Rings of Power is Not Very Good: Breakdown and Analysis - Part 6: Udun

[Music] thank you [Music] foreign well then time to check out the Masterpiece that is rings of Power episode 6. this one has been extremely well received at least relative to episodes one to five so let's see if that praise was warranted we continue our tale of Woe by joining Adar and his army he addresses his Orcs by telling them that they have endured much having cast off their shackles and traveled across Middle Earth he makes clear his intent to attack osterith and also provides a hint of his overall motivation some of us will before for the first time we do so not his unnamed slave and Far Away lands but his brothers and sisters this is interesting as it means the Orcs are seemingly motivated by a desire to have their own part of Middle Earth that they can call home my understanding was that Orcs were just evil by virtue of the fact that they are Orcs but rings of power has decided that they are instead just like any other race of Middle Earth and that they just want a spot to settle down in even without drawing reference to either the books or the Peter Jackson movies this does not mesh at all with how rings of power has depicted Orcs thus far they are without exception sadistic violent monsters and yet the show is apparently trying to add a degree of moral complexity to them I like moral complexity in fantasy or sci-fi shows as much as anyone but I simply don't trust that the writers of rings of Power are going to be able to pull this off they haven't yet made this explicit but for now they've just hinted at it so I won't explore this further yet although I will assume that this will be expanded on by the end of the season Adar states that tonight they will close their fist around these lands which given his intent to attack austrous orbit confirms that the only humans in the Southlands are the ones currently in austereth and the ones that defected in episode 5. this means that as I had suspected every remaining human settlement did indeed travel to austereth for reasons that were not explained except for in the specific case of tiharad who evacuated because Bronwyn found an orc head this means that adari is aware of this fact and even if he is able to confirm that every single Village in the Southlands is deserted by using the Apparently extensive tunnel Network that the Orcs have dug he can't know that they are all in austereth well it counts it doesn't make sense I assume that the reason he is attacking now is because he has confirmed that the evil sword is in ostrith and that was the only reason why he had not enacted this plan sooner this was not mentioned in this scene but Adar was made aware of the location of the evil sword in a previous episode wall drag then asks Ada what happened to Sauron but he does not get an answer the Orcs having now entered ostrith declare it to be abandoned but Adar says he knows that the elf referring to arendir is still in austereth because he can smell him and wouldn't you know it arendee then pokes his head up and starts mowing down Orcs left and right because I guess none of them brought any bows this also means that as arendir is a god with a bow and arrow he had the element of surprise and he knows that Adar is their leader he could very well have assassinated him then and there and as it turns out he didn't actually need to reveal himself period because of what he does next we then come to the Watchtower oh Watchtower when I saw you in episode 5 I was expecting to be criticizing how they had only just realized that you exist I was expecting them to light a beacon so as to inform the other watchtowers and eventually the Elven military that [ __ ] is going down in the Southlands I was going to criticize that the southlanders should have done this on day [ __ ] one but I was not prepared for what they were actually going to do with you dear Watchtower so Aaron dear ignites an arrow and fires it into a bracket winch type mechanism on the Watchtower it breaks and the entire Tower disintegrates and crushes the orc army they were unable to escape because arendir locked the door by doing this [Music] and we then see that the southlanders made it to the bottom of the hill and are cheering at the defeat of the Orcs how they managed to get past the Orcs who were coming from precisely that location is indeed a mystery honestly at this point the absurdity of this show seems pretty self-evident but here we go the Watchtower disintegrating after taking a single arrow is ridiculous because it has apparently stood for thousands of years and is presumably not made of paper there is no way arendia could have known that the Watchtower would fall specifically in the required direction if the plan was to destroy austereth then this could have been done without arendir revealing himself in the way that he did thus putting the entire planet risk for no reason additionally given their plan pinning everything on just arendir and arendir alone is incredibly risky additionally if their plan was to destroy ostrith why not just destroy the bridge that would mean that they can stay inside a very well fortified position whilst presumably firing at the Orcs with bows and or spears Additionally the southlanders evidently decided that the best way to defeat the Orcs was to lure them into their own castle and then blow it up meaning that the southlanders are now just adrifting the wastelands Behind Enemy Lines when they could have been inside a goddamned Elven military Garrison given that now the southlanders have decided in fact to abandon ostrich they could just keep going I know they should have done this days ago or weeks because I have no idea how the chronology Works in this show but right now they should just run my guess is that there are still Orcs in the Southlands but as the show has not made this clear in the slightest and as we have just seen adar's Army get apparently wiped out by one guy and as the southlanders are now congregating in a wide open space with torches while shouting and cheering the show is either trying to communicate that the Orcs are dead or at the very least severely weakened or it is communicating that the southlanders are [ __ ] I know that there are more Orcs you know that there are more Orcs but apparently no one else does Bronwyn who is in charge if you recall tells the southlanders that they must make ready The Village I do know why they are making ready The Village but I'm going to criticize that when the time comes okay so Aaron dear has stinky Bo Bronwyn is still in charge and at our wants the Orcs to have a home we then cut to the numenorian fleet which consists fantastically of three ships and we see a silver tending to the horses we can see that there are 10 horses on this ship ten times three boats equals 30 horses I wonder how many they will have later ah sorry I'm getting ahead of myself anyway it is worth highlighting here that the show is explicitly telling me that they have 30 horses which causes problems even if I don't jump ahead firstly is a sildor's horse Barrick just that goddamn boss of a horse that he gets recruited from all of numenor to be one of the 30 that gets to go to war one would think an actual War Horse that doesn't belong to some spoiled kid might be a better alternative but the numenorians do not have any kind of military presence see my breakdown of part 5 for more info on that so maybe Beric was in fact one of the only 30 horses on numenor unless ilendale maid Berry could get recruited in order to teach a silder a lesson oh God that sounds mildly interesting and could maybe inject some much needed cocaine into this show but unfortunately as elendor decided that the silver had in fact earned his place in the Army in episode 5 this wouldn't function damn we almost had something there isildo Wonders on deck and encounters Galadriel who is still wearing her full suit of armor I was totally fine with her wearing it at the end of episode 5 it gives her a degree of authority and ore and not only does it make sense for her character to want to do this but it also makes sense for the numenorians to want her to do this but this scene suggests that Galadriel is in fact wearing her suit of armor for at least some of the month-long sale across the ocean to get to Middle Earth in fact from what we can tell she has been wearing this suit of armor for the entire trip as she has been wearing it on both of the two occasions in which we have seen her on this boat this as if it needs saying is incredibly dangerous because if she gets knocked overboard she will sink and drown I know that she believes that she can swim thousands of miles of open ocean with no suppliers over what would take nearly 100 days if she swam non-stop but although she apparently doesn't need food water or sleep to survive I think it's reasonable to assume that she at least needs to breathe anyway she tells assildor that he will be able to see Middle-earth in a few moments I was only hoping to get the first sight of land it'll be visible to your eyes in a few moments and I was hoping they would kind of leave this here to subtly imply and reinforce that elves have better eyesight than humans but oh no isildor then says oh man your eyes are really good and then Galadriel says indeed but they haven't seen you before clunky dialogue is sure as [ __ ] clunky dialogue this eyesight discussion is steered in the direction of glad you're acknowledging that isildo is a noob as she has not seen him sailing or training which might suggest that he shouldn't [ __ ] be here evidently glad you're doesn't have any idea who his father is isildo says that his rank is that of a stable sweep which tells us a few things firstly it means that isildor is not a soldier who was just kind of ordered to clean up after the horses it means that he is in fact only here to clean up horseshit this means that elendil was convinced Enough by a sildor apparently saving Kevin from that dastardly mystery arsonist from episode 5 who could it have been that he was willing to let his sildor come along and clean Stables while the real men go off and fight but was not sufficiently convinced to actually let isildor be a soldier and I very much have a hard time accepting that isildo would be okay with this in the slightest especially given that he specifically wanted to come because he wanted to do something he deemed worthy of numenor my guess is that in the last five minutes I have spent more time thinking about this than anyone involved in the production of the show did and that I should not care about the wise or the hows and instead prepare myself for the inevitable big hero moment which is facilitated by a sildor being on this boat anyway galagial tells the sildor despise not the labor which humbles the heart which is a solid piece of advice but one that is absolutely laughable coming from galagial who demonstrates in quite literally every scene that she is in that she is as far from being humble as a Linda is from being part of the Scooby-Doo gang Galadriel continues humility has saved entire kingdoms the proud of all but led to ruin suggesting that she specifically values humility over pridefulness even though galagial is pridefulness Incarnate and isildor then tells galagio that he joined the army in order to I was just trying to get away wait what but I thought you were going west not till I've done something worthy of numenor so was he lying to elendil not that I would put this past here missilda is a swindily little prick but this does in fact mean that he just wanted to get away from numenor I was just trying to get away as far as I could from that place it's not numenor not a real numerator anyway this expands a little on his original motivation for wanting to leave the sea guard if we assume that isildor is being truthful he dropped out of the sea guard in order to leave what he considers to not be the real numenor hence him wanting to go west and now he has joined the army as a [ __ ] shoveler in order to leave what he considers to not be the real numenor but he is now heading east quite Far East actually like thousands of miles east into hostile territory why couldn't he have just gone to West numenor like he originally said he wanted sorry guys I'm doing that thing again where I'm thinking critically about character decisions when what I should be doing is drooling like a disabled dog and clapping like a seal because gosh darn it I am so happy to be back in Middle Earth again we then learn what happened to his sildor's mother andalindil's wife she drowned the sea is always right there are many ways that people can die they can die in childbirth they can get stabbed they can bang their heads they can get set on fire they can get eaten by Wolves the list goes on what rings of power has just done and I hope to [ __ ] God that this was an accident is have one character who believes deeply that the sea is always right tell another character who is wearing a full suit of armor whilst at Sea and presumably unaware of the inherent drowning risk that this poses that his wife died because she drowned in the sea like did elendo come home without his wife one day and then asilda was like Hey Dad where's mum and then elendil just said c is always right and then didn't elaborate further they could have picked any other way for her to have died they quite obviously don't care at all about the source material so just say that she tripped and fell on her own shears at least then we don't have to work out the mental gymnastics involved with the lendel believing the sea to always be right when the sea killed his wife and the irony of him telling Galadriel this whilst she is oblivious to the inherent risk of sinking that comes with wearing a full suit of armor at Sea elendor then informs the queen regent that once they reach the shore they will sail up the river for a day and then they will need to ride for a day in order to enter the Southlands he mentions that they need to go into the mountains which raises some questions as to how they will manage to cross the mountains in a day with horses and supplies and with everyone geared up for battle ah don't worry about it it will happen off screen so who cares that it doesn't make sense okay so galadril is vain as she wears her ornate armor every day whilst crossing the ocean but also values humility and dislikes pridefulness and elendel believes the sea to always be right even though the sea killed his wife we then see arendir hammering the evil sword and it appears to be pretty indestructible he then says that he must hide it as he can't destroy it but that no one else can know just in case particularly you Bronwyn in case you flip on a dime and decide to be evil again we then see the villagers setting up traps and sharpening their weapons I mean they could just leave the Orcs can apparently only travel at night so they shouldn't catch you anyway arundy then tells the people that their position gives them an advantage I will wait and see but right now I'm just thinking whatever Advantage this Village gives you would have been tenfold had you just stayed put in austereth the southlanders decided to destroy their fortified position in favor of Defending themselves in a town that can quite literally be attacked from all directions I guess that's what happens when you elect a woman sorry I mean I guess that's what happens when you elect an incompetent leader yeah let's let's go with that anyway the villagers appear to be home aloneing the [ __ ] out of their Village and arendia says that they must wait until every last orc is in the village before they spring their attack Bronwyn says that they will barricade all who cannot fight inside the tavern this can't possibly go wrong arendia continues to offer words of inspiration which I quite like he definitely comes across as far more believable in his authority than Bronwyn Theo then asks what he will do and Bronwyn tells him he will be in the tavern Theo states that the tavern is for the wounded end of the children because I guess saying women and children would be inappropriate for 2022 oh sorry no I mean it would be inappropriate for a medieval inspired fantasy world because this peasant culture is apparently up to speed on modern day diversity and equality training anyway Bronwyn acknowledges that Theo can fight but says that this is why he must remain in the tavern to protect those who cannot essentially this is an exact retread of aoin at Helms Deep if however Theo were at Helm's Deep he would indeed be fighting there were children younger than him being torn from their families for this exact purpose but hey we can't have a woman do the babysitting that would be so regressive I'll try my best to leave this here because I really don't want to get bogged down in comparing societally and forced roles for men and women because even though I'd find this a bit ridiculous it isn't directly a criticism of the show so I will move past it Theo stays behind because Bronwyn says so she then reassures Theo after he asks her to have bad dreams remember what you used to say when you would hold me in the dark would you say it to me now the end the shadow is but a small and passing thing there is light and High Beauty forever Beyond its reach find the light and the shadow will not find you this doesn't really seem like something you would say to a child but apart from that this mostly works for me as an isolated scene Theo shows himself to be more vulnerable than he lets on and Bronwyn actually fulfills her role of a mother for once which is nice Bronwyn then herself asks for words of encouragement from arendere also revealing herself to be more vulnerable than she lets on why couldn't we have had more of this this is starting to actually flesh out Bronwyn as a character give us an unimposing young woman who finds herself responsible for a group of villagers and she doesn't feel up to the task but perseveres by giving off strong women energy but in the background she is very much struggling and vulnerable herself because she was not prepared for what this responsibility entails give us that instead of this [Music] this Tower will no longer be a reminder of our Frailty but a symbol of our strength who among you will stand and fight pretty pathetic huh Aranda continues that after the battle they will live together and plant trees in their Garden a reference I assume to him having been a grower before becoming a soldier and this is also notable for being the same seeds that Bronwyn had given him when we first saw them in episode one then they kiss for what I assume is the first time and the sun sets Okay so this scene is apart from the very first Southland scene which introduced these characters in my view the best scene we have had in this story apart from the absurdity of how and why they are in tehrad at this moment if we assume that what they are doing by home alone in their Village before nightfall is in fact the best thing to do or even anything other than a [ __ ] thing to do the characters in this scene not only function but we also learn about them the smallest goddamn thing and with one or two very slight exceptions it has taken rings of power nearly six hours to get there I just wish that we had previously had hints or references as to bronwyn's insecurity as a reminder that yes she is just in fact a girl rather than a turbo badass who decapitates all talks because she is cool her characterization in this scene I do think is good but unfortunately I do not think that it meshes with her previous scenes at all okay Theo wants to fight and Bronwyn is protective of her son and is sometimes vulnerable well night has fallen I wonder if the Orcs will remember that they have a tunnel going directly under bronwyn's house wait if the Orcs have a tunnel going directly under bronwyn's house then why did they wait for Nightfall and why did the southlanders not booby trap that tunnel anyway let's move on for now and see what happens foreign that's a lot of Orcs I guess we have no idea how many there are is the Southlands just kind of full of them gonna reference Game of Thrones here and yes even the bad Seasons to make this point we never saw or understood the White Walkers and White's true numbers until they attacked Winterfell we did see large numbers of them in a few scenes notably during the massacre at hardhome but they were constantly referenced as this insurmountable and almost infinite enemy this established that even though we never actually saw how many there were we just had to go with lots they were a constant unseen threat that was known by the characters and the audience to be vastly numerous and thus incredibly dangerous so how is this comparable to the Orcs And rings of power well as in Game of Thrones we have no idea how many of them there are we have seen a few digging holes and we have got hints that there are more we have seen adar's Army march towards ostrith get flattened and we're now seeing hundreds more arriving at tehrad point being the show has not made clear how many Orcs there are but where Game of Thrones succeeded rings of power has failed because the show itself has not acknowledged this the white walkers were recognized by the characters in Game of Thrones to be an infinitely multiplying threat repeatedly during the series and they were always a factor for concern even when they were not on screen and even though their exact numbers were never shown this made them that much more terrifying the Orcs in rings of power however just seem to be respawning and without any reference from any of the characters I can only assume this was not the intent if Aaron deer were to say oh snap there's so many more than I could have imagined where are they coming from then problem solved anyway whilst there is something of a Twist to the nature of these Orcs in particular I find it rather amusing that for the second time the Orcs are just kind of walking directly into a trap they're just kind of slowly walking in to tear herad going wow rather than applying any kind of strategy whatsoever they know how to use bows and yet they aren't setting up a perimeter they aren't setting the buildings on fire with arrows they aren't being sneaky they aren't using the God damn tunnel with NC Bronwyn hiding behind a cart and trying to set it on fire oh oh no one single orc is coming to check it out for seemingly no reason maybe he is on his way to check out the house behind where Bronwyn currently is but if so why is there just one orc there are hundreds of them but I guess bromwind has to be able to overpower whatever they send her away even though the Orcs are apparently stronger than humans and bromwin is a woman okay so the Orcs go to check behind the cart and she isn't there where could she be could she be off camera to the left which would mean she is entirely visible to the hundreds of Orcs walking past 20 feet away you betcha as she is remember guys if it is off camera it doesn't exist which is either rule number two or number three of writing rings of power I forget anyway because apparently no one saw her she yells and stabs the orc in the foot leading to this poor woman getting her throat slit I know she kind of just stood there and took it but either way Bronwyn just got this woman killed and she will never be mentioned again Bronwyn didn't need to yell and yet she yelled her intent was to do this without being noticed which apparently worked meaning there was no reason for her to yell but yell she does because I guess if we delete this other Rando woman from existence then there are less women to compete with Bronwyn making her one step closer to being the ultimate girl boss but apparently none of the other Orcs neither saw nor heard any of this because Bronwyn is then able to defeat the orc in a 1v1 set the card on fire and cut the rope thus activating the booby trap it sure is lucky that only one single orc came to check this out it sure is lucky that an orc came to check this out period because that was the only reason why Bronwyn was able to activate this trap in the first place it sure is lucky that Bronwyn can 1v1 and orc it sure is lucky that none of the other Orcs saw nor heard any of this by all accounts it doesn't make sense anyway she cuts the Rope and the cart crashes into the bridge and cuts off their escape in this shot here we can see roughly how many Orcs there are because it's dark it's a little bit difficult to tell exactly but I'll be generous and say that there are 50 Orcs in tehrad which begs the question of where the rest of them are then this happens okay so these Orcs are both deaf and blind apparently a flaming wheelbarrow rolling towards them at high speed is a stealth attack apparently the villagers also knew that this would happen I'll be honest guys so far the praise that episode 6 has received is very much a mystery to me anyway now apparently trapped the villagers and arondia start firing at the Orcs with their bows arendere Nails a few but the MVP is honestly this guy right here like holy [ __ ] this guy is good shame he doesn't hit any of the main characters they're headed for the tavern foreign because I guess the Orcs know that the tavern is where the women and the children [ __ ] sorry guys I'm not Progressive enough the wounded and children we see that the Orcs have this little diddly battering ram which confirms that yeah had they stayed in austereth and not destroyed it then they would likely be fine or at the very least they would last longer unless people would have died which means whoever's idea it was to destroy austereth is kind of responsible for everyone who gets killed in this scene so far Bronwyn has got that one woman killed for no reason and two or three southlanders have been nailed by arrows seems like a rather high risk plan but what do I know I'm just a hater on YouTube or so I'm told anyway then this happens foreign [Applause] wow okay so their master plan was to just run at the Orcs who were wearing armor and poke them with sticks which means if there were more than about 50 Orcs here their plan would absolutely not work but I guess they knew that they would only be 50. also pretty risky move to run at the Orcs with sticks when you had a [ __ ] Castle you cretins anyway then this happens alright so maybe it is just arendere who has really shitty hearing because this is the second time he has been snuck up on when he absolutely should not be it is difficult for me to say exactly because I can't tell if this is a mistake or if this is intentional which is always the mark of good writing so if we utterly disregard any and all other material that is not these six episodes of rings of power we have been told that elrond and Galadriel both have really really good eyesight and that arendir does not have really good hearing my understanding was that all elves have really good eyesight and really good hearing but from what we have been told either elves just have good eyesight or potentially that arendir is a bit of an anomaly specifically does not have good hearing until they show me that he does in fact have excellent hearing I can't be specific with this criticism as it is either a direct contradiction or poorly communicated character information so arendere and the Orcs fall off the building and instead of killing arendia this orc just kind of walks around for a bit and then gets stabbed plot armor is certainly effective but then oh snap it's big chungus if only big chungus had a bow oh well time for the cool mini boss fight given how goddamn loud this [ __ ] is I'm also not sure how he managed to sneak up on Air India but actually yeah this makes it the third time he's been snuck up on maybe elves don't develop good hearing until they're 300 years old I don't know so yeah they do a fight which looks superficially cool but suffers from the cliche of the bad guy throws the good guy around a whole bunch when he could just kill him this orc is significantly stronger than arendere and it could just snap his neck or tear him in half but yeah his plot armor continues to be excellent then big chungus bends arinder over and fills him with his juices foreign [Music] I'll tell the whole truth big chungus removes the stick from his eye and blood squirts out of his eye hole as if his eye is a major artery and squirts all over arendee's face [Music] sorry guys I am trying to keep this PG-13 but big chungus is making me hard wait [ __ ] I mean all right so upon having big chungus's igu pour all over him he strangely does not close his mouth and big chungus decides that he will kill arendere by poking out his eye Gandhi was wrong one thousand internet points for anyone who understands that reference anyway all seems lost arendir is about to get poked and he is then saved at the last minute by to no one's surprise Bronwyn how she got here and how she knew to come here is anyone's guess but actually I didn't say that because I was distracted by how cute of a couple they are ah it's a shame that arendere has just been deflowered by big chungus anywho foreign wow that was easy so two flaming wheelbarrows a handful of arches and some guys with sticks and you did it boys and strong independent women you defeated the Orcs and saved the Southlands you vanquished the evil that Galadriel spent centuries trying to locate and defeat which is precisely what the show wants you to think but as I have eyes and ears and some semi-functional gray matter in between them I am apparently not the target audience for rings of power and I know that there are a lot more than 50 odd Orcs because you have shown them to me anyway arendere notices red blood on one of the corpses instead of the black blood of the Orcs And they are shocked to discover that a good number of the Dead are in fact the defectors who left with wool Dragon episode 5 not entirely sure why this is shocking they knew that these people left and they knew exactly why this orky boy then says I had to pay the toe confound your lousy told Troll and then the remaining Orcs who did not enter the village start pelting the villagers with arrows including Bronwyn and the cowgoo man nailing every hit continuing to show fantastic aim when required so now that this twist has been revealed let me go over the Orcs plan they send the defectors alongside some Orcs into tehrad presumably to die but if they can get some killing done then all the better that way the villagers will then reveal themselves and can then be turned into pin cushions now they could have skipped a step here and just marched in with every orc and killed everyone but Adar presumably made the decision to send in the defectors first in order to thin the numbers and also cause the villagers to take a morale check this suggests two things firstly that Adar does not care at all for the lives of the defectors if their optimal use is to die and thus so fear amongst the villagers secondly Adar deliberately wants to sow fear amongst the villagers rather than just kill them whilst it does make sense for Adar to not want any pesky humies left at the end so he can create a home for the Orcs the only reason why the villagers were able to get pelted with arrows was because they were apparently unaware that adar's Army consisted of more than approximately 50 Orcs And therefore they were perfectly happy to stand around outside of cover instead of pelting them with arrows whilst the defectors were distracting them the Orcs waited until the villagers had thought they had won so as to provide the episode with a dramatic High followed by a dramatic low unfortunately this does not function as intended because we already know that Adar does not care whatsoever for the lives of the defectors so there is no reason not to send in the defectors to distract the villagers and then just take off and nuke the entire site from morbid also if this was his plan why did he not do this in austereth Adar believed the villagers to be in austereth so why didn't he March the defectors in first well you see if he had done that then the defectors would have all died in austereth and thus there would have been no dramatic realization that the villagers had been killing their own people which makes this an instance of characters being dumb and or inconsistent in order to facilitate drama okay so Bronwyn yells at her enemies when attacking them quietly can apparently 1v1 an orc and add our employees fear tactics and employees military strategy so as to maximize drama in a TV show rather than to actually achieve his objective Aaron dear is a boss with a bow has bad hearing was raped by big chungus rest in peace okay so now the villagers are all inside the tavern and the Orcs approached menacingly Bronwyn tells Theo to help the cowgoo man first presumably because he took a few arrows to the back where she took one to the shoulder unfortunately the cowgu man is dead which very much upsets Bronwyn rest in peace cowgoo man we knew you so well Bronwyn then instructs Theo on how to stop the bleeding and thus save her life I like that Bronwyn established to be a medic is the one who knows best how to stop the bleeding this is exactly the time when this character should have authority unlike virtually every other time when the show depicts her as having Authority they remove the arrow but Bronwyn continues to bleed heavily they then cauterize the wound after placing the seeds in the wounds these seeds were established in episode 1 as being used to create a salve and therefore do presumably have some kind of healing properties whilst I like that these seeds are being used for multiple purposes in this story I am unsure how ready I am to accept that they are able to save Bronwyn by cauterizing the entry and exit wounds from an arrow she will still be bleeding internally and severely judging by the amount of blood as we don't know exactly what these seeds do however and as I am feeling generous I will accept this provided that they acknowledge that Bronwyn is indeed severely wounded throughout this scene we also catch glimpses that the Orcs are now right outside the tavern so it sure was nice of them to not only wait for them to save Bronwyn but also to not make any noise so Bronwyn prioritizes the lives of her people over her own anyway the Orcs have now arrived but for real this time and Adar is with them again there appear to be maybe 50 or so Orcs so how many are left in reserve this time I still have no idea they begin battering down the door and time appears to be up for the South Landers but wait what's that on the horizon well it's the numenorian army before continuing their timely arrival raises more than a few questions that I assume will never be answered where did the extra 470 horses come from the show explicitly showed us that they have 10 per boat how did they know to arrive in tehrad all they had to go on was Hal Brands saying where the Orcs went next after destroying his village which given the distances involved must have been at least three months prior if we assume that halbrand left his village walked all the way across Middle Earth jumped on a boat and then encountered galagial this would have taken at minimum a couple of months additionally although the show did not communicate this due to the distances involved it would have taken approximately a month for the numenorians to reach the Southlands plus the 10 days training time established at the end of episode 4 and this happened at most two or three days after collateral and hellbrand arrived in numenor to track this onto the Southlands plot we know that it takes maybe half a day to get from tiharad to austereth and about the same time to get from tiharad to Horden so working backwards the southlanders have been at ostrich for a few days at most given that they ran out of food and had no means of acquire sharing more plus a day or so to get there plus a day or so for Bronwyn and Aaron dear to do their Shenanigans in Horden and they departed for Horden on the same day as when we first met them this means if my calculations are even close to being correct that Galadriel and halbrand arrived in numenor approximately 38 days before the elves were ordered to leave tehrad which was when we first met them why am I highlighting this well because it makes blatantly clear the incredible contrivance of having the numenoreans depart for war a month prior only to then not actually be needed until the day they arrive had they arrived a week earlier they would have arrived before Horton was even destroyed because the show hasn't told us we have no idea what the state of the Southlands was prior to the start of the show when we first met the southlanders interior did the Orcs have wiped out Horton and presumably halbrand's Village but how many villages there are in total we have no idea the Orcs are also digging holes and tunnels but prior to arendir and bronwyn's discovery of the remains of Horden they had evidently not done enough to get them noted just as nonsensical as that is so the numenorians arriving six months earlier or something results in I have no idea because the show hasn't established how long the Orcs have been doing what they are doing and if they had arrived a week later the Southlands would have been wiped out but anyway they're here now due to insane levels of absurd luck it almost doesn't feel fair at this point but let's compare the numenorian's last minute arrival to the rohiram arriving at the pelenor fields to be clear here before I start I am not arguing that it sucks because it isn't as good as the Lord of the Rings I am using the Lord of the Rings as an example of cause and effect culminating in something fantastic to contrast with rings of power having utterly broken continuity that is built on contrivance and convenience and thus is terrible this scene in isolation might be cool but the foundation it is constructed upon collapses with any amount of scrutiny anyway in The Lord of the Rings denethor did not want to ask Rohan for Aid Gandalf and Pippin did so regardless denethor Gandalf and Pippin all have very well-established motivations for doing what they choose to do theodin then decided to answer gondor's call which in and of itself is a huge character moment for him and Rohan will answer we then see Rohan assembling their army struggling to find the numbers and making their way across the continent to Gondor meanwhile ministereth is besieged the Orcs have broken through the gate and entered the city and then Rohan arrives before explaining why this works I will now explain what happened in rings of power chronologically Galadriel and halbrand arrived in numenor by pure chance Galadriel successfully convinced numenor to rescue the Southlands because elendil had shown her a scroll that was written by some guy that explained that Sauron plans to create a realm where evil will Thrive halbrand's claim that his village in the Southlands was destroyed by the Orcs And The Revelation that helbrand is the heir to the throne of the Southlands the only one of these three Revelations that make sense is halbrand's claims about his village and only then if the characters believe him see my previous videos for full explanations as to why none of this works but regardless Galadriel manages to recruit numenor's non-existent Army and they depart for Middle Earth whilst the numenoreans are on Route the southlanders evacuate their Villages for mostly unspecified reasons and congregate in austereth again for unspecified reasons the Orcs then attack austereth and arendir brings the Watchtower down upon them the southlanders then regroup in tehrad and prepare their defenses but are ultimately defeated and trapped within the tavern okay that is what happened now why does the right of the rohiram succeed where the right of numenor does not Gondor or specifically Gandalf and Pippin lit the beacons thus asking for Aid and making clear that help was urgently required the southlanders did No Such Thing Rohan had a very clear and very Justified reason for wanting to go to war numenor did not Rohan had a clear and defined destination numenor did not rohan's arrival whilst timely is by no means contrived as they did not arrive at the last possible minute and their journey to Aid Gondor was heavily explained and the timeline is clear the numenoreans conversely have arrived at the last possible minute to save the day so I can therefore conclude definitively the numenorian's arrival to save the southlanders is absurdly contrived because it relies on Galadriel acquiring an army that does not exist to go to a war that has not actually started yet she does so by leveraging information that was quite literally inserted into the story so as to make this happen with zero further Expo explanation or exploration they arrive at exactly the right time and in exactly the right location when they have no information to go on I can see why people like this scene because at first glance it appears to be effective and definitely evokes a similar vibe to what is without a doubt one of the most iconic moments from the Peter Jackson Trilogy however this scene is only able to happen because of unexplained mcguffins and a heap of contrived nonsense there never was much anyway the Orcs have now battered down the door to the tavern presumably meaning that everyone inside is [ __ ] arendia starts to fight them off but they threaten to kill Theo and Bronwyn and he backs down then Adar enters the tavern hopefully he has a good reason for not killing everyone because he has had multiple opportunities to do so Sunny kissed him okay all right see this is not a good reason all Adar knows is that a boy has the evil sword or had the evil sword if we read between the lines a bit we can assume that wool Greg may have told Adar that it is Theo that has the evil sword this however raises the question once again of why wool drug did not bring the evil sword with him when he defected anyway if we assume that Adar knows that Theo has the evil sword Aaron dear's response here is to take a leaf out of elrond's book and confirm that he knows where it is and when he had no reason to do so sure if arendia had said what evil sword I don't know what you're talking about Adar may have then threatened Bronwyn thus causing arendere to Cave but arinder doesn't even try to hide this Aaron dear says that if Adar lets the villagers go he will consider giving over the evil sword and in response the Orcs kill three randos Adar then orders that they kill Bronwyn next as presumably waldrick told Adar about their relationship before arendir is given the chance to consider what to do Theo reveals to Adar the location of the evil Sword and the location of the evil sword is under the floor in the tavern I can't guys I can't the show is fracturing my brain why do they keep doing this why can't they make it through one scene without colossal [ __ ] ups arendir specifically said where will you hide it no one must know meaning that only he knew where it was I know that we see Theo watch Aaron dear leave with it which I have to assume the ride has considered to be a sufficient explanation but unless Theo followed arendee into the pub and watched him put it under the floor all without Aaron dear noticing this is impossible and where he chose to hide it was in the [ __ ] Pub buried in the woods thrown in a lake tie it to a squirrel do anything other than take it to exactly where you know Adar is going to be and whilst I don't take issue with Theo deciding to Cave into adar's demands to save his mother's life this relies entirely on arendere hiding the evil sword in the tavern and Theo being aware of this we already know that this Hilt does not function like the one ring it does not seem to have a will of its own you are not drawn to its evilness or anything it could have been far more effective and far more narratively coherent to have Theo plead with arendia to reveal where he hid the evil sword in order to save his mother and this being what eventually causes arendir to Cave anyway Adar then approaches wall drag and says that he has a task for him soon I assume we will learn what the purpose of this thing is and why Adar wants it so desperately however I assume we will never learn why the Southlands didn't just leave and take the evil sword with them okay Aaron dear is terrible at keeping secrets and is terrible at hiding things before I can continue we have yet another example of the writer's screwing with time and space in order to accommodate visual presentation if you recall Knight fell up on the Southlands earlier in the episode which prompted the Orcs to attack the village under cover of night by the time the numenoreans arrive Dawn is Breaking so this means that the defectors attacking tiharad the subsequent cleanup from the orc archers and healing Bronwyn inside the tavern took around eight hours this doesn't work in the slightest we didn't cut away at any point you can't hand wave this with an off-screen time Jump we saw in sequence the defectors approaching the village Bronwyn trapping them with the burning wheelbarrow the southlanders picking off some Orcs with their archers and then charging them with sticks arendia's fight with big chungus the short-lived Victory the Orcs cleaning up with their archers patching up Bronwyn and the Orcs breaking in and Adar acquiring the evil sword the only place where you could say that possibly there is a gap in the timeline is when they are patching up Bronwyn but this does not work unless we accept that it took hours for them to do this and that the Orcs just kind of sat around for seven hours waiting politely this entire sequence took almost exactly 20 minutes of screen time and the way it is depicted means it must have also taken near enough 20 minutes in universe but anyway it's daytime now or at least Dawn so let's see if this affects the Orcs I'll give you a clue it doesn't because of course it doesn't pretty pathetic huh so the numenorians charge into the village which then causes the Orcs to decide to slaughter the remaining southlanders I have no idea how many are actually still alive but given that they are all contained within a pub and given that there are more Orcs than people inside this Pub my guess would be no more than 20. so the Orcs start killing the southlanders and because the show Cuts away we just you have to kind of accept that some of them survive specifically arendir Theo and Bronwyn even though they are vastly outnumbered by a much stronger species within a confined space meanwhile outside the numenorians mow down the Orcs by using chains tied between their horses as they ride in opposite directions the chains get longer and longer meaning each Rider must have had a large bundle of chain that they were either holding or was attached to their horse either way this seems like a rather risky move but it looks cool fine harinder and Theo leave the tavern and start killing Orcs which can only mean that not only did the Orcs not kill everyone inside the tavern but that in actuality the Southland has killed every single orc that was inside the tavern we have to assume this because if not then arendir and Theo have just left a bed-ridden Bronwyn inside a pub Full Of Orcs And as if it even needs saying at this point I don't believe that they could have done this again you can't really tell but I think an estimate of 20 odd southlanders seems about right which includes the wounded and the children similarly we can't be exact with the number of Orcs but we saw at least 20 approaching the door which means if I am being as generous as possible the show is telling us that an assortment of 19 humans including wounded elderly and children plus arendir was able to defeat 20 Orcs I do not believe you well it counts it doesn't make sense now we get to the moment that has been thoroughly mocked and I am in two minds about it firstly I will just show you what happens so Galadriel demonstrates incredible reaction time and Agility catches this orc off guard and decapitates him I am going to present all sides to this that I can think of and then conclude on whether or not this is a problem I have seen people criticize this scene by saying that gladrill is showing off and that it looks ridiculous and that it is not an efficient way to dodge an arrow and decapitate an orc I have also seen people defend this by saying something along the lines of well it was okay when Legolas did it so stop being a misogynist so in Universe I take zero issues with Galadriel being able to do this she is insanely agile and has crazy Elven reflexes etc etc whether or not this was the most efficient way to do what she was trying to do I have no idea because I don't know anything about horse riding although my gut instinct tells me that this was unnecessary she likely could have just leaned slightly to the left I do however think that the Legolas comparison allows us to narrow down in the exact reason why this scene is pissing people off Legolas Leica Galadriel is thousands of years old and is an expert in martial combat they both have superhuman agility balance reactions and to a lesser degree strength there are four examples that I can point to of Legolas using his superhuman Elven abilities in The Lord of the Rings trilogy I am ignoring The Hobbit movies because I've only seen those movies once and I don't care to see them again the first example is during the cave troll fight whereby Legolas performs some pretty incredible moves leading to the Troll's defeat the second example is him doing this crazy flip onto his horse during the wag attack the third example is him surfing on the shield and the fourth example is him bringing down a mama kill single-handedly so was Legolas showing off in any of these examples in the scene with the cave troll the answer is a categorical no Legolas was cooperating with the other members of the fellowship any manner that was consistent with each of their skill sets Legolas may have dealt the killing blow but he could not have done this without them in the case of the horse flip I would also argue no because it allowed him to get back on his horse without the horse stopping which would have put people at risk yes it looks showboaty but it serves a practical purpose and I have no issues with Legolas being able to do this in the case of the shield surfing this one is a little harder to defend but him choosing to Surf down the stairs on the shield allows him to get to Gimli and Aragorn quickly whilst also being able to use his bow and remain a hard target for the urics in the case of him bringing down the mama kill this is pretty explicitly depicted as him showing off to a degree given gimli's response that still only counts as one however this is by no means a problem because he firstly successfully brought down a goddamn Mama kill and secondly he did it efficiently gimli's perception that Legolas was showing off is a natural result of legolas's ability to do these incredible things and it is acknowledged in universe so to bring this point back around to the scene in question what Galadriel does here is probably most directly comparable to the shield surfing scene in both cases what they are each doing is acceptable in universe and serves some kind of purpose so isn't being done purely to say look what I can do so why is Rule of cool a valid defense for Legolas surfing on the shield but not for galajual doing an upside down orc decapitation one difference between these two scenes is that galagial's move was entirely self-serving whereas Legolas was trying to reach Aragorn and Gimli most critically however the reason I think people like the Legolas scene and do not like the Galadriel scene is because she's a woman no it's because people like Legolas and people do not like Galadriel I believe that if this scene were taking place in osterith and galagial had pulled the exact same move as Legolas people would still have a problem with it not because of the move itself but because of the character in question I am not going to list all the references I have for this next statement but if you want them then check out the previous videos in this series galagial is both a terrible person and a terribly written character that the show consistently and repeatedly tries to depict as awesome admirable and an aspirational badass this inherent contradiction means that scenes like this feel like the writers are reaching through the TV to grab you by the throat and yell you will enjoy Galadriel look she's so awesome this of course could not be further from legolas's character in The Lord of the Rings yes he is awesome but he's also not a one-dimensional selfish dick that the show thinks is awesome anyway back to the other characters we see on Tamo isildo's other buddy being attacked by an orc the orc pulls him off his horse and Strikes repeatedly at his sword no fewer than 10 times seriously count them [Applause] suggesting that the orc in fact did not want to actually kill entamo a stabbing motion might have been more effective but I guess the Orcs are just a wee bit special when it comes to attacking named characters which reminds me are the numenorians actually heeding galadriel's advice on how best to kill an orc well afrock stabbed and twisted this guy but this was his chest not not his gut can you gut someone in the sternum I don't think so but props for trying it is also worth noting here that the numenorians are as established previously not militaristic 11 days ago they did not have an army these guys are defeating Orcs having never fought or seen an orc before it has also been heavily implied that the Orcs are stronger than men so it is reasonable to assume that they are more competent fighters in a 1v1 but then actually Bronwyn totally slayed that one orc earlier Yas Queen so my assumptions are apparently built on a foundation of ass gravy with NC Muriel and a sildor up on a cliff against the sildor is done shoveling [ __ ] and he's now a soldier I guess and she tells him to go on his own apparently not entirely sure why Muriel told his dildo to just go but I guess it will facilitate whatever comes next speaking of we then see lindel getting gang banged by some Orcs while his sildor rides into the village ilendale is saved not by a sildor but by Hal brand which I definitely prefer to him being saved by a sildor I guess we will have to keep waiting to see why they decided to turn a lender into cork the mentally challenged crime sleuths cork what do you make of the situation I'm a tornado his father who assure okay Galadriel then approaches arendir and asks where the orc Commander is arendir points out adarin says that he must not escape with the evil sword so a few things here firstly as we can assume Adar does not in fact have the evil sword because he approached wall drag and presumably he gave it to him evidently arendir is unaware of this fact if I was a nitpicker I would suggest that given that arendir is meant to have super acute hearing he should have heard Adar when he left the tavern and said I have a toss for you I can let this slide though because this marks the fourth explicit reference to arendia not having heightened senses so again until they tell me that he does in fact have superhuman senses I will be content to Simply accept this fact secondly how the [ __ ] did Walter get out of tehrad ADA approaches him and then immediately the village is swarmed by the numenorian Cavalry I know that not everything needs explaining but whatever adar's task is that requires worldreg to take the evil sword somewhere hinges entirely on him being able to get out of tiarad which given the circumstances should be nearly impossible anyway Theo appears to admire Galadriel asking arendir who she is and Aranda indicates that he is aware of who she is stating that she is commander of the northern armies sorry buddy you missed a couple she's also the warrior of the wastelands and she's also the scourge of the Orcs very quick tangent I promise I find it hilarious that galadriel's titles in rings of Power are all Uber badass non-feminine military titles whereas her titles in The Lord of the Rings are Lady of Light Lady of Lorien Lady of the wood and a mistress of magic which are all of course extremely feminine I wonder why they did that anyway Galadriel pursues Adar on Horseback which Hal brand notices after a bit of a Chase halbrander brings down adar's horse although how he knew where Ada was going and how he caught up with them is a mystery Adar then reaches for the oh wait so I guess he didn't actually give the evil sword to wall drag either that or the writers think I'm an idiot wait hold on hold the [ __ ] on are they going to reveal that this is not the real evil sword the writers of course want us to believe that it is in fact the evil sword the evidence for it being the evil sword is substantial as the village was attacked whilst Adar was in the process of telling waldrag to go and do a thing so there is a reasonable likelihood that Adar would have instead kept the evil sword in order to protect it for this to in fact not be the evil sword requires that Adar did in fact give the sword to wall drag the moment the numenorians attacked that he managed to explain to waldrag What specifically he needed to do in the seconds he had before being hit by a cavalry charge and that wooljack managed to survive and take it wherever he ends up taking it which is an extremely risky plan on adar's part all of this means that the quote unquote Twist of waldrag having the real sword and not Adar requires that we accept something that makes less sense than what we were initially led to believe this is not how twists work a Twist will typically act as a reversal of pre-established material in order to shock or surprise the audience in a way that they may not have seen coming but critically in a way that makes sense the new information that serves as the twist cannot be something that makes less sense than what was originally implied in Fight Club the Revelation is to the true relationship between Tyler Durden and the narrator makes substantially more sense than that Tyler who was just some Rando that he met that one time in Shutter Island the Revelation is to Teddy's true nature makes substantially more sense than what we were originally led to believe in the prestige the Revelation as to how Borden and angia actually performed their tricks makes the entire film function because it is probably the only explanation that does in fact make any sense in rings of power the only way anyone can truly believe that waldrig has the evil sword is if they subconsciously accept that Adar gave him the sword and explained his evil plan whilst the numenoreans were charging them and then that he managed to get out of tiharad in one piece during a cavalry charge alrighty then anyway Hal Branch skewers adar's hand and asks if he remembers him Adar says that he does not and halbrand prepares to kill him before Galadriel stops him saying that she needs him alive Adar begins to taunt Hal brand call someone you love pain a woman perhaps a child causing Galadriel to tell him to shut up in the most eloquent way possible that is certainly befitting a character of her demeanor we then get yet another strange nonsense metaphor one cannot satisfy Thirst by drinking sea water God damn it what does this mean why do you think this is clever you can't just spit out nonsense and pretend it's meaningful and any approximation of tolkien's dialogue all right okay let's stick on this for a second one cannot satisfy Thirst by drinking seawater I think given the circumstances that Galadriel is saying killing him won't bring you peace hellbrand is thirsty for vengeance and killing Adar would be sea water I'm I'm doing my best here I swear so let's come up with some similar lines one cannot have a satisfying poo if they have diarrhea one cannot clean their house if they use aspic one cannot drive to work if they fill their car up with mouthwash one cannot make a phone call if their phone is an antelope one cannot get drunk by drinking Napalm this [ __ ] isn't clever it is [ __ ] and anyone can do it stop pretending to be clever it is not nice to lie okay so hellbrand has some kind of personal grievance with Ada and Ada does not value his own life we then return to the village and see that the numenorians have won seemingly without many or possibly any losses afrock tells usildo that both of them will be leaving soon to hunt down any Orcs that escaped with NC galadural interrogating Adar I assume that the cloth wrapping containing what is definitely the evil sword and definitely not anything else has been properly examined and the reason I say this so smugly is because I know that they abso [ __ ] lutely have not done this gladial deduces that Adar is an elf that was tortured by morgoth and became one of the first Orcs she then asks him where Sauron is Adar does not cooperate and gladial threatens to bring the orc prisoners into the sunlight oh yeah I'd forgotten that Orcs burn when in the sun I guess this right here doesn't count as sunlight anyway Adar explains that Sauron intended to heal Middle Earth after morgoth Was Defeated he says that Sauron sought to create a power over flesh and we see a flashback to The Fortress in forward way from episode one turns out that Sauron sacrificed Orcs in order to reveal dark knowledge but was unsuccessful Adar did not approve due to Sauron killing the Orcs whom out of considers to be his children and so he killed Sauron galagial of course does not believe this and to convey this she says I do not believe you man the writing of the show sure is eloquent isn't it these characters just say exactly what they are thinking in the simplest way possible well unless it's metaphor time anyway galagial then says that she considers the Orcs to not be children but slaves which is an interesting thing to say given that the Orcs as depicted in rings of power appear to be more than willing to do everything that they do Adar responds they are not children they are slaves but each one has a name they are creations of the one Master of the secret fire the same as you was worthy of the breath of life and just as worthy of her home so this pretty much confirms Allah's motivation throughout the series he truly believes that Orcs are just like any other species of Middle Earth and thus deserve a home even though Orcs are without exception evil even though every single action the Orcs have taken in these six episodes has been evil it may have been more interesting to have adabi far more morally ambiguous and to maybe have him disapprove of the Orcs killing indiscriminately as he wants them to be better than their nature they could have had a degree of complexity here but no Adar is just as evil as the Orcs albeit less animalistic anyway then Galadriel says you're kind they didn't mockery and even if it takes me all of this age I vow to eradicate every last one of you okay so Orcs were created by morgoth they are inherently and necessarily evil wiping them out seems like a good idea which I'm on board with however Galadriel has literally just said that she views them as slaves suggesting that she does not consider them to have any agency in what they are actually doing this also makes her Galadriel of the noldor daughter of the Golden House of finathin commander of the northern armies scourge of the Orcs Warrior of the wastelands and genocida of slaves Galadriel then continues you so that one day before I drive my dagger into your poisoned heart I will whisper in all your offspring Offspring holy [ __ ] woman it is one thing to wipe out all the Orcs because they are beings of Pure Evil it is quite another to torture Ada for approximately hundreds of years so that you can keep him alive and aware of the fact that you are utterly annihilating every single thing that he loves and cares about you are a [ __ ] monster I'm gonna say something spicy now which I know is slightly off brand but here we go Adar is a better person than Galadriel Adar cares deeply for the Orcs and wants them to have a home he is willing to threaten and kill people to achieve this Galadriel has little regard for her own life or the lives of her companions is willing to threaten murder to get what she wants is planning a genocide and considers centuries of pointless torture to be not only acceptable but desirable both Adar and galagial have questionable methods but Adar very much cares about those around him whereas we are repeatedly shown that galagial explicitly only cares about herself is a better person than Galadriel I'm honestly rooting for Ada here once again congratulations to the writers of rings of power your villain is substantially more sympathetic character than your hero and no you did not do this deliberately this is not some clever subversion this is incompetence I won't elaborate further for now but I will be covering this concept when I do my end of series autopsy anyway Adar observes that glad you'll is pretty [ __ ] disgusting and she replies perhaps you'll search for more because successor should have ended in your own mirror perhaps I shall begin I have no further comment on this beyond what I already said she moves to kill Adar and hellbrand stops her revealing that he was present for this entire scene and thus knows what both characters just said to each other as they leave Adar asks hellbrand who he is and he does not answer hmm I wonder cares deeply for the Orcs And The Galadriel is morally okay with genocide cannot control her in motions is willing to torture someone to get what she wants and is willing to go out of her way to torture someone for no reason we then follow Gladwell and hellbrandt outside and she thanks him for stopping her from killing Ada halbrand says that after having fought at galadriel's side he thinks he has achieved a degree of Peace So it turns out that Not only was galagial absolutely correct when she told albrand that he won't find peace in numenor whilst manipulating him into doing what she wants but also that Galadriel herself is specifically the thing that gave Hal brand peace she is such a good person guys so inspiring and totally not a contemptible piece of work she then responds that she also felt that special feeling from fighting alongside Hal brand and they lock eyes romantically so she is gonna ride on sauron's meat scepter isn't she before she can however halbrand is called to see the queen regent we then see that the surviving southlanders and numenorians are drinking and chatting and I'm sorry I did a battle not literally just take place here this place looks brand new they didn't even try there is no damage to anything there are no bodies there is no blood did they film this scene before trashing the set to film the battle scene did they think no one would notice do they just not care I have no [ __ ] idea you also see that Bronwyn is up and running again I guess those seeds must contain some ungodly cocktail of methamphetamine crack and Monster Energy anyway she thanks Muriel and says her people are alive because of her indeed darling she saw a sign from the gods and set sail over a month before you even knew anything remotely orky was going on actually if we think about this a little Depot Muriel was convinced by galagio that the Orcs were taking over the Southlands and were an imminent threat to the rest of Middle Earth presumably including numenor she assembled an army and sailed across the ocean to wipe them out and sit hellbrand on the throne having arrived the numenoreans have killed what 50 Orcs maybe a hundred shouldn't she be furious that Galadriel was wrong I know their timely arrival did indeed save the remaining southlanders all 20 of them but Muriel did not travel across the world to save 20 people she came to wipe out the Orcs I guess it is a good thing too that they only needed 500 soldiers anyway Muriel then replies that as she understands it the southlanders are alive because of Bronwyn a burden I never sought to take up what what yes you [ __ ] did who gave you the right to decide everyone who decided to come to this Tower wall drink including you you just decided that you were in charge and no one stopped you a few of the finest leaders do Muriel is the queen because she is the daughter of the king how the two of you came into your respective roles as strong Independence sorry I mean your two roles as totally competent leaders is not comparable whatsoever after thoroughly congratulating each other for being totally amazing and the saviors of all Muriel introduces Bronwyn to hellbrand revealing that he is their promised King is it true are you the king we were promised yes yeah they don't know who Hal brand is he is some guy with a thing who says that he is the king they don't have any reason to accept him other than that he looks somewhat authoritative a quick reminder that the method by which halbrand was convinced to assume this role is utter nonsense full explanation in my coverage of episode 5. anyway the survivors salute King hellbrand given that there were maybe 20 people in that Tavern and you know what [ __ ] it let's just say all 20 of them survived the Southlands hellbran's Kingdom consists of 20 people are there more we don't have any reason to believe there are more everyone was at ostrith and everyone from austriath either defected or came here but yeah woo how Brown is the king woo this goddamn show Theo and Aaron dear then have a chat and arinder tells Theo to not feel bad about giving up the evil sword to add up Theo then tells us exactly what he feels because rule number four for writing rings of power is to have your character say exactly what they are thinking it's not just guilt loss loss when it was in my hands felt powerful fear explains that he felt powerful when he held the evil sword arendia then hands Theo the evil sword and says he should rid himself of its power by giving it to the numenorians to toss into the sea on their way home and he then leaves that's a damn stupid thing to do a few quick things Theo has just told aundee that the evil sword makes him feel powerful it clearly has some kind of one ring type effect on him or perhaps on people in general so arendir gives it to him this seems wildly irresponsible but alright also dropping the evil sword into the ocean seems like as good a way to get rid of it as any as it apparently can't be destroyed and also does not have any kind of one ring-like will of its own however arundir has just given the super secret evil McGuffin to a child which means he is the second character to have done this anyway oh boy guys it's coming prepare thine selves Theo unwraps the hitherto undisclosed cloth wrapping contain oh yeah it's not there whoops these people as if we needed any further Evidence are incomprehensibly unintelligent I will place the blame specifically on Galadriel and arendir arendir tells Galadriel that come on yours both of us see us galagio then captures Adar and does not check to see what is contained within the mystery cloth wrapping okay maybe Gladwell is so hell-bent on threatening genocide in centuries of mental torment to be bothered by this but arendir has no such excuse he should have been on this the [ __ ] second that he saw galagial return so Galadriel is an idiot and Aaron deer is an idiot we then see that wall Drag The Crafty creepster did manage to get out of tirad he also has the evil sword with him meaning that Adar did in fact give it to waldrag who to him is just some Rando that kills people when you ask nicely Adar apparently does not respect waldrick even after he kills captain racism because he seems to completely ignore him meaning no offense Lord father but where is he wow this is so wrong but oh well character consistency yada yada so what happens next is wall drag drives the sword into a hole in the ground in ostrich which we had seen in episode 5 although it was still unknown what it did as a result of this the dam opens at ostrich and the Lake floods out as a result of this water begins to explode out of the ground in tehrad we see that the water is rushing through the tunnels and down the trench that the Orcs had been digging we see that the trench is heading towards this mountain it turns out that this is in fact not a mountain it is a volcano the water pours into the volcano and causes it to erupt as this is happening Ellendale rushes to protect the queen is sildor to protect his horse on Tamo to find afrock and arinder and Bronwyn to find Theo Galadriel meanwhile stands motionless staring down the oncoming cloud of volcanic matter as it engulfs her and the credits roll thank you I am struggling to find the words I don't know how to explain sufficiently why this is so awful I am speechless hold on I need a minute [Music] all right let's do this there is a volcano here now of course I already knew this because I'm familiar with the Lord of the Rings rings of power however has not communicated this meaning that the Revelation that this is a volcano comes out of [ __ ] nowhere there are zero references to it being a volcano in the entire six hours of run time so far I am not a geologist so my understanding of how volcanoes work is very rudimentary as I understand it if water enters a volcano the water will be superheated and will thus become gas as gas occupies more space than a liquid this leads to increased pressure inside the volcano which then leads to the contents of the volcano spewing out of the top what we saw was water pouring in through a hole into a vast empty chamber which then caused the volcano to turn into a thermonuclear bomb adding water to a volcano does not do this there is no pressure inside this giant empty chamber this isn't how this works and the result of this is that the volcano annihilates everything nearby I know I'm jumping ahead slightly because I haven't yet seen episode 7 or 8. so the only person I know survives is Galadriel but regardless had the show cut away and not explicitly shown as the ash cloud of superheated volcanic matter consuming tehrad then I would have had serious questions as to how the hell anything survived because the show one under the cool shot of glad you're facing down a pyroclastic flow this has made this problem even worse we see explicitly what happens there is no ambiguity for the writers to hide behind there is no question Galadriel is dead as are the remaining southlanders the surviving Orcs Adar the numenorians everyone is dead you can survive jumping into the ocean provided you accidentally crossed paths with a couple of rescue boats you cannot survive this this [ __ ] is literally a thousand degrees if not more being anywhere near this will liquefy you what we have just seen is Galadriel gets shot in the face and yet miraculously survive there are now no Stakes because characters can survive impossible things but random the show has already established that evil fire is not hot don't give me that [ __ ] [ __ ] older ego you can't have it both ways if the contents of the volcano were not hot then it would not have erupted not that it should have erupted anyway but you get my point this scene is probably the most absurd scene in the series so far because it only happens due to multiple conveniences and contrivances and utter guard for basic physics and incredible levels of plot armor okay so usually at this point I do an overall breakdown of each plot thread to work out how the writers bent time and space in order to achieve their goals but as episode 6 consists entirely of one single plot line I will instead have a look at adar's plan now that it has been revealed in full at our first needed to acquire Orcs luckily the Southlands is Full Of Orcs so we're good to go then Adar needs to start digging the trench from Mount Doom to ostrith because Orcs can't work during the day unless of course you give them a hat all the writers forget Adar needed to speed things up a bit by acquiring some slave labor he has the Orcs tunnel underneath the various Villages of the Southlands so as to abduct their populaces now critically this is a mission of stealth because if Adar and the Orcs get caught early then the whole thing falls apart so in order to avoid being seen the Orcs have to quietly Burn Down The Villages that they raided so that no one notices that they're gone and they also have to rip down every Tree near them to turn the Southlands into a Barren hellscape which will of course mean that no one is able to see them after all the Unseen giant evil trench is the deadliest now in order to actually open the dam Ed I need to acquire the evil sword he knows about this because shut up and don't think about it luckily for him a child was seen in one of the villages carrying it luckily for him this child was in the village because the adults had forgotten to bring any food with them when they evacuated so this is really their fault had this not happened Adar would not know where the evil sword is anyway unable to believe his luck that some kid just popped up out of nowhere with the evil sword and is now known to be an ostrith at our attacks the southlanders first at osterith and then at tehrad he acquires the evil sword by threatening to kill people and gives it to woldrig as a distraction Adder will need to grab an ax and wrap it up to disguise it as the evil sword so that the southlanders waste their time chasing the wrong McGuffin Hadar is aware of how profoundly unintelligent the southlanders are after observing them forgetting to bring any food with them during an evacuation so he is confident that they will not actually check to see if the decoy is in fact the real thing until it is too late meanwhile waldrag will then be able to escape an active Battlefield unharmed return to ostrich insert the evil sword into the keyhole and open the dam this will cause the contents of the lake to spill out into the trench into the volcano and thus cause the volcano to erupt well done Adam as a result of the volcano erupting the Orcs now have a home I'd think well then it's Question Time who made the evil sword we can assume Sauron due to the market oh no sorry due to the map of the Southlands being engraved on it why did Sauron make an evil sword to open a dam did he add this to austereth did he build austereth I was under the impression that ostrich was built by the elves but I could be wrong here how does Adar know about all this why did wooljick have the evil sword at the beginning of the series why did Adar wait until now to start building the trenches why was the trench not built thousands of years prior when the evil sword was made why did the elves who were previously in ostrith for 67 years not noticed this giant trench slowly being dug alongside all the deforestation why does exploding a volcano mean that Orcs now have a home is it just gonna block out the Sun forever I'm not even going to summarize this I honestly think this speaks for itself okay so that brings us to the end of episode 6 of rings of power in this episode we had more absurdly convoluted and nonsensical plans we had incredible levels of plot armor we had a plot driven entirely by bending time and space relying on uninhibited luck and characters knowing things that they cannot know or doing things that they would not do and it ends with a moment so utterly ridiculous it is quite simply laughable the significant amount of time spent in episode 5 jumping through cognitive Hoops in order to let isildor join the Army also has not paid off yet so I'm assuming this will come later if not then a substantial chunk of episode 5 was spent wasting our time getting a silver spot in the Army via ruining characters for no reason so the big question I have is why did people who did not like episodes one to five like this episode well as long as you only absorb the purely superficial elements episode 6 of rings of power has big action big character moments and big emotional payoffs unfortunately the action scenes are mostly okay in isolation but are built on nonsense the big character moments and the emotional payoffs include Bronwyn and arendere finally embracing their romance just discovering that they had killed their own people Bronwyn being badly wounded the numenorians arriving heroically just in time Galadriel chasing Adar Hal Brandon nearly getting his revenge Galadriel and halbrand bonding emotionally Bronwyn and the southlanders cheering for their lost King who has finally returned and the final moments where Adar ultimately achieves his goal and Mount Doom erupts and destroys all in its path when I put it like that it sounds pretty cool if I gave this summary to someone who was interested in watching the show they may well say oh wow that sounds pretty awesome I can't wait to see all that the problem with the episode and the show in general is not the broad Strokes of what happens the problem is how and why the show makes these things happen in a good show this kind of thing would have been pretty cool no doubt but very little of it works at all probably the best scene in the episode is the one between arendir and Bronwyn before the battle but even that relies on nonsense for these two characters to even be present this entire show has pretty much become a perfect example of bad writing and I will never understand why anyone actually thinks otherwise give me some examples of it being badly written they say well by the time I finish this series I'll have at least 10 hours of that can you give me one example of it being well written because so far in these first six episodes and after over six hours of analysis I have identified two scenes that I think are well written and a third which I honestly think happened by accident overall episode 6 is absolutely not the best episode of the series I would probably give that award to episode 2. is episode 6 the worst probably not without thinking about it too much I'd say episodes three and five and maybe four are all worse but at this point it rather seems like comparing the state of the toilet bowl after I eat a vindaloo versus after I drink drain cleaner thank you guys so much for watching please do consider sharing liking or subscribing because again it is extremely motivating for me to actually get these videos out by the time I upload this video it will have been nearly two weeks since I uploaded part five and since then my channel has broken 500 subs and has also broken a thousand Subs which I again never expected that so many people would be enjoying my rings of power content as always if you have any comments if you agree with me or disagree if you think I missed something or got something wrong please do leave a comment because I do read all of my comments thank you again and I will see you in my next video

Channel: Random Film Talk

Views: 98,080

Keywords: random film talk, review, film, movie, movie review, film review, reviews, scene, clip, trailer, teaser, amazon rings of power, lord of the rings, rings of power review, a shadow of the past, rings of power explained, rings of power analysis, galadriel, elrond, rings of power, the rings of power, rings of power is bad, rings of power sucks, rings of power breakdown, rings of power episode 6, rings of power udun, rings of power volcano

Id: oP158vqMIYw

Length: 77min 37sec (4657 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 21 2022