I think my favorite hilariously bad moment/scene was at the end with Halbrand standing there with that jacket and its collar looking like he just stepped off the stage where an indie rock band just played its first public set.
Sharpe
1627
Just on a purely aesthetic level, the whole “Halbrand is Sauron” thing is just a huge fail for me. It’s not the actor, it’s the role. The actor played well, but the role is just such a pathetic shadow of the majesty, evil and deception of Sauron. The idea that he was on a raft in the middle of the ocean appearing to be a scruffy “Low” Man is just so sad. On top of that, his actions during the season make no sense at all. What was he doing in the middle of the ocean? What was he doing in Numenor? I get that he wants to influence Celebrimbor but I don’t believe for a second that Rube Goldberg plot holds up (“I will wait on a raft in the middle of the ocean for Galadriel so as to form a friendship with her that I can use as cover to infiltrate Eregion” - WTF? Surely there are a thousand simpler and more effective ways to infiltrate Eregion.)
Look I try not to count rivets but I do require a certain amount of basic logic, and that includes in regard to character motivation. Sauron’s whole thing, as depicted in this show, was a joke to me. A severe disappointment.
I actually think they’re trying to be legit with his intentions. He was on the raft and went to Numenor because he wanted to get away and live a “normal” simple life after Adar defeated him. I think when he says Galadriel did it, the show is being sincere. In his mind, (which may be a little bit of self-deception) he was going to live out his days as a nobody but Galadriel coaxed him back and gave him the motivation to become Sauron again.
It’s dumb, but I don’t think he had a master plan or was manipulating things according to some evil scheme.
Sharpe
1629
Unfortunately that means he is not Sauron and they are not telling Tolkien’s story.
He’s immortal.
Maybe not in Amazon’s version!
Just finished. Couldn’t care less about the Harfoots. The Gandalf reveal and Sauron reveal were underwhelming. I don’t understand why a writer would think they could possibly pull a trick here or build any tension with this. Ditto the Isildur stuff.
I don’t understand the mithril part of things. How is it supposed to save the Elves? They have to be near it or something or they are going to infuse it into the tree somehow and that will save them? But that can’t be because they forged the mithril into rings which will be “balanced?”
And what happens to the balance when one of the rings goes to Gandalf? He’s not an Elf right? And what exactly are the Elves dying from? Other than the High King’s bad acting?
I think he did have a plan. With Galadriel he consciously manipulated her into thinking he’s a tragic hero on his path of redemption and at the same time it’s Galadriel’s fault he’s making rings. This part is cool I think. But it looks like Sauron is pretty lame villain. I suppose now that elvish rings didn’t work and instead helped elves to survive he’ll go to dwarves and make 7 rings for them. And they won’t work either. So like he has a plan with smoothing some dangerous stuff but it doesn’t work for the longest time.
I find it is best to not try to understand any of this, and just view it as total nonsense.
This is you making a whole lot of assumptions, attributing those assumptions to the writers, and then insulting those assumptions.
Why was Halbrand on the raft in the middle of the sea? Do you know the answer to that? If not, then why assume there’s no good reason for it? The only thing we know is that he was on a ship that was sailing from somewhere to somewhere else before it was attacked by the sea-serpent. What clues were given otherwise?
When the mean dude on the raft wanted to abandon Galadriel, the nice lady said “Cruelty will not be our deliverance”. Shortly thereafter she started to say “We set out two weeks ago, sailing towards Mi…” before she was cut off by the mean dude who interjected with “Need we tell her all our affairs?” It’s not subtitled, but it certainly sounds like she started to say “Mi…” Is there anything there to read into? I’m not sure what particular location she could be referring to besides Middle Earth.
Either way, I think it’s likely Halbrand caused the serpent attack to kill off everyone but Galadriel. After that, one could believe that he manipulated her into choosing whichever path she then led him on from that point forth, since manipulating people is kind of his Modus Operandi in the Second Age.
Or he didn’t, because like you said, he’s immortal, and he has all the time in the world. What does it matter to him if he spends one year in Numenor or one hundred? Sauron is nothing if not patient, and he has a lot of business in Numenor, which we’ll no doubt see in the coming seasons.
He also carries a pouch he claimed to have gotten off a dead man. Who was the dead man? Did Sauron kill him? What is in the pouch? It certainly appears to be a vial of some sort.
He also had several opportunities to kill Galadriel, but didn’t, because it’s far more important to Sauron to dominate other life than it is for him to simply end it.
I was kinda surprised by the last episode cause it felt much better written than anything that came before. Especially the previous episode with the dwarves was an offender. It went back nad forth and it felt like some scenes were just repeats, like Durin trying to persuade his father to give out mithril.
I think it’s telling that people believe Sauron’s rant about how he didn’t really lie and it was all a coincidence, how he met Galadriel and now he just wants to settle down with a nice girl, become sober and be a Lord of some bright color. It’s clear he really wanted to seduce Galadriel from the beginning.
His powers of deception and manipulation break the fourth wall apparently.
This is exactly the wrong idea, precious.
Everyone who knows, knows Ulmo rules the seas and even Morgoth had no power there, let alone any of his servants, and he forever feared it…
Sauron being in the Sundering Seas is the worst possible situation he could put himself into.
I like how half your posts are you talking about how there’s simply no way the show would do such a thing because it’s not canon, and the other half of your posts are you talking about how stupid the show is for doing something that isn’t canon.
/yawn
There was at first a mere hope, but not anymore. Anyways your idea I quoted is bad. Sauron should have zero power over the ocean.
LOTR, Council of Elrond:
'Then, said Glorfindel, ‘let us cast it into the deeps, and so make the lies of Saruman come true. For it is clear now that even at the Council his feet were already on a crooked path. He knew that the Ring was not lost for ever, but wished us to think so; for he began to lust for it for himself. Yet oft in lies truth is hidden: in the Sea it would be safe.’
Not safe for ever,' said Gandalf. There are many things in the deep waters’
To me it sounds clear that Gandalf expects Sauron to have minions in the seas.
But he might mean something else. I don’t know. After that he talks about how a sea can also turn into land. Or maybe he meant that some monster finds the ring and becomes like Golum.
That’s quite the reach. The ring wasn’t safe anywhere except being destroyed in the fires of Mt. Doom, the Sea included.
Anything bad in the Seas actually stims from a Maiar of Ulmo named Ossë, who actually sided with Melkor for a time before the First Age…
Sauron is not even in the picture here. /shrug
You are probably right. I just vividly remembered this part for some reason. I don’t think it was in the movies? I always assumed Gandalf meant something about Sauron having agents even under water. Now that I reread that part I see that Gandalf just means that we can’t kick this bucket further and we have to deal with it now.
mtkafka
1644
Yeah count me in!
I loved it too!
Hope is never mere, even if it is meager.
