The Rings of Power Episode 6: Udûn [SPOILERS]
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Lots of drama in this week’s episode, with the Númenoreans making their way to Middle-earth to take back the Southlands, where the invasion of the Orcs led by the mysterious Adar is in full swing.
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@Silky Gooseness Oh my. We appear to have cross posted the same thread. Let me know what you want to do! :)
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I thought Episode 6 was overall pretty good. Nothing in it was memorable (like the songs in the previous episode) but nothing stood out as exceptionally weird (like the silmaril/mithril plot).
The actions scenes didn't do a whole lot for me, besides looking good. I thought previous episodes the scattering of fight scenes did a great job of building tension. I felt the desperation and danger when the heroes encountered the orcs, but not the same here. I think it part it's the clunky editing. Hearing the hoof beats when the survivors are in the tavern kind of ruins the effect when you just showed the Numenorean cavalry landed and was riding. I did like when the defenders realized it was men they fought and killed, not just orcs. I also think the tension only picked up when Adar entered the tavern and the orcs start slaughtering the survivors.
Adar was the standout performance in the episode. I think I'm going to have to watch the episode again to absorb a bit more (I feel like an elf needing to soak in that silmaril light), but Adar says that he killed Sauron. So, it will be interesting to see how this Sauron/Annatar/Adar plot all unravels. It seems as if we don't meet Sauron in Season 1, if Adar did indeed kill him.
What I appreciated the most is (and I hope Eldy has stuck around to watch the episode) the conversation about orc origins between Adar and Galadriel. I think it sets up for an interesting dynamic, or possibility of orc redemption. And what precisely orc "redemption" looks like, in Adar's view? I appreciated the Numenoreans didn't just slaughter all the orcs, they actually took some captive as well. I was not expecting to see that in a traditional fantasy story.
The actions scenes didn't do a whole lot for me, besides looking good. I thought previous episodes the scattering of fight scenes did a great job of building tension. I felt the desperation and danger when the heroes encountered the orcs, but not the same here. I think it part it's the clunky editing. Hearing the hoof beats when the survivors are in the tavern kind of ruins the effect when you just showed the Numenorean cavalry landed and was riding. I did like when the defenders realized it was men they fought and killed, not just orcs. I also think the tension only picked up when Adar entered the tavern and the orcs start slaughtering the survivors.
Adar was the standout performance in the episode. I think I'm going to have to watch the episode again to absorb a bit more (I feel like an elf needing to soak in that silmaril light), but Adar says that he killed Sauron. So, it will be interesting to see how this Sauron/Annatar/Adar plot all unravels. It seems as if we don't meet Sauron in Season 1, if Adar did indeed kill him.
What I appreciated the most is (and I hope Eldy has stuck around to watch the episode) the conversation about orc origins between Adar and Galadriel. I think it sets up for an interesting dynamic, or possibility of orc redemption. And what precisely orc "redemption" looks like, in Adar's view? I appreciated the Numenoreans didn't just slaughter all the orcs, they actually took some captive as well. I was not expecting to see that in a traditional fantasy story.
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@Boromir88, I did indeed watch this one, too! I don't see myself quitting ROP this season, and probably not in future seasons either, despite my criticisms. I actually enjoyed "Udûn" more than the previous episode. Realizing last week that I couldn't take the show seriously anymore makes it easier to enjoy as popcorn entertainment. There are still plenty of criticisms to be made, including the incessant LOTR callbacks that, as in the Hobbit films, take me out of the story, but eh.
I definitely sat up and took notice of Galadriel and Adar's conversation, since as you know Orkish personhood is an ongoing hobby horse of mine. However, I have mixed feelings about ROP going there. On the one hand, it's about damn time an official live-action Tolkien adaptation acknowledged this issue! On the other hand, ROP has pretty consistently characterized Orcs as brutal, inhuman monsters so far, which will make it easier for people to dismiss Adar's arguments as the self-serving motivations of an unambiguous villain. Which is not to say I want Orcs to be all sunshine and roses, but even now, I would be surprised if ROP truly takes seriously the idea that Orcs are of equal moral worth as Elves and Humans, as opposed to a middle ground that condemns the excesses of Galadriel's vengeance fixation without agreeing with Adar. Assuming the showrunners want their series to be "spiritually" in continuity with either the books or the films, it would be weird for them to embrace a moral framework that casts future Galadriel, and the rest of the "good" characters in LOTR, as genocidal maniacs. Even though that would be the braver and more honest choice!
That said, I was pleasantly surprised that the Númenóreans and Southlanders took Orkish prisoners instead of slaughtering everyone they could get their hands on. That's a pretty significant difference from what we've seen in just about any prior Middle-earth work. The exception is Rankin/Bass' otherwise godawful animated The Return of the King (1980), which remains the high-water mark for depictions of Orkish personhood and leaving open the possibility of their redemption. (The same scene—the musical number "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way"—is also the high-water mark for killer guitar riffs in Tolkien adaptation soundtracks.) I don't expect ROP to claim its crown, but perhaps the prisoner scene indicates I'm being too pessimistic!
On an unrelated note, I'll leave you with this analysis of the final scene that a friend of mine shared on Discord:
I definitely sat up and took notice of Galadriel and Adar's conversation, since as you know Orkish personhood is an ongoing hobby horse of mine. However, I have mixed feelings about ROP going there. On the one hand, it's about damn time an official live-action Tolkien adaptation acknowledged this issue! On the other hand, ROP has pretty consistently characterized Orcs as brutal, inhuman monsters so far, which will make it easier for people to dismiss Adar's arguments as the self-serving motivations of an unambiguous villain. Which is not to say I want Orcs to be all sunshine and roses, but even now, I would be surprised if ROP truly takes seriously the idea that Orcs are of equal moral worth as Elves and Humans, as opposed to a middle ground that condemns the excesses of Galadriel's vengeance fixation without agreeing with Adar. Assuming the showrunners want their series to be "spiritually" in continuity with either the books or the films, it would be weird for them to embrace a moral framework that casts future Galadriel, and the rest of the "good" characters in LOTR, as genocidal maniacs. Even though that would be the braver and more honest choice!
That said, I was pleasantly surprised that the Númenóreans and Southlanders took Orkish prisoners instead of slaughtering everyone they could get their hands on. That's a pretty significant difference from what we've seen in just about any prior Middle-earth work. The exception is Rankin/Bass' otherwise godawful animated The Return of the King (1980), which remains the high-water mark for depictions of Orkish personhood and leaving open the possibility of their redemption. (The same scene—the musical number "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way"—is also the high-water mark for killer guitar riffs in Tolkien adaptation soundtracks.) I don't expect ROP to claim its crown, but perhaps the prisoner scene indicates I'm being too pessimistic!
On an unrelated note, I'll leave you with this analysis of the final scene that a friend of mine shared on Discord:
Okay, so something I think is not good, is the reveal of what the hilt was doing. My understanding is that the writers intend the plot to be like this, re the hilt:
- There was a dam that was either creating a reservoir, or simply limiting the flow of a river
- This dam was made in the time of Morgoth's rule over the land, for the use of the Southlander humans who served him
- The control mechanism for this dam was also a tower, that was repurposed by the elves later as a military outpost
- Adar realized that a flood of water could be used to create a volcano eruption that would create permanent overcast in the Southlands
- Adar's orcs built canals and tunnels to connect the volcano to the base of the dam
- They needed control of the tower to open the floodgates to launch the volcano
- The handle / key to open the floodgates of what is nominally a piece of civil engineering is an evil sword that drinks blood
It seems to me that the dam and such was not created with the intent of being used to launch the volcano, but was a normal civil engineering project, and this normal civil engineering project was only controllable by this evil sword that can only be used to open or close the floodgates after drinking lots of blood, and also this sword was hidden away for some reason rather than like, left where it could be useful, by the dam.
In fact, all of this plan sounds reasonable to me other than the fact that the dam needs a key to operate, and that key is an evil blood-drinking sword. However, this reveal of what the deal was with the evil sword is like, imo not great
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That's hilarious @Eldy Dunami. Thanks for sharing.
I find the series is relatively easy to watch and enjoy (but as you say, can't really take it seriously as a 'Tolkien' adaptation). For me, I think it's because there's a lot of Tolkienian topics and themes: hope vs the shadow, elves desire for preservation and stopping the decay in Middle-earth, Elrond quite forcefully keeping to his oath, the way immortal races view the world vs mortal races, the division in Numenor, the origin of orcs, a general spirit of co-operation and working together(exemplified by the Harfoots). There is a lot in the themes that place it in Middle-earth for me, and not in Westeros. Game of Thrones focused on the negatives of human behavior, getting power through vicious competition and gratuitous violence. That's fine for Westeros, but I'm quite happy to get a story that is distinctly Middle-earth by focusing on positive human behaviors of people working together.
Even though the plots and script writing leave a lot to be desired, and I don't think it will ever feel like the dialogue fits in the world. I don't watch a whole lot of current TV shows, but I hear in general with a lot of these streaming shows the scripts don't fit the time period or world they're set in.
I wanted to point out another design choice that I was disappointed in. I loved Elendil's helmet and the proto-Gondorian armor. However, I don't get the horse hair helmets for Numenor's cavalry. It reminded me too much of Rohan cavalry.
I find the series is relatively easy to watch and enjoy (but as you say, can't really take it seriously as a 'Tolkien' adaptation). For me, I think it's because there's a lot of Tolkienian topics and themes: hope vs the shadow, elves desire for preservation and stopping the decay in Middle-earth, Elrond quite forcefully keeping to his oath, the way immortal races view the world vs mortal races, the division in Numenor, the origin of orcs, a general spirit of co-operation and working together(exemplified by the Harfoots). There is a lot in the themes that place it in Middle-earth for me, and not in Westeros. Game of Thrones focused on the negatives of human behavior, getting power through vicious competition and gratuitous violence. That's fine for Westeros, but I'm quite happy to get a story that is distinctly Middle-earth by focusing on positive human behaviors of people working together.
Even though the plots and script writing leave a lot to be desired, and I don't think it will ever feel like the dialogue fits in the world. I don't watch a whole lot of current TV shows, but I hear in general with a lot of these streaming shows the scripts don't fit the time period or world they're set in.
I wanted to point out another design choice that I was disappointed in. I loved Elendil's helmet and the proto-Gondorian armor. However, I don't get the horse hair helmets for Numenor's cavalry. It reminded me too much of Rohan cavalry.
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Seen circulating on Discord (click for full size):
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Eldy: 
Just call me Aiks or Aikári. Notify is off.
Find me stuff in Gondolin.
And let us embark to Valinor!
Find me stuff in Gondolin.
And let us embark to Valinor!
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@Silky Gooseness I learned how to delete threads and copy/pasted the post to this one. 
Eldy thanks for helping me not take the show too seriously.
Eldy thanks for helping me not take the show too seriously.
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Okay
SOoo with the Adar I killed Sauron bit I am feeling more and more that Halbrand is gonna be Sauron - he's fair he knows how to fight he's already weaseled himself into Numenorean smith work (that sword!) and they like him. OH And Miriel and Galadriel just crowned him 'king' of the Southlands and he stopped Galadriel from killing Adar...
The sword is the key thing is very meh don't like it. the whole dam and river volcano thing is really cool and I"ll totally admit that I did not see Udun in the background initially in the first episode (probably because the map scene scrolls SOOooo damn far you wouldn't even think it's Mordor) but after a hot second I finally managed to catch a glimpse of it that said I really feel like the visual editing for the volcano got tweeked so it was a lot closer in this episode. It feel like an immediate threat where in the first episode it's barely a shadow to be seen on the horizon far in the distance (you can see the village clearly from the tower scene) but from the village it looks so close where as there is no massive mountain looming near by. I'm also absolutely curious how they are going to keep a mountain erupting for thousands of years. I realize this is time compression but seems a bit much that yes this mountain is now going to spew ash and soot and so forth for the next thousand plus years.
SOoo with the Adar I killed Sauron bit I am feeling more and more that Halbrand is gonna be Sauron - he's fair he knows how to fight he's already weaseled himself into Numenorean smith work (that sword!) and they like him. OH And Miriel and Galadriel just crowned him 'king' of the Southlands and he stopped Galadriel from killing Adar...
The sword is the key thing is very meh don't like it. the whole dam and river volcano thing is really cool and I"ll totally admit that I did not see Udun in the background initially in the first episode (probably because the map scene scrolls SOOooo damn far you wouldn't even think it's Mordor) but after a hot second I finally managed to catch a glimpse of it that said I really feel like the visual editing for the volcano got tweeked so it was a lot closer in this episode. It feel like an immediate threat where in the first episode it's barely a shadow to be seen on the horizon far in the distance (you can see the village clearly from the tower scene) but from the village it looks so close where as there is no massive mountain looming near by. I'm also absolutely curious how they are going to keep a mountain erupting for thousands of years. I realize this is time compression but seems a bit much that yes this mountain is now going to spew ash and soot and so forth for the next thousand plus years.
Sereg a Dîn
