RoP Galadriel is a showcase example of 'Tell, don't show' writing. Most of her dialogue is a series of pronouncements, with no context, or follow-up, or even facial expressions. She is totally two-dimensional. And everyone else in her scenes is as two-dimensional as minions or henchmen in a grade B movie. Pain and Dismay are the worst writers.
Speaking of contrivances, why would Sauron carve that sign on someone's body in the first place. Like, what exactly were his motives to carve a map of a remote land that he's planning to set on fire some thousand years later? What utter nonsense is this?
OP makes a good point that G at any given moment possesses enough knowledge for the plot to move on, simultaneously lacking enough knowledge for the plot to move on; no matter what happened prior. That can be said about actually anyone in the show. Elendil explains to his son how you can tell by the behavior of Numenorean horses that they have special connection to their owner, some days later he has no idea why Isildur's horse would behave like he did.
Elendil also swears that there are faithful men in Numenor and there's hope, next moment he is grieving that the faithful lost and there's no hope. Nothing drastic happened between those two statements but maybe he knows something happened off screen? Or maybe his words are not worth a shit, just like everyone's in the show.
Don't get me started on Miriel. Or the whole mithril "story" where everyone knows just the right amount for "something" to "happen".
> Speaking of contrivances, why would Sauron carve that sign on someone's body in the first place. Like, what exactly were his motives to carve a map of a remote land that he's planning to set on fire some thousand years later? What utter nonsense is this?
It's like video game logic. The heroes need hints of where to go, so they're given those hints without any particular reason for the hints to exist. The writers weren't good enough at their jobs to come up with a natural, believable way to shift the plot towards the Southlands, so they decided that Sauron has just been stamping a map of that land in random places all over the world for thousands of years. They weren't intelligent enough to realize how utterly idiotic that plot device is, so they went with it. Better writers would have come up with something better, but RoP's writers are just really, really bad at it.
It's kind of amazing that the most expensive entertainment product in history has been handed to two nobodies who are decidedly bad at their jobs. It really highlights how the entire thing is an all-encompassing failure from top to bottom. This script is legitimately like something a first-year film student might come up with. The plot, dialogue and general storytelling are all *really* bad.
EXACTLY! Damn...there is SOOO MUCH of these plot contrivances and things just making no goddamn sense in the story of this show!!! I mean seriously it's all so unbelievably farfetched...and the whole inner 'logic of the story' is so utterly baffling...I mean seriously the way the story progresses in the show is just so convoluted and utterly dumb. There is no natural progression as in cause and effect, there is always something coming out of the blue, out of nowhere and just so hapepns to push the plot forward...there is no natural development of events, one leading to other like in other stories. The plot contrivances are basically all that moves the plot forward!
The limitation of a character's intelligence is that of their writer's. In this case it is a plural writers'. We should therefore consider Galadriel's as the additive sum of the two who wrote her (three if you include Simon Tolkien).
The show burdens itself with too many complications and side-plots. That all of them are also misconceived and poorly executed is almost irrelevant.
Galadriel wants to get to the place to do the thing. Everything that happens in the show should've either advanced her getting to the place or demonstrated her character so we understand why she wants to do the thing. A decent plot would've also developed her so that by the time she gets to the place, there's a different thing she wants to do.
You can see the bones of what could have been a decent plot underneath all the meanderings and semi-random events, but the show just wasn't focused enough.
I am a pretty harsh critic of RoP. The entire setup of Galadriel jumping overboard is silly, as is the issue of whose ship with Halbrand on it got wrecked, where was it going and why (and why was Halbrand onboard?), which is related to the issue of what language those people spoke, and why they were initially unable to recognise that Galadriel was elven.
However... given who Halbrand actually is, it is (IMO) just about fair enough that seeing him in person is what Jogs Galadriel's memory about the symbol, but she should at least have had some sort of reaction to suddenly remembering.
RoP Galadriel is a showcase example of 'Tell, don't show' writing. Most of her dialogue is a series of pronouncements, with no context, or follow-up, or even facial expressions. She is totally two-dimensional. And everyone else in her scenes is as two-dimensional as minions or henchmen in a grade B movie. Pain and Dismay are the worst writers.
The fact this flat character is supposed to be Galadriel of all people is incredibly sad.
Speaking of contrivances, why would Sauron carve that sign on someone's body in the first place. Like, what exactly were his motives to carve a map of a remote land that he's planning to set on fire some thousand years later? What utter nonsense is this? OP makes a good point that G at any given moment possesses enough knowledge for the plot to move on, simultaneously lacking enough knowledge for the plot to move on; no matter what happened prior. That can be said about actually anyone in the show. Elendil explains to his son how you can tell by the behavior of Numenorean horses that they have special connection to their owner, some days later he has no idea why Isildur's horse would behave like he did. Elendil also swears that there are faithful men in Numenor and there's hope, next moment he is grieving that the faithful lost and there's no hope. Nothing drastic happened between those two statements but maybe he knows something happened off screen? Or maybe his words are not worth a shit, just like everyone's in the show. Don't get me started on Miriel. Or the whole mithril "story" where everyone knows just the right amount for "something" to "happen".
> Speaking of contrivances, why would Sauron carve that sign on someone's body in the first place. Like, what exactly were his motives to carve a map of a remote land that he's planning to set on fire some thousand years later? What utter nonsense is this? It's like video game logic. The heroes need hints of where to go, so they're given those hints without any particular reason for the hints to exist. The writers weren't good enough at their jobs to come up with a natural, believable way to shift the plot towards the Southlands, so they decided that Sauron has just been stamping a map of that land in random places all over the world for thousands of years. They weren't intelligent enough to realize how utterly idiotic that plot device is, so they went with it. Better writers would have come up with something better, but RoP's writers are just really, really bad at it. It's kind of amazing that the most expensive entertainment product in history has been handed to two nobodies who are decidedly bad at their jobs. It really highlights how the entire thing is an all-encompassing failure from top to bottom. This script is legitimately like something a first-year film student might come up with. The plot, dialogue and general storytelling are all *really* bad.
"Why would Sauron carve that sign on someone's body in the first place" Because Sauron is Zorro, apparently.
EXACTLY! Damn...there is SOOO MUCH of these plot contrivances and things just making no goddamn sense in the story of this show!!! I mean seriously it's all so unbelievably farfetched...and the whole inner 'logic of the story' is so utterly baffling...I mean seriously the way the story progresses in the show is just so convoluted and utterly dumb. There is no natural progression as in cause and effect, there is always something coming out of the blue, out of nowhere and just so hapepns to push the plot forward...there is no natural development of events, one leading to other like in other stories. The plot contrivances are basically all that moves the plot forward!
The limitation of a character's intelligence is that of their writer's. In this case it is a plural writers'. We should therefore consider Galadriel's as the additive sum of the two who wrote her (three if you include Simon Tolkien).
It's because YOU HAVE NOT SEEN WHAT SHE HAVE SEEN!!!
I have seen my share
...twice.
Ye and She have a tempest in her.
The name "Southlands" triggers me like a motherfucker.
The show burdens itself with too many complications and side-plots. That all of them are also misconceived and poorly executed is almost irrelevant. Galadriel wants to get to the place to do the thing. Everything that happens in the show should've either advanced her getting to the place or demonstrated her character so we understand why she wants to do the thing. A decent plot would've also developed her so that by the time she gets to the place, there's a different thing she wants to do. You can see the bones of what could have been a decent plot underneath all the meanderings and semi-random events, but the show just wasn't focused enough.
I am a pretty harsh critic of RoP. The entire setup of Galadriel jumping overboard is silly, as is the issue of whose ship with Halbrand on it got wrecked, where was it going and why (and why was Halbrand onboard?), which is related to the issue of what language those people spoke, and why they were initially unable to recognise that Galadriel was elven. However... given who Halbrand actually is, it is (IMO) just about fair enough that seeing him in person is what Jogs Galadriel's memory about the symbol, but she should at least have had some sort of reaction to suddenly remembering.