Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Biomega]

This is going to be a complicated discussion.

If you understand how the casting process actually works, then you will realize that no matter how inclusionary it is, it will always 'exclude' something or someone in some way.

Yes, any solution will always be asymptotic. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't try your best. Exclusion will never disappear completely, but that is in no way a reason not to try and reduce it wherever and however we can.

I doubt the casting directors went out to cast every person of any color to find their 'Galadriel'. They may have only be looking for a fair skinned white female for this particular role.

And then it purely becomes a question of "can we justify this?". There will never be universal agreement on this - it's just about presenting a case, and seeing how convincing it ends up being. I don't think there's a good CREATIVE reason to exclude black actors from playing Galadriel. But there may be good ECONOMIC reasons, which you can judge morally however you wish. Studios aren't people. They'll want to make money, and if that means screwing over minorities in the process, so be it. Until that costs them more money than not doing it, there's little reason for them to change. Be that as morally repugnant as it may.

And let's be clear here: you are still misunderstanding the word 'exclusion'. It doesn't mean "let's go round up all the black people, see if they want the job". It means removing barriers for them to make the choice to apply THEMSELVES. Some of those barriers are explicit, some are implicit. But my point is solely about reducing exclusion, not about actively filling quotas.

Whether this is good exclusion or bad exclusion is subjective.

That's our judgement to make, collectively. What is or is not a good reason needs to be negotiated. That's how all discourse works.

Someone could say it's okay because at least they're casting people of color in other roles. Someone else might say it's completely unacceptable practice, because X movie has a person of color in a leading role that was traditionally depicted as white. There's no real universal standard to what reasons are considered good or bad.

No, but that works both ways. You can't implicitly accept one default without justification, like "it was traditionally done that way" - that's a logical fallacy (argument from tradition), not an actual justification. ESPECIALLY when the issue is that we would perhaps like to CHANGE how we've always done things, because how we've always done things was, in a lot of ways, racist and bigoted. That's the problem, so you can't simply skirt the issue by appealing to a tradition that is in fact very much at stake in the first place.

And I'll also want to address that I may have been using 'Ethnic exclusion' in places where I actually meant to address 'Absence of diversity'.

Those are very much not the same thing. They're interrelated, but they are not synonymous. Grossly negligent to use them interchangeably, implicitly or explicitly.

"Absence of diversity" is a much more complicated problem, and it's very difficult to assess broadly. My focus is purely on exclusion in this debate, because that's a concrete angle of attack. There's a separate discussion about the absence (or presence) of diversity that can and should be had, but it's far more difficult to engage with.

I made an example of how absence of diversity is not equivalent to ethnic exclusion

Cool. Something I never questioned or disagreed with or even... talked about. I only ever talked about exclusion. That you have trouble with distinguishing that from diversity and its absence/presence isn't on me. Don't try and bring this in as though this was a point of contention - I never engaged with it that way, at all.

It doesn't belittle any systemic racism

It does if you make simple equivocation fallacies (see above), because it betrays ignorance about core issues. Trying to paint over things as though they were the same when they're not is exactly what's problematic about it.

The premise here is whether you define an absence to be exclusion.

I don't, and never have. That being said, absence can be INDICATIVE of exclusion, and not all exclusion is explicit. You can claim all you want "but we never stopped people from applying!" when the framework of the entire process makes it clear that would be futile - those are implicit barriers, and they're very tricky to deal with. One good example for this is women in STEM fields - no one actually actively stops them from going into STEM, but there is a slew of implicit barriers that makes them not want to go into STEM. And that IS a form of exclusion, just not a very visible, very explicit form.

But still: that does NOT make absence of diversity and exclusion the same thing. It only makes them related in certain ways.

That's relevant to Hollywood, too. It takes a lot for an actor of color to go to a casting for a role that's always been or is strongly described as white - even if no one stops them from trying out for the role, a lot of people simply won't bother because they are convinced they'll never get it. That's an implicit barrier, and implicit exclusion, and it's very difficult to tackle.

[Triceron]

But my point is solely about reducing exclusion, not about actively filling quotas.

I think this is the crux of our supposed disagreement here.

My comments on diversity are specific to the quotas, and not about reducing exclusion. I remain fairly agnostic in that regard, because while I'm pro-inclusion and diversity, I also don't want the creative being impacted by filling quotas. I think we generally want the same thing, only our priorities are different.

One example I'll give here is the addition of Tauriel to the Hobbit movies. She was added to the movies deliberately because the creators thought the Hobbit's characters was too male-centric, and they wanted to provide a strong female lead to balance things out. I have no problem with this character or its addition to the story. I simply see it as being pointless, and I think her character/arc came at the price of telling a more concise story. There was no real place for a romance sub-plot in the Hobbit's tale. And her role in the story was effectively filler anyways. IMO, the added diversity didn't make things better, it just added more filler to a series of films that was already stretching the plot thin.

And I personally see this type of thing happening all too often in more modern productions. I just don't see it being a good thing when diversity becomes prioritized over just telling a strong story. I am thrilled when it works like Dr. Strange's casting of Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, or Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo. The choice of diversity did not impact the story, I think it was very well integrated, explained and believable. And it plays into what I've said earlier about maintaining verisimilitude, even if you think my reasoning may be antiquated.

That's relevant to Hollywood, too. It takes a lot for an actor of color to go to a casting for a role that's always been or is strongly described as white - even if no one stops them from trying out for the role, a lot of people simply won't bother because they are convinced they'll never get it. That's an implicit barrier, and implicit exclusion, and it's very difficult to tackle.

I want to be clear that I agree with your statement, but I don't see this being a byproduct of anything I've said so far in terms of diversity and the status quo. Don't let this get in the way of you feeling strongly about it, I'm not trying to dismiss anything you've said here. I'm merely saying it isn't really relative to any of the comments I've made, and I don't want to come across as excusing the issues you're bringing up when I talk about prioritizing creative decisions over maintaining status quo. I just don't see this having anything to do with anything I've said, this is more an issue that you're bringing to the table than one that I'm implying.

I work in children's animation. Even for fictional characters, there are many many factors that go into deciding how ethnic representation is handled. Marketing might want to hit a broader range of kids who will identify with the characters. Executives might want want to aim at reaching a certain country or territory. Showrunners might want to be progressive, and add LGBT characters/issues where it isn't normally seen. There's so many factors that influences these choices that it's hard to just lump this all in as a being a product of challenging the old 'bad casting practices'. In the end, it is about companies wanting to make money. It's the economics that drives the casting practices.

The reason why I think modern adaptations are open to diversity is because I think there is a belief that diversity is profitable. That this is what the audience wants. I come to understand this as being more a byproduct of business strategy, and the economics are influencing the creative. My bias comes from my experience in a related industry, just one that happens to deal with purely fictional characters rather than real life ones.

[SpaghettiMonk]

I've been thinking today about the series' lack of humor and whether that's one of its fatal flaws, specifically as it relates to Galadriel. Because clearly, the relationship with the most humor, Elrond and Durin, is the most successful part of the show. LOTR trilogy had plenty of humor, Marvel movies do, and Game of Thrones did too. But it's not that simple. Game of Thrones had plenty of characters who were pretty humorless - Jon and Dany for example. Season one didn't have much humor - there was some with Robert Baratheon and Tyrion, and characters like Syrio Forel, so there was certainly more than in RoP season 1, but it was a small part of the show.

This led to me thinking about the structure of each universe and whether it lends itself to humor organically. The LOTR trilogy certainly does - it's all about a bunch of hobbits at first. Game of Thrones, less so, but some characters certainly do (Tyrion). A challenge for Rings of Power is that it's covering a part of Tolkien's universe without hobbits to ground it, because hobbits were the source of humor in the main published books. So overall I think it's reasonable to expect less humor in Rings of Power than in LOTR - it's about where the source material lends itself to humor.

But when I think about characters like Jon Snow, who clearly didn't have much humor, I think also about Sam. About Tormund. Daenerys' plotline had very limited humor, but it had her relating with Jorah, Drogo, her relationship with her brother, etc. I think about two pretty humorless characters - The Hound and Arya - and how their plotline led to humor.

Overall, I think that humor rises organically out of interactions between well developed, approachable characters who have some humility. And I think that's the flaw, not the lack of humor itself. If you do character development right, humor appears where it is supposed to.

Rings of Power obviously didn't have that with Galadriel. She was pretty unapproachable and definitely not humble. But I think this illustrates a problem of choosing her as the main character and why it struck me as so weird. A character like Galadriel is not supposed to be the main character in Tolkien - she's supposed to be someone the audience looks up to as an ancient, wise paragon (even in the second age). She's humanized in LOTR because she's walking around and chatting with Frodo as an equal (similar to Gandalf).

She's also not a particularly well developed character in Tolkien for this reason. She is one of the leaders of the Noldor's flight to Middle Earth, but when she gets there she just... sits in Doriath for like a thousand years. She basically plays no role at all in any of the story between the Noldor arriving in Middle Earth and the overthrow of Morgoth. She's a supporting character in the second age as well, although she does play more of a role. Tolkien struggled with lots of details of her story, because he was trying to reverse engineer why the character he ended up with in LOTR makes sense. She's a background character, not a main one.

If you make her the main character, you at least have to have some people around who she treats as equals - and yes, Elrond does serve this purpose occasionally, but most of the series she's looking down on the characters around her - the cringe scene where she boards the boat in Numenor to swelling, slow motion music being a great example of where this happens.

The scene with Theo works a lot better if we're approaching Galadriel from Theo's perspective - a guy in his first battle who happens on the great soldier who guides and gives advice (like Gandalf) - with Theo acting as the audience surrogate allowing Galadriel to give some exposition. But showing it from Galadriel's perspective doesn't make great storytelling unless you make her a bit more approachable, and they failed doing that.

So this was a total ramble, but I think the answer to my question of "was a big problem the lack of humor" is "no, the big problem is a lack of developing good characters that allowed humor to rise organically", so the lack of humor is a symptom, not a cause, of the problem of Rings of Power.

[Triceron]

I've been thinking today about the series' lack of humor and whether that's one of its fatal flaws, specifically as it relates to Galadriel. Because clearly, the relationship with the most humor, Elrond and Durin, is the most successful part of the show. LOTR trilogy had plenty of humor, Marvel movies do, and Game of Thrones did too. But it's not that simple. Game of Thrones had plenty of characters who were pretty humorless - Jon and Dany for example. Season one didn't have much humor - there was some with Robert Baratheon and Tyrion, and characters like Syrio Forel, so there was certainly more than in RoP season 1, but it was a small part of the show.

The most baffling to me was their choice to make Galadriel an unlikeable character. This was very deliberate, and I'm not sure what kind of character they set out to write when they did this.

For me it's not the humor as much as the overall believability of the character. She is a high ranking commander, and none of her actions reflect what a person in command would do. And it just goes into questioning she got her position in the first place. It questions the entire Elven military ranking system. Is she a commander because she's a good fighter? Because she is supposedly wise? Because of who she is or who she is friends with? These aren't really addressed. She just is a commander and you're meant to take it at face value, even if everything she is and does is merely reflective of a highly-skilled soldier with little-to-no regard for actual leadership or following protocol.

Like even if they were meant to write in a commander who doesn't follow orders and has a strong sense of self-belief, they didn't have to write her to be so callous to her own troops. She's no Kirk. She's more typical of a lone-wolf character who goes off to do her own thing, which is a contrast to her being a commander and respected as one when she's really shown zero aptitude in leadership. It doesn't come off as a competent leader who has lost their way, it comes off as someone who never had leadership skills to begin with and there's no actual reason why it makes sense that she is the high commander of the Northern armies or whatever her title was.

And overall, she just antagonizes others and expects to get her way. I don't think any amount of humor would fix that kind of characterization for her. They wrote her with a chip on her shoulder and the story is centered all around that chip. Everything she does and how the world moves forward all centers around her 'mistakes', that's something the show is making clear. And it's done her character dirty.

[SpaghettiMonk]

The most baffling to me was their choice to make Galadriel an unlikeable character. This was very deliberate, and I'm not sure what kind of character they set out to write when they did this.

For me it's not the humor as much as the overall believability of the character. She is a high ranking commander, and none of her actions reflect what a person in command would do. And it just goes into questioning she got her position in the first place. It questions the entire Elven military ranking system. Is she a commander because she's a good fighter? Because she is supposedly wise? Because of who she is or who she is friends with? These aren't really addressed. She just is a commander and you're meant to take it at face value, even if everything she is and does is merely reflective of a highly-skilled soldier with little-to-no regard for actual leadership or following protocol.

Like even if they were meant to write in a commander who doesn't follow orders and has a strong sense of self-belief, they didn't have to write her to be so callous to her own troops. She's no Kirk. She's more typical of a lone-wolf character who goes off to do her own thing, which is a contrast to her being a commander and respected as one when she's really shown zero aptitude in leadership. It doesn't come off as a competent leader who has lost their way, it comes off as someone who never had leadership skills to begin with and there's no actual reason why it makes sense that she is the high commander of the Northern armies or whatever her title was.

That’s true, but I also think they set themselves up for it by putting the character in a weird spot.

Like, let’s say they wanted to make a story about Gandalf. My immediate thought is that you would have to place the character in Valinor, where he’s not already superior to everyone around him. When he came to middle earth, I’d think the focus of the series would be on his interactions with Saruman, his equal, not having him lord it over people he’s superior to.

Galadriel spent most of this series interacting with people she (and the lore) would view as weaker characters. Even a guy like Elendil, who could have been closer to an equal, was made subservient. The right answer is to never send Galadriel to Numenor - it’s not a choice that works. Have her interacting with elvish peers, not beating the shit out of nerfed numenoreans (or have the numenoreans surprise her, because at this point in the lore numenor is waaay stronger than the middle earth elves).

[rogoth]

The most baffling to me was their choice to make Galadriel an unlikeable character. This was very deliberate, and I'm not sure what kind of character they set out to write when they did this.

For me it's not the humor as much as the overall believability of the character. She is a high ranking commander, and none of her actions reflect what a person in command would do. And it just goes into questioning she got her position in the first place. It questions the entire Elven military ranking system. Is she a commander because she's a good fighter? Because she is supposedly wise? Because of who she is or who she is friends with? These aren't really addressed. She just is a commander and you're meant to take it at face value, even if everything she is and does is merely reflective of a highly-skilled soldier with little-to-no regard for actual leadership or following protocol.

Like even if they were meant to write in a commander who doesn't follow orders and has a strong sense of self-belief, they didn't have to write her to be so callous to her own troops. She's no Kirk. She's more typical of a lone-wolf character who goes off to do her own thing, which is a contrast to her being a commander and respected as one when she's really shown zero aptitude in leadership. It doesn't come off as a competent leader who has lost their way, it comes off as someone who never had leadership skills to begin with and there's no actual reason why it makes sense that she is the high commander of the Northern armies or whatever her title was.

And overall, she just antagonizes others and expects to get her way. I don't think any amount of humor would fix that kind of characterization for her. They wrote her with a chip on her shoulder and the story is centered all around that chip. Everything she does and how the world moves forward all centers around her 'mistakes', that's something the show is making clear. And it's done her character dirty.

that's the thing though, in the eyes of the creators of this mess, she's none of those things, the way she is portrayed in the show is how the creators VIEW THE WORLD, the characterisation of the Galadriel character is how they themselves view 'strong independent women', that's what they believe them to be and how they are supposed to act, where most normal and well adjusted people view these kinds of behaviours and traits as unlikable, narcissistic and downright abhorrent in some areas, the creators view these kinds of things through their worldview as 'powerful', 'brave' and offering 'leadership', this is the kind of warped world view these people have and are trying to push onto others through their media.

[SpaghettiMonk]

Like even if they were meant to write in a commander who doesn't follow orders and has a strong sense of self-belief, they didn't have to write her to be so callous to her own troops. She's no Kirk. She's more typical of a lone-wolf character who goes off to do her own thing, which is a contrast to her being a commander and respected as one when she's really shown zero aptitude in leadership. It doesn't come off as a competent leader who has lost their way, it comes off as someone who never had leadership skills to begin with and there's no actual reason why it makes sense that she is the high commander of the Northern armies or whatever her title was.

And some of that is just incredibly sloppy execution. Like in the scene where her troop collapses, when it starts she's yelling "keep moving!" blindly ignoring everything around her. Then when she realizes someone is left behind, she runs back and for some reason she's the only person who has a cloak to offer the person lagging behind. So they didn't mean to write her that way - they just didn't realize that "keep moving!" contrasts with "let me go back and put my cloak over his shoulders" because they are really bad at this. There's no continuity in the scene, she goes from "we must move ahead" to "I'm the only one taking care of this guy" because the writers are just totally focused on making her a badass every second of every scene. It's also funny because within 30 seconds the guy who has collapsed is standing again and there's no mention of it. A similar thing happens when they fight the troll a few minutes later - a couple of them get hit by the ice boulder, one gets slammed against a wall of stone, etc., and 30 seconds after the fight they are all standing up pointing their swords at Galadriel, wounds forgotten.

(And then we get the scene of the guys who have antlers strapped to their backs that was in every promo, but we literally never see those guys again... Ahhh I hate this).

[Biomega]

that's the thing though, in the eyes of the creators of this mess, she's none of those things, the way she is portrayed in the show is how the creators VIEW THE WORLD, the characterisation of the Galadriel character is how they themselves view 'strong independent women', that's what they believe them to be and how they are supposed to act, where most normal and well adjusted people view these kinds of behaviours and traits as unlikable, narcissistic and downright abhorrent in some areas, the creators view these kinds of things through their worldview as 'powerful', 'brave' and offering 'leadership', this is the kind of warped world view these people have and are trying to push onto others through their media.

How do you know that?

How do you know this is what the creators think "strong powerful women" are "supposed to be like", rather than this just being a depiction of an intentionally flawed character so there's room for growth?

Sounds a little tinfoil-hat-y to me.

[rogoth]

How do you know that?

How do you know this is what the creators think "strong powerful women" are "supposed to be like", rather than this just being a depiction of an intentionally flawed character so there's room for growth?

Sounds a little tinfoil-hat-y to me.

straight from the horses mouth aka lindsey weber: 'we want this project to reflect the world we live in today'

so by extension the way the characters act and behave is precisely how they view the real world and the people in it, furthermore, it shows how warped their view of the world is through the lens of their writing, i don't get how any of this is 'tinfoil-hat-y' as you put it, it's a logical process of thought based on deduction, everything they have said regarding their actual world views during the marketing campaign mirrors what's shown in the show both in terms of the characters traits, to their behaviours and mannerisms then there's the overt need to be seen as progressive and 'diverse', again showed during the marketing rhetoric spiel they spewed out by the whole 'superfans' debacle, even that is mirrored in the show, the higher ups signing off on these things and allowing the same to be showcased during the episodes demonstrates this is how they view the world, the people in it, and how that is a direct look into their mind.

[Biomega]

straight from the horses mouth aka lindsey weber: 'we want this project to reflect the world we live in today'

so by extension the way the characters act and behave is precisely how they view the real world and the people in it

Bullshit. That can mean anything, and be interpreted in any number of ways. It'd be trivial to find examples for something in the show that isn't reflected IRL, so what you're doing is PICKING things that you THINK are supposed to be "just like IRL" and ignoring the others.

Some people IRL behave like Galadriel does, others do not. How you get from that to "this specific character is how we think all powerful females should act" is pure speculation.

[Orby]

straight from the horses mouth aka lindsey weber: 'we want this project to reflect the world we live in today'

so by extension the way the characters act and behave is precisely how they view the real world and the people in it, furthermore, it shows how warped their view of the world is through the lens of their writing, i don't get how any of this is 'tinfoil-hat-y' as you put it, it's a logical process of thought based on deduction, everything they have said regarding their actual world views during the marketing campaign mirrors what's shown in the show both in terms of the characters traits, to their behaviours and mannerisms then there's the overt need to be seen as progressive and 'diverse', again showed during the marketing rhetoric spiel they spewed out by the whole 'superfans' debacle, even that is mirrored in the show, the higher ups signing off on these things and allowing the same to be showcased during the episodes demonstrates this is how they view the world, the people in it, and how that is a direct look into their mind.

That's always been a very double edged sword quote that I see thrown around a lot. Like reflecting the world we live in today has always been a inspiration for alot of authors no exception in fantasy to try and project a narrative. When it works it works. The key is subtly.

The problem with applying 'we want this project to reflect the world we live in today' to Tolkien is that its different than than the times Tolkien was in then. Tolkien's work was very influential of the times HE lived in, whether that be religion, his experiences during World War 1, and the effect of the rise of industrial culture on the land, and so that was reflected in Lord of the ring and all of Tolkien's work. So if you apply todays times over Tolkien's times, then you replace the times that was originally set and therefore create a different time or distort the messages Tolkien gave. (if that makes sense)

I do think its important to highlight and maybe even give narrative to things today, making stories that reflect the world we live in today isnt a bad thing as many people say, its just so oftenly been done badly, but we must also be careful where we apply that narrative.

[Syegfryed]

Some people IRL behave like Galadriel does, others do not. How you get from that to "this specific character is how we think all powerful females should act" is pure speculation.

And since she is the main character, you don't need much to figure what traits they think are good

[Biomega]

And since she is the main character, you don't need much to figure what traits they think are good

But there's nothing that says they think her traits are "good", when it's entirely possible that she's intentionally flawed as a character - something done all the time in fiction. In fact that's MORE common than having characters be representative of an ideal.

[Syegfryed]

But there's nothing that says they think her traits are "good", when it's entirely possible that she's intentionally flawed as a character - something done all the time in fiction. In fact that's MORE common than having characters be representative of an ideal.

This does not seem like its the case with their interviews, how they talk about her, yada yada. It seems they genuinely think she is a good character.

Well, they also think she show was good, so, they are either lying or just need help

[SpaghettiMonk]

But there's nothing that says they think her traits are "good", when it's entirely possible that she's intentionally flawed as a character - something done all the time in fiction. In fact that's MORE common than having characters be representative of an ideal.

It seems like they might intend that? But it's never clear because we never see anything other than her perspective, and also it's in conflict with their constant desire to show that she's also better than everyone else in the show. It goes back and forth - she's flawed, she's awesome, she's flawed, she's awesome... ugh. The only person who's allowed to dunk on her is Halbrand - everyone else has to be worse than her.

An example of another mystifying storyline is her relationship with Elendil. Things are all going fairly well, they are getting along, etc., then Isildur disappears, and Elendil immediately turns on Galadriel (because in this show, everything always ends up being about Galadriel). It's an unrealistic turn - like, you knew you were going to war, right? There's a similar thing with Galadriel's worry about telling everyone that Halbrand is Sauron. They've all been taken in - Elrond, Celebrimbor, etc. - and for some reason Galadriel thinks that they'll all turn on and blame her if she tells them that he's Sauron - because again, everything is about Galadriel in this show.

[Biomega]

This does not seem like its the case with their interviews, how they talk about her, yada yada. It seems they genuinely think she is a good character.

Well, they also think she show was good, so, they are either lying or just need help

Even then, it's entirely possible for "good characters" to be flawed. Even deeply. Plenty of examples in fiction. To jump to the conclusion that she is meant as a whole-cloth representation of the ideal "strong female" seems wholly unfounded, barring additional info.

It seems like they might intend that? But it's never clear because we never see anything other than her perspective, and also it's in conflict with their constant desire to show that she's also better than everyone else in the show.

There's certainly many facets to the character. No question she is *a* strong female character, but she also has a slew of problematic character traits and displayed behaviors. There's no reason to assume that everything simply translates into some supposed ideal.

Clearly they tried to make her a layered representation; whether or not that succeeded is a different question. And to be clear: I think she's a writing hack job, terribly executed in almost every way, based on the 3 episodes I could bring myself to watch. But to think that she's somehow the writers' realization of what a strong female character is supposed to look like is a complete fabrication.

[SpaghettiMonk]

Even then, it's entirely possible for "good characters" to be flawed. Even deeply. Plenty of examples in fiction. To jump to the conclusion that she is meant as a whole-cloth representation of the ideal "strong female" seems wholly unfounded, barring additional info.


There's certainly many facets to the character. No question she is *a* strong female character, but she also has a slew of problematic character traits and displayed behaviors. There's no reason to assume that everything simply translates into some supposed ideal.

Clearly they tried to make her a layered representation; whether or not that succeeded is a different question. And to be clear: I think she's a writing hack job, terribly executed in almost every way, based on the 3 episodes I could bring myself to watch. But to think that she's somehow the writers' realization of what a strong female character is supposed to look like is a complete fabrication.

I don’t think it’s a complete fabrication, they clearly give her a few big moments to try to drive home how awesome she is and that she’s the protagonist. I think it just conflicts with other things they are trying to do with the character because they’ve made her the focal point of every single thing happening in both numenor and Lindon, and that’s too much to put on one character.

[Triceron]

Clearly they tried to make her a layered representation; whether or not that succeeded is a different question. And to be clear: I think she's a writing hack job, terribly executed in almost every way, based on the 3 episodes I could bring myself to watch. But to think that she's somehow the writers' realization of what a strong female character is supposed to look like is a complete fabrication.

Well to address character growth and possible intent on having her start bad/unlikeable in order to grow, it's hard to imagine this being the case if her personality is all over the place. First she is rebellious, then she listens to Gil Galad/Elrond and goes with the Valinor plan, then she decides last minute to literally jump ship. Like, this is more bi-polar than a result of good characterization, and all this happens in the first episode. It's hard to really see who these characters are when they're just doing whatever the script calls for them to do rather than what makes sense for the character.

I tried hard to understand her character. I just don't. She's all over the place. Without any established consistency, I can't tell when growth or change is happening and what part of her personality is left unchanged. Too much of her character growth is outlined in exposition more than it is shown, and even if shown it gets undermined from some other scenes that revert her back to uncaring bitch.

Like it would've been better to just have her one dimensional the entire season if they plan a slow burn character development.

[SpaghettiMonk]

Well to address character growth and possible intent on having her start bad/unlikeable in order to grow, it's hard to imagine this being the case if her personality is all over the place. First she is rebellious, then she listens to Gil Galad/Elrond and goes with the Valinor plan, then she decides last minute to literally jump ship. Like, this is more bi-polar than a result of good characterization, and all this happens in the first episode. It's hard to really see who these characters are when they're just doing whatever the script calls for them to do rather than what makes sense for the character.

I tried hard to understand her character. I just don't. She's all over the place. Without any established consistency, I can't tell when growth or change is happening and what part of her personality is left unchanged. Too much of her character growth is outlined in exposition more than it is shown, and even if shown it gets undermined from some other scenes that revert her back to uncaring bitch.

Like it would've been better to just have her one dimensional the entire season if they plan a slow burn character development.

Galadriel episode 6:

"And even if it takes me all of this age, I vow to eradicate every last one of you. But you shall be kept alive, so that one day, before I drive my dagger into your poisoned heart, I will whisper in your piked ear that all your offspring are dead and the scourge of your kind ends with you."

Also Galadriel, episode 7:

"It darkens the heart, to call dark deeds good. It gives place for evil to thrive inside us. Every war is fought both without and within."

This is where I was saying, maybe they were trying to do something with her where they were showing conflict, or growth, or something? They didn't ever actually resolve it, or have it come to a real head other than when she talked to and rejected Sauron, so it's not really clear where it went. This is also because she doesn't ever seem to just have heart to heart conversations. She comes closest with Elrond early on, but in the last one on one conversation they have, Elrond promises to blindly trust her, says he misses her, and asks her what to do, completely ruining any chance that this interaction might actually go somewhere interesting. Instead of doing anything that shows conflict or growth or discussion that reveals more about her character, she goes on a long speech about how all she can do is "swim", and the blind trust thing sets up the stupid plotline where Galadriel chooses not to tell anyone that Halbrand is Sauron. There's nothing there to tell us about her arc.

[Syegfryed]

Even then, it's entirely possible for "good characters" to be flawed. Even deeply. Plenty of examples in fiction. To jump to the conclusion that she is meant as a whole-cloth representation of the ideal "strong female" seems wholly unfounded, barring additional info.

But they don' show her as flawed character, even when she is wrong she is right, there is no growth, there is no change, she ends the exact same way the began, even more stupid in fact.

The flaws we see they don't think they are flaws, that is prob the big issue.