn is.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Her character is so appealing and I really felt like she was someone I wanted to follow through.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And I know that Nazanin Boniadi has left the show because she wants to pursue her activism on behalf of Iranian women.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's wonderful. And I support it and I think it's important and I'm just selfish and I want her to also be on the show.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I am looking forward to seeing what they do with Theo and Arundhia because obviously they have to write that into the story.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Why is Bronwyn not there? And just based on a few of the little bits and pieces of photos and a bit of the trailer and a little bit of interviews with some of them,

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I won't cover it today, but I think when we do cover that first episode, if they show any Theo and Arundhia in there,

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I think we'll get a bit more into that. And I've done a bit of reading too about her character and also what the actor who plays Arundhia thinks of her not being there and things like that.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It's quite interesting. But one of the big points, I guess, that I saw was people were hoping that there isn't,

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and this is a new term for me that I hadn't heard of before, but they're hoping that it's not a fridging situation.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So fridging apparently is when you kill off a female character and then that has an impact on the male character and his development is only because she's died.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's a thing apparently. And they're sort of wanting to make it be that it's a natural part of the story and to see what happens rather than,

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So Theo could only have become the person he is because his mum died type thing. I mean, that's again, it's a real trope, isn't it?

[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So we don't want to see any of that stuff.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how if they are going to have the character die though. It can't not affect her son and the elf who loves her. Right.

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_03]: So it's a very fine line that they're going to have to walk there.

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It is. Yeah. And also thinking about, you know, when you look at the character of Theo and we're all really pleasantly surprised because I think that we expected once he started seeing that darkness

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_02]: and the excitement of that sort of Sauron and things like that, everyone was worried and expecting actually that he would sort of go to the dark side.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_02]: But when he immediately went and took it to Bromwyn and Arondir to tell them what was happening, it was great.

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_02]: We were like, oh, this is cool. He's not just suddenly seduced by the darkness and he's got this powerful relationship that's like a almost like a saving kind of relationship with his mum.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But again, I think that's the thing they're worried about that if that's gone, then is that going to affect his darkness?

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_03]: So we'll have to wait and see. Yeah, I am looking forward to that.

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_03]: I came to really love that actor Theo over the course of the season.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I remember when he was first introduced, I thought he was off putting and odd.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And by the end of the season, I liked him.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And this time I liked him the whole way through because the off putting an odd works for me now.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know. I'm like, hmm, that makes it more interesting and memorable.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_02]: That's good. It does.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I hope he's I hope it doesn't look visually too different because I know he's he's a kid.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I think he was 16 or so when they shot it, the first one, he's going to be older and taller again now.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he was pretty tall by the end of that season.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I think he actually I think we saw him grow across the season as well.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_03]: Do you know if there's going to be a time jump of any length in between season one and season two?

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Not that not that I know of. It wouldn't have to be much.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't look like much from just from the trailer.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And I haven't heard of anything that there's going to be.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I think if anything, they're going to do a time thing is something that I'll probably talk about in Gladrile's Mirror.

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I don't think so.

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's going to be fairly, fairly straightforward in terms of going straight into it.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So shall we talk about where we're at with all of our characters?

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_02]: We're not going to do a recap of the whole season one.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_02]: If you want that, then just go back and listen to our first eight episodes.

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So we do want to just catch everybody up on if you haven't done a rewatch and it's been two years since you watched it

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_02]: and you just want to remember where everybody is at.

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So do you want to start us off, Penny?

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, sure. I'll talk about the dwarves.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_03]: So the dwarves that we've met, they live in the mines of Moria, but they don't call it Moria.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I've forgotten now what they call it.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Kazadum. Kazadum.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And they are led by King Durin III.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_03]: And the character that we come to know is Prince Durin IV.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_03]: He's King Durin's son, and he is married to Diza.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Durin has a very, very old friendship with Elrond the elf.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And we come to know Durin because Elrond comes to Kazadum to approach the elves about collaborating on a project.

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_03]: And Durin is quite put out at first because Elrond has been absent for decades, which to an elf is like,

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_03]: what do you mean? I've been gone for two weeks.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And to Durin it's like you missed half my life.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_03]: And they eventually work it out with a lot of help from Diza.

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_03]: She really wants that friendship to be re-engaged and strengthened.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's because she knows how important it is to her husband.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_03]: And we come to see that Diza and Durin have a deep love for each other.

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_03]: They really have what I think looks like, from my perspective, a great marriage.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_03]: They support each other. They share things with each other.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_03]: They know each other really well.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_03]: She brings out the best in him.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And over the course of the season, we get to see that she is more than a wife and a mother.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_03]: She is this powerful person in her own right.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And you get the sense that like Durin a little bit married up, you know, like he did well.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Even though she maybe wasn't a princess, everybody was probably like, yes, okay, good.

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_03]: That will be she'll be a good queen for us in the future.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_03]: She has this amazing singing voice.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_03]: She's trained in opera, the actor, and her dwarf character uses her voice to resonate stones and help with mining.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_03]: It either releases the ore or they think she speaks like it's almost like the mountain is alive

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_03]: and she speaks to the mountain with her voice.

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_03]: It's really there's a beautiful musical number.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_03]: If you want to go back and watch, it's gorgeous.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_03]: So the dwarfs have recently started mining a new ore called that they call Mithril.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And it seems to be unlike any ore that they've ever worked with before.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_03]: It weighs less. It's strong.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_03]: It has a light quality like it exudes light.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And but where they're mining is a more dangerous part of the mountain.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_03]: So there's tension between Durin and his father about whether or not to mine there.

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And at some point, it becomes known that the elves want Mithril.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And I know. And when you're going to talk about the elves,

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_03]: They want Mithril because they think it will it will help them to exist, to live longer.

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And they go to the dwarfs and ask them for Mithril.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And King Durin, despite his son's strong desire, shuts down all Mithril mining.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And there's a scene where he throws this leaf that's significant because it's evidence that the Mithril might help the elves

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_03]: into the mine as he's having it sealed off.

[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And we see a Balrog at the bottom of this mine and it's like it's all red and fiery and scary looking and everything.

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_03]: But we don't see anything else about that afterwards.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_03]: So we don't really know if the Balrog is going to come into play or not.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_03]: But we did see one and it was very exciting.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And where we leave things with the dwarves is that Deezha and Durin IV are talking about how they can take over from his father or thwart his commands as king.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that at that point, King Durin had taken Prince Durin's seal, his princely raiment away from him saying like you're basically saying I'm disinheriting you.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And she was like, we'll get back in there.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_03]: So Deezha and Durin are plotting at the end of season one.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a great summary.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it was so interesting to see that wasn't it that he took the seal or whatever it was that he was wearing around his neck to show that he was the heir to the dwarven throne.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And then Deezha said doesn't matter, he's still his son, he's still going to be the king when he's gone.

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's just carry on.

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, that was really, really cool to see.

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_02]: So it will be amazing to see how that relationship continues with Durin and his father because he's pretty much disowned him.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So now what's going to happen moving forward when stuff starts to happen with rings and so on, it's going to be really, really interesting to see.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_02]: So the next one we're going to talk about are the Halfoots.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So we meet the Halfoots in the first episode.

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_02]: They're this nomadic tribe who keep to themselves and they are the ancestors of the hobbits that we know from the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_02]: There were these three strains of proto-Hobbits almost.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_02]: You've got the Stores, the Fallohides and the Halfoots and these guys are the Halfoots.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And the main character that we meet is Eleanor Brandyfoot and her nickname is Nori.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And we also meet her best friend Poppy.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is a really interesting type of people, these Halfoots.

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, as I said, we're familiar with hobbits and we know hobbits love nature and we know they love good food and drink and so on.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_02]: They're very close knit with their family.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But the hobbits that we know in the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit stories are very pastoral, grounded, agricultural.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_02]: They settle and they work off the land and the place that they live for generations.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_02]: The Halfoots here are nomadic.

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So they travel around in these carts and they travel with the seasons.

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So for a certain number of months of the year, they'll live in a particular place that has all the right food that they need.

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Then they'll do this big migration where they move to a different area where it has a whole lot of fruits and all kinds of stuff that they can gather and harvest for the rest of the year.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_02]: They have these beautiful carts that they pull themselves.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_02]: They're wheeled carts, but they are also what they live in.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So they're kind of like little caravans.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And whenever they stop, they set those up and they've got these amazing kind of camouflage things where they pull over, you know, sort of doorways and little woven kind of blankets and things over the top of their carts so that they look like they're part of the land.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought visually they were really great in the way that they blend into the landscape.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And even the Halfoots themselves, they'll have twigs and little leaves and things in their hair so that when they sort of duck down, they're all camouflaged into the landscape, which was really nice to look at.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And then they also have this kind of philosophy of nobody goes off trail, nobody walks alone.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's quite a few times when they actually recite that sort of as a verse or a mantra as they go along.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And the concept of that is that you have to stick together.

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_02]: If you go off trail, then you could be in danger.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And they even talk about at some stage they have a ceremony where they talk about those who've been lost and who've gone off trail and who've been missed or left behind.

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_02]: They say those have been left behind.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So really interesting concept that we haven't really seen before in these stories.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, so Nori and Poppy, they find this mysterious stranger who comes down to Earth in a meteor.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's got these unusual powers which can affect the world around him.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: They're linked to nature and the wind, they're linked to the trees and also to fire.

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_02]: He seems to have a power over fire.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_02]: He's disorientated at first and he gradually sort of remembers how to speak from being around Poppy and Nori.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And at first most of the Halfoots don't trust him.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But then he does save some of them from a wolf attack.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And he also restores the orchard when it's hit by lava bombs from Mount Doom.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So they sort of realize that he's maybe OK.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have these three mystics who are members of a magic cult from the eastern land of Rune.

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, we called them the Nazgals at one point.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But now apparently the official name for them is Mystics and they each have different character names as well.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, they arrive and they're searching for the stranger.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And they worship him thinking that he's Sauron.

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So eventually find out that they think he's Sauron and that's why they're looking for him.

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_02]: They try to kill Poppy, Nori and Nori's mother and also the Halfoot leader, Sattuck, who have all gone to try and warn the stranger.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And then they eventually realize, the mystics realize that he's not Sauron.

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But instead they say he is the Other, the Istar.

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And he resists them and uses one of their staffs to dissolve them into hundreds of moths.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And then they disappear.

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And we now know that he's a wizard.

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So Istar, the Istari are the wizards that were sent by the Valar to Middle Earth to try and help with the evil that's spreading.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_02]: They haven't said exactly who he is, which wizard he is.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_02]: We know that there are five known wizards that are sent to Middle Earth, the most famous of which is Gandalf.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And they haven't said he is, but there's pretty strong echoes that he could be early Gandalf.

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you remember at the very, very end, Nori is going to be going off with him to journey out to the east to find out more about who he is.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And she doesn't know which way to go.

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And he tells her to follow her nose when in doubt, always follow your nose.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's almost the exact same line that Gandalf says to Mary and the minds of Moria.

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_02]: So they're pretty much pointing these Gandalf.

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll see how that works out.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, we've talked about this before about a little bit of difference in the timeline.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's not supposed to arrive for another thousand or two thousand years in the story and so on.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But we do know they're crunching the timeline. So it makes sense that if it is going to be him.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it works for me now. It was a bit resistant at the start.

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But watching the whole thing again, I kind of think, yeah, it's fine.

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's just see where that goes.

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Was there anything else on the half books that you had wanted to talk about?

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_03]: I find their their culture very confusing.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_03]: There's a part where Nori's mother is saying, oh, we're so lucky as Harfoots.

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_03]: We don't have to deal with the dangers of the world because we travel from place to place.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_03]: We're nomads. And I'm like, yeah, but you're terrified of everything that's not a Harfoot.

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And you have this chant you do every day about not going off the trail.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that that is the same as I'm not having any worries.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And then there's a harsh way that they apply the policy, whereas Nori's father has like a broken ankle or something.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And they're like, oh, too bad. You can't keep up. We're going to leave you behind.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, come on, pull together. Nobody walks alone.

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_03]: But I just found the whole Harfoot culture kind of confusing.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it would make more sense to me if I knew more about nomadic cultures.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_03]: But the only nomadic culture I know anything about is being a military kid.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_03]: So that's a little different.

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_01]: You have different types of support systems around that.

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it does seem a little contradictory in a way.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_02]: My feeling on it is that they have to.

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So in general, nobody goes off trail. Nobody walks alone means you stick together as a group.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_02]: However, in order to continue the safety overall of the tribe, if there is someone that falls behind,

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_02]: you can't put the rest of the tribe in peril to save them.

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's kind of where they're coming from.

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it does seem pretty harsh and it makes me go, let's fast forward a couple of thousand years.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_02]: So all you Hobbity types can just stay in one place and grow a garden and not be so in danger.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_02]: All right. So do you want to move on to the Numenoreans?

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Very much so, yes. I love the Numenoreans.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_03]: First of all, when we're introduced to Numenor,

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_03]: it's this unbelievably beautiful scene of these majestic ships sailing into this

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_03]: what looks to me sort of like southern Mediterranean culture harbor with these majestic buildings.

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And this is clearly a well-established culture that's very sophisticated.

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_03]: It has a lot of architecture and art, and the people in the city streets are mostly beautifully dressed.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_03]: And there seem to be multiple different classes. And there's all these different trade groups.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And there's a queen regent and we discover her name is Muriel and we discover that her father is quite ill.

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And so she has been acting in his stead on his behalf.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And that the Numenorean history is one where they were very,

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_03]: very close with elves in their early days and were granted longer life because of their role in the early wars.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And they had a lot of interaction with elves in the early days and were in fact founded by Elrond's brother.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Am I right about that? Yeah, they're founded by Elrond's brother who was also half elf and chose to live as a human.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And that in these more recent times being connected to elves has fallen into disfavor.

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And so there are different political movements within Numenorean society, some that want to return to a time when they followed the old ways and were closer with elves and some that are very distrusting of elves.

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And this is the atmosphere that Galadriel and Hal Brand come into after being rescued from the ocean by Elendil.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And so Muriel is the queen, her father whose name I have forgotten is locked away in a tower.

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_03]: He's very ill. Elendil is I think like a ship's captain.

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_03]: He is formerly of a noble line but is now more of a sort of middle class person.

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_03]: He has three children. We've met two of them. Isildur, his son, and Eadion, his daughter.

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_03]: There's another brother. We haven't met him yet. Maybe we'll meet him at some point.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_03]: And Elendil, that name means in the old language elf friend.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And he is the one who rescued Galadriel, brought her to Numenor.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And he's also the one that takes her to his library and gives her information and support in her goal which is to recruit Numenor to her cause of fighting Sauron.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Isildur, Elendil's son, they have a lot of father-son sort of classic issues. Isildur seems to be a little bit of a screw up.

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_03]: He is currently, when we meet him, training to be a sailor but he manages to get not only himself fired but his two best friends as well.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And he's in a little bit of disgrace. But everyone also sort of is like Isildur? God!

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_03]: It just seems like it's something he always does.

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_03]: His sister, Eadion, wants to be an architect and she gets like an internship or an apprenticeship with the Architecture Guild.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And at one point she meets Kemen and Kemen is the son of the steward of Numenor, Farazan.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Now Farazan, who reminds me so, so much of a friend of mine that it's like I can't not see it when I'm watching it.

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_03]: But Farazan is quite ambitious and I think wants more power or to be on the throne himself and to oust Miriel.

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_03]: But he's also very politic and very diplomatic.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And so he would never outwardly revolt against the Queen unless he was 100% sure he had all the people behind him.

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_03]: So through Kemen trying to pressure his father into opposing the Queen in certain matters, Farazan reveals like, yeah, I'm like seven steps ahead of you kid.

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Like keep up. Think it through. Like if you did this, this would happen. And if I did that, that would happen.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Like I know what I'm doing. Like we're going to make friends with this southern king.

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_03]: He's going to be, you know, we free his people from the orcs.

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Then he's going to owe us and it's going to be good for everyone and all look good in that case.

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_03]: And like he knows what he's doing. He's very smart.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_03]: So next season I'm excited to see where that storyline goes because I think that kind of politicking is really fun and very House of the Dragon.

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. It's like everybody wants a throne and they're all jockeying for position.

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Meanwhile, Kemen is into Eäriön and he's like a little doofy kid.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_03]: He's just can't get out of his own way and he's very, he thinks he's smooth but he's not smooth.

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_03]: He's a teenage boy. It's very cute. I find their flirtation really, really cute.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Elendil and Isildur and Isildur's two friends eventually all get recruited to Galadriel's cause.

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And they all sail to Middle Earth and fight the orcs and get caught up in the explosion of Mount Doom.

[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And by the end of the season, Miriel has been blinded.

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Elendil is devastated having apparently lost his son Isildur, although we saw evidence that shows that Isildur's probably not dead.

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And they are on their way back to Numenor to sort of regroup and get ready for more battle.

[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Meanwhile, some Numenoreans were going to stay in Middle Earth and help the southern humans resettle at a different location because Mount Doom destroyed their homelands.

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And on top of and behind all of this, there is a prophecy that Miriel and her father are aware of because they have a palantir in Numenor.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_03]: And a palantir is basically like a crystal ball.

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And they have seen into it this prophecy that when the white petals of the tree fall, floodwaters are going to come and destroy Numenor.

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And whether that's literal floodwaters or a metaphor of floodwaters destroying Numenor is not clear.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Miriel does show this prophecy to Galadriel and she and Galadriel form sort of a mutual admiration and respect for each other.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Where at first they were very much at odds. By the end of the season, they seem almost like friends.

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_02]: That all sounds good. And yeah, it will be quite cool to see where they go with Isildur.

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So with Isildur being lost in this volcano and not knowing where he is.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And remember, we saw the horse galloping off at the end going to try and find him.

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So obviously the horse knows that he's still alive.

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to wait and see if Elendil catches up with it.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it's going to be great.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And I love how they've set up the Numenoreans in that first season.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, again, spoiler and spoiler section.

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_02]: We will be talking a little bit about what potentially might happen with him later.

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_02]: But as it's beautifully rendered and I do remember just loving how similar they made it look to what eventually becomes Gondor area in the Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth.

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, having been the ancestors of the Gondorians, it's really cool to see some of the buildings look similar and some of the architecture.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there's a lot of white use of white stone which Gondor uses as well and also a lot of building upward in sort of, for lack of a better word, like a pyramid ish kind of structure.

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_03]: They have these low like round bases and they come to a small like maybe conical is a better word for it.

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_03]: The city has many, many highs and lows and it's all around like this beautiful clear crystal blue bay where the ships sail into.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_03]: It's really like I want to go to Numenore.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_03]: It is so gorgeous.

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_03]: It looks like the Greek islands or something.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_03]: It's just it's just beautiful.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_02]: That's beautiful, isn't it?

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I think one of the reasons it looks so kind of Mediterranean is yeah, it's like it's on the sea.

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_02]: The city is over lots of different levels with lots of different heights of buildings and you have those straight towers with the domed top which looks really great.

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's going to be great to see what they do with those guys next.

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So we'll move on to the Elves.

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_02]: If the Elves knew that they were fourth in our recap list, they might be a bit annoyed because they think they're all that.

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So the Elves are an immortal powerful race.

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_02]: The Elves live for thousands and thousands of years, basically live forever however they can be killed in battle or they can die of grief.

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And we've talked a little bit about the law previously in different episodes.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So you can go back and have a little look at that.

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_02]: There's so much to delve into with those with those characters.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_02]: But this story first centers around Galadriel.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_02]: She's an elf who is thousands of years old and she helped to destroy Morgoth, the first evil thousands of years before before we pick up with this story.

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And since then, she's been searching for Morgoth's dark servant Sauron.

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And alongside that, the Elves had also been on a mission to try and save their kind from fading away.

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So we get this story where there's apparently this evil spreading across the land as a result of Sauron gaining strength.

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And they need to be able to save their kind from this evil.

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And they need something to help stave off this evil or help to sort of fortify almost the Elves.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, we've talked a little bit about this in different sections on our previous podcasts about how this differs from the book.

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So I won't get into that too much now, but in the story here, they need something to stop the Elves from sort of fading away.

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So they try to get this mithril that you talked about before, Penny, from the dwarves.

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Apparently it has some kind of magical elf saving quality and will help them to to continue their long lives.

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But King Durin puts his dwarven foot down and he won't let them have it.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_02]: He won't let them mine it.

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we also have Galadriel meeting this character Halbrand.

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So he is a man who Galadriel meets while she's lost at sea.

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_02]: When the king of the Elves, Gil-galad, decides that he's had enough of Galadriel running around trying to look for Sauron,

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_02]: he pretty much sends her away to Valinor, which is the land in the West that the Elves originally came from.

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_02]: It's meant to be this great honor, but it's a one way journey and they don't come back from it.

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And she feels like she's still got stuff to do.

[00:42:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So on the ship on the way over there, she jumps ship and she ends up shipwrecked on this kind of raft with Halbrand, this man.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And she mistakes him for the king of the Southlands.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And he kind of goes along with it.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_02]: First we don't really know who he is.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he sort of says, yep, sure, I'm that guy.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And he agrees to fight for Galadriel's cause, which is to fight the darkness that's spreading in the Southlands.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_02]: So we have this character, Adda, who's leading all of the orcs in the Southlands there to try and take over the area basically.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And so Halbrand agrees to fight along with Galadriel and the Numenoreans.

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And they all head off over there, have a few battles.

[00:43:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he gets wounded in the eruption of Mount Doom and he gets taken to the Numenorean camp.

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And then Galadriel says you need elvish medicine to fix this horrible wound on your side.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to take you to the Elven city of Eregion to be healed.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_03]: For a week of horse riding to get there?

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a week of galloping slash cantering with an open wound on your side.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So obviously we know later on, yeah, of course he's got some a bit of resistance being the Dark Lord himself.

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_02]: His mortal form probably can withstand a few different things.

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, yeah, they gallop off to Eregion to be healed.

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And there Halbrand meets the elf Kalabrymbor.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So Kalabrymbor is one of the, well he's the main elven smith.

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So he is in charge of all the smiths there that live in Eregion.

[00:44:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And Halbrand kind of gets to know him and helps Kalabrymbor fashion something out of the teeny bit of mithril that Elrond got given by Prince Durin.

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And meanwhile, Galadriel slowly realizes that Halbrand is actually Sauron.

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And he tries to convince her to join him and she refuses.

[00:44:29] [SPEAKER_02]: She's a little bit tempted, you can tell, but then she refuses and he runs off as soon as she refuses to join him.

[00:44:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And Elrond knows that something is up with Halbrand because Galadriel has said to him and to Kalabrymbor not to trust Halbrand if he returns, not to treat with him.

[00:44:47] [SPEAKER_02]: They mustn't even speak to him. But Elrond at this stage doesn't know that he's Sauron.

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the three of them, Elrond, Galadriel and Kalabrymbor, they end up making three rings in secret.

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_02]: They use the mithril and they alloy it with some really sacred elven metals, silver and gold.

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And they make these three beautiful rings in secret.

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And the last that we see of Halbrand slash Sauron is he runs off towards Mordor.

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And we see him with all kind of dark eyes and flowy cloak walking into Mordor and getting ready to set up his next dark and evil plans.

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Anything I missed there with the elves, Penny?

[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think so. I... yeah, no, I don't think so.

[00:45:40] [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot. I mean, there's a lot going on.

[00:45:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully that gives people just a wee quick refresher about where we were at with everybody.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's all good. And if you got any hopes or wishes or speculations about the season coming up, there are non-spoilery that we can share with people.

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I want more female characters. I sort of was a little snarky in our season one coverage about, oh, do we just get one woman per race?

[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's not completely accurate. There are other female characters.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_03]: There's more than one per race. But really, there's Galadriel seems to be the only female elf who has any kind of agency.

[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_03]: The other ones don't even talk. They just have like veils over their faces and they float around in the background.

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_03]: We saw a couple of other female dwarves, but Diza is the only one with a name or any kind of story.

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And there are three named human women, Miriel, Eadion and Bronwyn.

[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_03]: But we're losing Bronwyn. So and the Harfoots, we got several female Harfoots.

[00:46:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I just want more female characters in general.

[00:46:55] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm so excited that this production of Rings of Power has brought in some people of color to Middle Earth.

[00:47:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a fantastic step for diversity. But please, can we have more than one woman per race? Please.

[00:47:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, agreed. And I think we are going to see a little bit of development with that just based on what I've read about the season.

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I won't go into too much detail, but yeah, I'm hoping the same.

[00:47:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I really want to be able to see that too. And I agree about the diversity. I think it's been really good.

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, we've talked about that before and there's been some controversy from some people, but we just don't worry about that because we think it's awesome.

[00:47:34] [SPEAKER_03]: So, yay. My favorite little bit of that controversy happened on the Internet where somebody was like,

[00:47:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, clearly the people who are making Rings of Power don't know anything about Tolkien.

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_03]: This show is so not Tolkien. And then someone's like, there's an entire episode where an elf cries because he has to cut down a tree.

[00:47:52] [SPEAKER_03]: It's the most Tolkien thing I've ever seen. And I was like, yes, thank you.

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_03]: Like all of the Tolkien themes are there and respected and loved.

[00:48:05] [SPEAKER_03]: And having a few people who have darker skin is not going to ruin Middle Earth.

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_03]: It's still beautiful and interesting and rich and layered and all those things that made you love it when you first read it when you were a kid.

[00:48:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly. And we've talked about it before. There's a couple of things.

[00:48:26] [SPEAKER_02]: There's the Tom Shippey test. So the Tom Shippey test is applying to Tolkien or any translation of book to screen.

[00:48:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Does it maintain the same themes and are the changes that are made necessary for the translation to that media?

[00:48:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think we've agreed that that is the case for this. It passes the test.

[00:48:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the second one was that Tolkien himself, he identified that he almost felt like he was a conduit for these stories.

[00:48:56] [SPEAKER_02]: He didn't necessarily make them all up out of himself and was the master of the whole story.

[00:49:02] [SPEAKER_02]: He felt like he interpreted this as a real history and he was almost the narrator of it.

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And he was happy for other people to put their own spin on it, to embellish it and to add to the stories over time.

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that gives us a little bit of leeway to not be so opposing or astride about any of the little changes.

[00:49:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But you know, the Internet's going to Internet. So you have to ignore those.

[00:49:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Some people just want to be upset about something and find something to be upset about.

[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_03]: I've been thinking a lot about the nature of history and the way that written history is not always a reliable narrator.

[00:49:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And there is a way to look at a show like this that is based on these histories that Tolkien wrote to sort of support the Lord of the Rings stories as possibly what really happened that was then written into the histories with all kinds of inaccuracies.

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_03]: That's kind of how House of the Dragon is treating it.

[00:50:09] [SPEAKER_03]: They're saying, no, the history said this and they also said this other thing. Those conflict.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_03]: We think it might be somewhere in the middle. And so they've created a story that makes sense in its own self.

[00:50:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And we can sort of think about the Tolkien histories the same way.

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_03]: There's there's nothing that ever says that those stories are perfect.

[00:50:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Like a lot of the elf histories are written as song and we know that poets take liberties with facts to make stories dramatic, to make things rhyme, to make things sound beautiful in music.

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And there's nothing that really means any history is 100 percent accurate.

[00:50:47] [SPEAKER_03]: So having some creativity when you interpret it, it's not any less accurate than maybe the written history was in the first place.

[00:50:55] [SPEAKER_02]: It's so true. I think it's a good point as well.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that the who is telling the story is less overt than in the Game of Thrones universe where you actually know that these histories are told by Mushroom or told by all the different narrators they've got.

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But it is the same in Tolkien's world.

[00:51:16] [SPEAKER_02]: The Silmarillion is basically the elven history of what happened.

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So they might not necessarily know what had happened with the Halfords prehistory that didn't have much to do with them.

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, they had things to do with the dwarves, but they might not have the exact same detail.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it is up to whoever's interpreting the story to present it in a way that they believe works.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's great. I think it works really well.

[00:51:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Great. Well, we're going to take a little break.

[00:51:41] [SPEAKER_02]: There's heaps more to come.

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So stay with us.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're back and we've got a few pieces of news this week.

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_02]: The first one is from comicbook.com.

[00:51:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And this one is all about the showrunners and what they think of what the fans think of this show.

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power Season 2 is coming up.

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_02]: The showrunners Patrick McKay and JD Payne have heard some of the fan concerns.

[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Much of season two was written before the release of season one.

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So we've got a plan and we're sticking to it, McKay shared.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_02]: We read everything. It's impossible not to want to listen and not to want to engage with people.

[00:52:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And if people like the show, that can feel pretty good sometimes.

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But at the end of the day, we're making the show that we believe in.

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Payne would agree with his fellow showrunners.

[00:52:28] [SPEAKER_02]: If they didn't like the show then, you know, sometimes people are.

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_02]: He pauses for a moment, discarding the sentence.

[00:52:34] [SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting to see what people have to say.

[00:52:37] [SPEAKER_02]: We've been working on this for a long time.

[00:52:39] [SPEAKER_02]: We've got a plan and Tolkien had a plan.

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_02]: We're excited to see it all the way through.

[00:52:43] [SPEAKER_02]: The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power is planning to up the ante for season two.

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Prime Video is excited to have the show back too.

[00:52:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Empire magazine spoke to the showrunners about getting bigger battles into the new crop of episodes.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It seems like The Two Towers serves as a North Star of sorts for some fans.

[00:52:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully we can get into some of that grandeur in there.

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_02]: We love a good battle, showrunner Patrick McKay Smirt.

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_02]: The plan with season two would be to do something much bigger on a much grander scale

[00:53:11] [SPEAKER_02]: that would take place not just overnight but over multiple days, weeks, months and episodes.

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Charlotte Brandstrom, the producing director for the second season,

[00:53:19] [SPEAKER_02]: chimed in on the ten times bigger approach to battles.

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really the battle of the darkness against the light.

[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Some very dark and quite violent moments.

[00:53:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Things have taken a very intense turn since Sauron was back

[00:53:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and moving the chess pieces around to the board,

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_02]: executive producer Lindsay Webber also mentioned.

[00:53:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So we get to have a different kind of action

[00:53:36] [SPEAKER_02]: and see Middle Earth in some more terrifying moments.

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And ants!

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, bring on the ants.

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I do find it interesting that they talk about how they had laid out the whole plan

[00:53:49] [SPEAKER_02]: and when they pitched they had to lay out the whole plan for all five seasons.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think it's cool that they listen to the feedback

[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_02]: but I also think it's great that they're like,

[00:53:59] [SPEAKER_02]: well we've got our story and this is what we're doing

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_02]: so we're not going to suddenly go, oh fans don't like it so we're going to change it.

[00:54:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's their vision and I think that's great.

[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean I imagine if the feedback had been,

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_03]: we can't follow it, what's happening, this doesn't make sense.

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_03]: They might have listened more to that

[00:54:15] [SPEAKER_03]: but since the feedback was a mix of, oh it's so pretty I love it

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_03]: and it's not the Tolkien that I wanted it to be,

[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_03]: like there's no reason to listen to that feedback.

[00:54:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Right? That's just whiny people.

[00:54:30] [SPEAKER_03]: And on behalf of the, oh my god it's so pretty people,

[00:54:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm glad they're going to follow their plan.

[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Some of the notes I took when I was doing the rewatch,

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_03]: I just wrote down, my god the costumes are beautiful.

[00:54:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Like it's all alone on the page, that's all it says.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah even the detractors, no one can deny

[00:54:49] [SPEAKER_02]: that it is just one of the most beautiful spectacular things

[00:54:52] [SPEAKER_02]: that we've ever seen on our screens anywhere.

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It's gorgeous.

[00:54:57] [SPEAKER_03]: Our second piece of news is about The Hunt for Gollum

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_03]: and this is from rnz.co.nz.

[00:55:04] [SPEAKER_03]: What does RNZ stand for there?

[00:55:06] [SPEAKER_02]: It's Radio New Zealand.

[00:55:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Ah Radio New Zealand.

[00:55:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And the headline is Revealed Lord of the Rings

[00:55:11] [SPEAKER_03]: movie's production hub to be in Wellington,

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_03]: R&Z news, that's good news.

[00:55:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Andy Serkis has arrived in New Zealand

[00:55:18] [SPEAKER_03]: to begin filming on The Hunt for Gollum.

[00:55:20] [SPEAKER_03]: He will return in his role as Gollum

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_03]: and also direct the first film

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_03]: which is set to hit screens in 2026.

[00:55:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Head of Attraction for Screen Wellington Mark Westerby said

[00:55:31] [SPEAKER_03]: news of the production was a huge win for the capital

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_03]: and the country's film industry as a whole.

[00:55:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Westerby said the production would also be a chance

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_03]: for a new generation of filmmakers to prove themselves

[00:55:41] [SPEAKER_03]: on the world stage.

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_03]: There will be a lot of experienced people

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_03]: that will be working on this

[00:55:46] [SPEAKER_03]: but I think there are also lots of opportunities

[00:55:50] [SPEAKER_03]: for people who are entering the industry

[00:55:52] [SPEAKER_03]: to cut their teeth as well.

[00:55:53] [SPEAKER_03]: There are so many opportunities for young people

[00:55:55] [SPEAKER_03]: and young creatives coming through to be involved.

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_03]: There's no better way to learn than on a big film set

[00:56:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Westerby said.

[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Wellington Chamber of Commerce chief executive Simon Arcus

[00:56:05] [SPEAKER_03]: said the country was considerably better poised

[00:56:07] [SPEAKER_03]: to capitalize on the economic opportunities

[00:56:09] [SPEAKER_03]: presented by the films

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_03]: than when the franchise first began.

[00:56:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Tourism New Zealand chief executive René Desmonchi

[00:56:17] [SPEAKER_03]: said the original film still represented a powerful draw

[00:56:20] [SPEAKER_03]: to the country's attractions.

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_03]: He said about 14% of holiday visitors cited The Hobbit

[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_03]: and The Lord of the Rings as key motivators

[00:56:27] [SPEAKER_03]: for their interest in...

[00:56:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Can you say that word, Anne Lynn?

[00:56:33] Aotearoa.

[00:56:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Aotearoa.

[00:56:35] [SPEAKER_03]: It's beautiful.

[00:56:36] [SPEAKER_03]: That's an intimidating spelling

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_03]: and it's a very beautiful sound.

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_03]: My hopes would be that the movies again

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_03]: become a fantastic moving billboard

[00:56:45] [SPEAKER_03]: for the beauty of New Zealand's landscape.

[00:56:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Once visitors are here, about a third of them

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_03]: will go to a location or participate in a tour

[00:56:53] [SPEAKER_03]: or a Hobbit or Lord of the Rings related experience,

[00:56:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Desmonchi said.

[00:56:57] [SPEAKER_03]: However on the streets of Wellington,

[00:56:59] [SPEAKER_03]: reviews were a little more mixed.

[00:57:01] [SPEAKER_03]: When The Hobbit came out, I was like,

[00:57:03] [SPEAKER_03]: it's too much already.

[00:57:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Three movies out of one book.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Now they're doing more.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm shocked.

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_03]: One person said,

[00:57:09] [SPEAKER_03]: there's always going to be somebody like that.

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Another was concerned the ongoing sequels

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_03]: would water down the impact of the original trilogy.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Don't ruin the original movies.

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_03]: They're so good.

[00:57:18] [SPEAKER_03]: The battle scenes are amazing, he said.

[00:57:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Another local was more pragmatic.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_03]: It will be good for Wellington

[00:57:24] [SPEAKER_03]: and keeps us up there in terms of our creativity

[00:57:27] [SPEAKER_03]: and profile and also in terms of our work

[00:57:29] [SPEAKER_03]: in the film industry.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, it's good, he said.

[00:57:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that journalist has been to journalism school 101.

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_02]: They're like, okay, go out on the streets.

[00:57:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I want someone who doesn't like it,

[00:57:40] [SPEAKER_02]: someone who does like it

[00:57:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and someone who's kind of neutral and pragmatic.

[00:57:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, yeah.

[00:57:45] That's right.

[00:57:45] [SPEAKER_03]: I agree that it can only be good

[00:57:48] [SPEAKER_03]: for Wellington and for New Zealand.

[00:57:51] [SPEAKER_03]: First of all, it's going to pour some outside money

[00:57:54] [SPEAKER_03]: into the New Zealand economy.

[00:57:56] [SPEAKER_03]: That's always good for the country.

[00:57:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And it's just going to remind everyone

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_03]: about how much they love the Lord of the Rings movies.

[00:58:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And I know whenever I talk to somebody

[00:58:06] [SPEAKER_03]: about Lord of the Rings, about this podcast,

[00:58:10] [SPEAKER_03]: about the Rings of Power,

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_03]: New Zealand always comes up and they always say,

[00:58:15] [SPEAKER_03]: God, I really want to go there

[00:58:16] [SPEAKER_03]: ever since I saw the movies.

[00:58:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And so any movie that shows New Zealand

[00:58:22] [SPEAKER_03]: is going to remind people

[00:58:24] [SPEAKER_03]: that they want to visit New Zealand.

[00:58:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Definitely.

[00:58:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's so great because it was amazing

[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_02]: to have the Rings of Power season one filmed here,

[00:58:34] [SPEAKER_02]: but we all know it's been moved to the UK

[00:58:36] [SPEAKER_02]: for subsequent seasons.

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's really great to know that

[00:58:41] [SPEAKER_02]: The Hunt for Gollum is going to be filmed here.

[00:58:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's The Hunt for Gollum.

[00:58:44] [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to be spending a lot of time outside.

[00:58:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think Andy Serkis directing,

[00:58:49] [SPEAKER_02]: he loves New Zealand.

[00:58:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that he's directing,

[00:58:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's going to make a big impact

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_02]: on what they're shooting

[00:58:55] [SPEAKER_02]: and where they're shooting it here in New Zealand

[00:58:57] [SPEAKER_02]: and again, bringing all those people to visit.

[00:59:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And I had this really cool T-shirt actually

[00:59:04] [SPEAKER_02]: when I was tour guiding for the Lord of the Rings tours.

[00:59:06] [SPEAKER_02]: There was some company that released these T-shirts

[00:59:09] [SPEAKER_02]: that said Aotearoa Middle Earth New Zealand

[00:59:12] [SPEAKER_02]: just across the front of them.

[00:59:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was really cool.

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So Maori is our official language

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_02]: along with English and New Zealand sign language.

[00:59:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So we have three official languages in New Zealand.

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of the time people do call our country

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Aotearoa, not New Zealand.

[00:59:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's nice when you see it put into articles as well.

[00:59:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, sorry I sprung that on you, Penny.

[00:59:33] [SPEAKER_02]: That's all right.

[00:59:34] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a beautiful word and I'm going to practice it offline

[00:59:37] [SPEAKER_03]: so that I can get it right

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_03]: because I want to be able to say it

[00:59:40] [SPEAKER_03]: when I visit New Zealand, hopefully next year.

[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yay, come on over.

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Yep.

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And the word Aotearoa means land of the long white cloud.

[00:59:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's got quite a nice poetic meaning as well.

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_02]: That's our little PSA for coming to visit New Zealand.

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Please do.

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a pretty cool place.

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_02]: We love it.

[00:59:59] [SPEAKER_02]: All right, so we have another article

[01:00:01] [SPEAKER_02]: that is all about the War of the Rohirrim

[01:00:04] [SPEAKER_02]: and this is from variety.com.

[01:00:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is talking about

[01:00:09] [SPEAKER_02]: the War of the Rohirrim trailer which has debuted.

[01:00:12] [SPEAKER_02]: More Middle Earth action awaits.

[01:00:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Warner Brothers has released the trailer

[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_02]: for the anime feature film, The Lord of the Rings,

[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_02]: The War of the Rohirrim,

[01:00:19] [SPEAKER_02]: set to be released on December 13th.

[01:00:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Directed by Kenji Kameyama,

[01:00:23] [SPEAKER_02]: The War of the Rohirrim takes place 261 years before

[01:00:27] [SPEAKER_02]: the epic events of The Fellowship of the Ring.

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Featuring Hal Mahamahand as the protagonist,

[01:00:32] [SPEAKER_02]: the film is based on a story by JRR Tolkien

[01:00:34] [SPEAKER_02]: included in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings.

[01:00:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Brian Cox voices the iconic King of Rohan,

[01:00:41] [SPEAKER_02]: while Miranda Otto,

[01:00:42] [SPEAKER_02]: who starred in Peter Jackson's film trilogy,

[01:00:44] [SPEAKER_02]: returns to lend her voice to her original character, Eowyn.

[01:00:47] [SPEAKER_02]: In the new animated film,

[01:00:48] [SPEAKER_02]: the King must defend his land

[01:00:50] [SPEAKER_02]: against an army of Dunlendings

[01:00:52] [SPEAKER_02]: in this origin story,

[01:00:53] [SPEAKER_02]: revealing how the stronghold Helm's Deep got its name.

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And I watched this trailer a couple of times.

[01:01:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It's amazing.

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's very different to what I expected.

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't even remember if I'd heard before

[01:01:05] [SPEAKER_02]: that it was going to be an anime style.

[01:01:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I knew animated,

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_03]: but I didn't connect that to anime in my head.

[01:01:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[01:01:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And when I saw it, I was like, oh.

[01:01:15] [SPEAKER_03]: It really reminded me of one of my favorite cartoons

[01:01:18] [SPEAKER_03]: as a child, Star Blazers.

[01:01:21] [SPEAKER_03]: It had a very similar look to it,

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_02]: which made me happy.

[01:01:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I love seeing that style, that anime style,

[01:01:27] [SPEAKER_02]: because I think that animation and sort of CGI imagery

[01:01:32] [SPEAKER_02]: has just come so far that it's,

[01:01:34] [SPEAKER_02]: a lot of what we see is so photo realistic

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_02]: and the way they treat light and fire and water

[01:01:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and all that kind of things

[01:01:43] [SPEAKER_02]: that we sometimes see in animated films,

[01:01:46] [SPEAKER_02]: just looks incredible.

[01:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And to go right back to this style,

[01:01:50] [SPEAKER_02]: which is very sort of,

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_02]: they used to do it with,

[01:01:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure they do it on computers now,

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER_02]: but they used to do it with cells

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_02]: so that actually draw onto film

[01:01:57] [SPEAKER_02]: and everything had an outline

[01:01:59] [SPEAKER_02]: and everything had really specific sort of shaded colors.

[01:02:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what we see in this trailer.

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_02]: It does look amazing.

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's going to be really, really cool.

[01:02:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, you hear Miranda Otto in the trailer as well

[01:02:10] [SPEAKER_02]: and I think it's pretty clear

[01:02:11] [SPEAKER_02]: that she's going to be narrating the story as Eowyn,

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_02]: looking back on these ancestors.

[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, talk about your strong female characters.

[01:02:21] [SPEAKER_02]: It looks like definitely got a good lead in there as well.

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's going to be really cool to see.

[01:02:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, to see something in the theater too.

[01:02:27] [SPEAKER_02]: How awesome at Christmas time, you know?

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it

[01:02:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and we will cover it on the podcast.

[01:02:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, excellent.

[01:02:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Can't wait.

[01:02:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, well we got a little bit of listener feedback

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_02]: just regarding the first season

[01:02:40] [SPEAKER_02]: and looking forward to the second season.

[01:02:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Mark McBurney says, I look forward to listening.

[01:02:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Mark.

[01:02:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Renee Murray says, I'm so excited.

[01:02:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And then there's three emojis.

[01:02:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Are those hand clapping emojis?

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, those hand clapping.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Hand clapping.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Send in some voicemail, Renee.

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_02]: We love hearing your voicemails.

[01:02:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think you've called into our show,

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_02]: but we do hear you on our other shows.

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So please call in.

[01:03:02] [SPEAKER_02]: We can't wait to hear from you.

[01:03:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And speaking of callers,

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Steve Brown also says, can't wait to hear it.

[01:03:08] [SPEAKER_03]: We can't wait to hear you, Steve.

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_03]: It's gonna be great.

[01:03:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Megan Dively-Layman says, my hope is that I actually

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_03]: get a chance to watch the series

[01:03:17] [SPEAKER_03]: and catch up before season three

[01:03:19] [SPEAKER_03]: because the Olympics just ruined my chance of it now.

[01:03:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh no, sad face emoji.

[01:03:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Megan, jump in on season two.

[01:03:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope you catch up.

[01:03:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the good thing about these shows now

[01:03:30] [SPEAKER_02]: is they're only eight episodes long.

[01:03:32] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was looking at various shows

[01:03:35] [SPEAKER_02]: and was thinking about, you know,

[01:03:36] [SPEAKER_02]: going back and watching things.

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I really tended to watch Lost again.

[01:03:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And some of these shows that run five, six, seven, eight,

[01:03:42] [SPEAKER_02]: nine, 10 seasons and they've got 23 episodes.

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you do your Buffy podcast.

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the same thing.

[01:03:48] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just a lot.

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a big commitment.

[01:03:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But you can catch up with this pretty quickly.

[01:03:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So I hope you can join us, Megan.

[01:03:54] [SPEAKER_02]: That'd be great.

[01:03:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And we got a message from Jonathan Bookalil.

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_02]: At first he wrote, my hope is no sexy shirtless Sauron.

[01:04:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he followed that up with, haha,

[01:04:05] [SPEAKER_02]: That is my main hope for the show.

[01:04:07] [SPEAKER_02]: A very thirsty Sauron and I think we're going to get it.

[01:04:10] [SPEAKER_02]: In truth, I'd really like something that feels like Tolkien.

[01:04:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Characters I care about who strive to serve others

[01:04:15] [SPEAKER_02]: with courage and sacrifice and with a sense of honor.

[01:04:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Battle scenes that inspire and amaze.

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Less polish, more grit.

[01:04:21] [SPEAKER_02]: A Galadriel that I recognize from the book and movie

[01:04:23] [SPEAKER_02]: who is kinder and wiser than who we've had.

[01:04:26] [SPEAKER_02]: A feeling that going out your door is a dangerous business.

[01:04:28] [SPEAKER_02]: You step onto the road and if you don't keep your feet,

[01:04:30] [SPEAKER_02]: there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

[01:04:33] [SPEAKER_03]: Jonathan is always so poetic.

[01:04:36] [SPEAKER_03]: If you have not yet watched Shogun,

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_03]: race out and do that because it's fantastic.

[01:04:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And then listen to our coverage of Shogun on this podcast,

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_03]: which was Jonathan, me and our friend Sam.

[01:04:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you like Rings of Power, you will like Shogun.

[01:04:54] [SPEAKER_03]: It's majestic.

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER_03]: It is gorgeous.

[01:04:58] [SPEAKER_03]: It's intricate politics and the female characters are fantastic.

[01:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Sounds great. I haven't watched it yet.

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I will have to save that up for post Rings of Power.

[01:05:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a little bit more time back on my hands.

[01:05:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, there's now there's going to be a season two of Shogun.

[01:05:17] [SPEAKER_03]: They they're working on it.

[01:05:19] [SPEAKER_03]: So you're going to have a little bit of time until that comes out

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_03]: to catch up on what is now season one.

[01:05:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And we'll we'll be back for season two, I'm sure.

[01:05:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Great. I can't wait.

[01:05:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And your podcast coverage was covering the whole first season.

[01:05:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So I guess people watch this first season,

[01:05:36] [SPEAKER_02]: listen to your recap of the first season,

[01:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: and then we can go straight into episode by episode.

[01:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: That'll be good.

[01:05:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, thanks everyone for the amazing feedback.

[01:05:44] [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to write in or leave us a message,

[01:05:46] [SPEAKER_02]: you can find all of our contact information at podcastticket.com.

[01:05:50] [SPEAKER_02]: We love messages hearing from you all and we love voicemails as well.

[01:05:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I have had a couple of people write to me and ask about the voicemail thing.

[01:05:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I just want to let you know how easy it is to do.

[01:06:02] [SPEAKER_03]: If you have a smartphone, it has a voice memo app.

[01:06:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Open the voice memo app.

[01:06:07] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't even know where it's saved on my phone.

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_03]: I just ask Siri to open the voice memo app, hit record,

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_03]: talk into your phone like you're talking on the phone.

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_03]: When you're done recording, attach that to an email

[01:06:19] [SPEAKER_03]: and send it to talk at podcast.com.

[01:06:22] [SPEAKER_03]: It's that easy.

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Also, you can record as many of them as you want until you get it just right

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_03]: and then send it in.

[01:06:28] [SPEAKER_03]: You don't have to send us your first recording.

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's super easy and you can even email it straight out of the app.

[01:06:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So when you select the recording and there's like a little email out icon

[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_02]: and it's really good. It's really easy.

[01:06:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And it always gives actually really good quality as well.

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Most smartphones have a pretty good recording device.

[01:06:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So give it a go if you've never done it before and tell us if it's your first one.

[01:06:49] [SPEAKER_02]: We'd love to hear your voice.

[01:06:52] [SPEAKER_03]: While you're on podcast.com, it's a good time to check out some of our other shows.

[01:06:57] [SPEAKER_03]: There are a bunch that are just now wrapping up.

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Ted Lasso on the Revisited podcast.

[01:07:03] [SPEAKER_03]: They either just finished or about to finish the final episode of the third season for that.

[01:07:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And up next, they'll be covering The Good Place, which was a real favorite of mine.

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm looking forward to that coverage.

[01:07:16] [SPEAKER_03]: House of the Dragon just finished.

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Cobra Kai just finished.

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And there's more stuff coming up in the future.

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Starting at the end of September is going to be The Walking Dead,

[01:07:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Daryl Dixon, The Book of Carol.

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_03]: That coverage will be starting.

[01:07:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And then also if you are not committing yourself to a full series of anything at the moment,

[01:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Run For Your Lives is a great podcast which just covers movies.

[01:07:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And so if you just want to dip in and out,

[01:07:45] [SPEAKER_02]: obviously it doesn't matter which ones you listen to when

[01:07:47] [SPEAKER_02]: because they will just cover one particular movie.

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_02]: You can just scroll through, see which movie you like,

[01:07:52] [SPEAKER_02]: and have a listen there to Paik and Daphne covering that.

[01:07:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And as you might be able to tell from the title,

[01:07:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Run For Your Lives, they cover disaster movies,

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_02]: monster movies, horror movies, anything where the characters have to run away.

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's a really good theme and definitely covers a whole bunch of really good movies.

[01:08:08] [SPEAKER_03]: They just released an episode that's sort of a retrospective of the worst movies they've ever covered.

[01:08:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And I cannot wait to listen to it.

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_03]: That just seems like a really funny idea for an episode.

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Love that.

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_02]: In the next episode of this podcast, we will be covering the Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 1.

[01:08:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So exciting!

[01:08:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Yay!

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And they are going to be this time dropping the first three episodes at once.

[01:08:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's a little mini binge for everybody.

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_02]: We are still going to cover each episode separately.

[01:08:38] [SPEAKER_02]: The first two will come out pretty soon after they drop

[01:08:41] [SPEAKER_02]: and then the next two will be doing the following weekend

[01:08:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and then weekly from there.

[01:08:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So please feel free to send in separate feedback for each episode if you like.

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Or if you can't help yourself and you just sit down and watch all three in a row on the day that they drop,

[01:08:56] [SPEAKER_02]: send us one epic message and we'll play it after the third episode.

[01:09:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And for now, if you want to avoid any speculation and potential spoilers for Season 2,

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_02]: you can stop listening.

[01:09:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, if you're happy to be spoiled or speculated,

[01:09:12] [SPEAKER_02]: please stay with us as we look into Galadriel's Mirror.

[01:09:14] [SPEAKER_02]: This is where we're going to discuss how this show compares with the book

[01:09:18] [SPEAKER_02]: and some of the things that we think might happen next based on the source material.

[01:09:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, well we're going to start off with the Galadriel's Mirror

[01:09:41] [SPEAKER_02]: with a little piece of spoilery news from ScreenRant.com.

[01:09:47] [SPEAKER_02]: So The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power Season 1 made some controversial decisions

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_02]: in its choice of plot and characters.

[01:09:52] [SPEAKER_02]: It looks like The Rings of Power Season 2 will be no different

[01:09:55] [SPEAKER_02]: with certain characters standing out.

[01:09:57] [SPEAKER_02]: The Rings of Power had a mixed reception on its 2022 launch

[01:10:01] [SPEAKER_02]: with its original material coming under fire for stepping away from a faithful adaptation of Tolkien's work.

[01:10:06] [SPEAKER_02]: The show's original characters included Durin's wife, Disa, Bronwyn, the elf, Arondir,

[01:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: and the halfwits, Nori, Poppy, and their community.

[01:10:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Season 2 will add more original characters.

[01:10:17] [SPEAKER_02]: With The Rings of Power set in Tolkien's Second Age,

[01:10:20] [SPEAKER_02]: it's using the appendices to legendary fantasy author Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

[01:10:25] [SPEAKER_02]: for its source material with rights to adapt these plus The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

[01:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It's often pulling on scant resources since the majority of Tolkien's words on the Second Age

[01:10:34] [SPEAKER_02]: are in works that the show doesn't have the rights to adapt, such as The Silmarillion.

[01:10:39] [SPEAKER_02]: The show bulks out this content with original material

[01:10:41] [SPEAKER_02]: and Season 2's newly announced original characters may prove divisive.

[01:10:46] [SPEAKER_02]: In an exclusive for Entertainment Weekly,

[01:10:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Amazon Prime Video revealed that it would include the Stoars as new Rings of Power original characters.

[01:10:53] [SPEAKER_02]: The show's choice to include Halfwits, the race that preceded The Hobbits,

[01:10:56] [SPEAKER_02]: was met with controversy throughout Season 1, The Rings of Power,

[01:10:59] [SPEAKER_02]: and they were doubling down on the stance,

[01:11:01] [SPEAKER_02]: including another pre-Hobbit race that led to the Third Age community.

[01:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: The Stoars were one of three pre-Hobbit communities,

[01:11:09] [SPEAKER_02]: with the final one being the Fallow Hydes who have not yet been added to the show.

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_02]: The Stoars were revealed to be living in part of a Middle Earth called Rune

[01:11:15] [SPEAKER_02]: in The Rings of Power Season 2, which isn't their canonical place of residence.

[01:11:19] [SPEAKER_02]: The Stoars in Tolkien's world were water lovers who dwelt beside the Anduin River.

[01:11:24] [SPEAKER_02]: New Stoar actor Gabby Singh-Chera commented,

[01:11:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you then travel and come across a river, it might seem like the ultimate oasis.

[01:11:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Despite this link to canon, the show's change to the Stoars' Tolkien-sanctioned location won't please everyone.

[01:11:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, Penny, I don't know if you have seen much about the Stoars,

[01:11:47] [SPEAKER_02]: but because they're not actually in the trailers,

[01:11:49] [SPEAKER_02]: like there's no evidence of them at all in any of the trailers that I've seen,

[01:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: but I've seen quite a few images of pictures of them from the series.

[01:11:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Have you seen much about them?

[01:11:57] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I haven't.

[01:11:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I haven't been following the coverage as much because I'm sort of wary of spoiling.

[01:12:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's sort of like even if we know a little bit about what might happen,

[01:12:10] [SPEAKER_02]: we don't want to spoil ourselves too much.

[01:12:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But I have seen a couple of pictures and yeah,

[01:12:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I think we'll probably have more to say on that when we do our first couple of episodes.

[01:12:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But it is going to be quite cool to see how they do that.

[01:12:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, a whole new race for season 2.

[01:12:24] [SPEAKER_03]: So maybe there will be some women in it.

[01:12:26] [SPEAKER_03]: That would be great.

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, so my understanding of the Stoars is that as an opposition to the later Hobbits

[01:12:35] [SPEAKER_02]: and also to the Halfwoods, the Stoars are actually a matriarchy.

[01:12:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So you have a powerful woman leader.

[01:12:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So woohoo!

[01:12:42] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm so excited.

[01:12:44] [SPEAKER_03]: It is like it's just for me.

[01:12:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Patrick McKay.

[01:12:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_02]: That's so cool.

[01:12:50] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[01:12:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So just a couple of bits, I guess, thinking about what might happen for this season.

[01:12:57] [SPEAKER_02]: My biggest thing is what is going to happen with Anatar?

[01:13:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So we know if we know the stories,

[01:13:04] [SPEAKER_02]: we know that Sauron appears to the Elves as this Elven character,

[01:13:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Anatar, the giver of gifts.

[01:13:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And he is the form which Sauron takes to create the rings of power

[01:13:16] [SPEAKER_02]: with Celebrimbor and his Elven smiths.

[01:13:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Now we've seen him in the trailer, right?

[01:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: He's like Hellbrand crossed with Legolas.

[01:13:23] [SPEAKER_02]: He's got the long blonde hair and the pointy ears.

[01:13:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And we see him in a lot of conversations with Celebrimbor.

[01:13:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And in the lore, in the stories, the seven rings and the nine rings,

[01:13:37] [SPEAKER_02]: the ones that are eventually given to the dwarves

[01:13:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and the ones that are eventually given to men,

[01:13:41] [SPEAKER_02]: are made before the three.

[01:13:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So I can't wait to see what they're going to do with that.

[01:13:46] [SPEAKER_02]: How does that work?

[01:13:48] [SPEAKER_02]: My speculation is I think that Anatar has been there all along

[01:13:52] [SPEAKER_02]: and that the stuff that we see with him and Celebrimbor

[01:13:55] [SPEAKER_02]: is kind of going to be flashback.

[01:13:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Or we're going to get a little bit of Celebrimbor going,

[01:14:00] [SPEAKER_02]: oh, I don't know what's been happening.

[01:14:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I've got all these memories of this other person

[01:14:04] [SPEAKER_02]: and we're going to see it in flashback.

[01:14:06] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to make sense for him to come back now and be Anatar?

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_02]: What do you think?

[01:14:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Unless, I mean, he looks like Hellbrand.

[01:14:15] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that just the change to his hair

[01:14:18] [SPEAKER_03]: and having the pointy ears is enough to disguise him

[01:14:23] [SPEAKER_03]: if Anatar is close in time to Hellbrand.

[01:14:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, if they do a time jump,

[01:14:29] [SPEAKER_03]: which we don't have reason to believe that they're going to,

[01:14:32] [SPEAKER_03]: but let's say they were like, and it's been 500 years.

[01:14:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Or like you're saying, if it's a flashback from a thousand years earlier

[01:14:38] [SPEAKER_03]: or 500 years earlier, it's more believable that the same actor

[01:14:42] [SPEAKER_03]: with the same face could be two different people and not,

[01:14:46] [SPEAKER_03]: and it would go unnoticed.

[01:14:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Although elves are supposed to be superior beings,

[01:14:49] [SPEAKER_03]: so you would think they'd pick up on that?

[01:14:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and he's a shape-shifter.

[01:14:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Sauron can appear in whatever form he wants.

[01:14:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think the fact that Anatar looks like Hellbrand,

[01:15:03] [SPEAKER_02]: he looks like Charlie Vickers is for us.

[01:15:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's, okay, we know that it's the same person,

[01:15:09] [SPEAKER_02]: but I think potentially we're supposed to believe that they don't think it's the same person.

[01:15:14] [SPEAKER_02]: It would make more sense that if that happened first,

[01:15:18] [SPEAKER_02]: because of course now Galeadriel says don't trust Hellbrand, he's bad,

[01:15:22] [SPEAKER_02]: don't talk to him if he comes back.

[01:15:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, if he comes back with long blonde hair,

[01:15:25] [SPEAKER_02]: they're going to go, this isn't quite right.

[01:15:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Whereas if he's been there before and has influenced them

[01:15:33] [SPEAKER_02]: in a number of different ways and even potentially influenced Kalibrenbor

[01:15:37] [SPEAKER_02]: to not remember him or to have his mind clouded.

[01:15:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think we've seen a touch of that in the trailer already

[01:15:43] [SPEAKER_02]: when he's looking in the mirror and he looks all ragged and disheveled

[01:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and he says, what have you done to me?

[01:15:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I think he's messed with Kalibrenbor's mind.

[01:15:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So I believe they're going to go with,

[01:15:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Anatar has been there for a number of months or years previously

[01:15:57] [SPEAKER_02]: before he got on the ship and became Hellbrand.

[01:16:00] [SPEAKER_02]: He was there, the elven smiths made the seven and the nine,

[01:16:04] [SPEAKER_02]: and then it fits with the timeline.

[01:16:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I just think if they mess up the order of the making of the rings,

[01:16:11] [SPEAKER_02]: you're going to get a few people riled up.

[01:16:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So I hope and I think that's what they're going to do.

[01:16:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope they're right because that does make more sense.

[01:16:21] [SPEAKER_03]: It also means that maybe in the conversation he has with Kalibrenbor

[01:16:28] [SPEAKER_03]: where in season one where he's talking about an alloy

[01:16:31] [SPEAKER_03]: and introduces the idea of an alloy,

[01:16:34] [SPEAKER_03]: he talks about like the smith I worked with before

[01:16:36] [SPEAKER_03]: had this idea about alloys

[01:16:39] [SPEAKER_03]: and maybe the smith he worked with before was Kalibrenbor.

[01:16:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, that's cool.

[01:16:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that would actually make a lot more sense

[01:16:51] [SPEAKER_02]: because I know that we went and we went, hang on,

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Kalibrenbor is this master smith

[01:16:56] [SPEAKER_02]: and he never thought of doing an alloy before, an alloy.

[01:16:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So that would make sense where if he had kind of clouded his mind

[01:17:03] [SPEAKER_02]: and then came in later and said, oh hey, try this,

[01:17:06] [SPEAKER_02]: then that makes sense why Kalibrenbor was a little bit befuddled.

[01:17:10] [SPEAKER_02]: That makes it better for me.

[01:17:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that would make that story more tidy and circular

[01:17:17] [SPEAKER_03]: and I love when things are circular.

[01:17:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think that we've seen enough of clever storytelling devices

[01:17:25] [SPEAKER_02]: in season one that they can make that work

[01:17:27] [SPEAKER_02]: in terms of bringing them forward and back

[01:17:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and showing the flashbacks and different things that are going to happen.

[01:17:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, maybe future episodes we'll get into

[01:17:37] [SPEAKER_02]: what's going to happen with Kalibrenbor later on

[01:17:40] [SPEAKER_02]: because we saw a tiny flash of it in the trailer

[01:17:43] [SPEAKER_02]: with Kalibrenbor getting spiked and speared

[01:17:45] [SPEAKER_02]: by some things coming out of that tree.

[01:17:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, don't know if that's Galadriel's vision

[01:17:49] [SPEAKER_02]: or if that actually is going to happen

[01:17:52] [SPEAKER_02]: but yeah, that's going to be very exciting to see

[01:17:54] [SPEAKER_02]: because it does not end well for Kalibrenbor.

[01:17:56] [SPEAKER_02]: This is a spoiler section guys, so hopefully you're happy with knowing that.

[01:18:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Your first clue is that we don't meet him in Lord of the Rings

[01:18:05] [SPEAKER_03]: so he's not around anymore.

[01:18:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he's gone.

[01:18:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's going to be really good to see

[01:18:13] [SPEAKER_02]: and yeah, more to follow on that one.

[01:18:16] [SPEAKER_02]: The only other piece that I had was in the trailer,

[01:18:20] [SPEAKER_02]: we do now see a new wizard character

[01:18:24] [SPEAKER_02]: so you've got the Stranger and Nori heading off into the east

[01:18:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and they are going to meet a new character there

[01:18:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and they've confirmed that this is a wizard.

[01:18:37] [SPEAKER_02]: He's played by Ciaran Hines

[01:18:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and we see a picture of him with this big black staff

[01:18:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and he's got kind of like dark hair

[01:18:47] [SPEAKER_02]: but with kind of grey streaks in it.

[01:18:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Have you got any thoughts on this character, Penny?

[01:18:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I believe that it's probably Saruman

[01:18:58] [SPEAKER_03]: or one of the wizards that we haven't met in the other books

[01:19:02] [SPEAKER_03]: but it makes a lot more sense if the Stranger is Gandalf

[01:19:07] [SPEAKER_03]: for this to be Saruman.

[01:19:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I also think that Ciaran Hines is an amazing casting choice

[01:19:15] [SPEAKER_03]: for a wizard of Middle-earth.

[01:19:19] [SPEAKER_03]: He's amazing, isn't he?

[01:19:20] [SPEAKER_02]: He's captivating, I love everything he's in.

[01:19:22] [SPEAKER_03]: I always love him, he's always good

[01:19:25] [SPEAKER_03]: and he brings gravitas to the role

[01:19:28] [SPEAKER_03]: and Saruman has always had that like

[01:19:32] [SPEAKER_03]: the leader of the wizards quality about him.

[01:19:37] [SPEAKER_03]: He's serious and he's a little darker than the other ones.

[01:19:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm excited about this.

[01:19:45] [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's going to be really cool.

[01:19:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think we'll do some more detail about that

[01:19:50] [SPEAKER_02]: when we first actually see him on screen

[01:19:52] [SPEAKER_02]: but I agree, I think he is going to be Saruman.

[01:19:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I think they're moving towards the Stranger being Gandalf

[01:19:58] [SPEAKER_02]: and that makes sense that Saruman is already here.

[01:20:01] [SPEAKER_02]: It's known that he was the first one

[01:20:03] [SPEAKER_02]: to come to Middle-earth

[01:20:04] [SPEAKER_02]: and it was also known that he was in the East.

[01:20:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think it's where they're going with him

[01:20:08] [SPEAKER_02]: and then looking at the pictures of him

[01:20:10] [SPEAKER_02]: you can see so easily how that visual look

[01:20:13] [SPEAKER_02]: would evolve into Christopher Lee's Saruman.

[01:20:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, let's just see where that goes.

[01:20:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Exciting!

[01:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Anything else from you, Penny,

[01:20:24] [SPEAKER_02]: in terms of spoilers or speculation?

[01:20:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't mention this earlier

[01:20:29] [SPEAKER_03]: but I'm excited to return to Adar and Adar's story.

[01:20:33] [SPEAKER_03]: This isn't even speculation or anything.

[01:20:35] [SPEAKER_03]: I just find his whole thing to be really interesting

[01:20:40] [SPEAKER_03]: and the fact that he leads the orcs

[01:20:43] [SPEAKER_03]: but is not a servant of Sauron

[01:20:45] [SPEAKER_03]: is fascinating to me.

[01:20:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and hopefully we get a bit more

[01:20:49] [SPEAKER_02]: of the background of the history

[01:20:50] [SPEAKER_02]: between Adar and Sauron.

[01:20:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And obviously in the trailer we do get to see Galadriel.

[01:20:56] [SPEAKER_02]: At least if she's not aligning with him

[01:20:58] [SPEAKER_02]: she has been invited to ally with him

[01:21:00] [SPEAKER_02]: so obviously Adar is against Sauron

[01:21:03] [SPEAKER_02]: and so we've got this third ambiguous character

[01:21:08] [SPEAKER_02]: that's between the good and evil

[01:21:09] [SPEAKER_02]: and what is his deal, what does he want?

[01:21:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be really cool to see it

[01:21:13] [SPEAKER_02]: and hopefully it won't take too long

[01:21:15] [SPEAKER_02]: to change our minds from the casting change as well.

[01:21:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure this new actor will do an amazing job too

[01:21:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and yeah, sometimes it just takes a moment.

[01:21:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I remember with The House of the Dragon

[01:21:26] [SPEAKER_02]: taking a few episodes to get used to the change

[01:21:29] [SPEAKER_02]: in actors and then once you're kind of locked into it

[01:21:32] [SPEAKER_02]: it's all good so I think they're going to do well.

[01:21:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm not worried about it.

[01:21:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Alright everybody, that is our show.

[01:21:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for listening everyone.

[01:21:43] [SPEAKER_02]: We really hope you enjoyed our discussion today

[01:21:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and we are super excited to be back next week

[01:21:48] [SPEAKER_02]: to cover season 2, episode 1.

[01:21:52] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope it's amazing.

[01:21:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Hope is never mere

[01:21:57] [SPEAKER_02]: even when it is meagre.