I know I'm late to the party here, but I figured I'd share my thoughts from the day after watching episode 3.
Overall impression: I wanted to approach ROP with an open mind, giving it a fair chance to impress me on its own merits regardless of changes from the source material, but this episode was a much greater test of my resolve on that front than the first two, since Númenóreans and Orcs are two of my main Second Age interests. I'm thus not sure if this episode was, in fact, worse than the premiere, or if I'm just being pickier about it. A rewatch might help me come to a firmer opinion, though I don't have any immediate plans for that. Regardless, there's no question that I'm sticking with the show. I never thought I'd see Númenor depicted onscreen, and it's exciting to get to experience that now, despite my reservations.
Specific things:
Is show!Anárion older than Isildur? That's the sense I got, since Anárion seems to have already gone through the life stage Isildur is in. It'll be interesting to see what, if any, implications of this change there are down the line.
Míriel and Pharazôn's discussion of Elendil seems to put to rest the idea that the show's version of the House of Valandil has any particular importance compared to other noble houses. Hard to see how they could include their descent from Silmariën in light of this, except through the generous application of handwavium.
I really did not like the throne room scene. Míriel is the (acting) head of state of arguably the world's greatest power, and she's just ... standing around chatting with people, until Elendil strolls in unannounced, with two complete unknowns trailing after him, and walks right up to her. Where is the pomp, the ceremony, the sense that this is the legal and administrative nucleus of a massive colonial empire, not a town hall?
On that note, maybe show!Númenor isn't a massive colonial empire? I'm not sure what to make of Míriel's line that it had been a long time since Númenórean ships were permitted to sail to Middle-earth for the sake of an Elf, but it seems to suggest that sailing to Middle-earth is something that requires special permission, rather than happening as a matter of course. But this is a heavily maritime society (as confirmed by Lloyd Owen in interviews) with nowhere to sail except Middle-earth, so what gives? If the rule is just that Númenóreans can't do favors for Elves, Míriel expressed that in a strange way.
Apparently Tar-Palantir was deposed in a coup? That Míriel was either involved or complicit in, given she ended up in charge? But she still considers him a confidante, and seems to be making decisions based in part on his prophecies? Huh.
I hadn't really been on the "Halbrand is just bargain bin Aragorn" train before now, but episode 3 did its damnedest to convert me to that camp. I'd rather not see secret royalty plotlines to begin with, but Halbrand's specific anxieties about his ancestry come across as a deliberate invocation of movie!Aragorn. Nonetheless, I remain curious to learn more about his character. Did he learn to fight because of his ancestry—i.e., is/was there a faction in the Southlands trying to prepare him for greatness?—or is it something he learned by necessity because he "chafes against commonality" (or whatever Galadriel's wording was) and made a habit of getting into fights?
The show appears to have conflated Armenelos and Rómenna into a single port/capital city. Not a particularly consequential change, of course, and I'm only remarking on it because of I've spent an inordinate amount of time cataloging things we know about Númenor. The city being built on cliffs is in keeping with Tolkien's description of Númenor's coastline; one imagines the snaking harbor Elendil's ship sailed through as the show's version of the Firth of Rómenna.
Galadriel seemed to imply that Elves used to visit Númenor from Middle-earth. This is not something Tolkien wrote about, and while I know plenty of people imagine it happening anyway (Elrond visiting or at least corresponding with Elros is a common element of early Second Age fanfiction), I'm inclined to think it was very uncommon, if it happened at all, and only after the resumption of contact in II.600. My headcanon is that the Valar forbade it.
On that note, while we finally got a mention of the Valar! They still appear to be curiously far in the background, though. My boyfriend speculates this is because Amazon didn't want the show to touch on religious themes too explicitly, which I suppose is plausible. It could be for fear of offending audience sensibilities, though I think it might also be because religion is such a subtle background element in LOTR, to the point of many readers missing it entirely. Unfortunately, that's one of the major differences between Tolkien's Second and Third Age works, and I think it'd be a shame if the show continues to dance around the topic. Then again, it was created by people who claim to think it doesn't feel like Middle-earth without Hobbits. :P
Do Númenórean archivists have access to Google reverse image search? Galadriel previously told us none of the Elves knew anything about Sauron's sigil, and IIRC the document found in the House of Lore did not directly connect the drawing to Sauron, or to Finrod's mutilated corpse. Also, why would Sauron leave a clue to his doomsday plan on the corpse of an enemy?
The whole thing about Nori's family possibly being left behind because her father has a sprained (broken?) ankle rang false to me. I admit, I know very little about historical nomadic peoples, but surely this is not the first time a Hobbit has sustained an ankle injury at a bad time, and I can't imagine their social bonds being so loose that it's considered acceptable to abandon someone to die because of that.
This is probably nitpicking, but nomadic proto-Hobbits having surnames and literacy also strikes me as odd. Though, based on pre-release interviews with actors, maybe we're meant to assume these are relics of a historical settled existence, before they went into hiding after a war (which I still maintain was implicitly the War of Wrath, for as little sense as I think that makes). But if so, that implies they had contact with the Eldar and/or Edain, unless the Harfoots developed literacy independently. Which I really hope was not the case.
It was good to finally get a glimpse of the show's version of Orcish society, though it continues to be (as in both the book and movie versions of LOTR) only their military, and only as viewed from their enemies' (the free peoples') point of view. For that reason, I'll wait to pass judgment. It was nice to see Orcs' vulnerability to sunlight being a relevant factor, though surely it would have been wiser on their part to make the prisoners work at night, or at least dusk and dawn, rather than the middle of the day when their overseers are at their most vulnerable.
I enjoyed this week's Elvish ninja action sequence. Arondir is a pretty cool dude, and his comrades acquitted themselves well, even though it proved not to be enough in the end.
Thank God the next episode preview showed Elrond. I really missed seeing the show's best subplot this week.
Loremistress Emerita | she/her
