Latest / Mythmakers / Rings of Power - Halfway Point Check In

Transcript

Rings of Power - Halfway Point Check In · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
• 0:11
  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding.
• 0:17
  I'm an author but also director of the Centre. And today I wanted to talk to you
• 0:23
  about where we've reached in the Rings of Power Amazon series. We're a sort of halfway
• 0:30
  through and I thought I'd check back in and see what people were making of it.
• 0:37
  We had several conversations with other people who were keen on the Silmarillion before it started
• 0:44
  trying to get exactly what they were going to do and now I think we're much clearer. Though
• 0:50
  still not completely clear as to the direction they're taking. But first of all we had somebody
• 0:57
  asked why are we spending so much time talking about this? Why don't we just talk about writing and
• 1:02
  creative points? Perhaps they didn't want to give Amazon the publicity which you know I don't
• 1:08
  think our little podcast would have made any difference to that. But the answer to that is this
• 1:13
  is the biggest talking creative event that's happening at the moment and we at the centre are
• 1:19
  really interested in what this generation of creatives are making of their raw material.
• 1:25
  So first of all let's have a look at the direction that they have taken what we got wrong in our
• 1:31
  speculations and what we got right. So the first thing that they have done which we were sort of
• 1:38
  hoping they would do which is they've included a Hobbit point of view. That's with the half-arts.
• 1:46
  We began to see that at the end of the preparation period with the trailers but
• 1:51
  the Hobbits do provide a comedy, humanising, smaller person's stature point of view. But there are
• 1:59
  problems with it which I will return to. Also something I got wrong was I thought the tree that
• 2:07
  appeared in the initial trailer was the tree in Numenor. In fact they've got quite a small
• 2:12
  tree in Numenor. The one we see in the the still that there was the very first thing that issued
• 2:19
  is actually from the flashback to Valinor, Galadriel's youth. So got that wrong. Oh well,
• 2:27
  hand up, got it wrong. But there we go. We weren't going to get everything right.
• 2:32
  And what we still don't know is whether or not the mysterious stranger is Gandalf or Sauron or
• 2:41
  somebody else. I mean the hints are that it's Gandalf, the way he talked to the glowworms,
• 2:46
  the fact that he looks like a young Gandalf the Grey, all of that. There's lots of red herrings
• 2:52
  there if they're going another direction with that. The question is how is that
• 2:58
  character going to develop because he's not in their material. He doesn't take a big role in
• 3:03
  the second age according to the appendices to the return of the king which is the material
• 3:11
  they're working out of mainly. Okay so that's you know, quick checklist. We were guessing in the dark.
• 3:19
  We are no longer in the dark. We have stepped into the light and now we can talk about what they're
• 3:24
  doing with the material. Okay so I've seen a lot of criticisms from a purist standpoint and if I was
• 3:33
  going to approach this as what they're not doing, what what what talking things are going against,
• 3:39
  I could make a list of them. So for example things like the way Galadriel has suddenly become this
• 3:50
  in a way a lesser person because she's now under Gilgalad's command. She has that abortive
• 3:58
  sailing west. All those elements making her this sort of very driven warrior. All of that
• 4:04
  doesn't seem to be following what talking was suggesting for Galadriel. Unfortunately his
• 4:10
  version of Galadriel in this age is she spends a lot of time out of the picture. So you can see
• 4:16
  where they've gone with that. They want a strong female character and Galadriel was available.
• 4:21
  Other little things which niggle, here's quite a lot of them, but when they do invent things
• 4:27
  which aren't in Tolkien like the backstory for Mithril, that's just a bit annoying for those of us
• 4:35
  who think why. You seem a bit weak and also the the origins of the sort of L-Rond going to do in
• 4:49
  finding he's there to get the Mithril. All of that felt it didn't, the motives have seemed weird
• 4:57
  so they need this Mithril the L so they don't fade. That is entirely outside any kind of Tolkien
• 5:03
  imagining of why the elves are fading. It felt to me as though that was somebody sitting in the
• 5:09
  writers room saying okay we need to make some urgency for the elves. What are we and something
• 5:15
  that's going to be a problem with the dwarves? What can we come up with? Oh Mithril, let's go with that.
• 5:20
  It feels a weak story move to tick some boxes about motives and pacing but I am actually not
• 5:29
  sitting here as a Tolkien purist. I'm sitting here looking at it as a writer who understands
• 5:37
  the pressures people are in in a writing room to come up with a good storyline spinning from
• 5:44
  very slight stuff which is what they're trying to do at the moment. Another thing in the
• 5:51
  what the Tolkien purist might not like is the whole of sort of dog leg in the story about
• 5:56
  gladriel going to Numinor. Also the fleet that they're putting together at the moment they've
• 6:04
  got three ships. If this is the expedition that persuade Sauron not to take over that part of
• 6:12
  the southern part of middle earth then it doesn't seem very spectacular. I was imagining a vast
• 6:18
  fleet but maybe I'm pretty and maybe that's later on season three or something. At the moment it
• 6:23
  seems to be odd some of those moments. So let's talk about what I like about the series. I've enjoyed
• 6:33
  the casting. Now I think that Morphid Clarke as gladriel is great. She looks great. She moves well.
• 6:46
  I enjoy her scenes. I like the sort of twinkling in the eye that Elrond has the Robert Aramayo.
• 6:56
  So some more shout outs for performance. I very much enjoyed the dwarves. I liked the way
• 7:03
  Cousadum was realised. I like the fact that they were growing. You could see all the agriculture
• 7:10
  underground with the reflected light. That was all lovely. I love the thinking through
• 7:16
  what that vast empty place that we saw in Lord of the Rings might have been like as a working
• 7:21
  city. I really enjoyed that. And I enjoy the married couple Disa who's played by Sophia Num Vetti.
• 7:29
  Hope I've got your name correctly. And Durin Owen Asa. They seem to have
• 7:37
  pitch perfect tone with each other. The sense of a family. Also managing to get in a bit of the
• 7:44
  majesty of the dwarves with the idea of Disa being someone who can sort of sing to the the stones
• 7:51
  and make them resonate. Really enjoyed that. I also like the humour between Elrond and
• 8:02
  Durin. A real sense of friendship and the sort of rivalry there. And that's where they get the tone
• 8:10
  appropriate for Tolkien I think. It has a sort of humour which sometimes is lacking in other
• 8:15
  fantasy adaptations. So that's a big shout out. I think that I enjoy the performance of
• 8:24
  Daniel Wayman as the stranger. Though I would like to find out who you are, Daniel.
• 8:31
  But I'm sure lots of people do. I do like the Orondia, the Elf. That's Ishmael Cruz Cordova.
• 8:41
  I like his power. I think there's a problem I have. I'm going to talk about this a bit later on.
• 8:50
  I have a problem with the storyline, but I don't have a problem with him as an Elf. I think he looks
• 8:56
  great. He's got a sense of, you know, he sort of feels powerful as a sense of,
• 9:03
  you know, it's good to see an Elf of colour as well, of course.
• 9:07
  I think Bronwyn is very convincing in the sort of mother leader role. Though please, costume
• 9:13
  department, why is she the only one who's wearing sort of barely anything? Every time she comes on,
• 9:18
  everyone else is all wrapped up. And she's got these bare shoulders. I imagine it's to give her
• 9:24
  a unique silhouette, but I just think put some more clothes on. You look cold because it doesn't look
• 9:30
  like the warmest place on earth. So I find that distracting. Just a little side note on the costumes.
• 9:37
  Most of them are absolutely wonderful. And they're all distinctive looking. So Galadriel has never
• 9:45
  had a poor scene. Though she did spend, I think, a couple of episodes wearing basically a night dress,
• 9:51
  a wet night dress for thing. But I love the dresses and the armour, very regal, majestic,
• 9:57
  particularly like the way they've thought about the Numenor clothing, Miriel, with her sort of
• 10:05
  scaled armour, very strong look. The elves and the dwarves are all very good. The hobbits,
• 10:14
  I like how they are able to disappear into the natural world. But they seem to be just wearing a lot
• 10:23
  of bulk. And I'm not convinced that a nomadic people would wear quite so many layers of skirts.
• 10:30
  It seems to be getting in the way a lot. So costume department, I'd go for a slimmer silhouette
• 10:36
  for your hobbits. They all seem to be wearing skirts, even the men. And I thought that the hobbits
• 10:41
  in Lord of the Rings wore just the best clothes, those three called length trousers, waistcoat,
• 10:45
  and shirt. I'd have found something closer to that as a kind of earlier vernacular. Anyway,
• 10:51
  so every time they come on, I get a bit annoyed that they're dragging around so much material.
• 10:57
  But on the whole, the costume department have done a fabulous job. I could keep going. In fact,
• 11:02
  it's probably quicker to say those people I don't enjoy so much. And I think that is the older
• 11:10
  elves. So I'm having in mind here Gil Gallard and Caleb Brimble. Both played by great actors,
• 11:21
  so Charles Edwards as Caleb Brimble, last scene in the crown. Oh yeah, and Gil Gallard is Benjamin
• 11:28
  Walker. From my have with them is they are so clearly older. He's not this. They're clearly older
• 11:36
  people. And actually Giladriel is of the same age as them. Or she's an old or two. In fact,
• 11:44
  she's older. She's a previous generation. So that mismatch, it kind of sends a wrong signal. So
• 11:49
  if you're coming to this from the outside, you think, oh, here is a young woman trying to make
• 11:56
  these older men see sense. And they're plotting about her behind the scenes. So the visuals here
• 12:05
  are sending the wrong signals because actually Giladriel is probably senior elf, one of the
• 12:12
  senior elves at this stage. And so it sort of sets up an odd misleading sort of power structure.
• 12:23
  And what's wrong with this? It just makes the story go slant wise. So you've got the younger
• 12:31
  generation trying to make the older generation of leaders see sense. The danger is coming back,
• 12:37
  Saron's coming back says Galadriel. And then she's sent away. We don't find out, or she doesn't find
• 12:43
  out, but we find out later that Gil Gallard is responding to a kind of prophecy, understanding that
• 12:51
  if she stays, that is one of the things that will bring the evil. He doesn't explain this to her.
• 12:57
  So it just means for me that I don't enjoy the political vaccinations there. It doesn't work for
• 13:05
  me. And there's something wrong with the writing there, I think. It doesn't mean everyone had to be
• 13:11
  young who was cast, but when you think back to, when they cast Elron before, they had that young
• 13:17
  old look. And possibly that would have been a better way to go. Funnily enough, Orin, who's played
• 13:25
  by Joseph Morley, or more, who's like the bad guy, who's just emerged. He kind of looks like a
• 13:34
  young old elf, even though he's a bad guy. So perhaps something like that might have worked,
• 13:40
  rather than these character actors with character faces. That's why I don't know if you agree with
• 13:47
  me. That's a problem, but I find that a problem. The other thing that I like and enjoy very much
• 13:57
  is the tone. So I am pleased that they have struck a tone, which feels, shall we say, it feels
• 14:04
  sort of talking. So you've got a warmth, a sense of warmth within the half-fits, a sense of family.
• 14:12
  You also have a sort of scope, and I think, a sense of history. So they've layered it, which is
• 14:21
  also very talking. So when you go to Numenor, for once we finally saw a fantasy city that looked
• 14:28
  big enough to be a proper city, rather than just a made-up castle of a few houses. It made me think
• 14:35
  of something like ancient Rome. It struck the right notes. I'm less convinced by Lyndon and
• 14:43
  Gil Gallads' empire, because it seems very sketchy. They're mainly walking in trees, or in that way
• 14:52
  that elves seem to have no walls. There's a sort of unfinishedness to that kingdom. I would have
• 14:59
  preferred a more attention given to the architectural vocabulary in a way, and a sense of how this
• 15:07
  works as a place, because it is the big kingdom in Middle-earth at this time. So that was a bit
• 15:12
  disappointing. The port looks good. I thought the port was very good. That was building on the
• 15:19
  Grey Havens idea. But the actual, how the capital city works seems to be not thought about.
• 15:27
  Whereas Numenor, the sense of this island I think is building nicely, and I like that. I like the
• 15:32
  guild system, different classes, the idea that there are factions within the politics. Yeah, they've
• 15:40
  built that up quite well and established it quickly. So let's talk about what they're doing with
• 15:47
  the half-its, basically the hobbits. Now if you look at the prologue to Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
• 15:57
  mentions three kinds of proto-hobbits. The half-its, who are close to the dwarves, they have a relationship
• 16:05
  with dwarves, the stores who are associated with river banks and rivers, and in fact these are
• 16:13
  the ancestors, the where golem comes from, and the fallow hides who are taller and fairer and like
• 16:19
  trees. It seems to me as though they are mixing all of those things in the half-its. They've probably
• 16:27
  thought three different kinds of hobbits, three too many. So we're stick with one, because these
• 16:32
  kind of half-its don't have any association with dwarves at all and seem to be much more the
• 16:37
  sort of natural world hobbits. That's that's fine, but I'm mentioning that because it shows you
• 16:44
  which story ends they've snipped off. The story of the hobbits looking after the stranger is a very
• 16:54
  touching one, and I like the way it's developing with the sort of culture of prophecy within the
• 17:02
  traveling band, you know, I like Lenny Henry with his book and his weird hair, everyone's got weird
• 17:08
  hair. That's all fun, and the way they hide in the landscape and then emerge. There are some odd
• 17:14
  things though within this culture which seem a bit inexplicable. One is why they don't help each
• 17:21
  other more. So you've got poor old Poppy pulling a cart on her own, and then there's this moving scene
• 17:30
  where they remember those left behind, and you soon realize actually they left them behind,
• 17:36
  you know, they broken leg, you get left behind. So there's some elements of oddness when you
• 17:45
  think that some simple shifting around of the burden between members of the group could solve
• 17:50
  some of those problems like, you know, Poppy could join Norris family, for example, and help push
• 17:57
  that cart. Anyway, so there's a sort of, I suppose it might be a survival of the fittest issue,
• 18:03
  quietly bubbling along in the half-foot which I found a bit worrying. Anyway, they are obviously
• 18:11
  showing their good side by looking after the stranger, and that's one of the strongest storylines
• 18:17
  for me. The one where they're moving, it's quite slow moving, quite slow burn, but I do like the way
• 18:25
  that Norris the one who brings this stranger into the family group, and gradually in the last
• 18:33
  episode we see the stranger saving others in the group. So he's sort of gaining
• 18:41
  favour amongst the Hobbits. And if this is all a setup for Gandalf, that would fit with the idea
• 18:49
  that Gandalf was friendly with the Hobbits from earlier. It'll be a bit odd now if that character
• 18:56
  did turn out to be just another random person in middle earth. I think that all roads seem to be
• 19:03
  leading to Gandalf, but we'll check back in at the end of the season to find out if they did
• 19:08
  surprises. But my problem with the Hobbit story is that it doesn't connect, and actually from a
• 19:18
  writing perspective, this is my problem with the rings of power. I'm not going to knock it for
• 19:24
  not following Tolkien, and the random odd things that happen like Galadriel jumping off a boat
• 19:32
  because she doesn't want to go to Valinor without a way back. You know, there's some really odd
• 19:37
  little things that happen. You think what? You know, they have picked something like five
• 19:44
  storylines. So you've got Galadriel, that's one really strong thread. You've got the Hobbits,
• 19:51
  that's another really strong thread. You've got Elrond, he sort of, he straddles too. So Elrond
• 20:00
  with Gil Gallad and the sort of Elven politics. And then you've got Elrond with his friend Durin
• 20:11
  and the mining of Mithril. And those two sort of go together. And then you've got down in the south,
• 20:19
  you've got the story of Bronwyn, Arondir, and the Orcs who are taking over the villages down there.
• 20:30
  That is quite a lot of, that's, depending how you count that, that's either four or five
• 20:34
  storylines. If you think of how Lord the Rings works, it goes from one story to multiple story.
• 20:45
  So it starts with Frodo, or Bilbo and Frodo. And then when the Fellowship breaks, it then goes to
• 20:53
  Pippin and Mary, Aragon, Legolas and Gimli, Frodo and Sam. So you do split.
• 21:03
  But it's, you've been together to start with. They've taken the approach of starting split.
• 21:12
  So none of the stories actually touch each other except for a brief moment when
• 21:18
  Galadriel and Elrond, right near the beginning, when they're together. But it's only a very
• 21:25
  glancing moment. And so what you've got is storylines that seem to be on their own trajectory.
• 21:35
  But and I imagine what, I mean, I guess what they're doing is they're actually going to braid
• 21:39
  them all together at the end. Unless they decide to leave one story separate. So you could decide to
• 21:46
  leave the the Hobbit story kind of separate its own thing, which would be odd. But you could see
• 21:53
  them doing that from the point of view that the Hobbits don't have an influence on the big events.
• 21:59
  But anyway, we started with five. And I think it's been a bit uneven as to which stories you like.
• 22:06
  I've had a problem caring about the Bronwyn, a Rondeer setup. Though other people,
• 22:15
  I've talked to have actually liked that. It's just because I've got a limited amount of
• 22:21
  attention for people who I want to root for. And that's not one where I feel
• 22:27
  invested as yet. So the danger is when that storyline comes on, you think, oh come on,
• 22:35
  let's get back to the real story. And the real story seems to be Galadriel.
• 22:42
  So rewriting it as, you know, as a creator of your spend all your time rewriting, I think I would
• 22:48
  have, I would have connected them earlier on so that you see how they how they touch. You could have
• 22:56
  done something like, is it, is it Halbrand? Halbrand, the the man who Galadriel meets on the
• 23:06
  raft could have come from the south where Bronwyn and Co are. So you could have made connections
• 23:14
  when the Hobbits are going through the landscape, you could see the Elron riding by.
• 23:20
  And you would then start to see, oh yes, they are inhabiting the same world.
• 23:26
  That for me would have made it easier for me to care about all the storylines.
• 23:32
  I may find by the end of the series that actually it's great and they've very cleverly woven
• 23:38
  it all together, but at the moment I'm a little bit frustrated by it because it doesn't seem to
• 23:46
  hang together as a piece. What do you think? I mean, I may have picked on the very thing that you
• 23:54
  like. I've talked to people who don't know much about Tolkien and they all seem to be kind of okay
• 24:01
  with it. I haven't found someone who says yes, this is the best thing I've ever watched as a piece
• 24:05
  of television. There's quite a lot of people who think, oh yeah, that's fine, but I'm watching
• 24:11
  House of the Dragon and I really like that. So it hasn't risen above the the huge numbers
• 24:19
  of fantasy television series that are out there at the moment. But I think I'd say it's not doing
• 24:29
  too bad. I do look forward to Fridays and watching it. I just wish they would weave the stories
• 24:36
  together a little bit more satisfactorily. So that's a check in halfway and we will come back
• 24:45
  for a fuller more expert look at the whole of the series once it's completed.
• 24:52
  We always have a section where we think about where in all in all the fantasy worlds is the best
• 24:57
  place for something and this time because I've mentioned weaving and braiding numerous times,
• 25:04
  I thought I would have a think about where is the best place to be a weaver because the whole
• 25:09
  art of the loom and weaving is of course one of those story-like tropes that come up time and time
• 25:18
  again. You've got planarpy sitting at home waiting for Odysseus to return weaving her story
• 25:25
  threads and you've got and then cutting it up to start again so that it's never complete and you've
• 25:32
  got the fates weaving so that your future is sort of in the tapestry. So where is the best place
• 25:43
  to be a weaver? Well there is one story which if you're going to allow me it's kind of
• 25:51
  straddling the fantasy realist novel place and that's George Eliot's novel Silas Marna. Now
• 26:03
  George Eliot is known to write books which are the sort of realistic novel you know middle march
• 26:11
  in-depth study of a provincial town so you don't tend to think of her as fantasy but this particular
• 26:17
  story it's shorter than her other novels and it has the architecture of a fairy tale so a weaver
• 26:27
  hence the weaver who is wrongly accused of stealing because he suffers from a pretty malino has
• 26:35
  fits where he loses consciousness. He's exiled in disgrace from his urban religious community
• 26:42
  and he sets up as a miserly figure in a village and again his money is stolen from him
• 26:51
  and in its place in a sense is left this little girl and the story then becomes the fairy tale
• 26:58
  it's like the gold turned into a little girl it has a real world version but the actual
• 27:03
  happily ever after a thread of the story of transformation feels very fairy tale so it's the
• 27:10
  closest George Eliot comes to writing something which feels like a fantasies so that's my pick
• 27:17
  Silas Marna by George Eliot so if you have any ideas for where you think you'd like to be a weaver
• 27:24
  do let us know thank you very much for listening
• 27:27
  thanks for listening to MythMakers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Center for Fantasy
• 27:42
  visit oxfordcenterforfantasy.org to join in the fun find out about our online courses in person
• 27:49
  stays in Oxford plus visit our shop for great gifts tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find
• 27:57
  your favorite podcasts worldwide