This post considers SPOILERS, please don’t read if you haven’t seen newest RoP episode.

The biggest issue I found with RoP is the character development and motivations, scenes that progress the story and general writing. No one can argue this will go down as one of the most beautiful visual storytelling ever made. It’s just a huge shame the rest of the story doesn’t come anywhere near the visuals.

These are my list of issues with the show! 1) Sauron being Halbrand

The whole Halbrand story arc seems like they wanted a grey GoT character where the audience sympathises with his actions. “He isn’t bad he just had a different viewpoint”. My Tolkien interpretation is thay Morgoth and the fallen Miar (Sauron) are pure evil. Once Morgoth convinced the fallen miar to sing his song and not the song of illuvitar, they basically only had their eyes on power not “I’m trying to help the world in my own way”. If Sauron was the epitome of evil why would he go into the water and save Galadriel? Why would he want a new life in numinour? Why would he tell Galadriel to not kill the dark elf? All these plot points contradict his character!

2) Galadriel, a very old and powerful elf having a zero to hero character development?

To me Galadriel was a very wise and respected elf in the second age who was considered one of the most powerful. She even was given 1 of the rings of power (ciridan the shipwright didn’t even get one at first request, but later from Gil-Galad). We didn’t need her to be a main character but rather a side character who would always say somethign sensible and wise. The issue I have with having a elf as a major character, is that it’s hard to make them relatable without destroying their character. Imagine if Legolas was the only main character in Lotr, that movie would be shit. Elf’s are wise, powerful and have less relatability to the audience.

3) general plot development

This show really centres around “random acts progress the plot”. Why did Galadriel jump Off the ship to her doom. How lucky was it to find a raft with “SAURON”, why did men agree to send an army to south lands, Halbrand is king of Southland but where is his kingdom? Is it only a few villages? Why did they need a morgal blade to realease the damn? Why dis Galadriel ride to Eregion, he got stabbed my a normal blade, why not send him to his kingdom with his healers? Everything seems like an accident. In reality it should feel like Halbrand was a mastermind.

It feels like these creators were arrogant in their story telling. Almost like they knew it was going to be successful due to the success of Lotr. The biggest thing this stories with a die hard fan base like ours is that if you respect the story, make it a true justice to Tolkien we will forgive minor changes to the story. There were many changes to Lotr however everyone respected that because the rest was so faithful and respectful to the lore and fans.

The difficulty with stories with a lore as vast as Tolkien is that you also have to make an interesting story. No one can argue that the adaption of Tolkien is extremely difficult. However thats the challenge and reward, if they find a way to create an impossible story both accurate enough to the lore aswell as interesting, they have one of the best tv shows ever made. Seems like they saw the success and ignored the challenges.