Rings of Power is Not Very Good: Breakdown and Analysis - Part 5: Partings

10K views in the first 48 hours. Guys, I never expected anywhere near this response, given that a month ago my channel was dead I was hoping for a few hundred views. Thank you so much!

I absolutely LOVE Girl-Boss speech when she mentions that the tower is a symbol of their strength. In the very next episode we discover that this tower was standing on one rope that was later on cut and building collapsed. This is hilarious.

On the Girl Boss issue, I disagree with Eowyn's assessment. Considering her position and the tasks assigned to her, she was not the helpless woman in social constraints always condemned to cower. Yes, she had had to watch her uncle being talked down by his advisor over the years and had had no chance to do anything about it. Yes, she had to watch her brother and her cousin go to war and the latter died in the process. But as Aragorn rightly said: she was not in love with him (and the man) but with the glory he represented. She wanted to achieve something and collect personal glory after all those years of enforced idleness. So much so that she rode with the king in disguise to Pellenor. But what did she leave behind? The king, Theoden, had ordered her to protect and rule the people in his absence. She was thus appointed by him quite directly as the new queen, should he and his heir (her brother Eomer) not return from the war. Would the King of Rohan appoint someone without any leadership quality and know-how ? Someone he assumed was rooted in a narrow role model, good only for child rearing and cooking ? Hardly. Eowyn is a noblewoman of a warrior race. She can fight, she understands tactics and politics, economics and law. However, she is so desperate to collect martial glory that she disguises herself, neglects her duties as a leader and wants to go into battle. Or as Pippin put it: he looked into the eyes of this young soldier and was shocked to see a man who had finished with life. Who went out to die [gloriously]. Only when she was through the meat grinder and met Faramir in the Houses of Healing did she realise what hell she had just survived - and the trauma that had dragged her into it was given time to heal. Her marriage to Faramir and her later career as a healer can only be seen as a setback as long as one ignores that Tolkien himself (as well as his son) fought in a world war. He understood better than anyone else - and better than most people living today in the western industrial nations - that the greatest happiness is to be allowed to live in peace and not to have to take up arms. He makes this happiness possible for her after her suicide attack on the Witch King. It is the greatest reward he could have given one of his characters.

While the entire village wears grey potato sacks and thick sheepskins, the healer prances around in a bright blue tank top dress, whose back section looks suspiciously like a modern sports bra 😀🥴

Particularly notable is the fact that all of these problems would still be there if the Tolkien names and references were erased. The 'lore' issues are a disaster of their own, but even if this were YAGMF (Yet Another Generic Modern Fantasy), it would still be a storytelling shipwreck. Your analysis is thorough and spot on.

“This tower will be a symbol of our strength” Proceeds to abandon the tower and destroy it with a single arrow

Let’s be honest! This show is a real gem! The amount of great content it inspires on youtube is truly remarkable! Thank you Amazon for spending 1 billion to support talented content creators!

3:01 Here's another problem with this song: It's not a walking song. Based on the bits I've heard, I'd say it might work as a lullaby. But not as a walking song. Historically speaking, people had songs for pretty much anything, including work, different professions, the seasons, celebrations and many other things. Songs were used to pass time, or to get the rhythm right while working. Compare this song to "The road goes ever on and on" from Fellowship to get an understanding of what I mean. I can also provide a few examples of songs from my culture to highlight the difference between lullabies and walking songs. This is so bad.

This is what happens when half of your billion dollar budget is dedicated to PR companies to convince people that if they don’t like the show that they are horrible people

Eowyn's cultural origins - which were Rohan's epic songs about her kingly ancestors, Eowyn's status as princess (so one of the candidates for being an heir of Edoras), Eowyn's talk about cage - not only in her own words but also Theoden's speach about her situation which proves it when he tells Aragorn about Eowin's loneliness as an orphan ( father killed by orcs and mother died of grief) and her uncle's caretaker - so it was not only her girly whim, Eowyn's frustration about supposed behaviours of Grima, Eowyn's infatuation with Aragorn, Actualy IMO all those things have worked as her motivations and made her belivable "shieldmaiden". Bronwyn got nothing of this sort of development.

Who would have guessed, the whole Harfoot storyline served only to get Gandalf alone with a hobbit again. You guys member Gandalf and the hobbit guys? When they went on that adventure? You member? I member!

“You do not leave your super important evil macguffin in the hands of a child” Episode 6 - Arondir: “Hold my beer”

Book Elrond was not easy about taking oaths for any reasons as he knew from the grevious experience of his ancestors what the costs of an oath could be. He even refused to order the Fellowship to take oath of loyalty toward Frodo !

The setup for the Battle of Helm's Cheap was a combination of low stakes and lower interest. We have a few dozen against a few dozen from all we have seen. On one side is a ragtag bunch of orcs literally in rags with a sun allergy against unwashed untrained racist farmers. For some reason boss girl Browyn thinks farmers should stay and fight bloodthirsty orcs rather than hightailing it to the coast using the sun to help them escape taking with them the magical macguffin the enemy wants. And unknowingly coming to their rescue is a few hundred Numenoreans cobbled together off the streets with little to no military training. Wow. Color me bored.

When a video criticising the RoP is twice as long as the episode, and seems to take less time than the episode, the series has issues. Well done!

8:00 "This tower will be a simbol of our strengh". Remember this for the next episode. Muahuahuahua...

I hate btw how Bronwin is the only one of the village that isn't dirty or wearing rags

The funny thing is, they could've solved the problem with Bronwyn's character if they used the fact that in many cultures herbalist, medics etc. were considered witches or shamans and were consulted when the village was in danger. But they prefered to make the villagers not to distrust her (as many distrusted herbalists and witches when they were not needed), but to despise her. A herbalist who is considered a shaman would've been a good fit for a leader of the village in times when you're met with something out of the ordinary. Orcs in this instance. I have no idea why they went the route of total condenscension on the part of the villagers. There are a lot of tales where in the times of need people turn to women who are considered witches. It would've been a much better use of her profession as a herbalist. And on the other hand if she is not considered a witch or a shaman, why is she despised by villagers? Medics are basically gods in small towns or villages. Her character is really strange. But to be fair all characters are strange in this show. We are not even aware of motivations of any of the characters aside from Galadriel. But even her motivation is a strange one and contradicts the lore on every level. A lot of people like Durin's character, but I actually do not like him at all. His whining about Elrond not coming to his wedding is ridiculous, as he apparently didn't write about it to Elrond in the first place. If you want your friend at your wedding you invite him, not just sulk about him not coming. I would've been surprised if my friend chastised me for not coming to a wedding I was not invited to. And the scene with the table is just... He emotionally blackmails a Noldor king just to get a free table. There is nothing to indicate that Gil-Galad was awful to dwarfs before, so it is an unprovoked theft. And Elrond just stands there totally fine with it. His king was robbed just because, but nah, it's all fine... There is no evidence of elves' wrongdoings to suggest the dwarfs have legitimate grievances to warrant the behaviour. It's all really strange. But considering they just don't care about their own show (fabrics for the show are abominable, roots of Galadriel's hair are sometimes dark, because they didn't dye them, cgi paper, scallop etc...) I shouldn't be surprised.

Orc's hand literally burns from the sun Adar: ''I wish you could feel the sun's warmth

Other creators focus predominantly on the lore accuracy (I am a Tolkien fan to the point of obsession, btw) and take one side in the war or the other. You just point out why this show is bad by itself, and I find it really refreshing. The fragment about Durin, Gil-Galad, and the table had me rolling 😂🤣