Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Ihavewaffles]

I saw half of ep.01 and...well, I couldn't force myself to watch more... I dunno how people can stomach three episodes...

The fact that they doubled down on galadriel n sauron meeting at sea, literally the dumbest thing about the first season... and you had sauron instead of using his power trying to argue with dumb orcs...

[Biomega]

After the disaster of S1 I'm not even going to give this a try, but I have to say - I did give an amused snort at the clip making its rounds about how orcs don't want to go to war and want to stay home with their orc wives and orc babies instead.

Classic Tolkien.

[RobertoCarlos]

They just dont understand what lord of the rings is and would rather bastardize it with their own beliefs.

You cant have forces of evil, they're just like people trying to keep up with inflation in 2024.

[Orby]

They just dont understand what lord of the rings is and would rather bastardize it with their own beliefs.

You cant have forces of evil, they're just like people trying to keep up with inflation in 2024.

I do agree, its not Tolkien. I cannot say it was a huge bother for myself, I still have far more issues, but having the orcs being all family orientated and misunderstood like they are Warcraft orcs, was very out of pocket. Which works for Warcraft orcs I think Metzen really did a good job deconstructive the orc stereotype but thats Warcraft orcs, you cannot do the same to Tolkien orcs because they were never written that way.

Which I may add, isnt an issue for me, in case any RoP defenders come at me, I like multidimensional villains, I read alot of fantasy and that's how villains are these days I am totally fine with it. The thing is that's just not how Orcs in Tolkien are.

[Varodoc]

I do agree, its not Tolkien. I cannot say it was a huge bother for myself, I still have far more issues, but having the orcs being all family orientated and misunderstood like they are Warcraft orcs, was very out of pocket. Which works for Warcraft orcs I think Metzen really did a good job deconstructive the orc stereotype but thats Warcraft orcs, you cannot do the same to Tolkien orcs because they were never written that way.

Which I may add, isnt an issue for me, in case any RoP defenders come at me, I like multidimensional villains, I read alot of fantasy and that's how villains are these days I am totally fine with it. The thing is that's just not how Orcs in Tolkien are.

Metzen white-washed the Warcraft Orcs (which was also a Retcon) by simply replacing them with a new "pure evil scapegoat", in this case the Burning Legion. The Orcs were not really the pure evil force, they were just a pawns of the real pure evil force, aka the Burning Legion. You don't see Metzen trying to redeem the Demons (it was Danuser who redeemed the Man'ari btw), because Metzen still understood that you need to have a pure evil force to drive the story along.

Orcs in Lord of the Rings are a pure evil tool used by the Dark Lords to wage their wars and for manual labor. They do not care about family, they have no concept of family, they are like an ant colony. Like drones they serve the will of a Dark Lord until their death or the Dark Lord's at which point they lose all purpose in life and revert back to petty banditry.

But Millennials love their pseudo-intellectual redemption stories, so that's why you have these show-runners redeem the orcs and Danuser redeem the Man'ari in Dragonflight.

[Orby]

Metzen white-washed the Warcraft Orcs (which was also a Retcon) by simply replacing them with a new "pure evil scapegoat", in this case the Burning Legion. The Orcs were not really the pure evil force, they were just a pawns of the real pure evil force, aka the Burning Legion. You don't see Metzen trying to redeem the Demons (it was Danuser who redeemed the Man'ari btw), because Metzen still understood that you need to have a pure evil force to drive the story along.

Orcs in Lord of the Rings are a pure evil tool used by the Dark Lords to wage their wars and for manual labor. They do not care about family, they have no concept of family, they are like an ant colony. Like drones they serve the will of a Dark Lord until their death or the Dark Lord's at which point they lose all purpose in life and revert back to petty banditry.

But Millennials love their pseudo-intellectual redemption stories, so that's why you have these show-runners redeem the orcs and Danuser redeem the Man'ari in Dragonflight.

If the Balrog comes out misunderstood and actually has a family and that's why he was mad at the dwarfs digging and that they were just making too much noise and waking their baby Balrog. And the Dwarfs get together to throw the Balrog a tea party and agree to dig somewhere else... Then I'll know we have truly lost the plot lol.

[Varodoc]

If the Balrog comes out misunderstood and actually has a family and that's why he was mad at the dwarfs digging and that they were just making too much noise and waking their baby Balrog. And the Dwarfs get together to throw the Balrog a tea party and agree to dig somewhere else... Then I'll know we have truly lost the plot lol.

It was all just a "misunderstanding".

Amazing how Rings of Power and House of the Dragon can be so different and yet so similar.

[Syegfryed]

After the disaster of S1 I'm not even going to give this a try, but I have to say - I did give an amused snort at the clip making its rounds about how orcs don't want to go to war and want to stay home with their orc wives and orc babies instead.

Classic Tolkien.

Finnaly they are being faithful to the source material now, unlike S1

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But like, what in the hell is this


Some orc designs from season 1 were quite good, this is disgusting, yet again trying to copy the movies and most orcs there were bad imo

[s_bushido]

The hell are you idiots going on about. In the one scene out of the 3 episodes that you're talking about, said """redeemed""" orcs stab the shit out of someone until he's a pile of goo on the ground. Fuck off with this disingenuous horseshit.

Why wouldn't the orcs be hesitant about immediately starting another war after their god-king was just defeated? If they were the mindless killing machines that you're all implying they should be, you should be equally pissy about all those scenes of them being frightened and fleeing in other media.

[Biomega]

The hell are you idiots going on about. In the one scene out of the 3 episodes that you're talking about, said """redeemed""" orcs stab the shit out of someone until he's a pile of goo on the ground. Fuck off with this disingenuous horseshit.

Why wouldn't the orcs be hesitant about immediately starting another war after their god-ruler was just defeated? If they were the mindless killing machines that you're all implying they should be, you should be equally pissy about all those scenes of them being frightened and fleeing in other media.

If you don't know anything about Tolkien's orcs you can just say that. No need to throw a conniption like someone snatched your popsicle.

Tolkien's writing is metaphorical, not realist. His orcs aren't really people, and that's the point: they're a forced confrontation with an inhuman other that cannot be reasoned with, negotiated with, understood or redeemed. They're the twisted, inverted ultimate Other that is the result of pure, primal perversion. In that they are different from the humans who follow Sauron (or Morgoth before him), who had a choice they made out of a moral failing. The orcs did not not. They have no choice. They are definitionally evil because that is all they can be in a universe where objective good and objective evil are diegetically determined.

That is narratively important because the encounter with an unyielding Other forces reflection. You cannot relativize in the face of this, because this is a state of absolutes; those who try are doomed, because no ends can justify evil means. That is the Doom of the Noldor, in essence, as well as the allure of the One Ring. There are no excuses, and there is no negotiation. It's wrong, it's evil, period, and that is very difficult to accept and very difficult to swallow but it's Tolkien's entire point. That doesn't mean everyone is beyond redemption of course: Eärendil's plea moves the Valar, Galadriel eventually finds forgiveness, all that. Even Gollum has a purpose (though that's more instrumental than redemptive). But that doesn't mean everyone can be redeemed. They can't. Anytime you try and redeem the irredeemable, it blows up in your face. There is irredeemable evil, and you cannot avoid that reality. That's what the orcs are: they are instruments of a dark will. They have no will of their own. That's why they never really do anything or achieve anything if not under the thrall of an overlord - at best they become semi-organized marauders. But they build no cities, have no civilization, know no purpose or meaning other than to corrupt and destroy. By design.

I'm a big proponent of postmodern writing both creative and critical and I'll be the first to question and subvert anything - but I've about had it with people's refusal to accept a true Other. They need to relativize every encounter, anthropomaniacally infusing it with a mirror-image of themselves. Well, that's not how it works. Sometimes you run into a brick wall. Sometimes, your morality and your desire for rational, enlightened discourse run into a brick wall. You are helpless and exposed and faced with the realization that there are things you cannot negotiate away either metaphorically or literally. And that is a good thing, narratologically speaking, because it makes for more interesting storytelling and because it forces a more nuanced ethical perspective as well. If you can simply superimpose familiar moral structures onto every encounter, you do not need to reflect on anything. It's where you can't do that that you are truly forced to reevaluate your value and belief systems - which should be the point of such constellations.

What they are doing by trying to redeem the orcs isn't being enlightened and understanding of the complexities of the Other - it's the opposite. They're denying the true Other, because of some borderline pathological need to insist that there is no Other, that they're all just like You. The height of hubris and arrogance. That's not how fiction works and not what fiction does. Tolkien would slap them silly.

[s_bushido]

If you don't know anything about Tolkien's orcs you can just say that. No need to throw a conniption like someone snatched your popsicle.

Since you already admitting to neither having watching this nor having the intention to watch this, it's a bit rich talking about not "knowing anything." Where is this supposed "redemption" you keep mentioning as if it's a plot point? Is it because the orcs don't want to go to war? Sauron certainly does, and is actively working towards gaining the power to enslave creatures like the orcs to do his bidding as they did with Morgoth before him. But you might have noticed that he's not the one in charge right now. Almost like that's going to be the whole point of the Adar character. But since you'll never see it, it's literally pointless to respond to any of the drivel you have to say.

You can call it "postmodernist" if you want, but I see no reason to believe that the idea that the orcs are some sort of soulless irreedeemable evil isn't just propaganda on the part of those who want to justify their hatred of and refusal to even try to reason with them. And that trope seems particularly pointless when a character like Sauron or Morgoth exists. Entities that might actually fit that definition without having to worry about touchy subjects like...you know..."this entire group of people is deserving of nothing but hatred and death!"

[Syegfryed]

The hell are you idiots going on about. In the one scene out of the 3 episodes that you're talking about, said """redeemed""" orcs stab the shit out of someone until he's a pile of goo on the ground. Fuck off with this disingenuous horseshit.

What even this ahve to do with anything my dude, did the mother and the baby stab him? what make anything different?

you are also just highlighing how retarded is that orcs just stab Sauron until he is goo, the fallen Maiar

Why wouldn't the orcs be hesitant about immediately starting another war after their god-king was just defeated? If they were the mindless killing machines that you're all implying they should be, you should be equally pissy about all those scenes of them being frightened and fleeing in other media.

Orcs in lotr universe are killing machines, the point is the dumb humanization of the lotr orcs, like it is another allegory, when Tolkien made clear they aren't real people", they are creations of Morgoth

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Since you already admitting to neither having watching this nor having the intention to watch this, it's a bit rich talking about not "knowing anything." Where is this supposed "redemption" you keep mentioning as if it's a plot point? Is it because the orcs don't want to go to war? Sauron certainly does, and is actively working towards gaining the power to enslave creatures like the orcs to do his bidding as they did with Morgoth before him. But you might have noticed that he's not the one in charge right now. Almost like that's going to be the whole point of the Adar character. But since you'll never see it, it's literally pointless to respond to any of the drivel you have to say.

This whole plot is awful and doesn't make sense to tolkien lore anyway.

You can call it "postmodernist" if you want, but I see no reason to believe that the idea that the orcs are some sort of soulless irreedeemable evil isn't just propaganda on the part of those who want to justify their hatred of and refusal to even try to reason with them.

ITs not propaganda, its "word of god"

Tolkien never finished the history of how orcs were created, but since the show is using the movies version of twisted elves, still is a whole other mess of how they would be in relation to their soul and what happens if they die, so its not even a plot point that should be explored, its dumb

And it funny that you talk about "that trope seems pointless since Sauron exist", Sauron the character they are trying to make as Walter white, someone they show in season 1 not irreedemable evil(since galadriel push him to it)

[Mehrunes]

The hell are you idiots going on about. In the one scene out of the 3 episodes that you're talking about, said """redeemed""" orcs stab the shit out of someone until he's a pile of goo on the ground. Fuck off with this disingenuous horseshit.

Why wouldn't the orcs be hesitant about immediately starting another war after their god-king was just defeated? If they were the mindless killing machines that you're all implying they should be, you should be equally pissy about all those scenes of them being frightened and fleeing in other media.

Yeah, because not being fearless (which they've never been portrayed as in LotR canon, their whole relationship with Sauron was based on them being afraid of him and they had repeatedly ran away without a dark lord's will to push them forward) means that they were family oriented people concerned about their wee little ones. You push this genius false dichotomy and call others idiots? Ridiculous.

You can call it "postmodernist" if you want, but I see no reason to believe that the idea that the orcs are some sort of soulless irreedeemable evil isn't just propaganda on the part of those who want to justify their hatred of and refusal to even try to reason with them.

The fact that after Sauron's downfall Aragon managed to reason with Umbar, Harad, Rhun and Nurn yet there's not a mention of even an armistice with the Orcs must have also been because of propaganda. Either that or Aragorn was just racist

[rhorle]

Orcs in lotr universe are killing machines, the point is the dumb humanization of the lotr orcs, like it is another allegory, when Tolkien made clear they aren't real people", they are creations of Morgoth

He did say they are real people and can be redeemed though. Also didn't some of the orcs say they were going to sneak off to live away from the the bosses? The orcs did show some independence and reluctance at times. So the show isn't doing anything that is against the idea Tolkien himself created.

[Eru/God] gave special 'sub-creative' powers to certain of His highest created beings: that is a guarantee that what they devised and made should be given the reality of Creation. Of course within limits, and of course subject to certain commands or prohibitions. But if they 'fell', as the Diabolus Morgoth did, and started making things 'for himself, to be their Lord', these would then 'be', even if Morgoth broke the supreme ban against making other 'rational' creatures like Elves or Men. They would at least 'be' real physical realities in the physical world, however evil they might prove, even 'mocking' the Children of God. They would be Morgoth's greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote 'irredeemably bad'; but that would be going too far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making — necessary to their actual existence — even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God's and ultimately good.) But whether they could have 'souls' or 'spirits' seems a different question; and since in my myth at any rate I do not conceive of the making of souls or spirits, things of an equal order if not an equal power to the Valar, as a possible 'delegation', I have represented at least the Orcs as pre-existing real beings on whom the Dark Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, not making them

[Shadowferal]

The fact that after Sauron's downfall Aragon managed to reason with Umbar, Harad, Rhun and Nurn yet there's not a mention of even an armistice with the Orcs must have also been because of propaganda. Either that or Aragorn was just racist

well, it's easy to be racist to a race that was twisted by one who sought to supplant the music of the Ainur. A race that can't bear the sun...

[s_bushido]

You push this genius false dichotomy and call others idiots?

Indeed. They feel self-preservation emotions like fear, there's no reason to assume they can't feel other beneficial (for lack of a better word) emotions. Animals that act on instinct have nurturing behavior. But there's some (quite possibly literal) magical line that prevents orcs from behaving similarly?

The fact that after Sauron's downfall Aragon managed to reason with Umbar, Harad, Rhun and Nurn yet there's not a mention of even an armistice with the Orcs must have also been because of propaganda. Either that or Aragorn was just racist

You rule out propaganda and racism because: _____________ The comments Elrond makes about Men in the Jackson trilogy are bordering on "pretty fucking racist." Gimli was explicitly racist towards the elves. Ditto with Thorin. Hell, we literally have something going on right now IRL where a side with a clear advantage refuses to sit down because their goal is to wipe the other out, and yet you somehow think this is a far-fetched idea? Please.

[En Sabah Nur]

Fuck off with this disingenuous horseshit.

You're talking to a group of people that either simply won't watch this, or will hate every second of it. But they will damn sure populate this thread endlessly with their complaints about it. Adults left the room a long time ago. I wouldn't waste your time any more than you already have, honestly.

[eschatological]

But Millennials love their pseudo-intellectual redemption stories, so that's why you have these show-runners redeem the orcs and Danuser redeem the Man'ari in Dragonflight.

...I'm a millennial and I was nearly 20 when the LOTR movies first came out. I think you're confusing things. Unless you're mid-40s or older you're probably a millennial too.

[Orby]

He did say they are real people and can be redeemed though. Also didn't some of the orcs say they were going to sneak off to live away from the the bosses? The orcs did show some independence and reluctance at times. So the show isn't doing anything that is against the idea Tolkien himself created.

If only the Orcs learned how to unionize. Maybe in season 3 :P

...I'm a millennial and I was nearly 20 when the LOTR movies first came out. I think you're confusing things. Unless you're mid-40s or older you're probably a millennial too.

I was 18 when the first movie came out. I think people working on RoP are early Gen Z and late millennial at best. People throw around millenials like they are kids still lol. There are Millennials are in the 40's now xD

[RobertoCarlos]

Indeed. They feel self-preservation emotions like fear, there's no reason to assume they can't feel other beneficial (for lack of a better word) emotions. Animals that act on instinct have nurturing behavior. But there's some (quite possibly literal) magical line that prevents orcs from behaving similarly?



You rule out propaganda and racism because: _____________ The comments Elrond makes about Men in the Jackson trilogy are bordering on "pretty fucking racist." Gimli was explicitly racist towards the elves. Ditto with Thorin. Hell, we literally have something going on right now IRL where a side with a clear advantage refuses to sit down because their goal is to wipe the other out, and yet you somehow think this is a far-fetched idea? Please.

You really do have no idea what you're talking about but with the confidence of someone who does. Not a politician by any chance are ye?

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Orcs are a tool to be welded not some political group