 carry on whatever it is that you're saying go ahead well sure but like probably we should probably provide like the context i guess for why this discussion has arisen doblin died he was my favorite doblin was a real g doblin doblin what was that was his official name is was dobby short for doblin i just i just find it funny to call him doblin doblin because he's a little goblin he's supposed to be an elf dobby the goblin what he's what he's a fucking oh yeah that's right the goblins are the ones who run out of banks i forgot the goblins just straight up look evil but then yeah the house elves dobby no not him he doesn't he's all cute nice but he's like slavery it's so awkward and dead it's really weird it's just slavery active for the wizards it's so like oh gee that's the sentient creatures sentient magical creatures just they're just your slaves that seems a bit however you can give them a fucking sock sock and so how i feel like if we were to rewatch those movies we'd be like oh this is shit actually like ready people it's so different now they're right i mean when these films or what the books were written and when the films came out they probably weren't that many people sort of on twitter going around looking for allegories for the jews for example which oh no no no yeah it was just shit for its own reason that that was that's never gonna be a fucking argument for me for why it's bad that's the goblins own in the banks or whatever like i don't it's the same it reminds me of the whole orcs of black people thing it's like oh you got to be careful saying shit like that so it makes it sound like you're seeing it where it may not necessarily exist so stuff you got to be careful but um harry potter was filled with all kinds of crazy shit like it's um the all of the casually introduced time travel into the third boss gave it to a girl so she could go to class i was aiming more for well that's you know what that actually is an extension of what i was about to say the dangers for the students the insane levels of ways people could just die easily it was it was absolutely nuts if you touch any random object it could be enchanted to teleport your ass to a different totally new location that's not going to be used to kidnap children forever it was um it was something else undeniably uh and and and you know we should do an e-fab arc on that i think those movies would be funny i would be totally down for an e-fab arc absolutely would you be up for it though oh my goodness i will be up like i'm flying through the air on my quidditch is that what the kids say the quidditch quidditch yeah i'm on my new this 2000 you're going on your quidditch with doblin are you gonna yeah well and i are gonna go in the quidditch together through Hogwarts the reason why this is a risen is because somebody on twitter said that like that doblin guy dying is like the sadest thing in cinema so i haven't even seen the movies past dobbers dobbers was a real word i'm just saying it i haven't seen it in a while but i'm just going to take a wild guess and say that schindler's list was a little bit more removing than dobby dying just a bit little tiny tiny yeah tears and rain ain't got shit on doblin i watched the uh the last two was that one like little dobby guy like i think he died in one of those two yeah that tells you how much of an impression those films left on me i can't remember anything about them wait who died first doblin or dobble door doblin door doblin door i don't know that was that was a big thing on the internet when was a big thing when doblin door was killed oh before the book came out she had said that a major character will die and and everyone was speculating who could it be how it's going to be this person is it going to be that person nobody expected it doblin no one expected it to be doblin in that major character what was the term that the most powerful three words in the english language at that time where snap kills dumbledore because you could just ruin so much because it was it was really a good time to be an absolute but it was like a superpower because you knew you knew something that people did that they wanted to ruin the rest of your year with these three words and then it happened again with the force awakens harm solar dies harm solar dies harm solar dies harm that's right like when when the force awakens came out like people were just tweeting like if anybody ever said anything about the film or like there were videos people would just say like harm solo dies so you couldn't like you just couldn't be on the internet if you wanted that wonderful movie that great movie the force awakens i will say when that scene starts it's like so he's dead like just if well if you understand like common filmmaking language like you know what's about to happen yeah and then if you know anything about the matter you'd be like oh he's definitely dead well because a lot of people have pointed out that like that harrison ford at the disney expo talking about like the new indiana jones movie that he looked way more excited about it than he's looked for like any star wars thing like in the last 30 years i've never understood that because i i quite love han solo i love indiana jones but he seems to think only one of them is worthwhile and it's worthwhile so much so that they'll continue to make bad movies instead of just letting him rest leaving him alone get back in the fridge harrison do you have any expectations at all for indiana jones five no who's directing it steven spover i think the guy who made logan the guy made logan is doing it yeah didn't he have a big old thing on twitter though i think he did it's super embarrassing also do you guys like the thumbnail i do i have to put slight effort okay i'm like oh my god wow you did put some effort into that you got a little aid out to like oh well maybe even photoshop like to do maybe even photoshop i am not an elf that is loved i'm an idea oh no yeah i guess i guess that would be the one she's most associated with that's the classic walkie and associating her with a good one yeah even though you've chosen to do that i will not do that she is she is what's that guy's name who is always in the bad movies um jared listen jared leto jared leto's joker that's who i'm associating her with you remember his movies i just knew he was in the suicide squad the snider cut in morbius what's the what's the inspiration behind the galadriel joker like what what's the uh what's the her crazy grin i thought i thought the grin just landed itself to a joker smile um but then of course when she's on their horse i would i would argue it's personifying the show is clownish you know more clowny elements oh i see well i would say that the show has gotten more clown like uh as it's progressed i would say three and four are very clowny i didn't feel that one and two were very clowny they were more dry as fuck to me yes i think i think i would say that uh maybe i'm jumping the gun a bit but i think the impression that i had of after the first two episodes was like meh whereas now it's like no it's just bad like it's just bad yeah i realized by the way we managed to not talk episode two was bad the end of episode two is sort of that's what kicks it off because then you have the entire sort of freaky fish guy thing yeah yeah well to clarify i thought one and two were bad i i just i think they were yeah i were bad but in really firm bad territory maybe you'll agree would you hear our arguments precious audience maybe um but i was just gonna say we managed to not talk about the thing we were going to talk about which is our guest last short no that wasn't even that wasn't no no no that's the broader topic that was raised by the the dobby thing which is um what is what does it mean to try and claim what is the saddest scene in like that's like how i try to introduce our guest and bring back to the dead elf yeah you could you dead elves are much more i like dead elves i'm all fine with that okay that's fast track guest intro which happens after the intro intro and then after that is the intro and the gosh was the conversation which is how do we quantify what it means to be the saddest scene in like a film or in in the cinema you know i would be curious to see what people like in general would say but i don't know how i we just go with general trends as the closest you could do well i guess the difficult most people mm-hmm well i the only way to maybe say this with any objective measurement would be to get a study of people who have written down elements of a scene that they find sad so now you can put an objective number to how much a trend applies and then see what scene has all of those elements in it that's something of course it's it's just based off of what people generally tend to think or generally tend to feel what i guess that's like that's something but um what what's going to make people sad is always going to vary to some degree based on the things that are meaningful to them or maybe personal experiences that they have so like even even if we could develop some like rule set that's gonna feelings are pretty subjective you know like what is the way that you the way that something makes you feel is uh that's pretty uh personal and subjective and so something that makes this i'm pretty sure mauler and i've talked about this before i get probably sad a lot easier with like animation is something i've noticed that just seems to be the case animated films of of often whereas i think you often said like live action seems to yeah and i've been at peace with that for a while live action gets to my heart quicker and i've always assumed it's because i can more easily believe it's happening uh because it's just real people doing it as opposed to drawn or animated or designed people but that doesn't stop me from possibly shedding a tear with i could already think of an example i'd give for one of the most emotionally affecting scenes recently and it was animation would have been go to arcane probably episode three i it's one less layer like one less barrier between an actor humans emotions it wouldn't want to imply is it worse in any way it's just that it's it gets to me faster maybe faster is the way i should go for rather than more or something yeah probably you have to overcome that barrier between you know the actor acting and me i guess i uh i don't know if like i would say that animation like the character being animated is a barrier in like um i yeah i'm not sure that i would see the barrier i guess if it's that you have to take something like you have a human actor who is you know acting out and emoting and everything and then you have to do things on top of it or there are steps in the way in terms of yeah but i uh and i said that like when it comes to animation that there are some what when you think about like some if you if you look at like an animated character where like certain aspects of the face maybe like exaggerated or certain aspects of the face is downplayed that like by doing that by in some ways i don't want to say like stripping away complexity because i don't think that that's what it is like deliberate choices that you can make to emphasize certain parts of the face like visually compared to other parts of the face like increasing the size of like parts of the face that like that may have some effect on how potent the effect is well that could go both ways right um maybe i would like emphasis with like cinematography i would agree like like what parts of the face that you choose to focus on with like the real human because i'm following what you're saying it might actually like tap into in the same way that larger and softer eyes will always make us feel like something is cuter and safer but it could be that there are plenty of people out there who see that and they're like oh now i don't believe this is a real thing now it looks ridiculous you know that sort of thing well maybe that would be like the nature of the craft right how effectively you're able to convey that through animation it's a slightly different question as well from the one with which you began because then you're talking about what individually on the individual level it is it's the greater feelings of sadness within the individual and then of course you can form sort of group assessments based on that but if you're talking about what the overall saddest most sad inducing thing happens to be um then in a way starting at that level probably isn't the best way to do it i mean what you do is take a very sort of a meta analysis of it first just ask people to you know compare scenes score one to ten did you feel sad or not and how sad did you feel once you've got that basic idea then you've got a broad brush sense of what type of scene is creating more sad feelings among people then you can go into sort of the individual aspects of scene construction or narrative construction and try and identify what the common themes that emerge are um some people would find it easier to cry to animation and some people wouldn't but if you were to start with that sort of meta analysis then you'd you'd sort of you'd encompass both in whatever result you got i think that's probably the way that you would want to do this if you're gonna actually try to to uh like figure something out there in terms of sadness as like some sort of uh something that you could track and like figure out you know like sounds like being suggested is to pull the audience on how sad they were from one to ten when doblin died and we need to see because that's animated and realized at the same time i think that an important question to ask these people is like yeah but have you consumed more stories than harry potter like have you have you watched lots of other movies or why would you why would you why would you yeah what's there's nothing that will surpass doppy yeah yeah it was i wonder um how uh something i've noticed is that uh when like a story is based on on like historical events and is like in some i've noticed that like if a story is based on historical events that it can um it can become like uh more uh don't like it can be effective in in uh evoking like those emotional responses because you're like yeah but this this happened right like you're like these things happen you know like if you do you get what i mean like that sometimes it seems like films or stories that are based on historical events uh can like like you're invigorated by a sense of you know those people existed and they did something approximate in this and i can feel even more sort of invested by that imagine a real person well i mean like saving private rhyme like all of the characters in that film like they're you know they're not they're not real people but like the experience the experience that they went through like that those characters went through was felt by real people yeah so like if you're like watching that film you're like you'd like it's it's almost that the the events themselves like world war two the the reality of world war two like sort of uh maybe that's like an example of something where it almost like has that direct direct connection like that fast-tracking that expediting of that emotional response yeah i think that's true because there's that thing right where like some veterans are watching that film and they had to like leave because they were getting uh incredibly uncomfortable with how especially the opening scene um yes the um ah beach was um it was uh very intense yeah a lot of veterans so yeah that's definitely going to be a layer as well i mean yeah like yeah just an individual stuff has access to a lot a lot of different well it has access to different narrative devices but it also has access to essentially this sort of culturally permeating sense of emotionally everyone growing growing up has heard stories about world war two most people at some point would have encountered a poem by uh william oh and for example wilfredo and even um like everyone already knows how to imbue specific war scenes especially the second world war with an entire sort of cultural memory of emotion but then if you also go for something like i don't know taking in a way it's this isn't just unique to historical things but it's it's sort of a general thing to prequels and i guess you could say that a world war two film is kind of a prequel to the modern day but you also have the the access to sort of the the doom aspect of it so if you like if you take something like what's that film is um is it tom valkyrie is that the one with tom cruise when he tried to kill hitler you already know how that's gonna go um and that sense of doom that it brings the desperation but our own foreknowledge that we're also trying to suppress at the same time um in order to keep the story going adds an extra sense of i think poignants that alas it's not in the sense that oh my god that wasn't unexpected death but it's actually it's this tragic fulfillment of something we already knew was predestined noble i have access to all things like you know like the firefighter oh yeah it's like you know that that what's gonna happen to him um but like seeing it play out with the knowledge of how it's gonna go or like even though the broad story in general with like because i'm pretty sure a lot of people before they watched that film that film that show probably didn't like fully know like what happened with noble but i mean everybody's heard of it um so like yeah that and i think i guess like prequels in general can leverage that too like um if the prequels the start was prequels were better like could you imagine how uh how like intense it would have been as it was leading to the conclusion of Revenge of the Sith where like you know to be fair like it really was for a lot of people anyway uh like that's true i remember like hype as fuck to see that movie um the trailer the trailer for Revenge of the Sith i remember being awesome it was really co-travelous because i had i used to buy the um empire magazine i don't know if any of you have any familiarity over that but it used to come with the i know empire yeah it's come with dvd uh for trailers for like new set of films and the one that had Revenge of the Sith on it i think i watched that quite a few times i was i was like i want to go see this my dad was like all righty let's do it i think even my dad was like oh shit when uh christmas league got his head chopped off he's like oh there he goes i um what's the saddest scene in the lord of the rings the the movies we've definitely had this conversation before i don't know what our answer would have been but um it's pertinent though now do we have to one for the three movies or one each uh maybe like one each that's just the saddest scene in the in the movies well that was just gonna borrow me a dime pretty easy for me uh yes yeah i don't know what the contest would be i even i feel a shit time when uh Gandalf dies but i don't know what it is this is a borrow me a guest to me very very personally i feel very bad when he doesn't mine's a little bit cheesy i think i though i'd go for the gray haven seen at the end of uh that's return of that's what i would go for overall um but movie to movie i don't know i i always felt really really sad i i might say the number two moment is when boormir um when when he chases frodo away and then he's like i yeah and then he's crying out sorry yeah yeah that's uh oh that's a really good scene well there's a lot of really good scenes though yeah um i mean i guess two towers is next uh fade in at his son's grave oh yeah that's a powerful one yes try and think if there are i'm not one that i have associated with sort of sad feelings really um yeah the son's grave i have to go with that one what's cool about lord rings and i said this on a couple of streams and um funny enough one of the things that was making me think about this recently it was a god of war from 2018 um movies tv or or games even that that make you feel or it's not a common common feeling we uh we're low on that in a lot of our media overall i would say like you know drama comedy i don't know romance and uh and horror and a lot of them pop up but um or doesn't try many try like lord rings of power tries it's yeah it wants to getting doing it but it wants to because i i i guess um what would commonly be considered or i think can easily be mixed up with just big like hey look isn't that like a big vista yeah because um obviously it's hard to say remember everybody was like struck by uh columbia and of course rapture uh yeah i think those two capture it even though i don't like by talking for it all i can agree that when you first into columbia it's quite epic yeah that's uh i guess um because i'm pretty sure like everybody felt that in endgame when they did their little charge like this is what i mean look at how dismissively i call it a little charge little game when they're all running there now it doesn't really do much for me but like still in lord of the rings like at the black gate it's like oh yeah oh yeah the music gets quiet for frodo he charges on and then they do the theme but they do it with an epic choir and it's like yeah this is uh this is pretty and of course the ride of the roe heron you know like yeah you know the most epic scenes in cinema you know in denith all right when denith all realizes the enemies are at the gate sort of thing that shot where he sees the entire army that's like i almost wanted to describe it as evil or like but i'm struggling for a weird like uh terror maybe or something sort of i i know what you mean like it's all but you're not like in you're not in all you're in um dread some people saying that's a negative despair kind of shock i'm i'm i'm wondering if uh the nature of or like has to do with conch because you said god of war like the new specifically um what made me think of it is when you first meet yorman gander it's so fucking cool right like maybe is it the contrast of the quite like has god of war opens on like a really quiet moment um that maybe it's the contrast of like contrast definitely definitely helps yeah because if you just have a lot of whites though wide shot of a landscape it's like okay cool cool not quite getting there though it's like what is the key thing of what we're highlighting all these moments it's like um a lot of them are reveals and surprises well one of my favorite moments in dark souls three is uh when you you find um the the snow town what's the snow town called is it irithel like the irithel that's right when like you you see ira matthew matosis talked about it and one of his uh like i think it was the the one where he's talking about demon souls like the reason why that's such a cool reveal like it wouldn't have been such a cool reveal if the whole world was um that place like there's no contrast it's the it's the variety that like gives um gives the the things they're meaning yeah because you're in a stanky cave like hours before that yeah like there's like there's the superficial aspect of like visual contrast which is designed purely to get your sort of it's designed to be visually awesome or awe-inspiring and rings of power has this when when they arrive at um uh numinal for example i mean you go from the relatively small practical set of the boat straight into this this massive vista again but we don't have any attachment to numinal we don't know anything about it yet in the show and we don't really know any of the characters involved either and that's that's what sort of marks that out as being very much less impressive and less or inspiring or awesome than say denith or when he sees the the coming of sarah's armies or the lightning flashed helms deep when they say they see the full extent of sarahman's hordes arriving there as well because we have way more actual investment in the places but also in the people we've had more time to actually come to know them it's not just clue it's not just what he shouldn't have nothing oh you cut out for a second now oh sorry no so it's um it's it's the it's the connotations that sort of are embedded by our knowledge of character and our knowledge of the places that us that it looks big and fantastic and it's a contrast is also this is what we think this means for the character whether we stated or not um that's what makes it sort of a properly awe-inspiring scene i think i think definitely onto something i would just portion that like i was trying to think with uh with columbia's reveal do we even know much of anything about point well so i think that about video games um breath of the wild like when when uh when link leaves the cave and walks walks up to the cliff and then like it does the big pants reveal the world that's a pretty that's a pretty awesome moment um but i think part of the reason why that's so awesome is because of like expectations that the player has about what they can do in this space yeah um and maybe maybe it helps with the the meta knowledge of um oh like it like if you haven't played the game up until that point like if you didn't know anything about it um you might not know that like this this world is going to be like a huge sandbox for you to to to explore like a really robust sandbox and that everything you can see is a place that you can visit but i i think that like in a lot of video games when when you get to see a place that you can visit like and then you finally get there that can usually be a really cool moment because like so often you can see stuff in games where it's like yeah but you can't go there like that's in the background like that's not that's not a place for you to go one of the things i find really um i guess it's in the similar vein but in this will seem odd but i kind of got that feeling every once in a while when i was playing battlefield one and i was in the planes because when you're in the planes you're in your first person view and you could look around and you've got your wings over here and over there and when you change positions in the plane your character actually goes in or you hop into a turret or you go through and you go into the cockpit or whatnot and so you're moving around the plane and you're looking around and the the noise and everything and if you're if the pilot's moving around and if you're a gunner in particular and you're just sort of along for the ride with him and his other planes are flying around is really really good at kind of giving you like that holy shit like this was a thing people did and this is a this it was kind of awe inspiring in that sort of way that this could give me that feeling of almost like vertigo where you suddenly realize that you maybe this happened in games for a lot of other people but i'll suddenly realize that i've like leaned in really close uh to the screen because i'm just focusing so much immersion right yeah yeah like it means to be i think video games are very well positioned to be immersive because of the interactive element all right and also the way that they could leverage perspective that films often don't do like i don't know if i'd say first person is inherently more immersive but there is something about like playing a game from a first person perspective that can be really uh valuable oh yeah for yeah the immersion is like a like when it's when it's peak is such a drug um i remember like pretty excellent when i was super into breaking bad it would just be like you're just watching it and everything else is gone around you you're just one to one with it and watching it happen yeah and the same with all like the top game experiences i've ever had it's always just been everything else falls away which is such a fun feeling i think um when we're thinking about like uh emotions in contrast i um i'm pretty sure we've talked about it but one of the problems that we've noticed in like marvel movies is an unwillingness to let you sit with an emotion for too long yeah the over the course of a video game because of like how long some of them can be or like how focused they are something that's really rewarding about a lot of games is like the types of emotions that they seem to be deliberately and consistently trying to evoke like metroid games that feeling of isolation um you think about like a lot of action games a sense of empowerment and overcoming challenges like in obstacles before you and like the kind of um the impact that can be derived from like uh you know surmounting a challenge like putting you in an intense situation that is getting you like heated to then finally overcome that challenge and it's like the the the difficulty the conflict the um adversity to then overcome it is like incredibly cathartic the the willingness to i guess um to explore emotions that are a little bit more us specific than just happy and sad like that's that's kind of where where it's at like in maybe maybe like intensity or it's it's i think contrast is yeah contrast is super important why is it that games feel so rewarding to complete it's like well because you weren't always having fun in the strictest reading of that word of like a purely happy experience like well maybe that's not fun means but i think you know if you get what it means i do and since we're up to half an hour we should probably finish the intro intro a little that was our casual conversation before the episode starts so i will say and now we're going to talk about rings of power it's all downhill it's all uphill from here i was gonna say we're a little so good got a little uphill and then it's downhill first uphill is hey welcome to ifa episode 204 with special guest the little platoon um slash do wait what what do you go by is it tlp i don't know i don't see i think normally it's always been lost cord is my screen name but the channel name is the little platoon and i'm not yet experienced enough to be savvy at marketing so i don't actually know how to do that um i i whatever you think sounds most um sonorous now little platoon makes me think of child soldiers well i've not had that one before but like i somehow like it more cold works i i i like results little little cord oh mc low cord lc you could have that i don't know do you you see the the the way in which you hold yourself i could see charles working well for you but uh i assume you don't want to choose yourself maybe eric all right eric call yourself eric you you gunning for the charles and eric being an x-man is that was that what that was or are you thinking of someone else uh i'm just thinking of eric who is he in x-men magneto oh yeah well that's totally coincidental legitimately uh coincidental i i did not know that well um yeah what the name you have we are indeed here discuss rings of power episodes three and four which by the way once we're done with that we will be halfway through the entire show can you believe that that is insane for the first season and they've already paid for five how many was well i think it's a five season like commitment um just with the way that things lock in but i i wonder if they can change their mind on that i wonder when you get to that you get to the you know midway through the you know or near the end of the second season you're like oh fuck we gotta just what do we do that's the point at which i think they're going to start going for desperation cameos it's like ed sheeran will turn up as the king of proto gondor yeah oh i think cameos in universe cameos like oh my gosh everyone it's free and he walks on the screen i mean that's where it feels like some of them have been so far like you know you know the name galadriel and then you're like stop like every time i see her it makes yeah like little pieces don't you like galadriel you do don't you don't anymore um because when we left off the totality of the are they four major plot lines i haven't trying to remember i think it's like to say right because we've got the galadriel plot line hobbits um the elf laser elf line the uh yeah the the hobbits and like uh the fourth one is elrond that's like the yeah elrond and dwarves kind of go together humans and elfman kind of go together hob uh yeah hobbits and uh and galadriel so i think those are our four major ones um not much had happened in two hours for any of these plot lines no not not much had happened in two hours that's that sucks summarize the hobbits one it's like well a guy fell out of the sky and a girl is like we shouldn't reveal him to our village people oh she was help oh wait no that's that's to come i was i was about to say more and then i was like oh shit no that's three and four yeah but literally everything that happens in the first yeah there are so many scenes though but it's just the same over and over and over again it's just why do you want to go out into the big wide world it's not natural for a not hobbit stop doing that we've had it five times she's not like other girls it's every scene so we should make a compilation of how all of her scenes are just people telling us how adventurous and off the trail she's going you know i just think i didn't understand who this character is like because it was really difficult that trail she is where she was not going on that no fucking way uh okay yeah humans and elfman uh orcs attacked a village and they ran off to um to a little elf hideout meanwhile our elfman got captured that's that's two hours done uh what uh the the elrond jesus i don't actually know what happened in the first two like where to draw the line went to moria well kaza doom and he had a chat i think that's about it he's been he's been sent to to build help help kelo brimble build a thing and he's decided to ask the doors for help yes well rather to contract them it seems yeah they walked out two hours and then uh final one is galadriel she uh she reckons saran is about and then her boss is like nah that's fine and then sends her home and then she's like nah i don't want to and then kills herself but then miraculously survives because she bumps into a raft and then bumps into a ship in the ocean which is really common that happens all the time over and i'll tell you that yeah yeah yeah the ocean is not a small and that's it that is actually it we've summarized the first two hours of rings of power um and so i'll hand it to three episodes three and four i think it would take us longer to summarize three and four and it would actually kind of yeah it's it seems thicker hmm seems thicker then they're not better it's not better ah so we basically get started that i suppose uh we wonderfully open on our elfman oh we don't yeah we do i think yeah yeah just checking he's um oh we open on the the intro of course there's not much else for us to say on that intro i think it's uh we find it rather meh it's a very very meh intro um it is is there law meaning behind it mr mr platoon i believe you're more familiar with the books than any of us three are you're a sand expert uh possibly remind me of the scenes all right how does she go oh just the uh the intro being all the sandy bits of rock and stuff floating around and oh the formation that that's the thing what the the title sequence they um yeah the one that everyone thought was CGI but actually wasn't they just made a practical effect look like CGI i think that is just supposed to symbolize the the formation of the rings i think i could be wrong about that that's not what i've looked into oh out of dirt uh symbolizing it rags god yeah what oh okay so that that's it i was wondering if there was anything more than that i i have no idea i didn't spot anything in it and i've sort of be well so are you you sure it's practical because like it makes me wonder about the um that same thing that happened with the other trailer they did where everyone was like that's terrible CGI and then they were like how loses it's actually practical and then it's like yeah but it look at it i think they fucked with it in post like i don't believe this is just practical and the same thing happened because someone said why did you make it look CGI and then someone said haha no we didn't it's actually real um but they might make it look like CGI it's like that's George Lucas Palpatine's office so like this is a real place but why why doesn't it look real did you put a filter out what did you do yeah i feel that way about it but i'm just you know i maybe it's a suitable intro because i feel bored by it i'm like yeah there we go and you think so all the sand is real apparently but they made it look like CGI well because that's what i'm saying it looks like CG to me but um it does yeah i thought it was in fact when we were watching the last episode when we were watching the intro i thought came into my mind which was it must have taken them ages to animate all these little pebbles for a worthless intro but because it looks animated it looks like it's CG or something i don't know what they did to it maybe they like slowed down the speed of it so it didn't look like they're vibrating too much and so that i don't know what it is point being it's a waste of an intro i learned virtually nothing from it there's no relevant artistry here that i feel the music's kind of meh i expect better from Howard Shore i'll give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe there's more to it than i can see or understand for now that's all i can say maybe it's like the arcane intro where it gets better as the show progresses maybe but there's been a few things in the show where i've thought no maybe there is more to it than i'm giving it credit for but invariably the answer is no there isn't anything to it and i don't know it's actually i know that i'm looking at the shapes i'm looking at all the shapes as they form and i'm like i'm trying to put those onto things that i've seen before and you know it's we're after four episodes i'm still like i i don't know is it's do you think they just had one of those weird vibrated tables they just had one and they're like oh we can use this for our intro i guess so i might be making this up i thought i'd read somewhere that there were magnets involved but i could just be making up completely yeah if you have if this dust stuff is you know it's metallic of some sort yeah you could use magnets and then sound waves are a very light vibration on this panel could make it all you know shift about well uh yeah it looks like we're kind of used to Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon and actually giving us introductions that mean something and oh god the and the purpose house the dragon intro is downright cool at this point like right the more you understand about it and the fact that it's changing to be fair the game of thrones one did as the show went on as well to match the events and i appreciate that that's cool shit yeah chat for those who don't check out the streams with nerderotic uh the fifth episode of house the dragon came out recently and it's probably my favorite and it was uh it was quite quite good to the point of like downright like man the show's fun i'm liking this i'm in now ain't recommending it yet though no need a bit more time mm-hmm um so anyway we do begin on elfman being dragged into the well wherever he's going to end up and i suppose i can't remember as early as this that we find out exactly the nature of this place but it's uh obviously like big shenanigans are going on the the orcs have been up to no good but we also see like lots of people doing like mining and stuff and what you know as the scene is moving along those um those coverings they have on the top to prevent the sun from getting in they're not very effective those are sunbeams just shining in or precisely what the orcs do not want orcs just pissed me off straight from the beginning because apparently like okay they can't they don't like the sunlight in the law they just they fear the sunlight but they don't actually fry like vampires but in this though it turns out all they need to do to be able to move around in the sun is just wear clothes so look at this look how ineffective they're covering is here for the rooftop it's like you guys are you can barely walk in here if a single beam burns you yeah that's not good that is definitely like style over substance they like the god looks cool yeah coming through yeah and so they didn't care whether or not orcs would be happy with this arrangement for this their ceiling just walking down the tunnel out out out out out guys gotta put more blankets up there guys please we should have just done tunnels we already did that ah no giant truck um so yeah i think all we learned at this point is he gets he gets chained up with his uh he sees his elf friendos yeah so that's the realization you have is like holy shit all of the elves that we were aware of are all here um as well as obviously the townsfolk from that one village that got completely ransacked I guess and they're all being forced to dig a big old trench now we'll talk more about that a little later I think for now we'll just be like yes how shocking and terrifying I wonder what this could all mean and where it's all gonna go my god this plot line is dumb as fuck but we'll get there it's a it's a big old shock it's terrifying and they even show like an orc is just whipping someone meanly those cruel bastards as they do as they do indeed um so yeah then they cut to gladrile and legit uh especially after three and four whenever a scene starts with her at this point I'm just like oh not that I'm like super excited for any other scene but I'd rather see others than her I'd rather see anyone else dare I say yeah I'll say this she's very consistent in this episode with how she's been portrayed in the first two however that way that she's portrayed is inconsistent with what her life has been described as to us um because my god she is reliable in terms of how much she'll fuck up a conversation with somebody like every time she's her own worst enemy and I don't know if the show's aware of that or if the show thinks she's being strong I can't tell anymore I'm somehow supposed to believe that she is about 3 000 years old no way she's actually old she's older than Elrond at this point in the law um and yet he's much much more sort of measured and calm and mature my sister when she was 12 was probably a better nicer human being than than this uh gladrile yeah I got uh six-year-old cousin who is actually pretty civil and polite and well-spoken and she could get way more out of the Numenoreans than gladrile ever could because she's not stupid as fuck well she's glad to kill them all the concept of diplomacy is utterly foreign to gladrile gladrile it seems the way she speaks it's as if she's been given everything she wants always for thousands of years or however the fucklong her life should be the because like as it's seen right now she's she's had to fight like persistently like she if anything she should have that attitude right that she needs to fight for everything that she can she can get like in service of her goals instead of just fighting everybody like all the time you know like by the way she was given a lot necessarily given shelter food and boarding of all of this journey and she's already like aggressive when she gets up here it's so annoying to watch why would she be like what would you prefer to just be out on that little raft in the middle of the ocean like going nowhere in particular it doesn't help that her fucking buddy who is like on the path of becoming the evil bad guy for the show apparently is like way more reasonable than her in most of these scenes because it's just like this comparison it kind of reminds me of like uh what they ended up doing with walker right and uh talking with a soldier we're just like you know what they want you to feel but like unfortunately really bad at it so it's often the opposite of the two goals they have and ends up flipping like the results um also uh it was talked about by everybody so i feel like people will be upset if we weren't to mention it the uh the armor for these lads i think it gave shad and aneurysm um what is everyone's thoughts and feelings on it i think it looks really shit but like in terms of i think it's the it's what it's the materials because you have um it looks like i this doesn't strike me as armor that you'd wear on a on a ship if you're going around messing with sales and stuff like that i don't feel like this is what you'd wear out and about all the time um it just it doesn't seem like it fits with their job i mean let me scroll this see it here like the the shot that i've got right now like the the distinct impression i get irrelevant of like practicality is just good god they look ugly like i don't know what yeah it's like a it's like a leathery looking breast i think i'm not so yeah it's they look super ill-fitting the the sort of the the indents for his boobs a dot look at good this is why everyone's calling it the boob harbor um yeah that doesn't seem necessary i guess that's a stylistic choice it just looks so awkward and can you see much of the gap there is in the like belly portion of the armor to his actual belly yeah i was i guess that was the thing that was um that seems to be like really weird i assume if you're on a ship you have to i it seems weird because it's like they want both without committing like this looks like something that seems it would be very difficult to work on the ship with because even as high as that breastplate goes up like imagine like bending forward like to pick something up or like moving around to pull on sails or to to to trim or to lift or to to work on a ship it just doesn't seem like something that you could work in and they have like these these bracers on the side of the arms and i'm like man i don't know those just would probably just uh it looks like you're probably hot as fuck in that thing because that looks like a gambeson looking kind of yeah out and underneath the blue there's the added inconvenience as well if you fall in you're probably going to drown if it weighs too much yeah i think you probably wouldn't get i don't i don't know that i'm right but i don't think if you were just sailors on a ship of this kind you probably wouldn't have them wearing very much armor at all you'd have like a division the equivalent of like the marines which would be tasked with going and doing the fighting and you might expect those to be armored but if you're just a seaman um using that word advisedly uh then you might not expect them to be wearing this kind of thing but and it's not likely that you're gonna get snuck up upon out here you know so if oh no there's an enemy ship over there we should put our armor on before it gets here like yeah let's do that so that we don't have to wear this all day the 99.99 of the time we're not actually in combat we don't have to wear this fucking get up well you know it sucks thinking about that it's prompted me to say like oh well new minorians though they are like faster stronger and live longer than your average human right but like did you guys get that impression at all in this show do wait do they are they supposed to the far away they're supposed to be there i don't think yeah they live to about 300 years old i think and they're just supposed to only supposed to like they bet a stats than your average human in general yeah maybe i certainly didn't get that impression from the show that's what i'm suggesting remember and bring it up even they seem kind of meh like i don't know they do seem very meh for a very sailing heavy focused culture it seems they're i don't get the sense that there is this this the seafaring marshal prowess that they have um yeah i think a lot of it starts with how these outfixes just don't seem to match they don't look good they don't seem i wouldn't want to wear it the blue is a fine color but it's everything that i like the belts are fine and the blue color is fine there i said nice things i said nice things uh yeah it's the color it looks leather it looks like it's a piece of leather that's been it doesn't look like metal you know it what you were saying about this they might have difficulty bending over so i'm sure they're fine because it's not actually hard it's going to be floppy because well no they ain't real because it's it's fastened to you because you could see like the the buckles where it holds it tight to you so even if it bends a bit if you bend down and that thing is held to you it doesn't really have anywhere to go i see what you mean yeah so it would like um it's all you have you ever worn shoes right you have shoes right you guys wear shoes i think i've heard of them if the front of you've got the hole at the top of the shoe where your foot goes in and if it's too if it's fastened too tightly or if that hole is too small then whenever your foot or your leg bends forward or your foot lifts up you get that crease that kind of digs into your the the bottom of your shin on the front that's what i feel would happen with these if you ever wanted to like lean down apparently it was the one of the elven armor that shad had an aneurysm of it but as far as i know shad fucking hates the show and pretty much everything in it just don't want to make and want to make sure i'm specific about my shad details okay i haven't caught up with every episode of shads i uh uh there's so many every everyone's covering everything okay it's impossible i have to like plug all the videos directly into my brain um yeah i feel bad for him i haven't deal with this but he likes house the dragon so there's a bit of a preview for him as well another medieval show there's dragons in it neat everyone likes dragons anyway the dialogue begins and we're pretty unlucky because it's uh it's as good as you'd expect it to be um the the exchange in total is glad you'll be in like what vessel is this she's like my betters will answer your questions and she's like what port do we sail see for yourself and then i think uh halbrad is like yeah but where though he goes home it's just like oh i hate i hate the conversations in this show like this is the you may not understand just from that one example this is how they always talk everyone talks to this nobody listens to each other everyone says things yeah it's all one nice thing about this exchange is there was no metaphor that they use though for once that that's the other thing they always do and they are painful he did say that he did say we're going home instead of where we're actually going yeah oh god yeah that's like uh like how would that you know i i i would like to point out my one of my biggest gripes with a scene is galadriel's continuous total lack of anything approaching gratitude yes or respect to anyone else around her or common decency that she just had her life saved on the open seas by this ship and to understand where does this ship the way that morphid plays this role gives me the impression along with the writing that galadriel feels entitled to all of this like yes and it's unacceptable that they're not giving him more that's the impression i get if i were to read this as i believe it's intended but i have imagined i imagine the rise like no she is she of course she's thankful and the rise was like oh shit we probably should have written like saying thank you or something i don't know yeah thanks for saving my life that was you didn't have to do that but you did especially learning that you broke like a big social is big a bit of a social faux pas in numinor to bring an elf and an elf and you brought me so thank you for bucking with that cultural tradition of yours in order to save my life i legitimately appreciate that let me show you my gratitude no give me a ship bitch i'm going to middle earth also bring your army because i saw a vision no she sold the mark of oh yeah that's right because i saw the mark of sauron and your buddy brought me we'll get there we'll get there god it's dumb but uh yeah just the the the issue i take with this moment though is just that if you just see what they're saying subtextually it's like asks question i'm not gonna answer any of your questions my bosses will okay asks question he refuses to answer question asks question and then gives a vague answer of the question i'm just like uh so annoying like nobody's life i feel like the question will well can you not tell me anything surely this is the course after you're like thankful and you show gratitude and respect for your your rescuers you know yeah because when he says like um my bet is will answer your questions like the first thing you'd want in snappy dialogue is for you to make some kind of commentary in response to that concept like can you not speak for yourself you not have things to say yourself like something that has a back and forth but she sort of just ignores and moves on and even changes the question but it's it's fine because we wait wait new manure new manure this place is amazing is um it costs to hold on really yeah it looks like it did it looks expensive and yet i just i can't shake i see stuff like this i'm like oh i just it's not real it's kind of what we were talking about i think as well the uh i'm not awestruck by this because of the context that's in maybe if this series of like showing off numinal were in um something that i was much more invested in i could be awestruck by it but i was just sort of like okay this is a big place we're here now yeah like yeah i think you know it's our opening conversation was turns out to be hyper relevant all right guys that was all on purpose um i i bug bug bears with this this this entire thing because it looks very fake when you get the first i don't think this is a particularly good example of the show cgi but like this is an example of when you don't blend the practical with the cgi properly so you go from largely practical set on boat to without any sort of intermediate step there's no blurring of the lines you're then immediately into cgi and it looks the texture is different the lighting is different everything about it it's like you're watching a different show completely and um if you compare it to say the way that jackson did the Lord of the Rings films there was a there was a blend all the way through those anyway so a lot of the shots where the backdrop was painted rather than cgi or the buildings for example jackson went to locations that too he went to places we got so many gorgeous shots of the new zealand landscape and the mountains and the hills i don't think they're going to be real so there's quite a lot of drone shots in this show as well i mean i think the difference is because even the studio shots with the Lord of the Rings films like for or thank the tower at isengard for example that they would actually build the entire base of the tower they would green screen the top of the tower but the backdrop would be painted and so you get this this blend all the way through every single shot so there's not this hard cut between this is entirely practical this is entirely cgi everything in it is designed to minimize the the sort of uncanny valley aspect of it whereas with rings of power it doesn't have that i don't think it's just the locations because they do have these lovely drone shots from time to time i do think it is just i don't think they understand contrast no no they just do it randomly because there's a scene transition that they need something to be on screen for so it's just to have a mountain it feels like those scenes are just like when when you got those shots in the Lord of the Rings it would it was used for some effect but here it i feel like they're trying to kill time in this show so much that even environmental shots they get lumped into the oh you're you're just you're just killing time you're just lingering so that the so we could so that seconds pass yeah and then there was there was another thing about it i mean the boat is obviously because everything about the um the way the cg moves in the background is way too still as well if you watch the bow line of the boat and there's no movement at all i live on a boat or i haven't lived on a boat for like most of the last few years and it's just like slightly uncanny when you see that the thing i do i quite likes the music i think for the i'm just sort of undecided on the soundtrack for the approach to new and all but like the music has been really underwhelming so far and there's not been any kind of motif that you can really well there's nothing memorable about it there's a there's one motif that i've noticed it's like like i keep hearing that a lot exactly i think it is gladrials thing well the dwarves definitely have one they've been hearing it all the time yeah you have uh yeah durin durin's there and then all the dwarves they slide in from the side they've had a couple guitars and they're like are you ready to rock and they're like dwarves and they're always ready to rock um because they might yeah i would say though like that yeah the the score hasn't made that much of an impression on me nope oh oh oh speaking of score though this score try for how much we've talking we've been talking about how it doesn't really grab you or you know anything like that they try very hard to use it to do that thing where music and the soundtrack swells very prominently when something is supposed to be revealed or shown to us or they want us to feel something the soundtrack is working very very hard to try and make this um a forging emotional grandiose or drama yeah yeah when nothing really of any seeming importance happens or there's that disconnect between how i feel and how the show's really trying to make me feel because it's not it's not nailing the foundation um well how come these guys these other guys on the boat they don't have the breastplate they just have the blue and that looks so much better they look more normal they look like ike is like yeah i'm probably a bit hot and sweaty in this but it it i could move around i don't have this stuff strapped to me i'm that lovely because a lot of the aesthetics of the new minorians are great like it looks really lovely with the it's it's almost like um uh like grecian or my knowing it has that you know the white and blue prominently which i i really like i think it looks good it's a shame i don't care about anyone here which is kind of the most important part yeah it's it's a shame because people clearly worked hard on this show absolutely but anything that i like about the show is completely overshadowed by the people who didn't do a good job well it's all all great work like by set designers visual effects artists costume designers and what wow barring the the the suits that the guys are wearing um like everybody it's it's all in service of what a pretty bad script so like doesn't doesn't have the impact that uh yeah probably should have you know like it was never in doubt that this show would look expensive it's amazon they have more money than god and they're willing to put a lot of that into this show but that was never in doubt you know i'm i'm not you know i was expecting it going in for it to look expensive yeah so uh for the people who don't know a lot about the lore of the books this even comes from i i get baffled by their approach with the information they provide because basically like as these two walk in he's she's like there was the there was the big war and they were men who fought with morgoth the men who fought with the elves were rewarded numinor and then they stopped allowing elves to come to numinor that's all we get the show does this all the way through the show backfills it's well-building it's it has no idea of how to set things up for payoff later so so yeah the basic idea of of numinor is that you have to fight against morgoth the men who side with the elves as you say against morgoth they are given numinor by the valour um and we spend you know the opening monologue of episode one in valinor itself which is where the valour live you might think given you're going to it seems at least be introducing gods with the power of intervening in the world into this show might have been a good idea to do that from the off you wouldn't have even even needed to do very much different you could have inserted a line saying the elves wanted you know they besieged the valour for help against morgoth and the valour turned them down at that time so they left on their own account um but because they didn't do any of that at the time when they really needed to do it they get to this point in when they first arrive at numinor and they have to start building a lot of stuff that's going to become very relevant later as well because if they're doing the fold of numinor which i think they are going to try and do then the end point of the fold of numinor is that the valour themselves will actually flood the city because the numinorians try to invade valinor now you wouldn't know any of that from what the show is telling you but also you wouldn't know about the existence of the valour anyway unless they decided in episode three that it was relevant for the point of that episode and things going forward but it's this this backfilling of information in this show it's not the first time they've done it and they'll do it again later as well it just it's really really really sloppy writing but i guess we shouldn't be surprised about that i mean i i just think it's baffling writing i don't know why they chose to do it this way it is fucking confusing like yeah the state of the world i don't i don't i don't you you're telling me galadriel knows that elves are like shooed away from this place even though they're supposed to be on like amazing terms because they fought a war together and this is reward and stuff but she is she lacks any sense of curiosity as to that throughout her entire visit here at least in the two episodes we have i was like then also what's definitely weird well what do you say she doesn't know about her not in no no she doesn't because the dialogue here is she's she says well she's he says do you do i detect a note of envy and she says no sorrow or sadness whatever it is she uses and then they have the conversation and then and then he asks her you know what happened and then she's we might be about to find out about to find out so like all she knows at this point is that the elves their ships are being turned away that's all she knows they don't she doesn't know what's changed about numinor itself so she doesn't really have any reason to be sorrowful she should be intrigued about where she is and what's changed about it not what she learns that she's not like even really allowed to be here necessarily like it's a big deal for her to be here she she is simultaneously not at all curious as to this change in attitude towards elves but she uses their old alliance with the elves to try and get her way she appeals to that she almost um i wasn't blackmail is not the right word she's you she almost tries to like use it as a debt um kind of yeah you we gave you this yeah it's the whole you know paid and blood thing we'll get to in a moment but it's i guess we could yeah when that line comes up we can we'll talk about it a bit more but the only thing i want to say here is that as someone who's trying to take this and trying to judge it without without a sense of anything even even not even involving the movies right um like i'm taking this for what it is you're telling me like one of the most prominent elves of all time it's like yes these are our allies but they don't like us anymore and it's like i'm gonna find you know hopefully we'll find out why and then she like doesn't ask about it at all yeah she doesn't ask about it and yet she relies on it not being the case which is like one of those things has to be addressed yeah it's like if you go to someone's house thinking that your friend is there and then you learn he's not there but you still tell the people at the house oh well i need to be here because my friend's here like no no you you miss that first bit of info he's not here you can't use that as a reason for you to get what you want um and i guess before we move on the the rowboat here i just noticed this uh those oars on that little thing i don't know what the thing that holds the oars on the side of a boat are but if you're gonna go backwards you can't because your ore will just slip out of that it is that's for a seafaring people um that's kind of a that's a pretty substantial fuck up actually for being a seafaring people who are big into boats in the water you can't back up your boat yeah because it's supposed to be that it's like a like a u-shape right not a yeah oh you could yeah you don't have to keep it down you have to keep it from you know forward and back so you could row that's what you are pulling i'd say that's what yeah that's you need that that's necessary so that means like this is like they would have to spin the boat every time uh yeah they'd only have to have one person rowing on one side to help it's just like man i guess they i guess they never needed to back them up in the water so they or maybe they noticed it like well it's not going to be in the shot so fuck it mind you if they don't ever need to back them up then they're gonna have a really tough job getting out of where they are because haven't they gone in front of us one guy that goes forward it spins the boat on spot easy done it's gonna look great it's not like stupid as fuck it's like they're about let's see sorry so sorry rags their boats always look to the front that's what makes them float better of course yes you see their boats don't go down yeah up up and forward ish you know up and forward he said up um didn't he say to go forward or something the point being is that you can ignore all practicality if there's some flowery something behind it some metaphor the scene whatever there's a walking scene sort of ends with uh hull brand looking at a forge and i swear to fucking god if if he really is saaron and he's looking at the forge he can't wait to forge the rings this is one of the lamest charts in the history of foreshadowing it's not the ford because the rings they are for that's what kelly brimboar and elrond are trying to build i think is the forge over in irregion which is where it's it's foreshadowing because saaron is supposed to be it is one of those things where they try and appeal to people who have like read the book or do know the law but they're also appealing to people who are going to be disproportionately annoyed at them for ditching the rest of it but saaron is is a smith not just a smith of the rings but when he is uh when he is sort of in his pre big super villain form he is a famous and noted smith so his long sort of lingering glance of ironworking is supposed to be kind of foreshadowing for people in the know it's just that it's not really a good guide for people because again everything else has been ditched so are we supposed to take from this that the show will be following the book that most people haven't read anyway or is it then gonna throw a a curveball and just ditch the rest of that again it's just very strange that they should try and make these particular knots when they've also proudly gone and said we're not going to be basing what we're doing on the stuff we're now nodding you toward i was gonna say i think it's a lot shallower than that i think the the rise of just like it's so neat when you go back into season one after you get the reveals that you can see him eyeing up a forge and and no excited because he's gonna be making the one ring eventually just want to give you a few shots here because of course i've just only seen these give me just a second here we go so if you have amazon money then i don't expect you to be making these kinds of continuity fuck ups look at the people that they're passing here in this shot on the back side red hat blue uh blue red hat blue hat and then there's this one guy with the orange hat as well they passed they clearly passed them and then the next shot they passed them a second time to get their money's worth out of a yeah so they actually did that in she-hulk but you'd expected of something like she-hulk because there's an office sequence when she's walking through there's a guy with a briefcase who appears on two floors at once uh well obviously Dr. Strange had a class example of that as well oh yeah the guy who was in times see the screenshots it's swapped to arabic see in between the two screenshots the the subtitles swapped to arabic and i don't know why they're doing that mine did it to spanish last night maybe it's just a general problem i don't see in in between the screenshots you could see it's sending a message there's a cell it's elvish kind of warn you stay away all righty yeah so uh and we we go to the i don't know city hall i'm having a big old discussion we have uh the the nature of numinal right now is there's a king who they quietly asked to fuck off and he's in his bed i guess like from what i was trying to gather and then you got the queen regent is currently running things which is his daughter correct yeah that's yeah he's removed because he likes the elves i think i think they do actually mention that later in this episode they do um he's too fond of the elves but then she's queen region they say they deposed him but if she's queen region she's exercising somebody else's royal authority which is presumably his so that he hasn't really been deposed so i was actually going to ask you to clarify for me because i don't understand if they got rid of him as a ruler why would they accept his daughter it doesn't i mean legalistically it would work if she for example had a male heir i think this is how basic monarchy works like if she had a male heir who was next in line to the throne but was underage then she could exercise the royal prerogative on his behalf as queen regent um but the region if it's a queen regnant then she's ruling in her own right if she's queen regent then she's ruling on behalf of somebody so she's queen regent and this the father is still there he still lives in the palace he's just sort of a vegetable so we assume she's rolling on his path in which case she wasn't he wasn't deposed exactly i agree it would make sense if she's ruling while he's alive but unable to give orders as if like yeah on his behalf as i remember it they they say that like he was he was like he was pushed off he was like go away we don't like you and then she's in place and it's like why would they why wouldn't they just elect their own chosen leader why would they get his daughter that that's a weird choice it's because he didn't want to it almost seems like it's because he didn't want to it's very confusing i guess we'll get to there in just a little bit but he it's it's like the library right that they go to he wanted to tear it down but they said no he didn't want to tear it down everyone else did so they said oh yeah well we're gonna depose you because of that but they didn't tear the tower down anyway and they let him stay in the tower to be king but not really king and they put his daughter to be in charge instead of him it's all very confusing and goga said apparently there's a line to say that they did actually vote her in but then why would you do that but why would they do that yeah i she's the last person you want to vote in she's literally got his ear like he was in well vice versa actually he's got her ear it's weirdly and unnecessarily complicated because you get the two main characters they're both introduced here so you get the queen regent um and you get al-farrison who's the guy with the big bushy beard yeah and if you're going from in the book version the king king uh palanteri is his tar palanteri is his name he dies and then al-farrison forcibly marries the queen regent and then becomes king instead but the the the point being they managed to kill off the king in the in the book version which sort of does away with this weird complexity which i don't that they must have done it for a reason like the the continued existence of the king must serve a purpose but oh yeah she has to go gladrile has to go in you know that but then she just discovers he's a vegetable maybe we assume too much when we say oh they must have done that on purpose for because you know there's a lot of stuff but yeah well so as you can as you can hear chat we're a little little confused we're a little like what i don't really i'm a little lost but that's fine you know just because nothing's made sense so far doesn't mean it won't start making sense at any point the thing is it should be so easy to make sense of there are two factions on numinal there's just two there's the faithful who like the elves and there's the king's men who don't that's it like there's no you don't it's it's kind of hard to fuck that up but well they've managed to find a way of doing it so congratulations i suppose um one of the things i think whole brand says when they're walking on their way here is essentially like don't antagonize these people um which is hilarious i think uh he says that you have to tell someone that yeah and does this is this advice listen to it's like no um no she doesn't listen to advice she does as everyone has called it her Daenerys moment um when introducing she's like i am gladrile of the doldor daughter of the golden house finar fin commander of the door that it's like shut the fuck up no one cares people don't even like you this look that she does this anti elves it why wouldn't you want to introduce yourself as like i am gladrile friend of numinal something like that you're like just something simple like i'm gladrile of just whatever is customary like i'm i'm gladrile i'm you know that's daughter of tata da you could even say you know like descendant of and then person who provided numinal slash fought in the war something to appeal to these people that would be clever well i know that would be clever but i know that the show looks down on cleverness but yeah and so she does all that and then she's just like give us a boat to middle earth and it's just like wow did anyone else think that they turned howlbrand into brawn in this scene because everything about him accent and the type of human like when she she comes off her big spiel of titles and he just goes on howlbrand oh yeah you're right i thought and the mannerisms as well he just sounded and looked exactly like brawn so for those who don't know uh season one of game of thrones um tirion is with tirion hires a sell sword to fight sivardus for his life it's fucking great and and the sell sword wins his brawn he's fucking great uh because he's really fast and he's against someone who's super amazing armored but he keeps just slicing between the seams and eventually gets him to kills him by several cuts basically and that's brawn's introduction everyone fucking loves brawn he's a fan favorite manages to he's one of the many characters that gains intense plot armor as the episodes go on because people really like him um which is a shame however when they're heading back to tywin's sort of encampment during the wars that are going on in the first season they have to head through like loads of woods and they eventually get hit by like bandits and stuff but uh tirion manages to talk his way out of it by telling them he'll give them all kinds of riches and and weapons and armor and stuff if they take him to his father because another thing that game of thrones had was really awesome tirion would always talk his way out of every last like threatened danger he ever got himself into it was really cool um when they arrive tywin sees him with like three of the these these these big dudes and brawn and so it's like you got he's like i am tirion this is my father tywin and then tirion is tywin is like and who are your friends and he's like this is shagga son of dolph this is uh he's the leader of the stone crows that like he introduces all these people that he goes uh this is broad uh they're broad just goes you would know by dad you know it's like it's like a fun just like ha ha everyone's doing their names and then he doesn't have his one and then yeah the equivalent is done here where she does her whole set of names and then uh whole brand is like um i'm just i'm just whole brand all okay um which uh you know it's the closest this show probably got to making a decent joke i guess feels like we've seen it before i'm trying to think there i think there might have been one thing that i was like oh that was clever and amusing i can't remember what it was maybe i'm maybe i'm just crazy i guess we'll find out oh fuck yeah the the the one is is more similar to i guess would be it's like season six or seven of game of thrones where denaris does all of his names and then john snow is introduced by davos and he just goes this is john snow and that's it there's no like loads of extra names which is probably a good comparison of why people like john snow toward the end and didn't like denaris there's um a level of vanity that comes with a billion names on top of your name that is uh unappealing if you're not exactly doing great in the appealing factor for a character anyway i mean that's how they introduce zerk sees in uh 300 he's got all those names and all these titles that goes on and on yeah anyway she wants a boat and then she's like no we don't do that because we're not a fan of elves and then she's like yeah well you got this place thanks to elves and then she's like oh yeah well we paid for that with blood and like i'd argue the conversation as much as i hate her strategy all right let's let's kind of make sense there's you know these backs and forth it's kind of working for me and then gladrile says if blood is the price then i will pay it one way or another i will depart so that's just like a threat and i was just like fucking hell like did she seriously just threatened to kill them this is this a lot what are you thinking woman that are you so fucking cocksure and full of yourself and spoiled that by the way still no thanks still no gratitude still no you know wow you you you pull this out of the water you brought us to your palace to talk with your ruler none of that um it's just instantly into death threats so that's great he's literally she's doing a terminator is he giving me your clothes and your motorcycle this guy's giving me your clothes and your boat well so for later i thought what a chat just kind of pointed out if we to take it as almost literally let's say she said like it cost blood to get numinal and then she's like well if it costs blood then fine like as if to suggest i will bleed in order to like i'll die in order to get out of here or something i'll die to get out and get what i want yeah which um like i don't i don't know are you sure i wonder when they wrote that line i wonder what we would think that's supposed to me do do they intend to have this be a like a death threat is that the intention because a part of me wants to go like surely so do that right when she says one way or another i will depart i think that's supposed to be a badass line but i was just like oh what are you doing you nutcase you fool the intention of it is the intention is that's a badass line but the reality is you just threaten to the ruler of this place right here in front of everybody right now yeah and everyone's like the whole crowd and stuff yeah and then she's like i welcome you to try it she's like i have no need of your welcome this is the only equivalent of that is is when someone goes um i don't know about that man and then you go i'm not your bad we are like are you trying to like you trying to get an own at every sentence it's like this is just pathetic stop it this is right i'm not your body pal i'm not your body is because it goes on after as well because you said and you are quickly out staying yours welcome and they just carry on they got this welcome wordplay that they're really really proud of they're very proud carry it going someone said rags these are the same people who unironically wrote there's a tempest in me that would make some level of sense we'll get to that one it's not good but like compared to this it's bonkers this yeah but you are right this is like i have to score some clever wippy point all the time regardless of context and regardless of what it actually is because i i yeah i have to be the best at all times during conversations i have to be the best like you suck and then she goes you suck more there's like i suck more meaning i'm better at sucking than you and you're like yeah which is worse than being and then she's like wait so then you accept defeat i'm the master sucker i'm a better sucker than you um but yeah part of the really crazy thing of this hundreds of years more than you um is that they have whole brands say like oh man looks like uh yeah seems that leaving presents some complications how about you think about it for three days and then and then we'll move on everyone just like yeah okay yeah great yeah okay yeah that's fine just like that's all you have to say well that's it my guns be my guns like it was there was no uh like silver tongue nature here there's nothing of him appealing to anything he'd learned so far or making note of lever yeah it's just it's just give us three days okay that should be the default for them though is like oh you want you have this request let's assume that she made this request in a very charismatic and in intelligent way right let's assume all went well and then they would say maybe something along the lines of well we will consider your request but you just got here surely you need to rest and da da da and is like we'd have to prepare a ship is it give us some time to think about it um in the meantime just hang out and enjoy our hospitality this is um because a lot of people like the great deceiver though that's the sorrow thing it's like no that's my point is it would be really cool to see him do that but he's not doing that this is because they don't they can't write that can they they can't write him doing something really clever oh yeah that's clever writing in order to write to clever you have to be clever as a writer at the end of episode four i think it is they actually do have him the almost clever so they can do it it's just they're incredibly so and then they can maybe do it once every four hours is their problem and so they couldn't do it and this thing i know you're gonna have our that's their power and it has a four hour recharge time you can't pay gold to get rid of this one either they paid it all but um she even even interrupts him like halfway through trying to appease these people who are on the verge of fucking killing them or jailing them gladrials like it's literally what she's like yes that noise is what she's like it's shockingly true oh my god i will not be made a prisoner like you know what that's not up to you yeah i think like being a prisoner does not require your consent as it happens to be so um no right she'll kill everyone i mean you know what she probably is capable of doing that with this how they would edit it yeah she could single-handed lead destroy entire nations absolutely she's that much of a boss man uh she's very cool she is very cool and so like if in case you're not grasping our issue with this it's the gladrials been alive for a fucking long time she is uh not only an incredible warrior but she's also pretty high up in the political game you should be fully aware of how these interactions work she should have full knowledge of histories that happen between all these different places why is she so beyond stupid with her approach to all of this she can't speak to anyone properly no better exactly is incredibly unsatisfying to watch this like random scruffy dude managed to outwit her at like everything to do with speaking and if someone was to say to me like no no no but it's saran it's like no no no no no they've just made her incredibly stupid to his relatively stupid so he looks that that's what they're going for right so what they're going for is she is she's trying to depict her as being the biggest bestest strongest smartest toughest person around but she is she gets taken under the sway of this relatively charming man she met on a random motion raft and then by her this is this is sort of the fulfilling the prophecy that gilgalla mentions in episode one when he sends her away is that when she looks for the thing she accidentally fans the flames of the fire or whatever the fuck he was talking about so the the idea is they're bigging her up so they can bring her down by having her betrayed by the one person she ends up coming to trust which is how brand so you can see that's what they're going for but the problem is the you can't just pretend that like 3000 years of character history don't exist just because you want to do that with your character she has a background and they've just had to forget it yeah no i think you're right that that's part of what they're going for but my god they've not built it properly it's almost more embarrassing when you can see what they're building but it's just so poorly done that you're just sort of embarrassed for them like oh see what you want but yeah that back and forth is really funny i will depart i welcome you to try i don't need your welcome you're wearing out yours well done right as you could string a sentence together um and yeah they're like you'll be a guest you're not a prisoner don't worry about it right um a woefully unsatisfying opening scene and then this happens where uh uh because he's a lend deal right the the salesman who saved a salesman i meant i meant that is like sale on a boat like uh the boat oh it sails me yeah yeah he's a steedman uh he's a steam and sees a sales seamen seamen's man so when this uh when this happened um when i first watched the episode i was like so hull brand's definitely taken something from him i'm not sure what it is but he's probably taken something then we find out he's taken galadrials it's safe to call it a sword right i think it's a soldier um it's it's long enough that it makes me think a dagger might not be accurate but i don't know i i think a dagger is as is very what do you call a thing between the lengths of a sword and a dagger uh sword sword i get maybe i i still think it's i still it's oh wait no you're right it is definitely a dagger i remember pulling it out later i was thinking of something longer um as i often do but uh yeah so he's he's taken that off a lend now if maybe we could um first pump the brakes her it's just the second tier okay yeah what do you want to talk about i yeah just in regards to what you're going to say like like this is like one of those hold up moments did that just happen sort of things well so i was gonna start with what would his motivation be to do this to make galadriel happy is that it so if generally when you steal a weapon from someone i know technically it's hers but it's stealing off of him to give back to her he's trying to is it literally only to curry favor with her that so this is why i want to get this sword first so that we can really highlight how fucking stupid this was because let's pretend for a second that sword was the key to opening some ancient doorway that's the the the big goal of their whole adventure would be like okay i could see why he had to get it back but if it was literally just to be like i know you like your little steward your little dagger here you go and i bet you like me now uh so yeah just just be clear i'm pretty sure that's it great pretty that is the only thing that comes to mind even though i the last thing that i would be doing after she said all those things is to give her a weapon yeah especially if i was in her company like the way that they perceive her is probably gonna rub off on me because we're like a pair in their perception at least and she's threatened to like kill people and spill blood to get what she wants i shouldn't give her a weapon because she might be insane and crazy enough to actually do something about that um then again i mean she is she is the person that he needs to accomplish what isn't you know inevitably going he wants to curry favor essentially he must see the potential in what she's doing but again it does require the the leap of trust obviously and that she's not just going to go and randomly commit genocide on an island but i don't you know the point i think they're trying to make is this is him this is his ground deception this first stage of the ground deception is deceiving her he wants to gain her trust and you see the pay off probably in subsequent episodes which is when you know he betrays her and then is revealed to be the thing that she was sort of warning against she but like so that this is the thing like how much carried carried favor does he have compared to already she's probably likes him most the most out of everybody in this whole city right now he already likes him because he saved her life technically twice um so like the idea that it's like how much is he really gaining from stealing this this thing uh versus the risk and it's like maybe we should talk about that so let's talk about the risk shall we let us talk about the risk let's discuss we're in what is quite possibly one of the most important like rooms in the in the entire city with most important people in the entire city you're being treated pretty much as prisoners and you've got your like guards surrounding you who have taken your weapons and you're stealing one right off him when you're meters away from the queen region and you've already you're with someone who's threatened to kill everyone all eyes are on you all attention is focused on you in this room full of dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of people he's got nowhere to hide it by the way more guards yeah i was wondering how the hell he did it is he's got no sleeves he can't like hide it it's out of frame like look at this guy that's the thing putting it up your sleeve is the the most like believable thing but he ain't doing that so where's he putting it it's like up his little shit i guess he's gonna have to awkwardly do that hopefully don't look at it when he does it yeah where did where did he actually put it it doesn't look i don't know man i think i watched that probably four times over to try and figure out what he did and i cannot figure out maybe there's a magician in chat who knows how this works but i couldn't and he would have to use his left hand to do it because his right hand was around his shoulder hugging him true and you have to rely on elendil not detecting it whatsoever which is lame but hey yeah he'd notice he has an empty scabbard right was it in one forget i'm not sure how it's attached but obviously it needed to be relatively loose for this to work i'll take a look real quick but the other thing is that these two you have to remember that the the vibes in this place is that everyone's like ew these two get them out of here like the idea that he was lucky enough to not have anyone looking at him when he did this just like fuck mate all right risky move that way slight of hand oh yeah absolutely um and it you know he does it later with the uh the crest as well but um yeah stealth 100 drunk man in pub doesn't notice when crest or does notice sorry when crest is stolen train soldier does not who's sober as well does not notice when dagger is stolen no one else in the room i guess or anyone else yeah nobody else everyone's too busy talking to people that are probably staring at him i legit have no idea where he put it yeah i have no clue how he was able to yeah i've what are you uh yeah he's so he's gonna yank that out of there without without a lindy you'll notice in all right sure whatever you say definitely and then to make things worse it's pretty like this standing at the like on the stairs to the entrance and exit of this place and he's handing it to her like you might want to do that at a different place just saying yeah this isn't a good time for that my stuff i was on back to arabic but you of all the you pick the it sure is lucky you know that no one notice yeah they're all like everyone's turned their backs to him that's lucky yeah no one's interested in this elf and this guy who got picked up and this chick who made threats against her queen that's that's not a small thing the i don't even know where he where did he pull that from like was he was he trying to just sort of wrap it into his his arm itself to try and like because that is not a good way to conceal it but sure it's fine well here there's a scene here where he's uh ah yeah that there you go so you can stay with that so yeah this is this is his incredible sleight of hand he managed to get that past everybody you know i wouldn't be able to spot that it's just too good good as they're walking to the um yeah as they're walking away he just clearly doesn't have it and then it appears in his arm as they're and remember we have two guards right behind them who are watching i'm sorry like what's in behind these stairs i think it actually probably would be better but they didn't show us this though that we like is telling me this is how he did it is just like oh he can almost hope there's like a little cut in his uh the upper portion of his outfit there that he can slip it into and then slip it out of that's something i could imagine but now i have to see that and be like oh that's how he did it okay sure no one notices the guards are of course not looking at their charges that would be ridiculous for that no one in this room is watching them now they've lost all interest uh ellendil doesn't notice he's been it do you see like how the mechanics of things happen matters because i don't believe that what you told me happened could have happened and it's not and it's not clever i guess it's supposed to show that he is capable of stealing things very effectively which maybe isn't true but if this ain't the way to show it you could claim that that's what this is but i don't believe you there's a disconnect between what i think that a skill should allow it for you know him to be able to do and what you are writing him to do so uh also they don't get him any new clothes that's kind of weird isn't or do they later does he still does he still wear these eh rags but oh they do eventually he does eventually get a shirt okay okay it's just a very similarly colored shirt it's nice that they gave him a shirt that's nice so you got yeah uh queen region and far farazah i think was his name al on our farazah even farazah okay al because it's not harabic it's our farazah yeah um he's like solve this quickly and then he's like she's one l four i can't remember whose dialogue was who's in this part but they just say like yeah he could be the beginning of something real bad which will give us more context for next episode but now though they're like what of uh what of the seaman and uh it's just what of the seaman it's very just the same way they always do everything like his name is a lead deal he is of a noble line he is now a sea guardsman with a son who wishes to follow in his career it's like what all right well we got no that's great we we we we're filled in now thanks show all right we got it we got all our info now that's nice the obvious criticism we would be able to see this in all the scenes we go about how with the sildur why would you do that why why was it necessary for that to be said between them what how did that help anything like mad if the first time we see him sitting down with his son and he just casually refers to him as a sildur in the conversation that would have been far more interesting than just ah yes his son a sildur it's like oh come on man sometimes subtlety is the way to go how they just he just matter of faculty refers to a son by his name a name that you recognize and that's like that's so much more interesting yeah um and then we got a scene and I remember seeing gary's review of this where he just like we take about five minutes and in total is sildur is like staring off into the like his mind is in the clouds you might say and then um he's like almost fucks up a thing we're just doing stuff doesn't hear a voice doesn't the voice say his name yeah he's he's looking to the west and also west numeral which is where his family comes from um and this constant there is a constant sort of undergirding thing that the show occasionally remembers it wants to do because they do mention it maybe three times across the entire thing but the first time they mention it it's as though we should already know what it is um and you know I I've read the film brilliant and I can't really remember what the distinction is it's just it's yeah so he has this weird sort of whispery voice as he's glancing over and then he lets go of a rope and some guy goes flying but the captain of the ship just doesn't he doesn't care he just goes on about talking about the ocean being a harsh mistress or master or whatever it is and that's a really interesting comparison to what happens the next time something like this happens it makes the next one so more irritating because it's like I've seen you do it a thousand times and you've never fucked it up but we'll gather you saw him do it and like the last time he didn't do it so there's no harsh our master that the sea that guy is weird dude and then they do this thing of like they're like they're like worshiping the sea and he's like the sea is always right that's like there is so much you can do with that I don't actually know what that's supposed to mean the sea is always right um I've heard way better quotes about the sea that are way cooler than that you can't fight the sea you the sea's right you have to work with the sea is that what they're trying to say I think yeah like the sea is just a force of nature that it's never don't fight it you work with it some some bullshit like that I don't know the sea is always right it doesn't come across very well it's just like the rest of the shit they put in this the sea is always right it's like okay this is this is naval terminology should be the sea is always starboard right see what you did there oh oh oats and hose by the way in microcosm okay this is such a nitpick but just he's sealed or your sister is here I was like right like in case I had to figure that out from the way they talk to each other I'm sure I'll be fine now we know that I guess I guess they'd want to let them know if she showed up yeah but you could do it in this is why I said it's a nitpick I just prefer dialogue that doesn't feel to me like you the writer was like that's the sealed or sister and I'm like okay you didn't have to do it that way but they do it again stage directions when they do it like this it's like sister enters stage left but a character is actually speaking it as a line yeah you can blend it into your natural conversations so much more easily and believably than that you have I think the same character like a few seconds later is like come see us later don't be like your brother like yes yeah yeah yeah we're later this brother insists that you don't stand that you follow and you're like yeah I do yeah it's the Han Solo Millennium Falcon thing your father Han Solo do you remember your father Han Solo I remembered for you I know you forget there's loads of that in this show all the time it's keep telling everyone tells each other stuff they already know it's great nothing is nothing is emergent in this show it's all on the nose and it's directed at you in this in this clumsy clunky way you don't you don't learn things maybe that's it you never learn things you're told things yes um so moving swiftly on Queen Regent is like you know I will be right back when the when the petals fall from the the pretty white tree it means that the Valar are looking and it's like they're crying which is going to be relevant later at the end of episode four even and they didn't have the balls not to repeat the line when they do it then I thought they were gonna do it they were gonna let us try and remember what she said but then they played the thing I was like okay I don't know why I thought otherwise um I sort of had an argument with myself in my last video on this is is it because the writers think that the audience is stupid or is it because the writers actually are this stupid themselves and this is how they are with each other all of the time it's you wonder because when they played that scene and the the petals are falling and originally it was just that and it's just shown and then you see the reactions they were like wait is the audience gonna remember what she said all that time ago then some of the writer was like it was like an hour and a half it's not that long and someone else was like yeah but it might be this is a bit long in an hour and a half and it's like yeah we wouldn't want somebody to not fully understand like a seed we don't want that we don't want it to be possible to misunderstand anything in this show we gotta gotta get them to feel the feels because otherwise they won't know why the characters are freaking out and it's like well I guess they could go back and check right it's like they're not gonna re-watch this come on well alternatively if they were paying super close attention to this so great show you know they would uh maybe they'd remember it it's like oh shit I don't know apparently not apparently they don't trust it just to be safe just to be sure you know just in case so then we get quite I thought this was funny okay like some some of this stuff I'm trended on it I don't even know if it if any of it is directly from any source of any kind so you know but just just being like what does uh what does your name mean that he's like it has one meaning so it's a little bit more obviously she's like there's another meaning for your name and he's like elf friend that she goes are you an elf friend I was just like this sounds so stupid what the hell like he's like I'm a servant and then she's like yet you saved her why and I was like in my own head just like really he's gonna how are you supposed to be able to tell what like he picks her up sees her ears and then goes out fuck off and kicks her off the boat like did you really expect that to happen is that is that like the the standard protocol at this point it's tricky because yeah yes and no in that because you have these two factions the faithful are the elf lovers and then you have the kingsmen the kingsmen really don't like the elves but this show isn't tracking the timeline so the the the reason they don't like the elves isn't actually established in this show so if you're just critiquing by this show it doesn't make a huge amount of sense would they later on in the timeline in the book have potentially kicked an elf into the ocean yeah maybe actually because that they go and become these sort of fascistic tyrants so that's the thing it just doesn't make any sense had he kicked her off and then she managed to swim back to new manure and then we everything around the same way I would be baffled because it'd be like why are they so aggressive at that point but now they're so chill because if if this this is what I mean it's not matching up to me like their approach with the the elf reaching their shores in this show is pretty chill if they're supposed to be in a position where they want to kill them on site or at least not help them to the point of them dying on site I didn't get that impression at all um nor I'm not even sure what impression to give this is what I'm like their attitude towards elves this is what I'm trying to say like you've got to give some space for people who have not seen anything from the source this show is trying to tell its own story but it's absolutely confusing at this point because obviously they're pulling some stuff and then they're leaving other stuff so the fact that she's like why didn't you let her die baffles me because of how well they're treating the elf right now and how well they go on to treat her like why aren't you killing her what's the difference yeah later though you hear that you know for the reign of the grandfather and the grandfather's great grandfather they've hated the elf so for all of that time apparently they've they've been on very bad terms and yet there's not been this this mass build-up of of antipathy that's that's there that creates a sort of this murderous antipathy it is just oh well she's here now so house arrest darling that's that's all we're going to give to you um but it's because it is condensing about 2000 years of history at this point so there is this is the problem with its selective law-citing because it's borrowing events that really are contingent on events that it hasn't borrowed and so it's supposed to be filling in the gaps that arise as a result it hasn't filled in any of these gaps it's just trying to sort of breeze past them usually with stupid dialogue but the the next bit when she's still interrogating him and he says well i bought her back because the sea is always always right and she says well the sea doesn't commit treason i love that line i don't understand what any of this means what are you doing the sea is always right yeah but it doesn't commit treason what does that even mean he says that in his experience it's not a good idea to you know decide what you're going to do guessing after signs importance which is portents which is a line i really like but then he says i brought her back because the sea is always right which is yeah it's like that's but but so there was no real reason actually it's just because the sea is always right that's not it conducive with what you said before well then he follows up with i did what i believed is most prudent which is um can you just say like yeah i just didn't want it to die i guess i mean i don't i don't i don't follow it if she felt this way if she's condemning him for allowing the elf to live then why isn't she killing the elf yeah would it look bad in front of your people if it would look bad in front of your people then why do you have this attitude in the first place exactly that's why i'm so confused like it seems like they've adapted half and half and it's caused a huge problem here because like i'm now lost as to what the fucking the approach with elves is and then even if you read it so the other way and the way it does pan out as is that you know she's sort of putting on appearances here but secretly she is much more like her father in that she doesn't actually have a massive hatred for the elves and she is at least amenable to making deals with them but then you get back to the earlier question as to why she's on the throne to begin with because you know that was to be expected you would think um but the dialogue just continues to make no sense because they say she says okay the sea is always right but the sea doesn't commit treason which just invites you to play that clip from fellowship when gladrile says treacherous is the sea and then it goes on later on when she says if that is your wish then i have a mission for you but i don't know what the wish part of that refers to either because he says i did what i believe to be right so then she says if that is your wish does she mean that it was his why did you believe right yeah well yeah not if that is your wish it's why did you think that to be right if that is what you believed not if that is why do you believe what is yeah what is he wishing is he wishing to do what he thought was right or is he wishing to do the right thing that he then thinks is right at the entire conversation on the pointless yeah this this conversation feels pointless because i don't feel like you need to have a conversation with him saying why did you pull this elf out of the water and bring her here when he found her in the middle of the ocean like i feel like the answer to that is obvious and he would have like you do you have to what is the state of this kingdom and attitude that gets her in a position to where she even needs to have this conversation with him to interrogate him about that in particular to be clear by the way uh the new step sort of has to dragon is conversation conversation conversation conversation conversation and then right at the end someone dies um it is like an hour and five minutes of people talking and then an action thing happens um the the conversations are that good that you just like you just like oh yes i lindelof and i lindelof these ones like almost every time i don't feel like these are real people talking to each other and i'm often very confused in calories there's just nothing here they don't feel like people to me uh yeah this isn't how people talk to each other this isn't how well human beings talk to each other what's been highly these conversations are like needlessly convoluted i was going to say complex complicated but like that's not they are convoluted because everything that these characters are saying to each other could be achieved with so much more clarity but they feel the need we talked about it in there in the previous coverage like everything is purple prose like the way that these people talk to each other it's like you know what i need to make this more confounded i need to throw in more yeah like uh it it's incredibly unnecessarily needlessly convoluted but it's usually a compensating strategy though and is it any and anyone who's ever written like undergraduate pros will know people who go in for colorful pink purple pros they usually have nothing to say that's the reason they have nothing to convey either it's it's all it's a massive language game to trick you into thinking that and actually meaning has even been exchanged here which really it hasn't right i can't there's no real there's not even basic meaning that's being conveyed between these things like the house of the dragon example is really useful for another way because you know you are you are actually being thrown into if you compare the two you're being thrown into a really similar setting you're in you're being thrown into a kingdom with which you're not previously familiar unless you've read the book it's both kingdoms are in there relatively or they're mid to late stage of development shall we say and let's say you have no equivalent you have no foreknowledge of either of them by episode five of house with the dragon you're pretty up to speed with the dynamics of the kingdom itself the place it's set in the factions involved yeah the different alliances that are that are in play episode four it's okay we had one fewer episode but episode four of rings of power you don't get that like there's no understanding of what numinal really is and it's such a simple it's a relatively simple kingdom to depict again there are just two factions you have to work with here you don't need to do a lot to make this make sense but they haven't even managed to do the bare minimum to make it make sense because they don't know how partly because they don't have to write the fucking dialogue which is just a solution the meaningless the last house of the dragon discussion I said like on rings of power it feels like we're not done with the intro yet and we're halfway through the season and it's not it's not like a short these episodes are long they're longer than the average show like the average show hour long it used to mean like 43 44 minutes these are an hour and 10 minutes these are long episodes we got time nothing like these conversa I think the impression I get is that like in the writers room they're like so fantasy is when the characters speak I guess elegantly you know like everybody everybody is uh they've got the big words that like you know they're very pros and charismatic and like something that they've lost in that and that reading is like yeah but they are people right like they're people just like you and me they're trying to actually communicate ideas yeah that's the purpose of a conversation is to like convey something to somebody else in a way that they'll understand that's like the point of a conversation I'm trying to tell you something but these conversations don't play out like people trying to tell each other something it plays out like they know that there is an audience watching them that they need to like impress with with their words I knew yeah like you don't talk like this when no one's watching exactly um and I mean it's like you mentioned um the it's like Chad Chad simple writing in a sense like the like the lord of the rings as it seems if you because I actually read a little bit yesterday because this came up in a different conversation but the lord of the rings as a as a book is it's not complex at all it's it's written very matter of factly and it's easy to tell what's happening um it's not it's it's you don't have to have this grandiose kind of this extensive you know lexicon to know what's happening we talked about contrast before something that's often been said about pros and how to use it effectively is that when a scene is straightforward and normal you know like the I guess you could call them the connecting scenes between the big payoffs and the big moments that a good way to contrast those big moments is to have regular scenes play out in a straightforward way and to save like really descriptive um like descriptive pros for the potent like big payoff moments because that way it's like oh wow we're like you know the more involved it becomes the more it draws attention to itself but like because you're being selective about what you're drawing attention to it just makes those parts more effective here there is no restraint every every scene everybody I mean you were talking about it before like how many times have they tried to inject these weird allegories these weird I don't know how to write them they're terrible and and sayings that are just confused they're just really weird and yeah what are you trying to tell me like seriously the whole point of a conversation is to get your ideas into my head and I have no idea what you're exactly what like what are you saying I don't want me to say what you're trying to convey the other the other problem with that of course is that it seems everyone of every race every background and every origin speaks in exactly the same allegorical way so like the harford's use the same speech turns as the elves do and the elves use the same speech turns the dwarves use and if you have a writing team which is making every single one of this massive disparate cast sound exactly the same what you're really listening to there is the writers not the characters that they've made because the characters they are just conduits for the same writer putting their own words into the mouths of disparate peoples it just doesn't make for a believable world either it makes for a nonsensical one because the metaphors just don't make sense but it also makes for a less believable one because it's so obvious that there is one guy who's just been sitting there coming up with these for probably a week and he's really proud of the the fire and the the sweeping the salt from the table and the chopping the head from the prairie grass and the whatever else he's come up with it's very transparently the writer coming through and um this writer is not good you don't want to see him you you know I now that you mentioned that it excluding Galadriel because uh I think that a lot of a lot of her lines can be directly attributed to her because of how standoffish a lot of them are if you took like the lines of dialogue for any other character in the show and took the name away from it I don't think that you could you I think it would be like virtually impossible to figure out who said what line like it would be so difficult if you took a line that was um I guess as contextless as possible but like still a line yeah like blurt out the name so yeah like and then you maybe some of the hard foot talk is a bit more vulgar but maybe like even then could you identify specific hard foot you wouldn't be able to tell which one yeah probably not they're all too I mean I guess maybe the fat hard foot is really like timid and that might come through the fact that you had to say maybe timid though yeah and you have to describe her as the fat hard foot you don't even know her name it's great yeah I don't believe you you have to watch the entire time I don't know what her name is either it's it's something but maybe that element of her personality would come up in text so that's one character maybe the fact that it's even maybe in a what 20 character how many characters does this show have that's a lot of characters well I feel like the most um individual dare I say might be durin I feel like he's the most you always stand out to me and I have many issues with this characterization and yet still yeah I think it's the actor that's doing it for me I'm not sure oh his acting is wasted on this show well maybe it's um because this show is devoid of levity this is exactly the way that I would phrase it yes they they're not willing to ever have like a joke um it's the same problem I have fucking the halo show like the halo show there's no fucking jokes it's yeah it's no and like the games have lots of jokes like full of character yeah yeah like and it's not even just the lord of the rings was full of jokes and that's that's the reason I bring up a lot of the rings has tons of jokes it has characters who are funny and funny moments there's no no contrast it's all plays it's all ours serious and yeah land but it's not very interesting because there are stories that don't have much levity at all there are stories that like are very serious strictly um but in this case there's nothing of there's nothing of real value in that like that you you sacrificed any level of um you know uh whiteness for nothing but you know yeah what did you gain nothing I want to like because it's not even just the fact that the existence of jokes in lord the rings it's the the way they weave them in is fucking phenomenal like organic it's not even like the the joke in and of itself I think is pretty good but the way that it's contextualized and placed where it is in uh in two towers when he says uh would you like me to describe it to you or should I find a box um gimley's fucking reaction and then it's one of the best laughs I fucking love that moment just because it's it's it seems to me ghibli things for a second motherfucker would you with that smirk on his face his fucking elf smirk and then gimley is he's down for it they're they're at that point in their relationship now where they could go right yeah like he can make a fucking short joke he there though exactly that's what makes the joke part of the ongoing constant relationship and the development of those two characters and how they interact with each other from the massive antipathy of the fellowship of the ring to the point where they're starting to be at ease in each other's company to the point where they are starting to make jokes to the point where their best friends at the end of return of the king like that that's an earned payoff if you were not if you were just randomly inserting that without any build up in that scene at helms deep it would seem crass and cheap and like you were just doing marvel quota humor but they've actually earned the payoff by building these characters out first whereas like if i think it rings its power with other funny line is not doing i didn't work dude the the the bro ship between harrigan legolas and gamely is fucking great throughout the trilogy it is incredible when when we don't get that much like a huge amount of time with them really as a trio talking but it's very efficient yeah you could you pull so much from how it progresses i mean pippin as a character like pretty much all of his funny lines and everything it's just him being him in a situation he's clearly not familiar with or used to and then even by the end he changes into a different character but he still has that element of his personality in him that never goes away so his kind of humor sort of changes over time but what i just wanted to bring up there was just like not only are the jokes very much present in the original trilogy if i'm calling it that the jackson trilogy uh it's the that they have so much purpose in the script this this is just dour this this whole show it's just been and it's not like not even with purpose you know that you can watch uh they can they can be media that's built deliberately to have a very low and difficult tone to consume sort of thing but this they are trying to have highs and lows in this they even do have what i think they would call jokes but like it's a struggle for us to call them jokes um it is it is why the depiction of the dwarfs as i think freeman mentioned is it that's why that sort of works even the half of it's in the first two episodes until they become evil um that also kind of works because at least at least there's some kind of charm there there's some personality i think the key to that is sort of can you imagine them actually enjoying themselves off screen and you can imagine that with jiren and deezer i think you cannot imagine that with i can't imagine any other character durin and deezer i deezer is a character i i like um she almost seems out of place in this world yeah a lot of people have been commenting on this i i think it's just the actress is she's she's i was about to say jolly i don't know if that's offensive like just because you can't call people jolly i don't know i don't know the rules like she has like a i it is an actress playing a role as i like well i i like her in terms of her personality and how she like behaves and she seems maybe it's directly as a result of that but she seems so out of place like you like you could like talk with her and have conversations with her and like she has a she just seems she seems so out of place because no one else really is like she is and it's not that i can't believe her i do believe her it's just it makes everyone else seem out of place almost as an inverse like you're the only real person in this show and everyone else is just a skin walking weird talker especially the elves especially anyway um we're we're even oh oh no is that what's next because yeah she she basically she tasks a land deal with uh personally watching over galadriel whatever and then they take us back to the southland this is where we start to get all the information and this is i mean 20 minutes in and we've really only done the new minor intro so long they take with everything we didn't gain much 20 minutes is a whole episode of the simpsons guys you must go by simpsons time you you can tell a whole story in 20 minutes you know you can tell a whole story shorter than that but like in 20 minutes you can tell a story and if we kept this pacing which is really slow in terms of like plot stuff happening and things progressing but if all of these but if but if that 20 minutes was just oozing with different characters and general competence i would be totally fine with that i would be totally engaged if galadriel was a good character and if everyone we met was like a good well-written character i'd be like yeah sure i'll listen to him talk all damn day exactly dude that's pretty much what house the dragon is right now it's been it's been five hours and there's been what you would probably call a ratio of like 10 to 1 walking to action but they're able to carry it because the talking is getting more and more and more and more tension filled more and more betrayals more and more secrets more and more all this stuff that keeps building up and everyone's getting characterised and everyone's got like getting louder and angrier as time goes on just like oh shit this is all coming to a to a head at some point woo but um here oh i mean because like uh i was about to say like what the first criticism i've got for this this scene is the dialogue again so we see this big old trench we're not getting the wide shot yet i'm gonna wait until we get that before i unload several bazillion criticisms but we have our character and he's walking through here he's like lugging something with a friend and he says uh this is how they escaped our detection and it's how they shield themselves from the sunlight allegedly i did like i don't even like why do you hate me so much like surely that was for me to be able to figure out at least vaguely but you just have him say all of that to a person who obviously knows that like the person who was kidnapped before him if you felt like you had to like insert that line like if you needed to then there's way better ways to do it like an orc could mockingly talk to an elf slave and say you dig faster you don't want the elves to see us and then this laughs like that's it's the reason and it's an orc being mocking to an elf that's already better than just the the the character just saying it out loud because we don't gain anything else nothing is multi-pronged nothing serves more than one purpose i feel in this show but this is the point at which these purposes start really contradicting themselves like every line of dialogue in this contradicts some previous part of the setup it's a little bit astonishingly bad so i'm already slightly confused with the timeline because i don't know when the elves before including the tower warden that was supposed to care about i don't know when he was captured but he was i don't know how they were captured that's so that's the thing right so that he says these tunnels are how they've been evading our detection for so long next line of dialogue they've been ransacking villages all over the south lands like you might well with the elves have spotted that the elves are incredibly fast and they have watched how as well none of the people escaped you did that with perfect capture rates no one escaped nobody was out in the fields while it was happening so bad no one noticed well you see rags whatever someone goes to inspect they jump down into the holes themselves and get kidnapped because they're dumbasses that's what's happened that's true yeah well luckily they have people who care about them very very deeply who would be really concerned about their absence so we rewind zoom out and just picture for a moment where is this enormous trench is it it's just the south lands okay where is it in reference to our main village like to the to the left or right of it or something or goes directly through it or like because when they show us the white shot had a there was an advantage to i get what you're talking about in terms of like spatial relations in the show is quite confusing often even as much as they use a map it's still kind of confusing the way they presented and the lord of the rings for the most part it's a we're going from point a to point b so you're going along the way it's not as remnant in the story that you need that but here it's just like we're just sort of here but we're trying to stay hidden and we're in the south lands but not that part of south lands like we're further away but they haven't found us yet I guess and it's not like mountains between us so or maybe there is that's the thing I don't know there is a really obvious waypoint that they could have just thrown into the shot to establish at least a rough sense of location because mount doom is there that you can see it in the background occasionally that's where they are it would been just a simple quite subtle way of at least giving you some hint of place the south lands are mordor yeah south lands become mordor hey hey hey sorry spoilers I can't wait for us to get to that scene that's gonna be great right I legitimately didn't know that you did you did because it's in the episode right because it's oh wait are you saying you that should have been established by this point but I thought mordor was a different place than the south lands I thought they were going through the south lands but it was distinct from the symbol the sirens mark the symbol that is mordor and then yeah on the map it's called the south lands um oh okay I thought I I guess I just thought they were different places well we'll go over all of that when we get there anyway but look that's the show's problem as well I was about to say that I think that's indicative to a degree of the show's issues but I mean it is because I think of mordor is mordor I guess and I know this is a previous but I just yeah I hear the south lands and mordor didn't I guess I didn't put south and mordor together because it's it's fine or east so I don't yeah um but yeah so we we are to believe that because this is the thing this I'm not even kidding there's a fucking laundry list for this scene and with every few seconds we push forward we're gonna have so many problems I'm I struggle if I would if I were doing a video so to break this down I don't envy you uh little platoon good luck with that uh the uh the way to talk about like all of the issues here chronologically would be difficult because I'm not sure which one you pick first sort of thing but it's like yeah so logistically I have no idea how this is supposed to work I have no idea how the elves have missed all of this this enormous operation with how sloppy and stupid the the orcs have been uh it would seem with how long this operation has been going on it was just lucky that the orcs attacked the village the very day that the elves decided to leave which after 79 years yeah that is insane what a coinkie yeah if it was one day later this entire plot thing wouldn't have happened at all or at the very least the elves would have found this place with they would have had to come back if they were told or if this was a day before then all the people would show up while the elves are there um as mentioned his his friendo and their boss they've now been captured and they've been here for God knows how long and nobody seems to care no like we've got three elves missing and apparently we called them back and they didn't make it back to Elfland and if you go back to where they're posted everyone's gone and there's holes in the ground like this I don't know if you go back to where they're posted you'll find all those people actually well yeah if they'd gone back on a timeline that we'd expect they would have found the village and then they would be able to find out what's going on and at the very least if they'd gone back to the elf wash tower as you said they would have bumped into the people they would have found out what's going on how is this not happening because it can't if it happened it would ruin everything so we can't have that happen they find out no matter what yes maybe the maybe the elves are like harphits and these elves they got captured they just fell behind and so fuck them oh so yeah I think they've been there they've been how long have they been there in total the elves was it since the war ended or was it long yeah yes so this is so they've essentially occupied the southlands because the southland is by and large not universally by and large sided with morgoth and so the elves also inevitably had to go and take the fight to them so they established these watchtowers to keep track of the movements of morgoth's forces and then later on they sort of established them as like an occupying force I think episode one or two says there's four or five watchtowers just in this particular region right and then of course you remember in the two towers when they're trying to find the hobbits and legolas can see for tens if not hundreds of miles because elves are incredibly farsighted you combine network of watchtowers with incredibly farsighted elves you'd think they would have spotted burning villages because we're told that there's a whole load of them not just the one over the horizon sacking all of them well they did build one of those watchtowers on the side of a cliff which made very little sense tactically but there we are but multiple burning villages and then it also turns out later huge burning trench thing just it's just that they've just forgotten their own sort of setup and the lore again that they're trying to path back to or forward to in the case of the little drinks because it would be really inconvenient to the plot if they actually remembered any of this stuff they forget the things that they make a big deal out of they make a big deal about the elves being here and the humans not liking them and that's like a thing and then it's not then we just forgot about it we or we don't care anymore that thing served its purpose for that scene it's done now it's finished we don't have to worry about it anymore they forgot that earlier as well didn't they back in the the numidor scene with the first sort of dialer exposition dump sorry when gladrials explaining to how brands that his people are not like the people of numidor and then she gives you the exposition about how his people all sided with sauron and he's from the southlands but you know it's as though he doesn't know this but the little teenage brat kid in episode one he does know this because what it's supposed to have been about 2000 years so it should really have faded in the memory but the teenage guy in the episode one he remembers it like it's yesterday but how brand doesn't remember it at all because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do the exposition so it's yeah like you say they just forget strategically it's strategic amnesia and it's it very very annoying as this goes on they don't realize that these things are you're kind of investing whenever you make these kinds of world building choices and whenever you present something to an audience you can't just you've made the investment it's up to you to pay off your own investment you can't just forget about it it's still there you can't just undo it but i guess they think you can which is unfortunate i would have liked some consistency in the way people behave then again consistency would rely on me sort of understanding a lot of things which so many things seem contradictory it's hard to know what i'm supposed to latch on to is being the thing that's real and so with all of that out of the way we can get to all of the other problems that we get immediately so like they're they're digging another they're digging this trench okay and then our little team are like oh bother we've dug ourselves into a tree and then uh this guy they're they're like boss man he says um can we just pause home you you think that would be something that you would see coming and would go around you know it's pretty why was free like i i haven't seen you know i'm gonna have you dig the trench in a minute like surely it took a while gonna have to get the shot because now that you've said that the for anybody who hasn't seen this episode okay they've bumped into a tree and i'm doing this on purpose you should all pull up the stream for this they have unfortunately bumped into a tree chat they're digging this have happened miles and miles long trench and then someone has accidentally leveled that oh gosh unfortunate i hope someone got fired for that blunder so when you see this shot i'm pretty sure i just started laughing like it's this is this is cartoonish this is cartoonish i don't know what else to say like also what's the point in hiding the trench of this is what you do to the fucking wood exactly what is like what are you well at least they don't see our tunnel it's like just the totality of it we need to hide our tunnel in this barren field but oh no we happened to run into the one tree destroyed why don't we why don't we just have leave the forest and stay in the forest what do you think we're wasting a lot of work here how much fucking time it would take that was there all the resources it's taken to create this stupid trip why what is the point what is the plan that look how open and obvious everything the river elfman is like oh this is how they evaded our detection it's like who's who are they evading who the fuck are they evading we'll evade their detection in this barren smoking we're burning it they bit all down all the trees except this one apparently except this one it's so stupid morning coffee at the watch tower and they're sitting and said that looks that looks a bit different what happened what happened to the woods over there that's not not our problem i don't know i don't care yeah it's always been like that as we know ourselves this winter oh well you know like it's such a like oh you know guys when you're digging that trend make sure you don't hit the tree and it's like oh fuck it's a tree didn't he cross the one thing we didn't want to happen i told you that yesterday and the day before that and the day because you know it took a few times it was the one thing guys you fucked up one job just a point to steering this tree i look at look the tunnel bends you can see it kind of it's like twisting it bends right towards the tree so what's really interesting is you can see they have started digging around it there's a little can you see the little indentation toward the the left of well i guess their left our right um of the tree it's like yeah just it's already curving around your big trench fuck it just keep going you'll curve around the tree it's around are you like really concerned aesthetically about the the look of your tunnel like oh have someone who's just like an interior decorator orc who's really you're a decorator who's upset about the exterior tree well yeah because they're gonna i um just go why are you just go around it just go around it just can't believe it looks like yeah it looks like you hit the only iceberg in the ocean is what this is a cloud image i can't believe you're reading the character of the orcs look at this right you go this trend it's like it goes this is like like several miles of trench how didn't you see the tree down while you were cutting all the other ones down why did you leave this one tree up when you cut down all the other trees only to then bump into that tree with your and avoid all the other trees like because the other ones man you cut them down they still have their roots which would still get in the way but if you avoid them fair enough but then you fucking drive straight into the one that you haven't done anything to it it's hard to explain how stupid it is and yeah that's what goga just said it's all the cloth too they just they just get that or they got a cloth supply i guess maybe it's i want to see that guy the guy wait you don't cloth how do cloths and like animal skin is it a stupid question isn't i would be i'd more i'm ready to believe cloth before animal skins because think about how many critters you'd have to kill exactly this is what i mean like whatever they're doing i i just there is a there is one walk out there's knitting i guess or doing something i don't assume orcs do that sort of busy work in this case is there i i want to see the the orc who's just sitting there in his little rocking chair knitting together oh and grandma orc i'm just knitting to keep the voice safe from the sun in the tunnel we're gonna need a hundred more black kids just like right all the way don't you worry well it's not what you got like all the little level one level two noob orcs who are in like the the starting area and they're all just grinding and killing all the animals and then they're selling on the produce from those animals and someone else is turning them into all of this material they're actually just grinding for experience and it's been useful for the economy because they've created cloth as well and there was a guy who was like go take down that tree and he's just like i need a toilet first and he forgot and it was like ah you fucking you're the only one you just left the tree up so now we're gonna have to get one of the elves to do it which yeah let us continue so one thing i forgot to mention there's a line where the three uh three elfmans who it's funny because there's so many other characters here technically but they're the only three that have like lines because they're the three we know and then i put no in quotations because one of them is like the smelly guy or was called said to smell then the other guy who is just like i hate all of the southland men and then our main guy who his characterization is i love girl that's all i've got for all three of these people there's nothing else about but what i think isn't one of them we are only introduced to him in this episode the guy who we're then meant to feel very sad for in a moment no he was smelly friend smelly friend yeah oh i missed him yeah that's why it was so meaningful when he died because remember when he said like oh you smell and then he was like no i don't he smells himself and he's like no i don't smell it's very funny i could already imagine like one of those um i don't know what they call it but you know like when he dies like it was black and white and there's like a montage of all the time they spent together and it's just that one scene in black and white just played a whole scene yeah it doesn't have to be a montage in slow motion it's just that one scene no they talked for 10 seconds at the watch tower before they walked in yeah he's like yep romances are doomed between our species for some fucking reason but uh he says if we if any one of us can make it home we can return in force the implication being like yeah had any one of them actually managed to make it back to the elves they could have actually done something about all this so our our main elf man had he not just jumped into the hole in the hopes of doing something and then failing to do that and getting caught like had he not decided to do that and just gone back which by the way would have worked because the girl went back and she made it fine yeah i think that was literally one of the things i said was no you need to go back and tell everyone so everyone said it was because if you die no reason to go in the hole no reason you will eat well there was totally a reason to go in the hole however when he found something in the hole he got afraid and ran is that a good reason though like to to just no it's not smaller like terrible reason it it makes me wonder what you wanted to have happen i want to go in this creepy hole but i sure hope i don't run into anything so i ran into something remember they actually gave you a really well fleshed out reason because they're standing on top of the hole and she says you don't know what's in there and he says that is why i have to go so actually it was incredibly well explained and i don't know how you missed it oh my goodness he has to pay attention clearly i'm like the orcs with this tree he's like oh no there's monsters in the hole oh no probably yeah i thought it was fredley rabbits that dug the hole i didn't realize it wasn't friendly rabbits at all it was orcs he's just like this where he's picturing his head the whole time moving through at these wonderful cuddly rabbits they're all going to surround him and be happy about things that isn't all and he's like no it was all no oh i this oh no it works did all this i thought it was friendly rabbits oh no i hope my girlfriend cares about me yeah and so you just you were looted to it earlier but yeah there's a line where he says um they'll sweep the enemies from this land like salt from a table but again you're like like salt like salt from a table i mean all the mess so your hands you sweep all this salt off the table why do you just you just fuck it up with your salt just tossing it all over the table and then it's like gritty and some of it'll stick to your hands and everything yeah i just there's so much salt on the table it comes like saying that you sweep it off the table even there's so much salt oh it's like it rains it comes from the sky there's salt day every month and it just pours down from the sky we can't explain it and all of our tables get salt on them all and it happens all the time we gotta sweep it away all this fucking salt you often sweep dust off the floor or like you know no one does we sweep salt from the table but i was even gonna say though imagine that was the line where he said they'll sweep the enemies from this land much like we would sweep dust from the floor we'd be like okay so you move it somewhere else i don't even know what you mean like you're gonna put there's no well there's no finesse it's like no there's no finesse in that but at least it's like ah i i it's shit but like i understand it yeah here it's like it's getting i don't understand what oh yeah this is this is definitely one step step up from like a what was it spring rain washing the the bones from a dead car whatever the other awful one the rock looks down okay the rocks down what was the really awkward analogy it was i remember i don't it's kind of like that other thing i was talking about the like the funny bit i can't remember what the funny bit was but i almost like remember there being a bit that was funny and it's kind of like this wasn't there was a terrible analogy but i can't remember which one it was like a particularly bad analogy yeah well think about it i'm just thinking back to the no the particularly bad analogy yes the one that's why i said particularly bad not bad particularly that's true i guess what does it mean for something to be particularly bad amidst the sea of badness oh it's even badder than the even badder yeah extra layer of bad it's like it's it's like a tunnel the sea is always right but not really i'm more of a ditch um they yeah why did they stop why did the orcs tunnel properly when they got to the villages but they're not tunneling properly here they're just making they want a trench let them have they're getting more they want yeah i can the other thing is more ambitious the orcs know they can't go outside very easily in the daylight so why are they why are they even having the elves dig the tunnel in the daylight wouldn't you keep them locked up underground during the day and then have them work throughout the night instead but then i thought in the previous episode work at night yeah exactly but i also thought in the previous episode the orcs had been digging the tunnel themselves anyway because you had the weird mole man that comes out of the floor so oh yeah why are they even using the elves well it's just it's just i mean i guess well use them for slave labor i was actually gonna say so you don't have to do it that makes sense that does make sense it's not gonna fuck that up in a minute we've kind of already talked about it but hey um because this is this seat is so bad but um they bump into the tree and he says um felling a tree will slow our progress we will go around now if that's true that taking down this tree is gonna take way longer than just your standard digging then yeah the orcs should just be on board with it i don't see why they wouldn't be yeah unless of course they really hate trees because trees represent nice things well i mean it does look like i hate trees look what they've done for this field like you look at all these unnecessary dead trees yeah they're against nature yeah this is the thing it's like the orcs just fucking hate trees are i gotta get rid of the trees fuck them and it's like oh okay he follows up because that's that's his like attempt at being let's say reasonable that he is desperate and he said this tree has earned its place in these lands and i was just like now they're definitely okay i was gonna say do you really think that's gonna be compelling to orcs like come on long before you pulled up from wherever he was you came from or whatever the line yeah you you didn't tell him like oh yeah even if we cut it down it actually doesn't change anything for us because it's it's the bottom of the tree that's in our way the top part of the tree is actually not in our way as it seems it's all of these routes that go into the ground and chopping those up will take ages let's just go around and dig because dirt is nice and soft generally also like when it because he says like yeah he says the tree earned place here what about all the trees you cut down to like build your whole civilization those trees didn't fucking do the place right this is a meritocracy and they failed and the whippers after trees what does it mean to be a whippersnapper tree oh i think we all know they we all know the answer to that so we could move right along like a tree with like a skateboard and sunnies just like man this this is radical dude go intimidate in this orcas with his little whip it really is a little whip isn't it it is a little whip he's really proud of his whip he just loves whipping look at that embellishing that he does there at the end yeah stylish he's liking this snake skin i don't even yeah what is that yeah you're right that's like it does look like a reptile skin or something what is out here that's shedding that let's go home i don't want to be here anymore is this australia like what the fuck hey look all right they're not that big well croc it's actually like four meters long so yeah yeah so i don't know i just thought that appeal was funny because it was like the trees should not be cut down because it's earned its place if you're saying this to like a creature that couldn't give less of a fuck cut down many trees he was like cutting down the forest with a reckless abandon it seemed you would have been better off just saying this is going to take a lot you understand we have to cut down the tree and then dig the trench or we can just dig the trench elsewhere like i'm fucking with all of its roots like this is gonna this is fucking we don't want to do this guys yeah he probably shouldn't have said if you cut down this tree you'll get even more exp he probably shouldn't have made it sound like he will literally cry if you cut down that tree like that's probably not what you should tell the orcs you should be like emotional appeal orcs is probably not the best move here you're you're a galadrial level statesman i see yeah you're right this tree sprang from the earth long before you crawled from wherever you just like shut the fuck up dude look at the ball you're not ready to to take a bar but uh yeah so there's a little bit of a little bit of fleamage going on here and it's like you know what you've impressed me with your aggression we're gonna reward you with water and every human on the fucking planet was like they're gonna do something it's a trap they'll they'll do something they're gonna punch you or do something and then they do something really fucking weird because they don't you might think person listening right now like oh the orcs are fucking with him so are they gonna like beat him up make an example of this this guy who is the one who is like refusing to take his orders no kill or beat him up they are not going to make an example of him they are legitimately gonna give that guy water he enjoys it that's nice then they will allow elfman our main character to have some water too that's nice and then smelly man is gonna have some water and um they they slit his throat and it's like what why why he didn't like i didn't do anything like yeah he wasn't so it was the you got the wrong maybe they think all elves look the same except the black one they could tell they were spitting them but surely you want to get rid of the guy who's like the ringleader so to speak by the way i just want to say no just yeah the uh the the cut was so just harsh and death blowy that you can you can almost barely see it in this yeah i don't believe it looks like a scratch it looks like something literally anyone can survive but it looks like a flesh wound and it doesn't help that they have like no blood too um it's gotta keep it to what are they what's their age right now they allowed to show it or is it they are not allowed oh do you see blood in the next shot don't you when you see a bit of the blood the kind of basically if you have a cut that small you're gonna need a lot of blood to convince me it was lethal you know but they don't have either really because there's not a lot of scenes where you'd get a lot of blood so it would be a way to remind you like yeah like shit can go down in this show just so we're clear just so you don't forget um so not only are they punishing a guy who didn't do anything but they've just wiped out slave labor for no reason oh this is really stupid you're being you're terrible at being evil it's just fyi you've seen the tunnel mauler or sorry the ditch they're very bad do you see them bump into the tree well so the reason whoever was staring at it what will become apparent i think by the end of the episode is that they were just looking for reasons to get rid of these other elves because they didn't want to deal with them narratively like that oh fuck i thought you meant the orcs i was like really i didn't get that impression i don't know the orcs are just stupid but what i mean is like from a writing standpoint i think that they just didn't want to deal with these guys well yeah they they want to be really sad for our main character um but the problem is i don't know who the guy is who is isn't it crazy though even like oh we're gonna kill two of our like if you're if you're set to write and you're like we're gonna be killing two of our main characters bestest buddies uh the three hour mark can you make that matter it's like three out of course i can that's like you do these meanwhile what have i got to tell you about these like it's like this guy's dialogue the one that's on screen right now before he dies like the only told our dude in like episode one was just men are bad it's like okay yeah like we're just not using our time effectively at all because it's it's they didn't even do cringe right like they could have done like ah do you remember all the time we've spent here all the stuff i've trained you how much we enjoy each other's company aren't we great friends you know like we would be making fun of that too but we didn't even get that we just got i hate men men suck and you're like okay and then he dies there's no sense of like we need to survive we need to bite our time and wait until we can escape maybe this is like do we do we risk darkness where it's harder to see but you know i mean they sort of they try to because i mean he's basically just in this scene as exposition elf anyway but so there is the scene before they leave to go into the clearing where they start the digging again when he says the minute one of you can get a view atop that trench you know make a run for it and get to the tree line and then you can escape so like they include a little bit of that but i mean it is so perfunctory that it's almost unnoticeable what let's let's escape here's how we'll do it go oh we'll get to their escape i fucking hate that too it's not like these elves you you're an elf and i guess you're like a warrior or a ranger or whatever you are and your plan is to like you could have come up i i guess we're gonna be saying it a lot you could have done something clever that you would have something clever because yeah like the battlehub more is trying to get a shot of this axe you need to talk about this axe oh i love this axe it's hilarious it made me laugh i shout isn't here to confirm okay but i'm pretty sure your leverage on the actual axe head is going to be all fucking because of the way this thing is built why would you have an axe like that instead of just a normal axe which looks to be what this thing used to be the gap in the middle what it's like it's structural integrity it looks like they have a normal axe head or at least vaguely normal and then they put another axe head on top of it which is there's a reason we don't do that it's it's just so that it will look evil yeah i think that is literally it looks like an evil axe it looks like an evil axe because it's probably not as good as a normal axe that they made or found and used because they don't care like like the orcs just might not give a shit whatsoever what it looks like maybe they have a distaste for elvish stuff for whatever reason but i guess if we presume the orcs don't really care what they look like you think that they would be like purely utilitarian i guess well they're incredibly experienced at cutting down trees so you think they'd have the bestest access for that i guess this axe maybe it broke from all of the tree cutting and they just didn't feel like like fixing it because it's i think they're trying to give like a makeshift makeshift vibe about it but uh i mean i ain't buying it it just looks silly no makeshift that's that's a great misspeak because hey guys guess what you didn't know this this is the first time you've heard of this but those plushies that me and me and fringy have they're actually there's literally one day left one yes you have to get out don't procrastinate if you haven't got them you need to get out of the time don't forget links should be in the description i swear to god if they're not like i said it's really easy to find with the little google you type in the name and then makeshift and you got it it's uh if you pick us both up you get the 10% off is your last chance to exactly 26 hours remain before you can never get them again well you might be able to get them again one day but i'm pretty sure these ones will never be available again um so you know they they they cute they're cuddly and uh i mean wouldn't you like to grab one of these look at look at them look at them look at them look at that he's got cookies he's got goo look at how happy mine is look at how mysterious imagine how happy they could be in your home watching movies with you yeah playing games movies who knows tv shows talking about that media not in the description i fucking it keeps resetting on me it's something about the the way that it works when you set up a new stream it's annoying as hell but like i said i'm sure you'd be able to figure it out if you if you're truly looking out for it um but uh yeah it's uh just letting you know just 26 hours before we throw in another reminder before we end the stream but i have no idea how long the stream is going to be at this point consider it we are uh man we're not even halfway through episode one like i said this is this is a very different vibe the coverage we had for episodes one and two i feel like three and four just much worse it's just so many more issues um today we sold you're on so elfman is going to cut down the tree with his flume backs because he doesn't want anyone else to get hurt but sadly smelly friend is indeed dead and uh there's a very emotional moment here that's uh i actually saw somebody on twitter saying yeah it's all the people who are criticizing the show for not abiding by the law you've got an elf crying because he has to cut down a tree this is literally the most Tolkien thing ever so that just makes me think um i have i mean does that cancel out every other thing even if that were like respected as being like 100% i don't even know why he would even bet i thought you were gonna say that they were like look at this incredible scene with these crying over his dead friend or something but no no no he cries about a tree that's that's very Tolkien much Tolkien is seen when he cries over the tree you think he would have just been bawling from the hundreds of trees around him that have been burned and destroyed as opposed to just the one he's cutting down but yeah fair enough do yourself a favor and don't turn around that's a good reference oh back to Galadriel she's escaped the scene it opens with basically just saying she's escaped you know like i'm sorry what yeah yeah look at this look at this cringe guys like where's Galadriel i don't even know i would have to pause just because you know how it works this point my god the the halloween efat movies have been driving me nuts with that by the way still in copyright hell trying to get them saved and it's like the days are actually closing in so stressing me out as soon as we're done with this episode i'm uploading the next uh next attempt for one of them there's two of them that are fucking around but um yes anyway look at what she's up to we i feel like that she's lucky as fuck that's not being spotted but hey she's escaped somehow that happened um you know what though it's better when it's off screen because we can imagine something that made sense they show us how she escapes next time and it's one of the most infamous infamous scenes in the uh in the show so far that i was going from twitter even CJ tweeted about it who i think wasn't finding the show to be that horribly bad but i think he uh he he broke a little bit seeing that scene we'll get there that's episode four um yeah she's she's running around she's very smugly like haha look at look at that she jumps down right behind one of the guards who's looking for her just like how are you what exactly about what you're doing is i dropped my wallet oh why are you i mean this isn't it's you i don't believe that she's able to pull this off i'm seeing this i'm just like she's only pulling it off because the world says so it's like all right fine but hey talent right um yeah but uh elendil finds her she's like oh damn it because he's uh he's smarter than the average bear i guess and then we get dialogue unfortunately oh this is honestly one of my least favorite parts of an already incredibly shit show is just how seamlessly they move from he discovers her at docks to immediately she knows exactly where the plot needs her to go next so off we go uh yeah so he's like it would be wiser if you stole a different ship dumbass and then she's like oh this thing that i've been charged to look after you and she's like we both wish you would never brought me here which i thought was hilarious as a light it's like wait you wanted to die like this is always suggesting it's okay again it's we've we've gone past a lack of gratitude into outright i wish you didn't even do it yep you've gone full circle um and again uh it's funny you say that right it's like she's about to go even further than that uh so she's like i'm just gonna leave and he's like i'll call your guards and then she's like well i'll kill you and she actually puts the knife to his belly uh what's just seems spiteful and mean instead of productive yeah you can fucking say that it's it's just the fact that you just said though that like you know she's gone one step further and said i wish you'd never save me if she's a step further into i'm going to kill you now my god galadriel she just thinks like there's never this concept in her mind of i've bitten off too much or i this is clearly an obstacle i can't just charge my way through um you see this whole harbour with all these people and you're wearing this and you're an elf and that's a big deal and a lot of people probably know who you are at this point so in fact they almost they absolutely know who you are it's kind of news that you're here and you're just gonna leave like get a ship sail it out to sea get through the harbour get through the like what is your plan woman well and stuff like this by the way whenever i see people who are like you know aw you're just hating on the show gladrials fine i'm just like seriously how do you think this is fine god she's like one of the worst protagonists i've ever seen and i don't know why they wrote it this way i think ray palpatine has got more personality to her at least in the force awakens and galadriel has in this almost certainly she's less painful to watch because gladrials such a asshole to everyone i don't think when ray's life was saved by different characters that she tried to kill them for it like you know that didn't really happen i um they surprised me every seed with galadriel i'm just like you you really want to write her like this okay yeah someone just said maybe she's sauron that'll be the twist oh gladriel your younger years were um let's call them formative yeah i think by the way younger years he says like you know you kill me you'll be in super jail essentially and then um what a great show and then she says uh who do you think you are that you can speak to me like this like losing my mind seriously absolutely losing my mind the guy has been charged by the fucking queen to look after you and tells you if you try to escape we're gonna put you in prison then she's like well then i'll just kill you and he's like if you kill me you'll go to super jail and then her response to that is who do you think you are this is not how human beings what the fuck i lose my mind listening to this i can't deal with it it's just it's not how sapient individuals speak to one another like you you are smart enough to understand what language is cool you will not this is bizarre it's bizarre and i hate it what am i supposed to like that's the thing if ask someone what am i supposed to like about galadriel and don't say determination because that's a pointless answer that doesn't mean anything all right but actually try and give me something what about her should i just not even like not hate i don't know what are they going for i think that the problem they've got is they've got the premise for a personality but they haven't actually given her the personality to go on top of that premise so that the excuse for it is well you know she's she's never known anything but war and her brother died so she's on a revenge mission and i've heard people genuinely say well of course that that that explains why she acts and thinks and believes and emotes the way she does or doesn't in the case of emoting but the again that is just premise for character that that isn't character itself you do have to do more with it than that you have to build on that somehow and you can you can have more than one note when you're doing that so okay she she's on a revenge mission fine but show up being vulnerable occasionally or cracking a smile occasionally she's not just this sort of terminator like focused machine who just has one goal and she will kill anyone who gets in the way of that goal that's all she is that doesn't really make for a protagonist anyone can like especially when she's so objectionable to characters that to the extent the show has done any work with them at all are actually kind of all right like Alendil is fairly pleasant he's he's nice enough it just she's i want to be disliked yeah i want to like him but it's like during i really want to well there's a lot of characters i i want to like a lot of this but i can't yeah they don't let me they keep fucking up every time i'm like okay i can work with now in fact literally this so i like this line i think i can't trust anything in this show you see he says to her my daughter runs fast my son runs blind you remind me of both of them i was like huh yeah okay but but but like see for a second there i'm like huh do you remember her response it is how i run is none of your concern literally literally i can't believe it it's like wonder woman she does the thing that wonder woman does where she's like i am no uh i am no what kind of response is that though i don't know your business how i run it's like do you run blind like you just run with your eyes closed like that's something you do off could you imagine if i want to run blind i will thank you very much he's like oh no i didn't be i didn't mean my my children actually know that uh i know you're very stupid he's like i can explain you're incredibly stupid like why do you drags in gardens of the galaxy who doesn't understand what a figure of speech is and so it has to be explained i will slit your throat collateral actually has the same level of awareness of figures of speech that's something how is that even possible like she's been alive for so long exactly how do you go through life without like figuring this out it's the thor issue where if you're going to have a character who's lived this insanely long time i expect that those years were filled with experience and learning and perspective i mean what was the fact that real people who lived for a lot less time managed to figure these things out and you've got more of that oh that's someone just said in chat that's the line you were you mentioned rags the um steven wolf says this one is mine and then she says i belong i don't want that's it that's the one i think that is she does a wonder woman line yeah because steve was like oh no no no i i mean i just mean like not like you belong i'm gonna fight you like your mind to fight the shot on her face for like one or two seconds too long like a lot of shots yeah out of the film it's like oh well yeah so some you know there's interpretations this is like what if she means she doesn't she's she's suggesting it's none of your business how i conduct myself like that she means it in this it running with the same meaning he does he just said you remind me he didn't say like what is none of his concern is like so but yeah like it sounds so fucking funny because it just makes you think like she actually thinks he's talking about her running around yeah and as you said the idea was to give across that it's none of his business he would say like no it actually is literally my business i've been told i am being paid to look out after you like yeah like you you're this is the point in the story where we pump the fucking brakes on her attitude and she learns to get a grip as we say and he is the one to because he is i want to like a lindill he needs to be the one who he's got a great voice and he has a decent amount of presence to him yeah so he could be the one to be like yeah you need to chill sister you're not you're not just better than everyone else and you can't just do everything you want all the time yeah because around you know it he could but but instead it's kind of the opposite happens he still like her fucking behavior still yeah you still have problems with that because i agree if it were if it weren't galadriel was in galadriel's position then it might work but otherwise you'd still be in the position then i agree that works narratively but you'd still be in the position where a man who is at most what two or three hundred years old is acting as father figure to a woman who is two or three exactly it doesn't fucking make sense you know what uh you were saying earlier about like it would have to be a product of their personalities how they um how they characterize a lot of people in this like you know you were saying about the house she's she's been a soldier soldiering is all she knows she's like not clear on how exactly some of the things work it sounds as childish as like you know my character is a fireman and he's like oh what's his home life like and it's like well his kid is like oh dad there's a spider and he pulls out a hose and just fires water at it and he's like what the fuck it's like he sits down to eat in his full fireman outfit he's like why it's like well it's a fireman consumed his very life all he knows is fireman it's like the prestige total total dedication to the craft where he goes for a shower he's eating the fire hose and it's like burning the melting all of his like because of how high power it is this is like this is what it means to be a fireman the sort of by extension he gets the hose and shits it in his face right in front of his face and he pulls the fire hose you're kind of saying Galadriel is actually worse written than fireman sam is yes yes he has he has variety yeah he's not the fireman at home so that's that's encouraging from a billion dollar production yeah fireman sam has more characterization well it's um the the nuanced version is uh game of thrones you have the whole criticism of Robert Baratheon as a king being shit is that he's a warrior first he doesn't know how to be a king that's not as stupid as he like someone goes you know where should we put the shipping lanes and he goes attack it with a sword that's what i know shipping lanes not in my kingdom kill it fire his kingdom just slowly falls into disrepair because he focuses on having tournaments that he enjoys he has loads of feasts he enjoys practicing with his weaponry and seeing people do different like kind of stressful challenges in relation to sort of war games and stuff meanwhile like really important issues he tries to leave to other people he doesn't care about and it all starts to fall apart gradually over the years that come because of his values and his approach and how much he just doesn't care as much as what would be considered a good king um and you know it a lot of people consider he leaves the realm wide open to being manipulated by other people who are far more ambitious let's say um that's what you're looking for when you want to try and say one approach or one career has like infected a character's ability to sort of better approach other scenarios this doesn't work for galadriel you can't make her retarded in terms of being able to speak to people because what she's fought too many orcs and she's forgotten how that works it's like that that's that's embarrassing just stop it even even is that actually their goal or is that just like a really bad defense i can't tell fringy that's the problem i don't know what their goal is for a lot of this that's why it seems so bizarre i mean i felt this way after we talked about the first two episodes and i still feel this way i don't see what the idea behind this show was other than we are going to do a ring show we're going to make a show and we're going to have to set it during this period because of right stuff but you need to figure out a story to tell like the idea came off to the project your show needs a story though your show does need a story yes and by the way because this is happening can you imagine that it's like we want to show this like what do we put in shows usually it's like stories i guess and he's like the CGI acting there's actors costumes yeah yeah and someone's like catering is like yeah yeah we'll have to have to have catering for the show and we we get CGI guys to do that make we'll have some swords and it was like yeah swords that sounds really good and someone was like well could we have trenches i was like harry that's madness why why would there be trenches and i don't know come up with a reason fine we'll put in a trench somehow uh regardless of the consequence even certain of the reason for choosing galadriel as a protagonist because you're hamstrung by her history which of course we've already established they haven't accounted for property anyway you're hamstrung by her age by her place in the world by her title and by the fact she can't die so you've got essentially someone you can do of course you can do infinitely more than they've done with her but you you're still very limited in what you can do with her because of the aforementioned so if they're inventing stuff anyway i don't really understand why they didn't have her as almost like the mission giver character or an important but ancillary character and just invent a new protagonist a younger character who has these attitudes which is of a chord with her age and their experience who can then have room to grow more room than galadriel has to grow or at least less time to have grown implicitly i don't really see why they've decided to do this other than name recognition while everybody remembers galadriel so let's just use her because reasons they wanted to have i i think it's just the the thing we're in that the lot of it is the trend of you know we have to have women warriors i think that's become very prominent as a thing you have she's very strong very powerful she needs to have a sword she has to kill she has to engage in combat because those are the things that are more important than what she was before because they're i guess in some people's mind if you're not doing that particular task it's like you're you're you're in a lesser role if you're not doing combat then whatever you're doing isn't as important yeah there's no such thing as power without action basically i mean but it's it's still you can still have accomplished that goal i mean i think it's a stupid goal anyway but you can still have accomplished that with a newer character in a younger character again someone who could be younger and so more tempestuous and so less respectful of of the people around her you could still have had galadriel in the role that she's on purpose uh i probably did yes i think i mean because there is a tempest inside of her i i have literally never heard that reason it sounds pretty cool is that a real thing tempest yeah tempestuous is great i was about to say more people need to get tempestuous yeah that's why i ask is with galadriel like did you specifically use that word if i'd remembered her line i would not have used that word but thank you for making me feel bad about my nicely don't feel good it in he fits in with uh see the old tempestuous tempestuous it sounds it makes me think of incestuous because they sound so you don't hear the innuent it was incest often does produce tempestuous children that's my fetish tempestuous incestuous incestuous incestuous children so the scene oh movie garden yeah moving on the famous scene that a lot of people made fun of this is the famous scene the famous scene to be fair this shot i thought actually looked really cool because this slow mo shit you know i'm just not that one so i think cj put out a tweet where he said why did they do this to her that was really mean and i think what he what he means is just like it's just she's looking a little um i don't think she's an ugly lady i think she's she's pretty i don't think she looks ugly at this shot isn't uh um what's the what we're looking for here like it's not yeah uh flattering that's the one flattering it's not flattering i don't know i guess i don't see it i think she looks i i guess maybe because my mind is like oh she's riding on a horse and smiling really broadly with so she's not gonna look like she's still in a studio but i oh you mean like that you think that it just feels more real than basically anything that you've seen in it before like in the uh kind of like i don't i don't think by any means she looks unattractive here because i know what she's doing um i think she looks awkward as fuck i don't know yeah it's um i know what vibe they were going for they didn't crack it for me i guess i guess it might issue with with how she looks it's like the the scene existing so this is the most we've seen as an emotion from her as far as i know um it's like the strongest i guess she's like this is where she belongs free and out there and travel you know she's not like other girls she's like nori nori would be on a pony and i see where you're coming from in that we actually see a facial expression which isn't just anger and business which is a change i guess she's like she's i will give you that yeah yeah i will give you that but on the other hand i don't i mean okay not to be harsh about the actress i don't think she has a particularly nice beam about her when she's smiling that broadly but also she's very fixed and she's rigid and i don't think she's done just by how slow mo the slow mo camera is i think it would have looked better had she had it not been as slow as it was it looks lovely for the flowing dress and it looks all right for the horse it's when we sort of linger too long on her face at too slow motion which makes it look rigid and kind of pained like she's kind of wearing expression like a bit of the saddle she sat on that she shouldn't have sat on and it went somewhere it shouldn't have gone it's just it looks kind of forced and awkward and if it's very forced yes this it stands in the slow mo in particular i don't think we've really had that in the show and to see it you so gratuitously here seems strange for this you're making me think now i wonder if it is that like when you have a scene and like you're drawing out what would have been what less than half a second you're like drawing that out to a much longer stretch of time and maybe you just need like more of the real time look of a character to like fully i guess get the expression as it's meant to come across and maybe it would have been cool to watch her go from watch her go from that that resting bitch face to this face if we watched that happen in real time maybe that would have been more she's like fighting with herself for her want to be sort of focused and driven but also the fact that she's finally enjoying herself for a change i genuinely think though a lot of this problem just goes away if you speed up the slow mo a bit so that you can compare this slow mo shot with any of the ones used in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and there are a lot used in the Lord of the Rings trilogy they are not this slow mo and some of them are facial expressions like when Gandalf falls from the bridge of kaza do you see but Frodo it's not as slow mo as this is he's more expressive as a result it doesn't look fixed and rigid and weird yeah and his voice echoes things get dull in the background humans just don't look natural when they're slowed down to like point one in a second in a sense it's like you know when you have like those awkward pauses like when it pauses on an awkward phase it's kind of like you've you've kind of done that here you've like almost paused on an awkward moment and extended it where it would have been very maybe if you just played it in full it would have like yeah because there's plenty of the performance and like the expression there's plenty of time to make use of as you as you highlighted because the like i would have said filmmaking wise the whole reason they do it in kaza doom is because there's such a small amount of time for that huge moment that's happening to react to it and so by extending it out with slow motion the audience can really feel in that moment everything Frodo feels and everything Gandalf's probably feeling it on the rest of the fellowship there's a question of it's sort of like dramatic timing as well because you have the really hectic chase sequence and then you have the the almost the stillness and the real tension of the fight with the balrog itself yeah and then you have that sort of terrible release that comes when Gandalf seemingly at the time at least dies so it's sort of it has a payoff i think that's the other problem with this scene as well is that it's not there's not really a purpose for it it's not serving much of a dramatic purpose it's simply there because they can do it and they think it looks pretty to have a slow mo dress it you kind of have to earn i think slow mo scenes as well as you as you earn any other kind of payoff in drama and they haven't done that either so it could have it could have been nice i think just maybe sped up it could have been nice is a really good way to describe a lot of yeah i think we yeah we said it's off of the show i why they should have had they because they have this scene of them going out to this very very far off place which is odd that it's so far away from you know the city and all the records and stuff are there it seems like something you want to keep close by but that's all right they go this place and they're riding and they're going through the countryside it's very lovely they should have them arriving at the tower and then they both get off their horses and she has this smile on her face and everything and he hasn't seen that from her yet and so he talks about he's like you mentioned it right like that yeah showing him acknowledging it sort of thing yeah because this is this is not typical for her to be like this clearly then you could see a sort of collapse backing on or close the the the armor again over her or sort of the expression um because she's portrays fragility and insecurity so you know just in a facial expression change of expression you portray a lot of her character in the way that they don't do my emotions have been noticed i'm oh no what's more oh there maybe she actually opens up a little bit and explains why she's having such a good time is like i'm finally free or i used to ride horses back in tata tata or or tata though that's what they were riding horses they could have had a a good dialogue though well no i guess it might be like they wanted to have that yeah it was about to say they're riding real fast it'd probably be and they shouldn't really be in a hurry you know yeah they don't need to be like why would they be they don't need to be going left i don't know well yeah like that could be white some of my have mentioned walking on the horseback you know maybe she really wants to get there fast and he's like slow down well remember she has she's broken out though hasn't she she's broken out of house arrest to do this so it's not just broken in quotes well yeah it doesn't doesn't count as broken out if she's with him because he's now in charge of it i guess he's okay with it well i'm saying that he's been given the charge of taking care of it personally so if she's with him right she's still technically not having broken out she's still in custody yes yeah as we know later on uh queen's not happy about this uh this particular oh god we're getting so close this god too so just fyi we're not even through half my notes for this episode yet like i there's so much shit to come uh so yeah we'll we'll just keep moving now it's it's whole brand scene where like so he's like i want to do forging and then this this dude is like you can't forge without a crest now if we play in a video game okay rags we talked about this extensively we did talk about this your whole brand your player one you walk in and you're like forge your own weapon create the sword of a thousand truths that you're like okay cool and it's like how do i do it and it's like you can't use this forge you go i have a crest and then little objective marker you must just how do you get a crest and he says you can get a crest by the local guild if you can pass the tutorial and then you go over to the guild and you talk to the guild master and he's like would you like to try the tutorial because they all have the same accent and then it's like yeah okay and you press a we're at the right times you hammer anything so congratulations you pass level one if you can you know forge a thing within this time limit into these degrees and you'll unlock the crest for level one you get your smithing skill to level 50 then you'll be awarded a commendation for the guild and that unlocks even more diploma oh good job yeah yeah you are now an apprentice if you make it to you know a crafter proper then whatever that rank would be you know normal normal normal now if i was playing this game let's say i was streaming it and chat's there and i'm whole brand he's like you need to go to the guild to get yourself crest or whatever and then i go hmm maybe i can steal a crest off somebody now i would i would expect you guys in chat to be like wait what but that's not gonna work if you obviously not what it means obviously you didn't mean that but secondly you're you just arrived at this place you're like brand new everyone even recognizes that you can't just steal someone else's crap they'll be like so so how did you get this and then that there's just gonna be some guy without a crest it'll be stolen and they'll just be like wait did you actually pass it in a few seconds since i last saw you you just you now have one seems like you probably stole it then like you're not gonna get away with it at my point that it's literal i guess whole brand thinks that literally i just have to have this crest and i can get a job here not the obvious implication that you have to earn your place in the guild and the crest is just a symbol of you earning that this guy is so fucking stupid that he takes it literally he has his own wonder woman moment here it's annoyed me because whole brand was almost okay he was like he was like this character who clearly is out for himself but he'll do a couple of the thing with the knife was really stupid that was really dumb right but like but there was this thing here right where he's like he's getting heckled by this guy he's like oh you're friends with elves you must you must be lame and then he's like you're gonna take all the things from us and then he says yeah i'm gonna take your women too and then they're like oh you did not just say they're about to beat him up and then he goes wait i'll buy all drinks for women but us and they're like oh okay buy us all drinks and then they like just hard cut to him like laughing with them and having a great time and they're all drinking and i was like for a moment here i was like this is this is this is okay like yeah he almost made several enemies but then he made friends out of them because he just he gave them drinks for the hospitality he's been provided in a city that's not his when he was dying it's like this yeah okay this is like what a normal person might do for a brief shining moment we had something that someone might do unfortunately yeah look closely see where my cursor is see this right there that's the crest look a whole brand's hand oh oh looks like he's got a big old honkin claw on that i think he's trying to get it off uh with everyone watching and with the assumption that it's just something that you could take off like it's not like to you it's it's gotta be pinned to you or attached to the no the little sash thing right no it's velcro it's yeah it's a couple of couple pieces of velcro that's it new minorians invented velcro which allowed them to create a successful civilization but then he would have heard it's right next to different from velcro in the real world though right next to his ear though even if it was velcro it's quite velcro it's very very very quiet it's new minorian velcro yeah yeah also maybe he got him drunk enough that he didn't even notice and no one else noticed they're drunk too everyone's drunk that's a good excuse for anything it's just bad like why are they so stupid with everything they're doing why can't they just do anything properly and the almost really funny about this is like my big criticism rags as well as well and i think several people just like you're not gonna get away with this hull brand he the show agrees he doesn't get away with it he doesn't get away with it for even a minute he uh he walks around the quarter and then they all confront him for stealing the crest immediately like oh so hull bra's just an idiot then that's just that's just in universe he's just a fucking moron why did he do this it was never gonna work and the show was like nope why didn't you go and just earn a crap if you are talented with a forge and the crest is given to people to signify you can safely use one and this is something you want to do as the craft exactly just go do the fucking crest he plans to stay in numinal what is the point in stealing one when obviously everyone's gonna find out go and earn one i'm sure it's not that hard do you and yeah do you think it'd be interesting to go to you know the guild and say hey i'm from across the seas you haven't had someone from across the seas they don't they don't come by often i guess i'm not sure what the world building of the world is but i i have my own take on things my own distinct styles i'd love to mix them with your own i could create some really amazing stuff and i'm skilled very skilled at the forge and hey might make you look good if you take me in and i become a member of your guild right it plus i'm just really skilled supposedly start his life meet a lady for daggers all day to get that skill higher there's a really tedious reason that they don't do any of this of course and that's that they really really want to speed up the numinal sequence and get out of it within the space because they wanted to get him in prison that but they couldn't have him work his way yeah there is that as well but that's because that that is a quicker way of getting to the desired end point rather than it would be if they actually had the confidence of telling a long story that you could sort of string out over the course of multiple seasons you could have spent much of a season in numinal not the two episodes that we've got you could have had him actually yeah working his way proving himself as a smith so delivering those subtle sort of calls forward to sauron much more sort of spread out but also much more definitely um you could have done all of that and it would have been interesting and then you're actually building towards something like his realization as you know he's worked to achieve the payoff he would eventually have but because they don't they really do want to speed things up which is bizarre given how empty the rest of the show feels but there's they're going through you know like hundreds if not thousands of years of history by doing all of this and to get to the end point that they could have built up to over the course of three seasons as opposed to one but I just don't think they had the confidence in telling a long story even though they do have five seasons so like they want to speed up these important events when they really shouldn't and somehow still manage to make the rest of it feel slow and empty well they don't know how to write emergent personalities so if you have from the point we meet him in all of his conversations like we see him looking at the forge and interested is like okay he's interested in forging or blacksmithing or whatever it is you could have him talk about like what he used to do as a kid maybe in a conversation that pops up or he notices uh that's very fine craftsmanship on that sword is it such and such kind of steel you know like yes it is you know how did you know is like it's very interesting that you know or I appreciate that someone can recognize the you know the metallurgy that something like that where he he has this knowledge and so it eventually comes out naturally in some way instead of forcing this plot where he has to steal a crest which by the way I was going to say what I think of that they wanted to get done as well is to put him into a fight where we can feel like ooh that was dirty fighting ooh this guy he's not he's not like Aragorn where he fights people and it feels good this felt this felt a bit more ooh because of course it's set in the groundwork for how he's not a good man there's a darkness in him somewhere still spooky like an evil it's in all of him it's very dark inside um so yeah this was all just annoying uh and then he gets into a fight and like beats them all and then he gets arrested who could have foreseen this happen I know right it's just like my choice yeah um oh yeah before he delivers the final blow I think to the last guy he says call me hull brand this is like okay that's kind of it's yeah that's kind of cringe bro yeah I could picture the guy on the floor with like a broken nose we're like why did he say that like that was stupid you I don't even know who you what what was I supposed to think yeah from me I don't know why are you why did you do we helped you literally who is whole brand what was I supposed to think with that that he's like oh I go by another name but I can't tell you yet and it's way cooler you just wait it's brand hole whoa oh no for short we're we're possibly the biggest problem in the whole four episodes now here we go so yeah they say the king was loyal to the elves but now he's just in a bed but this was a place that he made sure was kept safe and and stuff because the the towns people were like boo this place was the elven place we don't like this place and uh he's been brought here because uh he was I remember the reasons I mean like I think it's just elf stuff and she likes elf stuff I think it's it's not too complicated but looking around and um she shows the mark of sauron to like the librarian here um he brings out something for them to have a little look see at immediately it must be said that's like yeah it doesn't take long that you have this whole massive library one incredibly rare symbol you don't even know if it's in the library but no 30 seconds later just after a little bit of character dialogue is allowed to take place 30 seconds later on cue on shuffle's library and back into the set um and yeah the whole and then it just gets so much worse well yeah so to be I'll try and make this as clear as I could understand it they say that there is an account from a human spy who escaped an enemy dungeon and he drew a symbol in order to recall the tower's location in which he escaped from so just just a repeat sort of they would have had I guess a new minorian who was taken to somewhere and he was tortured and and kept in a thing and then when he got out of there he was like I need to write something down like a symbol to denote where I was kept and where this tower is and it's uh it's the sigil it's it's the mark of sauron is like oh my god and and and and she realizes galladriel that uh it matches a part of the map it's mordor there are many issues with this Jesus Christ so she concludes from this that uh sauron has been doing this for a very long time and like the whole idea here is to to build up his forces and to do it in secret but to simultaneously draw orcs in and they will be directed here via that clue being that the mark represents that part of the map on middle earth and she learns works to know that there's an inscription alongside the the little symbol so the spies account also said I think I've actually got the direct quote it speaks of a plan a plan by which to create a realm of their own where evil will not only endure but thrive a plan to be enacted in the event of morgoth's defeat by his successor matters are worse than I imagined so there is like 17 things wrong with it is if you wanted to start I guess like chronologically the problem would be right back presumably a couple of thousand years ago when the spies actually in the dungeon so has he just been he was sort of chilling out there and he had access to a map presumably in order to be able to get the rough shape of mordor to write down in the first place but also he either overheard or he found something just really conveniently written down by the evil guys explaining that it's like a land it's it's there there are more competent bond villains than this and then so this is somehow makes its way back to to numinal where it's kept for more than 2000 years and doesn't decay or disappear just in order for gladiator to tell up and see the reference and she just happens to have seen the map behind them on the wall anyway so that's cool so but how do the orcs know that that's a map reference and that's the orcs have a map the orcs knew because the elven scholars did not exactly google the orcs knew not how this works a fucking ditch digging orcs who hit the tree they knew with his symbol meant but all of the elves did not all of everyone did not no one knew um yeah so we're gonna we're gonna have to just keep talking about our issues with this because i don't know how in the will we could possibly cover them all but we'll sort of we'll just keep moving around because i was just gonna say that so this this human spy did he write all this out and then it got sent here or did he he got out and provided this to them right so like why is it vague why wouldn't he be like literally this part of the map right here and then write it down in words yeah like he can he can do he can do coordinates he can be like this part of the why write a symbol to be like this is the symbol to represent the landmark in which i just i escaped the tower or just like what yeah just if you if you're familiar enough with the mountain range then just draw the little mountain range why and everyone's like oh that looks really oh wow that's just the mountain range that's a location exactly they would have had names they like i said would have had you can build a map you can then just draw a little crude version and draw an x like you go what is this bullshit where you draw like an artsy version of the symbol of the mountains what is that why are you doing that you're making it more complicated yeah are you trying to help us are you trying to like get us to a location why are you being this is like the the cryptic lingo of symbology and then just tell us what you want if you're telling us that this has been enacted since the day morgoth died which correct me if i'm wrong that was hundreds it says it says it's contingent in case of his defeat so it's before he dies before he does talking with thousands of years thousands of years i think it's like 1500 to 2000 years didn't she say we've only found two of these sigils in total yes well her brother that her brother the altar in here okay so how the fuck are these supposed to guide the orcs like what if the orcs ever find her brother in case they grave rob her brother they'll have a direction to border i seriously can't like this was blowing my mind i was like why did you write it this way this is so stupid the other sigil they found was in like a fortress keep place it's like yeah why is it like a stone altar with a weird strange image of the world as well it's like as far away from Mordor as you can get up in far away this is the other one but then random kid finds one on a sword in a basement so there must be more of them lying around so how didn't she find it's in the case the orcs find the sword and then sorry fucking dumb ass he's like yeah it's to direct the orcs here it's like don't you think that'll direct everyone to know where you are why would it only direct orcs he's like because only walks will recognize the mountain range especially orcs have maps you carve it on the brother of a main character you think maybe the elves might have noticed i can't i can't believe there are only one map did did no one else at any point in linden or any of the the elven cities did they not have maps how did she not because she doesn't even need to be here to gain this knowledge she needs to be anywhere with a map basically and just have that brain click movement it's a location okay well i'll stick on the map there it's clear like none of this actually needs to have happened there are so many like simpler and shorter ways of reaching this same point but for some reason we've gone as far away as we can possibly go to find the knowledge we need to get as far away to the other direction to get back to the southlands which we should already have known was evil because bearing in mind as well she already knows that she wants to go to the southlands because she already knows that's where the orcs are because how brand told her that on the raft in the last episode so this she doesn't actually even gain much new knowledge from this entire stupid shit show it's just it's oh god it was a lot to take in and it was so quick like it was like this is true and it's like what it's no matter of faculty but it's so dumb like that's the this show is really dumb for a show that is trying to be very grandiose oh look at us look at our flowery language you see the stone looks down into the darkness oh aren't we it's very very clever this show is dumb yeah this is a kind of show that a dumb person might watch and think is very smart frustrating um but i suppose we'll move on great we got that as part of our fucking plot line now why not that's fun yeah that's fun we're having fun we're all having fun here it's all great hey guys remember the the harphids we're going back oh the harphids i can't believe just for the sheer sake of scenery new new people i'm glad to see new people weird musical transition that takes place here as well because it's like this really singed a choir music that makes you think is it the dwarves now because it sounds much more like the dwarves uh this musical cue but no we're back with the harphids and yeah we will find out that they're evil momentarily yeah we're almost there um so they're singing the the chanty song which uh whoever came up with this whoever wrote this song props to you great stuff talented work uh if i can just share the lyrics with you guys it's uh nobody goes off trail and nobody walks alone okay what's the next one oh that's the whole song nobody goes off trail nobody walks alone okay got it so the next next bit all right that's the song nobody wants to try oh wait so they just say it the one time then it's really just more of a slogan um it's like it's like a good thing to tell them before they go out like remember everyone stay on trail don't you know don't walk alone everyone's like yeah remember it's like buddy system right hold up your buddy's hand in the pool and yeah that's good that's fine don't abandon your friend while they're drowning hey we're gonna get to all that's the only fun thing we have to talk about nothing else happens in the harphid scenes like it's good god nothing happens in these scenes but yeah they're all having huge amounts of fun and they just keep saying nobody goes off trail nobody walks alone again and again and again and again and again and again and again oh my god please stop those are the only two lines you could come up with like you couldn't think of a just like a third one yeah there's you it can't even rhyme like you came up with other lines about general like this is generally how we survive let's make a song out of it you teach our kids we could we could dance and sing and we'll have a gale time and we'll remember it because it's like a song but it's just this one line nobody goes off trail nobody walks alone that's the best i could do i guess that's the best i do it's bizarre isn't it like you have all of these like a lot of effort goes in this show clearly and you couldn't be like yeah just maybe like make a actual song not just the same thing you're eating let's uh that's like that's the draft for line one yeah maybe we should add more than just one line that you know and and also is it's not very optimistic when your song is just about things we can't do that's true actually yeah i just but it it makes a special amount of no sense when the next things happen like this is the big ol song that nobody gets left behind essentially that's where it feels like they're saying nobody walks alone we're here we're in it would make sense because we're a small tight-knit community everyone knows everyone we've grown up together oh it's the one thing i like well i was gonna say do you want to um just one very quick right by hat because it's established in i think it's an episode one isn't it with there are hunters around in their near vicinity uh much earlier in the year than they were expecting so they're all slightly on edge or they're supposed to be and they're thinking of migrating to get away from the hunters if you're like a hyper-secretive little village dwelling bunch of gypsies do you think you'd really be going around shouting and chanting and you know just generally making everyone know exactly where you are it just that seems a little bit incongruous so uh rags why don't you tell everybody what you liked about this scene this uh i like this scene this one little this tiny little moment that i liked this is sedoc and i think marigold no sedoc is the one outside yeah lady had uh it's how come it doesn't cut to her i wish i these two i forget the name i think her name's marigold i forget what his name is maybe someone can dad the brandy foot that mister and mrs brandy foot and he as you recall he in a comically presented fashion really like twisted his ankle or hurt himself while he was putting up the like a tent pole for the festivities that everyone's enjoying uh yeah he hurt himself doing that because no one else fucking helped him and so he's inside their little cart and he's sitting down he's like oh no and she and she she's really worried your foot's not better and we're gonna migrate soon oh my goodness you're gonna get like are you gonna get left behind what's gonna happen she's very concerned obviously about you know their husband and getting left but yeah it's weird that we have to have this conversation but i guess we do don't just want to talk to each other and he's like no no no no brandy foot's ever been left behind and he sees that she's really really distraught and worried about what might happen if that does happen and then he cheers her up by telling her she's great and um then and he talks about how they met and i really like the acting here and the expressions and it's just like a small little intimate moment that i really enjoy that is unfortunately just surrounded by horseshit it makes it tough to enjoy the scene but i i like this in total isolation yeah because that's the only way that i'm expressing and it's great because when i watched i was just unbelievably distracted by what i thought was a lack of information i don't know what the stakes are here why is everyone so worried it's like we can help this guy out yeah he's brained his ankle or whatever but who cares that probably happens a lot yeah you guys can look after him of course and i didn't understand the gravity of the situation no wonder so i made this apparently unwise prediction in the video i did on episodes one and two where i said well because you know the reason he twists his ankle is because brandy of what's what names what's the main irritating young hobbits nori nori that's the one so she's out gallivanting and then that means she can't be at home to put up the tent so he does it for her so he twists her ankle so i assumed from this that well he can't walk so they all stay in place too long and then something bad will happen to the camp like they'll be attacked by the hunters or the wolf that they trailed in episode one and like her friends and companions will be killed and then she'll be driven out on this adventure she never asked for and it's sort of like this this realization an ironic realization of the what she is always sort of wanted to go out on an adventure but to really understand that this is a darker and deeper and more tragic world than she could possibly have imagined so i just assumed something like that would happen so it would be yeah they would be stuck in camp something would go wrong most people would die they'd be sent off i assumed that would happen um and so i wasn't sort of jarred by a lack of information in this scene because it's still sort of comported with that but no no no i was about to say what you just came up with was way more interesting that she gets her wish but it's like a monkey's paw thing like yeah you get to go on your adventure but it's your whole family died or something like that yeah and it's a consequence of how it looks as well yeah i mean it's not it's not particularly complex as a narrative thing but it's it's tried and tested it works for a reason and i think it would have to reverse the current to the worker though why yes because she would get her adventure and as a result of that they the parents died whereas no no no no he's saying he's saying by having looked after gandalf they all die and then she gets out casted and goes on her adventure i thought that's what he was saying yeah because this is the reason that he gets her dad gets injured in the first place because she's out looking after i refused to call him gandalf i called him steve but she's out like oh yeah you're right i i forgot that because that's dumb too so i forgot about it the fact that it's nori's fault somehow that he heard himself which doesn't make any sense yeah which makes no sense you're right that was so dumb i didn't even remember so i thought there would be some kind of you know payoff based on that because you know that seems fairly important and it's a it's an obvious thing to do and it actually gives it keeps their character as a community consistent because they all voluntarily essentially sacrificed themselves they didn't know that was happening but you know they voluntarily chose to stay in place rather than running off and leaving people behind uh how wrong i was um that just seemed like it would make sense but no yeah well i don't know if they would want to take the i think maybe for tonality sake they want to try and keep the hard foot stuff more lower stakes and light-hearted but unfortunately i mean yeah understanding the situation is that is not true that is it like there yes but i don't know if that that's the thing we constantly talk about was it their intention what i'm pulling from this whether it's with characters or with plot so it's very strange yeah because i don't think that they like as we'll see i don't think that it's their intention to make the hard fits like horrifically villainous as a people right my intention it's not my additional question he says we'll make it to the grove now if this place they're migrating to is very well known and understood in terms of a location then them falling behind doesn't mean they can't make it to the grove necessarily later and if the implication is well if you're on your own you're much more uh you know weak to bandit attacks or something it's like true but you're all pretty weak to anyone attacking really um it might even be safer if you're not part of the big group yeah because you louder and more easy to spot so yeah i'm just saying like but uh because we'll get to all the other issues i think it's the end of this episode we can talk about how fucking insane this whole thing is but the fact that he said like you know we'll make it to the grove it's just we know where it is it's just it's going to take us a bit longer because i got the bad foot or whatever because he also says we'll we'll go to the front of the caravan so oh that doesn't make any sense either because does that so does that mean that they don't ever overtake the person in front because if they refuse to overtake the person in front then what's the point in this entire thing well it's because if you're if it's all about being left behind and being at the front is the safest place to be well no that's not what i'm saying what i'm saying is that okay let's say let's say that they put them at the front of the caravan but he's still injured and slower than everybody else so he will fall behind eventually and then he will be left behind anyway unless he sets the pace in which case they refuse to go faster than the person in front but then if they refuse to go faster than the person in front what's the difference between going faster than the person in front and faster than the person behind like there's no reason it's literally just like it's almost like a ceremonial position like if you're on the front well no no it isn't because if you're in the back like actually it's almost like a status thing like if you're in the back you can be left behind that's why you're in the back we don't mind losing you you're in the back that's why if you fall behind you're not slowing anyone down if you fall behind if you're in the back because fuck you it just to be fair it doesn't even look like it would be very easy to overtake people when we see the actual road that they're on at least at that point um and and if if there's because he wants to be at the front it's just like you should just get a couple days head start mate that's probably the best way to do it honestly but um it's like well when rags would know i think for the familial resemblance but i think it's true of wolf packs that the older and the slower member of the pack goes at the front and then the rest of the pack refuses to overtake or leave it behind which which actually makes the half it's less civilized than actual wolves according to make sense what we see on the screen makes sense yeah i yeah the the harfits almost seem like this this semi like yeah they're they're they're dirty and grimy sure but you're like you know they're not miserable i i guess you know this isn't so bad i suppose if you lived as a harfit you know some you didn't get eaten by a wolf but then then it's just like no being a harfits fucking shit mate and i because i rewatched it after the ends and then because you get that scene with lennie henry giving the sort of the emotional speech about the people who died and the people oh that puts an entirely different complexion on that and you realize that most of these people didn't just randomly died they were just abandoned by their camp well in fact there's only there's only one thing i already mentioned before that and it's literally the there's one scene between the one we're on now and that and it is this this scene that is actually uh 16 hours long and it's where nori is trying to grab a piece of paper it just sorry 18 hours i think it is maybe even 20 i'm not sure it could be it's anywhere between 15 and 20 hours it just keeps going forever and it's totally unnecessary this you have so many better things to spend your time on than with this what the fuck are you doing show this is the comedy about episode one and two yeah it's supposed to be comedy and like like i have said light-footed light-hearted but um it's just like just fuck do the thing go why are we spending so much time on this we don't know who you people are no around with the book but like oh will she get the paper will she not will she will she was just like i can't remember any of their names i don't care i don't even care well this is the highest the stakes have been in some time rags okay it is will she get that paper this is probably the most tense moment of their entire lives so yeah uh that scene does finally end and then yeah they start doing this like sort of i guess the last night's speech where we're all celebrating how much fun we've had in this glade and he says like as much as you know it's it's fun that we're moving on to new things better things we have to remember those we've lost and he starts like reading out the names of all the people who i guess have fallen off the trail are no longer with us for one reason or another yeah well so he says in life we could not wait for them but here now i welcome or we welcome to our circle and their names a whole bunch of people who've died and one of the things he says is stuck in the snows of the mountain pass it's like you left him didn't you you totally you did oh wait did they say an avalanche no one was a mud slide so i guess they're off the snow is he just the only was just one was just bees yeah one was bees i guess the bees killed him i guess they had an allergic reaction to the bees i suppose could be that could be that yeah i think the worst one is stuck in the snow because that just sounds like a guy was stuck and they left him yeah like he's like oh damn i'm stuck in this really deep snow and it's like guys give me a hand guys and then all you can hear at the distance is nobody walks alone he says fuck in the snows he got stuck in the snow yeah it wasn't like an avalanche it wasn't that something terrible happened or there was a blizz no he's stuck in the snow you're not which is weird i don't know how you got stuck in the snow if you're in like a group well maybe because like it could be as simple as just getting real cold real tired and then he went stood a little too deep and was just like oh fuck i'm you know just give me a hand and they're all just like no man every man for himself look at the existential dread that you would go through as you're sitting there freezing to death alone and you realize your entire community with your friends yeah that you've grown up with a little shanty while they leave you behind yeah they all lie in the cold well hey to be fair to be fair you will die knowing that in their celebration at the end they'll have a moment where they say your name how you fucking died and then everyone raises their glass and says we wait for you well so it gets it gets better than that right it's like posthumous trolling yeah it kind of is posthumous trolling is a excellent way to put it is posthumous trolling they name we wait for you they name that guy and then the snows they name the landslide one and the bees but then they have like four names in a row and they don't tell us how those words died and i was like well those words just too controversial to have written down like one of them falls over is like an old man who's like help and they're like oh jeez what do we say about this one it's like his walking stick broke i don't know sardoc sardoc felt really bad writing we left them behind after every name so he just doesn't bother anymore you got bored imagine if you're one of those people who he's just too tired to list even in full how they abandon you to death and like abandon you to death they're crying like they they're very sad and they're crying that these people got left behind yeah it's like you're not you start to wonder it's like are you all just bought in that you cannot help someone if they fall over like that is just it's against a natural order or something yeah that it's just i didn't buy some weird religion now he walks alone except you are entirely on your own and if you can't keep up then fuck you if you're not within 10 feet of another heart foot you are dead to us the whole point i thought of this group in this society is everybody works together because alone you can't do it but it seems like their ideology in terms of abandoning people is you must be entirely self-sufficient if you need any help at all you're no good to us and look how this one died look at this one here she she ate the wrong kind of berries that sounds like that sounds like a fuck up that doesn't happen often like you tell no that's it wasn't that he ate her that's what that's what the code is like oh yeah they ate the sunshine yellow berries oh yeah you don't want to also you don't have a name for it you call it the sunshine there'll be like a particularly plump half foot everyone's looking at that one and then what then sardoc is like we're having berries tonight and several of them are like that that explains why podge is the only one who stays behind with the brandy first because she's the obvious candidate and she must know that because she's partaken of the half-foot flesh before mm-hmm yeah and when you eat too much half-foot flesh you yourself may end up becoming their food because you get too big that works as a cycle one of the big issues that i mean the maybe the issue it stems from an attempt at a unifying culture so by the way that they speak of things the ancient egyptians whenever someone died they would say they've gone west right someone dies they've gone west because the sun sets in the west right so that's where you know that the day ends of the west sun goes away it's like death the pyramids and everything all those sites for burial on the west side of an aisle right it matches their culture and it's intuitive you're like okay that makes sense so if you are making a a half-foot culture and it's about you know like staying you know staying together as a group and moving and traveling at times and so your your language is oh yes we to to remember them we say we wait for you and no one gets you know left behind or when someone dies we say they were left behind or dying being left behind means you died essentially that does not mesh with the culture that we've been presented with you want to have lingo and you want to have this unifying concept that's prevalent in this culture but it doesn't actually match what the culture doesn't is it's like that that poetic symbolism of the egyptians married with the sort of the cold bloodthirsty brutality of the astex which is actually what we've got just complete nihilism about your own community it is it's it's it's sort of well it's Darwinian in a sense isn't it i mean every time they move it is literally the survival of the fittest or at least the the death of the least fit it's pretty much the same way almost we had it on that i don't want to talk about it yet because we'll we'll have it for the final scene but the nature in which they fall behind is very curious to me in terms of all the issues that come with it in terms of thinking about how all this works um this story is almost like it's set up to be the first act of a story where Norfolk realizes the truth about her culture and has to rebel against it and change it for the better but i don't think we're doing that like this unironically is one of those stories where you learn about the cd evil underworking of what makes your civilization function and then the character has to go and try and set that right so then Nori's got this page and this page is taken out of a book that sardoc has drawn the constellations as he's seen them i don't understand how that is helpful to Gandalf slash whoever he's he's holding because this page is just the constellation he drew out with fireflies that's it there's nothing else so i don't know why that's useful can we pause just a second there um because i think i when he describes the person who was killed by bees everyone laughs i mean they probably ate him they remember the taste they remember the meal and the sauce that they used for him i had a honey i was like that's that's i imagine dying from bees is horrific you know it's like the terrible way to die especially if you're small and bees are larger by comparison and there's a swarm of them and you just get stung and stung until you just fucking die and they they all chuckling when when that's brought up because like i don't know man that seems really fucking disrespectful honestly they marinated him in honey or something maybe oh no you can you know what they say you catch more bees with honey jesus um that's fucked up i don't even know who blovo his name was like blovo uh it's a fucky it's it's one of those flute names i gotta mm-hmm yeah blovo bulger buck i don't even know blovo bulger buck blo blovo bulger buck you know i feel bad for him i feel worse for him than these fuckers did and they lived with him yeah literally laughing at his demise from bees they didn't laugh at the one who got thrown apart by wolves no that's not as funny he says we all loved him he said we all loved him but he wasn't legit the guy the man died from bees guys i don't know yeah is it you an idiot if you i guess maybe he it's like he's put his hand in like honey and then he gets eaten by the bees so they ate him it's obvious at this point yeah that's they ate the dumb one yeah because it's fine because he was an idiot that's that's like they put him in a little stew pot and started heating it up and he was like this is a bath and they're like yeah it's a bath at the festival they do iq tests they see who they're gonna and these are just the survivors oh my god that's a true survival of the fitter we've added from cannibalism we've also added the execution of the mentally ill yes but charming it's a wonderful so nori's still in that wait wait before you go on the last one of the last names he mentions that someone he says ma hambley was making a sculpture dot dot dot and it goes back to gandoff and i'm like the fuck happened it fell on it she died when she was making a sculpture dude you know what happened it was a big sculpture sardoc walks past nudges it onto it and it fucking falls and kills her and he goes whoops guess we're eating berries tonight was a tragic accident it's a shame yeah it's tread gotta make use of the flash it's so obvious at this point there's no hiding it um anyway so yeah nori's got this page and you're like good job she got it this is the next step in the getting old man what he needs to get i guess and she just fucking throws it down on some random table and it's like don't you want to put that in some way more secret it's very important to your goals but you know okay and i guess gandoff was watching it he just goes and grabs it and starts looking at it and then he sets it on fire by accident and i was just like fucking hell this plot is clunking forwards she gets the book or the page she sets the page down on a random table in the camp she happens to stumble into camp go to that table picks up that page which has what he needs take it to a fire and have it light on fire like none of this like it it makes logical sense right but it doesn't it can happen that these things can happen you know so good good on you for doing that but this is just coincidence and convenience clunking this plot forwards this duplicated setup as well we've literally just had a sequence with a map of sorts which is discovered um and that leads the way to the next part of the plot here we are again another map of sorts which is conveniently discovered moving on it's almost as though they have no ideas at all and it takes so long for them to do this as well it's never quick they take ten years to get these scenes done you're just like if i were trying to be if i were being like really really unduly optimistic on the part of the writers and their intelligence i would say you know maybe what they're eventually going to do is to try and make some kind of point of the symmetry between um the brandy for storyline and the and the gradual storyline you know you've got these two female characters who are rebelling against the the sort of the clustering and stifling upbringing that they've they've had to suffer in the societies in which they live and then they have only one simultaneous moments but well i don't know because in the way it's the same because you know gladrile is is constantly rejected or at least her theories are denied and dismissed by only upper class of elven society whereas brandy is also denied and dismissed and her aspirations people still sort of you know look no she's given she remember she's given centuries of being able to look for it and she lives this very expansive life where she's this revered general who controls troops and she goes on these big battles and everything and she's had all of this time to do all of these things it doesn't work for her so that because people don't really believe her at that this one point here based off of a shocking lack of evidence that she's being stifled no that's a fair point yeah maybe maybe one of those what like the writers want us to think that instead of remembering oh right we've established that she has this history and she's been doing all these things for many many many many many many many many many many many lifetimes worth of you know adventures yeah i mean that was sort of like that was the foundation of the theory given that they've they've basically pretended as though the thousands of years of her existence until this point haven't actually occurred so you know we are going from as though episode one is sort of year zero basically like past events don't matter for character or for plot really not that much and so you know when we're first introduced to galadriel as the adult galadriel then she is you know she is rejected by the rest of her society in the sense that her troops all abandon her she goes back she tries to convince elrun to reject her theories she tries to convince skill gala to reject her theories this is all you know this is the strong and the independent female character who is you know having these ideas and we the audience know that she's right so you know we sympathize with her against the stifling conformity of the menfolk and you see the exact same thing taking place with the harvests as well albeit on a very different sort of different scale so if i were trying to say you know being as kind as possible in my estimation of the writers abilities then maybe they will try and make a point of this symmetry going forward not withstanding what you said about the fact that it doesn't actually work because of galadriel's experience or the rest of it but every time i find myself in the position saying well okay maybe the writers are going to try and do this thing because that at least wouldn't be terrible or it wouldn't be completely unadulterated shit they usually end up letting me down anyway so yes yeah well speaking of that um i've even seen some people trying to i don't know if they be make or not i feel like it's a meme but like i was gonna make the joke it's unfortunate that the gandalf comes across the one fire in the world that's hot um yeah because yeah of course uh it wouldn't have burned on the cold ones but some people are like well yeah there you go that explains it you know he's not used to hot fires like okay so you would have detected a hot fucking fire before setting this thing on fire and are you telling me he actually doesn't understand what fire is they didn't like are you serious like it's not like a basil does he actually think fires are cold and then you know but look at this shot right like like he should be shocked with it already he should be like whoa why is this i mean if you're that close to a fire you could feel the extreme heat coming off of it fire's gonna be you know super he will feel it well before and and yeah so the it's dumb as fuck he sets it on fire he is supposed to be the the mire or the wizard most closely associated with fire as well so like i don't think this is just a third age thing because he gets the ring the elven ring which is the the fire ring um nene or i think it's called the ring of fire kind of yeah he fell into it um but it's so he's supposed to be have more knowledge i think of fire even at this point in sort of you know his history um i think though like the the fact that he's the wielder of the flame of honor is it of honor yes yeah exactly so he is i think they were trying to tease that as kind of is this guy sour on because you know when you see him in the middle of the meteor crash site it does look kind of like a fiery eye the last time we saw fire that gave off no heat was in the northern fortress where sour on once was um i don't i think it's you know it's incompetently done but i think they were actually trying to to tease that possibility however ineptly but now now it gets to the point where at some point he will have to learn what fire is and apparently just hasn't done that yet yeah i just is tiring okay like we need to have it so that he bursts into the scene that's the other thing i didn't even fucking mention right now have has nori told him to stay secret or does he just not give a shit i don't know wait that could nori tell him to stay secret well so apparently he does understand what she's saying i don't know though like it's so hard to follow he says he says friend and nori but i don't know what's happening so like maybe hmm she we should have had some setup where he wants to keep going with her back and she she motions him to stay here so when she doesn't show up maybe maybe because she has to help with festival stuff she tells her friend like i haven't visited him i know like all day i've been busy i i'm worried if he'll come looking for me and then he actually comes and looks for her he doesn't just randomly happen to stumble in at just the right point you actually dare to say set up that he's he might come looking for her if she doesn't visit him it's um moving on i mean i just it's a little bit like just there's not barely anything is happening and the way they do it is so incompetent the writers i mean like there's so little for you to have to achieve in these very long scenes and you still can't do it how do we get it so they accidentally stumble across the stranger as he's called like well we'll have it so that he stumbles across the page that she put down for no reason on a particular table and then you'll try and read it with the fire and accidentally set it on fire get spooked and then run itself into a tent and get up and reveal his face and everyone will see him it's like what the why why any of all of that if you already had it so that he was just going to wander out because he doesn't seem to care if anyone sees him then you've already got your answer right there just have that happen you can have one of the fucking half it's just noticed there's a huge man over there no it has to be more interesting than that right it has to fall over and go anyway that happens and everyone's like ah and then he's like nori and then it's like oh no and so there's a big i guess town meeting and it's like you've lied you've stolen and you've uh you know hidden away as spookers big old spooky tolman and they say by our laws she has to be bad-ished the sardoc is like yeah but she's young it's fine the actual weird random word is de caravan does the term de caravan yeah yeah that would be a whole family too right not just her yeah i assume it would be a whole family the whole fucking stupid society you banish people if they so because you what exactly like what is actually what she's being punished for is it not telling them that there's someone is it bringing him to because she didn't bring him to camp no and and um she actually says he was lost he was hurt was i supposed to just leave him and they don't answer a question maybe because the answer is yes leave him or eat him that's what we do according to the rules of this society yeah that's what they would do they probably have it on the books that you're supposed to can like you know kill him in his sleep and eat his flash like that's what you're supposed to do nori and you're fucked up you didn't stay on the trail nori they found him they didn't just jump on him with little knives and just skin him alone yeah that scene has this awkward cut where he's just out of rock now and they're talking and he's not tangled up in the tent anymore it just cuts so i that would have been interesting to see how all those things resolved in between scenes um but that's why we didn't get to see it it's like during save and miners we just don't we cut away from that but a better writer would have thought huh sardoc right you're in charge of all these you're in charge of your people right you're trying to allegedly keep them all alive um how interesting that it wouldn't be neat if you had this non-threatening sort of dim-witted but friendly giant essentially who is just with you and wants to be your friend helping out that would be especially if you have this brandy foot maybe we call broken foot broken foot and his family might get left behind and that's like one two three four people something like that so like what if he pulled you know there's no gears do not spin in anyone's mind no there's no it's just nope you brought someone back you're banished i guess this before you're not it was like if you fail this this test if i win you'll banish from old wolven lands he fails well it's fine to worry about it oh okay what this was like a this is hurt my brain but um yeah like that's the conclusion but you like so is was all that pretty much with the sun is like no sardoc decides as punishment they will go to the back of the caravan which is the one thing the dad didn't want to happen how unfortunate and then he's like whoa sardoc don't do that he's like i'll leave me alone i'm going to sleep now bye and it's like oh shucks oh okay i'm gonna be honest with you in you to discuss this gonna be honest with you guys if you told me let's say it's us four we're a little family and i i've broken my foot and i tell you so sardoc said we have to go to the back of the caravan tomorrow morning and it's like oof um that means we're probably gonna die because we'll be left alone and then well we wouldn't probably die because we're fucking whatever anyway let's go with it let's let's say because that seems to be what this village believe you'll die if you're left behind right so let's just go with that as the stakes like okay fuck it let's get ready right now and start going we'll be ahead whatever what are they gonna do the caravan yeah well we're apart the caravan one we're another you're gonna have to fuck it and you know what i'll be slow because my broken foot but i mean if we get a good half days start then uh we should be ahead of them and they'll catch up with us maybe and what are they gonna do they're not gonna kill us they'll just have to go past us i don't care if you send me to the back of the caravan i'm staying at the front bitch even from the tribe's perspective this is like the world's shittest trolley problem do we send them away or do we leave them behind exactly the same thing there's no difference between those two things well shittest trolley problem and if it is your family's life at stake you should be protesting a bit more i feel you need to be like no like this is this is me and my families like lives essentially we have got to discuss this i'm not going to not have a conversation hey sardoc you seemed really concerned in episode two when you found out i'd hurt my leg sorting out your fucking festival it seemed like you cared that i might be left behind with all of my family and now you're actually facilitating that by putting me at the end and why this seemed pretty arbitrary you're just like fuck it you're in the last now i don't know that's just the way it is it's like okay cool so i'm not gonna do that and you're not gonna be able to stop me unless you kill me which you know fuck it whatever if you have the bolt and it doesn't like it doesn't accord with the earlier conversation the one that rags said he liked which i kind of agree with you know between the mum and the dad when they're really really worried about the prospect of being left behind worried it's probably an understatement but they're you know they are concerned to be uh the prospect of being left behind and then when this argument sort of comes to fruition and then comes to an end um and the mum takes nori i can't keep forgetting her name i think it's nori nori aside and then she she tells her off as usually you nearly got us kicked out of camp well no but i did get us put to the back of the camp which was the thing you said you were scared of in the last scene so you shouldn't just accept it really as you're going to sign on in that interpersonal thing like you should have what where is the fight here what happened to the stakes that would just say yes if you care about your wife yourself your kids and the thread is them all dying as a result of this like you need to be like you need to be raised in hell and think about that emotional appeal of to everyone else like are you just gonna let us fucking die think about all the law they must have known sardoc for ages and they must be able to just walk into him like dude this is the first thing that's ever gone wrong it's a guy fell out of space dude like this is this is a pretty weird scenario and our daughter decided to try and look after him and what you're gonna kill us because of this seriously you're gonna punish her for the same kindness we allegedly are showing to each other like this is weird what are we then like sardoc we've been in neighbor for like presumably decades i don't even know yeah it's gotta be decades like i mean you really doing this and you looked like you didn't even know why you were doing it you just went back to the caravan bye i was like what are you doing man what are you doing just stop just just don't do that who elected you it seems bizarre it is bizarre this culture is strange i i get this at that striking contrast between between the close intimate community where everyone knows each other from like from birth to death you know everyone and the death of a member in this kind of society is like a a tragic thing to happen and then you contrast that with just this casual you know you're going in the back you brought your fucking dead you broke you not even broke but you sprained your ankle is like we're not waiting for it to heal fuck you you die and your family dies too and then we eat you and then we eat we eat the berries the other um bizarre thing is that there's no word on the crazy long man they don't do anything with him well because we cut from we cut that scene where that might have happened but if they're even it like even if they did cut that scene what were the repercussions of it nothing we don't know like they're all like scared of him they don't want him anywhere near them but they didn't say anything about it he's just literally four meters away from them looking at them but they don't do anything it's like there he is be fair four meters away to them is like 60 meters for us that's the safest it's a so much more important that they have the exact same argument with nori again the mother and nori have to have that yes you're being too adventurous for a not hobbit it's unnatural for a not hobbit to be so adventurous why can't you just be no the tallest milkweed gets snipped to whatever the fucking metaphor is like that is evidently having that played out for the 12th time much more important than seeing what the consequences of having steve in camp were I mean it's just yeah why would you cut the tallest milkweed you you cut them at the bottom right well so but just for that though she says we don't need friends we need to survive then her responses without friends what are we surviving for and then her responses our way has kept us alive for thousands of years or a thousand years or whatever i'm just like not all of us all of you i'm i'm very fat fucking stung by bees well i'm just i'm just confused because like survival but like like we pick surviving over friends like isn't isn't the whole idea here that you're so you're a community that supports each other you're not just merely surviving not all ruthless people who just leave behind anybody who's a mild burden because you seem to be getting along like if if the idea is to present to me as an audience member that they live a very perilous life they have not done enough work to convince me of that because they seem to be getting along really well with moderate amounts of not really even moderate amounts of care taken to though keeping themselves hidden i mean you guys are having this big old party here like i just i don't it's again it's that disconnect i don't believe what you're telling me is the case based on what you've shown me the tallest salt gets snipped for looking down salt yes um yeah so she says to him um there's a reason he's here she's like do you think you're special you're just a child she's like i'm not special but he's special i can feel it and i if i were in the scene i'd be like i mean you did fall from space that's probably special it's not it's not just a feeling sweetheart he fell from space we would have known this if we went and checked out the crash site which is in walking distance but we didn't now um as for the whole the tallest milkweed gets snipped um i was still referring to this the uh the idea that like the the the prize flower is the one that's going to sort of attract the attention of the gardener and get taken yeah is uh is actually something i appreciate but i don't understand what the fuck his mum is talking about here i don't understand means they're gonna cull she's gonna cull her own daughter if that's the thing they're going for that so the the whole point of the the saying of like oh the the the one that stands tallest it's it's that like by being prominent you like draw attention to yourself including negative attention and people who might buy to well exactly but how does that relate to this that's what i'm saying like in this case what what what is she doing that is equivalent to that attaining like status and she tried to remain a secret an entire but you guys are and to be fair you guys are having this big old party running around dancing with torches and singing you guys are being the tallest milkweed well yeah like what what by helping somebody else for like no apparent gain other than to do a nice thing what exactly does that have to do with drawing attention to yourself so much so that it puts a target on your back i think maybe i'd guess the metaphor is being used well inaccurately as all of them are but i think it's supposed to be a little bit broader than that so it's not just it's broadly speaking drawing attention to yourself now you can draw attention to yourself simply by being different not necessarily by trying to attain status which of course that's what the metaphor is supposed to convey but i think the way they're using it is simply making making yourself known like differentiating yourself from the community is what they're talking about the metaphor doesn't work there because i mean again if the tallest milkweed gets snipped is what they're going with well in this analogy or this metaphor the farmer or whoever is snipping the milkweed is the community around her so the mother is implicitly saying almost explicitly say i will kill you the community will kill you if you carry on doing this you're linking you're linking prominent acts of selfless kindness to a thing that you should not do yeah no because that's not what the community does no not this community this community like well if you die of bees we will laugh at you at your funeral um have you because uh little patina have you seen game of thrones of the show yeah yeah so funnily enough so again i was talking to you about this one of my favorite scenes from all of game of thrones isn't in game of thrones it's a it was a deleted scene i don't know why they deleted it it's a really really good scene um and it this this comes up and i just want to i want to talk about it because it's just a perfect counter example but like there's a character in game of thrones called grand maester picelle he's very old and he walks with like a super hunch back and he'll do things all the time he'll literally talk like this you'd be like hello sir has a good morning how are you doing and he'll be like oh i forgot this and he'll be holding like a message for someone and you'll you'll like wiggle his hand trying to lift it up and you'll pass it to him you might drop and go oh i'm so sorry you know that sort of thing um but then you get a couple scenes where he's alone and he's fine he can walk normally he can talk normally uh even pretty fast and uh there's just a great moment i think it's the end of season one where um he puts his clothes he's like he's like sprightly he can he's full on walking around everywhere so he puts on his clothes and then he like simulates the hunchback and then starts walking out of his room really slowly because that's the act that he puts on the scene i'm talking about is tywin has arrived at king's landing and he's getting everything fucking in order because it's all a mess and he meets with picell he pulls him out of the the black cells i think it is because that's where tirion put the maester and um uh that was in the show it's not in the show um i wish it was in the show uh tywin's like fishing i think and i'm pretty sure there's symbology there for the fucking uh the catlin's house that this is so much good shit in game of thrones when it was good anyway uh he's tywin's like asking him more and more questions about how he's been operating that are kind of like in a sense fishing for plot holes about the decisions that picell has been making and he eventually starts going oh god lord have my lord he just goes did this act work for like anyone seriously and then he like pauses it it just goes well works for a lot of people yeah and Ty was just like it's impressive honestly but like you know don't work for me and he's like why do you do this like what it what is with this whole like oh I'm a little old man don't worry and he eventually says like the tallest flower in the garden if you're if you are the tallest flower you're going to get plucked I just want to live in the garden he says something like that and obviously the point is that he just tries to come across is not too important while actually like doing things he wants to do just to be able to stay alive he doesn't annoy anybody doesn't create too many ripples and that's how yeah old man don't have to worry about him everyone is oh it's just old man Jenkins he's fine exactly and he everyone tolerates him because he's just the old dude he's fine do it man no appreciate that a game of thrones deleted scene better every single scene in rings of power that made it into the final cut it's you imagine how bad the deleted scenes must be for rings of power oh maybe they cut the good ones maybe they could have done that they could have cut all the good ones and um yeah it's a great scene for tywin because it shows that he sees right through the fucking act immediately and it's a great scene for pysel because you really get a good insight into why he does a lot of what he does and then you have the the analogy that works really well it's so funny when she said it this seat I was just like what the fuck are you referring to like is it literally because as you as you guys already pointed out the community will destroy you if you continue to do nice things what meanwhile what pysel was kind of referring to is a lot of the people who get killed in King's Landing the ones that are making the big power plays the ones that become a problem for people the ones that are doing this that and the other he's just a kindly old man who would care about him so yeah I don't know I was really surprised but I this it's just it's consistent these writers keep doing this they keep coming up with these different ways to try and analogize or create metaphors and they're always embarrassing and you get confused as to what the point was as opposed to just using normal standard English you guys just do that you're not very good at it but do that because it gets even more difficult to like decipher scenes when they don't yeah well up to four hours by the way I prefer the hobbits from the Shire oh you don't yeah I could agree with that I think actually after spent I was just what a lovely place to live that's like ultimate top tier if you had to live in a fantasy setting were to be the fucking Shire give you the Shire any day I'll live in the Shire absolutely yeah be pretty growing flowers and pumpkins and just having a good time with all your buddies and living company house oh give me that a day I will I would not be a hard foot no I don't want to die I don't want to be killed by who I thought were my friends every person who dies it's just like it's like Mufasa being chucked off the canyon wall who is like brother help me and they're like no actually they leave you behind but I was just looking through my notes and I it's just the conclusion you all had as well as just I put don't be a good person because you might die what the fuck is this what does this mean such a bizarre lesson to give your own child and I don't know if the intention to make the hard-foot evil I don't know I don't tell I can't tell what's a legitimate fuck up and what's just a terrible decision they blend together like salt on a table oh it's like lots of people like they have problems following thoughts through to their conclusions like most people have that occasionally but the writers of this show they can't follow a thought beyond step one like there's no connotation from what they're saying like I don't think it I genuinely don't think it occurs to them when they drafted that stupid metaphor that you know even to think what that mean what are the parts of that metaphor who conforms to the different parts who is the the milkweed in this scenario and who is the person doing the cutting I don't think they thought about it I think maybe they had a vague idea that they wanted to portray the half-hearts as like a more primitive version of the hobbits which of course they are and to do maybe something a little bit more brutal with the world they're set in I don't think though that they've realized that they would by doing that turning the half-hearts into cannibalistic nihilistic masochistic bastards I mean it's just yeah I don't think they thought it you're not making the half-hearts make a tough choice like we really don't want to do this but our survival is at stake where you like understand it this is just an at right act of evil yeah it's we get this in media a lot because a lot of media shit these days in particular we don't know where the incompetence like begins and ends if the writing is so bad throughout we're not sure if it's just a really bad decision that they decided to go with or if it's a legitimate fuck-up and they didn't intend for it because they both blend together they're often indistinguishable so we're back to uh Isildur and Elendil and the girl I forget her name off it's screaming why is she um so this scene we find out like Isildur has nine days before he completes his captain fleams or whatever and uh he wants to defer that's bizarre when you have nine days left and like he just can sort of announce that he tells Elendil this and then he's like what and he's like did you know and then this is like yeah I know because I listened to him I remember thinking like not like you dad I like some of these scenes they can go by and I don't like sort of think about them because I'm just like whatever that scene's over now but I was like a minute so like to translate this is like your kid telling you they're nine days away from completing like university but they just want to not do it for a year and then go back to it when the nine days left like what and then you're like wait did did other family member know about this and not tell me and then who responses well yeah you're a shitty dad who doesn't listen to your son it's like what that's not the approach I'd take Galadriel I mean other lady it's I like it's like she's she's trying to like meme a bit but it's like I was just told my son like wants to fuck off from his whole like education slash career and you're like poking at me for not being a good dad like fuck you man like what is this I'm busy by the way like I'm a really busy guy I'm like a C captain and I have so much semen underneath me that I have to keep tidy and I'm just gone I'm doing missions and I got this fucking elf like I got shit to do could you not put me down you're here when we're having dinner and then they make him say the past is dead we either move forward or die with it oh for fuck's sake it's just do you remember Elendil how in the previous scene you were in you went back to a library and looked up the past and it was incredibly useful yeah this line is fine for an appropriate character who thinks that and acts consistently with it but coming out of your mouth it seems odd I felt it really felt like they wanted it for the trailer and this because they didn't feel natural at all in this conversation that's most of the scenes Mahler it's for the trailer if you watch the show through the lens of imagine the trailers oh man wow so many amazing scenes story-wise it's shit but if we're trailers cold yeah daughter lady she's made it into the builder's guild okay and Isildur obviously he wants he doesn't want to be the captain person he wants to go to middle-earth I guess no he wants to go to the west he doesn't want to go to middle-earth he wants to go to the west of the island which is where his family comes from that's why Elendil says leave the past behind the past is dead does he say why it's time for the Jedi to die no I don't think he does we'll get that I'm not knowing the character's motivations we'll get it next season rags jesus oh but like that's something that should be asked is like oh you don't want to do this what do you want to do is like I want to go to the west of the island and I'm like why it's what what's over there for you that isn't here your family is eating something it's supposed to have a sort of guessing and it's supposed to be this dark past because they they say Isildur and Elendil share a bit of dialogue when Isildur says something along the lines of you know basically I won't recreate your fuck ups or something like that there's an implied dark backstory and a dark association between Elendil and West Numenor which is why he is much more down on the idea of going back than Isildur is but there's hardly any of that so there's not really enough to make anybody do anything other than say huh but and then again because the show doesn't pace its events properly even if you were minded to be intrigued by that and to ask questions of it you don't have any time to do that because we're about to get like three massive exposition dumps that are much more important than that after which you'll have just forgotten that that was a thing so the next time you see Isildur and you wonder why he's doing what he's doing well you've already forgotten what the West Numenor thing was about because you never knew what it was about anyway because they gave you nothing to work with all the relevant information in this episode just comes in the last 10 minutes and it it's just again terrible writing yeah we get loads Eric yours don't do what they should be doing and if it's for meta reasons then that's not an excuse characters need to be like if you hear your son say I don't want to do this thing that I've essentially been set up to do my whole life you should be asking why yes what's over for you like I'm your son I like or like I am your father I have a very personal interest in your thoughts right now I need to explore this basic shit um and so that's that scene it was really long too very long she's um it's I'm sure it's gonna be relevant in later episodes and I really resent that it will be but she's been flirting daughter sister whatever she's flirting with the son of our Farazon who's the chancellor isn't she throughout this episode I'm sure that that's gonna go places it's just oh sorry that's that happens in next episode actually because the next one oh yeah sorry yeah I don't blame you no yeah I don't blame you it's tough to keep track because it's a it's a mired mud it's yeah there's no there's no like anchor points to the show we're like oh that's really cool I really like this aspect you know everything else is shit but at least there's this one thing I like in this show just doesn't have that there's no plot liner character that you care about we do it again and I'm I just get so triggered at this point because it happens all the time Halbrand's like my people have no king and then Galadriel is like your people have no king because you are him and I was like wait they do have a game so they do have it like that's this Galadriel that doesn't make sense it's and also how do you know this well I found a thing in the library off-screen because I don't think we even get shown her finding this particularly in the library that was a really productive trip she gets back and then the writers decide oh we forgot to do that while we were there so just pretend that it happened and if we pretend hard enough people will just accept it so now she knows because she found a symbol in a different book that she wasn't even looking for and now she knows that he's the king of the southlands I think that's a really has the symbol of the king of the southlands there's a real good chance that they did film that scene but they ended up cutting it because when they put it together in the moment of like the big reveal of Sauron the choir rising and then they're like also there's this and she's like oh wow that's the thing I saw on that guy huh do it first yeah yeah there's loads of ways they could have done it but no they just like fuck it she looked around a bit longer and she found out there is a symbol that means the hull brand is very likely the king of the southlands or whatever who but I got even more triggered because maybe there's something that I'm missing but like he says my ancestors swore a swore a blood oath to Morgoth as a way of saying like you know we're irredeemable that's a lot and then she says my ancestors started the war come with me and both of us can redeem our blood lines and I was like what do you mean redeem the elves what did what did the elves do wrong they they were trying to save Middle Earth ah but this is this is one of those things that again it's relying on foreknowledge that it hasn't equipped you with so unless you've read the book you you can't you literally can't know the show doesn't tell you any of this but so the point of that is when the the war against Morgoth isn't obviously nowhere near as simple as the show makes it out to be the elves don't fashion swords first to go to war against Morgoth they fashion swords to use against each other Feanor is the guy who creates the Silmarils he's the person Morgoth sort of corrupts and incites to rebel eventually against the Valar and when Morgoth arrives in Valinor and destroys the trees or rather Ungolian destroys the trees up Morgoth's bidding Morgoth then steals the Silmarils which we've only had one mention of in episode two and Feanor made them he's very jealous of them he also kills Feanor's father so Feanor is incredibly pissed off about all of this and he wants to go to Middle Earth to get the Silmarils back and take revenge for his dead father and he sort of approaches the Valar for help and the Valar preach caution they don't like Feanor very much anyway because he's been quite rebellious so he says well fuck you guys then we're going anyway he goes to he takes his entire house and the entire Noldor race of elves to the beach where there is another race of elves called the the Teleri Elves and their famous ship builders that the only famous ship builders on the entire island and they they go to ask the Teleri for their ship so they can get across to Middle Earth the Teleri say no and so the Noldor which is Galadriel's family by implication it's also Feanor's house massacre the Teleri Elves so they kill this the Kin slaying is what it's known as so they kill their own fellow elves the first ever time any of this happens in Valanor it's a massive scandal then the Noldor including Feanor Galadriel all the rest of them when they leave they are banished then from Valanor they're not allowed to go back the Valar prevent them from doing it so when she says in this scene we can we can mend the history of both of our households we can redeem both our households she's referencing that but the show has said nothing about any of it so we don't know that's incredible there's nothing he's quivering in chat from the Lord of Rings expo this there's nothing in the show for this like yeah it's nothing like maybe the writers forgot but we're just kind of to be honest here the vast vast vast vast majority of everyone who watches the show has not read that book exactly that's just a reality of it and then that goes for marvel and comic books that goes for like these most people just don't they they haven't read that thing yeah you can't just name drop shit with no context especially if it's no even if few people have read it reasonably relatively speaking read the Lord of the Rings even it's not an easy book to get through but if all the people who've read the Lord of the Rings like maybe ten percent have read the Silmarillion as well like hardly anyone really has yeah that's me it's I am not ready to get through so you can't Lord of the Rings not so yeah but you can't just name drop shit in the Silmarillion which has massive connotations and consequences and then do nothing with that you can't just say well that's self explanatory it's not there's so much history that you've ignored in the show no viewer realistically is going to have this knowledge or very few of them will so what the hell is the audience supposed to make of a line like that and is the show going to go and backfill the information as it's done with everything else possibly but it's not going to be very satisfying if we get 30 seconds of exposition from Galadry on episode seven to explain what she's just told us in episode three I don't even think that's really appropriate because the way the line is delivered is as though we have the information we need to understand it she's like it's set as like a kind of a cool like yeah we you've just told me that there's you know there's evil in your in your history and as we know there's evil in mind so we you know we're in a similar what like what what did the way they introduced everything in the show the elves seem like cool kids who've done nothing wrong like you you need to you know let us know about this context because she says it so casually I was just like I don't I don't remember any of the where did you when did you talk about this even they just bring it up it's not you know the way that they do it in shows usually it's just like if someone said like oh you know the elves are amazing and then she can like look down and you could be like hmm and then another episode they're like oh yeah you know you got nothing to redeem in your history and then she's like uh don't speak of things you know nothing about you know let's go oh is there something that no she says it here so it's something we're already aware of it's just like that was confusing because yeah it's such a fail have an interesting episode one has an introductory monologue the only purpose of which is to establish this stuff yeah and it mentions none of it so the only way around it is to do as you say is to turn it into this sort of unspoken of tragedy in the past which no one really wants to address understandably so you hint at this darkness in the past you don't assume everyone already knows it which is the approach they did take it just doesn't make for a compelling narrative most people will just be confused by that. Galadriel coming to uh B-hole in the dungeon right and telling them that we have to redeem both of our blood lines it's like if you if you start a new job and you meet Tim who works there you're like hi Tim you're like hi you and then you go to work things are fine and you get along well enough and then the next day he comes to you with a knife and he cuts his hand and he says we are blood brothers now yeah it's a pretty intense development they've had uh when I guess they're trying to justify this because he gave her that knife back okay but she likes him he's charming the easiest way to an elf's heart is through her knife mm-hmm hey uh yeah it does make some sense actually yeah that's one of those it's one of the i'm sure that it's too small for this show okay one thing too I think is interesting is that the does this show want us to think that men's suck and elves are great um well so the problem I was gonna go with the whole like the people they want us to think suck do you know suck and the people they want us to think are great also suck so everyone just sucks yeah like you they've screwed off basically you could say that yeah screwed it up they have aired and it doesn't end there by the way because like the seed ends with him saying you're stuck here and you have no army so like you know how could she possibly enact a plan and she just goes that's all about to change I legit was like oh my god what is she gonna do is she gonna kill everybody and tell them like on the threat of death she must follow follow her into battle is it I legit have no fucking clue what she could possibly do and the next episode doesn't help in terms of how we get from here yeah like you know no spoilers technically because we like going through these as if people here aren't watching it so they get to be surprised but yes by the end of the next episode she will indeed have an army and she will be leaving here to fight a war in middle-earth that's a that just it just sort of happened we will you know we'll get to the the how it's not good keep keep that plot idea in mind with what it took to get the riders to get the soldiers of Rohan to come to gondor's aid just think about like maybe what it takes to get an army to go fight another just maybe as a gentle comparison between this show and the lord of the rings that's cool too it's almost cruel to invite that comparison it's almost like it's like it's abusing rings of power just because it's like it's like beating a cripple it just doesn't it's not good yeah rax don't beat in the cripple no carry on because it's really never really i've never beat a cripple i'd fucking put him in the back of the caravan and let him eat my bees eat my bees laugh at him green region visits to bed ridden dad dude i don't i don't remember if anything significance happens there um she just gives the audience some expositions so it's what what we feared has come to pass the elf has arrived or something i think yeah that sounds about right what we feared has come to pass that's the show yeah we'll get more on that actually in the opening of the next episode but here we are the famous scene there at the back of the caravan now unable to pull the cart very well uh which was interesting in that um i don't know i wonder the reality of this it's like so so yeah there's a lot to consider maybe i can get the wide shot better show what we're dealing with here it's like yeah so you can see here right that's where they are caravans there so they've they've abandoned them pretty much already yeah that's great a bunch of are foals no what a bunch of terrible people i hope they all get eaten by bees i need you to understand there is a lot of people in this caravan who are just walking now i'm not saying that that means you're not exerting any you know stress at all you see you are you are but i mean you're having a good time they're laughing they're have we're having a great time we love it the big reason why the brandy foots are not going to be able to make it is because one of their family members is not up to full strength he's at like what you could call half or maybe even a third whatever yeah so you know you guys have neighbors presumably you might be like well we've got you know three sons and the dad and the mum and maybe a daughter or something we can you know all all benny here you go you go help the the brandy foots you take the position because like they've helped us out because they're our friends yeah we'd known them for decades we grew up with them and we we we don't want them to die horribly in the wilderness and be eaten by bees um this is just baffling and it shouldn't happen and you should never consider the half it's good people after this this is horrifying and and what just the reason why it's hurt is because none of you jerks helped him while he was trying to do all the work yeah he got and now he's just condemned to death him and his whole family because he tried to help entertain the town or village exactly he got hurt helping you guys it's not like he was him hauling around fucking off somewhere in the wilderness doing something he shouldn't have been doing and no he got hurt helping you guys for your stupid fucking festival where you laugh at people who are dead yeah and it's prophetic i guess he should have known better there's another dark element to this as well because you know podge is using her like lugging her caravan on her own i think the implication is and i might this might even be said in the show her parents are amongst the list of the dead which means in that earlier scene she is sitting there and she is listening as lennie henry reads out and does posthumous trolling about the fact that they in probably including her ate her parents yeah i actually don't know that you've said that when you just recognize like yeah she's just pulling her own car i guess what the fuck is the wrong with this community twisted bro i i think it's just one of those an example of what happens when you're a really bad writer it seats into what you write and so now you might not have wanted it but you have written a little mini civilization of evil terrible cruel people that i i i can't care for the thing is is that you you can you could retain the core concept of like a caravan that's moving around that has to make difficult choices uh when like people in their community fall very ill or like when they're really actually something that's like a serious breach like yeah with the elderly they should they should have a system for this because of old people and we're not going to leave grandma behind we like grandma we're going to carry her on the car i guess what i'm saying is the scenario that you could put forth is one where their choice really isn't great where like yeah where you first start off to make it a tough situation yeah and maybe like you know that there's imminent danger right like maybe you see the tracks of like some creep critter it's not very friendly and like somebody is seriously ill and you just don't have the resources to take care of them and it's like well do we keep trying to take care of them and potentially endanger everybody else here or do we make the really difficult choice to actually leave someone behind yeah and even then leave them behind with like here we'll make a place for you to hide out we'll leave you some provisions we'll try to come back rather than just walking off and leaving them to die like when the difficult choice comes if it does come because of the scenario presented in the story you see like just how compassionate they are instead of you got hurt because none of us were helping you and your daughter was helping another person because of that you're all condemned to death we're gonna leave you here to and the worst part is it's like we're gonna let you try to keep up we're gonna like entertain the notion that you can continue to be part of our society look at how jolly they are abandoning them it's nuts exactly yeah they're laughing have a great time what is this like you wanted to like these people like they're horrible i forgot did we get a scene of uh broken foot like telling his family you've got oh i guess no he's a give me a moment to get my breath yeah they're still just sort of then he then they get interrupted by the they're like rushing this is our chance to abandon them guys go go go go go go go go go go go fuck those guys fuck all five of them that whole family i can't i just can't believe it it's it's terrible and it just condemns the harvest to never being likable this is a permanent blotch on their record like what am i supposed to do with this it's basically just it's it's it's virtually murder nori helps someone and she gets punished for it i'm not that punishment her whole family gets punished too and her family established that in universe she is being punished for being a good person and she shouldn't what is wrong with this show nori shouldn't listen to any of you your your your entire like culture is terrible she'd be like i don't want to be in your caravan anyway your caravan sucks you guys are psychopaths i don't want to be any part of that we're gonna go with this new guy from the sky and we're gonna do something that can't even be evil like with some recognition of how bad they are that they do it like smiling gleefully what's smiling gleefully i'm happy the south park episode with the christmas critters you can see they're really really cute and cheerful and they're just outpacing people's eyes sockets and that's what they are christmas critters it's yeah so not much else to say uh they they fucking put the two remaining brain cells together and think oh yeah the big tall guy he could probably help and i think the best part of this is that they hear noises and they like get spooked and then he like turns up and the thing about it is like wait a sec the carriage like moves as though something has gotten out of it and it's like was he hitching a ride this whole time there's no way there's room in here like well yeah i was confused at first as well because it doesn't shake like he's getting out the back if he killed up in there which i think is what is the the suggesting is happening i can't fucking believe it because that means he slowed them down and didn't help it's just they would have been fine if he hadn't just been snoozing in the back of the damn caravan i think all right so i guess what's gonna happen is they're gonna use him to pull the cart he's gonna catch up to everyone they're gonna like see he's really helpful after all and then pushes the car and then they're like ah how could we use this poor sub to advance our interests and goals well they they're like well if he's gonna stay that well it should be he has sardoc has the thought that he should have had i was like oh he i guess he's he doesn't seem to be that dangerous actually he just seems to be like a lost old man in the woods who thinks that worries his friend this could help us immensely if he's just looking for a place to hang out people we're gonna have that scene where sardoc is talking to some random about like did the brandy foot make it did they make it are they here and it's like no no and everyone's like no and then they they look they're like wait wait what's that and they squint and they see in the distance there they are they've made it and the creepy old man is doing it what and then yeah it'll cut to them being like i guess he can stay i i i guess so and everyone will be happy and we'll love the half it's what a great and wonderful community and we're gonna get that montage of him putting up all the buildings and he's doing it so easy he's putting up the big awning and no one breaks their foot and he just does everything so great is like wow he's it's amazing he's like the giant who helps us out and the thing about it is like when we review that we're gonna be like you know when he's saying like did they make it it's like why are you asking that as if you couldn't have done anything about this like oh what a shame i'm you can walk back the trail like you could you could get everyone you want to get to wherever they go and they'd be like i'm gonna go back and help them but no no they're not going to take that either it's like where's the cutoff point before they go back to help so like they get to the destination they look back down the road and they see them maybe i don't know 40 feet away well that's fine that they've made it okay 80 feet away you know they're still in sight so they've made it 160 feet away the do you just walk back a few yeah we can't just find where they are or is it just out of eyesight out of mind and that's like oh we can't even see them but we can hear them screaming for help and begging us to come and assist them it's not really close but i can't see him so they want it to be whimsical and it's just terrible it's not whimsical at all this is not whimsy no this is not whimsy at all this is not whimsy oh god i would be so furious with the the stupid ass half-hearts in general if i was here for any of this if i was just a part of a different family and i was like i'll help them out yeah they've got one dude with one bad foot we just need to give them one healthy person that's it help them out like what do you mean oh i could help pull their cart no they have to die what does that allow them to die they have to die they got left behind we don't know what we you don't want to go behind too we have to wait for them to die then collect the corpses to eat that's that's the rule yeah like as they have to eat the berries now it sounds like a horror movie is they're there in the ground like riding an agony the whole just blank face staring you have you have nori is like nori's rattling breaths as she's like slowly about to die all of your family are dead around it and then like there comes sardoc grabs one by the foot and drags them away and he's like i'll come back for you later this is like oh god i like the idea that they are not allowed to kill them themselves they do just stand around and wait for them to die yeah as long as it takes just in a circle days at a time smiling vacantly it's like when joe piloto gets ripped in half and day of the dead and they're just like yeah they just they just they just tuck in and the thing is like uh i could picture if all of them were on their last breaths all the half its brandy foot sorry and then the the half it show up they would all be smiling they're like yep we didn't make it feel free to feast on our corpses that's how this works thank you so much guys sorry we couldn't make it off we go oh i'm winning the horror movie that they've created yeah like someone just being like you know sacrifice me to the gods for the greater good or whatever just like uh and the episode's not even over oh god this is gonna take ages to talk about this scene's terrible it's the one where they tried to escape it's really fine oh my god yeah we have a hilarious escape scene oh my gosh you're right this isn't the end sorry and we got a lot to talk about as well oh we do what are we supposed to do there's too much for us to cover hold your fourth all right everyone order your pizzas and grab your drinks we're gonna be here i don't i don't know yeah well let's put it this way i don't think we'll be able to do super chats about it'll be either the next episode or super chats we can't be doing both um i don't i well we'll see what chat says about that i'd be curious i don't know i think they're gonna vote for the episode probably aren't they those bastards i have to figure out because the thing is next wednesday is another bonus e-fap episode we we've got that much shit to do got that many episodes planned oh god i didn't expect this to take this long the first two episodes we covered were way quicker than this well we were done with the first two episodes by now because there was yeah there was so much nothing but now that we're starting to get some i get payoffs you could call them or things i don't know this one's more thick it's thick it's still boring but it's thick boring i just i like the fact that the first two episodes is basically why aren't you doing stuff and then when they start doing stuff in episode three it's why are you doing stuff stop it it's all terrible stop doing stuff exactly no too much stuff to cover well i think i summarized it with the title of the stream i said brings a power continues to exist like that's a problem we have to stop it we can't keeps existing well may as well get started eh so yeah that's right you do it and is this seriously how this fucking seat opens i couldn't even remember yeah they're all like giving glances to each other like we go do something now this is gonna be it here here it comes i'm for a prison look at this it's like what what is happening here what what did you go like what is that the guy wasn't even facing you you could have just wrapped the chain around his neck and broken the neck or strangled him instead you tried whip him this is the point where i started to laugh when he's running with the chain we have to go so slow because this is all so fucking bad so you get that whip and i guess that orc is just done he's out you know that that's gonna that's gonna get and then you he whips someone else down goes that orc stop whipping with the chains it looks so stupid got him again oh god why this isn't even the part that i remembered like this is this is not the part that i want to be critical of whipping people and stuff but yeah so they start grabbing the hoods off the orcs that are currently like slave driving them to make them sizzle in the sun and i'm starting to wonder like does it kill them or does it just hurt them it's not supposed to do either of those things they don't like it like they're scared of it because it hurts them originally that there is no sun and there is no moon in middle earth so when the valar having lost the trees and lost the the somerils they decide we need we need to give some light to middle earth so they send two of the two of their number two of the guards up essentially to the heavens one forms the moon one forms the sun melkor or morgoth who creates the orcs didn't anticipate this he fears it the orcs have never known anything but darkness they don't like it weakens them they don't see well in it but they're not fucking vampires they don't fry to death in the sun or they're not supposed to well they do now well they do now but then again but also they don't do now because like sometimes some of them do and then some of them don't because earlier they were standing out in the sun with only the helmets and the clothes on but the faces weren't frying but in this one if you take the helmet off then they fry again but then later if they they're out in the sun they don't fry they just sort of you are correct they are very inconsistent on it nothing makes sense um check out this by the way this guy's going to strike elfman and it looks like with the amount of force that's coming in with that that that chain there that's that ain't stopping him he would have cut right through that arm but obviously he actually does hit him on the shoulder there from what i'm seeing it looks like it's connecting um you should what i'm trying to say is the when you try and block with a chain like that there's going to be enough of an uh not elasticity but enough of a um slack that that it's not going to be able to stop the sword in time that it's going to cut the arm for sure um but it's okay he got him because he's he's elfman he's our main elfman he's going to be fine uh oh god what happens next i remember hating everything about this but yeah they're all yeah i hated it but it did make this whole scene was hilarious i laughed so much during this whole thing it was so silly that i i couldn't help myself i was cackling like someone in a straight jacket they all the orcs like it was really nice have been defeated except one and so he's now ran off to go in like do the equivalent of you know setting off the alarm like the the slaves are doing a thing and then ours our collection of slaves here have lined up all of their chains to make like a a singular point to break and they're all just you know hitting one after each other which to me is like this is probably the the most okayest part of all of this that it's like the way they've done this is that if they break any one chain it'll represent like breaking one slave out like oh okay that's probably pretty efficient yeah this will be like a constant thing this is almost like our ticking you know clock our bomb that's going to go off in a sense where you could see progress happening we're trying to rescue everyone so they're going to stick with this concept i think that'll be really cool to see yeah focus on one chain to break one chain so you at least free someone to either defend you or think i'll often get help technically speaking they should all be aware that is what they're doing the top chain will break first all the axes are hitting that first so but it's going to be surely the impact will be lessened by the fact it's laying on multiple other chains well i think it'll i think it'll help because otherwise it would just be on dirt which is going to give a bit more and i think the chain are probably the a good idea here plus they can focus other everyone could just keep going and going and going either way it seems to cut but then like one girl runs off and while the rest of them seem to still be chained and so i was immediately like no continue break all of your chains when you've got the maximum amount of power which is everybody with those axes and swords right you don't just have one run off whenever you break one oh no oh you and i read this differently then i thought she was just running to save her own skin really yeah that's what i got oh so like this is bad that she's doing that like the yeah from the point of view of the characters too because i thought this was part of the plan or something there is the dialogue earlier in the scene though when they says as soon as one of you gets a chance to go over yeah make for the tree line and go and get help oh wow so she so instead of oh this is what i mean why not make them in this context make most use of your resources when you have the maximum amount of axe power or sword power whatever it is break as many of you out as you can until the very moment the first set of orcs start to come to get you and then all of you scatter and try and get out of this trench if that's the plan instead of drip feeding elves to the orcs to stop you exactly the best thing that can happen is the elves come one at a time so like this is a terrible idea especially because um you have no idea what's above that trench you're just hoping i mean i guess our elf dude saw above it earlier but still yeah i you don't know what's gonna be up there right now especially with alarms going off stuff but what i don't understand is that this lot are elves and villagers with with weapons that they seem to know how to use and then elf man our main elf man he should be able to take out several orcs on his own i would imagine especially when you're in the sun and they fucking hate it and you're free of your chain he seems like you've got we'll get to what actually happens in a sec but my point is just that focus on breaking everyone's chains then you have all of you as warriors essentially and then if you really want to go up the trench go up the trench but i would probably recommend you got a shit ton of slaves you can set up a revolt all of them you know just your standard you wrap your chain around um you you you can all the people who are currently chained up can basically help you they'll be limited in their helping but they can help they can throw things they can wrap their chains around some of the captors if you've got six guys free you can start a chain reaction you might even say um so there's lots of ideas for the plan but that's what they do she just runs off and then she gets killed you're like oh and and then they all start getting like grabbed and it's like man if you just continued your fucking plan of breaking the chain but oh well well if and that is just like a plan in the most generous sort of sense because the the element in the show that you could have is an interesting one of your plots turns into like a prison break all of these elves and whoever it is it could be men elves everyone you've got right escaping their bondage from these orcs right that could be an interesting side plot we can learn a little bit about orcs we can learn about some of these people under pressure like the elves and whatnot and how they talk they formulate a plan they think about it they talk to the other prisoners how long have you been here where are you from and that's the here's our plan and like and they come they come up with a plan and then we finally after a while see that plan executed and yeah it could have been so much better than this and if you wanted to have that scene where you could have had the plump of survivors this big group um actually escape and make it to the trees and they're being pursued by orcs the whole way so you can have your action scenes in your tension of oh who's gonna die who are the orcs gonna get um how can they make it back to essentially civilization while they're being pursued and turns into a long like chase sequence you can cut back to to break up the more monotonous elements of this uh production you can always go back to that chase scene which is exciting um and the stakes are high so you you could you didn't have to knock out all the elves essentially here you could have staggered them out a little bit better probably wiser narratively yeah because you need to keep don lemon needs to stay because he obviously has to be bought before the guys that they are going to again try and persuade us is sarah and later on but he needs to stay but there's no reason as you say that they can't actually have you can even leave the question open you wouldn't even necessarily need to show much of the chase you can leave the question open if you free a lot of the elves and they all managed to make it out except for him a it's a noble sacrifice on his part that he's enabled them to escape b you then have the intriguing aspects of well did they make it and sort of the implication would probably have to be that they didn't but again that would have been that would have been as you say much more sort of enjoyable to watch they probably could have saved time doing it and they wouldn't have had to introduce well the thing we'll see well dude imagine he did like we did actually care about all of these people they did get over that trench he sees them escape and he had to make that sacrifice like he said he gets taken in and then they release him with a message and he's almost confused because he's like you know why why release me well basically he's just he's he's let out and he's walking through the like or controlled village and he just like sees all of the friends that he thought escapes are all just strung up as an example or something yeah see that would be amazing wish they'd done that they didn't make it sort of thing but again like even if they did that I see different things it would have been frustrating because again we don't know any of these people but they've had plenty of time to for us to get to have time much yeah these guys don't they don't like die heroically to defend our main elf they don't well they don't really speak and act in a way that I really get to learn about their characters and personalities though of course that's something that should have been established before we got here we don't it's just the way they did it was terrible I don't take anything from this exactly opportunities for them yeah like potency narrative potency yeah instead we're fucking around with these slo-mo scenes and just all kinds of stuff I also have an editing criticism wasting time oh lady gets they break the chain she sees that it's acknowledged she starts running off this is the plan get up that trench oh she doesn't make it because someone threw a sword at her I guess and then they all go holy shit the orcs are here how didn't we know like we probably should have been paying attention to that is apparently in the time it took for her to go from that circle up there to the top of the trench and then get killed they didn't they didn't think to check if the orcs were here yet this was a surprise I guess like okay no neither did she yeah and then there's a pull they show us an orc pulling and some dude gets pulled and he gets dragged into the abyss essentially he's like this is like oh and as that's happening the camera pans up to all these orcs who are pulling chains and you're like wait what so that guy got pulled into into the place and then these guys are all pulling as well so is that all our guys are caught off guard then they're all unsurprised right and it's like no they're in the middle of a tug of war what that's really bad like yeah I guess really bad yeah all of your chains were in that like star pattern on the ground like I but now we're all here that's really bad um yeah that's that's pretty bad I guess they probably filmed a more coherent action scene but they edited it like shit well and they cut it I guess I guess so like a chee-hop in right in episode one where you clearly cut stuff yeah now like it's hard to follow because it seems that something that's really important in terms of these fights and communicating a fight is making sure that people know what happens like in between I guess you could say the focal points like if this is the main thing that we're doing right now we need the the shot that shows us what happened otherwise it's just difficult to keep track of what's going on by the way pretty sure the girl to the right there she's an elf and the guy to the left of main dude is an elf as well and I'm just thinking myself like if that other girl got killed as an elf if you have five elves with weapons surely you guys can take down at least a few or three yeah like when you're here we can we can probably fight them off extremely easily because there's five of us and they have to funnel towards us and then you got a shit ton of villagers as well who yes they're not necessarily trained but they know how to tackle someone you know yeah yeah absolutely they can help and even if they can't help then I mean I mean they can do something here here's a sharp stick or here's just pull this chain or do this or go and get weapons for us we're elf warriors get weapons for us go pick up some weapons yeah they're just doing this tug-of-war thing and obviously the stakes there are that they pull them in and they're doomed but if they pull the orcs into the sunlight that might give them a victory and so then I heard them a little bit I guess they're wearing clothes though but main elfman is like I have an idea I will jump up the chain and slice down the the wooden beam that's holding the thing and right he jumps on the chain yeah as they're all holding these chains he like runs on the chain instead of the perfectly good earth he runs on these chains it is funny because like they all have their sun protective clothing but it just doesn't work anymore as soon as he reveals the sun to them you know what I mean like it they've all got the stuff they wear where they go out in the sun but then the sun hits somebody like ah no some of them just their hoods just come off it's like put the hood back on I don't know good god also this thing's flimsy as fuck yeah one thing comes down yeah like I guess I could forgive the whole point of this was to have a really good canopy to protect you from the sun I thought that's the whole point I guess they didn't think about someone hitting that spot with an axe but I guess your prisoners your yeah I guess it is kind of high up but like even then I guess I'm curious how he knew that would happen because he seems very confident that this will happen when he hits there I guess you got no other options right like you might as well give it a try I was they had plenty of other things you could have been done well yeah I'm sure that's right okay okay you guys got to see this all right what is that girl doing is she hitting the dirt yeah she's not hitting anything ah come on 500 really come on what's the dude what's the guy in the back of the right doing he's picking up a stick and then just hitting the floor he's just hitting the ground or maybe he's hitting his chain with the stick I don't I don't see any chain this is a stick crack what's this stick gonna do to a chain sorry sorry sorry sorry I'm trying to break the chain with his he's trying to pull the chain apart with my hands oh my god it looks as well like the other the dude on the left is just hitting his own leg with the fucking knife oh god look at the guy on the yeah the guy on the left is just sort of he's got just like a stick yeah you had this in the editing bed you're like yeah this is good the ones in this show are actually retarded no wonder look at all these barbarians compared to the elf organization these fucking barbarians just trying to pull the thing they don't know what metal is the guy in front of as well like you were swinging that that sword really close to that guy's arm I gotta say yeah so she looks like she's about to hit the guy's fist think she's about to crush it with their hammer or whatever that is there I don't know he's holding in the chain but is he trying to rip it like what I don't know what anyone is doing in this scene it's so funny you filmed it you saw it happen it's like a your squad versus my squad yeah but you did versus the enemy team you could have cut their shot you legit didn't have to have this shot you could have left it out but you left it almost getting like Monty Python peasant vibe yeah fighting in the dirt you have the elves the civilized organized elves ching ching ching they gotta land out and then you pull to the humans in the dirt in the mud just like trying to pull the chains apart with their hands or hitting the dirt itself swassing their own ankles with sticks I don't even know which is my favorite they're all so funny can't hit their ankles they'll get left behind I think it's the guy trying to rip the chain apart I think that might be my favorite pretty fucking funny honestly I don't know I'm particularly tempted by the guy with the stick and he's found like an ant he wants to kill or something he's just like I like how casual he is as well he's so casual yeah he's just like yeah where is the director saying guys what the fuck are you doing I know you're extras but god damn they told them to do this well or they told them they told them to just generally do something and they didn't fucking care like at what like this is obviously the director's fault it's also the fault of these people oh come on they didn't spend that much money on this this is a should we say they are they are probably like the amazon warehouse workers on the what they're doing that's true do you want to be an extra do you want to be an extra in the amazon movie I just want to go home know you're gonna be a fucking extra take you outside this is what they have to do on the toilet break this is this is it this is just this is just footage from the amazon warehouse it's an actual escape attempt by the workers they just put it into the show all the peasants and squalor in the mud trying to break their chain so they can leave work go home I just like as well you know the lady there she was probably like I think I missed my chain again and again and then they were like we'll fix it in post and they're just like CGI her arm over or something like but they ran out of money it's a gift that keeps on given so she caught me because I was she was like she's almost the center of the uh the camera that I was just like wait a minute look at this other things happening if I just pull really hard the chains will break that's how that works right it's like oh my god it really is like Monty Python peasants just randomly stacking dirt or something the guy with a big stick looks so like bored he's like I'll give it a shot I guess I'll escape I don't know if this works out that'd be great I guess I could go home oh man what what is this what are we doing I don't even think that guy has a sword I think that's just a stick it's unclear I'll try and find it I'll try and see if I can easy and like does that drop in another scene it looks like a dagger of some sort I think it's a dagger but it is is it it's very it's got like little um you know like the ends of a rope where it's got all how much I describe it yeah it looks like it's on a rope on the uh on the kind of yeah I don't I don't know maybe it's like a root in those are parts it's hard to tell I want to find this prop and another screw it out and then started bashing the chain with this nice thing yeah I'm gonna change to maybe I want to get I want to get to the scene and it doesn't help that the elves look just like identical to everyone else except for the point of ears elves used to have this sort of like they looked like a different race than humans and now they're just they're just humans with pointy ears like you you can you can't look at a crowd and tell who's who anymore every every species is so incredibly multiracial it's kind of weird it's sort of you have to ask how much money does it look like they spent on their head if it's above 60 dollars they're probably elves and if it's under 60 dollars it's probably not and but it's not a cast I guarantee how much they spent on this moment is what I want to know man has not invented shampoo oh boy yeah so that's happening and I don't know what the orcs would be worrying about at this point like they'll probably kill themselves if they get out of this trench so kind of solves its own solves the problem itself but yes he's like get the walk and it's like oh my god they're gonna release big wolfie doggo on them it's gonna be scary um and so obviously they don't want to work together to kill this thing they want to attack it one by one incompetently because that would be the probably the best thing to do I think and yeah the really really I hate this I mean the warfight was hilarious but it was very dumb what do you think about the look of the war by the way I like it I like it I like it a lot absolutely it looks it looks very much like an animal it looks like a beast you could find out in the wild it's got like dog elements to it and I actually really like it it looks like a bug that's just spent three generations breeding with its own sister that's fine that's why I think this looks like an appropriately less evil sort of beast creature I dig it I could believe if I went into the spooky ass fucking woods I might run into one of these creatures oh no see like okay maybe for a still image I'd agree but I yeah but it's very much put off by the movement which it's like it's talking about no like are we talking about it's animation quality or are we talking about its design because I like the design a lot I'd have to see the well everything in this whole fight is is weird from an animation it's like the way that the elf flips through the air and everything but see I'm I'd have to very cool on the design and I very much hate the animation so yeah but I mean I think the animation is always what betrays like these effects isn't it like you can it seems like it's not it's not that it's not difficult it's that it's very much possible to create something that like is a still image looks pretty photorealistic but then once it starts moving it's like it's not real like you you know it's not real I'm I'm overall I guess I think it's what they chose to animate it doing which is getting it for me more than the animation generally itself they have oh he's got four nostrils but it's like absent in the way that it's moving like you can see it right like it's kind of yeah like he has me like he doesn't have any weight or hefts to him yeah whereas like the balrog looks heavy like he looks like balrog does look heavy there's an easy compared to the wags you saw in the two towers I mean that's that's what 2000 well yeah I wasn't I didn't want to invoke them but I way prefer them to this one myself but I haven't got much to say on exactly why I'm not fond of this myself in terms of just a look I think so yeah he's given off weird vibes to me but I'm struggling to explain more so than that I haven't got much he's giving off edgy the hedgy vibes a little bit yeah with the little spike is he wearing like a spike collar oh that's not his fault that's the orc's fault that's not his fault exactly yeah mauler just like it's not shadow the hedgehog's fault that one he's the ultimate life yeah I didn't ask for this mauler he just happens to be the ultimate life I I yeah I think if if we took away all like the bones that the orcs put in its hair because the orcs are you know they're they're sensible about that sort of thing you know but uh yeah I I like legit like this creature in terms of being a ferocious beast I don't want this thing anywhere the fuck near me well that's not that's you know whether you want to keep him as a pet I guess is a different combination yeah in in its incarnation if I was his like we if you had a nice word and you got along he'd be great you know you could and plus this is clearly a word not in their ideal form like it's got it looks like it's you know it's like orcs kept it it's like it's been eyes are pointing in different directions I know it's great I love that because that means you can keep track of two people at once so yeah but I like the idea that it's just sort of they're looking off into somewhat different directions was a good chance it's been has it been tortured possibly or fucked with by the orcs probably it's in some degree to make it like angry and upset and agitated but most of the really evil creatures as well they've sort of come about through like long periods of I guess you'd call it selective breeding or in this case not especially selective breeding or maybe even overly selective breeding but like I think this is like a prototype wag so this is what the royal porgues are going to become now those fucking sex spots are back no I thought I got rid of them because I found a really cool way to stop them damn you I hope they don't if they start turning up more often we'll have to keep track of what emojis they're typically using when you said those fucking sex spots are back I had to look at the screens like I don't remember those so yeah anyway the warg fight begins and it's so awful it hurts funny it is so I was thinking to myself like oof yeah this this could be tough this could be tough and she immediately grabs a spear and I was like first of all what the fuck is a spear doing here like yeah where did that enter the one here next to all of you prisoners I just don't know why there's a spear here but yeah there's a spear here so let's make use of it it's like and I was thinking to myself like you know what that's a fantastic weapon for this animal like absolutely that's good you can plant it but oh god this idiot oh damn it this is one of those like did you just want to die was that what that was like I guess this alpha just had enough charge at it you hold the spear like really close to the I guess we call it the pointy end right I don't know the spear anatomy okay the head of the spear yeah the tip of the spear you put your hands real close to it and then charge this well yeah if I I'll summarize with imagery right so she pulls it out and then spins it almost and then starts running toward it while spinning the spear what are you doing woman doing and then oh shit it almost looks like she's well now she like this is not the way you should use this weapon however at the very least from this moment you could be like if she aims it right it still will do a decent amount of damage okay no she just missed it looks like she deliberately moves away from him I guess the problem is yeah like what happened there what was that what did you well you're acting against nothing so like I guess yeah I don't know like out of the point of a spear is like a spear is also kind of a repelling weapon so it's not they're not just trying to stop the thing you're also trying to keep the thing a long fucking way away from you if you're holding right next yeah like that's what you would do if you do it with charging horses you do it with even charging elephants you would do it with a charging dog you don't want because the closer you are to the tip of the spear if you go wrong or if you miss it or even if you go too deep into the things body its head is going to go right past that tip and bite you in the face and you don't want that to happen so you hold the spear further back you keep the animal away from you even if you don't kill it on the first go at least you've got leverage over it and you can keep it away so it can't kill you but no this as well like you're the one with the weapon nobody else really has me like proper weapons thanks for losing it like you know yeah she's got the best weapon yeah and she wastes it um but it's more to apparently you could just and this thing doesn't seem to be particularly resilient to hits it yeah it's like many beasts if you hit them with a weapon but dude a spear down its throat that might just put it out of commission doesn't get one shotted later anyway yeah i'm sure someone throws something you could throw the spear at it and it would be you're good all right i mean it's still not like she was a bit of a gamble no she probably would but i ain't throwing that thing i'm like this is i would just do the forever normal human thing hopefully it lunges at you you put the spear right in its fucking head and then down it goes poke in there's some like anti cavalry spears and things you'd actually sort of you'd almost like jab the end into the ground and you'd press your foot against and then you sort of hold it there then you've got the extra leverage and the extra strength as well the one thing you don't do is hold it at the tip whether you don't do is fucking spin it around like a retard when you run into all your enemy what is she doing i hate it it's so annoying but the thing we have to keep in mind flourish with weapons all the time and like quit you have you are in a very dangerous situation your life is in jeopardy it's not the time for showmanship no leroi jag of the deed now look at this first of all the people that are really far back i don't know what they're even doing i don't i don't know what's going on there maybe they're just trying to get on with the job and be like we're not a part of this revolt we chill we want to be pull my chains apart back here with my hands don't mind me yeah that's what they are however on her right looks to be a guy with a chain but plenty of slack and he's holding a weapon remember he would have used that to break one of the chains along with everyone else who are left elfman he's also chain plenty of slack but he's also got a weapon the same weapon that he used to break the other wooden big pillar thing and then another guy behind him who presumably also has a weapon that was just one of the ones he used to break it point being within one meter of her we have three men with weapons absolutely capable of just fucking up any normal animal she goes down right in front of them and gets just chewed on for a good like five seconds this infuriates me because it means that all of them just let do you see that see the guy he's running away he's running away look at him he's out of the frame help your friend now our main character is suddenly on the floor when he was standing okay oh he is yeah he felt he was so shocked by that that it just knocked him off his feet like salts from a table and he's grabbing a chain and he's running off to go and like set some kind of weird trap where was the third guy don't know he had other he's got other things to do oh look at that spear land there yeah that'd be good grabbing that thing the fucking second I could that thing is my tool for that is my path to salvation yeah so this shitty ass editing we're connected to chain how did the chain get over there I don't know why the chain is in front of the wall go yeah that doesn't make sense how does it have the did it have that chain before when it entered into the fray I don't think it did what is this guy doing it didn't wait let me check I'm gonna give you my arm what what even I don't even know what to say about that that was just weird yeah he enters with the chain or I guess she enters with it around it and and now suddenly the chain is in front of it I think that they're trying to argue that the momentum of it crashing into hers swings the chain from behind it to in front of it oh oh that doesn't work not really and you kind of have to look out to do that and then stupid main character is like I'm gonna tie it to the tree instead of just killing it you could have killed it here you had the chance when when an animal is eating your friend it gives you a great opportunity to just shove an axe in its head oh also there's another there's a continuity error for where the the spear falls the spear does not fall there at all no no of course that's something important in the future and someone picked it up that would have been an issue dude imagine oh shit you all have to be to not take this opportunity and to not try and help your friend I just I hate a lot of them yeah seriously I have no idea how to describe this the the wag is like running into the camera almost and then this guy just sort of walks in and almost feeds it his arm so is he actually holding a weapon when he's charging in there yes but because he seems to actually push his weapon out of the way of its mouth as opposed to shoving it into its mouth when he's running at it so weird both of these people deserved it I wouldn't have tried to help them but got a weapon oh yeah it's two he's not quick enough oh oh he's got he's got the sticky thing from the chain that's the thing that's the one I think that's the prop that they use yeah I think that's the one I knew it would show up again I love I love seeing familiar faces if only anyone had done anything you know if anyone had done anything yes does it have the the fuzz stuff on it I think it does it's hard to tell hey there's the closest you'll get to gore in this I guess the people yeah two people have been eaten and while both of them were chowed on you didn't do anything you're sitting there pulling it towards you with a chain instead of well so fun enough he is doing at least one kind of thing but there is a guy here who is standing around doing nothing right now we're gonna see him again in a sec I don't know what yeah captain man he's just he's just not doing anything present he has been out of out of frame out of mind so you might be thinking aha I'm grabbing its chain now what's this what's this thing gonna do it's like well we're gonna come to you right like if that you could do this I think that it's way stronger than you yeah I think so too pull this thing back but you know uh not a great idea anyway because he's gonna he's gonna get you just turn around and then pulling the chain doesn't really achieve much other than hasten your death but he's got a plan he does have a plan yeah check this out guys here it comes this is a pretty cool thing he's gonna do here he's gonna jump and like look how close this is he easily could have died here and it doesn't even it looks like the the wag kind of is it would have missed even if he had done like a normal jump or just like went to the side he should have just gone to the side that's what any normal person would do and I guess it flies forwards and uncontrollably so violently that it yeah rushes away yeah look at the way it falls it's so funny because whoa this have happened also we get to see it fly into the tree twice so that's cool question why did they clear all of the dirt out of the tree and not the tree when they were ordered to take out the tree because um don't think about it why is because like it can't fall into the roots in a sense of it being becoming like a cage if there's loads of dirt there you know what I mean so they cleared all of the dirt they cleared out that which would have taken way longer than just clearing the whole thing out they took the time to like clean out the roots but leave the watch top the wood as they went what is like what yeah and so you like traps it by wrapping the chain around um and so the awkward thing that's happening here is like we have captain who's like you know oh god I gotta choose between helping you with that thing or freeing myself and running away I guess and our main character is like go just go do it and um the most annoying thing about it is it shows captain guy getting up like that's the first time we see him just like what did he do in this whole scene he just sort of awkwardly fell over and didn't do anything you know how you know how you know you know I don't know I don't know I don't know and you might think you know either I help him with the walk or I or I free myself and run off however it is tied up I could just kill it with one ac stroke to the head I got that spear oh you got the spear too yeah and then we could maybe both get out yeah that would be crazy I do care about my brethren allegedly and now he's gonna start hitting his own chain with his axe again it's just like why didn't you guys like it just reminds me at the beginning if you would just continue to hit all of you guys you could all have been freed said that weird shit with like first person who breaks out go I guess and the log really is actually like completely fucked by this weird chain tree cage thing but the orcs are coming back out with their friend they they're good old makeshift sun protection that didn't work for no reason temporarily and this is the thing it's um it's what little platoon was saying like the sun is clearly on their limbs and they face which apparently burns them in other scenes but doesn't hear it's a good job guys yeah I feel like they would just constantly be going out yeah and they're going out there I'll just shoot them with a ranged weapon a bow I why did we do this during the day what the fuck eight hours retarded you know it's kind of yeah this is this is very tension filled terrifying even we don't even know what may happen who knows just oh god I hope they can make it but then they pull oh fuck I forgot about this oh like as it was happening since then in slow mo I'm pretty sure uh uh yeah basically everyone on the planet would have collectively said that's a twig you might be thinking wait what so let me show your channel I gotta show channel right one second so you got they pull his chain he sees that they're doing that yank I need you to understand this okay this is a good image that is a twig look how easily he grabs it and breaks off if you don't know a twig is basically like the weakest part of what is still like the trees I don't know core components not the leaves like the end point okay you can get some leaves on a twig but a twig is often used to to represent how weaker thing is or thinner thing is kill people he's his leaves someone's he's like you know someone's as thin as a twig or as like breakable and shit as a twig this is what happens with this twig good god yeah this must be the most embarrassed orc in history it's like how did you die twig by twig he's up there and he's like how'd you die he's like I was I was attacked by a savage elf I was I was ambushed yeah yeah like he's gonna lie about it he's not gonna tell the truth he's not gonna tell the truth that would be it's a twig it's a twig what the hell and they try and make it so epic why didn't you make it like a big branch of something like a really sharp fucking dude just have a be a weapon he saw a weapon on the floor look at that twig this this all goes like ah the twig it has a right to exist so bad please it continues oh look he broke free with the weird axe it's like is that the weird axe I think it's just a double yeah it's a well it's a regular axe I guess so yeah he's he's broken free so it's like well I guess I'm going over the trench top well uh you know goodbye friendo did sacrifice was not in vain because the war escapes as well and it's like oh god and he's about to die is it all over that and then he uses the spear in a way that it was that easy to kill yeah it's not even yeah it was actually just yeah just to look at that again that war goes down right away yeah that's pretty yeah actually I guess you hit it in the side of the big old spear I guess it just it just goes down I guess it could happen hard to tell like I want to see how big the blade is I mean it's not small but at the same time where that's gone in that thing is thrashing for a while but no it just instantly dies as though it's been hitting the head yeah because the spear's got those weird little splayed things at the end of the tip that stop actually going in any further so if anything it should just be sort of maimed and angry very angry yeah yeah it's it's weird like it shouldn't just die there's no way it should have done more but yeah our main man elf here he's just done all the fucking work and he doesn't even get to escape he's still chained cool guy yeah yeah our duties he's off and hope you know as he said if he gets out there then we can bring back a huge amount of everybody but oh no you fool why are you standing there you gotta run stop appreciating the sun you weirdo gosh go man huh it's so nice up here why would why would main elf if he clearly still has a chain attached to him why is he trying to climb up and out I guess I'm sure that he's okay yeah just to see well you know why right it is a cinematic sort of thing but yeah I guess for him in universe he just wants to see like managed to pull it off yeah he's okay yeah also you know Boromir tanked was it five arrows before he went down and maybe four and then the fifth one finished him off this guy's got one in the lower abdomen so I can understand the shark which would probably stop him but he sort of turns around like it's well dramatic effect he knows that the camera is behind main elf man's shoulder so he needs to turn around to reveal it dramatically turn around to reveal that all of that work has been for absolutely nothing what the hell was the point in that yeah you are absolutely right when you were this desperate you're going to pull that out break it or whatever and start just keep running but he just gives straight up he's just done maybe hit him in the spine it's an arrow in him that looks pretty bad then and it's not in a particularly bad place is it a lung maybe he's punctured I guess that's quite bad actually that might be the long yeah for reacting this way to having arrow said I just wanted to be using the dramatic turn that's all I still I would still push harder than that if um the only reason why I would allow this maybe is that will allow that it hit the lung and that could be enough to stop him but if this thing had hit him in the gut and it was as deep as an arrowhead yeah I think he would snap it and start sprinting uh and you you can get an adrenaline boost theoretically from that um no I I I it doesn't I can believe that this is it for him like I can totally believe that I believe it's it for him you just could have like tried harder I don't know like I don't know how much I want to judge somebody for how hard they try with him just yeah if the alternative is dying you'd want them to try quite hard I don't know that there's a matter of alternative I think that I don't think he gets to choose on this one I think uh I think that's it for this guy he's um like I said if it's the lung I'll give that to you but if that was the gut I'd I disagree with you hardcore um it's his it's but look at where it is like it's over well so do you do you agree what I said they don't know how uh like it well it depends where it hits him in the gut right like it depends on what it hits surely like if it goes for his black something like that's probably it for him no yeah I'm not well so that's the thing about the gut right it would be it could very well kill him um but like getting hit in the gut by an arrow to just dead stop you I that that's that's what I'm assuming little platoon is referring to like it seems like he's just like well I'm out and it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa I I get what you mean right think about like he's running across the field he gets hit in the chest with an arrow and he just stands totally upright and still in the field feels like fall over or like force of an arrow with that distance wouldn't flaw you you wouldn't be knocked back particularly I mean the shock of the impact would probably stop you that's kind of fair enough but I guess what I'm saying is that he's no baramir so you know um I guess all I'm saying is like I could like I think this killed him like that's you know pay attention that's not the actual criticism it's the um so what little platoon I assume would prefer and I would also prefer is that he can like when he when he gets up over the trench you can see him running and then he gets slower and the slower and just falls over and you can see an arrows in him and you're like ah well we had that we had the long slow mode drawn out slow mo sequence earlier for the random guy who we knew nothing about why not do a baramir reference here why not have him shot once he turns around you know he's gonna die he knows he's gonna die don lemon knows he's gonna die but he's gonna fucking well carry on trying anyway and then he gets shot again as he tries to move away make that slow mo make him at least try to get further until he literally physically can't get any further and then you sort of you've dragged this thing out a bit but you've also played up the emotional value and the desperation value and the sadness value and the payoff that you get from that scene like my main criticism really is that it's just it's a little bit perfunctory like we got a long extended slow mo sequence for a random guy we didn't know we know this guy a little bit more this is the culmination of a big fight scene you could at least have him try and carry on and then get felled finally and then you get the payoff of the desperation like just give him more of a give him that chance to like the first thought of just this is so obviously done because they want him to do the turn around you go oh there was an arrow in him no right but it's like I mean I totally agree right like him just going up he's just standing out in the field dramatically turns around to reveal an hour wait the second arrow came from the other side of the trench then did it also let us know while it happens the incredible accuracy of these arrows yeah yeah they did a really good job yeah these are some top they've got some they should get a promotion that's the thing when he goes over the top it's unfortunate he didn't notice them with his elf eyes because uh if he did he probably would have been able to avoid the one or two arches probably at least have a chance if he's really skilled he could have actually caught one of the arrows in oh yeah yeah it would be so cool if they actually had that in the show I hope they do wow if they could if they had that kind of dexterity and skill that would be that's useful wow how about that not likely this is what's known as foreshadowing very very subtle yeah once the walk is dead and he gets back up to start running I assume you would have seen them they're pretty you know overt standing over there um I guess he didn't and then he walked a few steps forward got hit and he was like ah I'm out so uh very sad and a character that we know virtually nothing about dies in a very well let's be more honest as we know that he hates the southland men he thinks that they're evil sons of bitches that's what we know he's bigoted against them I don't know about yeah he fucking what do you mean isn't that this he's got a hyper prejudice toward him um I guess like he might not he might not hate them but you could be like bigoted against someone like hating them right like if he believes that he's no those are different things I think he hates like people of a certain generation in england might be a little bit distrustful of germans for the whole nazi thing for example I mean it's basically the same thing right elves uh men siding with mogoth in a previous war so we call man phobia man phobia this show has man phobia and so does have man phobia it has good writing phobia it has it has writing phobia yeah writing phobia in general yeah but uh it's afraid to purify the good writing yeah it's definitely a moment of like oh there he goes and then you just think of again we do the whole black and white scenes of all the time we've spent with this man and it's like fuck people don't even know this is they don't even remember which one he was for strings over them over the montage of the black and white shots and just make it really sad you know it's like Lord of the Rings we just have any music playing oh my gosh remember the time where he said don't trust men because their ancestors were dicks remember that that was great what else that was he came up the tower he was the one who climbed up that one piece ladder that was really yeah man that ladder that ladder is literally more interesting than this character the fact of that ladder was one piece that was a one piece ladder a ladder entirely in one piece of wood and he climbed up it and that was the most interesting thing relating to his character but at that time he climbed the one piece ladder because like this could have been so much better in terms of like the whole idea that go for here is that this grand and just horrifying prison escape where they almost get sort of to the to the end several times but gradually every single member dies and even the last one dies right at the finish line and how a hero's dragged away back into the is like oh what a what a horrible how it nefts though how like horribly bad they did this and then of course no development anyway if adar wanted well i guess we'll get to that point but yeah that if if you think about what they wanted to accomplish with this whole sequence of them being captured imagine all the different what because all you have to do is we have to end up with elf buddies dead main elf gets back uh and we learn just to we learn that adar wants to do the thing that he's already doing all right that was helpful um just imagine all the ways that you could end up with those you know those things happening if you were to essentially have an episode for it there is um there's one other thing which is that you could reverse the roles here and have don lemon die and this guy survive and it would have pretty much the same emotional weight because despite having much more screen wise yeah a bit more screen time you know virtually nothing more about don lemon than you know about him so you know what i don't care if they had done it my comment would ironically be oh i thought they would have to go to do so with the girl okay yeah that's it that's all i've got we have other guy elf coming back to her right and it would just be interesting it would be a legitimately interesting subversion if that's what happened because i don't it's i don't care about the relationship between uh don lemon and the lady like their relationship is virtually non-existent i i've i've essentially just been told through hearsay that they have a relationship i don't know anything about these characters and it doesn't like each other there's not enough alleged allegedly this all this is like this is all allegedly oh my god they they fucked up the continuity of the blood coming out of his mouth they did yeah they revert coming out of his left side it's not quite i think it goes from being on the right to then in the middle but he's in makeup surely it will care that will carry on through the green screens yeah like it doesn't match look at these two pictures they they they get they got close but they didn't quite manage to do it right actually yeah what but sure actually shoot these two scenes on different days maybe like what happened already everything and we're here on the dirt let's just film them both we're here man legit it would be like presented as a possible explanation i i don't know how this happens i i would legit just be like guys anyone got a photo of when we did the first shot like a compare they go no it's like no nothing because none of that it's actually yeah you can tell it's it's off it's not quite right they fucked it up but yeah this is absolutely a nitpick i just find it funny they could they did they clearly recorded it in two different shots where he just was standing and then fell over it's like maybe you can just do it in one like wrong people what why clean them up between these two scenes just get it done wait this happens seconds after in the story so just keep them the way he was they surely he'll find it annoying to have to have that put on twice i don't get it i'd like the idea that he was summoned back to the entire set for one whole day just to lie down in the dirt and have some the reshoot like the one shot but he's lying on the floor we didn't quite get out right twice like the arrows like the arrows um is that it does the episode end at that point let me see i think so i think we've suffered enough okay like take him to adar right yes well they were gonna kill him and then they're like no this guy is clearly super cool he's going to adar he gets to live everyone else and they deliver the message instead of someone who's going to be less antagonistic to our cause let one of those farmers over there they they they the camera just pans over and they see these these friggin troglodyte barbarians trying to pull the the chain apart and is like just still doing it it's like don't worry about them they they'll never do it they think that we like to give them a bit of hope like ah we're gonna get you one day maybe you'll be able to pull the chains apart with your hands yeah maybe that is it though that the episode does indeed add to that point and this might actually have broken the record for efab coverage for ratio it might have i'm not sure then again i was thinking of a 40 minute episode it is an hour so maybe not actually multi-verse amandas is still probably the record holder because that was two hours right that movie it took us 11 to cover close though it was just so much to complain about i'm sorry i didn't mean to really what god knows what we missed i'm sure there's plenty this thing is quite thick with issues um i feel i feel like something should be said like in totality about that episode it's really bad um quite yeah take a minute silence just to mourn what might have been take a minute silence because i have to pee so that's a very respectful way of marking the minute silence well all he's doing that i can say hey everyone look the time has gone red now on the plushies that's terrifying all right have that yeah oh boy the other me is now they're warning you they're saying look do you really want to go without a cuddly happy fluffy floofy plushie i don't think so that's a nice story but uh seriously that was really fucking cool that we you know rounded we're both at 1500 sales yeah that's that's that's really awesome that's really cool it's a crazy amount of fluffy cuddly muptles and frongos that are gonna enter the world in the world yeah there's a factory out there who's ready and waiting to make a whole bunch of us looking forward to it the rags one i'm pretty sure is still on the way i was hoping that they might have a bit of a crossover in the timeline but i think isn't still isn't ready yet but it's uh almost what i gather less than 24 hours i know it's terrifying um now question that little platoon how much uh i don't remember how much time do you have you've been here for six hours how are you how are you doing i'm i'm well honestly i'm living the dream here because i i'd actually i've been listening to you guys for what two years i would guess oh my god really neat oh yeah not at the same time okay honestly this is like well yeah not consecutively i'd say that's fucking insane i'm committed but i'm not quite that committed all right but uh but no like no you guys are the reasons that i started on youtube like nine or ten months ago whatever it was so like i'm living the dream being here so fuck the day job i'm i'm happy to be here as long as you'll have me here oh my god now that you said that it makes me feel like we really should leave those words do everything we can to cover well so the uh free how much time do you have so yeah like two hours about two hours are you comfortable with the idea that you may not be able to complete the coverage that you get two hours we've yeah we've uh we've we've done that before right where someone said to step out so that's that's fine what's funny is like if i had a like moller and i will do it with new fringy yeah he's not even green that's uh i don't know if he counts but i guess so but i was just gonna say it's funny in my head i was like two hours like surely was it no no it we won't be done with it in two hours we won't i know no what took it took us like six hours we could we could make a big dent in it we can definitely make a dent to that yeah but yes i'll talk more again about these leshushi's as we go as well that i feel like this is probably the the efab to mention them quite a bit because uh this really is the last chance and i was mentioning as well any idea when yours is uh maybe making his way to the world rags do you know as far as i know email sent today as far as i know it should be about fit all the revisions and changes are done as of the last email i sent all righty okay cool um fantastic i agree uh well then no time to lose let us begin no time to lose the rings of power episode four which by the way i never even talked about it but um uh this was the day i was supposed to watch and collect notes and and consolidate and have a chat with rags while watching episodes three and four and uh the pc got fucked between three and four yeah right i was about to say where'd you go we're about it's ready to start up four and you're like oh i'm left for my pc broken that's how i sounded that's how you sounded and then we had like a 40-minute phone call where i was telling you like what had happened but then we just sort of drifted into completing about rings of power for a very long time like we just everything you've heard us talk about for the past six hours like a lot of it was mentioned already yes because i had not seen episode four so we only talked about episode three and we talked about evil harphids and how glad you're the bitch yep it was fun it's saying that your computer suicided after watching suspicious you might even say i put up with some shit mauler it said i put up with a lot of shit but this this crosses the line no more it really has like when this thing retire it deserves to go to valhalla or something like this thing really does it's it's been through a lot it is rendered some shit it has so where do we even begin uh our our queen regent is is doing a baby party or something i have no idea why there's a bunch of babies there but she's she's chilling out with some babies and then like there's a bit of a bit of an earthquake and i think she says that's just that's just numinal stretching or something it's like the earth yeah we're we're on an island or a mountain and sometimes it needs something it was just i think they wanted to make that sound kind of fun like yeah everyone stretches in the morning so do islands you're like i don't think so all right whatever uh but then there's a giant tidal wave enormous tsunami and it engulfs numinal you remember one short piece of exposition we had in the last episode where it's mentioned that the valhalla gave the island to numinal um you think that one short piece of exposition is enough to prepare people for the fact that the valhalla actually drown numinal deliberately as an act of will because the numinarians attempt to invade valhalla because they don't want to die and they think that the valhalla are withholding the prospect of eternal life from them so the valhalla i am so fucking lost right now i was gonna say none of that i i was just like you i don't know what any of this means this is the point though right so because it's borrowing so selectively so what she's being given at the moment is this prophecy of the end of of numinal and numinal does indeed come to an end it gets flooded it gets drowned in the ocean but it gets drowned in the ocean because the numinarians themselves attempt to invade valhalla which is the place we saw at the beginning of episode one because they believe that the valhalla are withholding the prospect of eternal life from them the elves have it the numinarians don't so they try and invade this is all under sauron's influence he basically eggs them on to do this well he's been captured and bought here and he corrupts the mind of the king there's a whole war before that which we don't have yet so he corrupts them he persuades them to invade valhalla that leads to the entire in the entirety of numinal getting flooded and destroyed and the world being torn down the middle because it was flat until this point and then it's made round by god himself all of that is essentially the backdrop to the prophecy vision we get in the beginning of this episode but none of that would be apparent to anyone unless they've read the book because the show hasn't explained any of it because i guess the show is just trying to tell us like there's this foreboding cataclysm that's coming and that's enough for now but like how will they possibly get to that point and make it make any kind of sense without doing a little bit more than one brief expository thing where the valhalla just mentioned oh don't worry i'm sure they're gonna give us plenty of all the necessary expository dialogue is unbelievable it happens right before it happens in the same episode because we've we've said for such a long time that when you adapt you can make all the changes you want you can tell your own story and stuff but the recent addendum we've had to all of this in order to like sort of help explain our position to people is like however when you sloppily adapt and take random things it's like it just causes a minefield of contradictions because you're not taking the other things and you don't understand why the other things were there yeah this is a massive contingency problem here because they're borrowing later versions of events but they've discarded the earlier versions of events which would make those later events make sense so they have this this massive gap in contingency which they haven't yet shown any indication that they're actually capable of filling and substantiating so you just get this random prophecy of the death of new menor at the beginning of this episode and as far as the audience who's never read the book is concerned well that's well that's just basically the apocalypse at some point for some reason maybe who knows but that's it yeah because uh you know what's funny by the way is that i didn't even because i don't know about this stuff um when i saw this i was like oh it's like a metaphor she's having a vision it's not going to be a literal tsunami it's going to be like it represents the fall of blah blah blah through blah blah but i was like oh no it is a literal tsunami but it it comes after the like saur on is captured after a massive war in middle earth he's bought there and he starts corrupting the king and he turns all of the valar over sorry all of the new menorians over to worship morgoff there's blood sacrifices there's human sacrifices there's all this really really dark shit that happens and because of the way the show is messed with the timeline maybe they'll do some of it maybe they won't do any of it you can't really know it's there's no reliable guide anymore but they will have to do something otherwise it's just random apocalypse well uh as as goga's just sent a meme i'll try and get it on screen a sec well i'll you know i'll just say what the meme is it's funny it's in vision for a moment actually i'll i'll do it myself technically okay so this this big old wave is coming in just pause at this moment where everything is crumbling just imagine the words the sea is always right it's just like uh uh this is a funny show it's also annoying as fuck i can't decide which i find is the more uh prevailing problem in the show annoying or funny i think it's annoying i because rags i think rags would probably say funny but like i don't know it's complicated i know that i love that much while watching it i think i've found it mostly and annoying yeah yeah well no i found it mostly boring actually that's gonna be the dominant emotion yeah yeah as a part yeah i it's it's rarely funny i would actually say it's funny to talk about yeah i think that's what's happening is i'm really like the most fun i've had so far is that fucking moment where everyone's trying to break their chains that was hilarious i don't even see that on my face well watch through all my second you miss that while watching it but when you go through it slowly you just find these little golden nuggets you know exactly we're living up to the name of this fucking podcast i every god damn frame a pause um but yeah anyway um oh fuck this episode there's so much stupid shit um he's doing the thing yeah so uh uh i keep forgetting his name i want to say like far as our phas as my oh i've now forgotten out our far as on our zone is that it okay the beardy guy the guy he's uh he's talking to his son he says the son's like talking about trying to be clever and he's he's like cleverness is a small bad's ambition i would much rather you are wise it's like be wise don't be clever what the fuck like clarifies things a whole bunch it's like amateur dramatics game of thrones yeah it's it's a game of thrones it's a budget yeah it's funny that though budget yeah budget it's so much more expensive it's um and once again we've got a reference to compare to that is from uh season four and it's a really fucking good scene it's when uh tywin is teaching uh fuck my memory forgetting his name tommen tommen lannister well tommen baratheon um how to be a king and he he asks him what he thinks are the most important parts and he says uh piety is one and he explains like what happened with a more religious king uh strength and he's got the warrior king and like robert baratheon what happened with him i think there's there's a third uh aspect he tries to go for uh like rule not cruel rule with fear or love or something be respected um he tries like a bunch of them and then and then he says uh like what what is the most important thing and tywin says it's wisdom and the wisdom to know what you don't know and to have people to help you where you're gonna have gaps in knowledge and stuff justice that was the third one yeah tywin offers basically that there are serious weaknesses in each of these as core elements of like what's most important but wisdom being a grounding force is like the best one then you compare to this scene he's like don't be clever be wise you're like what the what the fuck am i it's uh it's insulting the shadow and game of thrones is i mean if you compared the books like the source material the silmarillion i would say over matches anything georgia ramata never wrote but compare the shows and how faithful they are and how intelligent they are intelligently they're written there is no comparison game of thrones certainly like and well until season four is it's so much it's a different universe from rings of power yeah these are writers who actually understand what they're talking about of course they're borrowing liberally from the source material but understanding basic things of human nature and philosophy and rings of power gives you fucking this and you know i've kind of undersold the scene as some people are pointing out uh toman is actually the one who eventually says wisdom and like tywin the tywin just goes yes like he's really happy that he came up with it on his own so it's actually one of the more endearing scenes to tywin because it looks it comes across as though he's trying to um sort of prepare his grandson for ruling in he has a couple of those right i mean like some of his scenes with elena martel are kind of endearing in the room where the tywin is the one guy you'd say he's not unambiguously an asshole like he does have some kind of values and principles yeah you'd expect a when everything kills back down when there isn't a war when there isn't people to kill everywhere that he would probably be kind of you'd probably have happily like have a bit of fun uh just like you know jabs at different people or whatever yeah him and olena have some of the best scenes as well to be fair all the tywin scenes are just topnotch oh yes well right we're talking we're talking about it because there was uh there was a quote in Game of Thrones that talks about wisdom and why it is important it's a really good scene they do it in this show where he says don't be clever be wise love this line yeah i love it's so oh that's what the writers were told before they started writing they're like amazon was like don't don't be clever be wise and it brought us this show i really i hate this line it makes no like sense the way you i feel like if you're gonna tell me that you have to really explain yourself like wait wait wait what do you mean like that i shouldn't be clever not clever what would they say cleverness is for uh cleverness is a small man's ambition i am i just don't i am not in agreement with that i am not stupid because most people would into it being clever isn't too far away from being wise like you need to tell me why they're meaningfully separated yeah i mean it's possible to meaningfully separate yeah but the show doesn't do that i mean there there's a massive difference between them if you you know care to delve into it but the show that it's kind of ironic because in this sense the show is being clever not wise that that's the irony of of the writing material they think this is a clever line to speak that's why they've included it it's not a wise line to speak because it actually doesn't convey truth it's a kind of sophistry it sounds it gives the impression of verus militude it's the idea that what it's conveying it just seems truthiness it has the seemingness of truthiness to it that's all it is that is the definition of cleverness and not wisdom it's sophistry is what the show's entire writing methodology is um so it's kind of ironic that they should actually sort of try and refute their own sophistry in their own dialogue and thereby prove their own sophistry it's like trying to set this guy up as being wrong or that he's a bad person and so by linking his quote to him it's like not a good quote to follow i mean i would go as far as saying i'm pretty sure the rise of the show like being clever is like like low level sort of just i did it's kind of smart thing here while wise is like planning everything in a big ol thing and being fully aware of everything that's happening and knowing how things will come like clever is like again with the small man that ambition is like clever is like this the the small version while wise is the big vision or some bullshit like that in the same way by the way that if they said don't be don't be quick tactics or strategy don't be quick be fast you'd be like what the fuck does that mean but you'd be like quick is like is like smaller and and and you know shorter term while fast is like an attribute you have as but you know like you could just make shit up because this really doesn't necessarily apply but it's like tlj where the work is done on the viewer level so to what the fuck he means it's like the the evil version of when you can infer stuff because of how well the characters characterize you can talk about what they may mean this is this is when they use that power when they've got they're giving you nothing and they're just like hopefully you come up with it because we don't know it's like it's post modern art basically in dialogue you put something on a page on a sheet on the screen you put it on the wall and then you invite your audience to pretend that they are very clever in seeing what the meaning behind it is even though actually the real meaning is that there was no meaning behind it whatsoever that you're just inviting the audience to pat themselves on the back if they think they understand the line but there's no actual meaning behind the line itself so oh yeah asking someone to explain what that means they wouldn't be able to or they would invent something that is totally all within their head and they're just attributing that to what they heard when that was all inside from the get go yeah it's not to say that you can't possibly draw meaning out of what he said it's just that they needed to do a better job than that to make us feel like this guy's actually got something to add instead of being like just a vague person that's the thing though as rags just highlight it's like oh wait are they characterizing him that way and it's like I don't know rags I can't tell I don't know the difference in the show it's impossible to tell oh and then we get to the cringe scene which one those elves on the other side of that gigantic-ass ocean or whatever they took our jobs the one of them that's here it's so fucking stupid to just the obvious highlight here is that he's rallying a bunch of men to feel threatened by the growing elf population they don't tire they don't age they're better than us and they're gonna do what we do but better and it's like right okay okay okay evidence it's like well there is one elf here she hates this place and wants to leave and she hasn't taken any jobs she hasn't sought any job whatsoever it's in fact it was the human who tried to take your job it was a human yeah you're right and he was unsuccessful like he was never could have worked so it's so deracinated so the whole idea behind this that these guys are like the the embodiment of the kings men which are the kings men yeah the kings men is one of the two factions these people are loyal to numinal and they reject the valour and they reject the elves first and foremost they hate the elves because they think the elves have been promised eternal life while they've been promised death which they believe is is a great travesty even though the elves and the valour themselves try to persuade them that that's not the case so in the lore version you have this deep philosophical unhappiness and unease with their own position in the world that's what gives rise to their antipathy toward the elves and to the valour and that eventually leads to their own destruction because they succumb to hubris eventually but in this it's it's literally just they took our jobs even the none of them are here but that's it and then then you see why people who've read the book and love the lore get a little bit irritated when they see this put on screen because it's like you've got gold and then you've got a part of shit and we've gone for the part of shits but it's been dressed up as the gold that's kind of why people are getting a bit irritated by the way the show kind of borrows bits from the myth the myth arson dude it's almost more frustrating when it does that right because if it were a clean just break and nothing was connected to the the original source you could just be like whatever this monstrous show was whatever fine but the fact that it it implies that someone writing this read something but they just didn't seem to give a shit to adapt it exactly like it's like oh that's even more annoying than someone who just didn't give a shit at all and didn't touch it yeah i mean it's like the whole point of the the numenoreans and the kings man is essentially it's the political manifestation of the underlying myth that underpins the epic of gilgamesh for example like the biggest longest lasting human myths in the real world have been this quest for eternal life and this is like the political approximation of that this is talking ironically the show makes one today yeah i know and i wish they would hurry up and die but i wish they i wish everyone would die starting with the prophets as they were writing the story and they're like oh glad you're a show is up in numenore and they don't like elves i mean it's only natural that some of the people on the island would start to question whether she's gonna take it out jobs it's it's really weird that they simultaneously well they want to carry on over and they show pretty much every race and group in this world as being multiracial and an extreme racial harmony right amongst themselves which is already very strange and then they also want to have one elf shows up absolutely unacceptable this will not stand i don't know you guys seem like you're really well adjusted to different looking people it's the guy who did the speech a human tried to take his job but literally tried to take his job take the symbol of his job off of his shoulder i guess the elf told him to do it yeah she's buying this yeah because you know they are i'm glad you're a looks like somebody who wants to take this guy's job specifically oh yeah she's she'd be the best blacksmith oh it's like it's the bicycle man meme though isn't it it's like he's cycling along and then another human tries to take his job so he jams a stick in his own wheel and says fucking elves it doesn't make sense from a world-building spectrum there are no elves to take your damn jobs you hick stop it yeah like i is it is it simply because an elf showed up on the island like one elf there's a prospect of job being taken is now a thing at the forefront of his mind so it's mentioned in the previous episode that they have been turning away boats so the implication is sort of like plural there have been a number of boats that have attempted to land in numidor the problem is like we're never given a sense of scale or duration like is this a rather is this a frequent occurrence that has happened like dozens a year or is it like one every decade or one every hundred years we we don't have the world-building to underpin why they think this so i think it's a problem in the show actually is like i don't i don't know the timelines here to me it seems like the the hobbit story the pace at which it's going can't be tracking with the pace of this story like the story that we're seeing here surely has to have taken place like the Galadriel numinal one has had to have taken place over a greater length of time because she sailed all the way out jumped into the ocean got in the rough like surely that took more time than the couple of days that we've got for that story and i'm not sure that that tracks to the uh the story of the elf man either like i'm i'm not i'm struggling to figure out when all of this is taking place it's really weird especially the yeah because like the harphids and the um and don lemons guy so the don lemons character seemingly at least it's in the it's in the span of one day at least yeah like maybe he leaves the tower he goes to meet his wench he finds the sick cow he goes to the village he gets captured but in that time Galadriel or not Galadriel has left lindon for Valinor which is like thousands of miles of ocean has rejected heaven has been attacked by Cthulhu's gay fish has been rescued by random rafters been rescued by random ship has been taken back to numinal all in the same span of time and also when she got taken back to numinal rode all the way across the island well not a good distance uh and then back or at least she's on her way no wait she's already back like yeah all in the course of a day it's no these are taking place at different points in time but the show does not do a good job of establishing very clearly the relative time at which these stories are taking place and i don't think it yeah i don't think it does a good job of like even giving you enough information it's astounding like how little they managed to achieve given how long these episodes are it's kind of remarkable true yeah it's but i think this is a problem with the placement of information again it sort of comes up in the end of the last episode the fact that nothing happens and then everything happens in the last two minutes all the consequential information is packed into the last 10 minutes of an episode but if you spread that out and they're all building through it no it doesn't hit you it's not like oh you don't get that that tantric or that that that tension that comes oh something's gonna happen something's gonna happen and then it all just boom happens it's just like oh i you're like surprised by it i guess all the things are happening now you're slumbering on the sofa and then eventually at the last 10 minutes you sort of bleary eyed wake up and half pay attention to the massive amounts of stuff which is suddenly decided to throw at you it's not how you write screen places no and then phas razzmatazz does a speech to get them all feeling better and i've summarized it in my notes as him saying elves can't threaten us we're awesome it's just one elf my friends trust in me that elves will never take our helm everybody have some drinks that's that's the speech okay so like i get worried they won't take your jobs all right yeah instead of just telling them the obvious reality of like well they there's no elves to take your jobs guys there's one elec here and she's not trying to take your job she's kind of nuts honestly you have no idea he's in prison she's currently in prison oh no wait no wait she's not in prison yet she's about to be she's she's escaped oh wait right right well she wants to leave really bad to the point of insanity she wants nothing to do with us as it seems by the way it seems like he prepared it ahead of time the whole drinks part because like he says it that it just just people still delivering drinks just like i assume he did right so don't worry guys the one immigrant we have wants to leave so it's a remain nobody that was planned nobody could take this seriously because of that like it was it was it was absurd i guess it was getting meamed to hell and back on the internet it was this um and the and the scene where she was riding the horse i'm trying to like like the ones that were just popping up i was just like oh god what are we in for what is this like and it's like yeah the context doesn't exactly help i such a weird scene but this you see this is wiseness in action where you just the wiseness in action where you go up and say don't worry guys they're not gonna take your jerks the ceiling because i wouldn't call this wise i would call it clever that you have came across even though apparently this was planned you came across this guy making a speech you essentially co-opted that speech spun it into something that got everyone to really really like you and then gave them booze that doesn't come across yeah that seems clever to me it seems yeah it seems very clever that you were able to do that it's essentially clever isn't it because you're essentially manipulating people well cleverness is i know yeah cleverness is like value neutral cleverness is amoral so cleverness allows for immoral yeah essentially cleverness allows for politics to exist politics is by definition call it cunning maybe cunning cunning in cleverness yeah they're almost synonyms i think so so it's like alfarrison arfarrison not alfarrison arfarrison i think is his name alfarrison this will build towards something because this is the guy who must i think come to challenge the queen regent at some point and take her authority and so what we're seeing is his building towards racism yeah he's essentially he's the trumpian populist type figure here we've got the trump immigration rally and we have the trumpian figure who is owning the crowd he's actually he's playing to the crowd he's giving the crowd what the crowd wants to hear that is cleverness personified i go and have an impact later on definitely got that from the scene that the whole scene the scene's whole point is look at this guy's ability to control a crowd you know these he's he's gonna be pretty popular with these guys right and i'm just like yeah no i got that i just i wish you could write dialogue better that's all i've got like yeah i took uh sorry i just there's more there that makes sense because there are there are millions of undocumented elves pouring across the border every year and it's so i mean yes they have they have every reason to be concerned it just makes sense it's so it's such a they're bringing lambas they're bringing pipe weed some of them probably uh yeah and uh it's it's just that that they keep showing that guy he keeps ending up around all these events you know the this guy he was in the the main hall when when they the gladrile first arrives and then he was the one that he's like one of those no not one of those minor characters that just is like around yeah like always kind of around okay yeah i'm talking about the guy who like he was in the main room and then he ended up being like you guy who was with elf and then he got beaten up his craft facility and now he's here trying to rally everybody it's just like who is why this guy and you'd think the way you want to write it would him getting beaten up by the guy for his crest and everything like that would somehow inform this but it just it only uninforms it like it doesn't help at all south those southlanders are terrible the only interaction i've had exactly has been terrible and minorians like they wouldn't care about the racial component in the sense like he's like no it's those those people from the southlands them not because they're men it's because they're shit try to fucking kill me and my friends and take our job literally we've said it it's fine we'll move on then he's been then he's going to be out of commission for like four yeah months he can't work we got a pitch in um and then these two again closer i guess that obviously this is going somewhere i don't really yeah but you know i don't care he seems nice sure i get he seems nice that's so that's that's a complimenting the show that they have a character who seems nice he seems all right oh no he's like a nice guy all right what's up next Galadriel versus doing this again another scene with Galadriel in the queen region and the dialogue is so hideous so we open with i guess i've got it like summarize you vex me elf you steal scrolls while your friend hurts my people like people should say vex vex is kind of cool vex is nice it's like when you when you just threw in a deracinated there and it oh yeah you gotta slip those in i find it vexation when people don't use the language correctly oh so her response to that right so so what she's just been told is you steal scrolls and you hurt my people so like if i were galadriel i'd be like so i need to clarify why those scrolls were stolen stolen quote-unquote i don't even know if they were stood whatever you need to talk about how important is the what they represent and then simultaneously be like you know if she knows the story about a friend getting hurt it's like he was attacked to be fair but then if you know the full story he stole the fucking crest there's not much defending that is there anyway galadriel chooses to respond to it with that man is the lost heir in exile his men are leaderless you need to you to help the men of the southlands back his people to beat sarod i'm just like back the fuck up jesus there is so much you have to explain you can't just go like oh he's like a king and you got to go help his men what he doesn't even know it he's denied it the only reason she thinks he's the king is that he's wearing a symbol that he himself claimed he got from a death stole and he's tried to steal things we've seen him steal things like maybe he just liked stealing it's like galadriel you've shown how idiotic you are in so many ways but this is a new one you are believing in full that he's absolutely a lost king to the men of the southlands you have no reason to think this and now you want it to like send everybody in numinor to war to help him get his what the fuck the only thing that could possibly be worse is if the numinorians agreed to it but of course they would never do that she really seems incapable of understanding anybody else's perspective ever like she can never fathom that somebody might disagree with something that she proposes or the life she's never needed to i would like if i were her advisor king's hand if you will or galadriel hand whatever i'd be like right we're gonna want to try and get here to suggest an army the second we do it it's gonna become very clear what we're after all right so the way do we do that visible we need to set up the saron shit we need to get clear that we have strong evidence that's the whole reason we're here you know that's that's that's why we're here we know we're not going to play with assumptions because she'll never believe us if we do that we know we were a part of a big ol elf thing and we found loads of evidence and uh you know we were sent back because uh our our watch was done or whatever but saron you know i found strong evidence in your um libraries or whatever you know this is where he is and points a stupid sigil point blah blah blah and be like he's gathering forces we've already we know for a fact he's annihilating villages and you know he's you know about the war you know about the histories like he's coming back now i'm hell bent on trying to stop him i understand if you you know don't care because you're on your little island and that's great that's fine yeah i'm sure you guys will be fine but not forever you know if you don't if you don't give us a hand so all i'm asking is you allow me to leave and maybe with a couple of guys they can confirm saron is back there's a threat and go back to you and then uh you know you'll know the threat is real and maybe send with me men that you trust and i will convince them and we'll come back and we'll prove it and like you know i know this is a lot to ask i know there's a lot to to bet on me but like like this is no coincidence i brought this sigil to you guys and you guys got it in your own records that this is evidence of a man you used to you know have is a spy and even he knew that sarin was building his forces uh the second that even before morgoth died like this is this is all stuff that's pretty compelling to at least to some degree what if she what if she said i mean you pulled me from the ocean and after all the sea is always right she like she notices an aspect of their culture and uses that as a way to convince them that would be interesting though we can't do that would be that would be inch yes which is why it's not in this show because that would be interesting what's easy yeah none of the dialogue is ever interesting and it's so sad because we've had four episodes of it which means we're never gonna fucking get interesting dialogue are we it's a it's a strong pattern i think that we've it's been established at this point the the manner of dialogue that's going to be in this show nothing's going to change dramatically not fair anyway um it's this it's not really is it but there's another it's a slightly only slightly i think more confident way but it accomplishes the same thing so and again it fills in some of the world building gaps the show has left for itself because the new norians are supposed to have settled in middle earth for a while by this point was the show likes to pretend that they've not visited for a very long time they're supposed to have established colonies there well exactly it makes no sense but they're supposed to have colonies in middle earth so if you were taking a longer approach to this and you were staying in even just in numinal you could have galadriel saying like a couple of different meetings with the queen because she has to mend the relationship she spectacularly ruined in the last meeting they had you have to mend that relationship yeah have have a couple of different meetings and say look i've learned that this great threat is arising in the southlands for example and being dismissed and rejected again and then the scouts or the the emissaries or the people they have in the colonies that are placed in middle earth begin to send news back that something is indeed wrong in the southlands that feeds back to the queen who then takes a different look or a different approach to what galadriel has been telling us she maybe comes to her own realization that maybe what she's hearing is correct that fills in a lot of world building gaps about the numinal into relationships with middle earth but it also explains how the queen region can come to this conclusion of her own account rather than just being essentially bitched into submission by galadriel which is what we get over the course of this episode oh god i hate it so much but yeah you're right and yeah there's so many alternatives and it's like they they desperately try to avoid anything interesting anything that anything accurate to what these people should be able to say and think about because like i said it's not even a response when you say you've stolen shit from me and your friend is attacking my people you don't just go send your armies to help the men of the southlands it's like i'm really addressed like were you not what does that do with what i just said but i hear what i just said nothing to do with what i said but also what like i know i i i will i will not i will not send you an army bitch but the thing is like it annoys me that she you could argue her response is is accurate to what you'd think about it as a character but it's not it's still not satisfactory to me she she basically says numinal has chosen another path as if to say yeah we could help you with the war but we're not going to when like i said something else instead she should be saying something like what the fuck are you talking about like sending an army and can you please address the fact that the guy is in jail you're stealing stuff but no just sorry i mean and then because like i'm trying to summarize it in my notes as well but uh gladrials just like okay let me talk to your dad instead well what oh my queen should have said was noticed oh the thing you want us to do that that seems to work out really in favor of what you originally wanted which was basically a free ship back to middle earth so i don't believe you this is what it is yeah come back tomorrow with the new story about how there's the sarin da da da da it's like no i what i know what you asked for first you're just trying to fool us and get us to give you what you originally wanted obviously i don't believe you you're absolutely right because why the fuck wouldn't the queen region be like i'm sorry do you just say like a evil force is about to take over the entire world you want me an army to to attack it with you and she's like yes it's like you didn't mention this yesterday it doesn't sound very urgent is like really oh you just found about it today on a little trip you took with this guy that he's doing a very good the elf friend the land deal the elf friend we can't trust him yeah so terrible he had one job um but then like as if to further the impression we have of gladrials as essentially fantasy karen she demands to see the manager yeah which is just it's everything about her is written to be as just objectionable as you could possibly imagine so i'ma just this is what happens she says let me talk to dad and she's like no and then gladrials as she's like walking away is like you don't have the authority i require or something like that and then in response because they're catty as hell they don't actually have conversations they just want to outwit each other in the conversation the queen regent says what authority do you have begging for scraps in a tempest which i guess sets her up to say i have a tempest in me and like oh the delivery man i think for you when we were watching it didn't we like cringe i mean it is pretty cringe inducing gotta say no offense to yeah no offense to more vid clark oof uh let me let me play it actually i'll play it even with audio to hold an incredible service you get on the stream oh fuck it's all out of sync god damn it um i think there's even a gap after she finishes it and the camera hangs on her and you're just like trailer shot all right you are cast away grasping for a handhold in a tempest i don't even think that's a particularly well written line i don't like any of it grasping for a handhold i don't know it did yeah it has it has an internal consistency that a lot of the metaphors don't i'll give it that it's just to set up what gladrials says that's the only reason they squirmed that way yeah that word yes tempest there's a tempest god damn it vlc you're pathetic i'm trying to avoid copyright but by doing so it desyncs the video and audio because it whatever you st maybe i can get away with oh or are you a cast away grasping for a habit there's a tempest in me it's sweat is that little glare after it as well i so awkward yeah that's the best i can do chat okay yeah um maybe it's just a consider it maybe from the cringe she you can imagine the cringe in your head call it a micro expression i don't know but it looks like the actress even felt she had bitten off more than she could chew that delivery at the end there like very small she was expecting to do another one but they're like no that's great maybe um yeah and then she says uh she ends it was saying i will not be quelled by you regent but it's like what are you doing gladriel so gladriel literally yes you will be it's a feeling this is this is a return of the king reference so when gandalf is throwing says uh is the authority is not given to you regent to deny the return uh authority is not given to you to deny the return of the king steward it's fucking great that's such a good line and this is such a terrible one this is such a terrible one because tactically this is a fucking hideous decision like what are you thinking you're yelling at the person who has like all of the power in this situation yeah whereas gandalf purposefully purposefully putting the words king and regent or king and steward next to each other in the sentence so and like the scene in return of the king he's like he says i will not bow to this ranger from the north when like he's trying to like dismiss and uh trivialize how important it is that aragon could return to give gondor a king and like gandalf's almost fucking pissed off the fucking steward would even deny the the literal return of the king that's what the line's about this one is just that's really clever interplay as well because this this is going for interplay like the interplay between them has been consistently whenever they've shared scenes together the whole thing about um you're welcome to try i don't need your welcome you're out staying your welcome but the whole thing is about it's supposed to be interplay but you compare that with the analogous scene in return of the king the authority is not given to you to deny the return of the king steward um i will not bow to ranger of the north this last of a forgotten line long bereft of lordship like that it's it's aiming for exactly the same dynamic but one of them is very very cleverly written and the other one is incredibly awfully written and it's almost again it's almost it's almost unfair and cruel to put them side by side because it's it's like comparing shakespeare with with a child it just doesn't work but that's what they're going for so they're inviting the comparison absolutely right yeah that is totally what they're trying to evoke um the irony being of course that she feels much more like denith or here than gandalf oh yes the desperate clinging to any sense of authority that she absolutely does not have or deserve why do you want everyone to hate her why are you writing her this way extremely unlikable and spoiled i think the the the reason is is going to be the payoff they have this one payoff in mind they want her to be this way all the way through until the point at which the one person she's come to trust betrays it which is how brand of course when it's revealed to be sarin and of course she's accidentally helped the one person she was attempting to fight against all the way through that's as a premise that's a that's a creditable idea the problem is you can't just have premise and assume that everything then follows that's all you need to fill in character and personality you need to do clever things with that yes that's what you want to do but the question is how do you want to do that and if you're only going to make her this one note one toned objectionable cold frigid hyperbitch then no one's gonna want to actually stick through the series yeah i don't want to succeed i don't like her no i'm happy to see sauron beat her yes yeah maybe sauron sauron is like this underdog who was actually having to use like ingenuity and some level of creativity like how am i not gonna i'm just gonna prefer him like he's gonna be more interesting lisi's got some charm for god's sake is it be like if she went against Thanos in infinity war you'd be like i don't know i feel like there's just no reason for me to pick you over him i'm sorry it's like at least the halberds are on whatever like he he's still um kind of an he's made annoying decisions as a result of just being in this show but there is a good chance that he'll end up being like my favorite character because when modern shitty writing tries to make you hate someone they like they end up yeah yeah make you it turns out they were actually the reasonable correct one that i sympathize with even though you tried to write them as the opposite you're just that shit at your job john walker is like the best representation on walkers literally who was i was right about to say john walker and he's probably gonna get ruined in thunderbolts woohoo probably everyone's gonna get ruined in that show everyone everyone's gonna get ruined in everything this is the fate of the rice we got him as he is there is a tempest in may calm down everyone's got shit to do yeah that's your problem is that there's a tempest in you and you need to fucking chill you psycho yep and so she ends up in prison lol and that's don't feel satisfied by that at all she won't be there for long and my god that scene oh you might be asking as well wait did they put her in an adjacent cell to her companion it's like yeah of course they did why wouldn't so now they can freely communicate yeah this is i don't know why the edgy prison and you put the cells next to each other instead of in you know any other one different prisons i assume that yeah even across the room i would settle for better i was just thinking about it again like in her head did she honestly think if i had sold her and her authority then she'll listen to me like yeah but my problem was i didn't insult her good enough the first time yeah what are we to make of that that she clearly doesn't care either she thought that that would help her in which case she's a fool or she doesn't really care if she insults somebody in it when it's the end of the world ability to save the world yeah which is worse um so we have to settle for she's just dumb she's just that's better for her and to clarify like someone if they wanted to try and make the argument against gandalf's like it's not going to be useful to ret and dena thoughts authority right and it's like well it's reality is kind of what gandalf's commenting on in that moment he's like you cannot stop aragorn coming back and gandalf sees aragorn unifying the world of men to be very fucking important like you literally cannot stop that from happening steward and also gandalf knows that he's a he's a wizard he's a wizard yeah but there's a subtler reason as well which is that gandalf is in a sense playing the room gandalf knows what dena thought is and what his character is and how low he's sunk because of his despair from the visions he saw through the planetary gandalf is is establishing himself as the authority on behalf of aragorn in that scene which is part of it's like the first um the first instance of him creating for himself the power to command the troops later on when dena thought has abandoned his position and responsibility so gandalf is kind of acting as king regent in that scene and he's deliberately playing dena thought down in a way that he knows he must feel that everyone else in the room also recognizes whether they acknowledge it's of themselves or not so like the subtleties in that scene as well which is just again it's an it's almost an unfair comparison just because it's so overmatched but it there are many many reasons for gandalf taking the line that he took because some thought went into him taking that line no thought goes into this it's just galadriel is a bitch that's it so she gets thrown in prison because that's where the plot needs it to be the end temporarily the plot needs to be in prison now not being thrown in prison after you threaten the life of the queen and in front of her court we're not gonna throw her in prison for that she doesn't need to be in prison that happens every day it's fine she did it metaphorically almost she already implied it right it's different we have a very libertarian free speech policy in the royal chambers luckily for her it's you know these things that you take the bad with the good it's part of the yeah to be honest dude we should be thankful that when she said i have a tempest in me the queen and go well so do i mine's bigger so fuck you i've got a bigger tempest than you and elendil's just like i have a tempest i sometimes have a tempest yeah i'm cool i had a tempest the other day when my son said he would quit being a seamen to be fair that a little bit of a tempest it must be the most interesting life has been on numinal for so long this this crazy elf lady rocks up and just starts threatening to kill everybody it's like cool why not i'm gonna submit i'm gonna cement these feelings they have for the elves with with horrific efficiency they're all the numerians are like i don't know why we ever thought about this about elves in the first place but we were right i always loved the that aspect of denithal's story by the way that he had a plant here and i feel like one scene that would have made that like definitively in the story for the films would have been a lot better in terms of helping us understand it instead of just he eludes to it unstable yeah but you don't you never get more of an official sort of word on it or even a scene because i i just i'm i'm trying to think of where i'd even put it or maybe maybe i wouldn't at all maybe eventually i'd be like you know i don't want to touch those films they're so bloody wonderful i i would be reluctant to touch them i think the way you would do it is when he learns of boromir's death so i think i don't know if this does happen i have a feeling in the book when he's holding a split horn yeah well he discovers the horn the horn yeah he he holds the horn later but i have a i have a feeling in the book he gets a premonition of boromir's death and then that's confirmed when the split horn drifts down the river toward him right so if you were to do it in the film's context what you would i think do is the point where he reveals to Gandalf that he's learned of boromir's death and he has the broken horn on his lap um that's when you would say he might just a single line of dialogue even to say and i saw this coming essentially that's all it really would have taken to reveal that well okay there's a reason he saw this coming of course that relies on the extended edition stuff though because i think you would need references we're always talking extended editions with us of course it's the only acceptable version yeah you're always talking about the extent yeah because when you've seen saruman with the planter then immediately another reference to the planter makes sense yeah whereas if you're doing the theatrical cut maybe it wouldn't so much but because um you can infer it uh when he's like do you think the the eye is blind i've seen more than you know it's like but the thing is if you don't know from the book that what he's kind of referring to there i think any normal just person watching might not think that he might be like oh i don't know how he's seen it but he's seen more than does he have like a castle or court thing or oh yeah spice or spy yeah i don't know but he says yeah connections but but then if a friend said oh well in the book it's actually it's it's he has a planter it's like oh oh and i just i really like the idea that saran has been you know and and the influence of the planter has really brought him further down than he already was or amir's death just crosses that line yeah oh yeah i don't know um we we're fans of lord the rings uh i'd say we really like the lord of the rings it's really fucking cool we all we also really like the ring amazon the amazon's the rings of power it's very it's very powerful and emotional and well i i mean i can't really the class of characters and how i don't even wait just the relationship of a family and uh faith hope um it's an emotion and a journey um believing in yourself that too yeah yeah it's beautiful and terrible as the sea and the sea is always treacherous as the seas sorry but uh of course the sea is what we write so there was a tempest in my heart but it was quelled by the quality of this show and now i'm would the sea be wrong sometimes though maybe no okay no whatever ones everything's better downward sweater take it from me oh could you imagine trying to feed these lines to like sea is always right aspiring i don't even know just just some some person's learning you're like the sea is always right but it cannot commit treason and it will point you to the the light if you look up they're so confused by that you'd be like what the fuck am i supposed to make of all that it's like look just don't be clever be wise i like how i think it's really interesting how they it's really clever i guess you could say how they took Galadriel being tempted by the ring and that one thing and just turn that into a whole character for a show that was it that's an interesting creative decision yeah um and you know what as well if you come stop combining all the advice like don't be clever be wise but but also don't be good or don't be too good because you'll get snipped and then you'll get washed from the table like salt wash from the table only the good boys all of your friends will abandon you to die it's like you collect all that up and you're just like because you might die too don't help your friends or else i will exclude you personally i will i will disown you sometimes being selfless sometimes it doesn't work out for you if you're selfless so just don't just don't fuck it don't be a gambler don't be a gambler don't gamble on love listen nori you you didn't know this before i'm telling you it now you've got to stay on the trail okay like mom it's really easy to remember that means nori no worries stay on the trail means be evil it means never help people but how do i know that the trail is because the trail looks upright because it's sardoc just turns to her do you know why a trail uh floats floats you know i a trail floats and the not trail the not trail because the trail is always right and the not trail is looking down god they were so proud of themselves it's a recurring thing everywhere in the show regardless of context and like we said we'd barely halfway through there's still so much cringe to come i imagine in the next four and that's even just one season think of the other seasons why would they do this i'm trying not to i know it's cruel cruel and unusual it's not fair so anyway it's legitimately watching this show would be prohibited as a death penalty treatment in america you can't in like actually no cruel and unusual punishments you wouldn't you wouldn't let people watch rings of power first they just get bored yeah it's all boring people to death is a cruel and unusual punishment death is normally a bit more interesting than that they're like no put on a snider cut please anything but this yo four hours of this four hours snider cut hey there you go oh shit you know we're at the same you know who wore it better in that four hour wall the four hours better i don't want to have to think about answering that question right so maybe or snider cut wait do you say what i rather rewatch would oh so your your voice autism for a moment um the would you rather rewatch these four episodes or the snider cut well so the problem with these questions is i'll always pick the one that i'm less familiar with and it's going to be snider cut right now because they come too close so it would be slightly more interesting because i'm i've forgotten a lot of it you know especially if i'm watching it with friends holy shit we can laugh at it okay all right if i was fully familiar with both i have no idea i have no oh yeah it's tough i might i think i'd pick rings of power i'd rather watch i think there's enough little i'd just be watching for maybe little bitty things like little cool set stuff and some cool props and that that two minute conversation with broken foot and marigold you just wait for that one scene we could make we could make fun of how the the fat harfoot is just doing that weird standing pose at the crater and whatever i and whatever i see the people beating the the the dirt or trying to rip their chains off with their hands i'll be like no good good moments that was fun and then in the long intervening moments you can catch up on some sleep so it's actually rings of power is quite good for the health maybe very therapeutic so we're back with the seal door on his little uh we'll see fairing adventures and he fucks up the thing with the rope and the same problem we saw happened before happens and they're like oh my god and there's the thing we kind of mentioned all those hours ago and i suppose we'll mention now is that this error is spotted by the c master person whoever and he's like ah you've done that so many times in life that you couldn't possibly have done that by accident so therefore you're fired oh seriously contract he says i've seen you do that hundreds of times this must have been deliberate you're off the team you saw you do it in the last episode i don't understand yeah it's so weird maybe he was looking a different way well so that's the craziest part he saw it he saw it all oh if uh they they show that he wasn't looking at him and then he this happens and he gets these like looks over them like oh what the fuck so it's like had you shown that he was looking at him and so he saw him deliberately fuck it up that would make so much more sense yeah yeah you have the scene of his silder and his buddies pulling the guy back on the ship and then the the focus changes and we see in the foreground the ship master captain watching this like and then he goes back to his normal task because everything seems to be back on track that sets up that he knew he paid he paid attention so here's the problem right the problem is that off the top of our heads we come up with these ideas that they with their bajillions of dollars and god knows how long the planning didn't do any state now you're making me think as well like is silder could look over look around look about like oh was that it if i fucked it up and captain's like no to carry on and then once everything's over and they land and they're all like going back to whatever they're up to you like stops this silder and he's like um you know whatever's going on with you like it's it's putting your your mates in in danger your mind's wandering boy it's not even like it goes like even serious the point of being like i don't really care what it is you're working through it's it's it's getting to the point where it could like kill your your teammates so you're out it's as simple as that i don't like whatever you're working through whatever deliberate shit is happening it's just like you're you're unsuitable for this there's no way i would pass you when you're like almost killing people on purpose yes you're you're putting other people's lives in danger you need to sort your stuff out and maybe he he give he puts a silder on a break essentially he's like you're a very talented because he has to have a pirate captain voice you're a very talented sailor silder but your your minds are wandering you need to take a break and settle your issues i can't have a weak link on me ship on me ship that's how i say it yeah our weak link on my ship and then when when a silder's father learns about him being sort of like put on leave for a moment to sort things out that's when they can have their conversation not just now that would that would give him a reason to you know and it would do you think they're ever going to do that with the fact this well i guess we'll get to it how a silder gets his friends fucked over but well yeah that's next basically i hate him he's dumb he's dumb stupid to be fair he is a dumb stupid dumb dumb but um that part of it is bizarre this this this guy is like you sealed or you you clearly sabotage this you're okay you're out also your two friends they're out to fuck it so what you're you're just like the brandy foots collective punishment what but why is just like like actually why like we seem to be really good sailors like sorry for knowing him it doesn't like i can't even remotely understand what that's about why did you fire them too what did they do in the first instance though he's distracted he doesn't do it deliberately he's distracted because he's passing west numinal which is the the place he has this here's a voice in an explicable desire to go to so they must have sailed in this region before it's not impossible or even implausible that he's been distracted in this way in this area before but the guy took no notice paid no attention to it when it happened previously it's so jarring it's such an obvious we need to move up the plot a long moment for him to suddenly say i've seen you do it you did it deliberately this time you and your friends are off it's so overt the in attempt just to press things along it's uh subtlety is the enemy of this show it just it just doesn't understand what character writing is at all and then his friends are understandably pissed but even still they they don't know how to write dialogue so the friend is like you're sorry fuck you you've ruined our lives and then it's you'll do is like it's just i just i wanted to to get out of it and he's like you didn't even earn your way out there i did i've been trying my whole life for that it feels like oh geez oh man and then the guy goes all you ever do is brood and blubber about your dead mum just like wow dude does he because i festival yeah i think your word for it i haven't heard that before but we'll take yeah we'll have to take his word for it i just i was just like did they just want to elevate like escalate the nature of the conversation just he just said because like if i was the other friend i'd be like okay yeah i kind of hate him too for getting this fuck but what are you doing like oh fuck you for caring about your mum having died like what are we doing what's happening why i guess he's just super angry which yeah i guess he should be because he just got booted off the course for no reason at all it's it's so hard to just have any investment in any of it it's also nonsensical you just like oh okay why we're not gonna get answers on why it's just happened to get over it we need to know as mum was dead that's why thus you can find better ways you do think that that would be something that comes out of their conversation before with the family there the dad and the two kids the easy thing is your mum would be proud you know that's an easy way to open that up and then you can talk about it whatever but yeah back to our main man elf who is chatting with good old mr. adar finally we still get like many minutes of time code of him walking toward him because how else are you gonna fill these scenes it is egregious yes and then we get a very strange moment where adar is pretty much getting teary eyed over an orc dying okay all right turns out they were misunderstood the whole time but all right or it's just you just you just really likes orcs all right i guess i mean don't you they're right i guess what's not to like what's not that's true very true um so uh let's talk about a couple things in this conversation but the main thing is that he's gonna free mr. elfman with a message for the the people in the uh in the tower in the in the watch tower oh okay um he says you've been told so many lies that run so deep the roots and rocks believe them to like i guess i can understand what you're trying to say that line i suppose like i get it yeah it's really that's a really deep lie i'm getting what you are saying like i understand your analogy um and that's that's all i got for this scene i said well um that yeah the weird orc funeral killing thing strange okay and this scene goes on it takes a while talks about like where he's from right where were you born yeah you're from it's the kind of i remember there there were flowers there it's like you say like oh what what where are you from you're like oh 51st street and then you go next to the chippy and it's like to imply like how do you know about that you must be how do you oh my god a dar is like an elfman and he's why is he oh my god such mysteries such mystery like a box of mystery yeah yes i'll wait to pry it open uh riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a mystery or however it goes fringy knows an enigma wrapped in a fringy wrapped in a puddle what what is that i'm trying to visualize what what does it mean to be wrapped in a fringy i don't know i guess you'd be the authority on that right i don't know that that's i don't know i don't think so that's why you're here what do you mean you don't know what that's the only reason i'm here wow yeah for simpson's references that's that's why we moller and i had a whole conversation where we weeded out candidates we had a guy who was really really good with family guy references and we were like that's fine kind of looking for a higher caliber yeah we're looking for yeah it's definitely some we had a guy who was really into bow jack but was like nah it's still too low tier we have to go higher higher than that uh where's simpson's yeah and so you knew the simpson stuff so we're like you know what that settles it fringy's going to be the one when do we break the news and uh i think we settled on the anniversary of simpson's being created we brought you on a few more times to talk about the simpson's uh it does seem to play well with the audience so what what is the what is the implication here is is what i'm why why bring it up now that that was your motive we'll see this guy on screen right now he kind of reminds me of homo yeah you know that that hat he's wearing is not like a bald head right that's not true that's ridiculous look this is why he normally wears your hat that's why it's so pale this is why you normally does have a hat on this is this is the low budget of the show that is a bald calf it's not looking gray is it they're like shave me hair he's also a sea captain for this shave me hair i'll do no such thing i'll put on a cap it's painted white um someone said he looks yeah like yeah i i'm just not seeing the home of simpson i'm just all right that's okay it surprised us because you're the simpson's person yeah i understand you'd think you would get it my segment on this should be the authoritative definitive and conclusive not really because the three of us on the panel we think it does and you're the only one who does that is just pure okay well i'm glad that you admit that the three of you were needed to match my claim oh and it's it's not match you must understand it it's not matching we heavily outweigh you and the court heavily outmatch is yes so so what is okay i mean like you're entitled to that opinion you're allowed to feel that way but we all know the truth which is that when it comes to conclusive you know simpson's decisions i am the arbiter hey you're changing the picture i feel like this is representing it very this is like exactly what you can see i don't know what you mean for you look at that you've driven out of your you're i can't keep the balance you're giggling on the lines is the line fucks up. You all saw that. Teeters. He was drawing butt. He's making a massive shift now. It does. Yeah. The woman's hair. Yeah. The top. Oh man. I'm glad I stuck around for this one. There we go. I feel like now you can see it friggy, right? As a Simpsons fan. Obviously, I'm a Simpsons. If we ignore many aspects of how this drawing doesn't map onto the face here at all. Oh, wait, sorry. I could see it. Now that I put the hair in, you can see it. You can see it now. What? You mean you put the hair in where it doesn't exist on it? Yeah. What do you mean? It's right there. I made it more prominent. Yeah, see? You can understand now that you can see. Because that's what me and Rags could see. Also, you've drawn it inaccurately. Homer's hair on the top runs from left to right. You've drawn it like front to back. I don't know what you mean. Yeah, it's underneath the cap. It's under the cap. The hair would be on the cap when he puts it on. He slides it over. Yeah. So when he puts the hat on, the direction of the head changes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, when he drags the... It changes from left to right. I don't know how to understand about this for you. Oh, is it because I haven't colored in the pupils? That's probably it. It's probably it. It'll pop instantly whenever. Yeah, and I didn't connect the eyebrow. That's probably one of the things holding back. Now you can understand it. I just don't see the resemblance. I mean, the lip is a little off from the original, but I'm sure you don't mind that. You can envision. I mean, I need to envision because the drawing isn't exactly... It's not exact. I agree, but I'm glad you agree finally. It's a broad sort of approach. Yes, if I totally use my imagination and completely invent an alternate scenario where the character looks totally different, then yes, I can see Homer. Excellent. There you go, Rags. We got it. It looks exactly the same. Gorgeous. Yeah, some people can sort of fully understand it. Are we watching an episode? Oh, that's not actually... Oh, I thought that was actually Homer first. I was actually going to say I should probably take it off screen. People start joining the stream like, why are you reviewing Simpsons when we're trying to do fucking Rings of Power? Yeah. So... It is odd though, because he's so fucking uncanny, especially when he moves. He really is. Look at him when he's moving. Oh, when he moves especially. Yeah, just the way that he carries himself. The animation is so much better than the walk. I don't know how they do it. They must have hired someone who worked on both. Because we were talking at the beginning of the stream, like 2D animation or 3D animation, animation in general, and how it can make you feel a lot. Like, he's integrated just perfectly, because these are all real people, except to him, obviously. But it looks like they're interacting with him. It's cool. I think a lot of the money went onto this. Obviously cameos and stuff, jangling them keys. I'm hoping they just do something with him, though. Something more significant than he's just here. What else happens in this scene, though? That's what we're here to talk about. The scene where they... Oh yeah, they're realizing they've got no food. That's the thing you suddenly realize, of course. I have many issues with this. It pains me. It gives me the big brain pain. We discover just through a casual line of dialogue. They've got like another village is pouring in. Basically, like, all of the surrounding villages have been collecting up into this tower. But apparently, none of them are bringing food. Everyone's leaving their food behind. It's not even a matter of... Because this is the thing. You might be thinking, well, they don't have any, right? And if you move out of your village, you know, what are you going to be... All your tools for food making are all back there. And it's like, well... Most villages would have some form of storage for food. Later on, we learned that they took the time to scatter all of the food across the floor of the room before they left. So it must have been deliberate? Well, maybe. No, that was just salt. They swept it off the table. Oh, that was... Oh, of course, yes. That was for the mission. Gotta do that before you leave us for good luck. So this was annoying to me, because as far as the timeline goes, I was like, haven't you guys been here for like half a day? How are you already starving? You run out of food. Did you not think that in your... It was like when Homo was on the rock. And he ate him with peanuts. He had flanges. You gotta eat him like this. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. No, no. You stop stealing them all. No. That's what happened. I think this show... It's like one of those things that makes me think, this show wants me to think that men are shit and elves are just the best. Well... Men are too stupid to bring food with them. I don't even know what the fuck they were thinking, because yeah, like this is the thing. You might be thinking, I implied with my description that they have chewed through their entire rations. It is like, no, they didn't bring any. They left all their food. They couldn't prioritize the food over the linen, you know? You needed those bed sheets. I can't explain how fucking stupid it is. It would be a great comedy scene to have her being like, well, what did you bring? And they just have like random shit. They have like farming equipment. And a pile of shirts. I really don't want to dismiss that. I feel like a stack of bed linen just sitting in the corner. They just have fuckers of dirt. Old fascist sketch, where like the housewife sends the husband away shopping and he comes back and she says, you know, did you get the stuff we needed? Did you get, you know, the beans? Did you get the rice? Did you get this? You know, this is even better than that. And then he just brings out this random list of utter horseshit. They have no conceivable need of. Stop tormenting me. It's... I'm not doing nothing. Stop tormenting me. It's absolutely absurd. They have like a food storage. Just an entire thing. They didn't touch any of it. And you remember the visual from episode two, I want to say. They're all very slowly walking away from the village and they've packed up loads of shit. They have like wheelbarrows and carriages and stuff. None of you wanted the food. Is there no fat person among you that was like, I'll carry the food. Bring some snacks for the road. Yeah. I don't understand it. And it's obviously because it's like, what are we going to do with this plot line? It's like, I don't know, they need food. But they wouldn't need food because they would have stacked up ahead of time, right? They would have known this was going to happen. We'd like to find out, by the way, they can't hunt because all of the animals in the area are either run away or they're dead. Like, why wouldn't... You know what? You guys should just be moving away. This place is going to... Yeah, why did you stop here? Keep going. This ain't a good place to be. It's terrible. And the orcs are like, they're not that far away. You know? Because they wouldn't have... Because surely they didn't come here expecting to find elves, right? No. I don't even know. Because she would have obviously... She would have told them that they're gone and they would have probably said that, hey, we're leaving. So they wouldn't have come here expecting elves. So they just came here because... Why did they actually come here? For safety? I don't know why you didn't draw this guy on the left as, like, Moe. You drew the other two, but... I don't know how to draw Moe. Believe it or not, those are actually, like, really badly done drawings. But they're, like, the best I can do from having drawn it several billion times when I was a kid. I don't know what... I need to see a picture of Moe. I think with a mouse, which is kind of tricky. So there's that. They are not beautiful drawings, I will admit. You don't know how to draw Moe. Well, without seeing a picture of him, I think I'm trying to... I don't know if I could. I don't think so. I couldn't. I can't remember. What about... I'm just thinking of, like, secondary characters that would be easy. Principal Skinner feels like he'd be an easy one to draw. The thing is, it's bizarre. I can picture him fully in my head, but the second I try and draw it, I feel like, what am I doing? The main thing I remember about Moe is his, like, big old... He's got a very big old Billy sort of a... He's playing after his thing, doesn't he? He's got like, please... What's up? Oh, we'll see. You gotta, like, aim it upward, more so with, like, Moe's face. It's all right. You could... I know who that is. He's the bar guy, right? It's the bar guy. Yeah, it's him. I know. See, I know. See, I... I was figuring out if I could, like, draw a mode for memory, and I just started drawing Bonnie for some reason. The guy's natural hair, you could just turn him into Patty or Selma, because they're basically the same, but he also has kind of got the haircut. Mm-hmm. Sorry, what were we talking about? Was it rings of power? I don't know. We're talking about Homer in the castle. But we're looking for any escape from it. It's why you see Homer Simpson in this man who doesn't look like him at all. Wait, which man? He looks very... He looks suspiciously similar to him. It's warping your mind. No, I think... I agree. The guy with the... The guy with the potatoes doesn't look like Homer, does he? I think Clark needs to look into, like, legally. Like, stolen inspiration from Amazon, honestly. Yeah, the guy on the right is the Homer guy. The guy on the left... I'm not saying the guy on the left looks like Homer. Oh, no, he looks like Moe. Yeah. Well, to be fair, Fringy pointed that out, and he's apparently the Simpson type of person. I said why didn't you draw him like Moe? No, no, I'm saying I agree with you. He does look like Moe. Yeah, I agree. That would be the first thought I have, is he looks so much like Moe. Why would you not draw him like Moe? The lady there was Bud. I was gonna say, her hair is way more bothered, Bud. Come on. Yeah. And also, because Margot wears like a lime green dress, and this is a very blue dress. Not to be confused with her blue hair, which is not naturally blue, is it? Wasn't that... Isn't it like naturally brown, but then she dyes it blue? I can't remember. That's some of that... That's some of that super-duper Simpsons lore there. Like, oh, like Ninja? Not in blue. I'm sorry, I don't... Well, I imagine Ninja's hair is not naturally blue. Oh, no. That's like saying the two fairies are not real. It's a very big... Yeah, it's important. If you want to be successful... Well, I'm glad you cleared that up, Rags. I'm glad you cleared that up. Just like much like this character you're talking about, I know that Ninja dyed his hair blue. That's the most interesting thing about him. Well, this woman hasn't dyed her hair blue. She's just wearing a blue dress and like... I don't know about that. Does she dye the dress blue? I don't know about that. Oh, is she a Numerian sailor? Her hair is naturally blue, and she dyes it brown. She dyes it brown just to... Because she doesn't want to be seen as a freak? She doesn't want to be the tallest... There are plenty of blue-haired people in the Simpsons world, but it's not blue in the same way that blue is in our world. It's like a normal color. What was that? Who's the... The Van Houten? There's another... Well, there's them, but there's someone else with blue hair, right? Like the guy, but I can't remember in the early seasons. Do you know who I'm talking about? There's like a guy with blue hair. You know anything else about him? Oh, damn it. I'm just trying to figure out who he knew or interacted with. There's chief Wiggum people. Oh, of course. I'm not talking about Wiggum. It's someone else. The guy. There is a guy with blue hair. He wears like a suit jacket. I'm pretty sure. Oh, Boone's his lawyer. No, it's not Verne's lawyer. It's someone else. That's what I'm saying. It's actually not Verne's lawyer. No, we did the Van Houten, so it's not Milhaas or his dad. God, keep up chat, jeez. It's a kid with glasses, right? That's him. No, that's... Sideshow Mel's got light blue hair. That's not what I'm thinking about either. Gil does not have blue hair. I don't like Gil. Gil's got blue hair. Oh, man. Crusty? No, Crusty's also got the... I know that I'm not. I know that there's a guy. Hold on, let me see if I can figure this out. There is a Tempest within Fringy, and he will unleash it. There was a Tempest in me, and I need to know who had... It's mandatory that every EFAP episode has a Simpsons tangent, so this is all planned. This is all planned. Well, it's suitable that we do this with the Simpsons characters on screen as well. Well, because... I can't be thinking of just Marge's dad because he's got blue hair. Yeah, he's... He does have blue hair. When you said earlier seasons, what were you thinking? I'm really struggling. I'm sure that there's like... I'm sure that there was a character. You're going to get a dream. I can't... Is it... Maybe I was thinking of... I feel like I've only ever seen... Oh, I was thinking of... That's it. The itchy and scratchy. The guy who makes itchy and scratchy. He's got blue hair. Oh, you're not talking about the original creator. The guy... No, no, no. Not the original creator. Yeah, the original creator. This itchy and scratchy man. I know him. I think that might have been who I was thinking about. Yeah. It all lines up. It all makes sense now. He's included the mystery. The mystery man with blue hair and the Simpsons. Because there are several characters who have blue hair. Roger Meyers Jr. You're saying that's the guy on the left of the shot at the moment? No, he said Moe. Moe doesn't look much like Roger Meyers Jr. He doesn't. All right, so... We have... Yeah, we've solved the mystery. Ha, that's a relief. I was really stressed there trying to figure out who the other blue hat man in the Simpsons was. So they're all mad because they're like, we don't have food. What are we going to do? And then they're like, hmm, what could we do? And here, Kid, the annoying kid, he's like, we'll just go get the food from our stores. And everyone all over the Earth sighs and wonders why they didn't do it in the first place. But fine, that's going to be the best option right now. And then it's like, no. We'll hunt. And someone else is like, hunt for what? Best we can do is a couple bunnies. And then... I was watching it with rags and he was just like, why not both? I don't understand. Just send people to go hunt and then also send a group of men who are capable with some weapons. Maybe someone who's a good runner as well. You can call for help if something goes wrong. I don't know. It's one to look out. Alternatively, you bring the food with you when you leave the village. We know. We've shut that out as an option. Only smart people do that. We don't have any of those, so that's a new... But... I would say, yeah, okay, so just do both plans and be careful. But no. Absolutely no, no, no. We're not doing that. And then it just cuts to a scene where I guess these two are going to go get the food from the town village. You know, I was thinking about it. I was like, of all the people who are currently in the Watchtower, think about it. Let's just say it's a hundred, for the sake of argument, because it's like several villages worth so I'm sure it's more than that. But hey, fuck it. Let's say it's a hundred. Of all the people in there who are close to starving, if you said there is a supply of food that's about presumably half a mile from here or more, and the orcs might not even have gotten there yet, and it's daylight, you could go grab it. Any volunteers. Don't you think you'd get quite a few people? I mean, as a point of reference, you walk at about three miles an hour. If you're in a hurry, you could easily do five. And when is daylight? And the orcs, they're pretty bad in daylight. They go, ooh, I don't like that. I don't like it, no. So if you see them crawling all over the village, you'd be like, fuck it, can't do that. But if they're not, you'd be like, all right, get a little closer, and then maybe, like I said, they're gonna do a fast runner, slowly make their way forward. And if the orcs are hiding, like in a well or something ridiculous, and they go, boom, boom, boom, boom, it's like, oh god, and runs back, and he's like, nope, the place is taken over by the orcs, can't go there. I just, but no, nobody wants to go get the food, except these two kids. Well, one was a kid, one was like a... Well, that leads me to believe that they really are starving, nobody wants to go get food. Because if I'm starving, I'm just, I'm taking my fucking chances. Yeah. I would too. When I said wouldn't anyone volunteer, I probably would. I'd be like, look, this is like our only chance. The orcs might kill me. Starvation absolutely will kill me. I'll take my chances with the maybe, and also because I have, like, eyes, so I can perceive objects at distances, I can look and see if the orcs are in town. Oh, they're not? Okay, let's go while they're not here in the daylight. And then before it gets dark, we can, we can fuck back off and go home with the food we should have brought the first time. So they get a decent selection, actually. A couple bags of stuff. And then before they're about to leave, he's like, I want to check one more place. You just, you wait for me. And I'm like, they can stop playing creepy music. And I go, he goes in and he's like, oh, this is a bag of stuff on the floor. They grab it up. And then, like, he annoys us. And then, well, the kid, first off, runs away. He's just like, ah. And then it all appears, blah, blah, blah. And we've got a fight. And so he grabs his spooky demon hilt, stabs it into himself to create the sword. And it's such a, like, what the fuck? Like, that is, it feels, he just knows to do it. You saw some, I wouldn't have guessed. Like, I just thought that sword, I didn't think that a lot of blood makes the sword grow based on that first thing. I'm like, oh, it likes blood. And when it's around blood, it makes the little glow. I wouldn't have guessed. I wouldn't have guessed that the more blood it gets, the more full of a sword it magically reforms. That's not at all what I got. It's a massive leap. So, like, obviously we see at the end of episode two, isn't it? When he has blood on his arm and it drips toward the sword. So there is a relationship that's been established between sword and blood. And it likes blood. But for him to make that jump from, well, I see it attracts blood. Therefore, if I stab myself in the wrist with it, it will become a lightsaber and grow. That's a big jump. A dark saber. It's a pretty big leap of the imagination. And all of this only happens anyway because a fortuitous cloud happens to come across the sun, which lets the orcs come out. It's not actually nighttime. It's just lucky cloud for the orcs anyway. Yeah. And then he actually slices the orc. And the orc is so surprised. He, like, waddles over to the side, back-facing out character. Ready to just be killed. And the kid instead runs away. Now you might be like, well, I mean, I don't know, run into the sunlight. I guess that is the best. I was just like, I don't know. Killing him, I would have taken that option. But I guess I can understand if you're just scared and you run off. Yeah, he's a kid. It's an orc. We cut it and then he ran. That's fair. But then things get weird. Kid goes out the door. Orc is going to follow him. Out he goes. And we cut to, like, pretty broadly to... It's so annoying because there's just no way, even with the outfit he's wearing, that the sun isn't hitting him. It is. It should make him go, ooh, out cheese. Yeah, they should. Even when it's cloudy, you can see pretty well, because the lights still get through the clouds. I guess it's still daytime. I guess it's not intense enough. To be fair, he very deliberately prepares his coverings to go out in this as if to imply this is enough. Even this is enough to upset him. Yeah. But fuck it, I don't know, whatever. So the kid burst out and immediately jumped down the well. And he was lucky enough that none of the other Orcs have seen him who are now clamouring over this whole place. By the way, actually, what does it mean to jump down this well? It means he's paying lots and lots of assassin's creed. Because he knows exactly where to get the guards. But it's the second time, because in episode two, when he manages to jump from the top of the stairs after the sewing, the Orc mole, and then suspending it with his own way. This kid is basically a ninja. He has to be a ninja. It's a bit of a mental state thing going on in my head with this. He bursts through that door, he starts running. His first instinct, of course, would be just run home. But you'll see maybe there's some Orcs running around. He goes, ah, fuck down the well. It's like, really? It's a really bad hiding spot. And you don't know if any of them are going to look down. Maybe just take your chances and run. Or try and sneak around the house. The captions here have kind of given it away. He's hiding here somewhere. Splashing. Man, yeah. I was like meters behind him and he's gone. Where could he have gone? Looks around. Man. I can hear like watery noises. Can't be this well. What did you do that on its own? Unperturbed, just sort of sloshes around in a well? Yeah. The brick fell into it. So he jumped down the well, and I guess he shimmied, he didn't jump straight in, because he doesn't know how deep that well is. He might have broken his leg. He's very familiar with the well. He built this well. Went down and grabbed onto that trunk. This is the thing, right? When you're right in this, he jumped down the well. You can't just jump down, you'll just fall. What's he holding onto? It's like a route. He was just a route. He shimmied down, grabbed the route, now he's fine. It's not convenient. There's plenty of routes in wells. There is no way he could have his arm inside that route while he was falling down. No, yes, there is. He used the hilt. The spooky hilt to fly. It probably has that power. He floated down. By the way, if he left the building and just went to the left, he could have ran home, he could have gone around the back of the house and then crouched and made his way up the hill and they wouldn't have found him. Do the meme in movies where you just run and then you sort of go to the left or something and then the bad guy just keeps running forward for some reason? Once he left the door, if he would have did that thing where he was standing up against the wall next to the door and the orc just runs out fast right past him and he sneaks back in, that would have been something. Look, Vrath, his name is Vrath and he's grunting. Oh, look at this. Oh, splashes onto the camera. How do orcs get their names? How do they choose them? Do they have mothers? How do, like, who gives them their name? Aydar. Aydar is like, I'm going to call you Sclerch. And he's like, I don't want that. And then Sclerch in the back is like, you called me Sclerch. Yeah, that's right. So the guy is like, you know, you got Lurtz and it's like, can I have a cooler name? And he's like, what's wrong with Sclerch? And he's like, well, I don't know. That guy got to be Kevin. Kevin's not even that great compared to Lurtz though. Lurtz is the cool name. It's not actually that great either, yeah. So, yeah, when he pulls that shit on the kid, luckily he doesn't make any noise that could alert him. And he didn't look down the well. You'd think he might, considering it's just one thing to knock off the list of things to check, right? But unfortunately for child, he throws the bucket down and that hits the kid in the head, or at least it, I think it either falls in front of him or hits him. Either way, he makes a noise. He goes, meh, or, and the orc is already like a meter away. I guess he was walking away and he tossed it in or whatever, but you hear the sound of a person clearly come from the well. Now, to me, that's enough to be like, guys, someone help me out, he's probably in here, like, you know. But let me check, I guess, on my own, and if I don't see him, then that must mean he's not in there. It's like, okay, orcs aren't this stupid, like Jesus. And I think what annoys me even more about this too is that he looks down and the water is just still. It wouldn't be. Yeah. I don't think they realize how long it takes water to settle even from dropping a pebble in it. There's that element of I'm concerned enough to, like, try and spook whoever's hiding in this well with my weapon out, and I look down but I'm not going to just wait a few moments to see just in case they're below the water, you know, if they're going to, you know, have them come back up. And to clarify, it's not completely still, but it's way more still than it would be for a whole fucking whole ass human, like, diving down into it. If you drop the bucket into it, it wouldn't be this still. And he did drop the bucket into it. The bucket didn't go into it. If you can see from this shot, it seems to be just above. Wait, the bucket hit the kid and didn't go into the water. Yeah. If you think of it, the water and then above that, about a meter is the kid and the bucket hits him in the head and is just above it. So then that's the thing though that kind of makes it worse, because that means the kid had to fall a good, like, maybe meter and more, I don't know, because he was up in the water. He was up on the route. If you fall, like, a meter into the water, that's making a big sound and it's not recovering. Yeah, like, it's not recovering quickly. It's just, it's over. But then, you know, magic he's just like, no, there's nothing there. The Orc is stupid enough to be like, well, there's no way he could possibly hide here. So he must not be here. It's like, I don't know, man. What about under the water? He's a level one Metal Gear Solid Guard. That's all it is. It's the kind of thing where you just, I want to document, like, if he is under the water, you just need to wait just a couple seconds, maybe a moment. I mean, you know how important this is. He has the magic sword, you know? Yeah, I'm not asking you to get in there. Just watch. See if he re-serve. Oh, there he is. You got him. Oh, great job. Guys, he's down here. And he's trapped. He's literally trapped. He can't go anywhere. Yeah. He can drown himself, but, you know. We got this poison there. We can go get it later. Probably just fell down to the bottom. Yeah, very clever. He's right in there. Yeah. That's it for his story for now. We're going back to the Dwarves and Elrond. Yay, remember this storyline? Yeah, remember this storyline? Like, oh my God. To be fair, we would do it like a summary of the last episodes at the beginning of this stream. It's like, yeah, it's been an hour and a half and they're finally showing us these guys again. It's like, huh, you're spoilers. It's like, what storyline would you want? Which of the main four ones? Um... What's my favorite? Which one do you want? If you get a roulette wheel, you're going to get a scene from any one of them. Which one would you want? I guess the Dwarf one. I guess so. Yeah, because I was like, there's no way it's the Halfords. Galadriel is absolutely insufferable. And then the Elve guy with the humans plotline, we were just doing that. That's pretty bad too. He probably has no character, no. Yeah, so it probably is Duran slash Disa slash Elrond doing things. That probably is the most important one. I may have missed scene, this scene. But am I right in thinking, so you get a glimpse through the window at some point and the construction project is well underway when you see it. Yeah. Which now makes us wonder how the fuck much time has passed. Yeah. Again, the whole time thing with this show is we're discussing it just doesn't make a huge, well, any sense at all actually. How did they get this far? Are we there to believe now that months have passed even though quite clearly months haven't passed because the last time we saw Don Lemon only two days had passed and Galadriel about four days had passed. Here, months have passed. Unless they're suggesting... Any idea about how to link its timelines together? Unless they're suggesting the dwarves and elves working together is so good this was done in like a day. Oh, okay, sure. I believe you. But yeah, I don't know, I just what I saw is I was just like, you fuck kid of me, holy shit. Also no people in the CGI, it's just background. Yeah, there's no one working on anything. Yeah, also, yeah. It looks very empty. It just looks vacant. Do you think they forgot to CGI the workers? Maybe it's the lunch break. I don't know if it's forgot or that there was like no consideration to do that. You think you see one guy, you know, at least? Just one guy chilling like at heat in the sandwich. There is New York sitting on the thing with a lunch box. Yeah, yeah, the steel beams up there. Yeah. Also I want to see a story about those guys honestly, the life of building this thing. That's way more interesting than rings of power. This amazing magical fantasy world is like, no, I just want to learn about the 20s. Just how they did things. How they did things. And judging by this tower, what's our time? What time is it? How long has it been? Wow, you weren't listening to anything that was said. Fuck you. That will be a little platoon just talking about for like five minutes. Oh, is it? Oh. I understand. We're coming up to eight hours. I understand. No, I was, I was thinking of something else. How about another bite moment? That's okay. That's okay. Have a little bit of a memory moment, you know? Or something. Yeah, that's thinking about Harfits. I love them. So this scene of memory moments, Kader Brimble has one in this scene. Yes, it's very weird. He gives us one of the most useful lines when we're critiquing the show itself, because he, he's filling in his own background, isn't he? And then he says something like, you know, I'd quite forgotten it until this moment. Yeah, that's that's the approach of the entire show. It's just nothing happens until the writers remember it in the moment. I'm somewhat okay with, I guess, the explanation of why he remembers it. It's just Elrond just happens to be in a way that reminds him of his father. Why now? Why wouldn't it be the whole time they've been working together? Oh, he's never really looked out that window quite that way in quite that like before, while Celebrim was standing in that particular place to catch it. You totally look like your dad in that very moment. Never have you looked like your dad enough before that it reminded me of the time your dad said you'd be important to my work. Like, it just sounds so shit. Yeah, maybe there's like a, there's a painting of him that Celebrim bore, or Celebrim bore? Which one is it? Hard or soft? I think it's Celebrim bore. Celebrim bore, yeah, he's a portrait of his dad, purely platonic and he looks at this portrait a lot and it just happens to be in that sort of position. And then just he's thinking, he just loves thinking. Either way, he says that also that he's pretty sure the dwarves are hiding something. Go check it out. And then Auron's like okay. It's like the most generic of NPC dialogue. Yep, yep, yep. You look troubled, my lord. I think the dwarves are hiding something from me. Go have a look. Okay. Yeah, I will. Off we go. Yeah, it's literally that. And then cut to him with more flowery language. Sometimes not even. Sometimes not even, you're right. So Elrond share locks his way into saying Dees is lying to him about where Duran is, which is true but she manages to cover by I don't know, saying like, no it makes sense that I'm making this thing because of this reason and he hasn't taken his favorite axe thing because he doesn't need it because you pry this stuff, you don't mine it out or whatever. And he's like, okay. But then Elrond uses his super power that they really probably should have given us some context for considering a lot of people would have no idea that Elrond can even do this, but simultaneously I wonder if anyone's going to bring up at any point a little bit, it's a little bit naughty to spy on people just because you assume they have secrets. I don't think about it. Though the writers don't even like that would never have even occurred. Elrond is the CIA or whatever he's looking at your phone calls. Belive El Formation Act Nice He discovers that yes, they are I think that the conversation Duren and Disa have is like the most useful conversation that he could have been eavesdropping on. He like says where the thing is and that they are doing secretisms and he's like whoa and then these two gentlemen turn up and rags I think you were fond of the way their mask opened up right? It was hilarious how the mask just opens up like how did that happen? How seriously do you have like a lever or a string that you're pulling somewhere? It's like the Marvel like nanotech helmets they just intuitively know when you want to say something I wonder how they did it on set unless that was CGI I don't think they did it on set rags I have a question I imagine that was something that they fuck maybe they did do it on set it does look pretty good but it could be CG it is kind of funny though the other ones doesn't too it's just it's totally unnecessary he wants to talk and the other guy do you like that they have they have partial beard armor it is partial beard armor you're right you gotta protect that beard though if you've been growing that for years you don't want to be in battle and it's just good to have armor there yeah protects the thing beneath you the chest and your neck area the fact that it protects the beard that's just a bonus but can you move your head on it looks like it's attached it looks like it's attached to the helmet because it's not attached to the helmet it's attached to the chest plate so your beard is other ways their heads are locked in position which is written off if it's attached to the helmet that is shit yeah but if that's attached to the helmet if it's attached to the helmet your beard armor is going to be bumping into your chest plate when you turn it's going to be real inconvenient but if it's attached to your chest plate you can't move your head either you can't even turn your head sideways your beard just gets ripped off every time you turn it you just want to bundle it up or something roll it up or maybe stick it underneath your shirt buy it back around you that's hardly convenient I'm starting to think that this beard armor is not as good as I thought it was yeah, rip beard armor you rise and fall in some moments it depends on how you connect it it's really cool looking well, really my beard is doing a bit of legwork it's me it's quaint, if anything Gimli doesn't need beard armor Gimli is just cool he doesn't need beard armor because he's impervious to being nobody's impervious to being alright so Elrond overheard that there's a secret place there's two secret things he sort of just walks down to the entrance to the secret mine where they're mining something that's never been seen before already I was like, oof, you're annoying me why aren't there guards here and if you were like, well, you wouldn't want to put guards there because it's a secret entrance that would imply there's something to hide and it's like, that's when you have old Derek the dwarf who's just like, oh, I'm just a janitor cleaning some stuff up I'm definitely not an actual god I'm not an actual nobody gets in here and I'm gonna ask you what the fuck you're doing here that's what you do, you put an inconspicuous dude he's just sitting down having a sandwich and he's like, oh, hey man, what are you doing? you've been having a sandwich for three days the game is up move along Elf, this is my sandwich eating place a bastard and so this part just really I didn't understand so he tries to push open the door because he sees footprints leading to it it's a big job of your secret entrance come on are the dwarves that idiotic? they'd be like, oh, whoops we forgot the part where our footprints clearly show it leads to a secret door he tries to push on the door that doesn't work and then he sings or speaks out a song he heard Deesa's children singing earlier you kidding me I was trying to think where he'd heard that before because it just seemed like it came from nowhere but no, apparently he remembered this one specific chant that he heard some children singing and that just happens to be the password if you're going to do a secret door thing you might as well do Age of Ultron just please be a secret door and then oh, by luck, he finds it at least you can play it for laughs don't do like, oh, that some kids about three hours ago were maybe humming a kind of a tune why do they know the secret code? why are they singing it? what the fuck is wrong with you? why would you make that, why would you make it even weird that just is distant and not used? why would you, and why would Elron think you know what? the code is probably that song those kids were singing that must be it it's almost like a comedy thing where he tries it it doesn't work and he's like yeah, I don't know why that would work I was fucking thinking bizarre, and it works if, yeah, it's shit it's really shit there you go, secret entrance opened I was like alright, there's gotta be guards on that side of it right? no, no guards this is incredibly annoying and then I don't know why this happens exactly but Durin detects that Elron is here and is outraged and wants to shout at him and he's like how did you know how did you, like were you just walking by this way anyway is this just a huge coincidence what you can't write, you just can't none of this follows anything you're just having things happen and so begins an exchange that was driving me mad because every goddamn conversation in this show does that it sucks Durin opens with being like you motherfucker, you're here to discover my secret which is, you know, that follows along from the paranoia they've had in other episodes where they think that the elves have decided to try and engage this contractual obligation of creating that that old forge as a front when in reality they're after their new ore that's what they believe is probably happening and so this is proof, Elron is in your secret mind and he's snooping so yeah, he's like you're here for the secret you bastard and then Elron says I don't care about the secret, I just want to know what's going on and it's like that so you want to know about the secret that's what that is they play on the line of the previous episode and there's one when he says like is this the only reason you came to see me you wanted to find out the secret and he says I came because 20 years is far too long a time to be away from a friend the whole point of the preceding argument was that you didn't realize that 20 years was a long time so you're obviously bullshitting, don't do that well the fact is he almost admitted what do you stumble into the secret area without any interesting secrets fuck off, you absolute liar and like for some reason Duran can't tell it's cool, I'm here because friendship that's it, the power of friendship famously solves all problems and so as far as I'm concerned Duran has all the reason in the world to be furious he already didn't believe that Elrond was here for good intentions and now he's caught him red handed in his secret area having broken in essentially because this is absolutely not like Elrond's not stupid enough to think oh I'm allowed to be here so yeah, this is everything you thought this is all your fears come true and Elrond's just like and Elrond's like no, no, no, it's chill and then Duran's like okay well if I tell you the secret you've got a promise not to tell anyone I like my head fell out of my skull I know you might be a spy but if I tell you the secret don't tell anyone okay I don't get it I'll give you a piece of the secret wait we're getting there okay step by step because this shit is unreal why would you be like I will now tell you the secret after confirming he was literally searching for your secrets that has just founded himself anyway I mean he's found enough to be able to report back but all he has to say is like no, no, no, I'm not in your secret room having discovered your secret code because I have interest in your secrets I'm just here because I'm your friend and Duran's like oh okay I trust you yeah I turned up two days ago after 20 years because I wanted something from you I'm obviously just here now because of friendship but do you understand like the reason this is killing me he's like you want my secrets his response is no I don't and Duran's response to that is okay I'll tell you my secrets what the fuck that doesn't make any sense none of that follows and then Elrond if he was to be consistent with what he's just said would be like well I don't care about your secrets you don't have to tell me but instead he's like oh yeah sure give me a secret it's like what did you Duran do you need any more evidence what's wrong with you he just wants the secrets that he's like you gotta swear on the mountain that you'll never tell a soul that if you do does he say your life is forfeit I don't even remember just this along those lines you know what he should have done he should have taken Elrond up to that special tree and so you swear on the tree that means more to you than swearing on a mountain you're an elf you swear on this fucking tree then the tree comes up again in the story so he explains what it is yeah that's good idea it's an ore and he says that the ore is lighter than silk I think lighter than silk and better than any metal they've come across basically it's the magical metal that a lot of ips have adamantium for example or vibranium you get that special super metal and this is me thrilled he explains that to him and then Elrond says why all the secrecy for that I'm like I just want to die I'm like what do you mean why all this it's the most valuable thing ever this is a new discovery it would change everything about all technology why would you say oh why do I want to keep that secret I mean Duran even says that this has the potential to revolutionize everything new wealth, new fortune, new technology new science everything everything changes because of this I guess the only reason to take Elrond's side in that though is because you don't have an indication of its abundancy so the show hasn't made it clear I don't think anywhere that it's an especially rare substance even still you could argue that Elrond is at least able to ask the question because for all he knows it might be super abundant in which case there's no real reason to be secretive about it because there's enough to go around for everyone but the show doesn't then go on to explain how rare it really is I mean I don't even know that you could say that he could infer that when it's like this is the first discovery of it across the Middle Earth like it's obvious isn't it just rare by necessity at that point yeah to them it must be well yeah if they're just now he even calls it a new ore it must be extremely rare if there is a literal infinite amount in this tunnel which is incredibly unlikely it would still be like it would still be incredibly high demand it would still be like an incredibly valuable thing until it's widespread enough yeah and the implication is because the king is very unsettled about the prospect of them digging as deep as they are digging for Mithril so it must be very hard to get down to the problem is though that the setup is that Duran explains that Disa sensed the presence of Mithril randomly on one excursion down a tunnel which isn't the most evocative reveal you could possibly imagine but it's obviously this is leading up to the revelation the awakening of the Balrog that's what everyone remembers Mithril from the dwarves delved too greedily and too deep that's where this is all leading the problem is you know that's a massive event in history in the history of Middle Earth but unfortunately the previous episode no sorry the one before the previous episode 2 closes with the literal mystery box right so the king takes him down into one of the deeper recesses of the caves and he opens a box and you see it glowing and you think oh it's Marcellus Bottas prehistoric briefcase but you don't know what's in it if it's going to just be Mithril inside that case which it turns out it is that's almost an anti-climax compared to what they could be doing because you know they're going to discover Mithril at some point the elves have no pre-established keen interest in Mithril so all of this is kind of supposed to be teasing the collapse in relations between elves and dwarves hence all the distrust between them but if you go back to the law there are many many reasons to set up that distrust and to actually break the alliance between elves and dwarves there's a fight an actual war against the elves by the dwarves over one of the Silmarils for example you could have introduced that as a secondary or a separate thing if it's just Mithril which we all know is going to be discovered anyway it's kind of like oh well we knew that was coming so the mystery box isn't really a mystery also it's in the fucking trailers so it's not a mystery either the Mithril thing was just a bit kind of meh to me yeah no I follow and this like gets worse as you brought up but we're at it now is that he he's gone as far as revealing the whole secret to Elrond which is something he was absolutely not supposed to do had no reason to actually do it and Elrond said he doesn't care to find it out either this is just incredibly frustrating and I already know that it's facilitating something kind of what you were alluding to in what you just said because in the next time on Rings of Power we saw something and I'm going to get to it in just a sec he gives him a piece of of Mithril but no reason at all in fact I would just be like if I were Elrond what are you are you trying to set me up? why the fuck would you do this it's such a weird move it's a token of our friendship man you are a trusting guy when you have absolute this is what frustrates me so much about doing he's such a fucking idiot he has no reason to trust Elrond at all Elrond has been absolutely top tier manipulator to someone who is just an idiot you wouldn't have gotten away with all this shit with a normal person because like I said he wouldn't have gotten back into his good graces at all if he ditched him for two decades to a normal person but not only that then fuck he broke in dude I know it doesn't really count as a break in if they have a key but like he stole the key you know what I mean? exactly he didn't just randomly accidentally walk into a place he figured out the secret code to get into the secret place yeah like what are you going to argue oh that was all incidents I don't know I was whistling the tune and then this door opened I don't know I assumed the locked door was there for me to open if I happen to have overheard the password that means I'm allowed in yeah locked doors are meant to be unlocked right that's the whole point yeah it's kind of there is a long standing narrative problem with the show which is that it has this conception of the point of a particular character but it's incapable of not hammering that point right into your fucking face so the same thing with the brandy for example every conversation she has has to be about her being rebellious and going against the norms of society every single time just in case you missed the point so the point they had with Elrond and Duran is the fractured friendship but the desire to remake it and in the first episode when they meet each other sorry episode 2 that is isn't it I think when they finally meet again it's kind of movingly done they portray it reasonably well they actually have the first the show's only emotional exchange in dialogue between two characters that works quite well between Elrond and Duran on the lift and they carry it on reasonably well so you have the tree that he's planted because the tree is kind of the symbolic representation of this everything you lose when the friendship falls apart but also everything you symbolically want to recreate or regrow and that's all really good and the show does it really well the problem is it thinks it's onto a good thing and so it wants to really hammer home the repaired friendship point which is what leads it then to this scene so Duran immediately trusting or distrusting and then trusting that this is symbolic of the repaired friendship and then the giving of Mithril to Elrond for no substantial reason at all that's again symbolic of the point the show wants to convey with these two characters it's not justifiable within universe but it's justifiable from the writer's point of view because this is the point of these two characters it's just really it's there are subtler ways you could go about this it would have been more engrossing if you had been subtler about it but they don't trust the audience I don't think to actually appreciate a subtle sort of friendship repairing story I don't think well I was just going to go as far as saying that is absolutely their goals I just think their execution with all of it has been really pissed because that was actually one of the I think my favourite moment across the four episodes when Duran just straight up rips into him for being a bad friend I was like oh that's cool and then that just sort of gets like undone a scene later pretty much yeah the next scene they play it for laughs so you have a whole elevator sequence which is really emotionally fraught and quite well delivered apart from Elrond's apology which isn't but then there's a cut so when they're walking in he says you know no staying for dinner no making friends it's just oh okay so we have this nice real impactful emotional scene but now yeah now we have to just joke about that so and now we've pretty much moved on to the point of like that's all done with you're forgiven we're friends again except you might be after my secrets and he's like I'm not after your secrets I'm just in your secret room to talk to you about not things to do with your secret he's like oh that's great I believe you now let's talk about my secrets now let's talk about them and let's not only talk about them but are you describing the events as they happen accurately as being really unfair to this show that's a good point rags it's very unfair look at how uncharitable he's been handing Elrond the ore you only offer him now proof to the other elves and an actual piece to be able to study why would you do that trust him by the way even if you totally trust him he could just drop that like he could fucking it could fall out of his pocket or he could like put it down on his desk and then forget about it and someone knows there is no reason at all to do that but then I'm so sorry to do this apologies ahead of time next time on rings of power the first seed they show you is Elrond showing the ore to Caleb Rimbaud awesome why would they choose that that's an interesting decision a meta perspective of what are we going to show when our coming up instantly betraying the promise that he made yeah just to clarify he made him promise like on the mountain who cares he would never say anything to anybody not anybody Elrond swears on like his father or something it is like yeah I trust him though don't worry are we going to get a moment where Elrond just says like yeah fuck durin something I don't know is that going to happen or is he just going to be like oh no I didn't tell anybody about your secret I just showed him the cool rock is that a secret I didn't realize I'm sorry oh that's what we were scaring over that was the secret I thought the secret was the cave in yeah I wasn't going to tell him about that I was going to tell him about the cave in dude I wasn't going to tell Osha about the cave in is what I thought that's okay so stupid and yeah like he said remember Elrond was supposed to be banished from all Dwarven lads by the way well he is supposed to be he's supposed to be he lost but that just didn't yeah didn't matter why did they do that I don't know and they have an Avengers moment here at least that's how I will refer to it and you'll know what I mean in a second but he's like pretty sure it's like something and then Elrond's like no it's this, that, the other it's me thrill and the camera is really tight on him as well and it's just like you like references to things yeah this is the shot by the way when he says it look at this it's such a like hey audience you remember that remember the vest, the t-shirt the saves for that was made of this you remember that he's eating the membered area as we watch yep ugh keep it as a token of our friendship oh god I hate you you know that really deep friendship that we have I'm gonna betray one after another anyways yep he just straight up betrays him straight away I don't, ugh why do you make us watch this if this was your fault you could have just had us remain the primordial soup that's what we could have been just amoebas running around but no had to develop us all up and then make this show scene with girl and guy I got nothing for this he's wooing her next scene alrighty I reckon for that though I mean I don't know if anyone's ever seen the carnival row the amazon thing with furniture row probably about the same quality Orlando Bloemann's Cara Delevingne yes and there's a subplot in there where the chancellor's son and the daughter of the leader of the opposition sort of hook up and it leads to political shenanigans and I have a really really strong feeling that amazon has been trialing these fantasies so carnival row and wheel of time has been victim of this test period and what it's doing for this show is essentially borrowing elements from all of them so you have the corrupting dagger which you see in wheel of time you have the relationship between the daughter of two political leaders as instantiated in these two characters I have a nasty feeling that's what they're doing and so this will become very relevant later it's just that we don't give a fuck about the character of the character involved in it so we won't care when it comes to fruition but I'm sure they're doing this for intrigue purposes and it will actually have some kind of it'll have a great consequence we're gonna be like so anyway, Galadriel scene yay it's been so long I forgot what she's like as a person it's a really good scene too Saron is like you're not battling trolls or orcs you're battling men and then she goes are you really trying to instruct me yeah fuck it, everyone knows right I don't know she's like are you really trying to instruct me in the art of war it's like you are a dense mother fucker aren't you every time, every time she just never misses a beat um yeah and he basically says show them what they fear and then she interrupts and says so I can use it against them she's a bad guy so you can give them what they fear so this is supposed to be subtle foreshadowing to what you're doing to her not Saron or Agile Saron but her instinctive reaction is just so I can manipulate people just out of the fuck out of them no no just stop being such a dunce legit if he was giving her advice on how to deal with the region she would just keep asking like when do I kill her when do I slit her throat when do I kill her in her sleep can you stop for 5 seconds I'm trying to manipulate you stop fucking talking ugh do you believe that he rudely didn't let me manipulate what a dick am I right what I found annoying about this is he's like you've been trying to get to her and you didn't realise like what was happening when you finally got to her and she's like oh when I was talking about her dad it's like well a lot more was happening in those sentences than just the dad being brought up like you questioned her authority in general that could have been more pissed her off not the fact that you're bringing up her dad or the fact that you're being so impetulent and she hates you anyway it's like no we've concluded this about her dad and it's just like okay I guess we've got to conclude it's that to move on we haven't got time I just think it's really lame we are once again being like see how clever the whole brand is and how needed it is that she's picking up on this stuff too and she's like no no the stuff they come up with and it works it's all bullshit unfortunately there will be people who look back on this scene at the end of the show once Dauron has been revealed to be Halbrand and they will say look how clever this writing was because in this scene he was telling her exactly what he was doing to her isn't this an example of subtle clever nuanced manipulative writing and you'll think no everyone saw this coming from about five miles away this time oh my goodness it's such a great scene it's one of my favourites anybody in chat who hasn't seen this get excited alright this is a this is a treat this is spectacular the guards are here to collect Galadriel she's got to roll those eyes Galadriel she's of course ready and willing to submit because she's a good girl or is she something pretty fucking cool guys I hope you guys are ready for this episode of Bow Woman I'm preemptively cringing as you can see she had her hands ready for some chains but this poor fucker he was like I'll put up a mon and then she he took her in a word look at these hand movements what's going on it's so unclear she did you see the guard he's just like oh no I'm hurt I guess you can't make I should have been a farm tricker so we really need to keep track of this we're going slow that guy is just falling head first into into her little cage thing I don't know why he just is well yeah yeah we'll go one by one alright so that guy's in he's just going right in but the guy behind it to the left he's now falling into oh oh oh and in he goes how did that happen I have no idea he just walks into it so this is hilarious I don't know what the fuck they were thinking but I will happily play it again because there are ways you could do the scene probably but just bring your hands down just doing some weird movement I love the expression of this guy ahhhhh oh no she's so strong somehow how is she so strong oh skinny just look at that guy he just goes in he just goes in he voluntarily went in he's like uh-uh this is a female protagonist I ain't getting anywhere near her is that three guys wait how about the third it does look like there's another guy in there why are you in there why are you in there I assume there were only four in total there's four in total if there's four in total then no come on that's where he hangs out no no I don't accept that that's absurd I'll try to get you a wide shot we need to figure it out I'll catch this you're right there's four there are four gods so yeah there is just I threw one of the three of them maneuvered and nudged that way can you imagine three are in instantly for no reason at all look at him wow he just walked in he just walked in for her he's in there they're walking in Jesus it's so bad cause you'd have to just direct them to just sort of just walk in and act as if you've been pushed in it's kinda like you're on set and you're like oh this can't work and then you're just like ah well fuck it nobody would notice oh god yeah the last one she's dealing with she just tosses him right in too so fazmataz is pulling his sword out and the fucking other prisoner is like I wouldn't advise fighting he's like I can't just let her leave and he goes you could if you knew where she was going oh my god what do you mean and what he means is if you know that she's heading to the king's tower that's where she's going you can let her go because then you can head her off at that place as opposed to what actually apprehending her right here and now in this prison while he just watches his men get like shappin' it into himself for no reason at all it's such a weird scene what do you think those men are gonna say when they later get asked what happened at their performance review okay it's like the cop comes in and he's like alright let's take it from the top what happened well you see how did four armed guards somehow end up in the cell I see you've got six years six years exemplary service but there's just this one incident on your record what tell me what happened you understand like when someone pushes you you don't need to like move your feet you can just like keep this shit on the ground you know as a palace guard we expect you to resist aggression in some way what actually happened oh yeah they wouldn't believe her they'd be on their feet look they'd be on their feet for 12 hours they weren't given like a lunch break it's like this is the quickest way that I'm gonna get to sit down like alright I still got like another five hours on this shift if I just go in yeah and then they help me to close the door I guess why wouldn't they the door is closing from the inside it's so fucking stupid what were they thinking like this it could have been two guards he can grab her through the bars but he refuses to like you can put an arm through but he just won't damn these damn you you forgot me how can they not get out they have the keys apparently not the all grunting thing is what I imagine the writers room sounded like when they were discussing this game does this have an automatic lock she closes the door and it's locked does she not need to lock it with a key we're just closing it lock it no no no that's the most believable part of this entire like what a stupid scene this is really bad this is desperate this scene is desperate to make her look cool and amazing there's no way that you can have her doing this that's believable well maybe not no way incredible amount of skill to make this believable why not have Alpharism just comes in with one guard that she lobs into the cell at least then I'll completely be like they should have had more guards but that's better than this or you could just have this be like an action scene where she has to like take them all like one by one and like she incapacitates all of them methodically rather than like well I mean if we're gonna show her prowess as like a fighter that probably seems like the way to do it actually have her engage in a fight where she beats them through like you know skills and tactics isolate them and then take them out rather than grabbing one guy and hoping that the two guys behind you just sort of waddle in to the cell and then you grab the last guy before he manages to attack you and then throw him in yeah inexplicable overpowering of these four men I just I don't believe you that she can do that I don't believe you you're gonna have to do something else for me it really is the waddling that destroys it it's it's the fact that the two guys behind her like kind of waddle into this that's the part that doesn't for me dude is so odd cause look at the positioning that they were in as she walked out how did you move three of them behind you and into the cell how well what was her plan if those two guys weren't right directly behind her but they weren't that's the whole point of making they were not behind her but then they teleport behind her that's right cause if you pause nothing personal kiddo teleports behind her even close the door wait a minute oh also the door opens the door opens to the outside wait a minute the door opens the door opens to the outside does it yeah I guess if it's just on a hinge and there's nothing to stop it but if you closed it it has the automatic lock doesn't it how do you lock it then well I guess you could lock it at a particular point as long as the locking she just closes it yeah how is she closing it then either it auto locks or it doesn't yeah cause if they go through it the door is on their side but exactly but then she pulls it and it stops it doesn't go to be fair all we have to do to make her seem really cool is to break space and time in the rules of motion it's more so that they break the logic of doors and locks I mean that's a form of breaking space I think that's true yeah so just to make sure you understand right if you could just push it onto the door and it opens that means it wasn't locked automatically when you pulled it close and then she pulls it close and it does auto lock it's just like and what was her plan if they had behind her she throws them into the door it's like oh that was annoying we got shit out unless unless she closed is she bolting it with that action there in which case why would it bolt there if the door opens beyond that point yeah you could just reach through the bars and unbolt it I was about to say first of all they could just undo it pretty easily and secondly like how did she have the time to get it closed and to do that with full guys trying to get out of this right away like you can grab it you can grab it no I can grab the bars I can grab the bars oh no why why so badly done why you have so much money you have 500 mil anyway anyway bad writing all counts for nothing I shame my family I don't deserve stuff next scene yeah you're a fucking prick I hate you you're right we're on to this part so there's the king's tower Galadriel fucking scaled the entire thing I don't know how I missed this entire bit so she actually claimed that entire tower in an outside dress in a dress how the fuck because I couldn't tell you the answer to that you can see her at the top how did you do this without anyone anyone noticing you not to mention the fact that I don't believe it's physically possible for you to climb that tower no it looks like just sheared edges yeah no to go back through all these scenes I overlooked on my first watch and find that no in fact they're actually worse than I remember them being that's great hopefully nobody's confused on how 3 and 4 are much worse than 1 and 2 like this is pretty staggering we didn't have anywhere near this amount of things to talk about but she gets in I don't know where to begin with this one it drives me nuts but I suppose we should go with Faradamzin he knows this is happening he knows that she's going there that's what that line was for he's informed the queen regent who's got access to all kinds of guards so that's all happening while Galadriel assumes she's got the jump on the king and of course she wants to get to the king to be able to talk to him about how hey Sauron's a real threat I need help give me some armies that by the way is her ace in the hole she believes that if she gets to this guy because he's a friend to the elves that he will just authorize going to war and give her armies but that can't be a thing because she knows the queen regent's title is the queen regent so the king isn't in charge the king does not have she should know that very well the king is lucky to be in this tower he's lucky to be in this comfy bed it sounds like nobody's fucking listening to him so this is Galadriel's plan I don't know why this is her plan I don't know why she thinks this will work spoilers it does work but maybe more pressing is this, this is a reveal it's like the queen regent was here the whole time bum bum bum and then the first thought you should have is like where are the guards matched into the fucking window she just turns around the guards are in the cell we're her legion of gods she says she has a garrison but they're all waiting outside is what she says they might want to be inside love because Galadriel has already said she's willing to kill you you might want to get some you broke out of prison you climbed into the old king's chamber and apparently our queen's up there too oh boy how many crimes is she committed like several she's gone through the book like a fucking checklist um this is so stupid it's treated as the queen regent has hatched a plan here like a really good trap when she hasn't done shit all that's gonna be helpful to her if Galadriel just makes a couple decisions here in fact she might just kill the queen regent for annoying her she's surprised and there's nothing stopping her from doing so even though the queen regent had the full upper hand here it's amazing um but then the other question came to mind in my head how did uh Farazan whatever how did he know she was coming here did he tell her after did uh did B-hole tell him after she left that was gonna be my only guess was that Hallbrand was the one that told him but why would he do that I think because he's trying to ingratiate himself with all the principle so eventually he has to corrupt both Galadriel according to this show's canon and also our Farazan that's gonna have this this unfortunate effect of making Galadriel feel completely fucking betrayed but I think that's the point eventually is she will be and she will realize but it's a bit too early isn't it but she would have to well oh I see I see what's going on so she would have to discover that that's the reason he found out it takes two seconds to figure this out like the only other person who knew is I don't understand this is what I mean I was like either they just knew for no reason at all which is terrible or they found out from Hallbrand which means that Galadriel will be like wow Hallbrand you sold me out you piece of shit yes this is this is complete horseshit yes you're right I don't understand why did they write why not just not write at all just stop it put the pen down just enough because the king we see here is a vegetable but the writers can only aspire to his level of cognition I think that's basically the reason so she's like I got you bitch and then the bitch is like nah because seriously though bad things are going to happen and then I think your level of passion is over she's like the king is like sweetheart I feel ill then she's like oh that sucks and then I think Galadriel's like tell me about stuff and things and then she like literally takes her out a little fucking history tour I couldn't believe her I see it she just gets to do everything she wants it's like who are you what are you supposed to do you remember when she was chewing out a lad deal for saving her life and now she's taking her on a full tour of her like most secret area of the entire city like what are you what is happening what is happening at the end of episode 2 I might have said look she's got some of the traits of a Mary Sue but she's not a Mary Sue because she's quite clearly objectionable to a lot of people in the universe but by the end of episode 4 all the people she's offended have now come to like and trust her and she has not changed one iota so she basically unfortunately and irritatingly is kind of a Mary Sue overpowered and everyone in the end comes to like and trust her and to show her their deepest darkest secrets including in this case actually giving her a glimpse through the planter the logic of the world to facilitate her desires the world is in the end so it's so great that she can break into the fucking king's bedroom after having locked all of her captors into her own cell after having broken out and she can just get away with all of that it's insane absolutely mind blowing but then she's like I have a plant here and she's like you should touch the plant here and she's like I have touched them before one like this and she's like, I have touched the fall. It's like an act of episode one. What's interesting is that the queen says we don't know there are seven. We don't the other six are destroyed or unaccounted for and instantly she says, I've touched one. The queen doesn't feel the need to be going. Yeah, the queen doesn't feel the need to wait, wait, wait, what? You know where another one is. This is like the gateway to modern viewing and travel and communication. Are you are you shitting me? You really know. It's not even a matter of like it's not it doesn't have to be that the queen region believes she could get it. It's just a it would just be a curiosity to be like this is the only one we're aware of. And then she's like, I've used one before. I've touched one. Oh, shit. Wait, when? Oh, really? What was it like? Yeah. What did it say? Who has it? Is it one of your people who has it? Can we chat? Can we double check? Because that would be really useful right now if we could actually we could check in with him and see like what they think of you and all this. Yeah, you'd think she'd show more interest in that line. But I don't even know that the actress was told or anyone knew anything about anything. I just they don't because at this point in history, the point of the plant is at this point in history isn't really to give glimpses of the future. They are actually used for long range communication. So the elves have one of them is given to the Numenoreans. But the rest of them are with the various tribes of the elves. And they're placed in towers to allow them to communicate across vast distances. They of course have the power to do foresight and the rest of it once they're sort of central link node hub is broken. At this point, that's not supposed to have happened. But the fact that they've introduced one here, whilst also assuming that the rest have already been last or disappeared or broken, just begs so many more questions that again, the show isn't going to have time to answer properly. So why is it that there's only one that they know of in Numenore? What happened to the other ones? Are they going to address that? There should be many more. There are seven others or six others, sorry, which they should account for at some point. I guess if you're here on this island and they and you stop getting messages back, you just assume, well, we don't know what happened to them. So that's that's lame. So she sees the vision of the tsunami. And then she's like, Oh, dear, terrible, outrageous. You may even say awful. Oh, no, this terrible prophecy. That means that means you must do exactly what I tell you. This doesn't got anything to do with the stuff that she's dealing with. I could totally picture it being like, honestly, I don't give a shit about your little town. Okay, I just need your hobbies. Give me. Yeah, she's like your arrival is what bring is going to begin the downfall of Numenore. She believes that about elf lady elf lady like, Oh, man, that sucks. There's a line I got triggered by talking about virtue or whatever, to regain it, I think, or something. And then Galadriel says your virtue was your ancestors loyalty to the elves. Yeah, someone's fucking full of themselves. I was about to say, do you understand how vain that statement is? What's good about you is being loyal to my people? Like, wow, you're such a fucking bitch. It's amazing, right? Like, the show is like the elves are and I think that the show is like behind her on this. Oh, yeah, definitely. It's supposed to be like kind of a cool line. This is like the pro elves. This is this show is elf propaganda. True. Which I don't appreciate. So she says it's not supposed to be. So the elves are powerful. They are strong. They are long lived. They are very wise. But the reason why long as they're not clever, well, the reason the Numenorean get involved with them in the first place is that the elves cannot alone stand against, well, first Morgoth and then more person that the Sauron when he's established, although in this show, he isn't. So the Numenoreans are the preeminent power in the universe at this point. They are the most, they are the strongest, the most militarily successful, the richest, the most technologically advanced. They colonize Middle Earth because they are more powerful, more advanced than the elves are. They are like the Americans to the British and World War One, for example. It shouldn't it should not be used as an example of the elves being wisest and best because the whole point of Numenore is the pride comes before the fall. Numenore is more powerful than the elves. But their pride leads them to error and to and then to to egotism and then to tyranny and then to downfall. That's what the whole message of Numenore is supposed to be about. But as you say in this one, it's just, well, the elves are the best. Don't you know that? No, no, we deny it. Well, okay, but here the elves are the best. Don't you accept that? Oh, well, maybe you are, but the elves are the best. Yeah, yeah, maybe you're right. After all, we're going to give you an army now. So yeah, we're all on board with you. That's fine. Brilliant. So, okay, Tolkien has been honored. That's a really deep lore. Fantastic. Well done. Men are pretty shit, though. They're dirty and just skivvy and nasty. They live in the dirt. And they try to pull chains apart with their bare hands. We've all been there. We have all been there. I'm gonna pull them chains apart. Man, it's bone free but it's everywhere in chains. Well, Lord of the Rings was like, yeah, the men aren't perfect, but you know, they are capable of some really amazing things. And the show's like, fuck men. I was gonna say they weren't successful in pulling those chains apart. They should have been more of them working together. So she's in conclusion, she's like, I'm gonna announce that you're leaving tomorrow and we'll avoid the apocalypse. It's like, oh, okay. And then I was thinking to myself, imagine you're in that garrison. All right, you get told by the queen region, wait outside, I'll signal. In fact, you know what, you'll probably hear a smash and that'll likely be heard. But you know what, I'll signal you come in and arrest her. It's gonna be great. I can't wait. It's gonna be so fucking good. You know, oh, queen region, maybe we should be in the room. I mean, when she breaks in through a window, we can just grab it. Because what's she gonna do jump back out? I think, you know, I think that'll work. She's like, no, no, it needs to just be me, just in case I need to tell her about, you know, the law. Like, oh, okay, okay. But we'll wait until you signal us. Yeah. And she's like, they hear the smash and they're like, oh, boy, she's gonna call us in any second. And maybe they hear a bit of like, oh, they're on a chat again. Okay. And then he like goes quiet. And then like half an hour later, they're like, is the queen dead? She's probably dead. Should we go in and check? Just like, just knock on the door? Just let you know we're still here, the garrison. He's probably dead. I mean, well, it's bizarre. I thought you were actually going with another angle, of course that but also the well, we'll get to it later. He's just carry on. It'll come up. If the conclusion is, I can't be dealing with you, we've got a tsunami coming and I'm almost certain it's because of you being here, you've got to go. If she truly believed that, why the hell did she waste even a second, not getting her the hell out of here? Because it's that weird vision prophecy stuff and stories where it can be, it can simultaneously be something I'm concerned about and also something that compels me to make immediate action for the fear that it will come true. Oh, now's the time we start taking it seriously kind of thing. There is a parable. I don't know if it's a biblical one or Greek. I think it's a biblical one. And the story goes that there was a man, he lives in a big city. He's quite well off. He's successful and all the rest of that. And he meets a seer and the seer tells him, you will be killed in the city at night in two days time. And so he panics and he says, well, shit, that means I must leave the city. So he goes to stay with his brother in the neighboring city where he is killed in two days time. It's this idea that it's great. That's totally fucking great. Well, I think it is. But then much of the Old Testament is inspired. The Greeks are all about, oh, if Croesus attacked the Persian, the mighty army will hold him. Yeah, that's true. But I mean, the Old Testament is Greek first and foremost. I think it might even be in the Old Testament, but the Greek or the Coine version. But the point being that what they're doing is essentially the same thing. So she has this prophecy where Numenor is destroyed by helping the elves or allowing the elves to reside within Numenor's walls. So they say, well, we can't have any elves here. So when the elf turns up, they say, okay, we'll help the elf leave and we'll also give her our armies. And so the sort of fate of complete is, well, the city is destroyed by virtue of helping the elves, I think, which is where they're going with this. But it's not very subtly done. And it's not sort of thoughtfully done because a good prophecy is kind of, there is foreshadowing in it, which allows you to foresee its end before the end happens, but allows the sort of the element of surprise as well. And this one is just, well, obvious. It's so obvious that by virtue of helping Galadriel, by sending an army to Middle Earth, she has actually ensured the fate she seeks to avoid. It's so obviously foreshadowed that there's not going to be any surprise when it actually happens. And there's kind of this, I like that they've tried the idea, I guess, but it's so overtly done that it's just kind of, there won't be any kind of pleasant surprise when it does actually happen. It's kind of, I like, yeah, the intent is good, but the delivery, again, as so often is flawed. Can you, and because I'm not very, depending on their, I guess, how they exist in a world, I really kind of hate fate and prophecy and destiny. And Lord of the Rings, that world is a prophecy just like it's going to happen, period. You can't do anything to change it? No, not necessarily, because, so when, if you take in the Fellowship of the Ring when Frodo's in Lothlórien, and Galadriel shows him the seeing glass, the seeing water, and she says, it shows you things that were things that are some things that have not yet come to be. And one of the visions he sees is the Shire going to... Scouring. Because, yeah, the scouring of the Shire, which actually in the book does happen. It's one of the things the film leaves out. I think the books are slightly unclear as to whether or not these things are determined and strictly determined. I think she says this is what happens if you fail. It's what happens when you fail, but then again, that allows for the element of choice and volition. So, yeah, it's not determined that that's still an element of free will that comes in there. There is a strong element of determinism from what I remember of the books in the sense that, you know, so it was, therefore, it must come to be. But as in that instance, I could have been cousin first. Yeah, if you choose a certain way, you might be able to change the history that you've been shown or the prophecy you've been shown. But in the case of the fall of Numenor, that's pretty deterministic. There's not really a way around that. So it's biblical in that sense. There are some some events, some elements of it, which are sort of loosely determined, and there are some which are strongly determined and the fall of Numenor is strongly determined. So that that's an inevitability that that's not going to change. That will happen at some point. So there's nothing that can be done to stop it. It's just going to happen. Yes. And their attempts to stop it happening in this show will probably be the thing which leads to it happening. That was what was going to happen all along. Yes. Oh, I don't like that. It depends how it's played. Like sometimes you can play it very effectively if you keep the audience on edge. If the audience isn't keenly aware or pre informed of what will happen, then you can make it seem still like a choice or the seemingness of choice. The problem is if you foreshadow it so overtly that the audience knows this about 2000 years before actually happens. And it's clear by the time it happens that there is no alternative to that separate from the like the narrative element of it. I just like I just I am not at all keen about in fictional worlds having prophecies that will absolutely happen. Fate and destiny and that I hate it kind of. I really don't like it at all. So I don't mean to interrupt your discussion. I must part now. Oh, Fringy's got to go. It was fated to happen at Fringy. It was. It was. We did. We did say this is going to happen. Yeah. And how many minutes left of the episode are there? Not much, right? We're getting there. We got another actually made pretty good progress considering the other two. Well, well, so, oh, God, all right. Well, uh, short, man, ain't no half hours, ain't no half hours. It's not even a V8. It's gonna be more than that by the time we're done. No, we got for you guys. But hey, that means I don't have to talk about the show for another little while. Two weeks. That's the next episode out. Oh, well, Friday we need five and six, right? Yeah, we'll do two at a time. So. But I guess before I depart, this would be my final reminder. The Fringy and Mola plushes. Oh, less than 24 hours. So if you want, if you want a little cute, adorable fringo with his goo and the mischievous mubes with his little cookie box, you only got less than 24 hours. I don't know how many exactly, but I could tell you 20 hours and 25 minutes. Exactly. Totally happy plague doctor and a long man with all of the little, the little tentacles, I suppose the tentacles, right? Yes. Yeah. So, yeah. But yeah, I gotta go. Enjoy the rest of the stream. Have fun dancers. I'll catch you later on. Bye. Bye. Bye. Well, well. So we got to talk about this line that I hate, a decision based in fear. No, I'm not done yet. What prompted that whole crazy deviation into feminism or whatever the fuck that was. I was trying to say it would take all these facts to be true, which they are. She is surprised that the elf wasn't left to die. She is surprised the elf was brought back to be safe here. She suggests the possibility of even the elf being killed, but certainly imprisoned. And she's very much in engaging in all of that. And she concludes here that the elf has to leave because the elf will lead to the destruction of Numenor. Why the hell is it taking her so long to do that? Why is she waited this long to get the elf the fuck out of Numenor? What's going on? Well, yeah, because she's been saying that though since Galadriel arrived that the first conversation we had, she has with our Farazon is the alphas here. This is what, you know, was foretold. Then the interrupted conversation with the vegetable father is what we prophesied has come true. Yeah, get the fuck rid of her. But what you don't do is leave with her and an army because that's if there is one thing guaranteed to make this from at least the suspicion of determinism to actually determined event is giving the elf what she wants. That's just a narrative rule. What are you doing? It doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, and it feels like they wanted to establish that she's very anti elf. But at the same time, we need the clues from the place where Galadriel ends up going and all the kerfuffle with the father. And then she gets booed out so that we can get all those bits and bobs and then she's not going to be booed out. That by the way is part of the reason why we're not going to be here as long as I'd imagine because that takes ages that scene and nothing fucking happens. So plenty of room for me to skip right over it. But anyway, Rags, what were you saying just now? About this line, I hate this line that Galadriel says where she chastises the other person for making a decision based in fear when that's literally what Galadriel is doing. Is that supposed to have some level of self awareness or the right is retarded? What do you think? I think the writers are retarded. I would agree. I think this is Galadriel unknowingly chastising someone else for something that she's literally doing. But the show thinks that she is right in the decision she's making, but the queen is not right. So it's OK to to to get on her for making that decision based in fear because the show doesn't have the awareness enough to realize anything about its writing. It's a shit line and I hate it. And she's a huge fucking hypocrite, but the show doesn't recognize it. True. She can't be wrong. Good stuff. I think there's a way to fix the line. Don't have it. I mean, it's it's either well, in a good show, like Galadriel, if you're trying to bring her down a peg because she's so fucking head strong and everything, she has a bad attitude and you're trying to take get her to fucking take a chill pill and teach her some wisdom and cleverness, God forbid. Then she could say that to the queen and the queen is like, she's like, yeah, that's what you're doing. And also, like it's fine to make decisions based in fear is a very natural thing that often leads to survival and prosperity. If you're afraid of things and you prepare for those things, then of those things happen, you're ready for it. Or or you're afraid of a consequence if you don't act. Like it's not a that this isn't a productive thing to say that your decision is based in fear. Like, yeah, I'm afraid of afraid of what's going to happen if we don't do what I see the vision. I'm really afraid of Numenor being fucking killed. So yeah, I'm going to act based off of that fear. A vision of the apocalypse. What do you expect me to feel? I also hate a line that comes soon after that or before it, to be honest with you, I can't tell anymore. I probably do too. Which one are you referring to? She says, I know what it's like to be the only one who sees a dose. Oh, fuck, that was annoying. I hate it so much. It's not fair. That is the right is telling us together. Galadriel believes with full certainty that she and the Queen Regent share this aspect that they know and they see the truth. Fuck off. Like it's so annoying. Why do you think you're so awesome? Stop. Have some humility. The only redemptive aspect of that is going to be if, and I'm sure this is what they will do, they eventually end up playing her confidence off against her. And so Hal Brand, again, being Sauron, plays on her confidence and destroys it. That's like. That will at least part. It will redeem this, I think. I think their plan for that is to somehow involve her as to setting these things in motion, but they're going to frame it in a way that she couldn't have possibly known. And it isn't her like she's not responsible for it. It's only technically her fault. That's the show's way of having it their cake and eating it too. It's not. It really doesn't feel like they'd have the balls to actually have a scene where like she's like, oh my God, I was wrong about everything. Like I really don't know that they have to change. Yeah, they want to know. I think this is the problem because like the Hal Brand, Hal Brand, the half it seemed when I thought they were going to do something much better than they did. I think I'm probably giving them too much credit in in assuming that they will take the wise course of action narratively. My assumption, a basic level, not even an especially adept level of competence, but a basic level of competence would be you've built gradual up as being so self assured, so self confident, so sure in the knowledge of her actions and her beliefs. And so the ultimate payoff of that is when the one person she comes to trust as having her best interest in hearts, the one person she opens up to, which is Hal Brand, betrays her. This destroys her entire worldview because that's the obvious and it's just obvious in a sense and in a negative way because it's it's a cheap thing to do, but it's an obvious thing to do. That's such an obvious thing to do. The one person she comes to have a relationship with, the one person she opens up to, betrays her. Turns out to be the person that she's been working against the entire time. So that levels her and then you bring her character back down to the ground and you build her up again as a more knowledgeable, patient wise person. That seems like the messages don't trust anyone because the first time you trust someone, they fucking stab you in the back. Well, no, because yeah, I don't think that's necessarily true. I think that there are other people. Oh, yeah, it's not true in reality. But from her perspective, if the show wants to say you need to like, I guess, trust people more and she finally trusts someone and that person just destroys her. No, no, I'm not necessarily saying that the narrative should want her to. The lesson shouldn't necessarily be she should trust people more. The lesson should be, should be that she is unwise to trust herself to the degree that she has done so so far. Like the most objectionable thing about her is how self assured she is. Right. So if you present one person, one other character that she actually kind of opens up to a little bit and he turns out to be the very person she's been working against her entire life, that levels her. That means you have to recreate her own character. She has to recreate her own character from the ground up. She has to be more self aware. She has to be more all encompassing. She has to be more worldly wise and that will lead her to a personality which is not quite so objectionable as we've seen it so far. I think that's like that's the only payoff to making a so insufferably self assured that she's been so far. That's the only way you can make it seem like it was worthwhile. She has to be completely destroyed at the end of this season. And Sauron has to come about as a direct result of her actions, even though her actions were designed to stop Sauron coming about. I think that's the only way you can do that. But again, with the half it example, I can't see another way of doing it. But then again with the half it's I thought they were going to do something very different than they did because again, it was the only way they could actually keep true to the characters they depicted. So. Yeah. So basically, I think they will fuck it up, but there is a way they could fix it. But they will fuck it up is my. Yeah, because I don't think they have the balls to do what it would take. No, because they would have to level their strong female character, which they would. They'd have to totally look at what they've done so far. The amount of victories they have piled on it. Like I just don't. I don't believe they have the balls to give her the biggest loss in the whole thing. But we'll see. We'll see what they do. Absolutely. If they do do that, if they actually do pull that off, I will. If they do, do, do, do. If they do pull that off, I will happily do a long video praising the fact that they did it because that that is that's a sensible, good writing choice that they would have ours. Hi, I didn't sense. And they've even if they would get anywhere near doing it, they would still fill it with bullshit. Like it would still be all fucked, even if it like I don't know, they would never. I don't believe it. But hey, I've been wrong before. There's a subordinate question, isn't there, because even if it turns out that Hal Brown portrays her, they could still portray that as having been fundamentally right. The emphasis could be on her being right. And she's just wrong on the particulars, in which case we aren't going to be invited to sympathize with her or to understand the fall she's gone through, because it won't be portrayed as a fall to begin with. So. Yeah, there is a way they could take the right course and still completely fuck it up. There is, but again, there is a clear direction they could take which would redeem her character. But yeah, if you were to back on them actually taking that route and put money on that, then you are a fool. But it is at least there. So maybe, maybe small odds it will happen. So back to the watchtower with the human story. And why what? Sorry for what? Oh, no, I was I was I was ranting. Sorry. No, it's all good. You are here to talk about the writing. Yeah, we're doing it. And we're we're still on you when the cap will be fine. We're going to make it back to the men, man, people in the watchtower or whatever. And you got the kids coming home with all the food of which he's managed to feel like a wheelbarrow, which isn't too bad. But when you've got, like I said, I think hundreds of people here who apparently are all starving. Well, I think something I guess definitely good. It's just that you need to make more long term plans, everybody. This is not going to last. But then, of course, they're like, but where is the kid? What happened to the kid? Well, he's still in the well. Well, well, well. Well, the guy says he said he'd be right behind. He lied. Yeah. He'd be right behind me. He lied. Instead, he could have just said we were works attacked. We go separate. I don't know where he is. Yeah, there's no reason to lie. Just say like, we're going to work everywhere. I ran. I'm I hope he's OK. But I mean, what if you remember he's the one that was like, oh, leave it out. Nafi is he's the racist. So he's a bad man. He's already the bad person. Yeah. Now, even though the elves do seem to be pretty racist, I know. Well, yes. All the chat I think into themselves are from the elves get to be racist. But this guy doesn't. I know, right? You got a hero there, even though he was racist. Yeah, that guy was a racist, too. If anything, he was worse than the human humans on the receiving end of the racism. So it feels a little bit more justified in a way. And the elf is just like, nah, fuck them. They're shit. I came up here on that one piece ladder to tell you that they're shit twice. And he's just a good guy. It's OK to be racist humans. Right. He's got good news for you. When we were watching this scene, remember when you said I heard an orc grunt, but I didn't know which orc it was. Well, now we know. Orc, too. Oh, it was Orc, too. All right. I love Orc, too. Yeah, he's my favorite. Orc, too, was in. Yeah, I'm glad he got some good speaking role in this. Yes. I would have written for him. Orc, too. He's great. So the sun's down. He's been in this well for a real fucking long time. And that is a cold bit of water in there at that point. I guess like four to six hours must have passed, given the position of the sun in the last shot we saw him in. Yeah, he's down there a long time. That would suck. It would suck. But OK, now, chat, you're probably thinking to yourselves, like, but why is he coming out of the well now? Well, he chose the perfect time. He just sort of comes out and hopes that nobody sees him. And luckily for him, there are several orcs walking around, but all of them missed him coming out then. And look at that. This is such a joke, man. Like, you kidding me? He was he was that lucky. The orcs are right here. In fact, they seem like they're with an earshot of someone climbing out a well. But again, the writers have been playing Assassin's Creed. They know exactly what movements to make and to wear. They know how the mechanics work for a video game. So that's what they base this on. Did you notice that they were very proud of themselves for this scene? Because it's it's a runner. But it's like I did notice that that's right. Yeah, it's like a faux runner. It's one of the ones I don't like, where it's like you've got nothing at risk because all everyone's just walking and they have to pretend like they don't see him positions. Yeah, that's it. There's nothing to lose here. Um, yeah, God, this fucking part is so stupid. So he's like, obviously he's just going in to get to a position where you can just sprint home. And he's moving around right and he almost walks right into an orc. He's like, whoa, that was close. Gosh, it would be so bad if the orc was to see me. Luckily, I'm a I'm super wet. So I'm I can slip and slide or I could have be so funny if you just slid and just went home. Because you just get it. That's how bad the writers at this point. I wouldn't be surprised. Fuck it. Anyway, the orc smells him. He's like sniff, sniff. Oh, I was pretty sure that smells like a human. That should be like red alert. The fact that you've just sniffed a person and he's got the thing they're all searching for, by the way, that this is like high demand person. They really want to catch this guy and they can't find him anywhere. And then an orc smells a person. And it's like, well, get everyone to search the area. Because apparently he's right here. But then he's just like called away. They're like, hey, orcman, we're doing orc things. And he's like, all right, OK, sorry. And just walks off. There's also a slight point of irritation there because the caption say orc in black speech, which means that they do speak the black speech to each other. So in episode three, when it turns out the Tower of Warden, who's been captured, has learned everything about their plans from them, like the tunnels, the reason they're building them, what they're searching for. Throughout that entire period, he was captured. They were not speaking in black speech because the elves don't really generally know black speech. And also when they hear black speech, it makes them physically unwell. But here they've just introduced the fact that the orcs sometimes speak to each other in black speech, but sometimes speak to each other in the common tongue. And the plot decides when it's most convenient for them to do one or the other of them. That that I'm sure that guy got captured new black speech back to front. He knew it. But then he would have been physically sick because the elves he was. He threw up a whole bunch, but he didn't die. So it's all good. Oh, OK. He actually he collected all the sick and then threw it on the orcs. And that's how he escaped. Because they were like, ah, gross. And then they have to go to the bathroom. So much sense and whatever the writers actually. I was going to say, it's better than whatever they actually wrote. Don't worry about it. So, yeah, he's moving is moving through and it's so tense. Oh, my goodness, what's going to happen? You never know. He thinks he's made it. And then, unfortunately, he's grabbed. Like, oh, no. And I thought like, so this is over because there's orcs all around and you've been grabbed by one and all he has to do is be like, I found him, you know, I've got him. The fucking kid who's got the most important thing we need right now. But no, he doesn't announce anything. He just sort of taunts the kid like, hey, I'm going to get you. I've got you now. And it's just like, dude, you might want to. I want to mention some people. I don't know. Sound the alarm. Yeah, you're up to. But he's like, you know, I want I want that hilt. So whatever. You know, I'm going to chop your arm off because he's mean, mean or lork. And he's just going to chop his arm off, I guess. And then it does like a cut to make you possibly be convinced for even a moment that he was actually successful. The kid is like, splat by a bit of blood. You're like, what happened? Is he dead? Is the kid dead? Is the kid losing arm? Like, maybe, maybe, maybe. Or maybe the orc has been stabbed. Now, Chad, you have been provided with all the information you would need to know who stabbed him. But even if you were to guess correctly as to who stabbed him, you'd have to conclude like everyone else. What the fuck? And yes, it does indeed turn out to be. God, it's taking too long. Copyright. Elfman. I don't even know where to begin with this. Okay. Why the fuck does he have his weapons? Why does he have his weapons? How does he get in between all of the many orcs we just saw? Send him back with all of his weapons. To remind everyone, the last we saw him, he was like distraught, covered in mud and chained up and he was about to be released to be given and giving a message to the men in the watchtower by the orcs. Now we see him. He's like all cleaned up, well dressed and he's got his weaponry and he's saving a person's life in the village. What the hell happened? Adar, did you give him all of his shit back? Why? And then you sent him to what? Walk through the orc village and I guess be like, don't kill him everybody, he's got a message to send and then he'd be like, okay, why did you give him his bow and arrow and sword? What's that about? And he's like, don't worry about it, we're friends. I like him, he's chill. And then he's like walking through, imagine being him, Elfman and you walking through and you hear like a, I don't know, someone getting tackled and you're like, what's that? And you walk over and there's an orc that's about to chop the arm off some kid and you kill him and you're like, okay, this has happened I guess. Now it's time for us to run because everyone's chasing it. What the fuck are the odds? And if only that were the most improbable meeting that happens in the next two minutes, but it's not. It's not, no. It's only one of the two improbable meetings that happen in the next two minutes. But again, as you said, the fact he turns up at the precise moment at a precise time with the precise events in motion. None of this works, the entire thing is contrived as fuck but then every important event in this show is contrived as fuck. And there's almost an entire video to be made about just listing contrivances, just one after the other and you would still get to probably two hours over the course of five episodes. It's, ugh. I just, it was unbelievable. I couldn't fathom how this had come to pass but it did. This is what it was, what it is. And now they gotta get the fuck out of here and they start playing like tragedy music. And they go slow-mo so you assume one of them's going to die. Yeah, this is bizarre. Some of the most clearest messaging you could get that someone's going to die. Someone will die, absolutely, yes. Very, very, like, oh gosh. Yeah, the music is very sad. It's like Gandalf dying music. And yeah, this is the part. Check it out, everybody. Arrow is flung, it's about to hit the poor boy but boom, caught. So they miss every single other arrow just everywhere. And I can see you in chat, I can see you thinking, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. They're firing arrows at Elfman, you're like, yes. But isn't he firing the message from Adar to the Watchtower? Doesn't Adar want him alive? We didn't tell everyone else. And, you know, you give this warrior elf weapons, he might fight your orcs and, you know, I guess. I don't know, Adar, you're looking in. Orc to tell them, just say like, all right, carry this white flag and just go talk to him and tell him what your demands are. Have an orc, right? Have a little bit of paper, scribble in little orc hand right in, go away, because that was the message, by the way, that's what we find out. Go the fuck away, that's what the message is. Get that piece of paper, wrap it around a rock, walk up to the Watchtower, throw it in, walk off, done. You didn't need this. And by doing this, you have now lost the hilt that you could have gotten, and you've lost a whole bunch of orcs. And for some reason, you didn't tell any of your orcs that you actually wanted this guy alive. What a disaster. Did someone come back to Adar to report all this? Be like, dude. Adar, I don't know what you were expecting, but I have to report what happened to you. I have bad news. You wouldn't believe it. Because you believe that this elf was like killing our dudes, and we tried to kill him, but I guess, luckily, we didn't get, we didn't, you know, succeeded that. Who's lucky? That's weird because we nailed that other elf, elf two for two with arrows. Yeah, we were doing great, man. We nailed them all. We just can't hit this one. I don't know. He's got something protecting him. Some kind of armor. We only had two belt marksmen in our entire battalion. They're watching the trench. Yeah, they're on trench duty. They're watching the tunnel. So something to keep in mind, because I'm sure you guys didn't know this is common, common film knowledge that I have. So we are seeing elfmen and kid in slow-mo. They have been put in slow-mo. The orcs, however, are not actually in slow-mo. That's just their regular speed. And that's why they can't catch up. It's just naturally slow. They are just that slow. They just can't keep up as impossible. But yes, as a little platoon alluded to, there is a third person here. Who is it? Who is this person here on the way? I wouldn't, is it, is it like an, who could it be? Maybe it's the Balrog. Is it, what? The Balrog. I don't know. No, that would make, I don't know. That would make sense. I don't know who it could be. It makes as much sense as this. Oh my God, it's her. It's Lady. What the fuck are you doing out here? This means that when she found out, he was like, oh, he was right behind me. I'm pretty sure. She went, I'm gonna go search for him and hopefully find him. By everyone and no one cared, no one went with her. And she just rushed out here, ran toward the village, almost into an army of orcs that happened to bump right into them. Maybe he's in the woods at night. I just, I can't believe it. Honestly, the only way to redeem the scene is if she runs in just by chance during the slo-mo and she gets shot in the, well, it gets to the head. You're probably in the chest so she can die more quickly and more slowly even. Yeah, she gets shot, she turns up in slo-mo, everything is like really dramatic. She comes to rescue her son and she gets shot and she dies. That makes the scene worthwhile. But, but yeah, well, more than we got, at least someone dies. So we just got rid of a character? Well, I'm assuming you're saying to at least have some level of a consequence for all of this stupid shit. Yeah, like, but no, I mean, I would still say it's bad even if she did die. I think it would be bad because in the sense that how the fuck would she know where in the woods to be at the precise moment to meet them? That's fine. That's a criticism. But it's one of those payoff things. So like, okay, he has had the argument with her back in the tower hours ago and she has told him deliberately not to go. It's the same thing with the brandy foot people. She's told him that he's not allowed to go out adventuring. So he goes out adventuring despite her orders. He runs back fleeing from the orcs. She has come to rescue him and as a result of his own actions in betraying him, she dies. I'm not saying that's good. I'm saying it's better than what we got, which is just meaningless. Absolutely. You could call it narrative juice. There's something there. But even then, though, if that happened, I'd be like, I mean, we didn't get much time between those two, did we? Like we got... Yeah, but on the other hand, there are so many characters in this show that we know nothing and care nothing about. That is about to come of them off. Like just for satisfaction purposes. I'd be happy if the elf guy died. Don't know anything about him. Pointless character. Just kill him. Fine. Don't care. Move on. What do you mean? We're gonna get... They're gonna have a marriage or something. Him and girl. I can't wait. Yay. It's gonna be really great. It's gonna be great. Yeah, they're doing... There's a story in the lore, the story of Baron and Luthien, which is the origin of Aragorn and Arwen's story in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Like this doomed love between elf and man. And I'm sure that's what they're doing with this. And so like at some point, by virtue of his love for her, he will be sent off on an impossible mission. He will sacrifice himself for love. She will probably meet him at some point during the time of his death and everything will be sad. That will be the end of it. Everything will be sad. There's an entire book to be written about the story of Baron and Luthien. It's a beautiful story. It's like Romeo and Juliet, but in fantasy. It's beautiful. And I'm sure that's what they're doing a cheap pastiche off here, but it will be a cheap pastiche and unsatisfying. But that I think is what they're going for. Oh, every arrow misses. They're so unfortunate, they're just not getting them. However, our intrepid heroes have made it to a clearing of some kind. And then they're moving through it. It's still pretty dark, so you know, you gotta run. And then like they start to slow down. Like, wait, what's she doing? You need to keep going. And like the kid sort of falls over. Like, oh, my leg, it's just, oh, my leg's so bad. And so the woman just starts going like, okay, let's have a look at your leg. Meanwhile, the elf is like, all right, I'm gonna pull out my sword and get ready to fight. It's like, why don't you just pick the kid up? You're an elf. Pick the kid up and get out of here, you fucking idiots. She's not even looking out for his leg. She gets up with her own, she's got like one of them hand-sized things. So the plan is literally to fight this army of orcs, those two. Instead of just picking the kid up and running, fucking hurts my brain. It always hurts my brain. They also, they stop within bow range of the tree line. Yes. Isn't good. They've had many arrows shot at them already and they're just gonna hope that they don't use arrows. And luckily for them, no arrows are used here. That is very, I think at the very end, some start to come by, which just adds the problem of it shows a good thing that the two sniper orcs killed that one other guy, but none of them will hit you. A lot of arrows missed you guys. A lot of arrows missed you. And so the sun comes out and we've still got plenty of dudes who are in the same fucking getup they had when they were immune to the sun in the trench. But apparently they're not immune to it anymore. And this is like, this kid has the most important item they need or whatever and they're not willing to brave the sun anymore, but they will brave the sun when their slaves are vaguely attempting to escape. Yes. Vaguely attempting to escape. I just... Accurate view of a plan. There's no consistency of value in the show that you'd think of all the things that they would want to break cover for, it would be that item. But now, I guess, they didn't care in this instance because the sun is painful. Just, yeah. Yeah. So, we cut to the dwarves. Oh, you didn't even mention, sorry. We were just rushing over everything. At the end of Elrond's endurance conversation, there's a cave-in and they both rush into the mine to go and help the dwarves and it's like the most interesting thing that's ever happened in this entire show and then they cut away and you're like, oh, yeah. Something interesting is about to happen. Now we're cutting back and it's post cave-in mopping up stuff. Elrond is like, he's not even got dust on him. He's just so pristine somehow. I guess he got it. He took a bath or something. He didn't go help, maybe. Maybe he just didn't help, yeah. Maybe that would be more in line. I didn't even help. Ugh. Issa is doing a sing. I don't know why. It's like a funeral, I thought, or something. They say they're pleading to the mountain to let their miners go. It's a specific prayer to the rocks themselves. We've actually seen, I think it might even be in this scene, but we've seen, I think once previously, where an equivalent prayer has been sung and you've seen the rocks moving, you've seen Mithril either retreating or excreting from rocks. Have we? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It might even be in the setup for this scene, I could be wrong, but there is definitely a scene where there is music of this kind playing and you see a vein of Mithril seemingly moving. And that's supposed to, yeah, I'm sure. I don't remember that. I think the only time we see Mithril is when Elrond finds it. Well, because remember, he finds a vein of Mithril even outside the secret door. And then once he's inside the secret door, he finds the true vein itself. I'm sure, maybe I have just made this up because the rest of the episode was so fucking boring, but I'm sure. He goes in the door and finds the vein. It's behind that drape. I'm pretty sure that you see something in the rocks moving when you hear this song playing. I'm pretty sure. I might have just been inventing it because the show was so devoid of content, but I'm sure I'm sure. I've got nothing on that, I'd have to re-look at the scene. Are you thinking of the intro sequence? Are the dwarves singing to the dust, which makes it form all those patterns and stuff? No, no, no, no, I don't think so. Oh, that would be funny though. I'm sure you get a cutaway to some rocks where some patterns in the rocks are moving, but it's not the intro sequence. I think it's this scene, but again, I might have just made it up out of sheer. Elrond seems like some dust move. Maybe that's it, but then again, but that's kind of the same thing, right? So the dust is moving as a role in the song. Well, I mean, it's different than the mithril coming out of its veins. I was gonna say, I think it's kind of stuff. It's like you could argue she's rumbling the rocks. The dust is moving here because of vibrations, not because it's like, actually, like what you're describing with the mithril vein sounds a little bit more involved, you know? Maybe, but then again, I would say they accomplish the same dramatic effect. I mean, if you're moving fragments of rock via prayer song, that's not- It's not reacting to vibrations it looks like. Have you ever sung and moved dust by vibrations? As anyone? Well, that's the point, like I have and I've never moved dust. As in I've sung and I've never moved dust. Me neither. But I think the dwarves are special in that they could, the song is so voluminous and special that it just creates sound waves that makes the dust rumble. Well, okay. So we're sort of halfway agreeing in the sense that the dwarves prayer song is moving stuff. And the question is whether the moving of stuff is designed to be symbolic to prayer or simply mechanical vibration. So far I'm willing to, the vibration I'm willing to give it, I need some, I'll need to push to get it to think that it's like a special magic song that gets the rock to do that. I mean, because it sounds very loud and it's like a special chamber that she does it in. Yes. So maybe there's something about the construction of a chamber that lets it resonate better, which is kind of what theaters do anyway. But dust doesn't move when you sing in theaters. This is a particular kind of dwarf singing that is enough to make dust vibrate. Okay, but then we are coming closer to a chord, I think, in the sense that the dwarves have a prayer song. That prayer song, if you sang it anywhere else in the world would not have any effect, whatever. So it has to be in the chamber? Meaning a message. They might be in a specific chamber when they're singing it, but nevertheless to them at least, this seems like prayer. Because we have a lot of variables. It could be the words of it, it could be the place that they're doing it in, it could be specific to dwarves. If the words determine that matter moves, I would say that's proof that prayer works. If the dwarves are doing it because they have some unique resonance with the rock, there might be a scientific explanation for that. But my reading of the moving of rock dust or myth or whatever it was is that this is supposed to convey the power of the prayer song. And when you say the power of the prayer song, you're talking about its magical properties, not its physical ones. I would say in the universe, probably the magical properties, yes. Because... I need convincing for the magical properties. I'll believe the physical ones now. In the real world, I would be convincing of that. But in this world, you're talking... Even in this world, I need that. If you removed the dwarves from that specific cavern of Khazadum and you put them in Linden in the open air, would the same song have the same effect? Is the question I'm asking. I don't think it would. Now, you could say it might still have physical properties which creates the movement. But then what you're arguing for is kind of an anthropogenic religion, which is the sense... In the sense that the songs they have created are uniquely attuned to the place they have grown up in. Therefore, to the dwarves, this is as good as faithful truth as opposed to simply brute scientific truth and reality. Out of curiosity, do you believe the dust is moving or do you... As in like it's actually itself is moving or do you think that the rock around it is rumbling and thus the dust is just falling to the lowest point? Because that's my understanding of it. I'm assuming it's the latter. But at the same time, I would happily consider that magic as in like her voice is that powerful via magic that it's doing that or something. It's the difference without a distinction. I don't really see the... Well, no, I can explain. So like when you have... Say for example, I'm holding like a plate and at the top of the rim is a circle of dust and then I start to shake the plate just on a micro level. The dust will eventually start to fall into the center through gravity and shifting around versus me commanding with magic that the dust walk itself down into the center of the plate. Do you know what I mean? Yes, I do accept that I think that there might be an artificial distinction being drawn between the shaking of the plate and the willing of the plate to shake. Or at least there is a distinction between those two things which can be interrogated. On one hand, the dust is just reacting to the environment around it is falling. Meanwhile, the other is the dust itself is moving itself as a result of... Say for the sake of argument that via magic or via magical intonation, they are singing a chant which shakes the rocks which moves the dust as opposed to singing a chant which simply moves the dust. Yeah, I would believe that a magic can enhance her singing to just be more powerful in residence as opposed to a magic that specifically targets certain particles over others and makes them move in a way. I can believe the former far more than that. I mean, ultimately, I'll wait until what the fucking show tells me, I guess. I don't know exactly what this is, but... That's what I think they're trying to say with this is that her singing is so powerful and resonant in the mountain that it causes the mountain to vibrate. It's the pitch that chases glass for a human to do. That's theoretically possible. But within the world that we're talking about, which is a mythological world or a myth-heavy world, you could see even scientific explanations could have mythological connotations, or rather science and myth could be confused in a mythologically-based world, if that makes sense. The reason why I thought it was interesting to talk about is because I don't believe that it's going to be moving the mythril veins. Yeah, that one's a huge leap forward in terms of power. If that were shown to happen in a later episode, then so be it. But what I get from this is just that her voice is vibrating through all of the rock and this might be a strict foreshadowing to just let us know why the Balrog will be woken up. Bear in mind, though, that of course in the preceding or one of the earlier scenes, we learned that the only reason they discovered mythril was that Disa sensed it as in via magic or the dwarf equivalent thereof while she was on a routine exploration. Like, she didn't discover it as in she saw it in the process of mining it. She sensed its presence and they mined to find it. Well, isn't that something they normally do? They sing to the mountain to listen to what the mountain tells them about the ores and stuff in it and where not to go. Okay, but then you've come back to my position, which is that the dwarf's song is much more magical than it is scientific and practical. I never said it was necessarily more than that. I said I don't think that the rumbling here on the stairs is necessary. I don't think that is magical. I think that's just a result of her doing that song. Because I can believe that the dwarves, like when she first explains how they use like their voice magic to find ores and stuff, I can buy that. I just don't think that applies to this staircase vibrating. I think that's physical. They can use their voice magic to find material, but when they use their voices and material moves, that's an entirely separate question. Because I think it's making just the mountain vibrate, which means the dust on top is going to settle. Would you not extend that explanation to the voice magic you cited in the preceding moment, though? What's the difference between making a mountain vibrate with magic and her using that to... Between the voice magic to detects... Just because something has a magical property doesn't mean that the magic is necessarily an explanation to every effect that it does. Because it's still a song. It is still a song, but you've identified two substantively similar phenomenon, and you are saying one is magic and one is not. Well, yes. I mean, using the song to detect the presence of awe. Yeah, but I don't know what the mechanism is. Which produces the movement of awe. You have to explain why the magic explains the detection of awe, but not the movement of same awe later on. I don't have... It's not an explanation, even. I mean, in a sense it is, but when she says that we use this song in order to find awe and the mountain speaks to us, I think she says, I think that's different than... She's making a very loud noise, and it's making this physical stone vibrate. And the dust on top settles. She could have discovered Mithril by Sona, which is a practical scientific phenomenon. Is that... Again, I don't know the mechanism by which they discover the awe, only that they use... It's a very ambiguous sort of, it's just we sing to the mountain, and we can sort of learn things. We don't really know anything more than that. I'd agree with that, but I think the fact that it's ambiguous means that what you should... You have to give sort of a degree of leeway to the world-building that goes on. If you say it's ambiguous... Maybe. You acknowledge in the first instance that the song is, in a sense, magic, and the magic of the song detects awe, then... It allows them to detect awe? Having acknowledged that the magic of the song detects awe, it's more probabilistic within the world that's being built, that you extend the, should we say, the gratuity of magic to the movement of awe as well, as opposed to saying, well, I accept that magic is positive and won't accept it. Not in the other. It just seems more consistent to say, in the realm of this universe, the same thing is operative in both instances. Then in terms of that, no, I don't agree that with the level of ambiguity we have based on this magic, that it is more probabilistic that what we see here is owed to the magical properties, instead of just the normal ones. Would you read that back into save? It's not possible. But I'm not... No, I agree. I agree with that. But then would you read... Look, we're nine hours in. Things get weird. Okay. Via magic is itself much more likely to be scientific as opposed to magical. I couldn't say because I don't know enough about that process. That's fair enough. But then if you can't say that about one aspect of it, how can you say it about the other? Because they're two different things. But they're an extension of the same property. No, they're different enough. If the property is magic, then it isn't. Because we know that magic or not, regardless of how we know the magic actually works as a mechanism, we do know that it produces very, very loud sound waves. And I think that's what this scene is trying to tell us, that it's just causing this rumbling in the mountain just by its volume. I agree that that's a consistent and cogent argument. But then... I'm not ready to assign a magical property to it yet. This seems like it could be done with just mundane means. I agree. But then if you are going to advance that standard, you have to read that back to the preceding instance, which is the discovery of Mithril in the first place. So my question was, if you... Well, repurposed. My question was, if you insist on the movement of rocks as we see in this scene, being by scientific means, which is... I don't insist. That's what I... I mean, I could be wrong, but that seems to be... If you posit that that was the case. Seems to be, yeah. Okay. Then why do you not extend that same principle to the discovery of those minerals earlier on in the process via the exact same process of sound magic as the show presents it to us? In other words... As I said, I can keep saying it, but because we don't understand enough about the mechanism that they use this magic voice in order to discover the source. I agree with you that we don't understand the process. What I'm saying is that if you're going to advance or at least posit a certain standard for one aspect of the discovery, then by implication, you are going to have to extend that to the other one. So if you're saying that... Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Probably will seem very ridiculous to chat that we're arguing about dwarf magic, but nevertheless, I'm going to insist on this point. If you're saying that if the singing of the song, moving matter, moving dust, moving rock in the scene... I don't think it... No, it vibrates the mountain, which as a property of the vibration, just causes whatever is lighter on top of it to settle. Okay. So how is that different from the discovery of the mineral to begin with, which the show tells us is essentially... Because we don't know how it is that they discover it with this song. We don't know if they are listening for it, or if they have their sensing vibrations with their hands. We don't know how that actually happens. No, if they were to say, if they were to say in the opening that we sense... And maybe I'm just not remembering the first conversation, but if they were to say in that, it just says a hypothetical. In that first conversation, if they said it would have to be something that would relate to this, because we don't get enough to work with. It might be the case that it is just the purely magical property that's making this dust tremble, or the mountain tremble. But I'm not given enough to conclude that. When I know that actual sound waves will do this, and she is singing very loudly, it takes more of a leap to go to the magical aspect. In which case you're... Well, no, I don't think it does, given that the show has begun with the premise that magical explanations are at least feasible, if not probable. And in this case... It depends on how they use it. It is probable, rather than even just a possible explanation. You're saying it's greater? It's more likely than not, is what you're saying. I think in the case of the Lord of the Rings universe, yes, I would say the magical property of the song, more accurate. What about it being in the Lord of the Rings universe makes it more probable than not that it's magic causing this, instead of just the sound waves? Because we're talking about a fantasy universe where magic is operative. Yeah, you said that again a second time with different words. What about the universe? The fact that magic is coded into the laws of that universe. Yeah, I know magic exists in this universe, but what about this world would lead us to believe that that magic is doing this? Well, I'll turn it around. It's not every magic does everything. Having accepted that we live or that we are operating for these purposes, any universe where magic exists and is commonplace, what is it that makes you think that a specific event is more easily explicable via scientific means than the magical events that have already been shown in the earlier scenes to have produced results? Because those results are different and because mundane reasons explain this perfectly. Song is the modus operandi here. Song is part of a mechanism that allows them to learn things about the mountain. How they actually go about doing that, we don't know. But then you're disputing the validity of the magical underpin of the universe rather than- No, only that there is somehow able to do something, both of which are fairly darn ambiguous. Right, that's fine, I agree with that. They are somehow able to do something, I agree. But within the laws that's established in this universe, this is a universe of the- What laws in particular are you referring to? The fact that wizards exist, wizards, sorry, exist. The valour who are gods with magical powers and properties exist. The sun can be magicked into existence. The dwarves are created by one of the valour early in the, late, sorry, in the first age to have a unique attunement with, and that might not be a word, but I think it is, with the rocks, because they are created by one of the valour outside the plan of God. This whole thing sort of feeds into itself. The elves, by contrast, are uniquely attuned to the magic of the moon and the water, the Sindar elves, for example- What about the dwarves? Because we're talking about the dwarves here, right? So the dwarves are actually unique in the creation story of Middle Earth because they are the only creation that's outside of God's plan. One of God's demigods, one of the valour, creates the dwarves because he's jealous of God's creative capacity. Just to be, before you go too far, only stuff that's in the, only stuff that's in the show. Only stuff that's in, well, fucking none of that's in the show. Well, then, yeah, then that's one of, if all of the, if anything, that's why I was kind of stopping you there, because if anything you said about anything that would particularly lead to this being a more likely conclusion than not was in the show, then I would be going with that. Oh, well, I think I can still square the argument, though, because would you accept, for example, that the person they want us to think is Gandalf is a wizard? Yeah, he seems to have some kind of a magical ability. So he has magical abilities. So magic exists in this universe, right? He already did say that. Can I, do you mind if I just, I just wanted to say quickly, I'd have a question for both, but I'll start with rags. You, when you, when you say that we're drawing a line between magical stuff happening to make this stuff happen versus, let's say non-magical, would you or would you not say that she would still have to be using some form of magic to be able to sing and make the mountain rumble? Yeah, if that, if the magic was nothing more than to make her sing louder, I could, I could believe that far more readily. That's where I'm at. I simultaneously, this is why it feels so awkward for me because I feel like I'm stuck between the both of you. I actually think it is a magical singing, but that it is just, especially because I've been staring at these rocks for the past like 20 minutes. And if you look, the ones that are on the highest places are all going down. The ones that are at the bottom parts are just shaking. So it really does feel like the mountain is rumbling, the dust is settling. Now my theory for what's going on with the veins of the thing, I don't think she's moving the mithril or anything, but when she sings that she can, I don't know, hear the mountain like resonate the song back and then she can detect where a particular frequency comes in and that there's a unique one and that's what led it to the mithril. That's what I assume. And if you said, well, would you describe that as magical? I'd be like, absolutely, because I don't think that's normal. I don't think that's how singing, I don't think. So do you see what I mean? That's, that's, that's where I'm at. Yeah, I'm, I'm fine with the magic being just to make her voice louder. I think that's totally, I think that's, that's not unreasonable. Given how loud we're hearing them sing, the fact that they sing magically, I can believe that that's just a natural extension. That's as far, I think that's as far as I'd go though. Not that it can actually manipulate the oars themselves. I'd have to, I'd have to have them talk about that or show that before I was able to get to it. Yeah, there are three different aspects we're talking about here. So that there is our perspective in the real world when we understand what the physics of sound and vibration are. That's one. There's the in universe basic understanding of magic, which is that it exists fundamentally. And then there is this weird middle ground between the existence of magic in universe versus, or in conjunction with our own understanding of what physics explains better than magic does. And so the seeming middle ground would seem to be, I accept that magic is amplifying voice, but all that's doing is amplifying physical scientific effect, which is the vibrations of mountain, which creates movement of dust of mineral and the rest of that. And for what it's, sitting in my position now in the real world, our world, I would completely agree with you that that's the most rationalistic explanation of what's going on. What I'm saying though is that within the laws of the universe of rings of power, and certainly of Lord of the Rings, more accurately, it's deeper than that. And you have to remember as well that the point of purpose of this song is that she is praying via song for the trapped miners to be recovered, still alive. And then later on, Duran turns up and he says, I got the last one out, all of them were still breathing. So you're invited to poetically join the dance there. You're enjoying to combine the song, which is quite clearly portrayed as being powerful and magical in its intonation. And the results of that song and the stated intention of that song, and you're invited to at least suspect that the song is the reason that the dwarves were recovered alive from the bottom of the map. Now, the great thing about the magic in Tolkien's world is that it is fundamentally naturalistic. And so it's always open to argument and debate as to to what extent magic is directly responsible for effect or to what extent magic simply leads toward effect. In other words, it influences natural processes that themselves create effect. But we can't dismiss to court the idea that the song, as presented in show, actually has a direct relationship and causes indeed, the direct cause that the song is stated to be designed to attain. That was a really, really long-winded explanation, I apologize. Kind of, yeah. Like you're at nine and a half hours and I'll blame you. Like when it comes to the song and the rescue, like the rescue song she does, I'm not ready to accept that they were rescued because of the song. I don't know enough yet. Like I can't say either way. No, I agree with that, but then you're not supposed to. Tolkien's magic is not supposed to. Oh, you think? Oh, like the show or in the deeper lore? I would say in both. Well, if we were to pretend next episode that we find out her singing is at maximum, everything it can possibly do is simply vibrate the mountain. That is it. Would you then be like, oh, shit. Okay. And that's directed a little bit too, by the way. Sorry, sorry, repeat. So if in the next episode they actually define her singing, the only effect it has is vibrating the mountain and she heard the frequency, she got lucky when she found the mid-thrill and that these rocks are only moving, the dust is only moving because it's rumbling the mountain. That's it. Would you be like, oh. Like would you be surprised if they did that? Oh, that would depend on the claim that's being made of said magic. So for example, if you're saying that the only quote unquote magical effect is that the song moves the mountain, well, then how did she discover the mid-thrill using the song? She must have had a receptive capacity, right? So, yeah. Whether it could be physical or magical, we don't know yet. I could believe depending on which. I agree. Dwarves could be bats. I agree with that. That could be a thing. But, well, they don't have to be bats. They can make like technology, tuning forks. Who knows what stuff they can do, right? I don't know yet. That's why I'm withholding judgment. Okay. Well, that's fair enough in that case. I would, well, again, I don't want to come across as the weird mystic of the group. I don't believe in this. Oh, I wouldn't believe in mystics at all. Talking about based on what we know of the law of the universe, even the one that just rings a power is showing is discarding whatever the rings of powers avoided in the law. I don't think it's even necessarily wise to say, well, I err on the side of caution where magic is concerned, because magic is the thing that will create the Balrog, for example, and we know the Balrog will come into it. Well, I think the element is I'm ready to believe pretty much anything in this world could happen because of magic when it's presented to me in that way. But I'll err and say things are not magical unless otherwise stated. Like the default things aren't magic until the show explains that it is. The law of the rings trilogy, it's a fellowship of the ring, for example, the fight against the Balrog. There are obvious magical elements in that when Gandalf uses the shield, for example. However, there is and Gandalf's main magical faculties involve magic influencing the world around him. So for example, in the Hobbit, you see him shattering the rock to reveal the sun, which is the thing he repeats in Return of the King when he shines the sun at the Nazgul chasing the horseman back toward Gondor. But in the fight against the Balrog, all he's really doing is applying magic to the breaking of his staff against the bridge. So this is physicality and magic combined. Yeah, but I it's clear that there's like a magical element to it and the effects that are shown and him doing it. I think there's far more of an obvious magical component to that than there is to this vibration we're seeing. Is there much more of an obvious one from Gandalf breaking his staff against the bridge of Khazadu? He protects a magical shield around himself. Oh, no, no, no. I'm not talking about that one. I'm talking about when he breaks his staff against the bridge to collapse. Yeah, it's like a shockwave to it. And it is just a man hitting a stick against a bridge. So it's like a wizard. This is just a woman singing at some rocks. No, but we don't know what the elements are. And so so there's let. So you're saying there's just as much when he breaks the bridge, there is just as much of a magical element to that as there is to which part of her singing that her singing is magical or the that singing has a lot of facts. I agree that this. No, yeah, I agree. The singing has has some element of magic with it. But I think that it's just if there's going to be magic with it, it's to enhance the volume as far as I'll go because sound waves just vibrating a mountain would do this to the dust on top of that. That's a creditable position. And would you extend that then if for Gandalf breaking his staff against the bridge, is that simply him extending the force of impact and friction to a degree that breaks the bridge? I think it would. I think there would have to be a magical component to that because we know it's just not possible for an old man to hit a bridge with a wooden stick. Is that a magical component? Is that magical component the same as the one you accept amplifies Dees' voice? Magical, the same magical component in terms of similar effects that they that one that a magic that allows a him to break the stone. Is that the way an old man could break a stick hard enough to break a bridge? Well, OK, fine. But there is no way a woman could sing loud enough to break mountains. No, as I've said multiple times, I'm fine with the magic just creating an ample just making her sing louder in a in a in an effect of her singing louder is the vibration. And I accept that and grant that fine. What I'm saying is do you extend the same principle to Gandalf breaking his staff on the bridge? That it is that it is magic making him stronger. The magic is amplifying physical effect. Yeah, it would. Yeah, it would have to do that for him to break the bridges far. Well, I'm not going to say it has to do that because I'm not going to pretend to even understand the magic system and Lord of the Rings, honestly. But if it's just physical for it has to be directed a particular way. But yeah, I yeah, there's some yeah, probably some force related magical component to him breaking the bridge. Sure. That's fine. But then you've accepted the in principle that magic is the the progenitor of certain physical effects, right? It can be. It not necessarily is all the time. In principle, it can be. It can. Yeah. In the two in these two circumstances that we're using because I because the Lord of the Rings is especially with like Gandalf's magic. I it's really tough to know what he can or can't do a lot of the time. It's very it's it's a very ambiguously sort of defined magic system, which is sort of its problem and its defense at the same time. But here, like I said, I'm not ready to I'm not ready to go any further than I am so far. Depends what the show wants to present to me in terms of information. I just don't know what that'll be. As long as they try not to like set themself up with a rule that will really that they'll that they'll end up breaking. I'm generally all right with it. Though my preference is often for more hard rules. Same and honestly, I'm slightly playing devil's advocate in the sense that like my natural default position is to take the position you've taken, like you believe in physical effects until physical effect is not sufficient to explain actual effect in which case magic comes into it. That's my default position. All I'm saying is that when you're considering Tolkien's universe, it's a mistake to err on the side of caution, I think. That's what I'm doing. And I and again, my natural inclination is to do the same thing. But when you're considering Tolkien's universe, it's almost a mistake to do that because Amazon's Tolkien universe. So so it's not a mistake to do that? No, it is a mistake to do. It's a mistake. It's almost a mistake. OK, maybe I was being too polite. It is a mistake to do. So of course, when it comes to that, in which case, I'm so airing on the side of caution for this universe is that things are more likely magic than not. Well, yes. So the the idea basically being if we're talking about the real world in which we live today, things that are unexplained, you can pretty much guarantee will be explained at some point via scientific means. That's that's a pretty solid assumption. We have a methodology for discovering things and that methodology will extend to things we have yet to discover. But when you're talking about Tolkien's universe, you don't have the same surety of knowledge. There is no equivalent framework. It's not that even in this world, the vast majority of things are totally naturalistic. Well, no, because in Tolkien's world, magic and naturalism are not easily separable in the way that they are. Certainly in that we're we are still just this is all within the confines of the show itself. Virtually everything that we've seen in the show seems to be just normal stuff that happens without a magical component. Even the outlying things seem to be the magical aspects move whole mountains is perfectly natural. Sorry, what? I didn't hear you. What? The singing of songs that move whole mountains is perfectly natural. Why did I? Why would you even say that? Wait, wait, wait, because that I was about to say that's that's a really easy invite for to fall apart. So what Ragh said is that are the most of what we've seen. So he would consider the moving of a mountain as you put it. Yeah, especially when all the times I've said I'm saying that this is magic. You say that's a single instance versus let's say when they shown to operate a boat that looks to follow all the rules that we know when they operate like walking through streets, gravity seems like like all of the individual actions. Not Gandalf crashes to earth and emits your own controls fireflies. Yeah, no, you're right. That is that would be an instance of magic. That does happen. Yeah, that absolutely happens. I think Ragh's going to see that because I was going to say that seems like an easy thing to concede the majority of the actions that take place in this world. And if they were to be split into magical or normal quote unquote. There's more normal than magical. I know, but yeah, it's clearly the point. It's the vast majority of things that we see seem to be totally normal and without magical elements. Magic within any kind of Tolkien mythos is augmentary magic. Like magic is not Harry Potter magic in Tolkien's universe. It's not even Harry Potter magic in Rings of Power, which has very little to do with Tolkien's universe, but it still has, it still calls back to it. Harry Potter magic is this in the show. If I may, when he makes a shield around himself, I would consider that closer to Harry Potter magic than augmenting. The shield that he uses comes from the ring of Nenya, which he gains from the elves. It's one of the three rings the elves have created, one of the rings that are created for the elves by Calibur. I thought that's what you meant by when you said Harry Potter magic, I thought what you meant was like the difference between amplification and just generation of a thing from essentially nothing. So the light means those are Harry Potter thing or any lasers with the light beings, right? No, I would say they are generation not creation. So the power of the ring of Nenya, for example, which is the, as far as I remember, I could be misremembering, but I think I'm right. The power of the ring of Nenya, which is what gives Gandalf the power to have his magical shield and to reject fire. Also what gives him the power to control fire is a property which is imbued within the ring of Nenya itself. It's not something he's simply waving a wand to create. This is something which is but it's a wand instead of a ring, right? I was going to say wouldn't Harry Potter argue the source of like they need their wands in order to cast these spells? No, but that's a difference. The wand as a vessel to cast a spell is different from a ring created from the fabric of creation itself imbued with the elements that create. What does that mean, the fabric of creation itself? So when okay, I have to deviate from the law of rings of power just to explain this. Oh, feel free to. You don't need our permission unless we're talking like having an argument about the show then we'll stick to it. But for this just to understand the difference you'll know. I just wanted to check. So when it comes to the creation of the world in Tolkien's mythos you have the Godhead, the God, which is Aluvatar. And Aluvatar creates this suborder of demigods, you might call them. They're called the Ainor. The Ainor are like, I guess you could say like Norse gods or slightly above those. They're like Zeus or like the Greek pantheon, for example. Okay. So it's like whereas Aluvatar is like the most powerful and the most maximally knowledgeable that you could be like the ultimate everything. These guys are like Grecian gods who have faults and okay, they're still even in the Greek religion, ancient religion had this reference to the God above. So this constant above Zeus even is a Godhead. That's Aluvatar. Aluvatar creates these Ainor and the Ainor are the equivalent of the Greek pantheon. They are responsible for creation themselves. So they are imbued with the power of song and music. And they each have a different part of a harmony. And that harmony corresponds to an aspect, an element of creation of the world as we now know it today. And those Ainor, some of them become the Valar which we hear referenced in rings of power. One of them is Melkor who becomes Morgoth, the progenitor to Sauron. Sauron is responsible for chaos in the universe. But between all of them and you have this entire complex embodiment of creation. Each of them has a part of a harmony. Morgoth is unique in having a part of all of the harmonies but he is aspirational. He is jealous. He wants creation for himself. He creates discord and Rancor and general dissatisfaction in the world. When you come forward then to the creation of the rings, for example. So the rings each have reference to elements. So the ring of Nenir which is Gandalf's ring is referential to, I think, fire. There are two other rings for the elves which have other elements associated to them. The reason they are, again, this is partly by memory. I think I'm right about this. The reason they are referencing elements of creation is because they are imbued in a sense with a derivative power of the Valar themselves. In other words, the Valar who embody those elements of creation. So the ring of water embodies in some way, I think it's Umwe. Valar for water, in a sense. Yeah, exactly. The Valar for water, I think, I think it's Umwe, but I could be wrong. There is the ring of Nenir which is Manwe's who's the sort of the chief god, the Zeus god. There is one of the elven ring and it sort of carries on. So the reason that's different then from Harry Potter magic when you get to the level of the Lord of the Rings is that there is an entire architecture that underpins the effect of the ring that Gandalf has. So Gandalf has the ring of Nenir. That gives him the power of fire. But that is not just waving a wand in a specific instance to create a specific magical effect. That is calling upon thousands, tens of thousands, millennia of years of almost supernatural power that imbues Gandalf with the affinity for fire that he has. Whereas in Harry Potter, of course, you just wave a wand in a specific instance. You say Wingardium Leviosa and the thing floats. That's ad hoc magic. That's short termist magic. That's a soft magic system. Talking is quite a hard magic system by contrast. I've always heard it said that the Lord of the Rings system is a soft thing. Yeah, I've always heard those reversed where Harry Potter is much more hard magic and I thought the hard and soft the difference was like it's more vague in terms of how everything comes together and what the limits are. Meanwhile, Harry Potter is hard because of the fact that it's like you say this, you get this, know nothing else sort of thing. It's like Dungeons and Dragons magic. Yeah, but that's soft in the sense that you can say anything that sounds magic. No, I think it means the opposite where you have to specifically say certain things to get specific effects. I think that's what it's referring to. That's what I've always known it to be. Yeah, whereas if you were to watch like the Lord of the Rings and you saw Gandalf using his magic, you couldn't really pin anything or much to it in terms of rules and structure. It's kind of ambiguous and loose. That's kind of paradoxical because in the case of take Harry Potter, for example. Before J.K. Rowling came around and decided in the first Harry Potter book that Wingardium Leviosa meant levitation. It never meant anything. There was no wand movement. There was no language attached to the spell. She invented it solely for its effect in the immediate moment. So there's a one-to-one relationship between the invention of magic. Well, in the story. That would be perfect. But in the world of, in the universe of Harry Potter, there's a reason why those words do that spell. True, but you can't really differentiate between the in-universe and the out-universe with J.K. Rowling because J.K. Rowling is the sole originator progenitor. And what she's establishing are not consistent laws to apply to everything. Well, no, because excuse me. What Tolkien's doing is Tolkien is creating laws and bases of principle which then are extrapolated upon. So everything is referential back to the Valar's creation of the world. Everything follows from a single originating point. Everything is referential. J.K. Rowling can sit and write Harry Potter and she can say, well, okay, I want, I want a spell that turns beer into nutes. So I'm going to say that spell is fuck-off-y and levy spastic. You can make anything else you want out of that in the moment. But isn't that the core of Tolkien's magic creation? Isn't that the baseline is everything comes from you said creation? Wouldn't arguably that's not necessarily much different from whatever you want? The difference between Tolkien and Rowling is Tolkien does not have reliance to spells and magic. I'm giving it to you that he's clearly crafted something more meaningful, but at the core he still gets to do whatever he wants. He gets to decide with how the magic in that world works much the same way that Rowling gets to decide how her magic works. I disagree. Very few people have been able, maybe it's just a factor of time, but I think it's a factor of history as well. Very few people can take J.K. Rowling and they can say, well, based upon the known laws and identify it, patterns J.K. Rowling has created. I'm going to expand her universe in a way that is obviously and academically consistent with what she created without simply saying I'm going to invent a new magic pseudo-piglet in word and create a new effect for it. That's a different thing. What Tolkien did was Tolkien created a basis of laws. He created in a sense an epistemology of the universe. What he did was create laws by which his universe was governed and from those laws you derive truth about the universe. That's different from simply saying I will imagine a new thing in that universe into being because with Tolkien, if you want to add to his universe you have to have reference to its origin point. You have to say, based on the epistemology, based on the ontology of what has been created by Tolkien, the theology, the theology is created in the Valar, I have to create something that is of a cord with their creation of our own universe. It's materialistic in that way. We might be talking past you on this one in terms of are you saying that he's being more faithful to his lore than she is? I'm saying that Tolkien has created a law that can survive without him and J.K. Rowling hasn't. J.K. Rowling has created a law and I don't think so. I think J.K. Rowling hasn't created a law. All she's done is created a very, very loose linguistic framework which allows people to take Pig Latin and describe to any individual word any effect they want to happen at that given moment. That's all it is. There's no reference to a creation myth. There's no ontology or epistemology to that universe that she's created in the way that Tolkien is. If you say that the Valar who controls the water in Tolkien gives magical spells to people in the third age which contradicts what he does in the first age, you have reference point to the first age to say no, that's not how this works. That's obviously contradictory to the world he's created. So I'm curious to write because again, just want to make sure it's said clearly Tolkien put a hell of a lot more effort into the magic system than she did from what you've been saying. However, you know what you said Gandalf's Ring, for example, relates to fire. What is the Tira, because I have a couple of questions, if you can be as fast as possible, the Tira above that ring, it is drawn from a thing that is drawn from a thing that is drawn from it. That's how it works, right? When that ring comes to be thought of, it's like what makes it a fire thing as opposed to a water thing or an air thing or an earth thing? I'd be hesitant to say definitively just because it's been a long time since I've read this bit of the Silmarillion, but from what I remember of it, the reason the Ring of Nenya, for example, has the capacity of fire, the nature of fire, is because it is derived from the Valar, whose nature is fire. So it's derived from a godhead of a type. I could be very wrong about that. It's been years since I read this part. Is there any other ring that's derived from them that's not fire? Is that it? Yes. Well, all the rings are in a sense derived from the fundamental elements of the universe. So you have the Ring of Nenya, which is the Ring of Fire. I don't remember the names of the others, but Galadriel has one of the rings, which is, I think, the Ring of Water, all of the light. There's a third ring for the elves. There are seven for the dwarves, nine for the race of men, most of which Sauron has in his possession. But each of these has a fundamental aspect of creation, a character of creation embedded within the quality of the ring itself. And so that's the reason Sauron wants them, right? So Sauron wants to create and control, following on from Morgoth's desire. He wants to control all of creation. So he wants the rings that embody the elements of creation. That's why he goes out to see them. If someone was to, well, let's say Tolkien was still alive and he has an addendum, and there's another ring at that sort of tier level, and it's like the Ring of, and then whatever name, but it represents Plasma. Would that be acceptable? I think Plasma would come under the purview of fire. So, well, let's just, so yes. Are you asking me whether, if Tolkien had created a new element of creation within his universe and ascribed a ring to that element, would that be acceptable? Is that the question? Yeah, and let's say he contextualizes it as it's another secret ring that was not quite mentioned before because it was hidden for whatever reason. Well, I think that would have to be, there's an interesting thing with Tolkien because if you go back to the Silmarillion and the Lost Tales and the Unfinished Tales, there are multiple variants and versions of them. The question of law and continuity with Tolkien is uniquely difficult, but there are certain consistent elements. If you were to tell me Tolkien had created a tenth ring for the man or a fourth ring for the elves or an eighth ring for the dwarves that amounted to or represented a different element of creation as he described it, well, okay, I would go with that. That would be fine. And then you would have very interesting, subsequent subordinate conversations as to what the implications of the existence of that ring were. But the odds are he wouldn't have done that because it wouldn't have had reference to any of the Valar who originated these themes and harmonies in the universe to begin with, if that makes sense. The distinction I'm detecting, I think, is just what you're pointing out is JK has created a world where she could just add any spell at any time and it wouldn't need to be justified in any way shape or form. Meanwhile, Tolkien has created a system that means you'd have to slot it in with meaning instead of just willy-nilly throwing it in. It's like the system is very broad. Yeah, that's exactly right. You can't randomly invent magical elements within the Lord of the Rings if you're faithful to the Lord of the Rings. Yeah, the thing is... Does that applies to individual spells? Like if the firing allows you to create like a ring of fire, would that be consistent? I think... I know we haven't seen it, but that seems to follow logically, right? I think that's a fair point. I think you could derive the impact of specific elements and apply them to specific types of spell. I think that would be acceptable because you would still be referencing an originating point of that magic. So yes, Gandalf, for example, can form a ring of fire around him to shield himself from fire itself. That might not necessarily have been described in Tolkien, though I think it was actually in that case. But for the sake of argument, it need not have been. But it would still have been derived therefrom. At least you could make an argument. It would be up to you to make the argument from first principles in that case. You're basically what you're trying to do is to add to a mythos, a theodicy even. And both mythos and theodicy has a codified system of rules and norms that you have to conform to in order to claim to be a part of that same theodicy or mythos or system of rules. So yeah, you could theoretically invent new spells, but you would have to have reference to their originating point, if it were Tolkien, I think. Chat might be blaring up telling me I'm blasphemous in this, but I think I'm right. Well, couldn't you do that with Harry Potter? If all of the spell names seem to have like Latin links and there are rules about some things you can't do, I assume, in the Potter world. So that was actually going to be my next thing. I was going to say like even... Yeah, as long as you held to those guidelines, wouldn't that be the same thing? No, because you're working backwards. With JK Rowling, you're saying this is the array of spells we have. How can we possibly work backwards and retroactively create a common origin point to these spells? Well, no, no, no. It's not about a common origin point. It's that in the world of Harry Potter, if you were... How would you know which came first? Well, that comes back. How would you know which spells came first and were added on? Because that would be... It could have existed all along and no one just used that particular spell. It could have been not very important or super specific and so no one ever used it. So to say that it existed all along but no one just ever used it. And surely she didn't... All the spells that she thought of if we're going to get that meta about it, surely all the spells she thought of not all of them made into the books. So they exist in the universe in a sense, but we just don't know about it. Well, of course, it's basically a given that there are obviously more spells in the Harry Potter universe than we see. So there's all that stuff that is a part of the world that we just don't know about yet. That's because there is no common origin point from which those spells are derived. So... But what are those? In Tolkien... Sorry. I would say is that similar to the fire ring example? Like we never see the fire ring but it exists as a property in the Lord of the Rings world. Someone would be able to use the ring of fire with a fire ring. That wouldn't be the same. But why does the fire ring have the power of fire? Is the question. So it's in JK Rowling's universe, there's no underpinning structure. There's no... In JK Rowling's there's no underpinning structure? Yeah. I wouldn't... Isn't there? There is. Well, I was going to say, I would have said there is. It's just very simplistic and... Yeah. That is the difference between soft and hard magic systems. It's a soft magic underpinning system. Again, I just feel like we've got a different understanding of how soft is hard works. Yeah. To be quick, so by virtue of... There's no spell that cracks the earth in two in the Harry Potter universe and I'm pretty sure JK would be like, you cannot introduce that. That's not a thing. You can't have that. Well, why? She has no reference point to anything she's created that precludes that possibility. What if she has a book, a book of all of this stuff that we just don't know about it? Would that change the... Would that change it? If she had that book? She made her magic rule book almost as if a guide for when she wrote the book. She basically made it a big magic rule book slash index for only herself as a guideline to make magic in the books with that function in the same way. Yes, because then she would be transitioning from a soft to a hard magic system. If she were to create a book which charts the entire origin of the power that gives power to magic in the first place, therefore the thing from which all magic power is derived in each individual instance of spell, that would be the creation of a hard magic system. And that would then put her on a par with someone like Tolkien who has created the same thing. But she hasn't done that. What she's done is she started with spells as effects and she's attempted to work down from those gradually but not all that deeply. I think I'm almost there now because now what I want to ask you is so the Lord of the Rings movies without reading the books, is that from your POV a soft or hard magic system? I would say it's still, I would say it's still a fairly hard magic system because it's a referential system. You have no context whatsoever when watching those films for how any of the magic works at all or where it comes from. Well, okay, this is the question of authorial input though, isn't it? Because I think that's why Rags was saying like if there was a book that detailed all of this but people hadn't read it from JK, then surely within just the context of those movies you'd have to concede it is soft from your POV, right? If you're asking me to say that the three Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings films are divorced entirely from what Tolkien wrote, yes, that would be a soft magic system because there is no underpinning thing which gives power to the magic they use. I would agree with that. However, that's not what those films are because I fundamentally disagree with the notion of death of the author. I fundamentally disagree with the idea that a film adaptation in 2002 can be treated as distinguishable from the book version of 19, when was it? 47, I think it was, 53. I don't agree that you can differentiate those things. The reason the films work is that they are referencing something which precedes them. The books work in the same way, bearing in mind much of the law of the magic that Tolkien creates isn't included even in the books for the Lord of the Rings. It's created in the mythos he creates to underpin the books of the Lord of the Rings. It's created in the film really and the lost tales all the rest of that. So the films are referential, the books are referential. What creates a hard magic system is whether it's referencing a single point from which every subsequent event is derived. And a soft magic system is there is no single point from which anything is derived. Anything you say goes depending on the needs of plot would be my definition of the two. Hey, for the record, I am 100% in favor of death of the author. Absolutely, 100 fucking percent. I adore it, I think it's fantastic. And it makes it so I'm not limited in my interpretations. I might be 50% in favor of death of the author. You were very... Okay, that was quick, all right. We, yeah, here, we don't, we don't, we want, we want those authors dead, damn it. Well, because the interesting comparison we always bring up, right, is gonna be stuff like The Shining where it's sort of fantastic movie on a fantastic book, but those two cannot coexist, not even close. You couldn't have the film without the book. I didn't say that though. That's not what you said. But if they can't coexist, then you can't... No, they can't coexist as narratives, as stories. You have to take one or the other, you can't have both at the same time. They are distinctly two different... Well, okay, then when we, we're operating on different definitions of the death of the author there, because the author is the progenitor of The Shining as a story to begin with. If you're saying that death of the author means the complete expulsion, the expungion of one, well, then these two things literally couldn't coexist and so wouldn't coexist. The fact that The Shining is a film, which I prefer that The Shining is a book, coexists with The Shining as a book, is owed to the fact that those two things can coexist. They literally coexist, but what I'm saying... Yeah, like physically you could have a book and a DVD in the same universe, yes. Well, the narratives... The narrative, the plot of these things, can those two things coexist? That's different, but I don't think the death of the author restricts itself to strict definitions of plot. So without the author, Stephen King, you would not have Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining. Well, of course, but without... Yeah. Without any of the creators, you wouldn't have the creations, but... I don't know what... Just as fast as you possibly can in like a sentence if you can, what do you believe death of the author refers to? Oh, fuck. Death of the author means... You just told me to do it quickly, so I... We'll give you an extra sentence if you need to... Death of the author means... As far as I've sort of understood it to be, death of the author means that nothing about the moral, the intellectual, or the narrative purpose of that author exists in any work that is derived from the works of said author. That could be completely fucking wrong, but you didn't ask me to do it. Well, if I... So mine would be the intentions and interpretations of the work from the author are irrelevant to your own, essentially. Yes, but would your interpretations of the works of the author exist without the intentions of the author to begin with? So like The Shining is a good example. Stephen King wrote The Shining in a specific way. Stanley Kubrick interpreted it in a very different way. Would Stanley Kubrick have interpreted it, been able to interpret it in that way, without the interpretation he had rejected in the book form, which is the version the author intended? Well, so it sounds like you're almost making it an impossibility in terms of like physics or death of the author to exist. Like, it cannot happen because the author had to create the thing. Like, the argument we're familiar with is people say like you cannot interpret the work without the author's intentions that you must do it. I've never heard quite this explanation as death of the author like this before. Yeah, because it sounds like you're saying you can't do it without the authors having created the works. And it's like... We're fine with saying the creators owed some level of credit. You should agree. But yeah, what you said seems to be impossible to not be the case. Well, I wouldn't roll away from the idea that it's impossible to kill off the author entirely. Well, as much as we love killing authors, I think that it's like a separation between intent and what's in the actual thing itself. Or like, it's almost like... To give an example, if someone saw addiction in Gollum and his story and the ring represents that and how it can destroy a life and all this stuff. And then Tolkien went that wasn't the intention at all. That's not at all in the story. That person can be like, I don't care. It's there. I don't care if it's not what you even had that sort of thing. What was your example? Your Star Wars one that used for Twin Perfect? Oh, well, Twin Perfect hated that example. The best example is going to be the James Gunn one with Polka Dot Man. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, actually, I have to pee real quick. Give him the James Gunn example. Sure. So, the Suicide Squad has a character called Polka Dot Man, who's this very timid, very quiet dude who's dressed pretty clownishly and his power is to launch Polka Dots of people and it melts them. He's not really doing anything for most of the movies, just sort of around and then halfway through, he activates the Polka Dots to help the team and it fucking wipes out the enemy and he's just like, sorry, it's so plant buoyant because it is ridiculous, right? It's funny, it's James Gunn. Moving on, this new character enters the team called Milton and he's just there and it's a fucking great joke. He's just this dude who's with the team and eventually, he's got barely any screen time, he just sort of pops up here and there and he gets killed at one point in just a scene. It's just during a scene, he gets shot, he's dead. And Polka Dot Man is like, Jesus Christ, that's horrifying, he was with us, he was helping us and the other two team members are like, who? He's like, it's Milton, they're just like, literally who? And he shouts at them, he's really upset with them for the fact that they didn't care that this guy joined their team, tried to help them and died for the team to help them achieve their goal. Really funny. And then Polka Dot Man, toward the end of the film, gains the courage because his story is that he's been terrified of his mother because she's the one that experimented on him to give him the powers. And at the end, he envisions the bad guy as his mom and manages to actually do some damage and he's helping to save the world and then he dies. And it's like, ah, it was a complete story. It's pretty good. Tragic, tragic. So a lot of people are appreciating Polka Dot Man, they like him, he's like a guy who was almost built to be a bad person but he came out, came through and they would cite that scene with Milton being like, showed he had a lot of heart. He's the only person who actually paid attention to Milton being alive. James Gunn sees these tweets. He quote tweets them and says, no. Polka Dot Man is very vain. He's very obsessed with like being seen. He wants attention. He took that opportunity with Milton. He died and he made that about him. He starts screaming at everybody because he wants attention for himself. He didn't care about Milton. It's like he's very much a self-centered character. Everyone was like, what? If you watch the movie, there's not a single reference to Polka Dot Man being self-centered or vain. But James Gunn, the literal creator, is like, no, that's his character. It's like, bro, that's not in your story. So, sorry. And that's what we consider death of the author to be. It's like, I appreciate your addition to the interpretation of this movie but I'm disregarding it because it doesn't match the references. Yeah. Your instances are not necessarily a part of what you create. I don't want to... Your attention is not necessarily part of what you create, is that what you said? Pretty much, yes. You can intend to have something be a way but it might not actually exist in what you create. Okay. That's not death of the author. That's development on the author's intent. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm pretty sure what we just described, like with the James Gunn example, that is death of the author. Yeah, I've never heard it any other way. Would that character have existed without the author to have created them? No, every creation has a creator. That's all things that are made. The author of creation, for example. So... My point about death of the author isn't that you can't deviate from what the author intended, is that you would not have deviated. You cannot deviate by definition without reference to what the author originally intended it to be. Deviation of by definition referential. That is... I think we just defined death of the author completely differently. Yeah, I've never heard it like that before. That sounds... I accept that we might do, but I think I'm probably with you in terms of the artistic worth of derivation and deviation. All I'm saying is that you can't really classify that as death of the author if the derivation or deviation could not have existed but for the author's creation to begin with. It's like saying, I created a character called Bob and Bob is a single man. He divorced his wife. He has three kids. Someone comes along after that and says, I accept the existence of Bob. And some of his characterization, but he only has two kids and he's a widower as opposed to a divorcee. Well, that's not true death of the author, is it? Because the author's inspiration, the author's creation is still there. What you're doing is deviating from authorial intent. You're not killing the author entirely. So my... I don't think the name is to be taken to literally for... No, I'm not saying take the name Bob seriously. I'm saying that... I'm in the term death of the author. The idea of said character, if you're deviating from an established norm and established character, you're adding a new element or contradicting an established element, you're still referring to a creation that is not your own and it is the author's unique creation. Therefore, the author is not dead by definition. The author is simply being repurposed. So it sounds like you're saying death of the author is an impossibility, right? That's not her. That's not Miles. I would be cautious before I even started to say that death of the author was a legitimate thing. It's just if you truly believe what everything you just said, then surely you believe death of the author is impossible. It's got to be. Possibly. I would be cautious about going so far as to be so deterministic. Well, no, I actually think it follows from the way that you framed it that, yeah, that it would be impossible. And the reason I'm asking you that and hoping you'd say, yes, it's because then I can be like, ah, yeah, because the way we frame death of the author, it's like a choice on the individual if they want to consider it or not. Yeah, I have only understood it as the reason. The reason I wouldn't go so far as to say death of the author is precluded by my definition is to say that I am as yet myself personally, undecided on whether a complete or at least a 99 percent contradiction of character created by someone else constitutes a death of author. As in, let's say you took, take Sherlock Holmes, like there are many variations on Sherlock Holmes. Most of them, however, conform to certain archetypal behavioral types, characterizations. Sherlock Holmes is a definitive entity, but with many variations. If, however, you were to tell me that Sherlock Holmes was a vogan and he was a 15th gender and he wasn't a detective, but he was instead a sewage management official, would I consider that death of the author? Possibly yes, but only because you've completely detached the authorial creation from any resemblance of the intent behind the authorial creation. However, if you were to say, well, Sherlock Holmes is a Victorian gentleman or Sherlock Holmes is a man born in the year 2003 who uses smartphones to solve mysteries, I don't think that constitutes the death of the author because the author's intent is still there, it's simply being repurposed. So I might be, it might be if we draw, this happens with Mary Sue discussions, I find. So if we dropped death of the author entirely as a description of what Mean Rags are talking about and instead went with the creator's interpretation of events are no more meaningful necessarily to what is actually happening than anyone else's. Just rename it Birth of the Reader. Maybe, yeah. So you know that example I gave you with James Gunn, would you have said James Gunn is wrong from if everything I told you was true? I don't, well, I'm not familiar with the character he's referring to. Okay. If everything you've always said was true though. Well, I can understand why he'd want something that he's more familiar with. So let's just take Peter Jackson talking about Lord of the Rings and he says Gandalf is a woman, absolutely definitively a woman in my films. That is a woman. Do you think he's wrong? I would say that's a deviation from authorial intent, but that by definition is not proof of the death of the author. No, we'll get to that Dory. So we're dropping death of the author. We're getting out of here. We don't care about that anymore. We're ignoring the title. So Peter Jackson tells you Gandalf is a woman in his film, Lord of the Rings. Do you, would you say to him, you're wrong? Or would you say, huh, that's strange. I didn't think so. But to the extent you're referring to the works of somebody who's not yourself, who's created the canon you claim to be part of the lineage of, I would say you're wrong. But I wouldn't necessarily say that you are beyond the pale for that, for being reinterpreting that character that way. I'll try a different one. Tolkien's alive and he tells you Aragorn is a woman in my books. He already says he is a woman in my books. What would you, what would you say to Tolkien? Well, that by definition is, is authorised intent, isn't it? So this is maybe how I can help explain again, keeping death the author out of the hands. What I would say if I was in the room with you and him, I'd be like, that's a weird interpretation. That's not in your book, mate. Others can quite often will contradict themselves. Tolkien did it himself. I mean, if you read that there are about seven different versions of the Silmarillion and different names, different characters, different lineages, all the rest of that. That I don't mind deviation on the part of the author. That that's just a part of creation. I've written a book. There are two drafts of that book. They're very different. I don't mind if the author comes along and says, well, you know, I drafted it in one way this time, but actually now my understanding is it's different. Okay, that's fine. That that then I would consider to be authorial intent. So, so when you have talking, let's just say on Monday says Aragorn's a guy, Tuesday, Gale, Wednesday, Guy, Thursday, Gale, Friday, and just forever, you just you're just like, well, I guess he's kind of both or it depends on the day. Well, I think I'd have recourse to what he'd written. Yeah, because I was going to say, I don't know if you'd do it the same way as me, but I would be like, okay, man, I appreciate your input, but Aragorn's a guy. Maybe, yes. But I think I might actually be more inclined to read into that that what Tolkien is ambiguous about is the gender of the character in question. The question is, does it impact the character him or herself? Does it make a difference if Aragorn is a woman or a man? If it makes a difference, then Tolkien changing his mind frequently, of course, makes a difference to my understanding of that character. If it's simply, well, I want him to be a woman or a man, but it doesn't change the character or the story. I don't see an issue or a problem with that. You know, you said that it would cease to be Sherlock if all those sort of details were met. You mentioned changing him almost entirely. If, however, it was written by is it Arthur Conan Doyle? It's Arthur Conan Doyle. Yeah. If he had not even written, actually, he'd said, he saw this interpretation that you would describe as that's practically death of the author, right there? And he'd said, no, it's not. I'm very happy with this, actually. Would you then be like, oh, okay, it's not? I think I'd have to have recourse to his history of published works and to see whether his newfound understanding of his character comported with the character he has established so far. And what if there was nothing, nothing beyond him having said, he thinks it is fine. That was it. That's all the information you got. If you were to say, I have changed the name, the gender, the sexual orientation, the sexual proclivity, whatever denomination you choose to pick, of the character I have established, it would be his responsibility to make that conform with the character arc he's already set forth. That the authorial intent is not an immediate thing. It's a build-up of work and intent as new characters taking on a life of their own up to a point. But I say up to a point because they are contingent upon the existence of the author to begin with. If Arthur Conan Doyle were to change his mind about the character or gender of Sherlock Holmes, it would be up to him to square that apparent dichotomy. And if he didn't? If he didn't, I would say, well, you're writing two different characters. Excellence, you would say he's wrong. I would be inclined to say that, but it would depend on the specific instance. So it's the one I described where he's only told you that he approves of this new version and that is it. There's no other reference, nothing to read, nothing for him to give detail. Oh, it's absolutely possible for an author to be wrong about their creation, yes. That's pretty much our position. Yeah, that's pretty much, yeah. Okay, but I wouldn't call that death of the author because the author is still the person who created the thing you're referring to by saying that the author is no longer involved. I think you have a special, perhaps personal thing for what you think death of the author is. That might be a thing, but I don't think people, whenever people say death of the author that I've never, to my understanding, I don't know of any one who has that meaning for that. That could well be true. I'm a fan of terminological exactitude. I can see how you got there, but yeah, we're- It's similar to these, but they are different things. I think the reason- It doesn't have to be a bit more mentioned different things, but use the same terms for them. I'm asking about a specific phenomenon. I think the reason they call it that, because of course, it would be weird, it supplies to everything, even video games, and it'd be weird to call the creator of a video game an author. So it's more so, it has evolved into being a very broad terminate. I think the reason they gave it the name is because when an author releases a book, and it exists, there it is, you read it, the author when they're alive can tell you more. They can be like, were you curious about why Ben jumped down the hole? Well, I'm going to release another book soon. It's going to be great. It's going to talk about Ben's history and it's going to talk about the motivation and why he did all that. Unfortunately, before they released the book, they're in a tragic plane train accident. Boom, gone. And now, well, with the death of the author, everyone can sort of imagine what Ben's history might be, because they can no longer write into stone what it would have been. I couldn't disagree with literal death of the author. No, I'm trying to describe like what it simulates. Yeah, the terminology or how it arose. Or what it was referring to. This is actually like why I'm worried about Joker 2. I like Joker's Ending because there's a lot of ways to interpret what's happening. Joker 2 will put one of them in stone, which is like worrying to me because I hope they don't screw it up. It's like making a canon. If there is such a thing as death of the author and deviation, infinite deviation can be justified based on the simple divorce of intent from the originator of the character, which seems to me to be the fundamental behind the death of the author. What reason do you have to fear that Joker 2 would contradict Joker 1, given both films were created not contradict. Other than the author who actually wrote the first instantiation of the character. It wasn't about getting it like a contradiction that wasn't the... It was erasing potential interpretations. Yes. But there would not be a contradiction. Death of the author just creates infinite potential of a contradiction, doesn't it? Like if you're worried about Joker 2 contradicting Joker 1. When Joker 1 is simply more of a chord with the original creator of the character of the Joker, then your problem with Joker 2 is the extent to which it deviates from the originator of the Joker as a character. In other words... Only as he was in Joker 1. The extent to which you like or dislike Joker 2 is the extent to which that character has been has resulted from death or not death of the author of that character. So if Joker 1 is great because it's a really good approximation of the original creator's vision, then... Which is not what we hold. That's why I don't want to speak your moller, but as far as as far as that's not why we love Joker. Okay. The reason why... But I don't want to speak from moller, of course. The reason why I like the concept so much is because creators can destroy their own work and it takes that power away from them. Creators destroying their own work doesn't take power away from them, that empowers them, surely. Like they have the power... I said it takes the power away from them to destroy their own work. Yeah. It removes the thing that they can do. Yeah, because when James Gunn says what he says about Poker Dot Man, that now becomes true with 100% not death of the author. You cannot interpret otherwise because the author has told you that is the truth. Yes, he is prescriptively telling you this is how it is, regardless of what's actually in the thing. As much as I would agree with any... This is the usual argument we get, which is like it will, of course, the writers is an incredible resource for understanding what the story is about and what was intended. It's like, I agree, but I think there is no better source than the story itself. Even notice, even then, when we were talking about a lot of the hypotheticals, when we were talking about death of the author, you almost always first said, I'm going to go to the work. I'm going to go to the thing that they created. That was your first place to go. Well, yeah, because my contention was that I'm not satisfied by the even possibility of death of the author was my point. That's foot in the door, certainly. Yeah, because, yeah, we're a few steps forward where we're just like we'll always refer to the source. I'm more than happy to hear out the author, but to be honest with you, say, for example, would I rather hear Tolkien's opinions on the newest Lord of the Rings thing or would I rather hear Fringies? It's like, well, I'll probably go with Tolkien because that sounds like a way of opportunity. Well, we can talk to you tomorrow. We can. However, however, however, would I prefer to hear Michael Waldron's opinion on Doctor Strange 2 or Friggies when it came out? It's like, probably Fringies. Michael Waldron's would be useless. But then you're not basing your standard upon any standard of authorship. What you're doing is you're basing your standard upon do you agree with the characterisation as depicted to you? Do you think that this character is better represented in the moment than it was in previous instantiations? Irrespective of who the original author of that character was, right? How did you know all that? It's about an... No, it's... You go ahead, Mahler. Um, when I chose Fringie over Michael Waldron, it was because I don't think Michael Waldron has interesting or insightful things to say about his writing. Meanwhile, I would choose Tolkien over Fringie because I was an incredible chance to be able to hear the creator of Lord the Rings talk about what he intended with his work. That would be amazing. I trust that he's got an incredible insight into his own work. Yes, but then I'm now confused about what your standard for death of the author is. I want to gain as much as I can in terms of interpreting an insightful content from the source itself. That is not necessarily the author. That's what death of the author means to me. Well, if you're trying to glean... If you're trying to glean a... the closest possible understanding of the source material, then what you're doing is referring back to the creation of the author by definition, no? Um, well, what if... Like, so that... That's why the James Gunn example is so important, right? He got it completely wrong. But he is the author. He's the author of what? The Polkadot Man. The movie. The Suicide Squad. Specifically Polkadot Man. Yeah. This is... This is... I don't know anything about... No, you don't... You don't need to know anything about it. My point is that he has told us how to interpret this character. But is Polkadot Man a derivation upon a preceding character created by somebody else? It is, but nobody has considered that whatsoever in this. It's an adaptation. I don't even know if there's anything to do with the original. The clues and the word. It's an adaptation. So you haven't killed the author because the thing wouldn't exist without something from which to adapt. So if we change the Polkadot Man to Dodecahedron Man, who's purely made up by James Gunn for this movie specifically... And is it referencing? No, he made it up. He made it up. No references. Referencing or an adaptation of a creation that is not that of the film's director or writer? No, he made it. He purely made it up for this movie. Well, then he's created a different character. So the death of the author isn't a consideration. No, we were getting somewhere. We've come back. We've circled back to what your definition was. So rewind. I might have been distracted, sorry. No, rewind. We were... When you said like, why would you care to get whoever's input? I was like, I want the most insight on the text. And then you were like, well, surely it would be the author because they're the ones that created it. And then I was like, yes. But in the example with James Gunn, the creator has less insight on Polkadot Man than someone like Fringy Ragsle yourself. I would rather opt for you guys's input on Polkadot Man than the author of that particular moment, that text, that thing. His intentions. Okay. I think my problem is that I'm not seeing how this even relates to death of the author. You don't have to. Because at this point, it's just like I said, it's just like Mary Sue. I listened to two people arguing over Mary Sue the other day. One person argued there was three attributes that have to be satisfied. The other one argued there was only one. And they spent so much time arguing about that when really, does that even matter? As long as the attributes themselves were satisfied or not in the criticism of the character. Who cares if we call them a Mary Sue? Who cares if we call this death of the author? What we're talking about is that we can freely interpret it. I am surprised to hear a relatively subjective definition coming from someone who is one of the finest purveyors of an objective standard of art criticism that I know. You think this is subjective? Well, so I feel like... That seems to be the standard for... You've just said, well, it doesn't matter if a Mary Sue is one characteristic or five characteristics. It's whether you think it's a Mary Sue or not. Like that seems subject... No, no, I didn't say that. No, no, no, no. We're discussing why we don't use the term Mary Sue because it's also difficult to carry out those conversations with that term. Yeah, I listened to two people who thought they had a very strong grasp on what Mary Sue is and they spent all their time arguing over what qualifies as a Mary Sue as opposed to simply... The reason they want to get that in stone is so they can criticise a character and it's like, why not break it down into the individual components and then see if they actually qualify? What I'm trying to do here is ignore death of the author as a title and let's just see if we agree that can there be a time where an author says this is how it went in the story. When the story presents something completely different and we can say no, author, you are wrong. That is not what happened in your story. So, apology. I've lost track of the argument. If you're asking me, can authors make mistakes or can they contradict the general theme or tenor or tone of the character they've created? Well, the answer is obviously yes, but I've never disputed that. Authors can make mistakes. That seems to me self-evident. I think we're okay then because, again, you don't call that death of the author meanwhile we would. The ability to say that an author is incorrect about what is happening in their story is death of the author as I understand the meaning. So, work itself takes precedent. Just a purely hypothetical example, there is a fantasy author. The fantasy author is written 18 books of a continuous, contiguous story and it's been perfectly consistent up until book 18. And in book 18, when said author is 98, has Alzheimer's and has lost touch with reality, he creates a book which doesn't accord at all with what he'd written in the previous 17 books. Is that death of the author in an artistic sense as opposed to simply a material he's dying sense? Oh, well... I don't think we distinguish. Yeah, so you could just say TLJ. TLJ is basically this. What happens when we have so many contradictions in an installment of an ongoing story? What do we do? It's like, well, you can't have both. TLJ has got plot holes in it. Things don't make sense. I don't think TLJ is... TLJ is a great example of many shit things in art but I don't think it's it's a great example for this one. I'm talking about a... Again, I'm using a hypothetical just to try and sort of elucidate the point. It's a single author, a single story with a single set of characters over 18 books. He's written them perfectly consistently. He's now at the age of 97. The 18th book forgets, contradicts everything that happened in the preceding 17 books because of the author's physical condition. Are you saying that the physical death demise of the author and his contradiction of 17 books worth of consistent material is actually death of the author? Is that what...? No, that's just writing a bad story. I was going to say, let's just plot holes and... Yeah, that's just plot holes and contradictions. That doesn't have anything to do with the concept. Author not death of the author. That's not... Yeah, death of the author comes in the meta of the outside of the stories coming in. In my example, the meta is 17 books with a consistent storyline and an 18th, which is inconsistent because of the author's meta outside of the fictional universe. Contraction of Alzheimer's, for example. Actually, yeah, that's just... In a sense, what's interesting is that it is a sort of variation of death of the author. In the sense that we have canon for 17 stories and 18th comes out that contradicts everything in those and so we are forced to consider the 18th, the contradiction that is the tumor, that is the incorrect one. It couldn't happen while the other 17 did happen. One has to go, sort of thing. That's what we highlight when we're saying something's a plot hole. Yeah, then there's one further question, which is, is that truly death of the author if there are even... If there is, sorry, even an iota of similarity in theme or moral message in one character? When the author says that the hyperspace kamikaze is impossible and possible, it's going to be on the... Which came first, which was established as canon first. J, which is two different authors. Well, you can understand how that translates, right? So if he did it in the 17 books, that the fantasy kamikaze was not possible and then the 18th it is, it remains impossible. It's a whole in the 18th book. I agree with that, but I wouldn't consider that death of the author. Neither do we. You don't have to consider it death of the author. Kamikaze isn't the person who wrote the original 17 books. We don't... That's not, yeah, it's not death of the author as we've said. You don't have to call that death of the author. But you are at the same... If you're going to consider that irrelevant nonsense, like it doesn't match, then you have stopped the author's intentions. But the thing is the author's intentions are of married bachelor. They can't even make sense. Sorry, just to come back on that. If there are 17 books or installations and then like TLJ with hyperspace running, if I reject hyperspace running, I'm saying that there is death of the author at that point. Is that what you just said? Just to be clear. Death of the author of the previous 17 installments. Well, so it's a little bit more complicated. This is why I want to move away from even using death of the author because when you have the authors telling you X is Y and X is X, we have to go with one. We can't go with... It's impossible to accept both. Uh-huh. And so typically we opt for whichever was canonized first. Yes. Meanwhile, if they're canonized at the exact same time, then it's just nonsense. And we have to try and figure out a way if one could make more sense than the other sort of thing. This is actually like the system we would use always opt for going from the source as opposed to if the author said, I'm preferring X is X today, though it is. Well, I don't necessarily disagree, but I'm now confused about what we're arguing about now compared to the original argument we had, which was... Something about mountainous... We're very, very far down the line. The original argument was what is the definition of death of the author. We've now got to the point where you're saying, I don't want to talk about the definition of death of the author. I'm talking about what constitutes the law. Well, yeah, because I think you agree with what we... I think... But if I was to say, let's go bring down that tree with an X and everyone in the world is referring to a sword and you're like, that's not an X. I'd be like, okay, for the sake of conversation, you recognize what we're using as a tool and that you use it too. Well, I'm happy to entertain that argument, but I'm not sure what we're arguing about at this point. I think you... When you said that you are happy to consider the author wrong at certain points, we agreed and we're all good. We just don't call it the same thing. Yeah, but to the extent that the author, even when he's wrong, is referencing something he himself created and that... Yeah, that's your definition and I don't use yours. I think yours is a bit hard to understand. I'm happy to have a different definition on that. I just wanted to be clear about what we're talking about. If we're talking about the author, that's one thing. If it's Lauren Cannon, of course, that's something else. I think we probably do agree. It's just we are maybe using different terminology, but I am obliged to say, given this is my first time here, that I'm... It was lovely to be here anyway, but the idea... The fact that I can have these arguments with you guys, fucking Cloud9, it's fantastic. Thank you for the conversation. It's a normal day on EFAP. I don't even know what the... This is what we do. I don't know what the EFAP community will call this argument. It's gone to so many different adventures at this point. I think they're going to go with Dust at first, but Death of the Dust, maybe. Dust, Magic. Don't know. I think it's a lower exploration, writing discussion. Yeah, I would hope that you'd be on the same page as us if you had seen the Suicide Squad. You'd watch Pokemon Dot Man Story, then we went over that tweet from James Gunn and you'd be like, you'd be with us and saying, like, James Gunn's just wrong. It's not in the movie. Yeah. I'm willing to believe that that might be the case. Twin Perfect, who, as I said, he 100% does not believe in Death. The author, he thinks it's Pish. He would tell you, no, that is Pokemon Dot Man. It doesn't matter what you saw in the story. It only matters. He said to us, it only matters what the author said. We are his foil. Yeah. We consider ourselves to be on the literal opposite end of the spectrum to him. Yes. We think that the material, it's the contents of the created work is it rules everything else. It is kidding. How does he dress himself in the morning? That's a good question. How does he conceptualize, for example, a schizophrenic or a multi-personality disorder work, for example? Well, so it's funny. That's a legitimately good question. It's funny because he's working with a lot of David Lynch content is what he's drawn this from, which I find fucking fascinating that you think that David Lynch's content is going to have one definitive authorial intent. I'm pretty sure that is not at all what he... I should rephrase the question. Without lethal amounts of magic mushrooms, how do you reconcile a multi-personality disorder or a schizophrenic author? That's a legitimately interesting question. Yeah, I can't answer it for you. Yeah, I would be curious. I wish he was here so that he could not answer that because he doesn't answer questions. Maybe that helps the whole definitions thing. Like if he was here and then we had a fourth person who said death of the author is only applicable when the author literally dies, that would be like four different interpretations and I would just be like, maybe we should just drop the title and just see if we agree on the individual definition. Well, that's what you do. That's what you do a lot of conversations if you can't agree on a definition. You just say, we just won't use that word, forget that word exists. We'll just talk about concepts. You could literally invent a word for the concept on the spot and you've solved the problem. Oftentimes, like, you know, definitions sort of, they are based upon, you know, things that which you can find within the space of the conversation. It's like, we can be having the same conversation and you could actually derive seven different definitions of artistic concept from within the single conversation, even if that conversation was predicated upon a disagreement over the definition of a single artistic term. So death of the author, for example, well, okay, if we're disagreeing on what death of the author means, we've then had a conversation about what actually constitutes authorial consistency and then you can derive separate definitions therefrom. Like, there are so many brilliant conversations to have about that. So the reason that EFAP has been such a brilliant thing to listen to and your two channels, even individually, have been such a brilliant thing to listen to for the last how many years. Yeah. I've been listening to you. It's because like, it's really, really fucking... I studied, I did a master's in aesthetics at university, never ever had such in-depth entertaining conversations as the kind of stuff I heard on EFAP and on your two individual channels. It's like, this is where the most interesting conversations happen because a lot of this comes down to what your definition of the definition is in the first place and that's without being stupidly relativistic about it. It's simply, are we actually operating upon sound definitions to begin with and most academics don't have a conception of sound definitions because they are idiots. We'll... Yeah, we'll ditch a term if we need to and just we'll go pure... Yeah, we'll dip them at... Well, we kept... Straight to the place if we need to. A conversation was just... It's all constant for us. We dug what I think there was the bedrock but I think we finally hit it which happens in these conversations eventually and I don't mind spending the time to get to them. Like plenty of people get all bitter and angry in chacks. They want to see us talk about the end of this Lord of the Rings episode but I'm sorry guys, you know the rules. Okay? What are the rules? What are the rules? There are no rules. We have soft magic rules here on EFAP. And they can even get really tribal about it as far as I was concerned. This is just a conversation but I'm hoping everybody's okay. That's why you thought it was. I am... Because yeah, it's kind of fascinating when you encounter like... Because some people are... You know when you said your example of 15... Sorry, 17 books that were written consistently and then one that wasn't... Like someone said like, Oh, that's a ridiculous hypothetical. I was like, Dude, I love ridiculous hypotheticals. So it's my favorite thing. Yeah, ridiculous hypotheticals. That's where all the principles come out. There is... The reductial absurdum is usually classified as like a logical flaw in an argument. It's not sometimes... reductial absurdum actually is just illustrating the extent of... You were inviting someone to follow a thought through to conclusion. But in the case of like a 17-book fantasy saga, that's actually not that ridiculous. There are many very... Oh yeah, easy to think about it. Easy to think about it. That's what I was trying to do. Dude, yeah. Like I didn't... Lord of the Rings take time. Didn't even for a second occur to me to be like, that's an absurd... I was like, No, no, no, I'm with you. I'm following. Because someone mentioned as well and it's probably worth when bringing up. It's like, did Han shoot first? Yes or no? Like according to the author, he didn't. But the movie... I would say he did. And I think most people would say he did. It's like, fuck the author that he did. Yeah, it's like the meme. Hashtag Han shot first and stuff like that. Yeah, the author is at liberty to disagree with himself. But that doesn't mean he's a different person. That's the thing. Almost as what makes it so strange. I'm always interested to hear what they have to say. I mean this couple of... Like I said, Michael Waldron, I don't... The less I hear about his interpretation... When he started talking about how... Anything he says is sludge. When Michael Waldron said that Wanda lost vision, therefore she's kind of like owed the sacrifice of America, I was like, you need to stop talking about your film. The film's bad enough on its own, but you're making it so much fucking worse. And that's sometimes you get authors who can bring a huge amount of benefit by hearing them talk about having made their thing. So it's case by case. Yeah, it can give you a deeper appreciation of what they've created. Because you can't fit everything you want to into a book or a movie just because physical constraints of the world. So being able to get that extra... It's like watching directors commentary to things. Like, here's why we did this, here's why we did that. You're like, oh, that's really great to know that you had that kind of thought and you cared and you had so much to say. It's explanatory in terms of allowing you to appreciate things, which is... I love it. I love a good director's commentary. Only enough I gave the example you were talking about, Rags. I said that what if George Lucas said Star Wars was a penguin on a chair? That's it, that's it. And what was his name? Twin Perfect. My brain was going to just write... Um, Twin Perfect. How could you confuse them? He said that was ridiculous as a hypothetical, right? But I'm pretty sure that's what you were referencing immediately about the Schizophrenic or maybe a mentally ill creator of some kind. In the sense of... In the sense of, yeah, if you came at him specifically and said, what if you had a, let's say, a mentally ill author who wrote that book? We could use the 18th in a series of 18. And it was just almost literal nonsense. That was full of plot holes, contradictions. Is like the author was clearly not in a right mind. Then what if you gave that to Twin Perfect as a hypothetical, which is really not at all an unreasonable hypothetical. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It's totally impossible. He wrote it off as like an absolute absurd, but it's just like it shouldn't be too difficult to imagine that's a thing that could happen at some point. I mean, I know some... A lot of times people who are of low intelligence cannot engage with hypotheticals. And some people are not... And some other people are not... I don't... They won't... They refuse to do it because they don't see a point. I don't know. It's a shame because hypotheticals are our friends and they're useful. And they're just so darn useful in conversations. They're interesting and they're fun. Well, that's the thing, right? Would you torture baby Hitler? I wouldn't do it. But some people might, I don't know. Some to talk about. But to be fair, I've never been compelled by the whole... You know, if there were a pool party on a spaceship that was hurtling toward the sun, it's like, would you make X decision? And then if someone said, that's never happened and it's not gonna happen for... It's not even... That's probably... If someone said to me, that's probably never gonna happen. I'd just be like, okay, we can still answer the question. You're running... Yeah, like that... That... People who take that approach strike me as the kind of people who know where this path leads and they don't want to go. They won't avoid it. Because, yeah, if you remember, this actually came up not... I said not too long ago, I think it might have been a year, but the sleeping with yourself thing came up in... I think it was... Fantasy show, sci-fi show, something, or game? Loads of people were talking about it. It was super controversial. It was just like fucking yourself, like I said, like a clone. And CosmoVariety, I put out a tweet saying, why the hell are people even discussing whether or not they think it's ethical to fuck a clone? It's not gonna happen. It can't happen. It's such a low IQ thing to say. Don't engage with a hypothetical. It couldn't happen. That's a way of not answering the question. The question will exist whether or not it's practicable in the short term. There's a Robert Heinlein novel. I don't remember which one it is. Where he was a weird guy. He wrote Starship Troopers. And Stranger in a Strange Line, which were about as far apart from each other, philosophically and politically as you can get to. But in his later career, he wrote one. I don't remember the name of it, but the premise of which is the main character is this old guy he's dying. And I think he clones himself. No, no, no, wait, how does this work? No, he implants his own clone embryo. I think it is in the body of his cloned female alter ego. I think it's the premise. And then the kid is born whether it's, whether that is him or isn't. You could say that's a symptom of a sick mind. I wouldn't necessarily disagree, because he wasn't at that point in his life. But it's a really interesting hypothetical. Like, at what point does, where are the boundaries of personality and personhood set? Like, what differentiates the clone from the derivative of clone from the originator of clone? Oh, Mahler, we gotta ask them. We do? We do. Have you played Soma? Oh. I don't think I have. You need to play Soma. Play that fucking game, dude. Can you please, can you please, if, if, oh, here's your homework, our loyal disciple. Your homework is to play Soma. Like, legitimately, it gets better, the more intelligent, I think, and thoughtful you are. So I think you're right out of it. It is like, legit. How could anyone call you fade rags? I just don't get it. How could they possibly just? I was calling. I was implying someone else was those things. I'm, I'm just over here being, I'm totally independent of my, I make no claims about myself whatsoever. I make no claims. But yeah, seriously, play Soma, it's like, one of the best games ever made. And so in chat, a couple of people in chat reminded me it was Loki who wrote this up. I've read the Hulkling novel from which it is derived, but. So you got, in Loki, it's a version of yourself is born in a different universe, but as a girl, and then grows up with a completely different life and existence, you meet her, and the, you know, if you fuck, is that, what, what is that? Is basically the question. And Cosmo Friday, I was like, I don't care what it is. It can't happen. He's abhorred by the, he abhors all imagery of the female form. It's, um, this is the thing is complicated. That's what's what the nature of the discussion was everyone was trying to figure out. What do you even call it? What does it necessarily mean? Especially because it's different universes, how exactly like, you know, blah, blah, blah. There's just like, oh, you fucking idiots, that can't happen, which by the way, you don't know that I can never, ever, ever happen. That's the interesting thing about, so like quantum and multiverse theories is that it's not beyond the realms of possibility that that could happen. It's just incredibly unlikely, but unlikely things are still possible. But it's a weird sort of, it's a derivation or a cloning of the sort of Shippurthesius thing though, isn't it? Because you're, what you're asking is, is a, an entity from an entirely different universe which shares all of your characteristics, the same thing as you are, like, what differentiates you from your clone from a multiverse, for example? Yeah, it's some, which is a tricky question. How much can you take away from something before it becomes something different in a sense? What's the identity of the thing? Or how much, in this example, I think it would be how much that is similar would there have to be for you to be classes the same person? Which is, it's a different way of asking the same question, I suppose. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. What, what's the you and you? And if, if those sorts of things interest you, you should play Soma. I, I have now put it on my phone as a thing to look up tomorrow or today as it happens to be. Please do. Anyway, um, we probably should actually get back to rings of power. Well, so I was gonna say to you guys, we've got exactly, I think, 50 minutes left before we cap out, so we best get going. We got, we got this, we got this. Let's do this shit. All right, we, we've got, oh my gosh, we have Durin comes in. No, we have to get to, uh, Elrond is talking with Deezer now after the other dwarves depart. Yes. And she's thanking him for how, if he hadn't gone and fuck it. I found this quite interesting, right? Because what's just happened in terms of what's actually happened here is that he managed to detect the secret password from your kids having singing it, detect the location in which to say it by eavesdropping on a conversation between her and her husband to then break in and discover the greatest secret the dwarves have ever had. By doing so, he may very well have saved Durin's life in the sense that Durin came out of the mines to complain about him having broken their trust as friends or whatever. Yeah. But she's saying, yeah. She's saying, oh, thank goodness. Now, I'm not sure how I would react to something like this. They give someone, say for example, I knew that you came into my house to steal my TV. Let's just say I knew that was the case, but I was choking to death on a piece of cheese and you come in and give me the Heimlich maneuver and save my life. But I know that you were only there because you wanted to steal from me. I really think I'd be torn. I'd be like, thank you so much for saving my life. But which is well here. I think that the your intention was more important than something that just was a coincidence that you created. Your character is not impacted in any way that's positive from this. It's just like it's almost like a silver lining to your deception, which you don't get credit for. You don't get credit for that. If I'm decent, I'm looking at this elf guy, I'm like, you know, funny thing. If you hadn't done that, Duran might have been in that cavern and he might have been trapped. I'm just going to put that out there for you to... I'm just like, I'm thinking about this and I think that you should know that I'm thinking about this. Yeah, because someone just said the great Stannis quote, the good does not wash out the bad nor the bad the good. The thing is about that. If I'm choking to death and Rags is there, if someone said to me, him letting me die is the bad move. Him telling someone to hopefully help me instead of saving me himself is like a neutral move and then the good move is saving me. I'd have to disagree. If he can sit... If he saved me, let's just say it's a really easy save. He has to press a button to save my life, whatever. And then he's like, so, reward? I'd probably be like, man, I feel like you're preventing me from dying with as little effort as possible really isn't like, like, thank you, of course. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, the lowest bar possible. It feels like the lowest bar possible, yeah. My expectation for solo, yeah. The fact that you want to reward for this is the ultimate... The differences get made. For example, I've been kidnapped and I've been taken to distant country and I'm tied up and Rags goes full taken mode and does everything he can for weeks on end to discover exactly where I am, kill everybody. I would do that, yeah. This is lower accurate. This is not a hypothetical. If you did that, I would be profusely thankful because I know how much you sacrificed in order to get that thing to happen versus you sit and then you go, yeah, I guess I'll let you live. Press this button. I'd be like, damn, dude. My reward is having Mahler be alive and also I get to kill bad people. Yeah, so when you say the good shouldn't wash out the bad and all the bad, the good, when he comes in to steal my TV and just happens to see me choking and saves my life, I don't feel like I'm gonna go, you shouldn't be stealing my TV but it's really good that you save me. I'd be like, you shouldn't be stealing my TV and it's kind of neutral that you save me because Jesus Christ, if you decide to let me die, like what the fuck? Yeah, we're operating at two different levels of evil. Breaking in to steal a TV, it's an evil thing to do. I wouldn't even say evil. That's a bad thing to do but allowing someone to die if strangulate, that is evil if you allow that to happen. So thanks for not sinking down into that level of evil, I guess. Again, the bar is not high for you, especially because you broke my house through my TV. But thanks, you know. So yeah, the reason I'm bringing all this up is that she knows all of that, presumably, about all of this. But she has nothing to say in terms of you sneaked around, you broke into a thing, you listened to conversations that weren't yours to listen to and you happened to help as a result. It feels like she should take more issue with Elrond here than she realizes. Yeah, I think it's tough to really weigh that against her because it's a very emotional moment. Yes. It's kind of like, you know, the elf getting hit by the arrow. It's tough to be in his mind when that happens. So it's just one of those things to really, it's worthy of pointing out. So what I would want, I think, if we were to maintain everything we've seen right now, but also make me happy on this regard, it would be that there's a conversation between her and Duran at some point about this. Absolutely. You know, he did save, well, he did save people, he did help and stuff. It's like, what was he doing there? And then he can be like, Duran can be like, oh, you know, he came because he wanted to just- I wouldn't even phrase that he saved people. It's almost like it's so weird. It's great that he, incidentally, being there doing a bad thing just happened to have maybe saved your life. But that doesn't have anything to do with his character and the decisions he made. Right. Sorry, for a second there, I was referring to the idea that he'd saved some of the people in the actual sort of cave-in. But you're right. What she refers to is specifically Duran. And what she's talking about is Duran being distracted by Elrond doing a bad thing and thus wasn't in the cave-in. But yeah, you're right. It has nothing to do with Elrond's character necessarily. And she should know all of that. However, it's understandable that in this moment, you know, at risk of losing a husband, she didn't. And at risk of losing several dwarves, she's probably on very good terms with very much likes. She didn't. Yeah, I can see her being like, oh, thank goodness you were there. But I think we're owed a scene where she can be like, that fucker. Which by the way, isn't an impossibility because yeah, they're going to be driving the orcs and Jesus, the orcs. The elves and the elves and the dwarves against each other. That seems to be something they're going for. So maybe we'll get that scene. You know what would have been more interesting is if Elrond wasn't present during the singing ceremony. If he came back with Duran covered in dirt, his cloak, he's discarded his cloak. He's just down to his shirt like Duran covered in dust and like we saved him. Like they both worked really hard to save the dwarves. That would have been a completely different dynamic where yeah, he was stealing, but he put himself in a lot of danger to save the dwarves. That is the kind of thing where I'm like, it shows that he was willing to risk his life to help us. So there's definitely more going on with it. He's not just trying to take advantage of us. There's more than two. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be really interesting, by the way. It would have been way more interesting. It would have made the conversation afterwards more interesting instead of Duran coming. Yeah, don't worry. Don't don't don't worry. Elrond, I saved him. I saved my there. It's all good. It's all good. I took care of it. I'm a little tired right now and dirty. It was tough to do. But yeah, the fact that the because his yeah, his that would have been interesting. Unlike the dad would have been interesting. If the dad found out he could be like, you know, Elrond is banished like the bowl and then the friend could be like he saved five dwarves or whatever. Oh, Duran doesn't even tell his father about the Mithril thing. There was a cave in and I, Elrond came to help and he helped just as any dwarf would help. And he doesn't even know his father the Mithril thing because you can go that direction. But the reason why in mind the dad found out was because it would create so much of a engine between the dad and the son being that the dad is like, get the fuck out of here. Elrond tried to breach our secrets and he's like, yeah, but he saved so many lives at the risk of his own. You know, that's got to count for that. You know, you can have that conversation between those two. Well, yeah, both are interesting. All our hypotheticals are more interesting than what the show did with its millions of dollars. Well, the thing is, you know, you highlighted like we could have seen him covered in, you know, whatever, or whatever. And he's lost his clothes. But we see him and he's pristine. It implies that he went in and then like sort of went right back out and cleaned off. While Durin was in the mines helping, doing everything, Elrond was watching this ceremony. He was again the fucking issue with this show. They showed Durin and he is absolutely like covered in soot. So what are you telling us about Elrond? Did he just leave? He was like, you can handle this, buddy. I guess. Yeah. Missed opportunity. It's like what we say. You're always, you're pretty much always world building and you're always character building. What characters do and what they don't do is a part of their character. And you've got to be aware of that when you're writing. This looks, this is a bad look for Elrond. Bad is a strong word. It, he's not, I don't want to feel like he's morally obligated to put himself in great danger for strangers. But when you do, that makes it all the more virtuous. When you choose strangers either because the entire reason he's there and has been allowed to be there is because they're not strangers. They are the best friends who've mended a relationship. And he is in the exact same place as Durin is when the cavern happens and Durin runs in and he doesn't run in, which there is a simple way around that. You simply have Durin run in and some rocks fall that stop Elrond following him. That's a really simple way of doing it, which doesn't make Elrond look like a dick for not helping. Which they didn't intend to do that. They didn't intend that clearly, by the way. Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to go far as to to knock it against Elrond for not helping. Yeah, to clarify, when there's a cavern, I'm pretty sure most advice for real life might be don't go into the fucking cavern. Yeah, if you're self-proclaimed best friend is gone in. No, yeah. To clarify, right? So let's say you have three houses on fire and there's three babies in there and three dads and two dads run in and the third one goes, the house is on fire. I don't want to kill myself. I think everyone would be like, that's true, but... I think that's a different analogy. No, of course it's different. The reason what I'm doing with that is to highlight like how people feel about it, even though what he's saying, if the house is like fully engulfed in flame, then, yeah, it probably isn't a good idea. There is... Well, I think the analogy is different meaningfully in the sense that a father has an obligation to his kid in a different way than Elrond would have an obligation to Okay, but if... People would trap him. In a different way than Duran would have an obligation to... No, not Duran. Elrond to Duran and those people. Elrond to Duran. But if Duran is running in to save the dwarf, assume he knows less well, arguably than Elrond, what then absolves Elrond of the responsibility of following Duran and who is a closer friend to him than... Because Duran made that decision himself to put himself in danger for the sake of them. I don't think that you're under a moral obligation to do that in his position, to also put yourself in danger, going into a situation you know nothing about because your best friend did. You're not... No, I'll say, you're not under that obligation, but it would be a very virtuous and good thing to do that. I think it would be virtuous enough to be an obligation. I think I would look down on it and I don't know if I didn't. That vibe would exist from people. They'd be like, you didn't help them out and you could be like, of course I didn't. It was a fucking suicide mission. You'd be like, okay. Well, yeah, but... I don't think people have a moral obligation to put themselves in danger. Yeah, that's... I think people would feel that because I was actually going to ask her, as you know, you said there's more of an obligation for the dad to run into the building, building for the kid. What if it was like a sea of acid and there's a platform in the center? I know this is absurd. A platform in the center with the babies on it. It would never happen. And so the dad, like basically, he's dead. If he goes in to try and get that kid, he's absolutely dead. I'm assuming at that point... It's like a 0.01% chance of being succeeded. Yeah, I'm trying to lower it as low as possible rather than impossible. Yeah, I think with those parameters, I wouldn't blame the dad at all, especially because it would like be perceived as impossible and it would probably actually be realistically impossible to do. That kind of depends on what we're talking about. Well, fuck it. It's 6 a.m. I'm not going to answer that. We might have to... We might have to prescribe it in a while. I'm just saying, if there's a moral obligation in the sensitive, like a deontological obligation in the sense that you must do so regardless of your feelings, it's a moral duty that you do so, that's different from saying, I would feel morally obligated to do so. A moral obligation, a felt moral obligation, isn't the sense as a moral duty to do the same thing. That's something we can unpack a different way. Because we certainly can. We certainly can, yeah. It's... But I'm not going to blame Al-Ran for not going in and helping, but the fact that he doesn't, and that just feels... Yeah, exactly. Yes, that's where I'm going. We need an acknowledgement of like, maybe he's even hesitant. We see his face. Like, maybe he starts, but he can't do it. Or, I mean, if you don't want to put him in that position, Durin could yell at him, go get help. So that he's safe, and he has a safe job, but he's still helping, and he takes off like a rabbit or however elves run speed and algae-wise. You're absolutely... That way you don't have this issue. Correct, because it's really dependent on what the writer wants to tell us about Al-Ran. Because if they both sprint in, and the further in they get, the more Durin is just keeping on going, but Al-Ran slowing down, looking above, looking around, and then he stops and goes, Durin, stop! Stop! Durin's already gone. He's just like, fuck this, I'm out. We can't fit in. Yeah, he's too... Yeah. You know, it's something. His heart is there, but he physically can't do it for whatever reason. He's either dissuaded from doing it by Durin, or he's like physically too big to fit in where the dwarf came. I mean, you could even have it that he's afraid. There's no reason why you can't do that. Yeah, terrified. But I guess the reason I bring all this up is just that it was an opportunity to do something, and they didn't. Al-Ran went in, but then we see him later, and it looks like he didn't go in at all, and he's not there for the remainder of the rescue operation. So, did he go in and help, or did he not? It's not even clear, because Dees is rewarding him, like thanking him for distracting Durin from being in the mine. It's a different thing, yeah. So, this is kind of funny considering we were just talking about that, the other... I have no idea if he was in there or not, helping to save the dwarves. I would assume not given the state of Durin and him coming back after just finishing. If Al-Ran was there helping, he would be with Durin. What would your guess be, little platoon? Did he get in there and help get some dwarves out, or did he not? I would guess no. I would guess no as well. I feel like... I would guess no. If we're being good faith... I would very confidently guess no. If we're being good faith, the clothing and the fact that Durin is actually still in there doing things while he's not implies to me that he left, which is a really significant moment. You know? Absolutely. We don't get to see it. Or should be. If the writers are aware of the significance, but it's these writers we're talking about, so probably they're not. So, Durin comes in and says, Yeah, they've got the last one. He's alive. That's good news. The bad news from his POV, I suppose, is that his dad has said they're cordoning off that Mithril mine. They're not going anywhere if I can near it. And he's very pissed about this, which... I know I'm not him. I know I'm not. And that's not my dad, but that decision doesn't surprise me in the slightest. If it was a cave in, we're avoiding that vein. I can see both their perspectives. I know why he's upset because it's an amazing material, but I think the part that gets me is that he seems to be so fucking pissed at his dad for making this decision when, to me, it seems like a very, you must have expected that was a big possibility, right? Dave in. Potentially, yeah. That's the thing that this... I wish I cared more. I wish we had more. Let me care, yeah. Because this is like a thing. You have Durin who wants this thing and it could propel his people to this incredible greatness and it's an amazing thing and it'll help him out, but there's the danger of doing it and that conversation of is the risk worth the reward, that's like multiple discussions between two people, a father and a son, that could be very meaningful and impactful, especially with clearly the talented actors that they have to do this. Yeah, and the guy who plays Durin is, again, given a very impassioned sort of delivery here about how he's absolutely fra... Because I can believe it, you've just been doing all that work to save them. You want to make use of this myth, there's an incredible discovery, all this stuff, and then you're being told on top of everything today that that now is locked off, you can't have any of it. Problem is, like, I need more from him and his dad and Elrond, I need it to be better. Yeah, that's a skeleton. Yeah, certainly from them and Elrond, but I think this whole sequence, it sort of demonstrates the good and the bad side-by-side. So the bad to begin with he comes in angry, we all know he's angry. Just to be clear, is the good and the bad with the show or with, like, the show is a production or the characters, like, in universe or out of universe? Well, in universe. Well, the writing, so I guess the writing of the universe. Obviously, he comes in very angry and we understand why he explains it well, the acting is good. We do get one of those stupid dumbfuck metaphors about the hottest coals cool after however long, whatever it is. Is that the dumbest metaphor? No, it's not the dumbest, but it's another one of those ones which is just a metaphor. I think it's dragged down by the fact that, again, it so closely resembles the others that are delivered by other characters and other places. So I disagree. I think this one's a totally fine metaphor. No, no, I agree. In and of its own right, it's fine. The problem sounds too similar to some of the metaphors. So we think the salt off a table? Yeah. Sorry, which show? Which metaphor we talk about, oh, I missed it. This is the hottest, even the hottest coals cool after a time, I think she said. Even the hottest coals cool eventually. I like that self-contained, I think that works in the context. It seems very dwarf-appropriate. It does, yes. The problem is that, again, it's another one of those things that we've seen too much of from too many other people at the same time. The problem, I think, comes, oh, fuck, what was I actually gonna say? I've now forgotten. A freaky moment. It was when the dad comes in. No, it's not. When the dad are during, because we're not. Oh, well. Because we're, you know, what scene are you thinking about? When the dad, the dwarf dad? Yeah, he comes in later, doesn't he? And he says that, no, that was the thing I was gonna say that was good about it. I don't remember what the bad thing I was gonna criticize was. Oh, I thought you were gonna say that the relationship between during and Elrond is weak and broken and badly written, while the relationship between during and his dad is relatively okay. Yeah, that was what I was going for. Yeah. I think I've just had too many times to repeat it. Great. That's what I was going for. The thing, when during's dad comes in, I think that's, there is actually quite a good and meaningful exchange, unlike the wisdom versus being smart thing earlier. Right. Because he talks about how to be king or to be a dwarven lord, your knowledge comes not just from yourself and not just from your father, but from all of your ancestors at once. And I thought that that is a dialogue trick. Actually, that works quite well. I think that's one of the most effective ones. If I can, I would like to add a further compliment. I actually quite like that he said you get your, you know, the inspiration from your all your ancestors, their achievements and their mistakes. Like you, it's all like big thing you take on with it. Because I'm actually gonna, I thought that was gonna be my hot take. I was gonna say I actually like the scene between during his dad. I like felt my cold, dead, doggie heart kind of was like, oh, man. I'm sad not just because this is a very heartfelt thing between a father and the son, which always gets me, but imagine if this was all couched in something real. Yeah, imagine it was part of a great show. And the sad part is this proves that they could have done it. Oh, well, they're not completely incapable. It's just they can't do it. 99% of the time. Well, and if you can, I was actually gonna pay confidence as well. I actually think, I think I was in such like bad faith mode that I was like, did I just like that? The, when Elrond like, basically takes a really long time to say treasure the time you have the appearance. Yeah. Yeah. I like that too. It might be strange, but episode four doesn't have the strongest moments for being the worst episode. Is it doesn't have the strongest isolated moments? Possibly, because we kind of like the elevator ride scene in episode two. Yeah, episode two, episode two, that one scene in episode two, that's the high point, I think. And I, yeah, I guess I'd say episode four matches that, but it's again, it's weird. And I don't think it's coincidental, but all the high points in this show come with the dwarfs and they come in the exchanges, by and large, either between Duran and his dad, or between Duran and Elrond. Right. There's a high point beyond those characters. It's only because the show does quite a good job of depicting the differentness, the fundamental like philosophical and like idealistic differentness of elves and dwarves, but also the familial difference between the dwarven prince and his king. Those are the strongest moments across all four episodes. I don't think it's coincidental that they all take place amongst the same characters in the same place. And it's a real shame that they haven't managed to do that with well, any of the other, any of the, none of the other characters have any fucking personality, for God's sake. Yeah. So it's, yeah. It's very tough. Yeah. But the freeing is, freeing example is if you, if you put it all to text and scratched out the names, could you tell who was who? Maybe a couple, but that's not good, considering we have a pretty extensive, well, I know the one who's always talking like a bitch, that's Galadriel. But apart from that, not many that you could really be like, oh, that's that because they have these traits. Whenever a character says, hey, you're not supposed to do things that's different from everyone else, you can know they're talking to Nori, at least. You won't know who they are, but you'll know they're talking to Nori. Right, Nori? There's someone Nori knows. Yes. We can narrow some things down, but yeah. You know, hopefully, as the show goes on, we may get a couple more good scenes, but no guarantees. Because yeah, it's crazy. I have so many issues with Durin as a character, and yet I probably enjoy him the most. I think I enjoy him the most as well. I was hoping to really like Elendil, the sea captain man, the seaman. I want to like him, but I can't. But Durin is like, yeah, not yet. He's still definitely salvageable. He's just suffering from some stupidity right now. But I want Durin, if I could pick one person where everything works out for him, I would want it to be Durin. We'll see. Yeah. I like Durin and Disa, because it gives me an opportunity to call him Harry and Meghan in my reviews, but that's a different reason. Oh, the royal family. Ginger Prince and Black Princess. I like her. I like her. She has a personality. Durin seems to have one as well. I would much rather the show give me more dwarf stuff than all of these other plots. I could not give a look about the outfits. I would actually cleanse his personality to Elrond. The only scenes by Elrond is halfway personable, is when he's engaging with Durin. Dude, the scenes with Elrond and Galadriel were shit, but Elrond with Durin is more tolerable. Well, Durin and I, I think the most believable relationship here is, it's probably Durin and Disa, though I really like Broken Foot and Marigold. I'd have to go back and really check there's other things to say to each other. I'm pretty sure you only got like the one scene to work with there. I think that's the reason. There's only one of them, but it stands out every time they meet together. There's more consistency with Durin and Disa, because at least they have multiple scenes, as opposed to just like that. Yeah, she's just talking to Elrond. There's so much potential for, if things go wrong, as they expected to with the elves and the dwarves, having Elrond and Durin at the core of that is going to be interesting, hopefully. But he really puts into sharp contrast the fact that Elrond and Durin have known each other for, I think a couple of hundred years. Elrond and Galadriel have known each other for about 1500 years. She's known him since he was born. She knew his father, that's the creator of the library in West Numanor. She knew his brother, and she's the closest with Elrond, but if you didn't know any of the backstory and you just came into this one episode, or the two red-even episodes, and you said, which are the characters who know each other best? It's Elrond and Durin, because Elrond and Galadriel don't come across as people who know each other at all. They fucking hate each other. Yeah. And that's funny, because we're told in universe that Elrond and Durin haven't spoken in 20 years, which is long enough for a person to be completely out of your familiarity. It is, even if the dwarves can live to like 500 and the elves to... Yeah, and yet, it doesn't really feel like they've done a good job of portraying that it feels more so like they are friends at this point. Yeah. But yeah, all right, let's keep moving, because we're running out of time. Where are we? Yeah, so Durin says, or the king says to Durin that there's clearly a secret going on with the elves, go check it out. He's like, yeah, all right then. See, it's like how the episode started, but now it's the reverse. Crazy. It's almost like nothing is actually developed at all. The Mithril will be discovered by the elves and then someone will happen as a result of that, and then Durin will find out and you'll hate Elrond, but he won't actually do anything because he never does. Disappointing fucking mystery box as well. The idea that your mystery box is actually revealed in the trailer is just... Of all the things you could have done as well, it's so depressingly boring. Will Elrond be banned from all dwarven lands? I mean, who fucking knows? The next scene is with Lady and Elfman. I find it absolutely hilarious. It's this moment that he decides to relay the message Aida had. When you find out what the message is, he's like, bro, you probably should have delivered this as soon as possible. It's basically a threat. He's like, leave now and also swear fealty. Like, I just... He only tells it because she happens to walk up to him. Like, what the fuck, man? And secondly, it's really funny that they're sort of like having this sort of like, we're reconnecting. It's good to see you. I'm glad you're alive. A big criticism of her in episode two was she completely forgot he existed. She just moved on with her life. I spent that power again, and our lovers, quote unquote, have met up. Which, yeah, you don't... Like, seriously, this is all the character has going for him, this romance, but there's nothing to feel it. She hasn't even mentioned him. They stand next to each other is really it. It's almost like they want to imply like, oh, they were separated, but now they're back together. It's like, so? So, yeah. Like, actually, so? You have not given us anything that would imply that she is emotionally invested in him. His well-being, his relationship with her, how he feels, just his... We never got that. There was never a scene where she like, was worried. Where she... Like, maybe she had some memento he'd given her, and she's like, thumbing it or something. Anything. If you would have watched the moments in between his capture and return and just focus on her, there's nothing there. You would be shocked that her lover was that elf who had just escaped near death. When we compare it to Aragon and Albin, I mean, I think they probably have less screen time across three films. As good as they pretty surely do. Two episodes, three episodes, or four episodes if you are now, much less than over the four episodes. It's just incomparable. Like, you immediately know the extent of the feeling and the depth of feeling that Aragon and Albin have for each other, just from like three short scenes. Yeah. Four episodes. And how far away is that, too? The only thing we know about either character is that they kind of awkwardly flirt from time to time, and if they're apart from each other, it's irrelevant. They so wouldn't. I don't even know if I could call it. I don't know if that's what it is. I could just be... It's a relationship because the author said it's a relationship. Pretty much that is clearly... That is his story at this point. What's going to happen with him and her? Forbidden love. Ooh, just like, I don't... Sure, okay. And then, of course, you have the way to fix this. Obviously, is when she's dealing with her village, she'll just be like... Has anyone heard anything from him? Does anyone know of any elves that are in there? Do you just have a scene where you're doing your normal shit and then you just show that she cares? Because Aragorn and Arwen, when they're not together in scenes, they still talk about each other. They still care about where each other are in the world and what their fate's going to be. So I guess what I'm arguing is just like, this is clearly what they're trying to build with these two. They're doing a terrible job so far. But hey, we're only halfway through the season. I'm sure it'll be fine. Yeah, so they need to leave is my take on this. They need to get the fuck out of this watchtower. You might be like, well, it's better here than, I don't know, out in the open, right? It's like, no, they just need to leave the Southlands, get the fuck out of here. An army of orcs might take over the watchtower tonight. You don't even know. And you can't stay here. You need to get food. That's another reason to leave, yeah. It doesn't matter. You can't stay here. If they even camp outside, you're dead because you can't get food. You just have to leave. You're being forced into a bad thing. Sure, but it's better than starving to death. You have to go. And I don't know about the world. Is there a place they could go? Is there like a local government? Is there a Duke? Is there a castle nearby? They haven't told us. Is there a militiamen or? I don't think they're going to tell us. Yeah, like I don't know what we can do. And no one brings up the suggestions to be shot down for my sake. Wait, is this the last scene? My God, I think we are like near the end. So the kid is chilling out and then he pulls out his little Sauron sword. Unfortunately, creepy old man is around the corner and he's like, here's some water. You've earned it for helping getting that food. And it's like, okay. And then he says, you took my hilt from a barn, didn't you, you little shit? And then he's like, don't you worry about it because it's up to you and me, lad. We've got to be ready. You've got to save your strength for what's coming. He's Sauron's going to rise. He's like, go to a fucking crazy political rant. Okay, that's what this is. Does he expect this little kid who has no idea how to conceptualize what the fuck that hilt is or any of this? Is he really telling the kid, like you and me, we're going to help out Sauron when he comes about? He's like, what? He probably shouldn't say anything to this kid. I don't think you can trust that he's not going to tell his mum that you're selling creepy shit to him. But like, I think that's the implication, right? This guy is, you know, he's one of the, you know, the elves hated the men here because they reckon they're still evil. Like, I'm pretty sure this is like an actually still evil guy. Right? Yeah, I have a, I'm serving the old master. The old, it's like a Cthulhu thing. I don't know, I'm serving the old master in a sense. And he's like, kid, you stabbed yourself with a spooky sword. You're evil too. Let's get ready. He's like, what? You're in the club. Yeah, I thought it was retarded that, why even say anything to this kid when he's clearly not bought in, you know? He just stabbed himself with a sword. Okay, that's all he did. Yeah, you think you'd feel them some questions? He's like, I know you stole that sword underneath my barn and then just see how he just sort of talks about it. Yeah. Like maybe he spins some story about the sword. It doesn't have to be the real one or say, well, the legend say that, what do you think about that, lad? And get his take on it. You know, you want to field some questions out there to see if this, you know, this kid might be sympathetic to you. I mean, this is a great power, this sword. Who knows what we might be able to do with this power? We might be able to save. It's almost like a ring thing. Like you mirror it with the rings tempting boar mirror to save Gondor. You do the same thing here. It's like this power, it's evil, but we could use that power to do good things. You know, that's how he gets them on board. That's how he gets them in the club, the club of one. They become a club of two. Yeah. Then there's a funny scene where an orc says, Ada, we found it. It's in the tower. He's probably referring to the hilt. It's like, why don't you, um, why don't you be a little bit more honest with him? You had it. You guys had it. Why? Oh, I'll tell you why. Because he doesn't want to get killed on the spot. That's why he doesn't. It's just funny, because I should probably know about this anyway. But he's, the orc is clearly like happy. He's not in a state of like, you know, oh, Jesus, like, lying or anything. I just think it's funny. If Ada knew about what happened, he'd probably be like, you are all pathetic. If I was that orc reporting back, I would leave out those specifics and say, yeah, we tracked it down to a boy who's hiding with the rest of the people in an old tower. Yeah, that's where it is. I'm good. I found it. That's where it is. We just got to go get it. In fact, it'll be shockingly easy to, assuming they stay there. Imagine describing it to him. Like the guy you released, he killed the guy who had the hilt. And then like, we just, we chased them and then the sun came up and we couldn't chase them anymore, even though we were wearing our sun protective gear. Yeah, you should give your, you should give, you need to do something about the clothes budget on it. Well, I've been meaning to tell you, sir. Can we have like a big portable parasol or like maybe, you know, like a giant one? Yeah. Can we have like hoods, maybe cloaks? You know, instead of, instead of making this weird tunnel with all these claw things over, what if we put those cloths on ourselves so we can go anywhere? Suntan lotion. Yo, you know what would be interesting? If Adair Adar shows up with his orcs or whatever and they make the ultimatum of give us the sword, we know what's in there and we'll let you all go. And everyone's like, oh fuck, the sword, what's he talking about? And then like someone's sees this, him with the other kid with a sword, like that would be interesting. They could make something happen there, yeah. But they don't usually do that in this show, so I can't see that happening. That's true. I'll just entertain it in the theater of my mind. So. I'll enjoy that. I'm pretty sure there's like one big scene left for the episode. It takes 10 billion years, but we don't have to spend that long on it because we can summarize it pretty quickly. Galadriel is fucking leaving, Numenor, fine. Off she goes, off you go. Unfortunately as she leaves, the petals from the white tree start to fall, which is a signal to the queen regents that this must be the opposite of what she's supposed to do. That this will bring about the fall of Numenor getting rid of her. And so that is what convinces her then to bring Galadriel back and agree to going to war with her. Imagine selling this to the kingdom. I cannot fucking believe this shit. Imagine establishing the townspeople fucking hate elves because they're going to ruin their lives. And then an elf arrives and brings us all into a war. For reasons that can't, like I was saying, good luck, queen, selling this to your people. Yeah, they've gone from, they took our jobs to, they militarized our economy. That's against a foreigner invasion for which we have no evidence of. Most crazy is they do it via volunteers and a shit ton of people volunteer. And I don't know why. They couldn't possibly understand why this war was even being fought. We think there are orcs attacking our brethren in the Southlands. We're going to war lads coming with. Like, oh, jeez. I don't know. No, no. Is that really happening? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think it's in here. But what are you basing this off? Is it just that girl's word? That seems a bit wonky. Because the symbol, it kind of looks like the Mordor Mountains. If you turn it this way here and all the guards, like, they lean in so they can all see. Like, whoa. It's like wings holding it out. He turns it to the side. See, it kind of looks like the Mordor Mountains, but they didn't do the lake bit. But, and also, it's really, it's more, this symbol's more curvy and it's kind of straight on the real map. But it's pretty close. So I'll tell you all, this is what it means. Southlands and Southlands and Sauron's coming back. There's going to be an evil kingdom of evil. And it's happening all the way over there on the other side of the world or whatever. We're going to have to go fight and die for that. Because I had a vision from the Palantir where Numenor is destroyed. I have connected the dots in such a way that we must go to this war or else we will be destroyed by a massive tidal wave that sweeps over the mountains. And then they say, oh, okay, you get this from your father, don't you? This runs in the family. You're being crazy. The following portents. Exactly. I will state a personal preference that I have. I wish that there was more focus on, the utility and being reasoned into this position other than the signs and portents thing. I think you're being reasonable because the fact that we've had basically zero attempts from both Galadriel and, I mean, even Elendil. Does Elendil, is he bought into this? I don't know. I don't know his opinion. I dare not ask. I'm sure you'll give it, maybe. Yeah, it's been nuts. It feels like we ate a bread sandwich in Numenor. We was all the content. We was all the discussions and the interesting parts. Like, what the fuck? Yeah, where's all the interesting political stuff about, I can't believe we're going to war. We did this because of wait. For what reason? You've got to be kidding me. There's no way. This is a really big deal that you're, this is a lot, this is the lives of a lot of men on what is essentially magic hearsay that can't really be. Revelations are necessarily first person. Chatter in jail. Kind of. Yeah, man. People hate you. If I was, if I got woken up the next day and they're like, yeah, we're going to war. They're like, against who? We're just chilling on our island. And I was giving the story. I'm like, no, it's horseshit. Can we go in there and kill the old bag? I want a recount of the vote. Lock her up in that tower with Dadio. And this is what we were referring to, by the way. She did indeed end this episode with an army and she's going towards the south. And it's just like, what the fuck? How did this happen? It's like, yeah, I don't know, man. It just did. I mean, there's going to go four episodes left. We've got to have a big battle in probably episode, like what, six or something? Seven, maybe? You know what, Mahler? 300 did this better with the Oracle and the Eifers. Sure. He goes up to get there. Yeah. And they lie to him and he's like, nah, I'm going to do what makes the most sense instead of your weird signs and whatever. Also, we got to see some titty. It was just like, couldn't she have used more of the evidence she even has, more of the experiences she's had? They didn't do anything. She just said, trust me, bro. And that was it. I need to confer with my generals and seamasters or whatever they're called. And they have a big meeting and she gets their input and there's a vote. Maybe it's like, I want everyone's opinion because I'm very unsure about this. And I value your input as my generals and admirals and whatnot. And she goes over the evidence and they give their perspectives on it and they say, no, this is crazy. No, this is just a, it's hearsay. No, we can't trust an elf because that's does. She has this to gain from and that to gain. It's such a, this journey would be, it would be an incredible undertaking. It's never been done, but it was something like that. A scene where this is a big discussion that's happening. Instead, we get a six hour quasi voyage of her, of, of, of, of gladrile setting off, but then turning right around when the tree starts to lose its petals. I'm like, man, imagine what we could have had if we didn't fuck around. And that is episodes three and four. That's incredible. Excellent work. Just, uh, yeah, just a short little EFAP going over some of the, really just some of the, the broader points, not really getting into the details, not getting into the nitty gritty, just the general concept of the show as you, three and four. Now, you know, these puppies were a lot thicker than one and two. Yeah, I had more to say, I had more to say. Yeah, a lot more to say. They're a lot less, um, empty and wandering. They start to make claims and that's where we get to the issues. Every single one of them is awful. It's terrible. I was saying to Jake, he's been watching, uh, the new Rick and Morty episodes. The, uh, he was like, oh, the third one is like, okay. And I was like, you know, even if they weren't being written shittily with like the abilities they have, when you reach like a season six or whatever, or something like Rick and Morty, it's like, it is getting to seriously difficult levels in terms of managing all of the stories that have come before, all the technologies, all the establishments, all the arcs. You got to keep all of that in mind when you're writing every new story to make sure you don't fucking annihilate a previous one by forgetting things. Um, I think they've already encountered that problem in Rings of Power. Just with like three episodes, they're already like, shit, we contradicted things we've established already. Oh, shit. This is really hard to keep track of all of our work. Um, and I just find it amusing where shows do that. Like, I almost expect it when you reach like past season five. I think that's considered a bit of a, sort of a flash point for a lot of shows where they don't usually get better after season five. That's usually, they've usually peaked at that point. Um, there's obviously exceptions, but Rings of Power, like three and four can be the one and two is amazing. It peaked early and it's not, it didn't even peak well. Episode two is kind of meh, but then it's all downhill from meh. It's not a good start. And I would even, I'd probably even be harder than that myself, but I think it's outright. It's definitely, when we watched episode one and two, I think it was like a three and a half. One mostly because Yeah, they're very dry. Not all that much happens. Nothing's really good about it. That isn't superficial. Um, substance wise, it's very weak and we don't learn a lot. So not good enough to be a four. I don't think not bad enough to be a three, three and a half. We've sunk with these episodes three and four, I feel. That's, I think it's certainly a three at this point. Very bad. Uh, couple of small highlights. A damn shame. I don't expect this show to get better. I can't believe we're already halfway through season one. Just can't believe it. I said it feels more so like we've finished after one of maybe like six. But uh, yeah, we're way further than that. But hey, Andor is out now. Oh, yeah, watch that today. I don't know anything about it. The common sentiment I am seeing from basically everybody is that it is slow, dry and boring. Awesome. I can't wait to watch another one of those shows. I was going to say, man, it's like, come down. One wasn't enough. Enough of this. Because the funny thing is She-Hulk is like the other kind of bad. It's like concentrated bullshit. It's not dry. It's just awful. It's bad. Yeah. So we, apparently they're offering us both kinds. I say both. But I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued by how they managed to cock up Andor. That will be an interesting experience. Yes. Those we will eventually find out. But I'll say, certainly before we run out of time, we're on like nine minutes left. Little platoon, thank you so much for joining us for 11 and a half plus hours. It wouldn't be an EFAP if I hadn't joined for 11 and a half plus. No, genuinely, I've been like, this has been the most entertaining thing. And I've been watching you guys for years. In your life, this is all the human history. Certainly for a good long part of it. I feel like I've been invited as a Star Wars fan onto a Star Wars panel at Star Wars con. But like all Star Wars, as opposed to... I was about to say. Much, much less like hatred and resentment and antiques. That's a story from later. It's still kind of giddy making and bizarre and surreal that I'm here. So thank you very much for having me. Glad to give you the funnest thing you did all day. I feel like I will ask you, because Goga just suggested it. Christmas or Halloween, what kind of guy are you? Oh, fuck. I prefer Halloween films, but I prefer Christmas as a ceremony. That is an interesting... That I would... Well, I have often said I think Halloween has a superior media to Christmas. Yeah, I would rather watch Halloween stuff. Yeah, that's that's yeah. I enjoy Christmas as a holiday much more. But I do like just something about the Halloween movies and the spookiness that's... I'll allow it. It's better than all that Christmas cheer movies. I will allow it. You got the big important part. You managed to bridge Christmas and Halloween on something, I guess. Yeah, like I said, our Halloween foundestination arc is coming on. Foundestination is such a funny set of films. Like, if there were a Christmas vision of that, I would watch the fuck out of it still. Death is trying to kill everybody on Christmas, I guess. I don't know. Do it. He learned the error of his ways and comes good and gives people presents. That's how it works. Nice. That would be nice. But yeah, tell the chat, since they've had a very big dose of you, what else can they expect if they were to run over to your channel, hit the sub button and consume everything? Everything. Fuck. Well, the next thing is going to be what we've just discussed. So the next rings of power video. The last one was two hours long covering two episodes. This one is probably going to be over two hours just covering episode three. But there's a lot of film stuff going on. The thing was created to do a mix of politics and film. And eventually we'll start doing live streams again. It seems my friend sort of has time and decides he wants to exist again. But if you're interested in the film stuff, it's like mini-mortar, I guess, in that it's nowhere near as long or meticulous. But it's something like more digestible. You've got plenty of your own great shit going on, dude. You don't need to worry about the idea of a mini-mortar. I do my own crazy nonsense. Okay, you're going to dig yourself out a nice corner of the internet. I was trying to finish your video. Which is funny for me, it's rare that I get to say, I had to watch your video in pieces because it's forever old. It's like, oh my god, I'm one of my viewers now. Oh, that was such an arse to get online as well. But yeah, there's lots of film stuff. So the next stuff is going to be probably rings of power. I'm going to try and get an Andor review up, hopefully in the next few days as well. But time permitting. Otherwise, I think I'm seeing you again more on the drinker stream tomorrow. So I'll be there. You know what the topic is. Is it Andor? I think he said Andor and She-Hulk. He's a Christ. House of the Dragon. Wait, Andor and She-Hulk. And I've caught up on... He needs to fucking decide. My point, I was just going to say, I got to sleep though, because that stream will start in exactly, well, 13, 14, is that 15 hours? So I've got to sleep and I've got to see four episodes of TV. I've got to be leaving for the office in 90 minutes, and I've still got to watch all the TV. So I have no sympathy at all. Hey, you can sleep at the office, right? That's two beds, one stone, beautiful. Well, hey, I super appreciate you sacrificing hard quarter to stay on this show then, man. Thank you very much. Again, this has been fantastic. Thank you both very much. Thank you for having me, but also thank you for like, yeah, years worth of entertainment. It's been great fun. Oh, you're welcome. I appreciate you letting us know. We always like it when people enjoy our shit. Obviously, it's funny. We've had guests in the past to be like, you know, I could do an hour. And it's like, okay, that's fine. That's an hour. And then we're done with the intro of the show. And they're like, okay, bye. It's like, yeah, it's great. Bye. Yeah, link is in the description for you a little platoon's channel. Like I said, I can personally approve and I'm going to keep an eye on your little rings breaks down. Do they break downs? Because yeah, this I envision that even our coverage is going to get longer and longer. The more these episodes go on, hopefully it won't be fucking 12 hours every time. But hey, you know, you never know. Maybe it is. Strap in. We have no clue how terrible these things are going to be. I'm just going to block off 24 hours for the next one, just to be sure. Oh, yeah. No. Both will. Well, someone said, is this the longest one other than an anniversary? And I was like, no, we did actually used to do a lot of 1145 streams. Yeah, we cut that shit out. We stopped because it was ridiculous. We chilled. We were not like the last row. Fucking annoying, Rags. We just did a level 45. And now none of it was super check actually. So we just got another whole bulk added to our backlog. Pile it on, I say. Meanwhile, this Saturday, we got the stream destiny is coming on. And then the Wednesday after that, we've got Rakita log covering She-Hulk. And then that Saturday, it's going to be two rings of power episodes again. We may very well have you back. That'll be it. Anytime you want. It's, I think we're going to try to have disbrew as well. So this is where I mean, we got another, it's just all stacked. I don't know when we can fit in a time to do a super chat catch up at this point. And we're starting up the recordings for Halloween. Absolutely nuts. Andor is out. We've got to start doing them too. God. Oh my God. Yeah. Andor doesn't seem bad. And then you, when you pile it on top of everything else is like, fuck Andor. That little bit does feel that way. Well, we'll give it a shot. And hey, maybe it, you know what? Maybe it's so uneventful and so uninteresting. We just end up dropping it. Who knows? That would be, that'd be nice. I legit, on top of all that, I'm looking forward to seeing the next episodes of House of the Dragon. Like I, that's like the. I'm really glad that you have a show that you look forward to watching for non-meta reasons. I do too. It's nice. Yes. The plushies guys, 17 hours remaining. The last time you'll see it promoted. Please buy them now. If you want them, buy them now. Do not wait. You need to do it like seriously right now. You've, if you've fucking procrastinated. The time is red. This long, you will forget. This is the last, do it. This is the last day. Do it right now. Open up a tab and do it. The time of red is scary. It means that it's gonna come for you. The time is gonna come after you and kill you with a whole You'll re-list them though. No, no. Once, once these are done, they're done. This is these are different than last years. They do not come back. Once this is over, it's done. There's no way to get them. I've already bought mine. Y'all need to buy yours. It. Yeah, these are absolutely limited time. And the quality is the quality is good. You know, these look great. They shipped us good work. Yeah. Like I said, there won't be another promotion for these in the form of eFox. It'll be done by the time. Yep. Even by the time this re-uploads this episode. If, I don't actually know, maybe I'll try and re-upload this for tomorrow. I don't even have a little uploaded time to do that because it is tomorrow. It's fine. Don't worry about it. What else? Was there anything? Did you want to mention anything right? Is there anything you want to mention? I don't. No, I don't think so. Stuff's being prepped, but no. Okay. I don't have time for things. We are. I had no specific time set. Literally one minute away from the actual cap. That's crazy. Gosh, thank you all so much for keeping this company, for the kind donations, and of course, to our guest, the little platoon. I was going to say thanks to Fringy as well, but you know what? He hasn't been here for ages. He was only here for like eight and a half hours. That's not even close to how long this year was. What a short man. He's going to hate me for saying that. But yes, as I feel like I just mentioned, you've got all that on the way in the eFab world. This will go up as soon as I can get it up. I don't take that out of context. Thank you very much, all of you, for watching, and we will see you next time, folks. Yeah, that's right. And remember, there is a tempest in you. Yes. Okay, bye-bye. Bye. Goodbye.