Solo4114
Master Member
To be clear: I didn't hate it either. If I had, I would've turned it off and put on reruns of DS9 or Buffy or something. I like the show, but it's got some pretty glaring flaws, and I can't say that -- based on what I've seen so far -- I think the show will end up being satisfying. I'll give a Season 2 a chance, but I'm leery of getting too invested in it if only because I sense that they won't know how to stick the landing, and the show will end up being more frustrating than anything else. Meanwhile, I feel a lot more confident about investing in House of the Dragon, if only because the story seems to be being told in an effective way.
I sort of saw it coming, and they hinted at it here and there, but they also wanted to play Mystery Box games by hinting at maybe it's Not-Gandalf who's Sauron or maybe it's one of the Three Inconsequential Sisters or maybe it's Adar or whatever. Again and again I find myself seeing incidents of the show choosing to create tension and drama for the sake of messing with the audience, more than because it's organic to the narrative, and I've gotten to a point with storytelling in general where I just don't have a lot of patience for that anymore, especially if they also end up crapping the bed on the big reveal.
Shows and films -- not just this one -- spend so much time trying to toy with audiences that they forget how to actually tell a coherent story and create a believable world. It makes sense that Sauron would be hidden, and would be also walking somewhere in the world. That's fine. I have no problem with that. But it feels like the characters should just be allowed to be rather than to serve as ways to say "oooh, maybe Sauron is THIS guy? No, no, maybe it's THAT guy? No, but now you're back to thinking about the first guy, right?" That's just screwing with the audience for the sake of screwing with the audience.
Same story with all the "vibes" moments like the cavalry arriving in thrilling fashion just at the critical moment. It makes sense from a "manipulate and play to the audience" angle, but it makes no sense in terms of "Wait, did they sail thru a friggin' wormhole?! How did they get there so fast?!" And then, whoops, sorry, we don't have any time to deal with these folks because we've run out of time and need to get them 3 rings built fast! What was the point of focusing on, say, the southern pretty lady and her quasi-boyfriend elf dude?
Was this all part of Sauron's plan? Like....really? What exactly was that plan, dude? Lay it out for me, and then tell me how any of it makes a lick of goddamn sense. You can't because it doesn't. BUT, it makes sense if you want to hit certain beats for the audience. We want to touch on these five points, and then everything else in between is just stuff to shuffle the pieces around so they get to those points, even if it doesn't end up holding together in any coherent sense. Or maybe there never really was a plan, and Sauron just kinda....lucked into becoming the Dark Lord, in which case, he suddenly seems a LOT less menacing and powerful.
