I’m not going to analyze episodes. In my opinion, the problem is both had bad writing. No shame if you’re enjoying them so far.
More than twenty years ago the Peter Jackson The Lord of the Rings Trilogy came out (2001-2003) and there were a bunch of copy cats which resulted in failed franchises. There were also other projects coming out around the same time that were their own thing (Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Harry Potter)and I don’t mean failed franchises in that they didn’t make money or we didn’t start going in the right direction. I mean I remember a friend of mine complaining at work that he saw Narnia (TLTW&tW), that, “It was a kid’s movie!” There was a market for fantasy franchises as well as the rise of the Marvel MCU and the Nolan Batman trilogy, some stuff worked other things felt like they were trying to jump aboard an IP with a drastically different tone.
Fast forward HBO adapts A Song of Ice and Fire (Premiering 2011), and now there’s a bunch of copy cats again, including a spin-off I haven’t watched (House of the Dragon) it works in some media (The Witcher, when it tries to actually adapt the media; I only saw the first season) but I think ultimately the Grimdark Phenomenon has lost its way both in visual media and in print.
Trends come and go in literature and for a while there in the bookstore and libraries it was all about dystopians, then when I looked into what was popular it was about vampires and werewolf boyfriends, and then it seemed like we were on a zombie kick. Some of it’s still going strong, as I have friends who have been reading series that are more than 12 books, so assuming putting out a book a year this is obviously popular enough to warrant a trend that lasts beyond the current cultural one.
Amazon procured the rights to Wheel of Time and Some Parts of Tolkien’s Universe which I won’t get into here. They have a ton of money, so the visuals look great in both shows, I could nitpick about a random costume but I’m going to give most of the visuals and special effects a pass. Surely they can get the stories down and both be riveting fantasy series in their own right, right?
Wheel of Time Season 2
I’m not the biggest fan of the series, but I did finally get around to reading it I want to say 2021-2022. I listened on audiobooks, so pardon me if I get a spelling error here or there.
I watched the first season and was like: Okay, they had to make some changes, the climate of having male and female halves of the power can’t be easily explained away. I didn’t think having a mystery box of Who is the Dragon? or killing off Tom Merrilin was a wise choice, but hey I’m also not one of those people who refuses to have media adapted.
Season 2 felt like it was trying to ignore half the book and focus instead on the girls, which fine they were on an adventure too but it felt like it was trying way too hard at the expense of everyone else.
What season 2 got right was when Liandrin explained to Nyneave why magic is more powerful than learning the sword, not that she couldn’t summon a blade out of a weave of air but it makes a lot more sense to immobilize her foe in the first place. The female half of the one power was designed around flexibility, and honestly one of my favourite parts of the final book was showing a guy who really only had one trick – making teeny tiny, almost insignificant portals – but damn if he doesn’t put one right behind your skull and shoot your own spell back at you. Creative use of magic IMO is more interesting than arguing about whether Nyneave or Lanfear are better if we consider training or use of an angreal.
What it got wrong was it tried to push Rand to the background, making it all about Moraine’s loss of power and how much this effected her when she got her powers back.
If it was me and I knew I couldn’t possibly make everyone happy, the best I could say is “We’d like to make it about Rand, but we really have to narrow down the scope. He’s also the most absurdly powerful character besides like, 3 guys who also have to be used sparingly. We’re going to follow ________.”
IMO Matt would have worked the easiest because he’s the least touched by magic, honestly he kind of shifts into more of a trickster character after the first few books and I’m pretty sure he’s a fan favorite. Magic and power is a fascinating topic and honestly I find it hard to manage well, so following the one who can’t wolf into the dream world or be among the most powerful spellcasters of their generation is maybe the obvious choice for someone like me. The other obvious would have been Egwene, but unfortunately the current political climate for female characters is to make them empowered but usually it just makes them have Plot Armor instead of focusing on character growth.
Wheel of Time thought it was going to empower Egwene by making her resist the Seanchan better than a woman with much more training and discipline, then have her straight up murder Renna. I’m not going to talk about the ethics of the situation, but Egwene’s situation was designed to be impossible to break out from. That doesn’t make her lesser; Rand gets collared later on in the series, showing us what happens to Egwene sets us up for what the Seanchan does to not only him, but other characters. Egwene is a powerful channeler by contemporary Aes Sedai standards, but where she excels is understanding the nature of the female power; learning the ways of the Aiel and risking everything to reunite the tower, channelers are more powerful when linked and she excelled at bringing people together. She spends most of the rest of the series despising the Seanchan for how not only how she was treated but seeing how others are treated still, at one point repelling their direct assault on the white tower and allying with them to win the last battle. She doesn’t need to show how much of a badass she is she needed to grow.
The Seanchan I could make an entire post about. Their culture taught them “all channelers must be collared” so them capturing Egwene and not collaring her immediately was bizarre. The choice to have one Demani per collar and have them perpetually linked was also an odd choice, hopefully the writers didn’t back them into a corner.
In my opinion the whole bit with Moraine losing her powers then getting them back was a waste of time. And I feel like the only male character who got much development was Lan. It felt like the story was more interested in Lanfear than Rand, but to be fair once her cover was blown she was always interesting, so at least she was handled well.
All in all, it was watchable but felt like a let down from the first season except for anything involving Liandrin. I think I was leaning towards it’s passable until Lanfear got threatened by Moghedein in the final episode – Moghedein is the weakest of The Chosen/The Foresaken, and Lanfear is among the strongest (Women were almost always weaker than men in terms of raw power, but because of the nature of magic she was potentially the second strongest after Ishmael). Moghedein’s nickname is The Spider, she usually sits on the sidelines and watches and waits for other people to screw up before being an opportunist and striking. She’s a great character, so I’m disappointed that they were so uncreative in how they presented her first appearance.
Rings of Power Season 2
Rings of Power starts with a chase – Galadriel chasing Elrond from Eregion(?) to Lindon with the three elven rings, which is shown to be quite the journey in every other instance going from city to city, and then we see The High King demand, “Is it true?”
I know what he’s talking about, or at least I thought I did. We soon find out that he has no idea about Halbrand being Sauron. The elves are saved by the power of the three rings, but argue about if it’s worth it, and a messenger is dispatched to tell Lord Celebrimbor not to treat with Halbrand – that he is Sauron.
We see in a flashback and after the defeat of Melkor, Sauron was ‘killed’ by Adar and a legion of orcs and after an unknown amount of time, consumed enough cave-dwelling critters to become slime then take form. He wandered around aimlessly and didn’t seem to be blinded by pride or revenge until he chanced upon Galadriel, who he fell in love with and then decided he was going to take back Middle Earth for. He wanted to rule with her at his side, and so after she rejected him at the end of the first season, he’s gone to Mordor and let Adar know that Sauron lives, and where to find him. He then goes on to Eregion to convince the great jewel smith Celebrimbor to craft rings for dwarves, then men.
The message never gets to Eregion, Gil-Galad eventually sends Elrond and Galadriel to talk to Lord Celebrimbor. En route they are circumvented and detour and meet the approaching armies of Adar. Apparently it’s Sauron’s scheme to have an army come attack the city where he’s forging the seven then the nine rings before their completion. The orcs no longer seem to be effected by sunlight and go to war with the elven army, who can now teleport and… I don’t know.
There’s also a side tangent about Gandalf wandering with Norri and we get to see the aftermath of what’s going on with Numenor politics, most of which hardly effects the plot on the mainland. Isildur wanders and basically… it’s a meandering romp which would have been fine if the main plot was handled better.
I try to be positive so the characters I do like are Durin and Deesa, the dwarf parts still felt contrived in parts, but if you were to ask me what the show got right, it was the stubbornness of the prince to his father. I think I’m the only one that liked how that the orcs had a chance. I’ve seen many others complain that orcs are monstrous and without pity, intrinsically evil, but RoP showed that was mostly because of the effects of being under the will of Sauron. Under Adar, they had a chance to become something else but, again in the hands of a better writer or at least someone who made an attempt to understand Tolkien’s worldview and philosophies.
Before anyone says, “Leia, it takes time to get these stories going” the average episode of Rings of Power usually is just over an hour long, and there’s sixteen so far. The LotR extended edition is about 12.5 hours, I’d have to look up The Hobbit but it’s probably similar. I let my dad and nephew into my account to watch the shows and, both who wanted to like the shows stopped probably around 3 or 4 episodes into season 1 and show zero interest in season 2. I may be an anal writer who overanalyzes everything, my family enjoys stories like this and they aren’t interested because the stories aren’t compelling.
If you were to ask me, writing characters like elves and super powerful channelers is hard. I’m not saying they can’t be handled well, but remember what I said about following a weaker character in Wheel of Time? Rings of Power should have had a more narrow focus– no harfoots and no Numenor – or just focus on just those characters and really get into the politics of Numenor and its fall – but use the elves sparingly so they do seem ethereal and otherworldly. When Gil-Galad okays Galadriel to set out with Elrond, they make a stink about, “You misunderstand, you’re under Elrond’s leadership.” She is supposed to be a wise being, not some petulant child. Plot makes it a point to show how she’s always right, so don’t tell me it’s about character growth I was bemoaning before. Unlike Egwene, Galadriel is thousands of years old and is very experienced beyond her little backwater village. Again, she feels like a power-fantasy character and more time is spent making her a badass than relatable. Maybe relatable isn’t the right world for a Tolkien elf, but if I were to take her traits and stuff them on a villain, she’d be more believable.
That’s my take on these two shows. What did you think?
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