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There were many things wrong with the awful slog that was the first Rings of Power episode. The pacing sucks. So very very much. The dialogue is just flat out bad, with almost all of it being cringe at best. I was bored. Flat out bored.

These people don’t understand Tolkien at all. No, not even a little. This has as much to do with Tolkien as Satanism has to do with Christianity.

Confused? Thinking that hyperbole?

Here’s three very curious facts The Rings of Power left out:

1. THEY DON’T EVEN MENTION THE VALAR. Who are they, you ask? They’re the major gods of Middle Earth. They’re literally what Valinor, the land of the Far West, is named for! The elves lived with them, in eternal blessedness. 

Until Morgoth, one of the most powerful of the Valar, was able to destroy the light of the trees.

Yes Tolkien fans I oversimplified a bit. Shut up. At  least I mentioned them!!! The Valar invited the elves to live with them.

2. THE NOLDOR AREN’T THE GOOD GUYS. Who are the Noldor? The elves who swore revenge upon Morgoth and left the light of Valinor. The Valar point blank told them not to go. Morgoth was entirely out of their league. The Noldor didn’t listen… and then committed genocide to get to Middle Earth. 

Yup.

The Kinslaying.

The Noldor slew an entire civilization of sea faring elves to get their ships. Now, some of them (Galadriel among them) went acrost the ice way up north. But they didn’t reject their brethren who did the killing.

And then they got their asses kicked.

For thousands of years.

Eventually the Valar stepped in and sunk half of Middle Earth in a war one could rightfully call apocalyptic. The Noldor were totally useless, by and large, just like the Valar predicted.

3. THE NOLDOR CANNOT GO BACK TO VALINOR. Nope. Flat out. When they left Valinor the Noldor were forever banned from the continent, and all attempts to get back put you on a magical island, asleep, until the end of the world. Sleepy time night night!

Removing these three things completely changes the point of Tolkien’s stories. “We resisted” is the dumbest thing they could have said. Fighting Morgoth was not like fighting Sauron at all. The Noldor were not going out for justice, but for revenge. They did heinous things and destroyed much as a consequence.

Oh, and like I said it’s a banal piece of shit. Totally boring, and with fanfic levels of writing.