Hey guys, and welcome to my review for the Rings of Power, Episode 5, Partings.
So we’re getting close to the end of the season now with only 3 episodes left, and
unfortunately the show still has yet to capture my interest, beyond references to the books.
The brief bit of optimism I had with the last episode was pretty much dashed in this one,
with things progressing in a way I’m not very excited about.
I didn’t hate this episode, but to me it was a return to boring, bad writing coupled
with subpar acting, all of which struggles to hold my interest.
But I’ll get into all that a little later and for now focus on the positives with my
top 5 moments of the night.
There weren’t all that many references this time around, but there were still a few I
very much enjoyed, with fifth best moment of the episode going to the strange white
clad women searching for the man from the sky.
This scene sent my mind racing because the very first thing that came to mind when I
saw them was a magic cult.
And when I think of magic cults in relation to LOTR, I think of the Blue Wizards Alatar
and Pallando, which according to some stories started magic cults in the east.
This then made me think that the man from the sky might not be gandalf after all, but
one of the blue wizards, since according to one version of the story, they came in the
second age to middle-earth and helped diminish Sauron’s influence in the east, while gandalf
and the other wizards arrived later in the third age.
And while I suppose it could be a blue, the connection to the magic cult doesn’t really
make sense because it wouldn’t exist before the blues went east.
So I actually went online to see what other people thought, and apparently many seem to
think they are the Cult of Melkor, which would make sense, as they play an important role
in the eventual downfall of Numenor.
And if this is the case it’s pretty cool as I would enjoy learning more about them.
I saw a lot of people making fun of how they look, but to be honest I like their look,
if they really are Melkor Cultists, then they more or less look like what I might imagine,
though I might have guessed robes of red and black.
Moving onto the number four spot, I went with Elrond keeping his promise to Durin.
Kind of.
I actually really liked the dwarf scenes this time around, and enjoyed Durin’s gag about
the table as well as his overall relationship with Elrond.
If I was to get technical I think it’s pretty obvious Elrond totally revealed that he knew
about the Mithril during his meeting with Gil-galad, even if he didn’t mouth the actual
words.
His behaviour and inability to answer all but confirmed it.
Even so, from Elrond’s perspective at least, he didn’t break his word to his friend,
which I was happy to see.
Given how lightly Gil-galad treated Elrond’s oath, I don’t think promises carry the same
weight in this show as they do in the books, but it still brought to mind the many stories
about men, humans and dwarves swearing oaths and making agreements that could not be broken
under any circumstance.
The greatest example of this is when the elven high king and his sons swore the oath of feanor,
vowing to fight morgoth and recover the silmaril jewels, only to be led down a path of death
and destruction that inadvertently helped Morgoth in his conquest of Beleriand.
Another story about oaths that came to mind, was when Finrod, the brother of Galadriel,
made a promise of aid to the human house of beor and was called to fulfill that promise
a generation later, when the new chieftain arrived infront of King Finrod of nargothrond
and presented the ring of barahir, which symbolized their pact of friendship.
Though Finrod had everything to lose, violating his oath was not an option, and so he gave
up his crown, and went off on a dangerous quest with only a handful of companions.
This quest ultimately cost his life, when he sacrificed himself to save the chieftain,
which as Galadriel mentioned in this episode, meant Finrod was killed in a place of darkness
and despair by servants of Sauron.
As it so happens the man Finrod helped and saved was Beren, a human who went on to steal
a silmaril from the crown of Morgoth and was an ancestor to Elrond, Elros, Pharazon, Aragorn
and other great heroes.
For the third best moment of the episode, I chose Pharazon’s discussion with his son
about his support for Miriel’s war.
I really enjoyed this brief conversation, as it clarified some things for me.
I had assumed Numenor was already a mighty Empire by this time, like in the books.
But Apparently not.
Since the timeline is all jumbled it looks like it will be Pharazon who implements the
imperial side of Numenor policy.
In the books Numenor spent thousands of years mastering the sea and exploring the world,
even settling colonies in many foreign lands.
At first they were generous and kind to those they encountered, but over time grew more
harsh and tyrannical, extracting tributes, like Pharazon mentioned, from lesser human
settlements across the world.
It seems Pharazon is going to be implementing these expansionist policies on a much smaller
scale, focusing on the northwest of the continent, beginning with the southlands.
I also enjoyed hearing them talk about Pharazon helping depose Miriel’s father, which is
another thing taken from the books, as Pharazon and his father were part of the King’s Men
Faction, those who believed in Numenorean Supremacy, while Miriel and her father were
part of the Faithful, those still loyal to the Valar and Elves.
For the number two spot I went with the Mithril origin story.
So I was a little conflicted on this one cause this overall story is not from the books and
doesn’t really make any sense in that context.
However, since the show is changing so much I actually kind of liked this story, and the
visuals were very impressive.
Breaking it down into pieces, there are some references that could be extracted, like mentioning
Manwe, king of the valar and the brother of morgoth.
There was also the lost silmaril atop a mountain, which I think would have to be the silmaril
of Maedhros, the eldest of son of Feanor who threw his jewel into a chasm within the earth.
It’s unlikely to the other two because one ended up in the sea while the other was with
Earendil in the sky.
The tree was also a nice reminder of the two trees of valinor, whose light was captured
in the silmarils, and according to this story was then transferred into mithril ore.
Althought the Mithril origin is made up, the discovery of a Mithril deposit during this
time period is actually from the books, as one of the reasons Celebrimbor and the Elves
settled in Eregion was so they could trade with Khazad Dum where the dwarves recently
discovered mithril veins, as is happening in the show.
Now finally for the best moment of the episode, I chose Gil galad and Elrond discussing why
they need mithril.
Whereas in the books they want it to craft objects of beauty and strength, in the show
the light of the Eldar is directly tied to the light of Valinor, and thus can be restored
by light from the two trees, which is contained in mithril.
Although this part of the story is made up by the show, the individual elements do make
reference to the books.
Starting with the idea behind the Light of the Eldar.
So in the books, the Eldar are the elves who left their original homeland to go live in
enchanted paradise of Valinor.
Though not all of them made it, those that did grew wise and powerful, gaining much knowledge
and training from the Valar, in addition to being saturated with magical energy on a daily
basis.
When some of these Elves then left to fight Morgoth in middle earth, they were extremely
powerful, wise, beautiful and intelligent able to accomplish extraordinary feats, which
is how Feanor was able to kill multiple Balrogs and Fingolfin held his own in single combat
against Morgoth.
Galadriel, as the neice of these two legendary Elves, also possessed extraordinary abilities,
which is one of the reasons it doesn’t bother me as much as other people that Galadriel
is capable of crazy feats like killing ice trolls by herself.
Although it’s true that in the books she is not portrayed as a sword carrying warrior
like her brothers, she is still a powerful magic user who did fight in mutiple battles
and was capable of incredible things, like during the Fall of Dol Guldur during the war
of the ring, when she single handily threw down it’s walls, emptied its pits and cleansed
the region of corruption.
However, the longer the Elves stayed outside of Valinor, the Light of the Eldar slowly
left them.
In fact the life energy of all Elves outside Valinor was slowly seeping away at all times.
This was because of Morgoth’s primodrial influence over the creation of the world,
meaning the very land itself is tainted with his evil.
Therefore the only region where the Elves can escape this slow degradation is in Valinor
because of the magic of the Valar and Maiar.
However this degradation was slow, so those Elves who never returned to Valinor or never
went in the first place, would, by the end of the fourth age, fade into shadow as Elrond
mentioned, losing their physical bodies to the decay of time.
Since Elves are immortal, their spirits would go on wandering the world of the unseen, but
would not longer be able to interact with physical reality.
So that’s why I believe the corruption Elrond saw was the taint of Morgoth being activated
by the re-emergence of Sauron and the war in the southlands.
Why it’s spreading so quickly however I have no idea.
So those were my top my five moments for the night, and while I liked some aspects of this
episode, there were also quite a few things I did not enjoy, some were more minor complaints
while others absolutely gutted any excitement I might have had for future episodes.
Staring with some more minor criuticisms I found it incredibly odd the Numenoreans needed
instruction on how to kill orcs.
I get that their history is different in the show and I guess they haven’t seen an orc
in thousands of years, but I still found this ridiculous.
Then there was Bronwyn the healer women being the only leader of the southlands.
I found it odd, first of all that there were so few of their people, and second that there
was no one outside a random healer and an old bar tender that had any opinion of what
they should do or desire to lead.
I mean she’s a good leader I guess but I find the politics of the southlands frustratingly
non-exsistant.
I also wanted to mention that some of the acting on this show, in addition to the dialogue
is really starting to remind of the type of quality you might find from a show on the
CW, like the Flash, smallville or supernatural.
Those are all fine shows for what they are, but no one would ever mistake them from a
top quality production.
The biggest reason this stood out to me, was Galadriel’s increasingly bad acting.
Although I kind of liked her intensity in the first episode, they’ve taken it to such
a comical extreme I just can’t ignore it.
The way she half squints her eyes in this strange, crazy way in nearly every scene,
like she’s perpetually on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
I just can’t take her seriously and can’t wait for her to be off the screen.
I also found Isildur utterly insufferable this entire episode and I’m not sure why
they’re choosing to make him so unlikable.
Although I did like the scene where he got punched in the face.
Now the last two criticisms I had were the more major ones IMO.
Starting with Adar accepting the oaths of the Southlanders.
I actually liked this scene on its own, and might have put it in my top 5 moments, except,
for me, it was ruined because I felt they were further implying Adar was not Sauron.
One of the things I was really hoping to avoid, were silly twists put in just for the sake
having a twist.
In this case I was really hoping they would avoid making Halbrant be Sauron, but that
seemed to be the implication I felt when Adar got upset hearing Sauron’s name.
Maybe he reacted that way for another reason, but to me it definitely felt like he did not
like being called Sauron, or at least didn’t like hearing others use that name.
This immediately made me think maybe the rumors are true and Adar is a rival or servant of
Sauron, and that Galadriel’s companion is actually the dark lord, already having infiltrated
Numenor.
I absolutely do not want this to be the case, as there are so many implications from that
decision that I would not enjoy, including what appears to be a budding romance between
Halbrant and galadriel.
If he really ends up being Sauron, then having Galadriel so easily fooled by him, while in
the books she was one of the only ones capable of seeing through his lies, would just be
a massive disappointment.
Also I thought Adar was playing the role of Sauron very well, if he is not Sauron, and
instead some made up character, it will feel like a waste of a good actor and role.
But even after all these criticisms, the real problem I had with this episode came near
the end, when we finally got a look at the great Numenorean flee, only to learn it was
5 ships with 500 warriors, cut down to three ships with three hundred.
My god was this absurd.
I could not believe they made Numenor looks so small scale and anti-epic.
In the books Numenor’s armada’s and legions were massive, as were the armies of Sauron.
But sending so few men and having so few ships, while making it seem like this is some grand
expedition that will make or break the queen’s reign, I was just completely shocked and actually
started laughing at the very end when the ships were sailing out.
This was not the Numenor I wanted to see.
So that’s it for my review of the Rings of Power, Episodes 5.
So how did you all feel about this one?
Am I being to harsh?
Or not harsh enough?
let me know what you think in the comments and like always be sure to check out my spoiler
free Prelude to the Rings of Power video, as well as my spoiler filled videos about
the Rings of Power, Kingdom of Numenor and Second Age, which go over all the events of
this period in detail.
Links found below.
So that’s it for now guys, thank you all for watching and I’ll see you in the next
one.