This is the blog post version of the talk I gave at the New York Tolkien Conference last summer (2025). It also revisits a few of the things I said in my Mythmoot talk from a few years before. But all in all, it’s about the writing of The Silmarillion Primer, a book which I promise is about to drop soon. Since it’s a bit long, I’ve made this just part 1. This one’s about the characters in The Silmarillion.
Read the doom that is writtenTag: j.r.r. tolkien
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Go not to me for true film criticism, for I will say both “It was great!” and “It wasn’t that great” about almost anything. Almost.
But! It’s 2024, and I got to take my family to see a Lord of the Rings film in December just as it premiered. That felt . . . good, and a tiny bit nostalgic. I still have more enthusiasm in me than disappointment, and as always, more Tolkien is better than less Tolkien. Even poorly made Tolkien adaptations (which this wasn’t) is an excuse to talk about Tolkien . . .
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The finale of season 2 The Rings of Power, quite surprisingly, didn’t terribly disappoint me. I enjoyed it more than I thought it would, and some plot threads ended . . . not as cringey as I expected. But let’s get to it.
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Let’s get to it.
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One of my readers has kindly reminded me of something I previously wrote on the subject of Tolkien adaptations, and I would do well to remember it. They were my closing remarks in my review of the first three episodes of The Rings of Power.
This is from 2022, when the show had only just begun to air . . .
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Just diving right in . . .
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Man oh man, is this show on a crazy fast-track. It’s dizzying. Time to dive into some particulars while I have some energy.
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I’m going to try and keep this bullet list shorter, simply because it’s been hard to catch up. I wish they’d released these episodes one at a time, even from the start! It’s a bit exhausting.
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Here is an admittedly long bullet list of some of my thoughts and opinions concerning the first episode of the Rings of Power season 2 episode 1, “Elven Kings Under the Sky.” I say “some” because I simply cannot contain them all! Spoilers, of course, abound.
An important disclaimer: I do not hate The Rings of Power. I’m still watching and I am very entertained. I do wish I was more than entertained by it, because it’s inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien. The show is still far and away the best fantasy television series around.
But here I would like to record many of my opinions. And they are only opinions.
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Foreshadowed and Foresung 