18: "Where the Stars are Strange” (S2E2)

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Podcastica

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Podcastica Podcastica

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Elrond, Elrond

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_06]: The Cast of the Rings, Episode 18

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Where the Stars are Strange

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_06]: The Cast of the Rings, Episode 18

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_06]: The Cast of the Rings, Episode 18

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_00]: The Cast of the Rings, Episode 18

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_00]: The Cast of the Rings, Episode 18

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_00]: The notion of separating art from the artist is something I struggle with constantly.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, every time a writer, actor, musician, politician, but let's stick with artists for now, painter, whoever, is revealed to be a creep on some level.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And those creepinesses range from, you know, Joss Whedon who created probably my favorite television show of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was like basically a giant abusive jerk on set.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: To Bill Cosby, who is a serial essayer. People don't like the word so I won't use it but he did really horrible things and he abused his power in order to do so and he did it for years and years and years and lots of people helped him.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I've made a decision to keep watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer because so many other people were part of that creation and I can sort of separate Joss Whedon from the product.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_00]: It still comes up sometimes for me when I'm watching, sometimes something on screen. I'm like, oh, now that we know what we know about him, that's gross.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I cannot imagine ever being able to watch the Cosby show again. Like he's in every scene. He's on screen all the time. It's named after him and the whole show is about how he's this great guy.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I could ever, ever watch that again. Even though like lots of other lovely people were involved in producing that show.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I similarly can't listen to Michael Jackson's music without thinking about the allegations against him. That's out of my life.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_00]: The other day I saw this really funny picture of some group or this really funny graffiti in my town and I took a picture of it and it was a big construction sign that said bump and somebody had spray painted underneath it and grind.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And when I went to post it on Instagram, I was like, oh, I should push. I should post that picture bump the music bump and grind with the picture. And then I was like, oh, it's R. Kelly.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if he gets royalties if I use his music on Instagram. So I didn't use the music.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Cure Don seems to think who cares about the creator and what they did and who they are as a person.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_00]: If the end result is beautiful. And again, he really focuses at first on the beauty and the perfection, right? He loves perfection. He loves beauty. He's seduced by this beauty.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And. And then he compares Sauron to somebody who has a drinking problem. It's not really a fair comparison, like to say like, oh, we shouldn't listen to these poems because the poet is a drunk is really different from we shouldn't wear these powerful magical objects because they were in part created by a evil sorcerer.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I really feel like he's not making a fair comparison, but he is willing to separate the art from the artist. And I really struggle with when and I don't think this is a good case where you should do it. But when should you do it?

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know the answer to that. And I was wondering what you think. And if listeners want to chime in and let us know what you think, I'd love to hear from you.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, as soon as he said that line.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought of Buffy the vampire slayer.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_06]: And the conversations that you've had on your podcast for that. And the other one I thought of was J.K. Rowling. And and that's a good example for me, I guess, when you ask that question.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm not going to boycott everything J.K. Rowling, because I do believe that the world that she created and the impact that has had on children and young adults everywhere is probably bigger than the stance that she takes on one issue now.

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm a huge reader. I read a lot of books and I know for a fact that there are hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions of kids out there who never read until they read Harry Potter.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_06]: And that opened them up to the world of reading, but also the world of fantasy, which obviously I'm a huge fan of.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_06]: And so some of those things I can separate. I agree with you on the whole Cosby thing as well.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_06]: I've got no desire to watch that show ever again, because it just puts too much more of a spin on what you're looking at.

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_06]: And with Buffy, absolutely. I just take into account that there are so many other people that made that show and that he was one of them. And it's a beautiful thing. The creation is a beautiful thing.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_06]: So with Kurdan, yeah, it's I don't know if it's the best comparison, the one that he makes. I think he's using it just as an illustration to Elrond to look outside his general feelings about it.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_06]: It's interesting because it's quite a short scene, but it's quite packed, isn't it? Like you kind of think about it. You think there's actually lots to unpack in there.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and I think maybe one of the reasons why it's a little bit of a law reason, I guess, is that Elrond was sort of opposed to using the rings or to he didn't trust.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_06]: He didn't trust, there's no Hal Brand in the book, but he didn't trust Anatar. We'll get into Anatar a little bit later. But I think it's a good vehicle to create a little bit of tension on screen and to show those alliances shifting, I guess, and to have Kurdan kind of be the impetus for that for Elrond.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And we still sort of don't know how that's going to go because that very final scene with when Elrond, Gil Adriel finds out that Elrond is going to be her boss on the mission.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_06]: And he just gives her this look and she gives him a look back. I like I love Morford Clarke's acting because there's some scenes where I go, she could be thinking this or she could be thinking the exact opposite. She's really good at that. There's been several scenes like that with her because I could not tell from that look and I watched it a few times.

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Is she annoyed or is she really quite pleased?

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean she, she wants to go on the mission. And she did admit that she doesn't really trust herself. And so she is happy I think that Elrond is going, but a little annoyed that she got sort of called out by the king in front of him about it.

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_00]: She, when she first went to Elrond, she sort of pretended like it was her idea to have him come on the mission and that she was just extending this invitation to him out of the, you know, out of friendship or respect or something.

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, he pushes back and she's like well the king trusts you. And he's like, yeah, dog is steadfast. And then she's like the king won't let me go unless you go.

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Like he had to force her to say it. And I think her pride was a little dinged, but now that it's been out, it's out there that she doesn't feel safe without Elrond as like a babysitter almost.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know in that scene. She seemed, she seemed annoyed to me, but I got the feeling it wasn't because he was in charge. It was because of how it went down.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. I mean, I think overall I did really like, I just, one of the things I loved about this episode sort of related to that is that relationship between Galadriel and Gagallad just seemed to settle down a little bit.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_06]: And instead of being the finger wagging and the impestuous child and the finger wagging dad, it felt more like they were, and he even says, you know, we're temporarily aligned kind of thing.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_06]: But they did listen to each other more and they did pay attention a bit more. And yeah, Gagallad grew on me a huge amount in this episode.

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_00]: He got more interesting. They gave him things to say that weren't just exposition or pronouncements. So that was lovely. I liked the scene when they sort of compared what the rings were doing to them.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. She's having these prescient visions and he's having visions of sort of vague visions of darkness, but dark omens, but not as specific apparently as hers.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It's yeah it's interesting. It reminds me of how I guess I have Slayer on the brain, how Buffy and Faith, even when they're at odds with each other are the only people who truly understand each other.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And so they always have this commonality, even though they also have this like long history of enmity.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So you know she has a ring he has a ring who else are they going to talk to about it? Kierdan is the only other person.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah and they're experiencing a similar thing together. I thought it was really interesting that Gagallad covered up his ring when she was talking about it and also he's taken off the rest of his King Bling.

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_06]: He's only wearing that. Yeah it's only that ring which is really interesting because I definitely noticed all this other bling when he first put it on.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_06]: So that was really cool and yeah I like that they're comparing what the powers that it has.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_06]: And because the rings so the three rings they don't give you new powers but they're supposed to enhance the powers that you've already got.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_06]: And I like when Gilgallad says to her, you believe the rings have kindled your ability to see that which has not yet come to pass.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_06]: And I loved the wording of that. It's really similar to Galadriel's mirror and those of you who continue on each week to listen to our spoilers you'll hear the clip of Galadriel there from the Peter Jackson movie.

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_06]: In the movie she says things that were things that are and some things that have not yet come to pass.

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_06]: So the wording was actually really similar but it's slightly different from the book.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_06]: So the book says what you will see if you leave the mirror free to work I cannot tell for it shows things that were and things that are and things that yet may be.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_06]: So the whole things that have not yet come to pass is a direct callback I think and I really like that.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_06]: And Galadriel actually had this gift early on so way way before she got the ring.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_06]: She had this gift of insight into the minds of others, but she generally would judge them with mercy and understanding and she held this.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_06]: She basically treated everyone really well with that except for Feanor.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_06]: So if you remember Feanor is her uncle and he's the one that led the charge out of Valinor to go and hunt down Morgoth, which sounds good in itself but he did a lot of awful things.

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_06]: We can read the Silmarillion if you really want to know.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_06]: But in him she perceived this darkness and she basically judged him for it but was fine with everybody else.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_06]: So anytime that she could perceive the thoughts of others she didn't use it for evil or to manipulate them.

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_06]: She really just used it for good.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_06]: And I found a cool little snippet here as well from the Unfinished Tales.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_06]: In a letter to his friend Tolkien stated that the rings of power could only enhance the natural powers of the possessor but not grant entirely new powers.

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_06]: And these powers that Galadriel had were from an early age before she obtained the ring Nenya and they included being able to perceive the thoughts of others, communicate over vast distances, predict the future and even cloak her mind from other powerful beings.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_06]: And she once stated that Sauron could not perceive her mind although she could perceive his.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_06]: So there's an interesting little piece of lore that's fairly deep and sort of seems to contradict some of the things that we're seeing on screen but again Tolkien himself contradicted himself sometimes.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah I like that and I like that he, the thing I love about that scene was that it shows that he knows her.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_06]: You know because all the other scenes it seemed a lot like she's just coming in and she's done something bad and he's telling her off.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_06]: This is a lot more like he actually understands her and knows her and is seeing the effect of the ring on her which I liked a lot more.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah it showed history, there was a history feeling between them in the conversation.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And also a sense of mutual respect that I hadn't really seen before.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_00]: He just always seemed irritated with her existence before.

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Anything else about Cirda and the earnest scene with Elrond?

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so he goes on after saying the thing about the drunk poet.

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Elrond says I wish I could know your piece and Cirdon says you can.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_00]: We do not yet fully understand these rings but look at the power they exert over every form of life and that's when he puts his hand in the water and draws the fish to him and then flips one fish out on the bank, which I have to admit was really cool and that would be a cool power.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_00]: In Sauron's hands they could work an evil beyond reckoning, dominating the minds and wills of all.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_00]: This is why they must remain in the hands of the elves.

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And I just question whether that's actually a logical series of statements because they're very powerful.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_00]: If Sauron gets them, they could do something horrible.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_00]: We don't fully understand them so we got to hold on to them.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of like we got to destroy them.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_00]: We can't let him or we got to just keep them safe.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_00]: He's, he's not saying like we shouldn't wear them we shouldn't use the power.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_00]: He's like let's use the power.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_00]: We're so good.

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_00]: We elves are so incorruptible and awesome that like even if Sauron has a plan for these rings we're going to be good.

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just very arrogant to my mind.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_00]: He says you are wise to fear this power Elrond but do not let that fear blind you to the ways it can be used for good, who it is not your enemy that bears these rings, but your most trusted friends.

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_00]: It reminds me of the sort of thinking that that got us.

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_00]: You know Oppenheimer and, and the atomic bomb and that a lot of scientists and technologists use for things like AI that like oh but we're going to use it for good things, just because it could be used for bad things doesn't mean we're going to use it

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_00]: for bad things.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And then it.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_00]: It always ends up being used for bad things.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know I've seen too many movies, and you know, I think Terminator could really happen, but I'm kidding I don't believe in robot time travel.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_00]: But I do believe that with great power comes great responsibility to quote Spider-Man and assuming that we're a good person and incorruptible and therefore can handle great power is the highest form of hubris, and it's Shakespearean

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_00]: it's biblical, you know it goes back to the roots of Western culture to know that power corrupts.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I am.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_05]: I agree. I think.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_06]: First of all, I think you're very timely with your Terminator reference because I saw something on Facebook yesterday I think it said August 29 2024 was the date that Skynet became self aware.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_06]: Like yay didn't happen. I don't think two days ago that we know.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think because like, yeah it's interesting because he doesn't sort of, he talks about the reason for being good is that we're just going to not let Sauron get his hands on it because Sauron would use it for bad.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_06]: He doesn't really focus much on the good that they've seen about the healing of the tree and the, you know, what we've seen about the elves and you know like it's more that he's focusing on not what will be bad about it instead of what will be good.

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_06]: You know what I mean?

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_00]: His argument just doesn't, maybe this is again my lawyer brain but like, where's your evidence? Where's your backup? That's not logical. You didn't make a good case. You're making an emotional argument, not a logical one.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_00]: He just seems to be enchanted by the rings frankly and it kind of reminds me of like when someone who you know is very smart and capable and they fall for the wrong person and make all kinds of bad decisions and you're like, where is the friend I knew?

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Like what happened? And it's just that sometimes beauty or power or whatever seduces you and you lose your ability to make rational decisions.

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_00]: I think Cirdan is ring blinded.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and I think all three of them, you know we talked just before about them and enhancing your natural abilities.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_06]: I think one of the, the show is true to the book in that you know one of the main powers of the rings, especially the three rings was to prevent and de-accelerate decay and change.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And so the flip side of that is also that yeah it's enhancing their own abilities.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_06]: So maybe, maybe what a could Cirdan's super powers. He's patient. He's got he's kind of got a little bit of foresight but he's generally just wise.

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_00]: He's creative.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, Galadriel's got the ability to see things that might happen and we'll go into her, we'll go into her vision in a minute.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And we've also got Gil-galad and not only did I see him not wearing the rest of his bling, but there was also a scene where I think it was when Galadriel came in and he's just sitting there staring at the ring, which is quite interesting.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_06]: So it's enhancing his abilities. What are his abilities? He's a good leader. He's a good king.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_06]: He wants the best for his people, all that sort of stuff.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_06]: So again I don't think it is very, it's true to the book but it's taking it a bit further.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_06]: So you don't see in the book or all three of them got a little bit, you know, glowy eyed and excited and enamored of the rings.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_06]: It really doesn't talk about that much at all. It talks about them wearing them and keeping them safe and so on.

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_06]: But it is cool to see what they're doing with the show and it's visual representation. Again, it's to make the show more interesting and exciting.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Isn't the Silmarillion mostly written from the perspective of the elves?

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so it's their history. So it's whatever they see.

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_00]: We were so tempted by corruption and by power. Like they kind of left, we safeguarded the rings. We're the safeguards.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_00]: It would be interesting to know how a different race might write the history.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and that's why it cracked me up and we will go into this in depth too but it cracked me up that line where Calabrian Boy says to Annatar,

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_06]: For men, but men are covetous. I'm like, elves come on you've got the shiniest robes and you've got the fanciest towers and you've got all the things.

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_06]: And all the men so far that we've seen are just like, you know, working the land and wearing rags.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, they're covetous. You have the immortality and wealth. Like they want what you have.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_00]: This is like when rich people are like, oh those poor people are so greedy. They want, you know, in the US there's a lot of talk about livable wages

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_00]: and raising the minimum wage because it's ridiculous how low it is.

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And the arguments I hear from people who have never had to worry about making rent,

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_00]: It's always like, oh these poor people just want to be able to have like, you know, cable TV and fancy cars.

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, food and medicine. They want food and medicine.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_00]: They're not actually asking you to give them wealth.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_00]: They're actually asking for a living, like healthy amount of money to live in our society and calling men covetous from your castle is just, it's rich.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_06]: That's a bit much. Yeah.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's the thing. It's like if you've got the less money you have, the more you have to think about money.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_06]: That's it. You know, the more money you have, you pay someone else to think about money so you don't have to think about it.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you can be all like money is crass. It's for, you know, I'm above it.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, exactly.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Must be nice.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Well that's Kierdan. I did, I definitely agree with everything you're saying about him.

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_06]: I still love him and will watch him. I could watch a whole show with him.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_06]: That actor Ben Daniel was his stage train. So you can kind of see this power and, you know, it's always spoken of that stage actors, you know, they have to act much bigger.

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_06]: They have to have much bigger and louder expressions. And just then when they translate that to screen, they have to tone that down a little bit.

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_06]: But what I can see in his performance is that I can see all that power and gravity.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_06]: And but he's controlled it. And I think that suits the character as well.

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_06]: I just think it's just perfect, perfect casting. Love him.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_00]: They did this amazing thing with him in Foundation. The character he played was in a long-term romantic partnership with this other character.

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And they had been separated for many years and then they get back together.

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And the performance of the two actors was really powerful.

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And you really felt like they were a couple that had been a couple for like years and years and years.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And I found out that those two actors had just done a run for like a year and a half on London's West End of a play where they were a couple.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So by casting them in Foundation as a couple, they just like pulled the chemistry from the play and like plunked it on the screen.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_00]: It was fantastic result. That's great.

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Fun to watch.

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_06]: And you you've started Interview with a Vampire, but you haven't got up to where he's in it?

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think so. No, I'm I am at the very beginning of season two.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_06]: You'll meet him soon. He's awesome.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm looking forward to it.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I hope we get a lot more of him this season.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_00]: He's he's fun to watch.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_05]: He's great.

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And I like his house that looks like a ship.

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's beautiful.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_06]: It's beautifully done.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, I am really keen to get straight in and talk about Anatar and Calabria.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_06]: So a bit of background again about Calabria, because we talked a little bit about him last season.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_06]: But I'm just to kind of catch people up.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_06]: We have got Calabria, who is an elf, one of the one of the older elves.

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_06]: His name in Sundaran means silver fist, which I thought is quite cool.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_06]: He was born in Valinor during the years of the trees.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_06]: So Fiannau, the one who led the elves out of Valinor to go and fight Morgoth was his grandfather.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Fiannau was actually Galadriel's uncle.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_06]: So she's kind of like his sort of like his aunt, first cousin once removed or something like that.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_06]: Wait a minute.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Fiannau was her uncle and Calabrian born grandfather.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So that makes her his first cousin once removed.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, the generation above.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_06]: But you can't. Yeah, that doesn't necessarily mean she's a lot older, because of course these guys are all thousands and thousands of years old.

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_06]: So if it's 100 years here and there, it doesn't really make much difference.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_06]: But Fiannau was really skilled in craftsmanship.

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_06]: He passed those skills to his son Curafin and then on to his grandson Calabrianbor.

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_06]: After the trees were destroyed by Morgoth, Calabrianbor followed Fiannau to Middle Earth.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_06]: And he was also close with Finrod, Galadriel's brother.

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_06]: So he met him in season one.

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_06]: In the books, Finrod is a king, an elven king.

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_06]: And at one stage, Calabrianbor's father and uncle tried to wrest power from Finrod and they ended up getting exiled.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_06]: But Calabrianbor stayed true to Finrod.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And he went off and established Eregion with Galadriel and Calaborn.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_06]: And some believe it's in some of the writings that the reason why Eregion is close to Khazardum is the relationship and friendship with the dwarves.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_06]: And actually it's source of Mithril as well.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_06]: So when we see it on screen, it looks like it's been established and it's been there for quite a while.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_06]: But that's one of the reasons why it was there.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_06]: He always wanted to rival the skill and fame of his grandfather Fiannau.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_06]: And he became great friends with the dwarves.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_06]: And we see him in this episode making a Theldin, which means star moon.

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_06]: And remember the silver markings on the doors of Durin and the Fellowship of the Ring?

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_06]: When the Fellowship are going past that lake and then they get to the door and they have to say the right words and it'll open and it has to be shining with starlight.

[00:31:40] [SPEAKER_06]: So Calabrianbor actually made that door.

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_06]: So he makes their Theldin, he invents a Theldin pretty much.

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And he made the door along with a dwarf called Navi.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_06]: Navi's not in this show, but I can just imagine him having a good friend and making all these cool things out of Mithril.

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_06]: I do really love the portrayal of Calabrianbor in this episode.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_06]: I feel like there has been some episodes previously where he seemed a little bit kind of clueless and bumbling at times.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_06]: But I do feel like in this one they pay enough tribute to his mastery that he does have and his skill and his, you know, he's running the show.

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_06]: He's telling his interns or whatever they are, the Elfsmiths, how things are going to be.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_06]: But they still sort of show how he could be swayed as well.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_06]: And you might think, well surely he wouldn't be taken in because we talked about this last time.

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_06]: How on earth is, how are we going to come back and still be able to convince him?

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_06]: And I do really like that he says several times, you know, no, we're not letting him in, that's it.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_06]: Galadriel told me not to talk to him so we're not going to do that.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_06]: But remember also Sauron can bend people too as well.

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_06]: So you can be a really strong person and he can still get into your mind and he knows exactly what to say.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_06]: They've taken great care to show this quite a few times in this show as well.

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_06]: And even in the same episode, so Gugala says to Galadriel,

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_06]: it is said that once the deceiver obtains a being's trust,

[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_06]: he gains the ability to sculpt their very thoughts, to deceive not only their heart and mind, but their eyes and ears, to alter their very reality.

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's what we're seeing here with Anatar.

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_06]: So we finally get to meet him.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_06]: So the correct pronunciation, I'm really glad that they're actually pronouncing it right.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_06]: So it's Anatar.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_06]: So in Alvish language, the two Ns together are pronounced with a long N.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_06]: So it's a little bit more like the word unnamed.

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_06]: So rather than the name Anna, which just goes, you know, quickly, it's Anatar.

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think it's really cool that they're pronouncing that really, really right.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_06]: And he's come out of Galadriel's mirror section.

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_06]: We talked about him quite a lot in the last few episodes about Anatar coming along and speculating a bit.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_06]: And we wondered how could he return to Eregion and fall Calabrian War when he's already been warned.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_06]: But then, you know, partly it's that Alvin Smith lady that he's got, Merdania the one, you know, you're excited about her having a name.

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_06]: She sort of takes pity on him. Oh, it's a little bit cold.

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_06]: Maybe we should go out.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_06]: And then you see Halbrand looking up and suddenly it starts raining as well, like is he controlling the weather too?

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_06]: And of course, they let him in and then chaos ensues.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_06]: But we did talk about the changing the order of the rings and we had wondered whether this Anatar stuff was going to be in flashback.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_06]: And clearly now it's not. So they've made the three rings first.

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And I was really skeptical about it.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_06]: But then I went back and I looked at the ring verse, even though the seven and the nine are supposed to be made first and then the three and then the one.

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_06]: It's quite interesting because in the ring verse, the Elven rings are mentioned first.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_06]: So they ring verse goes three rings for the Elven kings under the sky, seven for the dwarf lords and their halls of stone, nine for mortal men doomed to die, one for the Dark Lord on his dark throne in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie, one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all in the darkness, bind them in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_06]: So we've got all that goodness to come. But yep, three rings come first in the rhyme.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_06]: So I'm convincing myself it's going to work.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_06]: I feel like they have definitely stayed true to the themes and the characters still.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_06]: So the order of it, I'm fine with it. I'm on board.

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_06]: And this is all pretty true to the book in terms of how he shows up.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_06]: So Sauron puts on this fair face, he calls himself Anatar and explains that he's an emissary from the Valar.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_06]: This happens in the book. It's happening here on the show in front of us.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And he's appealing to Calibran Bor's desire to be the best smith.

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_06]: He's appealing to his pride. He got inside his brain and he went, this dude wants to be just as good as his grandfather and I'm going to appeal to him and appeal to his goodness.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I wrote down vanity in lieu of pride.

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Yep, exactly. Yep. It's definitely that hubris from him that he's like, I want to be the best.

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_06]: I think he wants to be the best, but I also think he is still good. He still wants to protect and help and save people.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_06]: And they are clear in the book that he didn't get corrupted. He's not corrupted or made evil by Sauron.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_06]: He is basically just deceived and he's fooled and he's taken in and Sauron is doing what he can to manipulate him.

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_06]: I really liked the...

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I have a question. Sorry to interrupt, but when we talk about Sauron on this podcast,

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_00]: can we refer to him by his...

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Like if we're talking about him when he was pretending to be Hallbrand, call him Hallbrand and when he's pretending to be Annatar, call him Annatar.

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And then sometimes also call him Sauron.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I guess I just want to apologize to the listeners for how that's going to be a little bit confusing, but we're going to probably flip around and go back and forth.

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think that's where I'm going with it. When he's pretending to be Hallbrand, I'm calling him Hallbrand, although I've flicked in and out of Sauron a little bit.

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_06]: We all know who that's who he is now.

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_06]: But I guess, like I said, with Hallbrand, they are seeing him at the gate talking about what he's talking about with them in the form of Hallbrand.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And they're calling him Hallbrand.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, I don't know. It will be interesting to see as we move forward, am I going to be calling him Sauron or am I going to be calling him Annatar?

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_06]: We're seeing him as Annatar. So yeah, it is confusing. Hopefully everyone knows that's all one and the same.

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_06]: I really liked the transformation. I thought that it was quite powerful.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_06]: It was pretty extreme with the whole coming out of the fire and floating in the air and everything and almost looking quite sort of Jesus like or God like there.

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought it was kind of cheesy a little.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_06]: Across the line a little. But I mean, I mean more like the transformation of how he looks physically.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_06]: So that part of the floating was quite full on. But I think he does look really quite different.

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't just think it's hair and makeup. I do wonder if they've done a little bit of prosthetic potentially.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_06]: His face looks slightly differently shaped. Maybe his nose is a little bigger. I'm not sure there's something that's a little bit different.

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they've given him elf ears. So that's a prosthetic. But also they can do a lot with makeup just to I think they've done something to change the quality of his skin to make it look a little bit more like polished.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Glowy, yeah. And then also the shape of someone's face changes enormously when you take their hair back up off their face.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_06]: So he's used to having these straggly locks in his face and so it does look quite different.

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_00]: They did a really good job of having him be like Max Grubby before the transformation so that it was really dramatic.

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's kind of like Aragorn times 100, like going from Strader to King Alasar.

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and it was great acting. I mean, I loved it. I just think it's I just I have loved the acting from Charlie Vickers.

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_06]: So he was just pretty much mostly this nice, nice guy in season one in these how brand and just some of those looks like even that look last episode where he's sitting by the campfire after he's just got his new body and he just stares into the fire with his evil look.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_06]: It's incredible. I do miss his northern accent though. I mean, the irony is, you know, he's from the Southlands, but he's got a northern British accent when he's how brand.

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's gone now. He's got the posh kind of, you know, Queen's English Alvin accent.

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_00]: When he was at the gate in the rain, did he get his face got all veiny again? Right? Like, yes. Yeah.

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, is he hungry? Does he need to eat another villager? Like what is or is that anger or is that like what causes that to happen? Is he in control of it?

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Like he looked away like he knew it was happening. He didn't want anyone to see it. But like, I just want to feel like I'm using his using his power.

[00:40:31] [SPEAKER_06]: So like when it was when he did it on the raft and the vision on the raft to Galadriel, it was him saying, you know, this is all your fault. And he got all angry.

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_06]: And then when he did it in the in the caverns with at a back at the start of the of the Second Age, he was exerting his power and getting angry.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And then I thought it was in this one. It was I thought it was when he was controlling the weather. I thought he was looking up, making it start to rain.

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_06]: And he was that was part of his fury. But it was also a purposeful thing. It was controlled.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_06]: It was so that Calabria would come down with his ridiculous Alvin umbrella.

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_06]: Did you notice the umbrella? Yeah.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I kept thinking about like sort of like images of like the Roman Empire, how there was always like a canopy guys.

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was in the background.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_06]: This poor this poor elf who's carrying the umbrella doesn't have any umbrella protection himself. He just got to hold it straight over Calabria.

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and he very intentionally showed his like whip scarred back to Mirdania.

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_00]: He was like, oh, I just have to turn my back for a second. Make sure you see blood and scars.

[00:41:48] [SPEAKER_00]: OK. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because I've done a lot of reading about like narcissists and narcissistic manipulation and and how brand and the tar before he does his transformation,

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_00]: everything up until that was just classic narcissist behavior.

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_00]: First, he like zeroes in on Calabria, Bremboar's insecurities. He's like, oh, Galadriel hasn't bothered to get in touch with you.

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I wonder why she doesn't respect you that much or the king either.

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_00]: How strange. And I was like, my God, that is so high school.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, they didn't invite you to their party. You must not be popular.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And it worked. Calabria. Yeah. Yeah. I'm left out.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_06]: The very first line he hooked him in with, oh, she said you'd say that.

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's when Calabria was taken in like what? And yeah, it was very cleverly done.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And then he turns them into an us against the them. He he creates Galadriel and Gilgala.

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_00]: They're them. And you and I, the artists, the craftspeople that they take advantage of are the us.

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And so masterful. Oh, I was just like, run, Calabria, Bremboar, run.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_06]: That's abusive behavior. But do you think it was Hal Brand slash Sauron on his way there that way laid the messenger alfs with the with the message?

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_00]: For him, I've been thinking about that a lot because they carefully do not show us who did it.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_00]: There's the weirdness of like dragging the bodies through the woods with chains.

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, what's that about? Like if he just wanted to kill them, he would just kill them and leave them there.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Like where is he taking those bodies unless I guess he's hiding them? I don't know.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_00]: But he was so confident that he was going to be able to schmooze his way in with Calabria Bremboar that it made me think that he definitely killed those messengers.

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it was just taking them off the path so that no one else would find them.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_06]: It was pretty gruesome just them lying there with their eyes open and then just being dragged.

[00:43:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And they did a really good job of sort of flopping the bodies as they went along. Yeah, it was pretty it was pretty.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And why did he have to like slaughter the horse?

[00:43:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Horse never hurt me. I guess the horse would run back to Linden.

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But still, I don't like seeing horses get killed on TV shows.

[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_06]: No, he's a dark lord. He doesn't care.

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_00]: He's very sherry on Fear the Walking Dead on my list. Horse killer.

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_06]: Yep. Anyway, and I love when he's transformed and he comes down and he says to Calabria Bremboar,

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_06]: A storm is coming Calabria Bremboar. I can bring you the knowledge none other possesses.

[00:44:29] [SPEAKER_06]: I can unlock your grandest abilities.

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And when our work is complete, never again will the world overlook you as the mere scion of Feanor,

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_06]: but forevermore revere you, the Lord of the Rings.

[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_06]: So he's calling Calabria Bremboar the Lord of the Rings, which was such a good twist.

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And I loved the pause that he said before and after he said it, I was like, wait, I have to go back and say, did he actually say that?

[00:44:51] [SPEAKER_06]: And again, like you say, you're definitely appealing to his vanity.

[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, he's not just going to be Feanor.

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_06]: He's going to be the Lord of the Rings and yeah, he's got on.

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_06]: He sucked him in.

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Another narcissistic manipulation, that sort of classic one is I'm the only one who sees the real you and can appreciate you.

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm the only one who can love you the way you deserve to be loved.

[00:45:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm the one who has the knowledge that you need and I'm the one who sees that you're the right person to receive it.

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God, he's just he's in an abusive relationship.

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_00]: So sad.

[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_06]: And we're going to see that play out over the next few episodes.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_06]: And we've seen from the trailer, you know, he's going to get some pretty dark and probably more on that in the spoiler section as well.

[00:45:43] [SPEAKER_06]: That's all I had at the moment for Caleb Rimbaud and Annatar.

[00:45:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Was there anything else that struck you in that whole sequence?

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that you covered all of it and I interrupted you for most of my points.

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, only that the dwarf catastrophe that we haven't talked about yet is such good timing in that it opens up this need for the dwarves to negotiate, which means they may be able to get more mithril.

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_00]: That's great timing and makes you wonder if Sauron helped make that happen.

[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to know how far his power reaches.

[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, well, we saw a real visual representation of it on the map at the start with the darkness spreading out towards all the way.

[00:46:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I loved how the explosion of Mount Doom like dissolved into the map.

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, so beautiful.

[00:46:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I've rewound it like four times.

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, wait, I want to see that again.

[00:46:39] [SPEAKER_00]: So cool.

[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_06]: And the darkness and then I do always love a map like I never I'm never upset about a map being on screen and also being able to see this sort of distance and everything like it's as far as Middle Earth goes, it's still quite far.

[00:46:55] [SPEAKER_06]: But it's you know, it's near enough that you can see it starting to spread out towards towards Khazardun and that whole sort of sequence.

[00:47:02] [SPEAKER_06]: I loved that with with the sun shafts coming down.

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_06]: Let's get into that because that was really cool.

[00:47:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, first of all, yeah, the dwarfs.

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay. Yeah, exactly.

[00:47:15] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, every time they come on screen like, yeah, Penny's gonna be so happy.

[00:47:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I love them.

[00:47:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I just as a as a woman in her 50s.

[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I also want to give a shout out to Disa Rocken, the facial hair.

[00:47:29] [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of women grow facial hair during or after menopause and you know, our society generally really does not take kindly to that and women go through lots of painful treatments to try to prevent it or or treat it.

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And she makes it look good.

[00:47:47] [SPEAKER_06]: She looks amazing.

[00:47:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think in a design choice, it's really good because they always talk about bearded women, you know, and Gimli talks about it in quite a funny way in The Lord of the Rings.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_06]: And you don't get a huge amount about it in the book.

[00:48:04] [SPEAKER_06]: But I think that they've designed it in such a way that pays tribute to it but without it being distracting like she's got a full face beard.

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's definitely done.

[00:48:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a feminine version.

[00:48:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's cool.

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I think she looks amazing.

[00:48:18] [SPEAKER_00]: She has like gold dust like in her skin and she was wearing these little jewels at the top of her forehead.

[00:48:24] [SPEAKER_00]: She just looked so beautiful and cool.

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and her eyes glow.

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_06]: I love that her eyes glow.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_06]: And I love that expression.

[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know if they used these words last season, but they call her a stone singer.

[00:48:38] [SPEAKER_06]: Love that so much.

[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_06]: She's so in tune with the mountain.

[00:48:41] [SPEAKER_06]: I love that scene at the beginning where they're in the dwarf supermarket and you know, they're trying to pick out which mushrooms to buy.

[00:48:49] [SPEAKER_06]: You don't usually think about them actually having to go shopping, but I guess.

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And she's so in tune with the mountain that she can tell what's going to happen before it happens.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_06]: She can hear the resonance of it and gets down to the ground and listens and tells everyone to take cover.

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought that was great.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_06]: She's so strong and fierce.

[00:49:07] [SPEAKER_06]: I love her with King Durin.

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_06]: She just doesn't put up with any crap and she the way she speaks to him is very forceful, but it's not disrespectful.

[00:49:17] [SPEAKER_06]: I think she still respects his authority, respects his position, respects his relationship with Prince Durin.

[00:49:25] [SPEAKER_06]: But she's not going to pull any punches.

[00:49:27] [SPEAKER_06]: She will tell him exactly what for.

[00:49:28] [SPEAKER_06]: And I just loved that.

[00:49:29] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought it was great.

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And then there's that scene a little bit later after Durin's been bullied at work and they're standing there.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_06]: There's this moment where she stands in front of a lamp and it looks like a crown behind her.

[00:49:46] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know if you picked that up.

[00:49:46] [SPEAKER_06]: I didn't notice that.

[00:49:48] [SPEAKER_04]: That's so cool.

[00:49:49] [SPEAKER_06]: We've seen it before in another scene.

[00:49:51] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think I can't remember if it was her or a different character, but definitely in this one she pauses for a moment in front of this lamp.

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_06]: Looks exactly like a crown and then she sort of just moves out of the shot, which is really cool.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_06]: I love that.

[00:50:04] [SPEAKER_00]: She should totally be in charge of the dwarves.

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Diza for president.

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm on board.

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, she's great.

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_06]: She's really great.

[00:50:13] [SPEAKER_00]: She's so smart.

[00:50:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And she's like you said, she's direct and honest.

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_00]: She knows her own power and she's loving.

[00:50:23] [SPEAKER_00]: It's such a lovely combination.

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's great.

[00:50:27] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought of you again because when she talked to Durin about the grandchildren, I was like, yeah, but we want to see them.

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_06]: They're not even coming to dinner because the food is old and yuck because the light doesn't come in and grow in the gardens.

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_00]: That is last year's bread.

[00:50:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was bummed.

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like there's another opportunity.

[00:50:46] [SPEAKER_00]: They could have had dinner with the kids.

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's starting to feel like Norm's wife on Cheers that you never see her ever.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_06]: That's it.

[00:51:00] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought yeah, I wasn't sure what to think of the scene with Durin at work and you know those all those other dwarves bullying him.

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_06]: First of all, I was kind of like why are they making out like he's only now mining for the first time because he hasn't he been mining this whole time.

[00:51:17] [SPEAKER_06]: We've seen him mining.

[00:51:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. So why are they making out like oh you've got you've got palace hands and and you know they're too soft and I haven't had blisters since I was five years old.

[00:51:26] [SPEAKER_06]: Why are they suddenly being so mean to him?

[00:51:28] [SPEAKER_06]: I didn't quite get the point of it.

[00:51:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that seemed a little weird to me too.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like maybe part of being busted, you know, disinherited meant being given to the like worst of the worst jobs.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he does more like they said something about like oh I'm always polishing gems.

[00:51:50] [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe he's when it's mining he's more supervisory and when he's actually working with his hands it's more like craftsmanship as opposed to like heavy hammer use.

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I get you. So he's normally like the project manager and now he's down with the with the crew on the on the on the floor on the shop.

[00:52:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Busting rocks.

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And some people get pretty excited when they have an opportunity to lord it over someone that they are jealous of.

[00:52:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. And a prince being busted down to a grunt is a pretty prime opportunity for that kind of person.

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Now they feel there's no repercussions anymore.

[00:52:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's very short sighted because he's only been busted for a couple of days.

[00:52:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's not going to last. Come on.

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_00]: He's going to be a prince again any minute.

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I really want them to get it sorted out and bring back those sun shafts because I think the whole design of that and the way that they make the underground area be livable and productive and fertile is so great.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And I loved how it showed.

[00:52:55] [SPEAKER_06]: The terraced gardens and yeah so beautiful.

[00:52:59] [SPEAKER_06]: And they when they closed and then it got darker and darker and you just had the lamp light that was left it made you realize how much ambient light there is in there from those sun shafts.

[00:53:08] [SPEAKER_06]: That was really cool.

[00:53:10] [SPEAKER_00]: As usual Kazadom is so gorgeous. Even the market was really well realized and beautiful.

[00:53:19] [SPEAKER_00]: The earthquake was really evocative and well produced like all of the aesthetics around the dwarves really work for me.

[00:53:28] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, for sure.

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_06]: All right.

[00:53:34] [SPEAKER_06]: Anything else on the dwarves? I've got a few more.

[00:53:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there were. Yeah, the other stone singers were you know talking some smack about Durin and Deezza overhears them.

[00:53:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and she says I love this. I want to put this on a t-shirt.

[00:53:50] [SPEAKER_00]: A rumor is like a songbird. It may sound filling from afar but up close it's an empty feast.

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_00]: That's great.

[00:53:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Brilliant, brilliant and people should remember it because I mean they were like oh I heard that you know that that was some classic gossip rumoring going on there with like oh it's it's Durin's fault for letting the elf in like that's some conspiracy theory garbage right there.

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and you can see her authority with them doesn't take much to shut them down and they're like oh no no no we're good we're not going to do that again.

[00:54:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh yeah they were terrified of her. Yeah, and this song was amazing I love their harmonizing and and then her reaching forward as she's singing to the mountain.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_06]: That was that was really cool but I was also like, didn't they just make it worse they sang and then it closed up even more.

[00:54:40] [SPEAKER_00]: It was not ideal. They did.

[00:54:41] [SPEAKER_00]: They did make it worse. It really affects Diza in a deep spiritual way because she has this physical emotional spiritual connection to the mountain that is expressed through song but also she just feels its vibrations all the time right we saw evidence of that, and she says

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_00]: she can't hear the mountain anymore. It's like being cut off from like one of your senses. It's like she's gone blind or gone deaf like she's lost an entire way of functioning in the world and she's, she's so vulnerable with Durin she's like,

[00:55:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Durin I'm afraid, I'm afraid. And we've never seen that side of Diza before. No, it's, it hit them really hard.

[00:55:23] [SPEAKER_06]: That deepens their relationship and just shows how strong they are together as well. I really love that.

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_00]: That's great. I love their marriage.

[00:55:31] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_06]: Alright, I am really keen to talk about Rune. Shall we go into the east.

[00:55:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_06]: So Rune is really cool to see this on screen because we haven't before. Rune's this land in the east and Rune itself is the Elvish word for east.

[00:55:53] [SPEAKER_06]: And going back into a bit of the lore as well when elves and men were first awakened or brought into existence by Eru, the creator, they first awoke in the Far East in Rune.

[00:56:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And most of the elves moved west and some of the men moved west including the ancestors of the Edain who became, who later on went on to become the Numenoreans.

[00:56:14] [SPEAKER_06]: They migrated west but some other men stayed and they became the Easterlings. We've seen the Easterlings before in the Harajrim.

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_06]: They're all men from the east and they ended up joining Sauron later and we see them in the Lord of the Rings later.

[00:56:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Alright, they're the ones who ride the elephants.

[00:56:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah. And dwarves emerged after the elves but before the men and they awoke in seven different areas like scattered around Middle Earth, but some of them were also in Rune.

[00:56:42] [SPEAKER_06]: So all the races that we know have been there, but it's largely forgotten by the time that we know that we sort of come to know in Lord of the Rings and that's why we don't really see it.

[00:56:51] [SPEAKER_06]: And I kind of like this idea. It's, you know, you can sort of see where Tolkien got it if he's thinking about creating this prehistory of our own world because the east has always been seen as sort of mysterious or exotic in European cultures.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_06]: So you can sort of see where that comes from, I guess, in his writing.

[00:57:10] [SPEAKER_06]: And I found a really interesting little snippet.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_06]: In the earliest drafts of The Hobbit, Bilbo offered to walk from the Shire to the great desert of Gobi and fight the wild wireworms of the Chinese.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_06]: So he had actual like, you know, earthbound races and places in the early drafts.

[00:57:28] [SPEAKER_06]: In a slightly later version, he altered it to say, to the last desert in the east and fight the wild wireworms of the Chinese.

[00:57:34] [SPEAKER_06]: And then in the final version, he'd taken out all the references to our own world and says,

[00:57:40] [SPEAKER_06]: To the east of east and fight the wild wereworms in the last desert. So it's quite cool. He's sort of taken it from our world and then he's changed it to be all of these.

[00:57:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that was a forward looking decision because there is a certain element of exoticism and it's a little racist.

[00:58:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Tolkien was of his time and at that time that was a very common view of the east.

[00:58:07] [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm glad he just made everything fictional. It would have been awkward and uncomfortable.

[00:58:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Definitely. I love how different it looks to everything else we've seen.

[00:58:19] [SPEAKER_06]: And this is one thing where I'm actually on board that they are shooting in Europe because I don't know where they shot this.

[00:58:25] [SPEAKER_06]: It looks like it could be Turkey or I don't know, somewhere in the Middle East.

[00:58:34] [SPEAKER_06]: And it looks gorgeous. And yeah, we have got some sort of mountainy, slightly deserty-ish areas in New Zealand, but nothing like that.

[00:58:41] [SPEAKER_06]: So I think it looks really cool and you know, it's just refreshing and different being in danger of dying of heat and lack of water is new to us in Middle Earth, the Lord of the Rings.

[00:58:51] [SPEAKER_00]: More like the snow and blizzard.

[00:58:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, exactly. And so off they go and they're over there in the east and yeah, tramping through the desert, getting thirsty, passing out.

[00:59:10] [SPEAKER_06]: They find this well and then they're being chased down by these minions of this new wizard that we see.

[00:59:18] [SPEAKER_06]: So we see this wizard and I was quite excited about this.

[00:59:21] [SPEAKER_06]: We saw a tiny flash of him in the Stranger's Dream last episode very, very quickly.

[00:59:28] [SPEAKER_06]: But now we actually see him in a bit more depth. And he was interesting to me. I liked him a lot.

[00:59:35] [SPEAKER_06]: He seems really commanding. He's got these acolytes and appears to have some pretty strong magic.

[00:59:41] [SPEAKER_06]: He's looking for the Istar. So we know that he sent these these Nazgels, these acolytes to go and find the stranger and they thought he was Sauron.

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_06]: So part of me was like, did he send them because he wants Sauron, because he wants to be friends with them or because he wants the Istar because he knows the Istar will also fight Sauron?

[01:00:03] [SPEAKER_06]: So is he Sauron's enemy? It's still not very clear. But the only thing that is a little bit clear is that he didn't appear to be bothered that his minion was happy to kill the halflings.

[01:00:13] [SPEAKER_06]: So that makes him seem more bad than good. So he's pretty mysterious at this point and I'll have a bit more to say on him in the Galadriel's Mirror spoiler section.

[01:00:23] [SPEAKER_06]: I really liked the stranger. I loved all the on the road bits with the stranger and Poppy and Nore.

[01:00:32] [SPEAKER_06]: I was a bit confused where they got their tents from. They don't seem like they're caring much and suddenly they've got these tents.

[01:00:37] [SPEAKER_06]: Did they just find sticks and then put their little kind of half foot blankets over them? I wasn't sure of that.

[01:00:44] [SPEAKER_06]: But I loved all their little interactions and I loved it when he's dreaming of the staff.

[01:00:50] [SPEAKER_06]: They, I found it fascinating that they called this, I had to watch it with subtitles to really pick this up, but they called the staff that he dreamed of a gand and a gand is an old Norse word for wand or staff.

[01:01:04] [SPEAKER_06]: And I thought the one in his dream was sort of shimmering in and out of focus.

[01:01:09] [SPEAKER_06]: And I liked how it changed from kind of a traditional shepherd's hook kind of style to looking gnarled and twisted a little bit like Gandalf staff.

[01:01:18] [SPEAKER_06]: And interesting that they use the word gand because yeah, gand is Gandalf.

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. And the name Gandalf means basically, alf with a staff pretty much.

[01:01:34] [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, interesting. What did you think of that whole sequence?

[01:01:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I especially liked the conversation about names.

[01:01:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was very interesting that Norey was like, how about we'll just name you and he's like, no, I already have a name.

[01:01:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I have to figure out what it is and I'll know when I hear it.

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And I have always had this theory about cats that they name themselves and that your cat knows what its name is.

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And when you figure it out, they'll let you know that that's the right one.

[01:02:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's always been how I've named cats.

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I've had them in my life for a while and I've been like, is this your name? Is that your name?

[01:02:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And then when they react to one, I'm like, oh, OK, we found it.

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_00]: That's your name.

[01:02:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And when Gandalf said that, I was like, yes, like cats like wizards are like cats.

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it's true for all beings, but it makes sense for me that a name for a being as powerful as a Maya or an Istar is.

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Isn't as simple as just some sounds that you like.

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_00]: It has to be something powerful to name a being of that much.

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and he has he has that he's got the knowledge that he knows is a lot more to him to himself.

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_06]: He's got this sort of memory of his of where he's come from, but no memory.

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, he's got more like a feeling.

[01:03:03] [SPEAKER_00]: So like how amnesiacs can remember, you know, how to speak the language.

[01:03:08] [SPEAKER_00]: They know how to do math, right?

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_00]: They know how to like function as a human, but they don't know their name.

[01:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: They don't know their personal history.

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_00]: They don't know where they live.

[01:03:19] [SPEAKER_00]: It's it's almost like he has amnesia.

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:03:24] [SPEAKER_06]: The whole everything that's happening there in the East, it makes me wonder, you know, what role are they all going to play in the bigger story?

[01:03:35] [SPEAKER_06]: Because we know that, you know, right up until the end of the third age, until pretty much until Frodo throws the ring in Mount Doom or the ring gets thrown in Mount Doom falls in.

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_06]: That Sauron pays no attention to the halfling races and doesn't figure in the story whatsoever.

[01:03:56] [SPEAKER_06]: So this whole story is very separate.

[01:03:59] [SPEAKER_06]: This whole Eastern stuff, everything that's happened so far with the halfwits, everything that's happening with the stranger and with the wizard.

[01:04:07] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a nice break and it's good to switch to a different story from when we're looking at the elves and the dwarves.

[01:04:13] [SPEAKER_06]: But I am going to be interested to see where they take it and how that connects with the main story, if it's going to connect at all or if it's just going to be back story that lends itself to the other stories that we know later on.

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_06]: And I don't think it's going to be rushed.

[01:04:27] [SPEAKER_06]: I think that's you know, that could be a five season thing for sure.

[01:04:30] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a there's a lot going on in rune already.

[01:04:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought that the whole thing with the fluttery dry, you know, white moths and and how they were a conduit for this magic where he brings that acolyte back from the dead or whatever.

[01:04:50] [SPEAKER_00]: With like blood and the moths and everything.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_00]: That was so cool.

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Like horror movie, fantasy movie, like dark magic.

[01:05:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It was cool.

[01:05:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I loved it and I hope we get to see more of that stuff.

[01:05:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It was just really awesome, like high fantasy.

[01:05:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it was great.

[01:05:08] [SPEAKER_06]: And I don't think I mean, we've can't think of any examples, but I think we see examples in different stories about magic and about bringing things back or transformations of sorts.

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't think I've ever seen any that involve butterflies and moths in that same type of way that it's all very fluttery and dusty.

[01:05:32] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, it seemed to require this sort of blood sacrifice.

[01:05:35] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I think she's going to be OK.

[01:05:37] [SPEAKER_06]: It's just a couple of scratches on her hands.

[01:05:39] [SPEAKER_06]: But whenever they whenever they cut someone's hand and any kind of sacrificial thing, I always think it's so inconvenient.

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Don't cut straight across the palm.

[01:05:49] [SPEAKER_06]: That's so annoying.

[01:05:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Just cut the side of their wrist or something.

[01:05:51] [SPEAKER_06]: It's going to be way easier.

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: They do it on Supernatural like every third episode they cut across the palm.

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, there are nerves and tendons.

[01:06:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Like what are you doing?

[01:06:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is a delicate part of your body that is like, yeah, I don't know why that's such a trope.

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Pirates of the Caribbean.

[01:06:10] [SPEAKER_06]: They do it.

[01:06:11] [SPEAKER_06]: And we watched a great movie recently called Damsel.

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_06]: Have you seen it?

[01:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I haven't seen that yet with Bobby Brown.

[01:06:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's really cool.

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_06]: It's got some other great actors in it as well.

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_06]: And I love it.

[01:06:25] [SPEAKER_06]: It was a really fun one to watch.

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_06]: But they do the same thing.

[01:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: The moths kind of remind me of the way bats are used in vampire, some vampire stories, you know, how they flutter around and sometimes coalesce to form like Dracula or whoever.

[01:06:41] [SPEAKER_00]: But I thought the white moths are so much more evocative than black bats.

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And the sound effect of it was just, oh my God, it was so visceral.

[01:06:53] [SPEAKER_06]: It was great.

[01:06:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And also a little bit contradictory because we don't like these mystics.

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, they set the caravans on fire at the Halffoot camp.

[01:07:06] [SPEAKER_06]: But they're wearing white and they're represented by white moths and that's usually seen as a good color.

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_06]: So it is quite interesting to see that contrast.

[01:07:14] [SPEAKER_06]: I liked it.

[01:07:15] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so this wizard, what's up with him?

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_06]: What do you think about him without going into spoilers, which we might cover later?

[01:07:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he seems like a real jerk.

[01:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: When he does bring that mystic back and he questions her and then he's like, oh, you couldn't find him or you lost him or whatever.

[01:07:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And she looked genuinely terrified of him.

[01:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, this is someone who's already died and been brought back.

[01:07:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. Like the stranger like disintegrated her last season and then he brings her back and she looked like she was terrified of this new wizard.

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And she wasn't terrified of the stranger, even though he killed her.

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So it makes me think he's even more powerful than what we saw.

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_00]: He's also a little vain, right?

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, and this is based on my knowledge from like Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit that, you know, Gandalf is this very sort of humble wizard.

[01:08:11] [SPEAKER_00]: He travels around in a cart and he wears like rough spun fabrics.

[01:08:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, he's just, you know, he's just like a dude.

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And Saruman lives in that giant tower and he has delusions of grandeur and wants to challenge Sauron for dominance over Middle Earth.

[01:08:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And so whether or not this particular wizard turns out to be Saruman, he's got a similar like he sits on a throne.

[01:08:38] [SPEAKER_00]: He has acolytes.

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a person who thinks very highly of himself.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_00]: He's incredibly confident about his wants and needs and has a lot of power over the people around him.

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_00]: All of his acolytes are women. That's really interesting.

[01:08:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Is that like because he thinks he can control women better?

[01:09:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Are women more attuned to magic than men?

[01:09:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Are men too likely to like rebel and so it kills them all? Like Craster on Game of Thrones?

[01:09:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but it's interesting.

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I can't wait to see what they do with him next.

[01:09:20] [SPEAKER_06]: As we talked about before, I love the actor, Ciaran Hines.

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_06]: I think he's really cool. I love him and everything that I've seen him in.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, I think he's great in this.

[01:09:32] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, I think we'll talk a little bit more about him maybe a bit later.

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Awesome.

[01:09:44] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm quite keen to...

[01:09:47] [SPEAKER_06]: I've only got one or two other sort of main points.

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Is there anything else that you want to go into?

[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I just have like sort of a question about actually maybe this would be better for the spoilers.

[01:10:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Leave it for there and then if people want to, they can jump in.

[01:10:07] [SPEAKER_06]: My last sort of main-ish thing is Galadriel's vision.

[01:10:12] [SPEAKER_06]: So again, I'm going to speak a little bit about it now, a little bit about it in Galadriel's mirror.

[01:10:18] [SPEAKER_06]: But I really liked the scene where she's there in the forest and she's grieving for her brother, Finrod.

[01:10:25] [SPEAKER_06]: And again, those beautiful trees where they're sort of like a tree memorial with the carving of the person.

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_06]: It's so gorgeous to look at.

[01:10:35] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, we saw Finrod in the prologue. He was being killed in battle.

[01:10:39] [SPEAKER_06]: In the book he's actually killed by one of Sauron's werewolves.

[01:10:43] [SPEAKER_06]: And he's specifically there going after Sauron.

[01:10:46] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not just this big sort of morgothi type battle.

[01:10:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And then as a reward for his noble actions, he was allowed to be released early from the halls of Mandos.

[01:10:57] [SPEAKER_06]: So we've talked about this before where when the elves die or they're killed in battle,

[01:11:01] [SPEAKER_06]: they go to the halls of Mandos, which is kind of like this purgatory kind of waiting room.

[01:11:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Mandos is the valar who's in charge of death and the afterlife.

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_06]: And they go to the halls of Mandos and then they are there for an indeterminate amount of time.

[01:11:17] [SPEAKER_06]: And then they are sometimes re-embodied or reincarnated because of all of these noble actions that he did.

[01:11:23] [SPEAKER_06]: He actually was re-embodied in Valinor after just a really short time in the waiting room.

[01:11:29] [SPEAKER_06]: And so apparently he still dwells beneath the trees in Valinor and he reunited with both his father and his lover as well.

[01:11:38] [SPEAKER_06]: So I do like in this version that we're seeing on screen that it's a bit more clear cut, like the elves can just die.

[01:11:46] [SPEAKER_06]: It lends itself to the story that we're understanding her grief more and so on, which is kind of cool.

[01:11:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And then she also in this vision sees Celebrimbor.

[01:11:58] [SPEAKER_06]: And I love this trope. We see it a lot on TV and movies where you're not certain that it's a dream or a vision.

[01:12:07] [SPEAKER_06]: And then something happens when usually when the dreamer or the person having the vision sees someone else and they act in a different way, that's not them.

[01:12:13] [SPEAKER_06]: And you're like, oh, what is that really the image? She goes, nobody told me you'd arrived.

[01:12:16] [SPEAKER_06]: I was like, oh, it's dream Celebrimbor.

[01:12:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you figured it out faster than I did because for me it wasn't until everything got dark really fast that I was like this might not be reality.

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. And the slithery vines come out of the ground kind of thing.

[01:12:30] [SPEAKER_06]: But as soon as she said they didn't tell me you'd arrived and then they sort of turned around and he spoke kind of weirdly.

[01:12:35] [SPEAKER_06]: I was like, yeah, no, that's not good.

[01:12:38] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, I will touch on more of that in the in the Gladiol's Mirror section.

[01:12:42] [SPEAKER_06]: But I just it's quite a short point, but I just really liked that scene.

[01:12:45] [SPEAKER_06]: I liked going back to that forest. I think it's so beautifully designed and I loved her.

[01:12:51] [SPEAKER_06]: I loved her outfit. I love her hair braided as well. I think it looks really cool.

[01:12:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. I mean, she's quite beautiful.

[01:12:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And they've we've talked about so many times that the aesthetics of the show are just constantly breathtaking.

[01:13:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I get a little bored of saying it like, wow, the costumes are so beautiful.

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the hair is so cool. Oh, the settings are so beautiful.

[01:13:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm like, is it going to get boring to our listeners?

[01:13:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I hope not, because I I get amazed every episode.

[01:13:22] [SPEAKER_00]: There's always something that I'm like, whoa.

[01:13:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Like this time it was the moths. The moths really blew my mind.

[01:13:29] [SPEAKER_00]: But a lot of times it's like it's a gladiol's gowns.

[01:13:34] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's so beautifully done. Yeah.

[01:13:37] [SPEAKER_06]: And that scene also made me wonder.

[01:13:39] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, remember in our news last week we talked about the the cast talked about showing up

[01:13:46] [SPEAKER_06]: in London and having all the same costumes and sets and stuff that were here in New Zealand.

[01:13:51] [SPEAKER_06]: And and I just looked at that scene with the with the forest.

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_06]: I was like, how much were they able to pack up and ship and how much had to be fabricated again on site?

[01:14:01] [SPEAKER_06]: So it was like, you know, some poor crew member had to pack up every single little carving and leaf and it all had to be shipped over.

[01:14:08] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know. It's logistics.

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_06]: It's how much was, you know, it was probably based on money.

[01:14:12] [SPEAKER_06]: Was it cheaper to ship it or cheaper to just make it again?

[01:14:15] [SPEAKER_06]: But it looks it looks really similar.

[01:14:17] [SPEAKER_06]: That whole forest scene, I think it was really well done.

[01:14:19] [SPEAKER_00]: It was beautiful. Yeah.

[01:14:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And the when the vines came in and and his voice changed and and he got like tied to the tree and then like whatever it was that stabbed through his chest,

[01:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: whether it was like part of the tree or something.

[01:14:34] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I took it to be like vines or parts of the tree, sticks of the tree coming out and scaring him.

[01:14:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And then he turned into wood. That was so cool and scary and like very stranger things again.

[01:14:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. And and I think that's in her vision.

[01:14:50] [SPEAKER_06]: That's that's her ruminating that her actions going to cause her to lose all the people that she loves and the people that are important, you know,

[01:14:57] [SPEAKER_06]: because she's just been there sitting looking at her brother's tree and and she worries that that's going to happen to other people.

[01:15:03] [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, and I thought it was a short scene.

[01:15:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Are these not the seeds you planted?

[01:15:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's her saying that to herself.

[01:15:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Mm hmm. Yeah, for sure.

[01:15:15] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, that's her little dream fantasy sequence that's going through her brain while she's supposed to be in this council.

[01:15:20] [SPEAKER_06]: And then she it's like it really reminded me of when you're in a meeting and you're like planning your dinner or something like that in your head.

[01:15:27] [SPEAKER_06]: And then someone asks you the question.

[01:15:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, girl. It's like what is the commander of the Northern Army think?

[01:15:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Think and she's like, what? What?

[01:15:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm listening. I'm in the room so many times and meetings where I'm like, I'm sorry, my phone did something weird.

[01:15:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Could you repeat the question?

[01:15:44] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a lot. It's a lot easier when it's an online meeting, isn't it?

[01:15:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when you're there in person, you can't really rescue yourself.

[01:15:51] [SPEAKER_00]: You have to be like, I'm sorry.

[01:15:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Can you just say that again?

[01:15:55] [SPEAKER_00]: You have to kind of admit it.

[01:15:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And she didn't hide it at all. The king was like, so you were not fully here, right?

[01:16:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Like he called her on it.

[01:16:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.

[01:16:07] [SPEAKER_00]: But again, we had another woman in that war council.

[01:16:11] [SPEAKER_00]: An elf woman who talks very excited.

[01:16:15] [SPEAKER_00]: For sure.

[01:16:17] [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't take much to make me happy, apparently.

[01:16:21] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, no, it's cool. I think I think I think they listened to you, Penny, for sure.

[01:16:29] [SPEAKER_06]: That's great.

[01:16:30] [SPEAKER_06]: All right, I think that's most of my main points and notes.

[01:16:35] [SPEAKER_06]: Was there anything else that you had?

[01:16:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Only that apparently only Poppy can read maps.

[01:16:42] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it looks like it.

[01:16:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank God she came on the trip.

[01:16:47] [SPEAKER_06]: And again, why didn't they take it with them to start with?

[01:16:50] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, we'll get past it, I think.

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_06]: The only other thing I had was I loved the opening titles,

[01:16:58] [SPEAKER_06]: but we do have an article about that in news so we can talk about that then.

[01:17:02] [SPEAKER_06]: And I also liked the languages that Alvish was spoken quite a lot in this episode.

[01:17:07] [SPEAKER_06]: And then also Kala Brimbo spoke the black speech in Galadriel's vision too.

[01:17:12] [SPEAKER_06]: And that was just like we saw how Brand speaking in the last episode

[01:17:16] [SPEAKER_06]: where he spoke the black speech to the to the wag.

[01:17:19] [SPEAKER_06]: So I thought that was quite cool.

[01:17:21] [SPEAKER_06]: I like how they're bringing all those different languages and it sounds really great.

[01:17:26] [SPEAKER_06]: And the only last one was sort of an overarching theme, I thought,

[01:17:30] [SPEAKER_06]: of this episode was pride or stubbornness.

[01:17:33] [SPEAKER_06]: We've seen this in everybody's storylines.

[01:17:35] [SPEAKER_06]: So Galadriel was too proud to reveal Sarah at first,

[01:17:38] [SPEAKER_06]: or maybe she was ashamed.

[01:17:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Both of those feelings can be quite similar.

[01:17:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Alvand is too proud to help when he's against the rings.

[01:17:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And we talked about Kirdan's advice as well about kind of overcoming that.

[01:17:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Durin and his father were both too proud to apologize to each other.

[01:17:56] [SPEAKER_06]: And Sauron appeals to Kala Brimbo's pride as well or his vanity.

[01:18:00] [SPEAKER_06]: So I thought that was quite a cool thing that ran through all of the stories that we saw in here.

[01:18:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so I think that's about it.

[01:18:07] [SPEAKER_06]: I think what we'll do is we'll take a little break and we'll be back.

[01:18:11] [SPEAKER_06]: We've got heaps of news and some feedback to come and of course our spoiler section.

[01:18:15] [SPEAKER_06]: So stay with us.

[01:18:40] [SPEAKER_06]: And we're back and we have some really fantastic news this time.

[01:18:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Would you like to start us off, Penny?

[01:18:47] [SPEAKER_06]: I would love to.

[01:18:48] [SPEAKER_00]: This is an article from MSN.com called Why the Rings of Power Season 2's opening titles are read.

[01:18:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Changes and meaning explained.

[01:18:58] [SPEAKER_00]: The title sequence in Rings of Power was created by Mark Bashore and Katrina Crawford,

[01:19:03] [SPEAKER_00]: who were tasked with creating breathtaking visuals to go with the new original song by famed Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore.

[01:19:11] [SPEAKER_00]: The pair shared how they wanted to bring Tolkien's music of the Ainur,

[01:19:16] [SPEAKER_00]: not so sure about that pronunciation, to the screen with sand shifting as it would when moved by sound vibrations.

[01:19:24] [SPEAKER_00]: It's called scimatics.

[01:19:25] [SPEAKER_00]: While the images of season one suddenly filled audiences in on the events of the first age from the destruction of the two trees of Valinor to the creation of the Silmarils,

[01:19:36] [SPEAKER_00]: the reimagined sequence instead seems to foreshadow the events to come.

[01:19:41] [SPEAKER_00]: There are 19 circles total, one of each of the titular Rings of Power.

[01:19:46] [SPEAKER_00]: A network of circles.

[01:19:48] [SPEAKER_00]: The first significant shape formed by the sand is a network of circles.

[01:19:51] [SPEAKER_00]: These have the clearest meaning.

[01:19:53] [SPEAKER_00]: There are 19 circles total, one of each of the titular Rings of Power.

[01:19:58] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a group of three circles connected to each other, but not to the other 16 in the middle.

[01:20:03] [SPEAKER_00]: These are meant to represent the three elven rings.

[01:20:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Surrounding these are seven connected circles, the seven given to the dwarves.

[01:20:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Finally, arched over the top is a network of nine circles representing the nine given to the kings of men.

[01:20:18] [SPEAKER_00]: A crown surrounded by stars.

[01:20:20] [SPEAKER_00]: After the undulating network of circles, the golden sand takes the shape of a crown surrounded by stars.

[01:20:26] [SPEAKER_00]: This is the portion of the symbol for the dwarf kingdom of Khazad-dum.

[01:20:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Then an elegant arch.

[01:20:33] [SPEAKER_00]: The next shape taken by the golden sand is an elegant arch which looks exactly like the glowing door of Durin seen in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

[01:20:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Since the glowing archway of the iconic Lord of the Rings door features the Khazad-dum crown at the center, this shape is cohesive with the last.

[01:20:52] [SPEAKER_00]: A Balrog's horns.

[01:20:53] [SPEAKER_00]: After another transition, the golden sand reforms into a far more alarming shape, the horns of a Balrog.

[01:21:00] [SPEAKER_00]: While the beast's head isn't visible, the horns seen in the Rings of Power opening sequence are the exact shape of the Balrog seen in Rings of Power season one,

[01:21:09] [SPEAKER_00]: which follows the same design as Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies.

[01:21:14] [SPEAKER_00]: A red iris.

[01:21:15] [SPEAKER_00]: When the gold sand takes its next shape, that tinge of red again begins to take over.

[01:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: The circle that forms looks like a great deal like a red iris, most likely symbolic of Sauron's flaming eye.

[01:21:29] [SPEAKER_00]: There's more in the article and we'll link it in the show notes that has like spoilery speculation in it so we won't read that right now.

[01:21:35] [SPEAKER_06]: I really liked this and it's kind of a common thing now amongst the big TV shows that we see now in the golden age of television is these kind of sort of evolving opening titles.

[01:21:52] [SPEAKER_06]: And we saw that, you know, they evolved actually each episode with The House of the Dragon.

[01:21:57] [SPEAKER_06]: And I really like how this is similar to that first theme, but we're seeing a lot more specific detail, which is really cool.

[01:22:03] [SPEAKER_06]: I loved it. I loved watching it and seeing it was red. It was really different to that first kind of just golden sandy one from season one.

[01:22:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It's quite beautiful.

[01:22:12] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:22:14] [SPEAKER_06]: All right, we have another article here about Sauron's origins and from season two premiere.

[01:22:22] [SPEAKER_06]: And this is an interview with director Charlotte Brandstrom, where she explains his origins, why Cala Brimbor is like Oppenheimer and directing 200 orcs.

[01:22:35] [SPEAKER_06]: She's got a big job.

[01:22:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Charlotte Brandstrom is a Swedish film and TV director who helped stand out season one episodes Udun and The Eye returns for twice as many outings this year, including episodes one, three, seven and eight of season two.

[01:22:50] [SPEAKER_06]: She's directing half of them.

[01:22:51] [SPEAKER_06]: That's awesome. Yeah, and that's the premiere and the finale.

[01:22:54] [SPEAKER_06]: Definitely. Yep.

[01:22:55] [SPEAKER_06]: And the seven and eight, the last two.

[01:22:57] [SPEAKER_06]: So that's always the big build up to the end.

[01:23:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Between working on the seasons of Lord of the Rings prequel, Brandstrom also ventured into the violent worlds of John Wick with the Peacock mini series The Continental.

[01:23:08] [SPEAKER_06]: I think that's like a prequel of John Wick.

[01:23:10] [SPEAKER_06]: And she also visited Feudal Japan via FXM's favorite Shogun and each series showcased her talent for crafting action packed set pieces with her Shogun episode Tomorrow is Tomorrow featuring a memorable ship battle sequence.

[01:23:26] [SPEAKER_06]: So she's not afraid of big battles and big scenes, is she?

[01:23:28] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's fantastic.

[01:23:29] [SPEAKER_04]: No, not at all.

[01:23:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Yep.

[01:23:30] [SPEAKER_06]: In season one, Brandstrom helped create the infamous Mount Doom of Mordor in the fiery episode Udun which nabbed a Creative Arts Emmy nomination for its sound editing.

[01:23:40] [SPEAKER_06]: That episode was packed with orc battles, the volcanic eruption of Mount Doom and its Ashfield aftermath.

[01:23:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Now she ramps up the Middle Earth madness with two episodes in the three part premiere and the final two episodes of the season, which include a massive multi-part battle.

[01:23:53] [SPEAKER_06]: They ask her,

[01:24:23] [SPEAKER_06]: in order to set everything up.

[01:24:25] [SPEAKER_06]: There's so many different worlds and there's so much to set up.

[01:24:29] [SPEAKER_06]: We also did a lot of research, cinematically and visually, to see what kind of look we would give the second season.

[01:24:34] [SPEAKER_06]: We really wanted it to find a darker undertone this time.

[01:24:37] [SPEAKER_06]: I set it in Swedish once to Swedes and they translated it, the whole world has translated it as being more dirty.

[01:24:43] [SPEAKER_06]: That was not quite the word that I meant, but I did mean that I wanted to be more authentic, more edgy, more dangerous.

[01:24:48] [SPEAKER_06]: I also wanted to use as much as possible the elements in nature like the dust, wind, rain and mud.

[01:24:55] [SPEAKER_06]: I wanted everything to be very real.

[01:24:57] [SPEAKER_06]: So the films that we looked at when we were prepping were Saving Private Ryan and The Northmen.

[01:25:01] [SPEAKER_06]: We love the battles in The Northmen and also the very long one-ers.

[01:25:05] [SPEAKER_06]: So a one-er is like a one shot.

[01:25:07] [SPEAKER_06]: So you basically, the camera just stays on.

[01:25:09] [SPEAKER_06]: You don't do lots of different cuts.

[01:25:10] [SPEAKER_06]: It's just a whole lot of action in one shot.

[01:25:13] [SPEAKER_06]: In episode eight, I have a big action scene that I did in one shot with one camera.

[01:25:17] [SPEAKER_06]: We rehearsed it so much.

[01:25:19] [SPEAKER_06]: We shot it very, very quickly and everybody was shocked.

[01:25:21] [SPEAKER_06]: It took two hours to do.

[01:25:23] [SPEAKER_06]: I finished at noon that day.

[01:25:24] [SPEAKER_06]: They had planned all day.

[01:25:25] [SPEAKER_06]: We did like five takes and it was done.

[01:25:28] [SPEAKER_06]: That's fantastic.

[01:25:30] [SPEAKER_06]: That's great rehearsing.

[01:25:31] [SPEAKER_06]: That's great rehearsing and really great planning in terms of how you're going to do the action,

[01:25:35] [SPEAKER_06]: especially since a lot of those scenes have a huge amount of choreography.

[01:25:37] [SPEAKER_06]: So you've got to do a lot of practice with that too.

[01:25:39] [SPEAKER_06]: I can't wait to see that.

[01:25:41] [SPEAKER_06]: Got to wait till episode eight for that one.

[01:25:43] [SPEAKER_06]: We're keeping our eyes out for it.

[01:25:45] [SPEAKER_06]: They ask how much time passes between the opening scene with Sauron's original form

[01:25:49] [SPEAKER_06]: and when we later see him disguised as Hellbrand meeting Galadriel in season one.

[01:25:54] [SPEAKER_06]: She answers, in the moment he meets Galadriel and the moment when he comes back and he's reborn,

[01:25:59] [SPEAKER_06]: that's thousands of years.

[01:26:00] [SPEAKER_06]: First is the first Sauron.

[01:26:01] [SPEAKER_06]: That's the very first scene thousands of years before.

[01:26:04] [SPEAKER_06]: He takes this new shape into this blob and this creature.

[01:26:06] [SPEAKER_06]: That's thousands of years before.

[01:26:08] [SPEAKER_06]: And then when he becomes Hellbrand and meets Galadriel, when he comes back,

[01:26:11] [SPEAKER_06]: it's like six months later after he has clothes on and he meets the old man on the road.

[01:26:16] [SPEAKER_06]: They ask, I interpreted that scene as him plotting and waiting for the right moment to strike.

[01:26:21] [SPEAKER_06]: But was there a part of Sauron that may have been good?

[01:26:24] [SPEAKER_06]: No, we wanted it to be a moment when he was at a crossroads.

[01:26:26] [SPEAKER_06]: He was trying to make a choice.

[01:26:27] [SPEAKER_06]: He probably had always had this inside him,

[01:26:29] [SPEAKER_06]: but we had a lot of discussion with the showrunners about who he was at the very beginning.

[01:26:33] [SPEAKER_06]: He still says, I want to heal Middle-earth.

[01:26:35] [SPEAKER_06]: So he thinks he wants to do good.

[01:26:37] [SPEAKER_06]: He's not there to destroy it.

[01:26:38] [SPEAKER_06]: Even Adar wants to find a home for his children.

[01:26:40] [SPEAKER_06]: He wants a home.

[01:26:41] [SPEAKER_06]: They're refugees in a way.

[01:26:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Sauron wants to help everybody,

[01:26:44] [SPEAKER_06]: but he wants to do that with the ultimate power and the ring.

[01:26:47] [SPEAKER_06]: He's getting into everybody's head and manipulating everybody.

[01:26:50] [SPEAKER_06]: This season is really about how Sauron is going to accomplish what he's going to do.

[01:26:55] [SPEAKER_06]: He's starting off with nothing.

[01:26:57] [SPEAKER_06]: He's by himself, no army.

[01:26:58] [SPEAKER_06]: He's all alone.

[01:26:59] [SPEAKER_06]: How is he going to basically conquer Middle-earth

[01:27:01] [SPEAKER_06]: and also have Celebrimbor make the ring for him?

[01:27:04] [SPEAKER_06]: I like that she's been specific there about the,

[01:27:09] [SPEAKER_06]: about the timeframe.

[01:27:10] [SPEAKER_06]: That was kind of what we guessed.

[01:27:13] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not clear the whole sort of six months-ish,

[01:27:15] [SPEAKER_06]: but that doesn't really matter whatever he was doing in that six months.

[01:27:17] [SPEAKER_06]: I guess it just took him that long to kind of cross over Middle-earth.

[01:27:21] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, I like that she's confirmed that it's thousands of years before.

[01:27:24] [SPEAKER_06]: That's pretty cool.

[01:27:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a long time to be a blob.

[01:27:28] [SPEAKER_06]: It sure is. Yep.

[01:27:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And final question they ask her was how difficult was it to shoot all the orcs in the opening sequence?

[01:27:36] [SPEAKER_06]: She says, I needed 200 orcs as extras.

[01:27:39] [SPEAKER_06]: This year we wanted to use more prosthetics and special effects,

[01:27:41] [SPEAKER_06]: but not visual effects on the orcs.

[01:27:43] [SPEAKER_06]: We wanted them to be as real as possible.

[01:27:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Each prosthetic took hours to put on each extra.

[01:27:48] [SPEAKER_06]: You imagine in the morning when you have everybody arriving,

[01:27:50] [SPEAKER_06]: you don't have a thousand make-up people.

[01:27:51] [SPEAKER_06]: So we were getting them sporadically on set.

[01:27:53] [SPEAKER_06]: I would start my day with five orcs.

[01:27:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Then I have 10, then 20, then 50,

[01:27:58] [SPEAKER_06]: then 200 for about three hours.

[01:27:59] [SPEAKER_06]: And then I had to start sending them back again.

[01:28:01] [SPEAKER_06]: I knew I only had three hours to accomplish the shots that had a lot of people.

[01:28:04] [SPEAKER_06]: We feel like we had a lot of time compared to other episodes,

[01:28:07] [SPEAKER_06]: but at the same time we were always pressed for time because of all the logistics.

[01:28:10] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a great creative show and there's always a lot of creative freedom,

[01:28:13] [SPEAKER_06]: but it is very technical so it needs to be extremely well planned out.

[01:28:16] [SPEAKER_06]: You can't just wing it.

[01:28:17] [SPEAKER_06]: That's impossible.

[01:28:21] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot more in that article, but anyway,

[01:28:24] [SPEAKER_00]: we'll link it again in the show notes.

[01:28:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And our final article is called Rings of Power Creators Breakdown

[01:28:31] [SPEAKER_00]: that Sauron cold open in season two.

[01:28:34] [SPEAKER_00]: So just a little bit more information on top of what Charlotte Branstrom offered us.

[01:28:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So the question is,

[01:28:42] [SPEAKER_00]: so what made doing this backstory appealing and how long was this sequence?

[01:28:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Like how many years did it take Sauron to regain his physical form?

[01:28:51] [SPEAKER_00]: JD Payne said,

[01:28:52] [SPEAKER_00]: so this was originally a sequence that we talked about doing in season one.

[01:28:56] [SPEAKER_00]: We talked about it being the cold open to episode six when Adar and Halbrand meet.

[01:29:01] [SPEAKER_00]: We were going to give you this big backstory and then we were like,

[01:29:04] [SPEAKER_00]: this is going to end up feeling jammed in.

[01:29:07] [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't feel like we had the space to do it in the terms we envisioned it.

[01:29:11] [SPEAKER_00]: We got to talking and said,

[01:29:12] [SPEAKER_00]: what about moving it to the top of season two?

[01:29:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Because it felt like an integral part of the story.

[01:29:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And as soon as we put it in season two,

[01:29:19] [SPEAKER_00]: it liberated us to tell it the way we felt like it needed to be told.

[01:29:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And it helped us by showing this animus between Sauron and Adar that would help charge the season going forward.

[01:29:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Patrick McKay adds,

[01:29:32] [SPEAKER_00]: also it's your chance to spend some time with Sauron.

[01:29:35] [SPEAKER_00]: In the story in his head, he's the hero.

[01:29:38] [SPEAKER_00]: He thinks he knows better than everybody.

[01:29:40] [SPEAKER_00]: He's going to fix the world.

[01:29:43] [SPEAKER_00]: If everybody did the things the way I think they should be done,

[01:29:46] [SPEAKER_00]: then everything will be great and we'd have peace.

[01:29:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, how do you come to that point of view?

[01:29:50] [SPEAKER_00]: How would he come to that level of arrogance that he knows better than anyone in the world?

[01:29:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And the answer is go on this journey with him and see how he has been betrayed,

[01:30:00] [SPEAKER_00]: how he has suffered and how he sees himself as a visionary.

[01:30:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And what is he grappling with?

[01:30:06] [SPEAKER_00]: We love the idea that by the end of that 20 minutes,

[01:30:09] [SPEAKER_00]: you might rewatch season one in your head and have a whole new lens on what he was going through at each of those story turns.

[01:30:16] [SPEAKER_00]: It's true. I do kind of want to go back and watch season one again.

[01:30:20] [SPEAKER_00]: JD Payne says, You asked about timeline going back to the legendarium, Tolkien's cumulative works.

[01:30:26] [SPEAKER_00]: We almost felt like there was this delicious hole that Tolkien had left or ellipses.

[01:30:31] [SPEAKER_00]: He talks about Sauron in the first age as Morgoth's lieutenant.

[01:30:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And then he sort of shows up hundreds of years into the second age, kind of out of nowhere.

[01:30:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's really no indication in the legendarium exactly what he was doing.

[01:30:44] [SPEAKER_00]: There was a lot left unspecified.

[01:30:45] [SPEAKER_00]: So we felt like it was an enormous opportunity to take you on an emotional journey with Sauron

[01:30:51] [SPEAKER_00]: and help you feel that for potentially hundreds of years he had been this creature.

[01:30:56] [SPEAKER_00]: There's this one dissolve where you can see the stalagmites have grown.

[01:31:00] [SPEAKER_00]: You're supposed to get the sense that a geological amount of time has passed,

[01:31:05] [SPEAKER_00]: which Sauron spent at the bottom of the world.

[01:31:08] [SPEAKER_00]: They ask, Does Sauron feel physical pain?

[01:31:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I was surprised you didn't cry out when the crown thing happened.

[01:31:15] [SPEAKER_00]: But there are other times later when he's being beaten by Adar's men, when he does.

[01:31:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't sure if he's just pretending to feel pain when playing in human form.

[01:31:24] [SPEAKER_00]: McKay said, So the rules operating and governing his powers, his abilities.

[01:31:29] [SPEAKER_00]: We know he can't be killed by any normal means.

[01:31:31] [SPEAKER_00]: He can return. Tolkien writes about that a lot.

[01:31:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But also beings of his class do feel pain.

[01:31:37] [SPEAKER_00]: They are subject to the limitations of a mortal body.

[01:31:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So he definitely feels pain.

[01:31:42] [SPEAKER_00]: He seems to express guilt and regret.

[01:31:44] [SPEAKER_00]: But whether those are altruistic in nature or whether those are all about his own self image

[01:31:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and his own grandiosity, I think there's a really delicious ambiguity about it.

[01:31:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Got it. So did Sauron cause the sea monster to attack the ship

[01:31:59] [SPEAKER_00]: in order to meet up with Galadriel?

[01:32:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Or was that random?

[01:32:03] [SPEAKER_00]: McKay said, This is a question about the cosmology of Tolkien's universe and the show.

[01:32:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I think one could make a very strong case that the gods caused the sea monster to attack for him.

[01:32:13] [SPEAKER_00]: But we're not privy to the intentions of the gods.

[01:32:15] [SPEAKER_00]: We only see what happens and comment, Gosh, maybe that's what's going on.

[01:32:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Payne said, We talk a lot in the writer's room about whether Sauron is a puppet master or if he's an opportunist.

[01:32:27] [SPEAKER_00]: We're constantly balancing those two and finding out where something just broke his way

[01:32:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and he took advantage of it and where he was 17 steps ahead of everyone,

[01:32:35] [SPEAKER_00]: setting up dominoes beforehand.

[01:32:37] [SPEAKER_00]: We'd like to leave some of those things to the audience to be able to have fun talking about

[01:32:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and not give our own authorial opinions about exactly how Sauron did it.

[01:32:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. Otherwise, we couldn't have a podcast.

[01:32:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Exactly. I actually love that they leave that a little bit ambiguous.

[01:32:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And going back to that scene with the old man when he's going towards the kind of ruin of Mordor

[01:32:59] [SPEAKER_06]: and then he changes his mind and he ends up going with the stragglers and setting out across the sea.

[01:33:06] [SPEAKER_06]: It's really not clear whether he has decided, Yeah, I'm going to make a new life for myself

[01:33:11] [SPEAKER_06]: and turn towards the light like this guy tells me to

[01:33:15] [SPEAKER_06]: or whether he is the 17 steps ahead and going, This could be helpful to me later on.

[01:33:21] [SPEAKER_06]: Let's see where this takes me.

[01:33:23] [SPEAKER_06]: So I like that they're leaving that ambiguous and we can make our own decisions and argue about it for hours.

[01:33:27] [SPEAKER_06]: It's awesome.

[01:33:31] [SPEAKER_06]: We got some list of feedback for episode one and we have one here from Erica Price.

[01:33:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Erica says, I'm so glad we're back.

[01:33:42] [SPEAKER_06]: Starting with backstory here makes me feel a little discombobulated.

[01:33:45] [SPEAKER_06]: I wonder if the showrunners looked at season one feedback and realized they were a little too cryptic

[01:33:49] [SPEAKER_06]: and had some explaining to do, especially the scene in Farodwaith with alternate Sauron.

[01:33:54] [SPEAKER_06]: I would have found the story more compelling in season one, episode one,

[01:33:58] [SPEAKER_06]: then we as the audience would have had inside knowledge about Halbrand.

[01:34:01] [SPEAKER_06]: I was hoping for more dwarves.

[01:34:02] [SPEAKER_06]: The half foot stranger, baby Gandalf scenes went nowhere

[01:34:06] [SPEAKER_06]: and demonstrated why they should have had Poppy accompany them.

[01:34:09] [SPEAKER_06]: I do miss Joseph Maui's Adar.

[01:34:11] [SPEAKER_06]: This new guy has empty eyes.

[01:34:12] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm bored with him already.

[01:34:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Gagalad needs to sing more.

[01:34:15] [SPEAKER_06]: I enjoyed his call out to the Eldar.

[01:34:17] [SPEAKER_06]: The rings are indeed beautiful and I was giggling a little at the shot of them holding their hands out in admiration

[01:34:21] [SPEAKER_06]: because all I could hear in my head was,

[01:34:23] [SPEAKER_06]: Wonder Twins, activate!

[01:34:26] [SPEAKER_06]: Good episode despite my nitpicks.

[01:34:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Looking forward to the season.

[01:34:29] [SPEAKER_06]: Thanks so much, Erica.

[01:34:30] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think I can share Erica is planning a trip to New Zealand

[01:34:35] [SPEAKER_06]: and I think next year or the year after with red carpet tours.

[01:34:38] [SPEAKER_06]: So I hope you have an amazing time, Erica.

[01:34:39] [SPEAKER_06]: That's going to be awesome.

[01:34:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you so much for your feedback.

[01:34:43] [SPEAKER_00]: We also heard from Alma Contreras who said,

[01:34:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't get to watch the episode in time to make my comment for the cast.

[01:34:50] [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine.

[01:34:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And we are happy to have your comment this week.

[01:34:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I got to say, this show seems kind of complicated for me to follow.

[01:34:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank goodness we got this podcast to help me out.

[01:35:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm having trouble with characters names.

[01:35:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully by mid season, I will have straightened it all out.

[01:35:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And she has little fingers crossed emoji because they are adding more characters.

[01:35:10] [SPEAKER_00]: OK, I have a question about Adar.

[01:35:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Did they change the actor playing him?

[01:35:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, they did.

[01:35:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And didn't Sauron stab or kill him at the end of season one?

[01:35:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And how crazy was his blood and wiry forms

[01:35:22] [SPEAKER_00]: squirming about sucking up living things until he got a human?

[01:35:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Gross, but kind of cool at the same time. LOL.

[01:35:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I really can't wait for you ladies to shed lots of light on this first episode.

[01:35:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Adar was played by Joseph Mulway who we all know from Game of Thrones

[01:35:38] [SPEAKER_00]: in the first season and he's now played by Sam Hazeldeen

[01:35:42] [SPEAKER_00]: who was on The Sandman and Peaky Blinders for season two.

[01:35:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Joseph Mulway left to pursue other acting roles.

[01:35:50] [SPEAKER_00]: There was some timing conflict or something.

[01:35:53] [SPEAKER_06]: Thanks, Alma and thanks Erika as well.

[01:35:55] [SPEAKER_06]: It's interesting you both mentioned Adar.

[01:35:59] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, I'm hoping that the new actor grows on me.

[01:36:03] [SPEAKER_06]: I think we mentioned last week as well.

[01:36:05] [SPEAKER_06]: I do like him, but I do think that he doesn't have that.

[01:36:08] [SPEAKER_06]: I understand what you're saying Erika about the empty eyes.

[01:36:12] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't think he has the same sadness or grief to him

[01:36:18] [SPEAKER_06]: that Joseph Mulay had to him.

[01:36:21] [SPEAKER_06]: So hoping to see that develop and we'll see how that goes.

[01:36:25] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and your question Alma about didn't Sauron stab him

[01:36:30] [SPEAKER_06]: when they were chasing through the forest and he was saying

[01:36:33] [SPEAKER_06]: do you know me? And then they had their little altercation there.

[01:36:36] [SPEAKER_06]: It was after that that Adar was then taken back to the village

[01:36:39] [SPEAKER_06]: and tied up in that barn and Galadriel had her conversation with him.

[01:36:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And then after you see the Mount Doom erupt and all of the chaos there,

[01:36:48] [SPEAKER_06]: there was a shot of the barn with Adar not chained up.

[01:36:53] [SPEAKER_06]: So he obviously escaped at the end of that episode.

[01:36:56] [SPEAKER_06]: And then this is why we still see him now in Mordor with all of his orcs.

[01:37:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Hopefully that helps.

[01:37:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Thanks so much for your feedback.

[01:37:07] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, please feel free to send in any feedback about any of the episodes.

[01:37:11] [SPEAKER_06]: It doesn't matter if you missed our recording for each one.

[01:37:14] [SPEAKER_06]: We're really happy to play it on subsequent podcasts.

[01:37:17] [SPEAKER_06]: So please go ahead and leave that in.

[01:37:18] [SPEAKER_06]: You can find all of our contact information at podcastica.com.

[01:37:23] [SPEAKER_06]: We love your voicemails as well, so send those on through.

[01:37:26] [SPEAKER_06]: And if you're enjoying what we do here,

[01:37:28] [SPEAKER_06]: please write and review on whatever podcast app you're listening on

[01:37:32] [SPEAKER_06]: that helps other people find us and we really appreciate your comments.

[01:37:35] [SPEAKER_06]: I thank you so much for that.

[01:37:37] [SPEAKER_00]: While you're over at podcastica.com sending us a message,

[01:37:41] [SPEAKER_00]: you should look at some of the other podcastica shows.

[01:37:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I mentioned I cover Buffy the Vampire Slayer on a show called Still Slaying.

[01:37:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And we'd love to have some of the Rings of Power fans

[01:37:56] [SPEAKER_00]: join us over there on Still Slaying.

[01:37:57] [SPEAKER_00]: We have a really good time.

[01:37:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Anwen has guested with us and hopefully will again in the future.

[01:38:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes, please.

[01:38:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And heaps and heaps of other things to look at there as well.

[01:38:06] [SPEAKER_06]: Probably the best way to do it is to just go to podcastica.com

[01:38:09] [SPEAKER_06]: and have a scroll through.

[01:38:10] [SPEAKER_06]: You'll see all the different kinds of shows that we cover,

[01:38:13] [SPEAKER_06]: everything from really dark shows that are often covered by

[01:38:17] [SPEAKER_06]: Strange Indeed all the way through to their Pellet Cleanser

[01:38:20] [SPEAKER_06]: that they sometimes do to cover the British Bake Off, which is awesome.

[01:38:24] [SPEAKER_06]: A really nice contrast there as well.

[01:38:29] [SPEAKER_06]: So that's great.

[01:38:30] [SPEAKER_06]: And so if you don't mind possible spoilers for future seasons,

[01:38:35] [SPEAKER_06]: please join us now for Galadriel's Mirror.

[01:38:38] [SPEAKER_06]: We're going to discuss how the show compares with the book

[01:38:40] [SPEAKER_06]: and some of the things that we think might happen next

[01:38:44] [SPEAKER_06]: based on the source material.

[01:38:47] [SPEAKER_06]: And just a disclaimer, there's going to be one really heavy spoiler in here

[01:38:53] [SPEAKER_06]: about what happens to one character.

[01:38:55] [SPEAKER_06]: So if you're not wanting to know what might happen,

[01:38:58] [SPEAKER_06]: then please just stop listening now and tune in next time.

[01:39:02] [SPEAKER_06]: But otherwise, please feel free to join us now

[01:39:05] [SPEAKER_06]: and step into Galadriel's Mirror.

[01:39:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Will you look into the mirror?

[01:39:11] [SPEAKER_04]: What will I see?

[01:39:13] [SPEAKER_04]: Things that were, things that are,

[01:39:19] [SPEAKER_04]: and some things that have not yet come to pass.

[01:39:25] [SPEAKER_06]: OK, I've got a couple of things.

[01:39:27] [SPEAKER_06]: So the first one is about the wizard.

[01:39:31] [SPEAKER_06]: So you mentioned before potentially could he be Saruman?

[01:39:36] [SPEAKER_06]: And I wanted to just put my feelings on it here

[01:39:39] [SPEAKER_06]: because I'm pretty sure he is going to be Saruman.

[01:39:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And there's a couple of reasons for that.

[01:39:47] [SPEAKER_06]: One is that I think we're all pretty much all but confirmed

[01:39:51] [SPEAKER_06]: that the stranger is Gandalf at this point.

[01:39:53] [SPEAKER_06]: I think they're just dropping too many hints

[01:39:54] [SPEAKER_06]: unless they're doing that thing where they're like,

[01:39:56] [SPEAKER_06]: oh, we're going to make you think it's Gandalf and it's really not.

[01:39:58] [SPEAKER_06]: But I just think they've dropped so many hints

[01:40:00] [SPEAKER_06]: that I'm convinced it is.

[01:40:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And in my mind, I think either both of them are blue wizards

[01:40:08] [SPEAKER_06]: and this is just a cool side story about what happened with them

[01:40:10] [SPEAKER_06]: because we don't really get anything in the book.

[01:40:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Or if the stranger is Gandalf, then this is definitely Saruman.

[01:40:18] [SPEAKER_06]: So one of the reasons I think that is we know about Saruman.

[01:40:21] [SPEAKER_06]: He often wandered into the East.

[01:40:25] [SPEAKER_06]: The blue wizards went to the East as well.

[01:40:27] [SPEAKER_06]: They never came back, but Saruman, he potentially might have joined them

[01:40:30] [SPEAKER_06]: and then he returned back to the main part of Middle Earth

[01:40:33] [SPEAKER_06]: and he occupied Isengard.

[01:40:35] [SPEAKER_06]: Saruman was the eldest of the five wizards that were sent.

[01:40:40] [SPEAKER_06]: As we know before, they are Maya who are sent in the form of the wizards,

[01:40:45] [SPEAKER_06]: the Astari, to Middle Earth.

[01:40:47] [SPEAKER_06]: He appeared as an old man with a long face and high forehead

[01:40:51] [SPEAKER_06]: with a long white beard edged with strands of black hair about his face.

[01:40:55] [SPEAKER_06]: His eyes were deep and solemn and he carried a heavy staff

[01:40:58] [SPEAKER_06]: that was black in color.

[01:40:59] [SPEAKER_06]: He chose a long white hand as his symbol.

[01:41:02] [SPEAKER_06]: So this guy we're seeing on screen has got, he's wearing white,

[01:41:06] [SPEAKER_06]: he's got a black staff.

[01:41:08] [SPEAKER_06]: He's got the long face and the high forehead.

[01:41:11] [SPEAKER_06]: He's got the very sticky out eyebrows, just like Christopher Lee

[01:41:17] [SPEAKER_06]: in portraying Saruman in The Lord of the Rings.

[01:41:21] [SPEAKER_06]: And he's also described initially in the books as having raven hair.

[01:41:26] [SPEAKER_06]: So he's got black hair and then he's got this kind of like stripey

[01:41:29] [SPEAKER_06]: black and white beard.

[01:41:31] [SPEAKER_06]: So I think it's him.

[01:41:35] [SPEAKER_06]: But the thing that is not so palatable to me is that Saruman

[01:41:40] [SPEAKER_06]: initially was good and he turned evil quite a lot later when he became

[01:41:45] [SPEAKER_06]: under the influence of Sauron.

[01:41:48] [SPEAKER_06]: But this guy that we're seeing here, it's slightly ambiguous.

[01:41:51] [SPEAKER_06]: But again, like we said, he's totally fine with his minions trying

[01:41:54] [SPEAKER_06]: to kill the halflings.

[01:41:55] [SPEAKER_06]: So he just doesn't really care.

[01:41:57] [SPEAKER_06]: To be honest.

[01:41:59] [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't seem particularly good.

[01:42:00] [SPEAKER_06]: No, he doesn't.

[01:42:01] [SPEAKER_06]: And if we're fair about it and we want to argue for ourselves,

[01:42:06] [SPEAKER_06]: he was never fond of Hobbits later anyway.

[01:42:08] [SPEAKER_06]: So like maybe he just doesn't really care about them as a race.

[01:42:11] [SPEAKER_06]: It feels like they're beneath him or something.

[01:42:14] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, I think it's going to be him.

[01:42:17] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know what they're going to do with that and how they're going

[01:42:18] [SPEAKER_06]: to make it blend with what Stranger slash Gandalf is doing.

[01:42:23] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, totally prepared to be surprised in that they've thrown me

[01:42:26] [SPEAKER_06]: off the scene and it's going to be two completely different characters.

[01:42:28] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't see a huge amount of point in bringing in the Blue Wizards

[01:42:33] [SPEAKER_06]: and what they were doing.

[01:42:34] [SPEAKER_06]: They don't figure in the story much, but it could just be extra depth,

[01:42:37] [SPEAKER_06]: but the halflings don't really figure either.

[01:42:39] [SPEAKER_06]: So that's a whole big made up thing.

[01:42:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's hard to know.

[01:42:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:42:44] [SPEAKER_06]: We'll see what happens.

[01:42:46] [SPEAKER_06]: And then the other major spoiler that I just did want to talk about

[01:42:51] [SPEAKER_06]: for those who've read the books, especially The Silmarillion

[01:42:54] [SPEAKER_06]: and The Unfinished Tales is Calabrian Boar.

[01:42:58] [SPEAKER_06]: So in Galadriel's vision, he is skewered by the tree.

[01:43:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And this is some really heavy foreshadowing.

[01:43:05] [SPEAKER_06]: So in the book, he makes the rings with Anata.

[01:43:12] [SPEAKER_06]: And then he realizes that Anata is bad and he realizes that Sauron

[01:43:19] [SPEAKER_06]: has made the one ring.

[01:43:21] [SPEAKER_06]: And then he basically tries to protect the rings and everybody else

[01:43:26] [SPEAKER_06]: from Sauron, but Sauron captures him when he invades Eregion.

[01:43:33] [SPEAKER_06]: And Calabrian Boar gets tortured by Sauron.

[01:43:35] [SPEAKER_06]: He dies from his torment.

[01:43:37] [SPEAKER_06]: He gets shot through with arrows, and then he gets hung on a pole

[01:43:41] [SPEAKER_06]: and Sauron parades him as a banner when he goes and attacks the rest of them.

[01:43:46] [SPEAKER_06]: That is some like Game of Thrones next level grossness, right?

[01:43:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's dark.

[01:43:54] [SPEAKER_06]: So this scene of him being stuck to the tree

[01:43:57] [SPEAKER_06]: and being stuck through with these spikes, I feel like,

[01:44:00] [SPEAKER_06]: is foreshadowing of the arrows.

[01:44:02] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know whether they're going to go so far as to do the whole body on a pole

[01:44:06] [SPEAKER_06]: and have him paraded around.

[01:44:09] [SPEAKER_06]: That's pretty extreme, but they have said that this show is going to go

[01:44:13] [SPEAKER_06]: quite a lot darker.

[01:44:14] [SPEAKER_06]: So let's see if that ends up happening.

[01:44:16] [SPEAKER_06]: And I don't think it's this season.

[01:44:18] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it potentially could be into next season.

[01:44:21] [SPEAKER_06]: We'll see what happens.

[01:44:22] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, what do you think of that as foreshadowing?

[01:44:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not shocked to hear that that's what happens in the book,

[01:44:30] [SPEAKER_00]: having just seen this dark vision.

[01:44:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But the parading around on a pole, I will admit, takes me by surprise.

[01:44:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel so bad for Celebrimbor.

[01:44:45] [SPEAKER_00]: He seems like a really nice guy who just wants to make things.

[01:44:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Kind of like, you know, he's just in his own city there

[01:44:55] [SPEAKER_00]: teaching other people how to do Smith stuff.

[01:44:57] [SPEAKER_00]: He's a little bit of a nerd, right?

[01:44:59] [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, check out this cool invisible ink I invented.

[01:45:03] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and he seems to really like that relationship with the other Alvin Smiths.

[01:45:08] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, like he's teaching them, but he's also sharing.

[01:45:10] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not just like I know the stuff and I'm going to tell you,

[01:45:12] [SPEAKER_06]: it's like he's sort of sharing how awesome it is.

[01:45:14] [SPEAKER_06]: He's really into it.

[01:45:16] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, I feel the same.

[01:45:18] [SPEAKER_06]: And as I said before, I think they've done a really good job at showing him

[01:45:22] [SPEAKER_06]: how he could get sucked in by Anata and what's going to happen next.

[01:45:27] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, I think it's just going to slip down into much sadder and darker places for Celebrimbor.

[01:45:33] [SPEAKER_06]: So we'll see how far they go, I guess,

[01:45:36] [SPEAKER_06]: with the source material in terms of what they do with him.

[01:45:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So when Galadriel, after she has her vision and when she goes to talk to Gilgalad

[01:45:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and she says, you know, I'm afraid that Sauron is going to go back to Eregion.

[01:45:51] [SPEAKER_00]: He said he doesn't want to just rule over a barren waste,

[01:45:55] [SPEAKER_00]: but he wants to have conquest or rule all of Middle-earth and not just by conquest,

[01:46:02] [SPEAKER_00]: but by bending the minds and wills of his own.

[01:46:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And for that he needs rings and therefore Celebrimbor.

[01:46:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, is it true that he needs Celebrimbor?

[01:46:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Because he has his own smith knowledge.

[01:46:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Is Celebrimbor truly unique in his skill and knowledge that even Sauron,

[01:46:21] [SPEAKER_00]: who is a Maya also, can't replicate his smithcraft?

[01:46:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I just thought that was really interesting.

[01:46:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think it's a show thing because you're right,

[01:46:35] [SPEAKER_06]: Sauron was a Maya and he was actually apprenticed, I guess, to Aule,

[01:46:40] [SPEAKER_06]: who is the main smithing guru, the main valor who makes stuff.

[01:46:44] [SPEAKER_06]: So I think he's got the skill.

[01:46:45] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's more that he needs someone more bound to Middle-earth

[01:46:51] [SPEAKER_06]: to create these things, to help him with it.

[01:46:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And in the book, actually he spends a lot more time with the other Alvin Smiths

[01:47:03] [SPEAKER_06]: really before or alongside Celebrimbor.

[01:47:06] [SPEAKER_06]: So they actually in the book make a bunch of practice rings

[01:47:09] [SPEAKER_06]: before they even make the 19.

[01:47:12] [SPEAKER_06]: So they make all these different practice rings to give it a try,

[01:47:14] [SPEAKER_06]: and then they're like, OK, I think we've got that.

[01:47:16] [SPEAKER_06]: And then they create the seven and the nine.

[01:47:19] [SPEAKER_06]: And then it's after that that Celebrimbor makes the three

[01:47:23] [SPEAKER_06]: without him being aware of them, without Sauron's knowledge.

[01:47:26] [SPEAKER_06]: So they're changing a little bit.

[01:47:28] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think again, it's shown necessary because we need this central figure

[01:47:33] [SPEAKER_06]: to represent Sauron's manipulation of people and peoples.

[01:47:38] [SPEAKER_06]: So we're seeing that with being Celebrimbor.

[01:47:41] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's how it represents on screen.

[01:47:43] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think that works. I think it's great.

[01:47:44] [SPEAKER_06]: We need a central character to focus on.

[01:47:46] [SPEAKER_06]: We just can't have a random bunch of semi-speaking line elves

[01:47:50] [SPEAKER_06]: in the background making the rings with Sauron.

[01:47:53] [SPEAKER_06]: I think we need Anata.

[01:47:54] [SPEAKER_06]: I think we need Celebrimbor to represent it as the face

[01:47:57] [SPEAKER_06]: of the ringmakers, of the Smiths.

[01:47:59] [SPEAKER_00]: That makes sense to me.

[01:48:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think that's going to go on.

[01:48:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I like what you said about him needing someone

[01:48:04] [SPEAKER_00]: who is more bound to Middle-earth to help him in creating it.

[01:48:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like, I'm going to do it again, going back to Buffy,

[01:48:14] [SPEAKER_00]: but how the first evil can't physically do anything in our world

[01:48:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and needs human servants or demons to do works for it, her, him, them.

[01:48:29] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. It also tracks with the fact that he's a Maia

[01:48:33] [SPEAKER_06]: in the same way that Astari are Maia.

[01:48:35] [SPEAKER_06]: And so the Astari are sent to Middle-earth.

[01:48:37] [SPEAKER_06]: They're not allowed to directly influence.

[01:48:40] [SPEAKER_06]: They're not allowed to make stuff or do stuff

[01:48:43] [SPEAKER_06]: or create big events themselves,

[01:48:46] [SPEAKER_06]: but their job is to influence others who already live there

[01:48:49] [SPEAKER_06]: to do the right thing.

[01:48:51] [SPEAKER_06]: And this is the flip side of that.

[01:48:53] [SPEAKER_06]: He's now influencing Celebrimbor to do the wrong thing in the same way.

[01:48:58] [SPEAKER_06]: So he could just go off and make it himself.

[01:48:59] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not the same. He needs someone that's tied to it.

[01:49:01] [SPEAKER_06]: So I do like the symmetry of that.

[01:49:03] [SPEAKER_06]: I think that works really well.

[01:49:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's some magic in corrupting someone who has morals

[01:49:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and manipulating him.

[01:49:13] [SPEAKER_00]: There's maybe something about the magic of the rings

[01:49:15] [SPEAKER_00]: is enhanced by him having manipulated someone to do it.

[01:49:21] [SPEAKER_06]: And it fits with his whole concept of control.

[01:49:24] [SPEAKER_06]: So Morgoth wanted to just smash and destroy,

[01:49:28] [SPEAKER_06]: and Sauron wants to rule and control by controlling

[01:49:33] [SPEAKER_06]: and manipulating others.

[01:49:35] [SPEAKER_06]: And so it fits definitely with what he's doing there.

[01:49:36] [SPEAKER_06]: So I like it.

[01:49:37] [SPEAKER_06]: And I can't wait to see his descent into poor Celebrimbor's

[01:49:41] [SPEAKER_06]: descent into madness and what happens with him at the end.

[01:49:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Exciting, scary, and sad.

[01:49:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I keep thinking about last week we read that interview

[01:49:49] [SPEAKER_00]: with Charlie Vickers where he said he gets to work with

[01:49:52] [SPEAKER_00]: the actor who plays Celebrimbor, Charles,

[01:49:55] [SPEAKER_00]: who's the last one I've forgotten, and that he's funny.

[01:49:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And that he falls down a lot.

[01:49:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, oh, don't make fun of him.

[01:50:03] [SPEAKER_00]: He's going through a rough time.

[01:50:06] [SPEAKER_06]: It sounds like the long robes are a challenge.

[01:50:09] [SPEAKER_06]: I know back in the filming of The Lord of the Rings,

[01:50:12] [SPEAKER_06]: Christopher Lee had a real problem with his long robes

[01:50:16] [SPEAKER_06]: at one point.

[01:50:16] [SPEAKER_06]: And there's actually a part in the extended edition extras

[01:50:21] [SPEAKER_06]: when he just says to Peter, I just can't do it, Peter.

[01:50:24] [SPEAKER_06]: These robes are just annoying.

[01:50:26] [SPEAKER_06]: I can't get up these stairs.

[01:50:27] [SPEAKER_06]: I can't do it.

[01:50:28] [SPEAKER_06]: And Peter just says quietly to him, well, you did it last time.

[01:50:32] [SPEAKER_06]: You just put this incredible movie legend gently into his place.

[01:50:36] [SPEAKER_06]: It's pretty amazing.

[01:50:39] [SPEAKER_06]: But that must be hard.

[01:50:40] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's hard enough hitting your marks without the long robes

[01:50:43] [SPEAKER_06]: flowing in front of you.

[01:50:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And so I think they did a pretty good job.

[01:50:47] [SPEAKER_06]: So there you go.

[01:50:48] [SPEAKER_06]: Anything else for Gladiol's Mirror?

[01:50:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Anything else spoilery from your end?

[01:50:52] [SPEAKER_06]: I think so.

[01:50:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think that's everything from me as well.

[01:50:57] [SPEAKER_06]: So I think that just about wraps us up for this week.

[01:51:00] [SPEAKER_06]: That will be our show for today.

[01:51:03] [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you everyone for listening.

[01:51:06] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, it is actually really hard, Penny.

[01:51:08] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, we've got we always have at least the next episode

[01:51:11] [SPEAKER_06]: sent to us by Amazon and we're pacing them out

[01:51:14] [SPEAKER_06]: because we want to be able to podcast clean on each one.

[01:51:17] [SPEAKER_06]: But it is really hard to be patient and not watch ahead.

[01:51:20] [SPEAKER_06]: It seems impossible.

[01:51:23] [SPEAKER_06]: It is called humility and it's difficult for most.

[01:51:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And it is the truest form of sight.