Replacement Level Fantasy

The older members of the family sat down over the last two nights to watch the first three episodes of Amazon Prime's streaming franchise Rings of Power, our kibitzing enhanced with long distance friend Brandon via Messenger.

Paradoxically, the second season is both better and less fun to watch and discuss than the first season.

The first season was so epically bad (or such bad epic, if you prefer) that we'd spend a good hour or two after each episode discussing how it could have been written, both to be more interesting and to draw more directly on the what Tolkien says in the appendices about the Second Age.

This time, it's still not a very believable presentation of Tolkien's world. And although the new concepts this time are more interesting (and less gimmicky) they're still locked in to a number of not-very-good things from last time.

However, Season Two is at least a basically credible replacement level fantasy series. In this regard, it at least makes sense as its own thing (though with a chronic and very modern tendency for all travel to happen in no time at all.)

It's still a weirdly empty world, populated at least as much by ruins and vagabonds as by settlements, but that seems to be a trend in some fantasy worldbuilding.

As such, I think it will tend to get a better reception than the first season. But as I say, I'm finding it less interesting because I don't actually like to read or watch replacement level fantasy. I can enjoy fantasy and science fiction, but I expect it to be really good and interesting.  It not a unique requirement I put on genre writing.  I try not to read replacement level fiction at all, though I suppose to the extent I sometimes put up with it it's in the historical genre.

Some additional discussion which contains spoilers regarding the first three episodes follows:
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Galadriel, fresh from having been spent two thirds of last season being buddies with Sauron-in-disguise, is less weirdly impulsive than before, but she still seems like a much less important character than the Tolkien one, who spent centuries at the right hand of Melion (a semi-angelic being in elven form who has powers approaching those of a pagan-type god.)  She and Elrond have a falling out over the question of whether the elven rings (which were thrown together in the last episode of Season 1 -- in the Appendices they take 90 years for the elves to make) should be used or should be destroyed because Sauron-in-disguise was around for their making.

This happens in the context of the rings very quickly and obviously healing the mysterious blight which was affecting all things elven in Season One. Galadriel, Gil-Galad, and Cirdan take on the rings and are immediately impressed with the results.  Elrond, however, is unconvinced.

We don't get any very cogent discussion of why the two sides hold the views they do. The most we get is a discussion between Cirdan and Elrond in which Elrond argues, "Sauron is bad, and he helped influence the making of the rings, so the rings are bad," and Cirdan argues, "There has been lots of beautiful poetry written by alcoholic and unpleasant poets."

Contrast this with the discussion in LotR of whether the One Ring can be used for good. There Galadriel explains that the One Ring would allow her to have dominion over others, exercising power of their wills in a way which is in and of itself wrong. Even though she might achieve results which are seeming good, the thing the ring allows her to do is wrong.

What we never really get in RoP is a discussion of what the elven rings allow you to do. They heal the mysterious elf blight, but that in itself (never hinted at in the books) was a gimmick problem, and the rings are a gimmick solution.

We're told that they "give power over the unseen realm" but what does that even mean?  Power how?  To do what?  What is the unseen realm?  To be honest, I'm not clear the showrunners care much.  The conflicts here are pretty shallow and I don't think we're expected to think about them much.

Meanwhile, the dwarves are having their own problems. Apparently they grow all their food underground using shafts of sunlight, but the mountain is no longer healthy, and this means all the shafts have closed up due to earthquakes and the dwarves are in danger of starving. But maybe they can get magic rings from the elves to solve the problems if only Durin and his father than get over their mutual pride and stop holding resentments.

Why is the mountain restless?  Why don't dwarves either grow food above ground or eat something that doesn't require light?  Look, we can't expect answers to these questions.

The Numenorian Expeditionary Force has gone back home to Numenor, where the old king has died. The Queen is getting ready to be crowned his successor, but it's mostly being kept secret that she was blinded in the pyroclastic flow in Season One which had a very selective effect on various characters.  

The weirdly modern anti-war movement in Numenor has resulted in the relatives of various people who died in the expeditionary force shouting at or even striking the queen, but she's pursuing a strategy of having important hug moments with those people rather than treating them like people who struck a queen.

Some nobles, including her right-hand-cousin Pharazon, decide to have a treasonous conversation in a public drinking establishment about how they'd rather he be kind than she -- and get challenged publicly on it by a loyal Numenorian -- but this isn't the sort of kingdom where that comes to anything. Instead, we wait to see if the queen can make it through her coronation without giving away that she's blind, and if an eagle will show up during the coronation as a good omen.

The good omen eagle arrives! But Pharazon approaches it and suddenly the whole crowd acclaims him instead.  Suddenly it's his good omen instead of hers!  And maybe we've becoming kind, we're not quite sure.

If you're thinking: this is now how monarchies work!  Well, you're right.

Even if you were writing War-of-the-Roses-with-dragons I would expect to see some more interesting elements of power and intrigue going on here. And if seeing an eagle the size of an Apache Gunship show up is really important to these people, why are they so easily distracted by someone else walking up to it? Is this even real set of beliefs?  It doesn't seem like it. 

But Tolkien's Numenor isn't just some replacement level pre-modern kingdom. These are the men who participated in the war against Morgoth. They were set up on this island within sight of the semi-divine land of Valinor. They have a powerful empire with outposts all over the mainland, where they increasingly rule over the men of the mainland. (In the series, these outposts are all oddly abandoned and semi-ruined, and Numenor doesn't seem that great an empire.)

The thing which eats at the Numenorians in Tolkien, however, is that they are so close to being immortal elves, able to enter Valinor, but they can't quite. They've become jealous of the elves and resentful at their mortality. They've become attracted to elements of mysticism and the occult in search of ways to make themselves immortal like the elves.

The desire to overcome death and become immortal is a pretty universal human with for the powerful.  Look at the Silicon Valley titans who want to either make their bodies immortal or upload their consciousnesses to computers. It also gives a real and deeply human reason for the Numenorians to dislike the elves -- and a weak spot for Sauron to exploit when he interacts with them. 

But in Season One we instead get Numenorian trade unions who are worried elves will steal their jobs. I kid you not.  (Or in the semi-high-flown language of the series: I do not jest.)

And in the struggle between different factions we get in Season Two, none of these interesting themes are present. We just get vague superstition (Will there be an eagle?) and generic anti-war complaints and an unexplained dislike for the elves which results in people being horrified that the queen wants to keep the "elven made" palantir around.  (Real queens should only Buy Numenorian!)

There's lots more that's going on, but none of it is particularly interesting.

If you want fights and cool looking scenery and everyone having something to mourn and something to feel insecure about, you'll enjoy this. But this doesn't have any of the interesting world or thematic elements from its source material.