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wikagirl · 2 months

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artwork and some cool little stories about skyrim inspired tabletop a friend is hosting for me and my friends below the cut cuz zhis is kinda long

Okay so I have mentioned this thing before a couple times on my blog but now I actually have all the character art done so let me actually tell you something about The Company Of Dragons or TCOD as we called the discord channel for it.

My homie Emmet wanted to once again host a tabletop after not having done one in quite a bit and all of us are reeaaaaaalllllyyyyyy into skyrim, like it wa sliterally my first actual big game title I have ever played and even his friggen stepmom played it after his dad just wouldn't shut up about it after he convinced him to play it so he took the story of the game and modified it into a tabletop cambaing based off of the system of the german The Dark Eye tabletop.

He basicly wrote a skyrim AU where we still more or less play through the game but with quite a lot of changes so it is multi-player friendly and he also made it so the big guild questlines would be shaped into something of a little character questline since we somehow managed to nicely distribute our characters in such a way that we only ever really had one per big guild (like the mages, thieves, dark brotherhood and so on) and I thought it would be a cool idea to draw our characters in their "final form" so to speak at the end of their own arc where they get to be the main story focus and now I'll introduce you to all of them and some notable reappearing npcs that were played by friends and family who liked to listen in on our sessions.

Starting off with Myrkviar Valourheart which is a "written as you hear it" version of Myrkviðr which is the old norse word for darkwood or black forest and he is played by the literal dad of the DM and the metaphorical dad of our friend group, Yuri.

He is our dragonborn and actually did not start out as someone that is supposed to go to the block in helgen. He is a trusted guard from Falkreath and former captain of the helgen guards before the civil war broke out and the Jarl let the impirial soldiers take over the fortress and he basicly stuck around in helgen to serve as joint of communication between the impirials and falkreath itself. He lost his wife and one of his sons to the dragon attack and took it upon himself to slay the beast for the safety of the people he swore to protect when he joined the guards and to avenge his lost family members.

He stems from a long bloodline of werewolves, it doesn't really have much to do with the story we actually play through it's just a running joke that everyone in my friendgroup besides me goes were beast so they also made their characters were beasts in our tabletop.

His final kit is the nordic armor with nordic hammer and he wears the blueish sash that normally comes with the falkreath hold armor over it as a sign of his dedication to his duty and the people of his home.

Raggi Valourheart was originally supposed to be called Ragnar but his mother kept calling him Raggi as a nickname and now he is forever stuck with a name meaning something like "a tuft" or "shagginess" and he is played by our DMs brother Dwoshak.

Like his father he lost part of his family in helgen where he had lived all his life and was working as a smiths apprentice with the dream to forge a sword that could cut mountains.

After helgen he went with his father to whiterun where he would stay for most of the main story (mainly because dowshak didn't have a lot of time to play with us at that time and din't wanna hold us back by making us wait) where he just kind of existed in a state of shock for a while. Even though the wolfblood runs deep in his family (for previously mentioned in-joke reasons) he never managed to turn even after consuming werewolves blood but the trauma eventually broke what ever held the dam, leading to him more or less involunteerily getting dragged into the companions questline through some roundabout shenanigans and helping him past his trauma with the power of found extended family. He only takes on the mantle of Herold of the companions for about a year before passing it on to vilkas and resuming his passion as a smith under eorlung grey mane at the skyforge where he has just kinda been chillin for most of the sotry but he joins in every one in a while for some adventure.

He is wearing the ancient nord armor which usually doesn't come with any under clothing except for the leather bits that the plate is attached to but he is wearing his shirt and pants that he usually wears to work underneath because why the hell not also he has just accepted that his face and hands will never be clean of soot ever again.

Kåre Dahlson is a cousin to the Valourheart clan and likes to cosplay as a priest of mara to cover up his sithis worshipping and man murdering tendencies and just like his player, my friend André, he likes to tell some tall tales about the scars on his face when in reality they are just leftover of some poorly healed infected scratches from when his mothers rooster got to his face as a kid when he annoyed the bird a bit too much.

We haven't gotten around for his time to be the main character yet but he does get some time to shine on our characters first trip to solstheim where he aquires his werebear self and joint the ranks fo the injoke club.

He is wearing standart monk robes over top of the standart dark brotherhood assassins gear together with an amulet of mara. I drew him with allready having astrids dagger because.....reasons and don't let me saying that he "cosplays" as a monk of mara fool ye, he is quite proficient in the more....physical aspects of worshiping the goddess of love and he is very very lucky that our DM is not like me and does not make him flip a cin every time to see if he got an std or not.

last one on the werecreature club is our local thiev and honorary member of the girls club, M'lady who insists his name is pronounced Muh-La-Dee but that would not be funny now would it?

He is actually the one to be carted into helgen at the beginning and b makes it out with just a little bit of furr scorched off the top of his head. He has been a pick pocket for a long time but felt the need to leave the country after getting attacked by sinding when he was unfortunately in the area when the guy went into his murder frenzy which is how he ended up getting caught at the border.

Tumblr doesn't have enough space to actually even just describe this shit this guy gets up to when noone is looking but he does restore the thieves guild to its former glory and he also does do the sinding quest where, instead of accepting the saviours hide or the ring, he strikes a deal with hircine to please just make him a cat in wereform too.

some honorble mentions of the shit he has done are:

sneak into haelgas house to lace her horker tooth that she most definetly uses for kinky stuff with "foreign spice oils" after she got on his nerves too much one time.

Periodicly sneak into the house of maven blackbriar and move certain things just a little bit more to the left every time he does.

And once he got the nightingale armor he would put it on an stand stare at maul from the distance at night or through his window, standing juuuuuuust far enough in the shadows to have his form be obscurred but still have the blue glowing eyes the armor gives you visible because the idiot needs to learn to keep his mouth shut. M'lady did that for over three weeks until maul got paranoid and almost killed someone out of anxiety.

M'lady actually hates the nightingale armor because it tugs and squeeses at his fur so he wears a modified guildmasters armor. The glassdagger is kinda shitty in stats but he likes it because oooohhh shiny and the golden coin in his mane has the face markings of his mother engraved in it.

Also funfact the M' prefix for khajiit means something like "inexperienced" "apprentice" and sometimes also "virgin"

now the last major character is meeeee, and I was very creative because her name is literally just Vika... Vika Aldervel, her mother was a nord which is how she got the pasty bitch look but her father is a darkelf which is how she got the last name and her affinity for magic as well as the short queen genes for nord standart.

The whole point of this character was just to see how crazy the DM would let me get with it and how op he would let me go until he would slap me on the wrist....it was surpsiringly far because he actually used a lot of the chaos I created against me a lot of times.

Vika is the granddaughter of my oblivion character and if you have played the shivering isles dlc you know that your character literally becomes sheogorath, the daedric prince of madness, who you can also meet in skyrim. Vika traveled to skyrim to study the falmer and their ancient magics, the rest of the crew just kinda run into her in a random ass cave at some point while she is looking for anything falmer related and she just kinda tags a long from there on serving as the healer of the group and also money management. As you can tell by the art her plot is mostly the plot of the dawnguard dlc mixed in with sheogorath popping in every one in a while to cause chaos for his little darling granddaughter who is honestly more like a fun object to rotate to him but ey it makes for good plot moments.

Her gear is a modified version of the fur trimmed cloak to have a hood that protects from the sun. Her eye makeup is a direct rip from the swirly pattern of nocturnals robe decoration since, as someone raised by a dark elf, she mostly worships azura who often has nocturnal credited as her sister so she worships them as a duo but msotly still focusin on azura. Due to her amassing great power and devoting herself to azura even after taking the vampire form (which is a Molag Bal thing) the daedric prince of dusk blessed her with keeping her true face even in the normally hideous vampire form so that Vika may show the duskmothers true grace and beauty even when fighting in her most powerfull form (this took a several sessions long quest to beg for azuras forgiveness tho)

and now that we are done with the main squad, on to some lesser reoccuring characters, starting off with the spouses

So first of we have Moira (yes the hagraven you get married to in the sanguine quest) and Elmora.

Moira is an npc played by our DM and becomes part of Vikas quest to redeem herself in the eyes of azura after the whole crew takes a celibratory drink with sanguine after helping Elmora become the new headmaster of the mages college. All the other characters got one part ofn the Sanguine quest and Vika got the getting married to a hagraven part.

Azura promised Vika her favour back if she could turn the hagraven to worship her fully and wholeheartedly, and since azuras worship includes loving not only yourself and the goddess but also those who are around you and close to you fully and with your whole self, Vika got a bit over dedicated and her to her friendy dismay and the daedric princes surprise actually ended up falling in love with the hagraven and in turn turning her to azuras worship. Upon their (proper) marriage under azuras blessing the hagraven had her youthfull breauty given back to her. (your beauty is one of the things you sacrifice when you become a hagraven, also now is probably a good point to mention that azura is not only the dogges of magic, dusk and the stars but also of beauty and vanity and I did not pick those glow ups, the DM decided that that would be an azura thing to do)

Elmora or Elmo for short is played by Yuris IRL wife Anastasia and a high elf with high expectations of herself and those arund her. She initially starts out as a thalmor under Ancano at the college of winterhold, incredibly racist and classist and just generally a stuck up bitch but she recieves a reality check when the she gets sent to observe what ever the mages were up to in the saarthal digsite and gets locked in there, barely making it out alive.

We streched this questlien out over the course of the whole story so she kinda goes through a bit of a behind the scenes arc of actually wanting to learn more about magic and the college and, after finishing off Ancarno, ends up sticking with the group because she fears retaliation from her own former affiliates. Anastasia didn't play with us often but Elmo, mostly through exposure to our stupidity, warms up to the skyrim kind of life and accepts the position of headmaster og the guild after initially turning it down. Since we streched out the whole story from what feels like just a few days in game to the course of over a whole year in game she first develops a one sided infatuation for our dragonborn which eventually becomes equal once the guy gets over his grief and accepts that he needs to move on and is allowed to have good things in life too. They never actually end up getting married but they sure do act like they are.

and lastly Kena and Dra'meri

Kena means "scholar" in the dark elven language and is a name given to the falmer by Vika after finding her locked up in a cage badly bruised in a bandits cave. Falmer are blind and live underground so not knowing what to do in the unfamiliar ouside worls the falmer juds kind of followed the group around and eventually integrated similiar to the folks you can have in camp but not in your parts in bg3. The group eventually manages to help her find her home but she shows up every onve in a while to teach Vika the current falmer languge which is very different from the one of the ancients. She lets her hair grow longer as a sign of sisterhood with all the other women in our party who have longer hair and she is the first falmer since before the nords arrived to brave the valley of winds (the valley where whiterun is located, in the lore the falmer feared the place and the ancient nords didn't know why but since the skyforge was there and the place is associated with kynareth there are theories that it is basicly kynareths domain and she does not like the elves a lot iirc). She is played by our DM

Dra'meri is M'ladys elder sister and a mage. She was part of a one shot fun adventure that our DM wrote for us and she is played by our DMs little sister. The prefix Dra' can mean a lot of things, in this case it means wise woman. Dra'meri came to skyrim to drag her runaway brother back home by the scruff...which doesn't really work when you are only a tenth his size. She's mostly just a joke character who lives in whiterun but we love her a lot and if anything happens to her I will kill everyone in this room and then myself also I designed her outfit myself do you like it?

Anyways that is the main cast of our homebrew The Company Of Dragons....a bunch of idiots who like to travel in the company of dragons...and also fight the ones who don't wanna be their friend and eat their souls sometimes too. hope you had fun and no i did not checkread any of that.

#skyrim #skyrim oc #company of dragons #my fingers hurt #the elder scrolls oc #writing this took me three hours bc I kep re-writing stuff #I gave my character a bit of tummy chub in vampire form bc I have tummy chub #and that gave me so much anxiety when I drew it originally but now I like it a lot #kinda funny how my character worships azura for the magic but just keeps on getting the beauty instead #like emmet seriously let my char have a cool powerfull stick or something the star isn't really that usefull in combat you know #maybe I should try throwing it and have my character invent the elderscrolls equivalent of frizbee

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hirazuki · 2 years

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I said I wasn’t going to do the thing, but, eventually, inevitably, (and I’m sure you’re all shocked) I did the thing. My curiosity is insatiable and will be the death of me.

Thoughts under the cut!

Okay, we’re going to bullet list this shit, because otherwise it’s just going to be a stream of consciousness nightmare.

Rights

So, first off. The decision to deal with content that they can’t talk about or show continues to baffle me. In what world can you successfully tell a story which is one hundred percent reliant on the setup (i.e., events and characters that preceded it)... that you can’t touch because of copyright??? Name dropping silmarils and Feanor and Gondolin or whatever the fuck, randomly, isn’t going to magically glue things together and make it work; it’s just going to irritate the people who are watching who have knowledge of the Legendarium, and simply utterly confuse everyone else. I still maintain that, had they wanted to play around in Middle-Earth, they should have just created a completely original story, populated with completely original characters, with a canon character popping in for a cameo here and there as Easter eggs for funsies.

Adaptation

No adaptation is going to be exactly like the source material except some incredibly rare gems of anime, almost always produced by Studio Bones, so I don’t think most of us going in really expected to experience The-Silmarillion-On-Screen. But I feel like the audience expecting a good story -- even if the story breaks from canon -- is like. not irrational. The bar is so low. I would have been sufficiently placated with a good story. Not even an exceptional one; just something with solid characters, a sensible plot, and a sense of adventure a la Tolkien. Something, even, in just the spirit of Tolkien. That’s it. Apparently, that’s too much to ask for lmao.

Story

I have... So. Many. Questions. Primarily about the reasoning behind a lot of this junk. Buckle in.

That was the most bizarre and cursory retelling of the events of the Years of the Trees and the First Age. Imagine Feanor getting left out just like that XDD

Why are we sailing into Valinor????? Galadriel herself, specifically, rejected the pardon of the Valar twice; she was like, nope, I’m good, not going back. Why would Gil-galad force her to go? Why does Gil-galad have any kind of power, political or otherwise, over her, she has her own realm to rule?? Why isn’t she in that realm, with her husband and daughter? I don’t get the motivations behind anything here.

Jumping off of a ship that close to Aman... thinking she’s going to swim back to Endor? That’s so dumb I can’t even.

Why are the elves fading in the Second Age???????

Don’t even get me started on the mithril shit. What is this, a drug? Are you going to compound it into pills, take twice daily with food? Wtf?? Fine dwarven mithril, direct from Khazad-dum, my friends, was not some kind of new, unheard of, miracle substance; it existed prior to this Age, and was also found in Numenor and Aman. Yes, Khazad-dum had the monopoly on it in Middle-Earth, but it was common knowledge and the whole reason the Noldor settled in Ost-in-Edhil was because of that mithril, and wanting to trade with the dwarves for it to use it in their crafts. It was no secret.

... the lost silmaril, are you fucking kidding me. All three are accounted for! Is this a fourth silmaril? Why is it in a tree?? Why is this random apocryphal elf battling with a balrog like this, why is Glorfindel being cannibalized again?? This poor dude, can’t catch a break in any adaptation from people tearing his role in any Age apart and handing it out to other characters. Also, mithril is a precious metal that, yes, is extremely valuable and unique, but it’s just. a. metal. Not some spooky supernatural thing. Ugh.

Why oh why is Galadriel in Numenor lmao. Wtf even is this timeline. Why are Numenoreans anti-elf and why is their primary concern the job market??? Why are they trying to sail into the West pre-Zigur?? Why are the palantiri lost before the island sinks? What the fuuuuuuck.

Why does Elendil have a third child???

[side note: I’ve seen multiple articles calling Mairon Melkor’s “son” and I just XD I feel like like both parties would have so much to say about that. Like. So much. ANYWAY]

I liked Arondir enough, up until the moment he called the tiny human settlement made of stone and wood in the wide open plain the most “defensible” spot. Bro. There... there is nothing defensible about this. The entire segment of the battle against the orcs, actually, was very painful to experience, in terms of strategy (or rather, the lack thereof). People’s actions and decisions made absolutely no sense. Except for Waldreg; yeah, me too, buddy.

(Incidentally, why did an entire fort come crumbling down as a result of some rope???? Perhaps I missed something; oh wait! I must have, it was too fucking dark to see anything properly in the first place!)

Also, why is Bronwyn wearing that blue when no one else is? Expensive blue dye? Spaghetti strap dress? It’s like a really cheap game of pick out the Important Character amongst this rabble.

I’ll bet you anything that the inspiration for the Stranger was that one instance when Olorin came back as Gandalf the White, and it took him a moment and an interaction with Aragorn to ground himself and remember his previous life, and they were like, let’s take that and put it on steroids -- i.e., we’re gonna make him not remember how to use his limbs, how to use words, he’s gonna be mute and dumb until the final episode until SUDDENLY he can speak in elaborate sentences and riddles >.> If this is how the Valar send their Maiar to Middle-Earth, they are even bigger jackasses than I have always considered them to be lmao. He is a MAIA, why would he show up naked and then wear rags????? Like, this is a perfect example of what I mean when I say that they disrespect the characters; it’s so demeaning. Hobo!Olorin; for fuck’s sake.

I can’t with the balrog, y’all, it’s literally one rock wall separating them, they clearly were trying to making this suspenseful and dramatic but it falls so very flat because it’s not even that deep.

Love that the Numenoreans just landed in the exact spot where one (1) tiny human village in all of the southern portion of Middle-Earth is under attack, and they were able to immediately go to their rescue. They didn’t even try; no runner, no messenger, no finding some hapless soul in a field to direct them where to go. It’s so bad.

Orodruin has an on/off switch, guys! Too bad Mairon forgot to turn it off when he moved back in, in the Third Age, would have saved himself a lot of trouble if there had been no active lava to throw the ring in XDDD Jesus X_X

Pyroclastic flow, you can survive it, believe it. My god.

Celeborn name-dropping was so very random. Seven episodes in, suddenly she remembers she has a husband! Time spent looking for Sauron: 200+ years. Time spent looking for missing husband: ... zero? She was on her way into the West without ever looking for him and the reason she turned back around is because she felt her work here was still unfinished, not, “oh maybe I should look for my husband and daughter”? Also, we just have to rip off Luthien and Beren, huh.

Mordor to Lindon in six days!!!!!!!! What are those horses on, I want some too XD (it’s like... 800-ish miles, in a direct line, not accounting for mountain ranges and ravines and the like, where you’d have to find a way around. Even considering that elven steeds are super-horses -- so let’s say they can do 40 miles/day -- and pretend they don’t need to use roads and can fly over insurmountable passes, that should still be a journey of no less than 20 days; it’s across the entire fucking continent).

Sure, yeah, he’s a Maia so obviously a “mortal wound” isn’t gonna kill him, so he made the journey just fine. But she didn’t know that, yet she pushed the journey until he was visibly falling off his horse; callous, much??? What a bitch :D

Galadriel, in favor of ringmaking?????? Celebrimbor being proud and fond of his Feanorian blood (in public, to a complete stranger, no less)? Who are these people HELP.

WHY ARE WE GIVING TYELPE’S STORYLINE TO HER HASN’T SHE GIRLBOSSED ENOUGH

Fuck the 9 and the 5, I guess? The whole point is that they were made before... not after... because otherwise the subjugation wouldn’t woooooork. Oof.

Wow. 400+ years of living together, working together, and all the entanglements that brings, reduced to... what was it? 3 weeks? 3 months? I want. to. cry.

I just. Who looks at the Silmarillion and goes, “you know what this could use? MORE DRAMA.” Like, everyone is more than dramatic enough without adding a whole bunch of new dynamics in established relationships lmao.

I think that’s my main complaint, actually. First/Second Age is already essentially a family soap opera, but RoP has injected so much melodrama into it that it makes it completely tasteless. They’re changing not only major plot points but character dynamics and relationships... for what? To what end?? What is the purpose??? It’s certainly not effective story-telling, that’s for sure.

OH I forgot the harfoot storyline. Well. That goes to show what I think about it lmao. I get the sentiment behind it but the execution is so poorly done, it just doesn’t do it for me at all. It was just so piece-meal and shoddy and random -- what was even the point of the three sorcerers??

Dialogue

It’s just so bad. There’s the purple prose that runs circles around itself trying to make itself sound deep and Tolkien-ish, but is ultimately empty and means nothing (”why does a rock sink but a ship doesn’t” are you fucking kidding me, with word-smithing like that no wonder Mairon sang you into the ground and you deserve it). There’s the forced call-backs to the text/movies (”follow your nose,” “a gift,” etc.) that are shoved in there for Nostalgia and Relevance and feel awfully out of place. And then, my favorites: the really dumb one-liners that completely break whatever meagre atmosphere the series managed to set (“knife-ears” -- what is this, Dragon Age?! “the elves will take your jobs” -- like, really bro? are you serious?? “I’m good” -- ouch, that was so unspeakably cringe).

The single exception is Adar’s dialogue; idk if someone different was writing him and his storyline or what, but this is way more like Tolkien. And, sadly, seeing that they can write like this, makes the rest of the series even worse.

Also the choices of when/where to use Quenya vs. Sindarin... I’m so confused.

Costuming

...... what. the. fuck. Like, all of it, really, but the armor is especially... unfortunate. It’s just so poor, in concept and execution. I was wondering why the layers of mail were moving so weirdly, but at first I didn’t believe it when someone said that the mail worn under the breastplate, bracers and pauldrons by the Numenoreans is actually just the armor design printed onto long-sleeved shirts. Looking at it more closely since then... I really think they’re right, which is just yikes. I’m usually extremely forgiving in this department if the plot and tone are right, especially if it is a low-budget production (have y’all seen the costumes from Voyage of the Unicorn?? One of my favorite tv series. No joke. 100% adore the costuming too, as it fits the vibe and everything is clearly done just for the joy of it). But knowing they spent $60 million per episode, and it still turned out like this? That’s just gross. (And apparently the person who did the costuming is the same person who did the costumes for Crimson Peak, which I haven’t watched but the costumes are incredible... what a waste of her talent).

Also, the hair loss. Yes. Absolutely. It 100% detracts from the image, sorry. And I’m not talking only about the elves. The dwarven women got the short end of the stick, too.

It’s the presentation, primarily, what the costuming does for the presentation of the characters (or what it doesn’t do, in this case). Galadriel should not have to pull her hair back and expose her ears in order for people to identify her as an elf; she should be ethereal and faerie and otherworldly and immediately distinguishable from those around her, as all elves should. Everyone is just so. bogged down in the mortal muck. It’s so disappointing. If you look at cast photos from the LotR and Hobbit movies, the difference between the cast in costume and the cast wearing their day to day clothing is like a punch to the face; here, everyone looks like they stepped off of the street and onto the set :/

Again, the exception seems to be Adar. He’s by far the most Tolkien-looking of all the characters, and definitely gives off First Age survivor vibes even from just the way he looks, and I really don’t understand why they chose to not to let a similar aesthetic guide the appearance of the rest of the elven cast. It’s baffling.

Casting

XDDDD

I mean. I don’t even know what to say. A good portion of why everyone looks so ugly is absolutely the costuming and makeup work and I do think that even just longer hair would improve them a great deal, but there are certain characters that have been so horribly mis-cast, namely Elrond, Gil-galad and Celebrimbor. They just don’t vibe as the characters. And, speaking as a complete non-shipper, if Tyelpe looked like that, I firmly believe that Mairon would have skipped Ost-in-Edhil altogether; he’d have taken one look and been like, yeah, no thanks, I’ll pass. Like, why does he look like he’s about to croak??? This is supposed to be the elves at the height of their power in Eregion! And he’s Feanor’s grandson, he’s not that old!!! He was only two-thousand something years old when he died!!! Galadriel has a couple of centuries on him at least. (My most heartfelt sympathies to the Silvergifting folks, btw; Tyelpe did not become a banner for this utter nonsense).

I really enjoyed the idea of Disa and Arondir. Truly. And the actors did give it their all, which is really the only thing saving their characters, in my opinion. But I do think that they were done a disservice as well, in being associated with the rest of this. I’m all for diverse casting (though, can’t help but note the lack of Asian representation in a series that is patting itself on the back for diversity), but aside from these two, everyone else was just... very token-ish. Caricature-ish, to the point of being insulting. What was with the accents from Rhun??? As someone from the part of the world that that was inspired by, I was cringing. I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to watch season 2 if Rhun is going to be a big focus and they insist on presenting it like this. Idk, the casting choices definitely gave off the vibe of Representation™ for the sake of Brownie Points instead of actually being inclusive, and it left such a bad taste in my mouth. I know they’re gonna drag Khamul into this mess, I know it, but I’m fervently wishing him a very I-hope-you-don’t-get-included

Music

There are some good moments, a couple of bars that woke me up here and there, but ultimately forgettable. It’s not awful, but it is terribly mediocre, and from a composer whose other work I have enjoyed, that’s just really very sad (I guess this series brought out the worst in everyone???)

Galadriel

Where to fucking start

She’s really just a very painful example of people, yet again, thinking “Strong female character” means unlikable bitch who is in everyone’s face and listens to no one because she is StRonK.

Ugh. Commander who has no respect from her men? Who doesn’t even bother to work with her men?

Yes, obviously she’s younger in the Second Age than the Third Age, no. shit. She’s not who the Fellowship meets in Lothlorien, not yet, she’s still growing into that person. Obviously she has serious scars from the First Age and before. She participated in the First Kinslaying. She was called Nerwen, and regularly participated in athletic feats. She crossed the Helcaraxe. She refused the Valar’s pardon twice. She fought and she lost so much. But just because you want to portray her as younger, as angry or vengeful or whatever (which is fine! she was!) does not mean that she is a brat or that she is inelegant or that she is dumber than a brick.

She picks a quarrel with everyone she speaks to. “You have not seen what I’ve seen” -- to Elrond. Elrond. His father became a star and his mother became a bird and he never saw either one again and he was taken in and raised by the very people who slaughtered his kin (multiple times, I might add; two separate instances), and then his only brother, his twin, chose the life of a Man instead of an elf and then died. Like. lady; please. She would never, ever be so crass.

They make her so naive, so stupid -- simply because otherwise the plot as they have written it would not be able to unfold, because the choices she makes to move the plot along are dumb as fuck -- and it is infuriating.

She says shit like “sometimes you have to trust in the design of the powers that be” -- is this the same person who left literal paradise because she wanted a realm of her own to rule and didn’t want to be subservient and beholden to greater powers, and wanted to determine her life for herself?

She is such a child. Elendil compares her to his teenage children. His mortal, teenage children. That’s... not a good look lmao.

Also, don’t get me started on her swordsmanship. All the combat choreography is dismal, but especially the sequence of her “teaching” in Numenor is very painful to me, as a swordsman. Oy.

Elrond & Celebrimbor

Why is Elrond a dwarf friend (: Why isn’t Celebrimbor the dwarf friend (: (: (: Where is Narvi (: (: (: (: The doors, what doors, oh the doors of Moria, the doors that were specifically crafted by an elf and a dwarf (those being Celebrimbor and Narvi) and stand testament to their friendship, those doors? Bleh.

WHY ARE WE HAVING ELROND SWEAR AN OATH

WHY ARE OATHS BEING PASSED OFF AS NOT A BIG DEAL I’m pretty sure there’s an entire story somewhere about how serious an oath can be...

Why are things (oaths, silmarils) that were resolved in the First Age and left behind in the First Age, being dredged up again here????? I want to scream.

Ah, yes, Galadriel, the one who took in a just-orphaned Elrond. Fuck Maglor, I guess???? He didn’t single-parent two orphans in the face of the Oath to be disrespected like this.

I just. I don’t understand how Celebrimbor can NOT be the focus of a show called RINGS OF POWER. His importance has been relegated to a footnote. It would be like Feanor being a side character in a show called SILMARILS. It’s absurd.

Elrond’s relationship with Galadriel is. so weird. It’s got such a weird vibe. They’re not comrades-in-arms. They’re not friends, not like buddy-buddy. They’re related in three separate ways if I recall correctly; they’re cousins through two different lines, and then -- more importantly -- she’s his mother-in-law. Why is he treating her like a sibling????

Gil-galad

Oh, Ereinion. Last High King of the Elves and Retainer of Long Locks ;_; The harpers will sing even more sadly of him now, I guess. Why does he look like a disgraced Roman governor out of Asterix who fell out of favor in the capital and is living out his days in discontent in the provinces? He somehow escaped the great shearing, but still looks awful minor nitpick, given everything else going on, but why is his hair black? he’s one of the few characters whose hair-color we explicitly know More pressingly, why does he act like it?? Fair and free realm my ass, they’re drowning in angst here and Annatar hasn’t even shown up yet lmao. Does someone on the team have a personal dislike for him? Tolkien was sparse on details, sure, and the First and Second Ages were absolutely rife with politics, but there is no reason to make him a smarmy, conniving politician and an idiot to boot.

Mairon

My boy, my love, the very personification of perfectionism and obsessive-compulsive tendencies and creative license, embodiment of the themes of the artistic struggle, of creation and destruction as two sides of the same coin, independence and freedom and binding and subjugation wrapped up all in one complex fiery being... I’m gonna need a whole separate post for you. My grief knows no bounds, my tears are innumerable T____T

There’s a lot more I can say, and I know there’s a lot I left out, but my hands and brain are tired now lol.

tl;dr Tbh I would have been content with a show about random OCs in Middle-Earth, rather than whatever they’re trying to do by twisting the plot like this. Like, keep the storyline with Arondir and Bronwyn (but just... make their actions and dialogue have common sense lmao), navigate elf/human relations in the Second Age through them. Keep Adar and the nuanced interpretation of Orcs and explore the original creation of Orcs, and how a mutilated elf from the First Age deals with survival like that. Hell, throw in Celebrian (who is mentioned by name in the Appendices; as is Glorfindel, incidentally) since we’re screwing with the timeline anyway -- you want a canon, strong, female protagonist? Here you go! We barely have any info on her, other than the bare bones -- create away! Incorporate her kidnapping by orcs, her torture, have her meet Adar, create moral conflict that way. Pepper in some Elrond and some Galadriel on the fringes, for a popularity boost, since we apparently need them for a Middle-Earth show to matter. Ta-da, boom, done.

It could have been good, y’all.

#the best thing i can say about this series is that it gave me the final no-fucks-given push to finally cosplay my boy #and to seriously sit down and work at some silm art #i've enjoyed silmarillion/first and second age fanart and fanfic my whole life but have never contributed myself because #i always felt that anything i made wouldn't be good enough #well #anything i put out can't possibly be worse than this lmao #should i tag this?#meh i'll tag it why not #in case people want to blacklist my sorrowful ramblings #anti rop #anti rings of power #(okay y'all i tried doing the conscientious thing and strictly tagging it as anti only but the way this site uses tags these days #is against me #no matter what i try it insists on putting it in the main tag so #apologies. i tried. i tried a million variations. just keep scrolling if it's not your cup of tea)

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