28: (S3E1&2) “Marnûkh” and “The Gift of Men”

[00:00:05] Centauri-Law, The Wise Know There Is No Such Thing There Is Only Power. Power To Control, Or Be Controlled By Another. She Loved Me, My Mother Loved Me. Your Mother Loved An Elf, Please.

[00:00:31] Here, all your life you have been trodden upon by elves, orcs, now Numenoreans.

[00:01:19] And you are born to have power over them all, for you have it in you to be a conqueror, a sorcerer.

[00:02:33] Greetings Palantir Peepers, Turncoat Uruks, Suspicious Dwarves and Future Ringwraiths. Welcome to our podcast, I'm Anwen. And I'm Penny. And I'm Veronica. And this is the Cast of the Rings, episode 28. This episode we are going to be covering Rings of Power, season 3, the premiere, episodes 1 and 2.

[00:02:56] It's so great to finally be back, and this happens every season, I go, wow that was such a long time to wait, oh my god it's come really quickly. Yeah, no kidding. So what did you both think overall of episode 1 and 2 for season 3? I'm loving it. Yeah, I thought that, I mean the visual qualities of the show continue to be just phenomenal, right?

[00:03:24] Like sets, costumes, locations, camera work, lighting, all that stuff is just at the top of its game for the craft of making visual media. I am really enjoying some of the new characters. I mean, I've been very excited about Jamie Campbell Bauer joining the cast. He was basically born to play an elf, just look at him. He looks like he might actually be an elf.

[00:03:49] And the first couple of episodes I thought were a little light on sort of meat, but they're very much like setting all the players on the board, letting us know what's going on in all the different storylines. So it's kind of hard to judge so far.

[00:04:35] I agree. And although the schedule of them dropping four at once and then two and then two is really tough for podcasters, it does mean that it's pretty exciting that there's a lot there for you to watch right away. So it takes away some of that waiting. I really liked them too. After the first episode, I felt like, I did feel the first episode was just a little bit clunky.

[00:04:57] I felt like they had to kind of establish that time jump and they were jumping around a few different stories to bring them back to where we kind of, you know, catch us up, I guess. But after watching the second episode, I felt like the pacing and the kind of narrative choices that they made, made more sense. And I think the two episodes worked really well together. So I'm glad we're podcasting on both of them. I think if I was just doing the first one, I would have kind of gone, that's not enough. You know, we didn't even get to Numenor in the first episode. And everyone knows Numenor is my favorite.

[00:05:26] So I'm really excited to see both of them together. And I did feel like it really worked overall. And I love to see the slight sort of changes that they did to show us that time jump. So the characters, the kind of way they relate to each other, the look, the hairstyles, everything's just a little bit different. It's not just like they've suddenly snapped into the next day. So I think that's really, really good. All right. We've got a few places to catch up on.

[00:05:55] Veronica, do you want to go first and tell us what you'd like to talk about first? Yeah, sure. I hope I'm not stealing anybody's thunder, but I want to talk about Celebrimbor and Galadriel because I only got to watch the episodes through once, but I can't wait to go rewatch that scene. It was a brief scene where we got to go back and see their meeting during the first stage, I believe.

[00:06:25] And I don't know. We don't get a lot of romance in the world of Tolkien. Tolkien, I think we talked about this in our intro episode. And this little love story, especially between two elves that are just ethereal. And like you said, Penny, I think Jamie Bowers Campbell was just set to play an elf. Like, I don't know. It was everything delightful that like it made me feel like a child again and like falling in love with this world.

[00:06:54] It sort of had that energy for me. And I loved their dance fight through the forest. I loved like his touch skin first and then they're just off into it. I audibly gasped when I saw her hair in his hand.

[00:07:13] It was sweet and fun and even gave me like a moment of thinking of like Gimli and asking for strands of Galadriel's hair in the future. I don't know. So it hit like a lot of nostalgia. It was just a happy little trip away from a lot of the horrible things that are happening in present day Middle Earth.

[00:07:35] I also loved at the end, Harry and Celebrimbor dreaming of the beauty of what we know will be Lothlorien someday. I saw that was really sweet. And I don't know any really of the lore around Celebrorn or Galadriel and their meeting and the creation of Lothlorien. So this was this like beautiful little like peek into that for me.

[00:08:02] And then I think beyond just sort of like my gushing over how much I loved the scene, I also felt like this scene did help compound the theme throughout these first two episodes that Galadriel is battling loneliness and sort of giving us the juxtaposition of her.

[00:08:22] We see her put so much energy into being fierce and vengeful and focused on eliminating Sauron and that it was a bit of a surprise to me when she did eventually admit later to Erendir that loneliness is what's kind of plaguing her. And I just felt like this made that feel more real to me, seeing her be truly in love with someone.

[00:08:47] We just haven't seen a ton of softness from her, which is fine. I've loved like the fierce character that she is, but I just really enjoyed that. And I think seeing the joy she had with Celebrorn, seeing the way that they bonded over fighting and even sort of their shared detachment from the merriment of the other elves, sort of this like brooding nature that's consistent with the other pieces of Galadriel.

[00:09:16] I think also shifted things into better perspective for me as to how she fell so much for Halbrand, Sauron at the time. Because if you remember, I think sort of the height of her enamor with him seemed to be after they finished fighting in a battle together.

[00:09:39] And I just wondered if that had echoes of the one other romantic love that she had known with Celebrorn, which I think is sort of set up in this scene of their first interaction being fighting. And so I liked that about it, too, that it. I think I've struggled with how much she sort of fell for him. And this made me believe it a bit more. So that was just, yeah. If I haven't gushed enough, I don't know. I could go on.

[00:10:08] I loved it. I really loved the scene when after the fighting, they joined the dancing and slowly all the other dancers turn into blurs around them. And it's been a long time since I had that feeling with a person where literally the rest of the world falls away and only that other person is real for you.

[00:10:31] And it did a great job of reminding me of that emotion, that place you get to sometimes that is so magical where you just feel like everything's clicking between you and this other person. It was beautiful. And, of course, they're both beautiful. The dancing was beautiful. The woods are beautiful. I mean, there's a lot of beautiful going on in the room. Yeah, I agree with all of that. I like what you said, Penny, about that feeling of the rest of the room, the rest of the world going away. And I captured that beautifully.

[00:11:00] And Veronica, I love that as well about her loneliness. And I hadn't thought of that where we've seen that all along, her loneliness and her drive and her determination. It's kind of fueled a little bit by it. But that being the reason that she might have fallen for Hal Brand so easily was partly because of that. And then sort of that dancing, fighting, bonding was really, really cool. I love that.

[00:11:30] And I really also love that we got that flashback quite early to set it up because we all know Calaborn, you know, is supposedly coming back with anyone who's seen the trailers and they're obviously telescoping that. But it was really nice to see their start rather than him suddenly show up and then us have to catch up with hang on, wait, how did they meet? What happened? I thought it was beautifully done.

[00:11:53] I also thought the scene with the elves, the elves, the elves, woodland party was really well done to kind of capture how the elves are described in all of the writings. When you see these gatherings and these dances and songs and things in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Yeah. We've talked about it before, where in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the elves are very ethereal, very distant, not jolly at all.

[00:12:18] And it's quite nice to see a representation of them kind of in a bit more of an innocent time where they're just frolicking about in the forest with all their fairy lights and stuff, which was pretty special. Yeah. And the only thing was, Penny, I did think of you when they're frolicking around and they're doing little leaps and they sort of half fly through the forest. And I wonder if that made you think of anything else that the other supernatural beings, maybe sparkly ones sometimes.

[00:12:47] Yeah, it did have a little twilight. It also reminded me a lot of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the way that those sword fights were handled. But it also got me excited for just elf action in general. And we did get a bunch of it in this episode when we had the big fight scene that Galadriel and Erendir were in. And we got to see both of them just demonstrating like great moves.

[00:13:14] And, you know, Erendir with his muscular sort of earthy, twirling, leaping strength and Galadriel like swooping and diving. She does a lot of bending backwards to avoid getting hit, which is very dancerly, but also like great strategy. Like it's people never hit her when she does that because they're not ready for it. And it made me think like, shouldn't all sword fighters also take dance lessons?

[00:13:44] Like to make you light on your feet and graceful and nimble like that, that seems like a no brainer to me. I know that some athletes take ballet for that reason to like help with their balance and their nimbleness, which I think is really cool. I've seen like photos of like big burly football players in ballet classes. And I just think it's great and adorable.

[00:14:04] Yeah, also that juxtaposition going straight from the flashback scene of this beautiful time when Galadriel met Calaborn and then straight into the down and dirty, gritty kind of battle scene. I thought was a really cool demonstration because it kind of shows what they're fighting for. So every time you see a fight or a battle in Middle Earth, what are we fighting for? You know, the Lord of the Rings always flashing back to the Shire because it's the people that we relate to.

[00:14:29] But for the elves, it's kind of, you know, they're fighting against this evil and they always have. And we got straight into it. That scene was pretty cool with the big fight there straight into as much action as we could manage with Arondir, like you say, doing his normal Arondir stuff. He's either in the air or he's kind of crouching or kneeling like he's so kind of low to the ground or he's right up. I love that. Yeah, I was so excited to see him again. It was so funny. I was like, Arondir!

[00:14:59] And I was like, wait, you knew who was coming. Like, chill out. I was exactly the same. You know it. It's brilliant. It's delightful. It's just beautiful. Yeah. What about you, Penny? Where do you want to go next? I want to talk about daddy issues because they keep coming up all over the place throughout this series. And I just wanted to sort of run down a list of the ones that I clocked.

[00:15:28] First of all, there's Kemen. It's always Kemen. Kemen has the biggest daddy issues ever. And Farazan is a jerk. If you do a good job, I'll name you as my heir. Who else is going to be your heir, Farazan? You have one kid. Okay. Theo was kind of heartbreaking because, first of all, I think he feels very abandoned by Arondir. He's all alone. He's being oppressed, basically enslaved by the Numenoreans. And he takes it upon himself to approach Sauron to get a ring.

[00:15:56] Like, this is extreme measures that he's willing to take to try to free his people from this horrible situation. And then Sauron tempts him with this information about his father. And you can see that Theo is like, I never even thought I had a chance of knowing anything about my father. And it works. Right? He goes for it, which is amazing. And Galadriel asks Arondir about Theo. And Theo is like, oh, no.

[00:16:23] I got to make sure that Sauron doesn't win or Theo will die. But I thought about the way time passes for humans as opposed to elves. And I was like, it's already been five years, man. Like, you missed this kid coming of age already. Like, you've already missed it. Yeah. Maramuk seems to have... Is it Manuk? Or Marnuk? Marnuk. Manuk. Seems to have a real... It's hard to read him, but something about Adar.

[00:16:52] And, you know, they all called him Lord Father. The Uruk did. And he's definitely got some lingering issues with the loss of Adar. Whether or not he is loyal to Sauron remains to be seen. But he kept bringing Adar up to Galadriel. And I just felt like that was a real issue for him. That, like, he was connected to Adar. And then finally we have Isildur and Elendil. They seem to be on good terms now.

[00:17:20] I'm kind of bummed that we didn't get to see the reunion after Elendil thought Isildur was dead. I'm kind of hoping maybe we'll get a flashback about it. Or at least they'll mention something about it. But it was definitely some daddy issues going on there. We didn't see Aearian actually say anything about her father. But it was kind of lingering in the background of all of her scenes. Because they did talk about, like, there's this man in the West. And you could see this look on her face being like, yep, my dad.

[00:17:51] Daddy issues come up a lot in Tolkien. It's a big running theme. Yeah. Well, and even Thrain, I feel like, references. Yeah. Like, he wasn't there for the funeral. But, like, also just, like, different things and ways, like, his father came down on them in different ways. Like, I feel like he brings it up two separate times. So, yeah, it was a theme. I didn't even clock that.

[00:18:23] I have a document that just is Tolkien themes. And I just have a list of the things that keep coming up. And daddy issues is on the list. Yeah. This episode was definitely heavy with that. There's been some in the previous seasons that have been the same. And I think they've brought it straight back in. See, I just say episode. I'm still thinking of the two as one. Because we're podcasting on them as one. They go together really well. They do, yeah.

[00:18:50] And as I said, one of the reasons why I liked watching them two together was because I was really disappointed to not have Numenor in the first episode. So I'm going to take us over to Numenor and have a little talk about that. Because second episode, I was super excited to get back there. And it was really interesting. I felt like with the time jump, you know, watching the first episode, I was thinking, oh, how are they going to do Numenor? Like, how are they going to show that all this time has passed?

[00:19:21] And later on, when we talk about Sauron and Theo, I'll get into that. Like you just said, Penny, that time jump and what that means. But for Numenor, I thought it was really interesting to see they go straight there. And it's all kind of joyous. Like the first, I was expecting, you know, we left it in this sort of state of turmoil. But when we pick it up again five years later, Farazon is firmly, you know, ruling this place.

[00:19:50] And it seems like the little skirmishes or the little rebellions from the faithful are pretty well tamped down. That they've got it mostly kind of under control, as they see. I mean, the first shot, just seeing the island, seeing the ships and hearing the music, I loved. Because I love that music theme that they have for Numenor. It's so powerful.

[00:20:12] And then, so you've got Farazon in his full eyebrow, twitching, moustache, whirling best. And even, you know, when he's going through the streets in his open-topped carriage there, and they're all calling his name, and he's throwing his arms out in the air to kind of encourage people to cheer for him. It's just, it's absolute dictator kind of territory. I think he was throwing coins into the crowd.

[00:20:42] Well, he was, but before that he wasn't. He was just throwing his arms up like, come on, give me more, give me more. Yeah, he's very Mardi Gras. Yeah. And then, oh, I absolutely loved bearded Isildur. As soon as I saw him. It's like exponentially hotter, right? Yeah, it's like his hair's a little bit shorter, but still wavy. He's got the beardies all dark. Like, because this is the thing that we were talking about Isildur in the first couple of seasons,

[00:21:10] that, you know, he was trying to find himself. He was pretty idealistic. He was pretty selfish, really, a lot of the time. And now it looks like, and I think that the actor's done an incredible job of this, and also just the, you know, the writing in terms of how do we pick him back up again? Where do we meet him again? Is this mysterious cloaked figure. And when I saw, you know, cloaked figure going through, I was like, is it Isildur or is it Isildur? Which one is it?

[00:21:39] And then the reveal that it's Isildur. And you kind of just see on his face. He's had a hard five years. He's obviously come back. We didn't get to see that reunion that we really wanted with him and his father. But he's come back. He's obviously had contact with his father and with this whole underground rebellion of the faithful. And you can see it in his face.

[00:22:03] He's both more kind of world-weary, but also more, he's like bitter. He's stealthy. He's suddenly parkour guy. He's jumping over the rooftop. So he's got a really amazing aim with the guy on Arrow. And he's, in a short space of time, they really got across what he's been doing for the last five years, which I thought was very, very well done. He got straight off with his assassination attempt.

[00:22:33] And I also loved that he didn't just fire the one arrow and then run off. He kept going. They were staring at him and he kept going. And he did manage to hit Farrah's on even though it wasn't lethal. And I was a little confused at first with the shepherd, the kind of sheep being pushed across as a diversion to stop the carriage.

[00:23:01] Because I thought that shepherd looked like Valendiel. I thought so too. Yeah. And I thought it was the same kind of thing. But anyway, it wasn't him. And yeah, that was pretty heartbreaking. His decision to give his life up for the cause was really, really heartbreaking. And there's all this discussion about the man with the white flame, you know. I thought it was really cool when they first brought that up.

[00:23:28] So the white flame we found out is the name of Narsil, Elendil's sword. And we had to wait till the very end of the second episode to see him because everyone knows I'm also a very big Elendil fan. I was like, where is he? Bring him back. And we had to see that reunion through the Palantir. Yeah, it's stretching the bounds of the whole Palantir thing a little bit where they were almost like in this kind of holodeck type arrangement.

[00:24:00] But I really liked the way they did it visually where the one on Elendil's end, rather than that cracking, crackling kind of breaking out of the Palantir, it was more like a kind of green cloud. That was quite cool how it did that. And then we did kind of get to see them have a little bit of a reunion. And I don't think we'll probably see a flashback. I think that was kind of the nod to that. It's like, okay, well, we wanted to see them back together and we're just going to see it now in this not quite real kind of area.

[00:24:29] I felt like they were like in a VR headset. I don't know why. That's what it immediately made me think of. Me too. I've got a lot to talk about with Numenor. I think I'll just bring it all up or we can just cover it because there's a few little threads there. But I did want to speak a little bit about Marielle. Of course, I love her as well. And she continues to be this really formidable kind of presence.

[00:24:55] One detail that stood out for me was when she was talking to Isildur about trying to ride over to see Elendil and said that it would take weeks. And I kind of thought, hang on, wait, how big is Numenor? Would it really take weeks to get there? Yeah, I need a map. But I did look it up and I didn't use a real proper paper map with a key. I, you know, Googled it.

[00:25:21] And apparently the main part of the island is about 400 kilometers across. And then the arms of the sort of stars of the island are bigger. There's actually a lot bigger than it kind of looks. I guess we're used to seeing it looking small in relation to the whole rest of Middle Earth. So they reckoned it would take about 10 or 11 days on horseback to get to the other side, which sounds realistic. So that made more sense to me. But it just reinforced kind of, I guess, how big Numenor is.

[00:25:50] I kind of thought you could just pop over to the other side of the island in a day. That might also have been a little bit indicated to us when, in the very first season, when we see Galadriel and Elendil going over to that lore. There's like a tower with a library and things in it. And that looks like a couple of hours ride. And I didn't think that would go to the west, but I thought it was. Anyway. But again, it was really nice to see Mariel again.

[00:26:21] And then, of course, we had Iyarian. Oh, my God. Iyarian. I couldn't believe it. I was not expecting this plot for her. No. And look, I've gone from liking her character at the start to disliking her intensely through season two. And then right back to admiring her again. Because when I first saw her, I was thinking, which way is she gone? Because it's five years later.

[00:26:48] We saw her help Elendil at the end of the last season. But where is she now? And as soon as they said, oh, you were supposed to be in that carriage and you weren't, I thought, oh, yay, maybe she's good again. And it just revealed that she's been playing this really, really dangerous, long game. And every choice that she made through that time just had so much risk to it.

[00:27:13] Maintaining this cover of being this evil person for this whole time. And then she had her maid killed, which was as soon as they hung that maid. I thought this is, again, how dark this show is going to get. And, you know, she wanted to get that information to Isildur about what was going to be happening with the risk to all of the faithful on the other side of the island. I thought her acting was outstanding.

[00:27:41] It was the acting of the character and the hard choices that she had to make, but then also the acting within the story that she had to do to Farazon and Kemen and everybody else to portray that she was on their side and was bad. And particularly that scene at the very end where they basically tell her the game is up. She kept fighting. Like, she didn't just suddenly go, oh, yeah, you got me. Oops.

[00:28:09] It was several back and forths between them and her to kind of go, oh, no, this is over. This is a joke. You've taken it too far and you've got the wrong person. And, like, she kept going. It was so heartbreaking. And then as soon as she looked at the window, I thought, oh, no. And then she fully did it. She did the tommen from Game of Thrones. And it was just heartbreaking.

[00:28:35] It was amazing how, like, calm she was about it. Like, similar to tommen. Sorry for people who haven't seen Game of Thrones. But she just was like, so, you know, I understand. This is what happens next. And she just did it. It was no fuss, no drama. She didn't stand in the window and say, like, you'll see. You know, like, there was no monologue. It was intense in its lack of drama. Yeah.

[00:29:05] And they underestimated her, I feel like, to the end. Because none of them believed she would do it, right? Like, they didn't even. They were so shocked. They just discounted. Even after everything she'd done, they still discounted that she would be brave enough to do that last thing. But just one second. She kept me guessing again where I thought. When she said, I'm sorry, Isildur. I thought, oh, is she going to spill? Well. And then I thought, no, of course she's not.

[00:29:33] But for a moment there, and I think that's the skill of the actor, but also the fact that she has flipped a couple of times. So it was really cool that she just felt very heartbreaking that she did what she did. I felt a little torn about this whole storyline and development. Because one thing you know that I care a lot about is having female characters in this world.

[00:29:55] And Numenor was the one place where we had more than one speaking named female character in that race. And we lost her. And I think that it technically counts as a fridging. Because her death is going to have gigantic impact on Isildur and Elendil and probably Kemen.

[00:30:24] And, you know, yes, she got to have this awesome send-off where she did really heroic things. And she had a bunch of really great moments to play in this episode. But she did get killed off at the end and she's not in the show anymore. And that's a bummer. So I'm mixed about it. Because I loved that she got to do all this really intricate, interesting acting. And that the character had this huge impact by serving as a spy, which is incredibly dangerous.

[00:30:51] But then to lose her after she had just sort of leveled up in my mind was a bummer. I'm sad about it. I totally agree. And I hope that it's only because of the pacing that they just have to move it along. Like I would have liked to see that for two or three episodes. It's a real shame to have it happen right away. If it did have to happen, then I think they are going to be really bound by time and having to get stuff moved.

[00:31:18] And I think that's one of the reasons for doing the time jump as well, is that we have to get to the next part of the story. And we can't, you could have done another whole season to show the previous five years. And they just don't have time for that or the rights for that. So they had to do it. But I agreed. I thought she was awesome. But only one episode for the season. It is really sad. Yeah. I wish she had taken Beltagar, Beltazar. What's his name? Beltagar. Beltagar. Beltagar. Yeah. Out with her when she went.

[00:31:48] Like just grab his arm and shove him out the window on your way. I hate that guy. Go over to the window and I'll tell you all my secrets. What did you guys think of her and Kimmon? Did you get the impression that they were kind of together or not? What were your thoughts? Yeah. I think they haven't seen each other in a long time. Yeah. So was your idea that Kimmon had actually been away for that whole five years? Maybe.

[00:32:13] But at least if he had been back, it had only been a little bit before he went back to Middle Earth. And he hates Middle Earth. I mean, he was like, ugh, I hate it here. Like this place sucks. I mean, that would have been asking too much for her. Like that's deep cover if you have to get with Kimmon. I mean, it happens a lot in spy stories. And she used to like him. Yeah. Yeah. Not anymore. I thought that she, like there was a moment in the episode where I was like, did she marry Farazan?

[00:32:43] To like, the way they were all acting was very strange to me. And I couldn't figure out what her role or relationship in the overall court was. And I had this moment of horror of, has she like done the ultimate thing to truly like be an embedded spy? But I was relieved that that was not what happened. But yeah. Gross. Yeah.

[00:33:09] Farazan, if I didn't know anything about him as a person, is an attractive man. But like knowing what I know, ew. Like ew. That would have been gross. At least Kimmon is, no, Kimmon also ew. Kimmon, ew. I think Kevin is ew all around. Yeah. No. They show themselves to be who they are by the actions, don't they? For sure. Yeah.

[00:33:33] I really did not need for Farazan and Belzegar to have a couple of floozies in the carriage with them. I thought that was a weird choice for Tolkien. But what I did like about it was that it seemed like Belzegar was really into it. And Farazan was like, right, I'm a powerful man. I'm supposed to have a floozy here. Check. Floozy. Yeah. Like he was not interested in her at all. Yeah. She was just literally an ornament.

[00:34:00] And I thought that was really an interesting touch for his character. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the actor was the one who made that choice to be like, but I don't, I'm not into it. She's just here. It's just not important for him. The only thing that's important for him is power. Yeah. That's all he cares about. That's probably the only reason he would want her around as well, is that someone else to have power over. Yeah. Belzegar seemed way into it though. Yeah. He sure did. Yeah. I really like that actor. He was very comic booky at the start.

[00:34:30] But this one, in this episode, again, he's quite, he's still absolute classic sleazy kind of, you know, villain minion. But, or second in command kind of guy. But the, the acting was really great. Like he, we didn't just get to see that Samami part. We got to see him when he's, you know, following Iarian and seeing what she's up to. We see a little bit more of a kind of quieter, more devious side of him, which I thought was quite good.

[00:34:59] Look forward to seeing more of him and seeing what, where he goes as well. I hope he has a really like satisfying death. Eventually. I want to see Sauron throw the sword to the three of them. Oh, make them fight amongst the three of them. That's hilarious. Well, I'll, I'll keep quiet until the spoiler section on all of that.

[00:35:25] One thing I thought was interesting was one that we saw insight from Farizan, on his distaste for Sauron. He doesn't, he doesn't want to throw in with them. He doesn't like the threat to someone being more powerful than him. I thought that was good. And then my other big note from Numenor was about Muriel, because she is still blind physically,

[00:35:50] but she doesn't really seem to be blind to too much because like she knew Isildur and his sister were there, but I still feel like she's lacking some sight in her sort of desire and hope that they can peacefully reunite Numenor. I was like, for someone who has such internal vision capabilities,

[00:36:16] I feel like she is still blinded to the reality of the situation. Yeah. Which I understand and respect that aspect of her. Like, I think it's what makes her a leader I would want. And in a situation like this, things have gone beyond that, I think. And she's, I think she needs to recognize that. I really love Queen Muriel.

[00:36:44] And I love the idea of making peace with your enemies. And, you know, when she said, it's not us and them, it's us and us. All of that is very beautiful and idealistic. But when you're in a situation where the other side has imprisoned you, you need to, you needed to escape from a dungeon. And they're basically hunting you and threatening the lives of your followers. It's not the time for reconciliation.

[00:37:11] You can't reconcile unless you have equal power or more power. Like, the person who's got all of the armada and everything, they have to want to reconcile or you can't do it. So I just think she's being kind of unrealistic. But I don't know. I've never been in that situation. I agree. I think the sentiment is really noble and really valid.

[00:37:40] But it is us and them. And that was their choice. That was Farazon's choice to do that. And looking towards this bright future of Numenor is a great idea. But they've not chosen that path. And so if you want that, you actually do have to fight at times. So I definitely agree. That's what I chose to do when I was the dethroned queen of a Middle-earth town under duress. Yes, we fought back. Well, yeah. That's what our problem is. Makes perfect sense. Where are they?

[00:38:10] Because at first when they were like, Muriel, you know, her followers got her out of prison or whatever. And then Isildur and Aarion basically just go to visit her. In less than a day, they go there and back. So they're not very far away from the city. And they talk about the west part of the island being very far away. I just don't understand where Muriel and her followers are right now. Yeah, I didn't get that. The map looked like from, I have to go back again.

[00:38:41] You know, we only had the chance to watch each episode once this time around. So I haven't gone back to look at that map. But from my memory of it, it looks like they were kind of right in the middle of the star-shaped island of Numenor. So that it was only the same distance again to the west. So that's what confused me about that comment that it was weeks and weeks. Because it didn't even seem like Aarion took that much of a risk of going away for a number of days. Like you say, it looked like they were there and back quickly.

[00:39:10] So, yeah, I'm not certain. They're playing a bit free and easy with the geography there. But I think we just have to yada yada over it and go, yep, okay, we'll go with it. Whatever they say. Right. I'm willing to yada yada. All right. What's next, Veronica? I just have a small point about Sauron. Just a small point about Sauron? Just a small one? Yeah. It's just a small one. So if somebody else wants to build more on some of the things.

[00:39:39] But I mean, I think the theme is, and this isn't like some big surprise, but I think it was emphasized in these two episodes of how he really does see power as the only solution. And there's no attempt to unite people or convince people to follow him.

[00:40:04] There's just like further displays of cruelty, displays of power, dangling power in front of people and trying to divide them, ruling by fear and the hope of people under him thinking they might be the one to get power. It was just really gross. And he's just setting himself up with that to fail.

[00:40:34] Because ultimately you're always going to have someone like, what is this orc's name? Murnok? Murnok. Murnok. Murnok. Murnok. Murnok. You're always going to have a Murnok who is going to be dissatisfied and try to raise a resistance against you. And so I think like that's my first part of him being his own worst hater.

[00:41:01] But the other part was we got the terrible reveal that he still has Celebrimbor's body, which is now just bones. And he's being haunted and taunted by the spirit of Celebrimbor. But that is really just Sauron's own mind, right? Like I don't think the soul of Celebrimbor is there actually speaking to Sauron.

[00:41:28] And it is Sauron's own worst fears and anxieties and self-loathing that is just being personified through this vision of Celebrimbor. That's how I interpret it. Yeah. And I mean, he basically said to himself this quote that I wrote down because I feel like there's a few people I'd like to say it to from my life is, the machinery of your soul is missing a piece.

[00:41:57] And that really resonated with me. There's a few people I'd like to just scribble that on a note and mail to them. But yeah, I mean, that whole scene was, I think my mouth had gaped open seeing Celebrimbor still hanging up on Sauron's wall. Yeah. Yeah, I'd seen that people had dissected the trailer and screen capped and zoomed in and it was not clear.

[00:42:26] But people were saying, hey, is that going to be Celebrimbor on the wall? And when you really think about that, that it's gruesome in itself. But the fact that they actually would have taken or paraded his body all the way from Eregion back to Moror and to stick it on the wall. But also that is a little bit true to the book as well. So we talked last season about how in the book they actually parade him on a pike in front of the armies.

[00:42:52] So I quite like that he's there because it shows that they did actually do that. They didn't skip over it entirely in the story. That's so gruesome. And yeah, I think it's really incredible to see how haunted he still is by Celebrimbor. And I totally agree that it's just the voice of his insecurity. I don't think Celebrimbor's eternal soul has got any time for Sauron anymore. He's set his piece.

[00:43:19] He knows exactly what he thinks of him and he's gone off to the Undying Lands and exactly where Sauron can never go. And that piece of information that Celebrimbor shared with him, you're never going to follow where I'm going. I think will stay with him forever. That's the part that haunts him, that he knows the choices that he's made and that he's not good. And yeah, it was really good.

[00:43:41] You know, Celebrimbor was tormented so much by Sauron and now Sauron continues to be tormented by the memory of Celebrimbor and what he did. And I just think that's so poetic. We saw that Sauron views everyone below him as below him, right? Like he put the, you know, that ring on that one orc and just was like, hmm, there he is bursting into flames. That didn't work out next.

[00:44:10] Like that's his person that he did that to. And then these, you know, these delegations come in. He makes them fight to the death. And he just sort of calmly watches them fight to the death. He got interested in Theo because of the mark, but otherwise he was willing to just watch him die. And, you know, the only people he's ever shown any kind of like respect to or camaraderie with are Galadriel and Celebrimbor.

[00:44:35] These are the only people that he's encountered in our experience that he's treated like even being close to his equals. And that's why Celebrimbor is haunting his thoughts. It's like there's no other, it wouldn't be Mirdania. He barely remembers that she existed, right? He didn't care about her. Like Celebrimbor and Galadriel are the only people he's ever met that he actually wanted to like him and like be on his side.

[00:45:06] Yeah, I think that with Sauron in this pair of episodes, we're seeing the real Sauron. So this is why I'm having a great time watching it is that this is what we knew was coming. He doesn't have to disguise himself as Halbrand or Anatar anymore. He's his true self. You know, he's cruel. He's manipulative. He's completely committed to his evil agenda.

[00:45:31] And it makes me wonder those points that you said, Penny, about him showing connection or showing some kind of feeling to Galadriel and Celebrimbor. Did he? Or was that all part of the ruse, the guys? Was it just their talent or their abilities that he wanted to acquire? Yeah. And I am starting to believe that more and more that it wasn't, you know, because we talked about how Sauron could be, you know,

[00:45:58] he wanted to a path of redemption at one point and all that kind of stuff. I feel like he made the choice, obviously, not to do that. But all along, was he kind of this? And was all of that a ruse, even the warm moments that we saw? It's great because that's what I love about the acting and about the story writing is me questioning even all of those parts that happened in season one and two, which is so fascinating because here he is. He's fully evil.

[00:46:25] He's in his, you know, it's the classic visual representation too. He doesn't have his wavy Aragorn hair anymore or his long blonde Anatar hair anymore. He's got the dark evil Sauron hair, that dark look on his face. The armor was amazing. The little small geometric scales that overlapped each other were really, really cool. And did you notice that his throne was made out of Elven helmets? Oh, I didn't notice that. I was wondering about it.

[00:46:54] There's a big, it's kind of like a big mountainous kind of throne, but the front part where his arms rest are two Elven helmets that have kind of been like melded into the rock. It looks amazing. I think to what you said that it could actually be both. That a lot of his behavior, those warm moments were not completely truth.

[00:47:16] But I do think his sort of like personification of his own emotions into Celebrimbor shows that there is some respect for Celebrimbor. And I think for Galadriel, probably a respect that he hates that he has or that he.

[00:47:38] I think he does wish he could get their approval, but like almost in the way, like when you've had a bad relationship with a parent and even though you want to let go of wanting their approval, you still kind of want it. Like I think it's some part of him does want them to see him as great. But I don't know that he actually has like warm feelings towards them.

[00:48:01] But I think there's some level of like respect for their intellect, their prowess, things like that. I think there's also this narcissistic need for people to acknowledge your superiority. And the fact that Celebrimbor kept secrets from him and the fact that Galadriel turned down his offer of power are like nagging at his sense of I am the greatest thing that has ever happened in mid-earth.

[00:48:29] Like there's these thorns in his side. Yeah, and I agree with you, Veronica, as well, that it could be that he does have that respect. But to play full devil's advocate, again, that could be he respects or wants what they have. So he seems to respect Galadriel's power, but is it because he recognises it and wants to use it for his own ends?

[00:48:55] He respects Celebrimbor's skill, but is it also because he only wants it for his own ends? Yeah. I don't think he knows that he doesn't have the capacity to care about people the way that other people care about each other. I think he thinks that what he feels for them is the same that other people feel for each other. He doesn't understand the difference. Probably. Yeah. Narcissist. Yeah.

[00:49:23] I was literally going to say at the same moment as you, that's awesome. Well, while we're over with Sauron, let's talk a little bit about the Nazgul. Yes. And I had to turn the closed captions on because we all know the Nazgul, but there was an extra syllable in there. He called them the Naznagul, which is actually an early form of the word Nazgul. So I like that they're using this older version of the name.

[00:49:54] And again, with the time jump, I think it's been a really good way to kind of come back in partway through that story because everyone was going, how is he going to give out the nine rings? When are we going to see the Nazgul start to appear? And I like that we've kind of seen him begin that. So we already know that he's given some of them away. And then it was a really clever way of storytelling how that happens. And, you know, we saw a few different kind of versions of this throw the sword down.

[00:50:23] Whoever is the most ruthless and brutal I'm going to give a ring to, which I quite liked. And the scene with Theo, I was really surprised to see. I knew we'd see Theo and I knew he would have changed. But seeing him jump right to, you know, going to Sauron and what you were saying earlier, I think Penny about him, you know, that time has passed.

[00:50:51] It doesn't feel like time's passed for the elves that much, but Outer Indiers away fighting for five years probably doesn't feel like much. But when you think about Theo, you think about he was only more about 16 or so when the story started and he'd lived that whole, his whole life being kind of oppressed by the elves and then hunted by the orcs.

[00:51:12] And then five years of this having to chop down trees under Kemin's thumb, because in a way it looks like that scene could have been the next day after we saw Isildur sail away at the end of season two. So Kemin's still there, he's still being mean, he's still telling him to chop down trees. And Theo's about a foot taller with much longer hair and buff arms. And again, sorry to revert back to Twilight vibes, but did anyone get a Jacob vibe off him? Yeah.

[00:51:41] And so he's had this, he's had this oppression, this five years of, again, you know, after losing his mother, after feeling like they've kind of been downtrodden by this. I'm not surprised that he wants what he's wanting at all. And of course, Sauron immediately gets under his skin and understands what to say to manipulate him. And it's all nonsense, right? Sauron's totally made all of that stuff up.

[00:52:09] And I think there's a little clue in there as well. I don't know if this is a clue or if it's me reading into it, but he says to Theo that he comes from and, you know, he sets up his fire pit necromancy station. And he tells him that his father comes from a noble house of stewards sworn to Morua. Morua just happened. Yeah, Morua's five years old.

[00:52:37] Yeah, even in, I think that's a clue. I think that's obvious. I think they've put that in there for a reason. And, but Theo wouldn't know that. And if you look back in the lore, of course, we remember the pyroclastic cloud and Mount Doom goes boom and all of that stuff. In the book, it was actually Morgoth who created Mount Doom and it was much earlier. It was in the first stage.

[00:53:02] But the area didn't become known as Mordor until Sauron took over, which is the kind of part of the story that we're seeing now. So I think that's immediately a clue to us as if we didn't need one, that he's making it up just to get what he can out of Theo. He doesn't care about Theo, but he can sense, OK, well, there's some darkness in this kid. Maybe I can use it. So, yeah, I feel like he's presenting this kind of ancient noble tradition. And it's exactly that kind of influence that Sauron uses to get power over someone and to suck them in.

[00:53:32] And he's masterful at doing that when someone's walking away from him. It's a few times over the seasons that he's done that. He goes, OK, and someone walks away and then he makes this little comment and they turn back and go, what? Yeah. He's very, very good at it. Does he have mind reading abilities? I think so. I feel like he does. Like, it seems like he's able to understand things about people that aren't, like, immediately apparent.

[00:54:02] Like, being like, did you know who was your father? And, like, but it's also a little bit, like, con artist-y, where it's like, this kid grew up poor. I've actually met him before. I know a little bit about him. I bet he never knew his dad. Like, that's the game I'm going to play. Anyway, it's hard to know. And how did he know? I mean, because Halbrand was in, he was there. He was the, you know, they named him as king. He met Bronwyn. He met Theo at that time.

[00:54:33] At, I can't even remember which season, but earlier on, he did, I think it was the end of season one. He did meet them. But how would he have the information that his mother was killed by the orcs? Unless he did have some kind of way to read that. Yeah. It's, it's not totally clear to me, but I think there's, there's a bit of kind of skipping over as well of, again, what happened during that time, during that five years.

[00:55:01] So we don't know how much he learned from his spies, from other people. We've been watching what's been happening with the battle all the way through. Even that comment that he made when one of the, the orc minions comes and mentions what's happening in Rune. And he says, oh, don't worry. I'll take care of Gandalf. I was like, wait, what? He knows who Gandalf is. So that was really sudden. He must have spies everywhere. Yeah.

[00:55:28] And, and I think, I think that is meant to just imply or to let us know that, yeah, it's been five years. He's got spies. He knows what's happening. And it's also a weak clue that out there in the East that Gandalf has been running around and making a bit of a name for himself, which is, which is kind of cool. I guess we will see, hopefully see some of that in the next episode or two. He has a volunteer too, right? Sauron has one. At least when we get all the way to Lord of the Rings, we know he has one.

[00:55:56] So does he have one now? And is he also using that to see what's going on in different places? I don't know. I really don't know if he has one. I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, it's a powerful object and there are several of them in Middle Earth. Yeah. He probably sent some minions to go look for them. Yeah. I love that line when Theo isn't buying, you know, what he's selling and Theo says, you're evil.

[00:56:26] And he says, there is no evil. There is only power, power to control or be controlled by another. And I just think that completely captures his whole view of the world and his whole philosophy. That's all it is about for him. It's like the classic. The bad guy doesn't think he's bad. He just thinks he's right. Yeah. Yeah. And also, he thinks that the whole world works on the same system that he's set up in his own head. Right? He's like, no, there's no good. There's no good people and bad people.

[00:56:56] It's like there are actually. But you think everyone has the same brain as you. They're just not powerful or smart enough to accomplish what you've accomplished. That's exactly it. I wanted to ask you guys what you thought about at the very beginning of the episode when the ring doesn't work and that one orc dies horribly.

[00:57:21] he says you know true creation requires sacrifice which is something that kelle brimbor said do you think it's true like just about the world is that a true statement that creation requires sacrifice i was thinking about different kinds of things that that are created and and a big one is babies right like having a baby that's creation and that's a ton of sacrifice like the not even talking about raising the baby just making the baby

[00:57:50] like the the woman's body goes through all kinds of things that are painful scary like difficult exhausting there's a lot of stuff that goes into making another human being and then i was thinking about like making art and how like i like to make art and have i had to sacrifice to do it and yes i have and it's not obvious on its surface because it just looks like i went out and bought some paint

[00:58:15] and la di da di da but like in order to make time and space in my head to do it i've had to sort of give up some other things that i used to love doing or used to do to make money and it did require sacrifice but i couldn't i couldn't decide if i think it's always true yeah i think it's often true but uh it also depends on your wording like sacrifice is a very is a very strong word it implies that

[00:58:43] you're giving up a lot a huge amount whereas i think it's probably more true to say that creation requires a cost and if it's a cost that you're really willing to pay that's not a that's not really a sacrifice as such it's more like you've weighed it up and it's worth it like a trade i don't know if if cost or sacrifice is the more stronger word what do you think veronica i was trying to

[00:59:08] think about it because i was first thinking about like something we as humans build and inherently like if you build a house you've taken away from the land that you're building on and the materials but then i was like thinking about what if i plant a tree like what does that cost to things around it and that is building and creating something new it's a more passive cost it needs nutrients from the

[00:59:35] environment i don't know i'm trying to go like deep with like what what are the exceptions to this rule because i think i mostly agree i think the reframe as cost is probably appropriate because not always would i classify it as a sacrifice there might be some exceptions though yeah and i think sacrifice like you say penny when it comes to to parenting that's it that's a big a big cost and and it's

[01:00:05] more black and white because it's kind of in a way it is sacrifice because you're choosing not to have some other things and often you're choosing not to have them for a long time so it might be more applicable there i think you can create uh without sacrifice when it's maybe something a little bit more um social so if you think about creating friendships creating community that kind of connection can

[01:00:32] happen without necessary cost or sacrifice sometimes it can lead to that you know if you connect with a cult and cut everybody else off in your life but the positive ones i think you can create you know think about the podcast community that's been created and we'll have to ask jason if he thinks there's a big sacrifice to that for him but for everybody else you know it's it's you can create and and make something good without a huge cost i hope otherwise what are we here for it's cost me a lot

[01:01:02] of time watching a lot of good shows guys yeah time it does cost time but it it's like it's yeah like you were saying it's it's a worth it's worth it i wouldn't keep doing it if it wasn't worth it yeah it's why you choose to spend your time and that choice yeah uh most creation i think doesn't require like burning people alive like that thank god but um i just thought it was really interesting and also

[01:01:27] something that like an evil power hungry narcissist would be like well i'm gonna have to kill some people too bad like he's he kind of is glad that he is probably gonna have to kill some people to achieve his ends like yeah he's using just using it as an excuse yeah to him that's not that different than like me spending twenty dollars he's like yeah i killed an orc whatever who cares it did i i'm a

[01:01:52] scientist and i did use to work in a lab and use animal models for research and it did make me reflect on that you know and then the cost to knowledge and you know we were working on answers to things that could you know change people's lives humans living with terrible diseases but the cost was animals lives

[01:02:19] too right and you do things in the most ethical way but it still feels bad to most of us um so i don't know that sort of scene of him experimenting on the orcs made me reflect a little bit on that piece of things and that cost balance and yeah i don't know kind of dark and sad and i'm glad i don't have to be the one at a lab bench doing that anymore but

[01:02:49] yeah i don't know is is that is that sacrifice worth it and i think that's something many of us reflect on regularly and i'm sorry that's a little dark we can cut it if we need to no keep it in there no this this show goes deep and so do we but we can go from from dark and um and pondering over to penny your favorite uh civilization shall we talk about the dwarves

[01:03:19] yeah let's talk about the dwarves so we have gotten now to meet durin's brother thrain who we started out with him being like i don't know not willing to go to the great hall or whatever to celebrate and being like i want to drink down here with my friends to being like you know coming in to like have durin's back and we're all like oh we were wrong about thrain he's a great guy to the big

[01:03:45] revelation of he's a filthy traitor oh this guy and um i love it i think it's lovely and complicated and interesting there's this revelation that he and deezer have some kind of history and he like touches her shoulder in a way that seems very familiar waits for durin to be out of the room and he calls her dd and she's like don't call me that like that and he's like oh come on for old time's sake or whatever and she's all like there's no old times like they clearly have very different

[01:04:14] memories of what their history is like like she's like no you were not a good boyfriend or whatever and he's like remember when we were in love and she's like we were not in love like i want to know more about what happened there so interesting to me but um his strategy of like infiltrating durin's kingdom by being this like not worrying about him drunk guy like he's like the brother you don't have to worry about because he's like he'd rather party than like do anything serious and then him being

[01:04:44] like all right i'll i'll you know have your back against these naz good go naz nazna ghouls that's gonna take me a while to remember that word um and then you think you love him and then he and durin are fighting and like there was so much history in all of those scenes there was like you could tell they were brothers and you could tell that durin like wants to love his brother and wants his brother

[01:05:11] to love him he wants a real brotherly relationship and there's there's some bad blood in there in the past and like why hasn't thrain been living in kazadum all this time that like something went down that had made him go live somewhere else fascinating and i love that he's like that it's all an act this is so the intrigue is so i oh i'm so into it i love it so much such a good plot also um disa has a

[01:05:38] new hairstyle that looks awesome we got to see the kids and they're like teenagers and that's hilarious like the fact that one of them like set something on fire and the other one was like blowing his horn and driving everybody crazy i was like i've been in this house i know these two teenagers i love it i love it and then um yeah just the intrigue of what's going on in the in the dirt in the dwarf politics is just oh so fun i think anyone who's either met a teenager or been a teenager

[01:06:07] we'll find that scene and the family scene very familiar uh it was great to see their faces i thought it was really cool and i just i think it's really fun that the the kind of passionate relationship that that disa and duran have where it's very loving but they're also very feisty has obviously been passed down to their kids and that's just their family culture it was it was brilliant uh

[01:06:31] and yeah thrain was great wasn't he i thought the actor was brilliant eddie marsan i'm sure people recognize him um if they saw a photo of him they'd say that guy he's been in so many things and he's a really good actor you can tell just from his eyes you know even with all that makeup and everything and yeah i agree i thought he was he was so fascinating and wasn't sure which way he was going to go until the moment he said to duran you can trust me because as soon as someone says you can

[01:06:58] trust me you just know not to trust them yeah and he got me for a second there when he kind of defended um duran against you know i just thought that was it was absolutely hilarious when this really scary kind of the the the servant of the ring the ring wraith nas nas nagal um is tormenting duran basically with this ominous portentous kind of stuff and then thrain just comes in and burps and

[01:07:24] breaks the whole mood it's really funny uh but of course he's playing both sides and yeah it's it's uh oh it's classic family intrigue i love it so much catch on during that scene like did you already suspect him from that interaction with the three um nas nagal that he i didn't i i i was

[01:07:49] suspicious of him but not that he was in cahoots with them that hadn't occurred to me i was like is he just playing some kind of long con here like the scene with deezer really rubbed me the wrong way made me think that this guy is not to be trusted but i didn't see coming that he was in alliance with the nas nagal yeah same i didn't see that but i didn't trust him at all from the moment when he hugged uh duran and then there was a long a long linger on his face over duran's shoulder i was like nah he's

[01:08:19] not to be trusted at all uh but yeah the fact that he's he's gone all the way over to the dark side is so interesting and yeah i liked the introduction of of manuk that that um am i saying that right manuk yeah i think so um the orc who who surrenders to the dwarves and then and then goes to the elves um he's not not a canon character he's created for the show but i really love his look

[01:08:44] i think he's he's they've made him not quite as un-orcish like as as ed are but he's not as sort of hideously disfigured as some of the other orcs and i think that allows for a little bit more um subtle face acting yeah um from the actor and i i think we're going to see a lot more from him and i i really like that this idea that you've got and because again yeah we go okay well he's

[01:09:10] he's obviously wanting to rebel against saran but is he we don't still fully trust him you know you're not going to decide right like are the nasna ghoul they're really trying to hunt him down because they think he's a defector or are they there to make his story of being a defector look legit right yeah well as we know saran's always five steps ahead so we can't tell until it all plays

[01:09:34] plays out but i i like the character i like the idea of um and i also like that um that galadriel called him uruk so that's a bit of a echo back to when she she you know got to know adar instead of calling him orc showing him some respect because saran sure doesn't he calls all the orcs not just like these are orcs but like he calls them orc yeah like they're not even they don't have names he

[01:09:58] doesn't care no yeah and i like that um alron was immediately on board when galadriel said we have to we have to follow this thread and we have to find out who this who this mysterious last remaining alvin smith is we had a lot of resistance from alron to all of galadriel's wild ideas through the first couple of seasons and he's straight in there arondia was the one who was wanting to be cautious and alron said nah let's do it he was he was all in which i which i loved so i thought that

[01:10:27] the scene where they're like all right we're gonna go on this quest and errandir's like i'm going with you you're not going alone with this this orc guy and then they walk out and they've got marnuk on a chain it was it was smagel yeah frodo and sam i wrote it down i wrote it down too because he even made the comment about eating errandir's dog which i love that they gave errandir a dog i know he's such a dog guy so perfect and then yeah that i i was like oh my gosh this is sam and golem we're gonna

[01:10:56] have such a little fun comedic duo i think for their journey i'm really looking forward to it because um i think that this actor who's playing marnuk is really good he was really giving layers and subtlety in his performance and seeing him play off of arondir who is constantly presented as like putting his heart on his sleeve it's gonna be so funny like just like he's gonna be like i'm

[01:11:21] super authentic and marnuk will be like hey i have 17 layers oh it's so great i love orcs being complicated and not just like yeah you know yes mindless you know killing machines it's more fun i felt like even in that very first scene if you watch his face you can really interpret it like two different ways either believably that he's like horrified at sauron's treatment of this other

[01:11:50] orc and that this is his you know pivotal moment where he's deciding to go down this journey or you can watch it and decide that that's like excitement on his face about the power here like i have argued it back both ways like watching his behavior across all these scenes and i'm really glad that they left

[01:12:14] that unrevealed because i think we got some quick reveals about some other things which i wondered if that was a course correction for the show trying to eliminate some of the mysteries that they drew out too far in season one and two where muriel i mean not muriel um arian very quickly we got that whole

[01:12:41] reveal that she was a you know double crossing them and kind of wrapped that story up quickly we had i think a lot of suspicion of thrain but then they very quickly like showed us the full reveal of what he's doing which i think is nice that they're still like some things that we're getting

[01:13:03] quick satisfying answers and it's this ridiculously long drawn out mystery but i'm hoping that marno at least stays for a few more episodes in this season of uncertainty about how this will play out yeah i think i i and i like i like what you say about that reflection on season one and two and i think that they maybe did take on water little that people have people are over the mystery box you don't need

[01:13:31] it anymore i think a character being slightly kind of ambiguous like that is okay because it's not a mystery box who is he it's really just a more of a behavioral character based thing we don't need to have these big mysteries anymore and i like um i agree i like how they reveal things more quickly and even though we we spoke about it before that the arian story was over too quickly for us because

[01:13:57] we wanted to see more of her but the fact that it happened and then also that isildur saw it pretty much right away tragic and heartbreaking but it wasn't him running around for three days going oh what happened i'm supposed to meet her and she didn't show up or that they're making it a little bit more snappy which is as good for the pacing for the story because we do have a lot still to get through has anybody got any more main things to talk about uh i had a couple more things about the dwarves um

[01:14:25] one just the tiny detail of deezer making a catty remark about the other woman's beard was hilarious and i think it's interesting that the official story about durin the third is that he died in a mining accident and no mention of the balrog yeah like they don't want that news getting out interesting to me i don't know exactly why but interesting and if you think about it there's only a very small handful

[01:14:54] of people that that saw it so deezer durin and navi know about it i think there was one other dwarf that was there trying to pull them back that they haven't really named we don't know who it is but it's definitely fewer than five people that knew for sure about the balrog so easy enough to cover up and and very wise as well you don't want the the um the citizens of khazad-dum running around worrying about a balrog uh and as we spoke about last season it's neatly tied it up so that if the balrog doesn't

[01:15:22] show up again until the third age when when we're used to it showing up then that's okay they've tied that up so i think it is going to be more about political intrigue and the battle with sauron now i had just a couple of of little notes left really um one was the very brief return of gil-gadady as we call our high king gil-galad looking fine as ever a very short scene but at least we know who's

[01:15:48] back and that that was that was about it really and kirdan was with him and i was excited of course yeah i just like kirdan always good we didn't get enough of him in the last season yeah we got a couple of other tolkien themes that were touched on uh galadriel when she says she's gonna travel with with Arondir and and just this one orc says she'd rather rely on fellowship than an armed escort

[01:16:14] i don't really think those things are an either or but it was it was nice for the tolkien theme of like friendship and fellowship and um just a tiny little hint about the industrialization theme because we see more clear cutting of the trees lust for power is pretty obvious and then the sort of the lure of beauty to tempt people into doing something wrong was kind of played out with the men from

[01:16:40] rune who had been horribly disfigured by the dark wizard and sauron made that guy beautiful again i thought that was just a little interesting tiny detail i don't know if it's going to come up again or not but it just i don't know it struck me to me i noted it and i thought it was really in line with all of the themes we already were talking about with sauron and how he preys on people's

[01:17:06] weaknesses and so for him to name kamul the fairest of the nine if you'd gone for years hiding yourself under a mask because you feel hideous like what better way to like lift that person up and have them feel so like i don't know indebted to you and like stroke their ego in the right way to call

[01:17:31] them the fairest of the nine i just thought it was i don't know another example of how sort of predatory sauron is manipulative yeah yeah i just had a few notes like one of the things that was i thought was really cool to see is to understand more about the nine rings and what they do

[01:17:54] and and getting to see like the absolute strength that these men immediately had so that fight scene with gladriel where he grabs an elf with his hand and launches it into gladriel's horse to bring them down to the ground was pretty intense and you see her stab him and he has no reaction we see the

[01:18:23] man from rune that we just talked about be completely healed in his body by the rings we see how sort of they do have this like i don't know how to describe what the power was they were using but when they were threatening the three came to threaten durin we saw him sort of glow and become bigger and make the world change a bit around him um i just thought all of that was kind of

[01:18:52] neat to understand a little bit more about these rings and what they do for the people wearing them um and sauron talked about it bridging the two worlds of the living and the dead and things so i don't know i enjoyed getting to see that as someone who's not delved as deep into the background

[01:19:17] of all of this lore um you know i just had a lot of questions i guess about what these nazgul were like when they were men and so getting to see it happen on screen has been pretty neat yeah i mean i think we i think we all did because there isn't a huge amount in in the law we know that they were men we know that they were then turned with the rings and they became more and more wraith-like

[01:19:40] and i i really loved i loved the representation of them and in this you know part of the story because you really do get to see the power before they descended more into the wraith wraith world and when we see them in in the lord of the rings um book and in trilogy um that they're of course still

[01:20:01] powerful but they are more sort of spirit-like and more they've always been under under sauron's will but they they're just they seem a little bit more um less less human but less uh they have less autonomy they just kind of drift about doing his bidding now it's kind of they're doing what they're doing because they seem to like the power they want the power and seeing them you know on on the one

[01:20:31] on this horse with with galadriel um i i loved that they represented that level of power and strength um at this stage and yeah i really really enjoyed that i thought it was great um i'm curious about what level of control um sauron immediately has over them once they put their rings on with the one ring not

[01:20:56] being made yet um i guess i just uh the roller coaster of emotion this show's taking me on over theo and so watching this play out and my fear of him becoming one of the nazgul which feels inevitable at this point but my heart is still like has the sliver of hope that he won't but i'm just wondering like once you've put that on is there any going back away from that

[01:21:24] does sauron know every thought they have so the moment if someone did want to cross him would he know because they're wearing the ring like i just have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns for dear theo yeah i feel like it's pretty complete you know he put his own blood into those rings um every every stage of ring he's had more power and control over and this is the last second to last

[01:21:50] stage before the the one so i i feel like it's probably pretty complete domination and i wouldn't expect to see any rebellion or um you know i wouldn't expect any of them to give sauron any sass once they've got that on that's it there is you know but it would be interesting to see if they are going down that road of of theo being one of them because we've grown to know and love him so much and we

[01:22:16] of course would always want the best outcome and a nice ending for him but um you know this show can get pretty dark and maybe that's where they're going with him and that will be it yeah i'm not ready it's gonna make me really sad and him at first and then they made me love him and now they're doing this and i was like oh he's like a grown man now i'm so excited and then this was the storyline

[01:22:39] he's flipped in the opposite way to yarion where it was love hate love and the other way it's hard it is really hard i'm gonna be really sad when it seems inevitable that he's gonna put on that ring because sauron fully was handing it to him at the end of that scene so he's young for it though i wonder how the other raids are gonna feel they're gonna be like this kid

[01:23:05] like we'll see i'm gonna have to stop watching right here i am just gonna write the rest of the story in my head that he refuses the ring and so y'all have fun covering the rest of the season and no they are left happily ever after and brawnwind's not actually dead yeah okay i hope charlie edwards comes back again as kill a brimbor i like him as the taunting ghost

[01:23:35] that was such a nice treat that was amazing wasn't it i did not expect to see him at all that was awesome so good yeah that was the definitely a silver or uh yeah a silver lining of it was that we got to have that actor back yeah he's so talented right anything else from anybody else i think i've just about done yeah me too me too great well

[01:24:02] we'll take a quick break and we'll be back stay with us because there's heaps more to come

[01:24:07] and we're back and we have just a little bit of news most of the articles that were available

[01:24:45] were reviews of either the first four episodes or the whole season and so i didn't click on any of those links or read any of those but i did find a couple of articles that i thought were interesting about these two episodes and the first one is the rings of power showrunners explain why season three is getting this unusual release schedule and this was from geek tyrant.com and uh just some excerpts

[01:25:14] according to co-showrunner patrick mckay the decision comes down to giving families an opportunity to enjoy the series together over the holidays speaking with games radar plus mckay explained we have always thought about lord of the rings as a perennial and that it's a movie or a series that potentially your whole family can watch maybe it's a little scary for young ones this time but we love the idea of having the whole thing out before the holidays with the aspiration that

[01:25:42] maybe people will binge it together we'll see fingers crossed i'm not sure that the other the other story yeah it's interesting to see that because the other one that i saw was um that it's more common to drop them all at once if they're not that happy with it so that they don't that's basically shortening the amount of time that it's that kind of water cooler talk and just making sure that they get the eyes on it and the viewership rather than risking losing

[01:26:11] people after um individual episodes um so depends on whether you you believe patrick or you're a little bit cynical yeah i'm a little cynical about i think that it has something also to do with with viewing hours so lately i know that streamers have been talking about how many minutes a given property is being viewed so they won't be like episode you know three of stranger things had a such and

[01:26:38] such rating they'll say that the stranger things franchise was watched for this many minutes during this time period and so dropping four hours of content in one week guarantees a lot of viewing minutes because most people are going to watch all four episodes yeah so they're they're packing they're sort of robbing peter to pay paul instead of having like viewership over a long period they're going to have intense viewership over a short period but it will make their viewing numbers look

[01:27:08] good to certain analysts i don't like it though i've been very vocal about that yeah and i'm kind of like is this really watch with your family over the holidays christmas type viewing i mean i do tend to think of watching the lord of the rings movies around the holidays and i have watched them with my family over christmas yeah that's just because it's the only time you have 12 hours in a row for some people

[01:27:37] yeah it's a lot of viewing i would say that i think season one and season two from my perspective watched better binging it a little bit and so i don't really buy this like watch together for the holidays but i do think this show it's heavy it's dense there's a lot of

[01:28:03] characters i think house of the dragons suffers from that struggle too and i think if you're not deep into it watching shows like that week to week you very quickly get confused if you're a casual viewer and so i think a show like this packing it together will hopefully help people stick with it and understand what's going on yeah that's i personally as someone who wouldn't have that struggle

[01:28:31] would rather a week to week also podcasting on it right makes it really difficult but i think i enjoyed season one and season two better when i went back and watched it more chill together yeah and so i don't think it's a terribly bad decision all right so we have this other um excerpt that

[01:28:55] penny so nicely pulled for us from comicbook.com um saying the rings of power season three will take a detour into numenor the rings of power season three showrunner patrick mckay revealed to film that episode two of the new season will make a surprise detour into a character that no one expects to see in the protagonist slot the second episode this season arguably the protagonist is emma horvath's

[01:29:22] character aarian over in numenor you would abstractly would never think that the sister of the care what that's a weird way that that's written the sister of isildur right okay the sister of isildur over in that particular story would take that kind of prominence mckay explained he let fans know that it's a calculated risk being taken we're just looking for ways to shake it up and surprise you and we know what emma could do and we're very excited to give her that chance i mean i think she did

[01:29:52] excellent i'm glad they really had that chance i was amazing to watch yeah i think she was just really excellent in this episode and it felt very like game of thrones kind of like yeah court yeah i liked it just wish it had been two episodes i agree yeah

[01:30:17] yeah well we had no listener feedback this week because we're recording so soon after the episode has dropped but we did get quite a few messages from people saying they're excited to watch and they'll be sending feedback in for the next episode so if you'd like to write in leave us a message you can find all our contact information at podcastica.com we've got some feedback posts on

[01:30:42] facebook as well and we really look forward to to your feedback hearing from some of our regular listeners from the last two seasons and also if you're a new listener or you've been lurking around and listening and never written to us please let us know what you think of this season we can't wait to hear from you even one sentence we love to hear from new people it makes us really happy and uh while you're over there at podcastica.com check out some of the other shows that we cover

[01:31:10] the yellow jackets season final season is premiering later this month and i will be covering that when we're done with rings of power with uh it with um i was about to say and when uh with daphne wendy and jason over on yellow jackets wtf they're also about to wrap up coverage of widow's bay which i know a lot of people loved widow's bay so you might want to check out that podcast uh i don't know what

[01:31:36] else people are doing right now over on uh podcastica the rewatch podcast is still going on for the walking dead i'm behind but i really want to catch up it looks like some fun guest hosts have been on i know nathan eshelman was and they're on the a terra episode which is always a good fun adventure so i need to get caught back up that's awesome fun has renee guessed it yet i think she was up at some stage

[01:32:02] maybe coming up soon i don't know if it's happened yet but that's going to be another very fun one i'm sure it's going to be a pro rick episode over the top and i'm it she posted the best photo of her her and rick together yeah she's shopped herself into a picture that's clearly rick and michonne in bed it's pretty beautiful that's fantastic uh and yellow jackets yeah i'm super excited i really

[01:32:27] enjoyed um your coverage uh summing up the first few seasons because i felt like i'd remembered it well and then i kept the whole way through going oh that's right oh yeah that's right so that was really a lot of fun and helpful to to refresh us for the next one so thank you for that you're welcome all right well that is the end of the main part of the show we are now going to go into galadriel's mirror which is where we're going to discuss a little bit about similarities between

[01:32:54] the show and the original lore and talk a little bit about what might happen next so if you don't like um spoilers you will say goodbye now otherwise um stick with us while we go into galadriel's mirror will you look into the mirror what will i see things that were things that are

[01:33:18] and some things that have not yet come to pass all right i mean not a huge amount here um but one little point just about what's happening in numenor and with pharazon i really like how they they're always foreshadowing what's going to happen there when pharazon talks about um being able to bring sauron to his knees um and you kind of think oh a casual viewer might think oh well there's pharazon

[01:33:46] he's just full of himself but um we are going to see that so we're going to see big a big battle and we're going to see hopefully um if they follow what's true to the law sauron actually uh in in the book sauron actually doesn't even engage in the battle with pharazon he just goes oh your army's too big okay cool i surrender and then off he goes with him to numenor so i'm excited to see if they do follow through with that it's going to be a really different pace to what we're looking at

[01:34:11] now and it will be interesting to see if they can keep the kind of momentum of and the grandness of the story with with sauron going to numenor uh we'll see what happens with that um the other one i wanted to touch on is just kamil so the the main ringwraith there or ring servant as we're calling him at the moment um he is canon so he was the only one of the nine ringwraiths that tolkien

[01:34:36] actually gave a personal name so we we know about the witch king of angmar by his title but the only one that we know with an actual name is is kamil um but there wasn't a huge amount written about him um so his kind of backstory that we're seeing now is is pretty much just written um for the show um and i i don't know how much they're going to actually use and to be honest i think they might

[01:35:03] have had to ask permission for this one much like they had to ask permission to use the name anatar because kamil himself is not actually named in the lord of the rings um book it's all in the kind of notes that were released after tolkien's death in the unfinished tales so um they probably had to go hey can we have this one and they probably got they would have had to get um permission from the tolkien estate for that um so that's going to be really interesting um and the one thing that we do

[01:35:31] know about him is that he was the most skilled of the nine at sensing the one ring so later on um you know out of the nine ringwraiths he's the one that that is that goes off and hunts for um for uh the ring when he's looking for it he's the one that goes into um into hobbiton and tries to find the the hobbits um because he can he can smell the ring it's pretty pretty cool creepy yeah that's exactly

[01:35:59] it um the other little one i just wanted to touch on a little bit of background about calaborn because people who are only watching the show and don't want to know any any background spoilers there's just a little bit there um so i'm excited to see the reunion um with with he and and galadriel um so calaborn was as we know the survivor of the first age he was a leader of the of the lords of middle earth

[01:36:26] um and he he um lived in linden with galadriel and then he led it led this group of elves into eriador um and then again um another another wee spoiler for people but doesn't matter because we're in the spoiler section they have a daughter calabrian and um they eventually settled in

[01:36:50] eregion um calaborn was was in the original law calaborn was there um alongside calabranbor and was around with the with the forging of the rings um and he was one of the main ones that actually opposed annatar when annatar came along and didn't trust him and he led the defense and fought against alrond um in that fight at eregion so they've chosen for the show to make him be a bit of a mystery and i

[01:37:17] think they've done that to really build up the character of galadriel in those first two seasons so we're kind of a bit more bought into her and we're obviously going to see him a little bit more um later on but that's about it for calaborn can't wait for more yeah i'm excited for them to reunite which we've seen in the trailers yeah i want to know where he's been all this time yeah yeah there was that one spot on the trailer where i think she said where have you been he said looking for you i'm

[01:37:47] like for a thousand years yeah it's so funny because the last time i saw that trailer and he's like looking for you i said out loud that's not an answer to the question but oh so if you're looking for galadriel wouldn't you look in lindon and eregion this is like the two main faces yeah anyway we'll forgive them because it's just great to see him yeah all right that's our show everybody

[01:38:15] thanks for listening and it's not too long to wait for the rest of the season time is moving quickly time crawls for elves and mountains for the rest of us it bounds away