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


Chen G.

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You can really feel all the manuevering of what they can and can't use, both in terms of rights to Tolkien's works and to Jackson's designs. Makes it such an odd duckling of a show in the "franchise" landscape!

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27 minutes ago, Pellaeon said:

 

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.

 

Why wouldn't they be able to use the name?

If someone in the show mentioned the name Luthien or Feanor or something, I doubt that would have legal consequences.

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Jackson was technically breaching the rights situation with the "Blue Wizards" comment: there's no indication in the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices that they're blue!

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Episode three is better, though, albeit at the expense of bloodletting some of the storylines until next week, but regrettly not the Harfoots who feel more out of place now that the plot's wheels are starting to move (still tentativelly, like the wheels of Largo's cart) than ever before. Numenore gets a great introduction and the characters we meet there are compelling, but Galadriel is much too brazen and blunt in dealing with them: never in a milion years would I have thought I'd see Galadriel threatening Elendil with the point of a knife!

 

The Orc stuff was very good and made for a strong opening, but perhaps my favourite scene is a domestic scene - the kind I didn't like hithero - between Elendil and his children. I still don't like where I see certain storylines heading, what with Halbrand being a discount Aragorn and the Southlands sitting there awaiting to be magically transformed into Mordor...

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12 hours ago, TolkienSS said:

I can't get over the fact that this series starts with Galadriel about to punch a kid in the face two minutes in.

I think that kid was one of the 7 sons of Feanor. So he deserves it. ROTFLMAO

Jokes aside this versione of Galadriel isn't very sympathetic. Quite the opposite..

And in the third episode she gets even worse

As  @Chen G. said not only she threats Elendil with her knife but she has one of her tantrum in the presence of Miriel and Pharazon and all the Numenorean courtROTFLMAO

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I agree. I liked the episode, but Galadriel needs to calm down. The is indeed (up to this point) not very sympathetic.

 

I really miss the dwarves. They are the best of the characters and hope they are back next week.

 

Numenor looks amazing, but none the characters really grabbed me. It's all moving a bit slow.

 

The small Harfoots part was nice, I quite liked it. All a bit slow.

 

The best parts, for me, were the scenes set in the trench. This had action, suspense, stakes and best of all, something happened.

People died and it was great seeing the orcs. They are disgusting, just like they need to be.

The action scene with the elves was cool in the way it used the chains.

 

I'm curious to see who/what Adar is. But I'm afraid he will just be a stand in for Sauron, as villain for the series. Which is a shame. I want to see more Suaron stuff. His music is cool though.

 

That still remains the best part for me about the series. McCreary's music.

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2 hours ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

Jokes aside this versione of Galadriel isn't very sympathetic. Quite the opposite..

And in the third episode she gets even worse

As  @Chen G. said not only she threats Elendil with her knife but she has one of her tantrum in the presence of Miriel and Pharazon and all the Numenorean courtROTFLMAO

 

Even just in her closeups, she just seeps venom. Such a weird choice!

 

You all know by now the character in all six films in which I see the most of myself is Thorin, and Lor knows he's cranky. But take when Thorin goes to Rivendell: he's been tricked by Gandalf to go somewhere he didn't want to go. His own reasons may have been fueled by prejudice, but its a prejudice that's very understandable to the audience, and actually one that ends up being proven right because as Gandalf himself admits and as Thorin later overhears, Elrond does indeed try to stop their quest.

 

But even beyond that, there comes a point where he just goes "alright, fine!" He's maybe a little acerbic to Elrond at first, but on the whole he treats him with all due courtesy, and even when Balin tells him NOT to show Elrond the map, he acquiesces to Gandalf's advice.

 

Galadriel - not so much!

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1 hour ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

I think that kid was one of the 7 sons of Feanor. So he deserves it. ROTFLMAO

Jokes aside this versione of Galadriel isn't very sympathetic. Quite the opposite..

And in the third episode she gets even worse

As  @Chen G. said not only she threats Elendil with her knife but she has one of her tantrum in the presence of Miriel and Pharazon and all the Numenorean courtROTFLMAO

 

But you don't understand how well Galadriel is redressed for a new generation! This is how wimmin need to be today!

 

Great people create great things that a generation can look up to.

Weak people take great things and remodel them after their own failure to reach greatness.

 

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I agree. Galadriel is definitely behaving like a petulant little shit. 

 

I think they have completely overdone the hot-headed, trigger-happy young warrior portrayal of her character. 

 

It just doesn't square with Tolkein's Galadriel at all. I expected Galadriel to be worldly, powerful, a ruler, a politician, someone who would use the powers of her mind and will to achieve her outcomes than pull a dagger out in the first instant. In short, I expected her behave like a high-elf born in Valinor when the trees were still alive, Noldor royalty and imbued with immense grace, dignity and power. With millennia of wisdom sitting upon her brow - she has witnessed some of the most cataclysmic events of Arda (the destruction of the 2 trees and the sinking of Beleriand), she isn't going to be triggered by minor occurrences. 

 

I feel this show's Galadriel is a completely different character. And a step down from the character Tolkein created.

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On 4/9/2022 at 2:35 PM, Luke Skywalker said:

I loled the main titles very much. Musically it screams lotr very loudly

Heck i wanted to say ‘i liked’ instead of ‘i loled’ which implies a completely contrary meaning….

13 hours ago, A. A. Ron said:

I get that they can’t use either of PJ’s warg designs, but why does the warg have cartoon pug eyes? Just make it a huge wolf, it’s not fucking hard.

And a poodle haircut…

 

More or less it could be considered a mix of the looks from lotr and hobbit…

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The Rings of Power 1x01 A Shadow of the Past

 

Huh.  Very bold of Amazon to make a show called "The Rings of Power" and feature no rings of any kind in its first episode.  WTF?

 

Well, this was OK.  It definitely had some pacing issues, and was more than a bit unfocused at times.  Sometimes scenes are entirely redundant; Elrond and Galadriel have a whole conversation about how she's really sure Sauron is still around and Elrond supports her, but Gil-Galad wants her not go go back out, there's the big GIl-Galad scene, and then Elrond and Galadriel get together again and have basically the same conversation all over again.  Woops!

 

And the scene of her on the boat deciding not to go to Valinor and jumps of instead of excruciatingly slow, with it just taking her forever to jump off the damn boat, which is obvious what is going to happen the entire time, so is an especially egregious offence.  Yikes!

 

But by and large, it was a decent enough first episode for a new show, setting up a bunch of characters and locations and giving you a reason to want to see what happens next

 

 

Galadriel - The opening 15 minutes of this episode with her on the quest to prove Sauron is still alive was overall pretty cool, but I found the snow-troll fight to be poorly executed; The effects were good, but something about the way it was crushing our good guys to painful deaths was a turnoff, and then Galadriel saving the day by whizzing by it making CGI blood spurt out of it was kind of meh.  I laughed out loud when it cut to the title card, like 15 minutes in, we need this really?  Why not put it at the front?  This isn't REALLY a prologue, this is the start of her season arc, with a bit of Morgoth and Finrod backstory.  The way it ended though, I thought we had seen all we were going to of her for the episode, and was kind of surprised when she turned up in Lindon.  For some reason I thought she was going to stay on her quest, not return with the others?  Oh well.  At times they framed and lit shots to exactly minute how PJ filmed Cate Blanchett's Galadriel face, which was just distracting more than a cool homage.

 

Harfoots - The show is definitely trying to mimic everything they can about what worked showing Hobbit life in PJ's movies, but it was kind of OK.  Their little village and its rituals was cute at least.  Not really sure what to make of any of the specific characters here yet but I guess The Stranger will be the catalyst to bring out various traits in them now.

 

Arondir & Bronwyn - I found this to me one of the more intriguing aspects of the episode.  I like the concept that Elves are watching villages of men because so many of them had ben on Morgoth's side, that was interesting.  And doing a romance between an elf and a human is a good idea too.  I thought it was a little sloppy that her kid finds a sword with Sauron's mark in the village nearby that was destroyed, but I am curious what the cow got into that turned its milk into black goo (gross!)

 

Elrond - Is this guy gonna get his own storyline or just be a support for Galadriel's?

 

The Stranger - OK, all the talk of there being a Meteor Man before the season started sounded lame, but in context of the episode it's completely fine, since his arrival is timed when the "gates" (?) of Valinor are open so it's clear where he comes from.  I still hope he's some other Ishtari and not Gandalf but we'll see

 

I guess that's it for the first episode!

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Episode 1x4 - The Great Wave

 

In my opinion the best episode so far.

Galadriel was more engaging this episode. Her scenes with the queen were good. The actress who plays the queen was also better.

I liked the end in Númenor when the people came together.

 

Elrond & Durin were the best. Especially Durin. He's great.

 

Turns out Adar is Benjen Stark (from GoT). I thought that was funny. Not sure yet about his character, we'll see.

Not a fan of Theo. Neither the character or the actor. I just find him annoying and keeps making stupid decisions.

 

Arondir is the most interesting to look at. Mostly because of the actor who has a very strong presence. The moment when he catched the arrow amd then shot it back was awesome.

 

Again, wonderful music by McCreary. Whole episode was a lot more downstated, but that made the end more impactful.

 

I'm more engaged after 4 episode. Hope more storylines come together, that makes it a lot more interesting.

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I didn't think episode 4 was as strong as the last one, and its amazing to me that we're over four hours into this and still sorting through the setup. Galadriel continues to be overly-abrasive and its utterly confounding that she only convinces Miriel to rally to her cause through what's essentially divine intervention.

 

Elrond continues to be the MVP: Those scenes are awesome!

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It feels like this should be the big, exciting mid season finale and yet, nothing really happened. I guess Numenor is conscripting random citizens to sail to Middle Earth with no clear objective, but other than that, I have a feeling this whole episode could have been skipped without losing any consequential story beats.

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The Rings of Power 1x02 Adrift

 

2 episodes in, still no mention of any rings of any kind.  WTF?

 

The show still has pacing issues.  There were scenes that became just outright boring as people just stood around not doing anything or delivering unnecessary dialogue, and some thing just take way too long to happen.  It's like all sensibilities of good rhythm and pacing were thrown out because some executive mandated a certain run time or something.

 

Still, the show is overall compelling and interesting, and this episode moved all the storylines from the first episode forward, and also kicked off a new one with Elrond, so that was nice

 

 

Galadriel - I liked that she encountered a boat instead of having to swim all the way back, and the absolutely massive sea creature was pretty cool!  I'm not sure what to make of Halbrand, it seemed like he's hiding something more than just being from the Southlands and that orcs killed his family, and I'm not sure why Galadriel would tell a total stranger about her quest.  I also thought it was a little goofy that they then encounter ANOTHER ship instead of having to float all the way home

 

Elrond - OK so he will get his own storyline.  This Celebrimbor guy seems interesting, but I wish they explained better what this forge he wants to make is and why.  I thought all of Elrond in Khazad-dun was pretty interesting, I liked the uneasy friendship he has with Durin IV after 20 years of estrangement, a tiny bit of Gimli/Legolas energy but also a lot different.  I like the idea that the dwarves have made some discovery that they don't want the elves to know about, but don't really like that they only set that up with the reveal saved for a future episode. Bah

 

Arondir & Bronwyn - I think this storyline interests me the most, and I'm not sure why it's gotten the least amount of screen time between the two episodes.  Orcs being able to destroy villages by tunneling under them without anybody realizing is pretty silly on the surface, but maybe a more detailed explanation is coming.  The suspense / action scene where Bronwyn and Theo had to defeat an orc was pretty good, but it's also kind of funny they had make a whole big sequence out of having to fight 1 orc in one scene, then in a big battle scene orcs will be killed by the dozens quickly.  Unless this is supposed to be some kind of special orc, we'll see I guess.  I can't even speculate who or what has captured Arondir.  The sword with the Sauron mark continues to be a bit silly, most especially that Theo doesn't tell his mom about it, oi!  Unless it's supposed to be corrupting him like Sauron's ring does later or something.  The blood making it come back to life was also a bit silly

 

The Harfoots & The Stranger - This plot is moving glacially slow.  Two full episodes into the show and it's only barely getting started.  The inability to communicate between the two parties will hopefully get resolved soon because it isn't too compelling to watch them try over and over again.  It will be interesting to learn more about his powers and how they work, and how they will find the constellation he's looking for, and I hope it moves quicker getting there!

 

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2 hours ago, A. A. Ron said:

It feels like this should be the big, exciting mid season finale and yet, nothing really happened.

 

We're over halfway through and we're not done with the buildup: I'll count it as done once the Numenoreans actually set sail, which they hadn't and probably won't until at least halfway through the next episode if not at its end.

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43 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

We're over halfway through and we're not done with the buildup: I'll count it as done once the Numenoreans actually set sail, which they hadn't and probably won't until at least halfway through the next episode if not at its end.

 

I'd bet pretend money on episode 5 ending on "Sailing Into The Dawn" with a massive shot of ships heading out of Numenor. The track absolutely screams end of episode (if not end of season).

 

If the series album continues being relatively chronological then we'll get This Wandering Day in ep 5 too.

 

Wasn't a fan of ep 4 - whoever is writing the Bronwyn/Arondir storyline is using every single cliche in the book and the Elven/Dwarven stuff is just a bit boring. Galadriel is still being given little to do other than be constantly pissed off.

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12 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

Galadriel is still being given little to do other than be constantly pissed off.

 

I hear that, and its wild that if she succeeded at her endeavour at all, it was basically thanks to a Deus ex Machina.

 

Weird writing.

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I don’t think anything of note is going to happen this season. It seems it’s more focused on world building and introducing us to the vast cast and their relationships. 
 

I’m ok with that. I remember before Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001 there was an intense amount of advertising and MASSIVE effort to introduce us to all the characters/cultures before we got to the actual movies. 
 

I suspect season 1 is basically the marketing that didn’t happen. So I don’t think ANYTHING significant will happen in Season 1. 
 

I’m enjoying it for the first time seeing it, but for repeat watching I hope we get a really quality fan-edit to condense The first 4 episodes into about 1 hour…

 

But I’m actually really enjoying this approach of going into the world blind and having it introduced to me on screen instead of in magazines and Burger King kids meals…

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On 09/09/2022 at 4:17 PM, TheUlyssesian said:

I feel this show's Galadriel is a completely different character. And a step down from the character Tolkein created.

 

I think most people have a too specific image of Galadriel. Namely that from the end of the third age, as shown in LOTR, or more specifically, shown *after* she resisted the temptation of Frodo offering her the Ring. That was her big moment of ultimate redemption, and its outcome was not set in stone until she succeeded. Before that, she's treated rather enigmatically in the book (remember Boromir warning them of a witch in Lothlorien; surely mainly a symptom of the mistrust between Men and Elves, but perhaps partly earned by rumours of her past), and even more so (if hardly at all) in writings about the earlier ages. Tolkien seems to have softened towards her character over time and made her more consistently agreeable, but I think past of that postdates LOTR (so depending on your POV, you could use or disregard some of that in the context of this series), and to a degree, I always felt a bit letdown by it. From how I understood it, she was an important secondary character for most of Middle-earth's history, and very likely more active and less restrained than we see her at the very end of her time in Middle-earth, thousands of years later. That said, I agree that she's somewhat overdone in the series so far (though wonderfully played), but not as much as most others say.

 

I'm still quite thrilled by the series, though how it all fits into Tolkien's chronology and basic set of rules continues to be a stressful point of frustration for me, not so much for a couple of rules they've already violated, but for quite a number of potential blunders I can see coming - and mostly because it can be hard to judge which changes are "necessary" and permissible. In other words, I fear that I may end up liking parts of it more than I should be "allowed" to.

 

In any case, Numenor was a marvel, and really feels like a previously unseen place from the writings brought to life in a distinctive and believable way. Elendil seems to be another case of very successful casting, with a strong and surely not entirely accidental resemblance of Boromir in his manners.

 

What keeps bothering me from a narrative point of view is the need to tie all of Tolkien's accounts together with a small set of main characters. Sure, that's commonly what films and series to, and part of doing an adaptation is reshaping a potentially larger story so that it can be followed through the film's characters - but Tolkien's writings were unusual to begin with and didn't necessarily follow established norms (see all the complaints of LOTR being slow and consisting of naught but landscape descriptions), and obviously most stories from before the Third Age are even less character centric or strictly connected. I feel that a series should be free to handle the main plot points more freely, instead of forcing them into character narratives that as a result often feel unnatural and full of tropes. At the same time, I have some sympathy for those problems, because if you decide tell the story this way, I expect at least some of them can hardly be avoided. Especially as I come from the POV of someone who has read the stories multiple times, wants the writings done justice, and fells that, if anything, some of the narrative is *too fast* (a problem that also affected parts of PJ's LOTR), at least in the way long and complex history is stuffed into the so far quite brief arcs of the main characters - when others mostly complain about everything being to slow and nothing happening at all.

 

Current point of what-did-they-have-to-change-that-for annoyance: Why make the Palantir of Numenor the last of the seven? "Seven stars and seven stones and one white tree" refers to Elendil & Co rescuing seven stones from Numenor (from a probably larger number, the rest of which were lost in the Downfall). They were used in Middle-earth to maintain communication between the parts of the kingdoms, before some were stolen and some were lost. Even in PJ's LOTR, three Palantiri are directly involved in the narrative.

 

15 minutes ago, jpmatlack said:

I don’t think anything of note is going to happen this season. It seems it’s more focused on world building and introducing us to the vast cast and their relationships. 

 

The chronology and narrative speed of the series if confusing and vague so far, but I imagine that the forging of the Rings should begin before the end of the season. According to the writings, the timespan between the beginning of the Great Rings project and the forging of the One Ring is roughly 100 years, so if the series wants to stay even remotely true to that, all of the human characters must be replaced by later generations in the narrative before that. Having the Rings project begin this season would also imply that Sauron (in his disguise as Annatar) would have to be revealed.

 

I also fear that the Downfall of Numenor might happen soon - too soon if the want to maintain the scope of Tolkien's chronology.

 

Personally, I'm happy with little happening, because it stays more consistent with the writings and lets me enjoy the places and historic moments more - and leaves room for some more insights into things like the Elrond/Durin friendship and perhaps Elendil's dynasty.

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So they actually have Numenoreans complaining about Elves 'taking our trades'. You couldn't write it... unless of course you're Amazon's merry band of scribes. Why not just have them proclaim 'Elves will not replace us!' while you're at it?

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I must say, the series is better than I expected. I really enjoy watching it. It is to my mind quite acurately fitting with the Peter Jackson movies, which I like.

 

The only thing that disturbed me, even though I am no Tolkien speciallist, according to Gimli in "the Two Towers" female dwarfs look almost like male dwarfs. That is why they easily get mixwd up by humas and others. But Durin's wife Disa in The Rings of Power looks all female. So this seems to me badly presented in the show. Or Gimli lied in the movie. Any expert here, who can clarify this?

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3 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

I must say, the series is better than I expected. I really enjoy watching it. It is to my mind quite acurately fitting with the Peter Jackson movies, which I like.

 

The only thing that disturbed me, even though I am no Tolkien speciallist, according to Gimli in "the Two Towers" female dwarfs look almost like male dwarfs. That is why they easily get mixwd up by humas and others. But Durin's wife Disa in The Rings of Power looks all female. So this seems to me badly presented in the show. Or Gimli lied in the movie. Any expert here, who can clarify this?

 

Why do you need an "expert" to tell you that making female dwarves look like male dwarves in the spirit of Tolkien would send a tremor through the uteruses (uteri?) of feminists and their media affiliates?

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36 minutes ago, TolkienSS said:

Why do you need an "expert" to tell you that making female dwarves look like male dwarves in the spirit of Tolkien would send a tremor through the uteruses (uteri?) of feminists and their media affiliates?

 

And we're there with the anti-woke crying again. Because that of course can be the only reason.

 

41 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

The only thing that disturbed me, even though I am no Tolkien speciallist, according to Gimli in "the Two Towers" female dwarfs look almost like male dwarfs. That is why they easily get mixwd up by humas and others. But Durin's wife Disa in The Rings of Power looks all female. So this seems to me badly presented in the show. Or Gimli lied in the movie. Any expert here, who can clarify this?

 

I mentioned that earlier, and it was a point of minor annoyance for me (although Disa is wonderful). I think most people probably interpreted the whole thing in PJ's TTT as a joke (I know people who dislike the entire scene, although it was one of my favourite EE additions). Granted, Tolkien himself says that nobody knows what Dwarf women look like, either because the society is so secretive (and male dominated) that nobody ever gets to see them, or because they are (to other peoples' eyes) almost indistinguishable from the men (which necessarily implies beards). I've always liked the absurd idea that the second version is correct, but he never outright states so. On the other hand, the first version would be perfectly consistent with both the Third Age perspective from which the comment was made, and the Second Age perspective of this series (for one because Elrond is one of the few non-Dwarves to enter Khazad-dum; and more so because that's before relations between Elves and Dwarves soured again and most who might remember meeting Dwarf women would have either died or forgotten). So it's probably canonically correct (at least not clearly incorrect), and ultimately pretty well done.

 

Speaking of Dwarves, I love the abundance of Dwarf masks shown in the series. They're one of the main things associated with Dwarves in the Silmarillion, but entirely absent in LOTR.

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1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Speaking of Dwarves, I love the abundance of Dwarf masks shown in the series. They're one of the main things associated with Dwarves in the Silmarillion, but entirely absent in LOTR.

 

The masks make sense in an age of pitched battles involving fire-breathing dragons, but in later periods, they very likely would have fell out of use almost entirely, given that any dragon attacks would have been very sudden affairs, a la Smaug's attack.

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3 hours ago, Barnald said:

The masks make sense in an age of pitched battles involving fire-breathing dragons, but in later periods, they very likely would have fell out of use almost entirely, given that any dragon attacks would have been very sudden affairs, a la Smaug's attack.

 

Oh certainly, and it wasn't meant as a criticism - certainly not of PJ's films, because I don't think the masks are mentioned even once in LOTR (or The Hobbit). Perhaps for the reasons you named, or perhaps because Tolkien didn't think of them until later. In any case, it's lovely to see them, especially since Dwarvish ceremonial culture seems so closely intertwined with work and pracitability.

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42 minutes ago, Roll the Bones said:

And obviously the first. ;)

 

Hm, those are helmets to me, not masks. And they don't look like they would offer protection against dragon fire (the beards!). I was never quite sure how to imagine the masks described in The Silmarillion, but i think those in TRoP match my expectations exactly.

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