Rings of Power The Rings of Power show discussion - spoilers allowed for all aired episodes

[Brónach 1,301]

23 hours ago, p0llux said:

So far, it's a grade B show in comparison to the grade A of GoT or HotD. It's decent enough that I'll keep watching. With just 2 episodes out of 8, things better pick up in the ep 3.

 

cracking up at the idea that GoT is grade A

4 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Well, except for the Elves' hairstyles, perhaps (which I didn't even notice, to be honest). You could argue that fashion has changed a bit over a few millennia, but you could also argue that this is unlikely for the Elves of all peoples. In any case, they seem to have gotten the hair colours right, so that's something.

 

short hair draws attention to the ears wich look silly on some actors

6 hours ago, Incanus said:

While I haven't seen the show, @Quintus, who is banned at the moment and thus cannot write this himself, asked me to convey a message to you all that he has watched the first episodes of this show and loves it.

 i didn't know he was banned

5 hours ago, Holko said:

Disregarding things like Galadriel not being Galadriel

 

wut

[Disco Stu 15,495]

This got a chuckle from me  

 

 

 

[Pellaeon 593]

I’ve seen the phrase “it’s a solid 7/10 for me” bandied about on several different forums and discord servers. I’ve never seen anyone rank a show out of 10 before (i.e., in casual conversation), let alone multiple people all agreeing on that number 7, so it kind of jumped out at me. Call me crazy.

[Holko 9,499]

30 minutes ago, Brónach said:

6 hours ago, Holko said:

Disregarding things like Galadriel not being Galadriel

 

wut

I didn't see anything in her that's tell me that's Galadriel, she's literally anyone who's on a vengeance road, actress struggling to make her cliché lines work and struggling to be taken seriously

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

I think she fits 2nd age Galadriel (what little we actually know about here plus what we can imagine from her back story and the history around here) pretty well, and is wonderfully performed by Morfydd Clark. My highlight of the whole affair so far.

[Chen G. 3,943]

4 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

My highlight of the whole affair so far.

 

I find myself enjoying Elrond infinitely more.

[Holko 9,499]

8 hours ago, Holko said:

I just found it boring, a ton of cliché characters in cliché situations with cliché dialogue. Looks good in general but designwise it's afflicted with the shiny squeaky TV fantasy blandness instead of the rich tangible details of PJ's trilogy. Overall nothing really feels like it has weight and much depth to it.

Well ep2 didn't improve on this. Already storylines are stretched with some filler and manufactured conflicts, dwarves are annoying, harfoots are becoming insufferable. One thing I can really appreciate this show for - showing me just what an impressive achievement PJ's movies were in every regard. His ME was deep and believable, characters likeable, stakes existing, his hobbits were cheerful, loveable and worth saving the world for instead of just being annoying as hell, all the way through the scenes with dwarves I was thinking of the Hobbit appendices, the effort they put into making their proportions look correct with bulking them up and putting those arm-sleeves on, while here they either limp around like bowlegged little people or are just shrunk down normal people with dangly arms. Ehhhhhh. Will still probably watch Ep3 for Númenor but probably not more.

[Brónach 1,301]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

 

I find myself enjoying Elrond infinitely more.

I like both. their argument in the first episode and the prologue were the only non boring parts

[Chen G. 3,943]

17 minutes ago, Brónach said:

their argument in the first episode and the prologue were the only non boring parts

 

I'd agree, except I'd amend that to just their argument, the only worthwhile scene in the first episode.

 

I found the prologue extremly inert: appearantly, back in the depths of time, at the heart of the earthly paradise, the place that the cycle ends with Frodo (and Bilbo) going to as reward for his ultimate sacrifice - over there, in that place of unimaginable beauty and bliss, Elf-kids fight over origami...

[Brónach 1,301]

that felt like an insert before the prologue that did nothing

[Holko 9,499]

12 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I found the prologue extremly inert: appearantly, back in the depths of time, at the heart of the earthly paradise, the place that the cycle ends with Frodo (and Bilbo) going to as reward for his ultimate sacrifice - over there, in that place of unimaginable beauty and bliss, Elf-kids fight over origami...

That was just awful.

[Chen G. 3,943]

1 minute ago, Holko said:

That was just awful.

 

THANK YOU !!

[Holko 9,499]

All for what? Cliche scene with cliche brother where he says some cliche "deep" thing which she later cliche-remembers in a cliche other scene with a cliche "choice".

[TolkienSS 405]

I'm not sure if it's allowed to ask for this on this board, but if I somehow got ahold of the episodes just with Video and dialogue, I would do a re-scoring of them with Shore-music.

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

3 hours ago, Holko said:

That was just awful.

 

I thought it was possible the best display of Elf "magic" put on screen. As in: Not quite clear how much of it is magic and how much technology/craft. And why wouldn't Elf children have fights in Valinor? But surely the whole sequence would have been more substantial if they had the rights to do proper First Age stuff.

[Pellaeon 593]

Ever since they announced it would be a Second Age show, I have been thinking about Tolkien’s Second Age. I used to be baffled at seeing Harfoots and Gandalf and the Balrog (all from the Third Age) popping up in the show, but now I’m really starting to see. it’s really not a Second Age show at all, at all. It IS the LotR Prologue+Appendices, MINED the way “Smallville” mines DC characters and concepts, and reboots them and remixes them.

[Holko 9,499]

8 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

And why wouldn't Elf children have fights in Valinor?

Because that's not something anyone should be thinking of in the deep intangible faraway mythic past before time even began! They were all a happy and peaceful bunch in the place of perfection until Melkor introduced sadness and conflict into that idyllic place divorced from the real world! It's not something that should be "made realistic" at all, or even really depicted at all IMO, except maybe in stylised animation, that'd be the only way to get concepts like the Two Trees right, not with these giant glass things. They showed they aren't adverse to it with the opening titles in ep2, it could've been done.

[Chen G. 3,943]

Its just so...prosaic, mundane.

 

In the trilogies, the prologues dealt with the corrupting power of the Ring, with greed, with loss of home, treachery, death. This prologue does pay lip service to some of these through a quick montage of the War of Wrath, but the bulk of it is some super mundane big brother routine, and the same is true to a lesser extent of Durin's "you missed my daughter's piano recital!" to Elrond.

[eitam 364]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Super mundane big brother routine

 

Could have been worse. I was expecting something along "you must follow your heart", not "you have to touch the darkness". 

[Richard Penna 3,671]

I chatted to a couple of people yesterday and the reactions including mine spanned from being a passable few hours, to absolute rubbish. No one had a generally positive opinion.

 

I've been glossing over the Elven storyline, and Durin just comes across as a bit annoying. Galadriel's so far been given virtually nothing to do apart from swim away from a boat.

 

I will continue to watch as it's not 'bad', just a bit dull in places, and because I want to hear Bear's music in context.

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

6 hours ago, Holko said:

Because that's not something anyone should be thinking of in the deep intangible faraway mythic past before time even began! They were all a happy and peaceful bunch in the place of perfection until Melkor introduced sadness and conflict into that idyllic place divorced from the real world!

 

Quoting from here:

Quote

Fëanor was born during the Years of the Trees in Valinor. […] After a time, Finwë remarried and had four more children; Fëanor's half-brothers Fingolfin and Finarfin, and half-sisters Findis and Irimë. Though he loved his father as dearly as a son could, Fëanor was not fond of his stepmother Indis nor her children, and so lived apart from her and his half-siblings.

Quote

By far the greatest of Fëanor's crafting achievements was the creation of the Silmarils […] However, as time went on, he began to covet the gems with a greedy love, and he increasingly ignored the fact that the light which lay in the gems and gave them their beauty was not of his own making. Fëanor alternated between vainly displaying the jewels and jealously guarding them from all but his immediate family, though eventually he came to the point where they almost always remained under lock and key.

 

Considering Tolkien's whole subcreation concept and his own beliefs, it's probably right that there wouldn't have been discord without Melkor; but Melkor had already had an effect on the world (I'd have to recheck the books to see if there is any mention of how this could have affected Valinor).

 

In any case: Divorce, being "not fond" of ones cousins, becoming greedy and jealous - surely this leaves room for a little bickering between children, especially when Galadriel is one of those who the father of the other children wasn't fond of.

[Chen G. 3,943]

1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

surely this leaves room for a little bickering between children

 

Yes, but its just so prosaic! Surely there was something a little more meaningful they could have put the KidLadriel through?

[TolkienSS 405]

The problem is very obvious. It's following the writers sickness that everything and everyone needs to be "relatable".

Valinor isn't supposed to be relatable, it's supposed to be a place of mysticism. 

Making Valinor relatable by showing such petty everyday doings is literally destroying the mystique. It's the literal opposite of what it should be.

It's dragging it into human reality, when it should be hovering above it.

 

This, among other things is a reason why the Silmarillion is thought of as unfilmable. Because no matter how you depict Valinor, you always drag it down from metaphor and mysticism to the human element. But if you must depict it, and I'm very much in favor of showing it in an artful way, then remove as much human element from it as possible.

And do NOT make it relatable.

 

Very few characters in Tolkien are relatable with everyday problems. Most deal with the broader and deeper problems of human ideals, temptations and failures. That's why Tolkien is so deeply moving for many people.

The show is not doing the mysticism of it any favor by doing things like Kid Galadriel.

It may be relatable, but it crushes a major part of a character whose appeal is generally rooted in otherworldliness, and is someone who you look up to instead of feeling related to.

 

It's like showing Aragorn emerging from a Rohirrim crapper in Dunharrow, going on to receive Anduril in the next scene.

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

1 hour ago, TolkienSS said:

It's like showing Aragorn emerging from a Rohirrim crapper in Dunharrow, going on to receive Anduril in the next scene.

 

That's basically what Spielberg did in JP, and I always hated it. But for Galadriel, I don't feel like it distracts much from Tolkien's vision (and it's less in conflict with it than PJ & Co's lesser blunders). If anything, I think it goes along with Tolkien's own comment: "I think I should find vulgarization less painful than the sillification achieved by the B.B.C."

 

Something that I missed so far (because I keep confusing large parts of the SA and TA in my head) and that bothers me much more: Gandalf (or any of the Istari) has no business being in the Second Age. Any reason for sending wizards in the first place is completely void in the SA, when the Valar themselves haven't yet officially withdrawn from Middle-earth. Not even a proto-wizard (which I think would be an odd invention) would make any more sense. So if that's where they're going with it (and I don't see what else it could be), I can't see how the whole affair can end up as anything other than a big, inconsistent mess. The problem with such basic rule violations is that they, by necessity, corrupt any other otherwise "authentic" bit of source material that they include, if it's at least marginally related to it.

[Holko 9,499]

If the idea with the harfoots is they just hid well and didn't develop as sophisticated a culture yet as when we know them later, that's why they don't show up in records, and if Meteor Man really is Gandalf... the hobbits are obsessed with family trees and Gandalf is friends with them, he'd have told them all he remembers of them and they'd have written it in the Red Book. (also they already have books)

[rough cut 1,714]

Jeeeeeez… you guys are off the chart, I don’t understand half of what you’re on about, much less how you even notice and think of this stuff…

 

Can I just say, that I love it!

 

I watched the first two episodes in a joint company - of which two are huuuuge Tolkien fans (one of them is my wife!) - and the arguments got so heated that we had to pause the show to clear up whatever was going on.

 

Annoying at the time, perhaps, but you got to admire the passion.

 

I have no quarrels of that sort with the show, and thought the whole affair a positive one, but upon afterthought have asked my self the question and reached the conclusion “What the hell actually happened during these first two hours?” “A whole lot of nothin’”.

 

If this had been a movie it’d be over by now (we’ll, almost)!

 

Still, it was entertaining.

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

1 hour ago, Holko said:

If the idea with the harfoots is they just hid well and didn't develop as sophisticated a culture yet as when we know them later, that's why they don't show up in records, and if Meteor Man really is Gandalf... the hobbits are obsessed with family trees and Gandalf is friends with them, he'd have told them all he remembers of them and they'd have written it in the Red Book. (also they already have books)

 

The books they have seem to be written in some simple hieroglyphic language. They may not have developed more complex writing (or more likely straight away adopted the Elvish letters) until much later. We also don't know when their fascination with family trees began. Most of the background information in the Red Book was compiled by Pippin and Merry, largely (I think) based on writings they found in Minas Tirith, so the Hobbits' own historical records clearly were rather slim (aside from the genealogy, of course). And don't forget that Gandalf, at least while he was still on his official mission, was well known for giving out information on a need to know basis only. Any bigger info dumps he may have given would have happened after Sauron's fall and before Gandalf's departure.

 

But that's not my problem with Second Age Gandalf anyway. Rather that, as far as I know, the most common concept of the Istari (and the one that best ties in with the published version of LOTR and Sil) is that they were sent during the Third Age as emissaries of the Valar, who had themselves withdrawn from Middle-earth, to support the Free Peoples in their struggle against Sauron (with the strict mandate not to take leadership themselves or match their own power against Sauron). In the Second Age, the Valar were still involved with Middle-earth (and Valinor hadn't yet been removed from the still flat world), so there would have been no reason to send Istari in the first place.

 

Now apparently there's also a version of the story, published in The Peoples of Middle-earth, where the Istari did indeed arrive in the Second Age, around the time of the forging of the Rings. So the show might in fact be consistent with that. I haven't yet read the History of Middle-earth series (of which Peoples is the 12th and final part), but I wonder at what time that version was written. Of course, as much as it pains my OCD brain (and Tolkien's own, judging from his life-long struggle to bring all his myths together), none of even the released works are fully consistent (neither with each other, nor within themselves) to begin with, and Tolkien's own changing concepts meant that the versions towards the end of his life were changed even more from what is related to in LOTR. Galadriel's own story is a prime example of that. But the logic of the Third Age Istari story seems too well fitting with the entire idea of the distinction between the Second and Third Ages that I have a hard time just throwing it over board. 

[TolkienSS 405]

1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

That's basically what Spielberg did in JP, and I always hated it. But for Galadriel, I don't feel like it distracts much from Tolkien's vision (and it's less in conflict with it than PJ & Co's lesser blunders). If anything, I think it goes along with Tolkien's own comment: "I think I should find vulgarization less painful than the sillification achieved by the B.B.C."

 

Yeah, well, that's really a thin defense saying Tolkien found one thing "less painful" than the other. Galadriel is also a central figure, and a main catalyst for many things, and should not be compared to a sideshow figure in Jurassic Park that finds his end on a literal toilet bowl.

 

Showing Galadriel as a child, or showing the elves of Valinor in general as children, needlessly belittles literally divine beings. MAYBE the elves of Valinor start as children, and MAYBE they have the same growing up process as humans, but the point is that in order to create a mystique around them, you don't SHOW it.

 

Just like you don't make it an issue where Clark Kent's clothes go in the phone booth, or how big MI6's budget is for jetting James Bond around the most elite vacation places on earth, or how Al Bundy can afford a house and two children when he's broke, or why the Spider-Man villains always pick MJ out of a crowd of hundreds.

 

Some things you just don't do.

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

13 minutes ago, TolkienSS said:

Showing Galadriel as a child, or showing the elves of Valinor in general as children, needlessly belittles literally divine beings. MAYBE the elves of Valinor start as children, and MAYBE they have the same growing up process as humans, but the point is that in order to create a mystique around them, you don't SHOW it.

 

I think it may just as well serve to emphasise her vast age if you think of her as a child multiple millennia before the events we then get to see. And of course she was a child once - the Elves of Valinor are Elves, originating like all other Elves from Middle-earth. And Elves are clearly depicted as procreating in the same fashion as Humans (after all, they even interbreed on a few occasions).

 

Interesting. According to this, the Strange may in fact be one of the Blue Wizards. Though his arrival in the midst of a harfoot tribe then seems a bit forced.

[Van_Etten 111]

Thing is they would travel to Middle-Earth by sea, not fall from the sky, and probably wouldn't be some naked mumbling hobos. But I guess the showrunners just wanted another mystery box.

[Pellaeon 593]

It has been known since The Peoples of Middle-earth that the Blue Wizards arrived in the Second Age. And now we know from The Nature of Middle-earth, in the chapter “Note on the Delay of Gil-galad and the Númenóreans,” that they definitely arrived in the first half of the Second Age, i.e. before the death of Celebrimbor and before War of the Elves and Sauron (and way before the downfall of Númenor).

[artguy360 1,843]

9 hours ago, Van_Etten said:

Thing is they would travel to Middle-Earth by sea, not fall from the sky, and probably wouldn't be some naked mumbling hobos. But I guess the showrunners just wanted another mystery box.

I think it's totally fine to exercise some creative freedom to deliver something fun and interesting. The wizards are basically angels and an angel crashing into middle earth in a magic meteor is fun.

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

Um gennaro ran to the toilet as it was the only building near to him. Not to use it. He sat on the cover, with his pants on…

 

and btw in the novel, in the baby triceratops scene… grant asks lex where is tim and she says he around the building taking a pee…

 

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

1 hour ago, Luke Skywalker said:

Um gennaro ran to the toilet as it was the only building near to him. Not to use it. He sat on the cover, with his pants on…

 

And it's in the book, and very effective in portraying the terror of encountering a live T-Rex. But Spielberg then turned it into a joke by having the T-Rex expose him sitting on the toilet, looking at him funny, and eating him while the audience laughs and applauds.

[TolkienSS 405]

3 hours ago, artguy360 said:

I think it's totally fine to exercise some creative freedom to deliver something fun and interesting. The wizards are basically angels and an angel crashing into middle earth in a magic meteor is fun.

 

You mean because this show is so short of creative freedoms taken ...?

 

I mean, you would think with the little Tolkien material they're allowed to work with, that they would at least stick to the material they can use.

[Chen G. 3,943]

One of the things, I suppose, that makes this show feel so palpably "corporate" is that its navigating between two pairs of rocks and hard places: its trying to tell a story from the Appendices but not from the Unfinished Tales AND its trying to tell a story in a style reminiscent of but thus-far never identical to the live action films.

 

So constantly, one feels the "oh, we can't use that piece of storytelling, we need to write around it" or "we can't use this design, we'll just do a vaguely-similar one, cast it into sillhuette, show it for only a couple of shots and hope nobody notices." That, coupled with other choices like how shockingly unviolent this show is thus far, makes it feel really conventional, "safe" and corporate.

 

Are there not coups of visuals and sounds? No engaging characters? no interesting mise en scene choices? No intriguing situations? Yes, of course there are. But the overall effect is at best pleasant.

[Brónach 1,301]

16 hours ago, TolkienSS said:

Showing Galadriel as a child, or showing the elves of Valinor in general as children, needlessly belittles literally divine beings. MAYBE the elves of Valinor start as children, and MAYBE they have the same growing up process as humans, but the point is that in order to create a mystique around them, you don't SHOW it.

 

Yeah! Christians ought to stop doing Christmas! /s

[Dr. Rick 1,155]

Having knowing nothing about M.E. other than the movies, I found the first two episodes pretty dull and boring.  My first thought about the guy who fell from the sky was that it might not be Gandalf but rather Radagast since he's whispering to the nature going on around him?  No clue lol

 

So far, House of the Dragon is far superior to this show, but I'll keep watching to see what happens.

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

Me, every time I try to work up enough enthusiasm to write up my thoughts on what I saw.

 

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

After I've watched the first two episodes twice I think that I will give to these two episodes 7/10. And yes it is very generous 7/10. In reality the first two episodes deserve no more than 6/10 barely sufficient but I'm feeling generous.

The comparision with the first three episodes of HOTD is a little harsh

ROP is not doomed yet but they to need to write more appealing characters and far better storylines

Harfoots with proto Gandalf, Southlands as proto Mordor, Galadriel as a character driven only by vengeance(they made her even worse than the Fëanorians), Numenor army mady by cavalry charging against a besieged fortress with a tower, Halbrand being potentially Sauron for me are all  big NO. They are just examples of cloying and lazy writing. I didn't ask for this. I didn't pay for this. Sure I find these two first episodes better than what I was expecting after reading leaks and watching videos for the last five years(because yes after the dumpster fire the last four seasons of GOT or the first two seasons of the Witcher, totally disinchanted as a book reader of both the first two fantasy saga I was looking forward to ROP to save the day and again they have already started to let me down again). Knowing quite a lot about the events and the characters of the first season of ROP I don't have great expectation for the rest of the season. But I expect a great discontinuity in the latter seasons.. 

As I said the show is not doomed but they have to roll up their sleeves and very quickly. 

And since the comparision with the other contemporary  fantasy tv show is inevitable yes even with a couple of issues HOTD is doing much better( GRRM is involved and they have actually some kind of  book, Fire and Blood, to adapt)

[jpmatlack 29]

First post here! 

I honestly can't understand how we can review this only 2 hours in... There will be a minimum of at least 40 hours to this show (8+ hours per season, 5 Seasons) ... That would be like writing a review for Lord of the Rings saga after watching 30 minutes...

[TolkienSS 405]

27 minutes ago, jpmatlack said:

First post here! 

I honestly can't understand how we can review this only 2 hours in... There will be a minimum of at least 40 hours to this show (8+ hours per season, 5 Seasons) ... That would be like writing a review for Lord of the Rings saga after watching 30 minutes...

 

I'm pretty sure after 30 minutes of FotR you were dying to continue watching it.

 

Pretty much any Network produces only one or two episodes of a new series to decide whether it's worth continuing.

 

I know apologetic fans, but saying you aren't allowed to judge the quality of what is a quarter season for this show, because you haven't watched all 40 episodes, is absurd 

[Jay 37,287]

This is what online forums are for: Discussing things we have listened to and watched

 

Of course people should talk about the 2 episodes they've seen, instead of waiting 5+ years to say anything about the show.

[Chen G. 3,943]

2 hours ago, jpmatlack said:

First post here! 

I honestly can't understand how we can review this only 2 hours in... There will be a minimum of at least 40 hours to this show (8+ hours per season, 5 Seasons) ... That would be like writing a review for Lord of the Rings saga after watching 30 minutes...

I hear people say that, but I think it’s a false equivalency. Even within the confines of the first three episodes, they were written by different people, directed by different t people, had different DPs, different art director, etc…

 

When I hear the showrunners talk about the season - much less the series as a whole - as a monolithic piece, like “one 8 hour movie” the thing I flash back to is George Lucas calling the six Star Wars films a single movie. *He* would like to think it is, and he would sure like us to think it is, but it doesn’t make it so.

 

And one of the reasons the showrunners like that equivalency is exactly what you’re saying: that we supposedly need the context of the whole thing to judge any of its composite parts, which is convenient insofar as it makes the show critically impervious for several years into the future.

 

Even in the case of The Lord of the Rings - which is much closer to the “one film in three parts” idea - people didn’t have to wait to The Return of the King to sing the praises of The Fellowship of the Ring.

[jpmatlack 29]

It’s not that I think people shouldn’t  discuss what we’ve seen… but we literally have no idea where this series is going. It could totally turn into something beyond awesome, or… not. I’m intrigued, but I’m also withholding judgement. 
 

I think more what “bothers” me is the amount of reviews listed FOR SEASON 1 on places like Rotten Tomatoes. By all means, review Episode 1 and Episode 2, but how can there be reviews for a product that is only 1/4 released? 
 

In my mind, that’s different than saying “I liked this” or “this scene was badly acted”. But that’s me!

[TolkienSS 405]

20 hours ago, jpmatlack said:

It’s not that I think people shouldn’t  discuss what we’ve seen… but we literally have no idea where this series is going

 

Uh, I think we have a hunch.

[TolkienSS 405]

Why is Finrod never mentioned by name in the prologue?

I find it awful that they twisted his story in a way that makes it seem Sauron came for him, when he really went after Morgoth to aid Beren.

 

Things like these are the reason I can't watch this series without a frown.

[Chen G. 3,943]

@Nick1Ø66 what were your thoughts? One is curious...

[Pellaeon 593]

1 hour ago, TolkienSS said:

Why is Finrod never mentioned by name in the prologue?

I find it awful that they twisted his story in a way that makes it seem Sauron came for him, when he really went after Morgoth to aid Beren.

 

Things like these are the reason I can't watch this series without a frown.

 

It’s never mentioned in LotR that Finrod and Galadriel are siblings. I’m afraid they are legally unable to suggest that the “Galadriel’s brother” character in this show is Finrod.

[Chen G. 3,943]

But he's "Finrod" in the credits.

 

I don't think that's an issue: I actually think he's denominated as Galadriel's brother in the appendices.