First, let’s compare what is comparable: TV series. And I will only compare the two most recent ones, released at the same time: House of Dragons (GoT) and Rings of Power (LotR).
Let’s go !!!
Let’s talk a little about the Anals of Power! (no, no typos)
Since the broadcast of this series, England has achieved total energy independence. The mortal remains of JRR Tolkien were placed in a power plant and the agitation of their atoms caused a chain reaction. The British Government is trying to recover the ashes of Christopher Tolkien, in order to do the same and reach level I of the Kardashev scale.
I watched this series trying to be neutral, which is difficult, being a big reader of JRRT since the age of twelve when, at the bookstore located on Place de la Barre in Mâcon, I bought the complete from Lord of the Rings, after reading Bilbo at my college’s CDI.
Later, at 15, a friend lent me the Silmarillion, which I consider superior to LotR in terms of evocative power for me.
Besides, a little pleasure for those who know the Silmarillion (and the creation of the world, the Ainulindalë)
I hope that this pleased you.
Let me point out that although I love Tolkien, I am not as fanatical as some people. I objected a little to certain points in Jackson’s films, while finding that certain scenes were copied and pasted from my mind. In short, I like these films, while finding that Jackson made a few mistakes.
But back to this series.
Let’s point out one thing right away, which is not a good omen: the two showrunners come from Bad Robot, therefore from JarJar Abrams’ stable. You know, JJA, Hollywood’s official franchise and world destroyer! Want to poop a diamond, ask JJA! It’s a little scary to know that already. In addition, they are convinced Mormons and proselytes. So I have nothing against someone because they belong to a religion, but for some Mormons it’s more of a sect than anything else, and in terms of tolerance, open-mindedness, it’s a bit up to the subscribers absent.
That being said…
Already the positive point: it’s beautiful. No, clearly there is a budget in the sets, the costumes, the CGI.
There you go, I’ve dealt with the positive.
Well yeah…
Clearly, the writers did not reread The Silmarillion before writing the script. In fact, I wonder if they even read it. Of course, they didn’t have the rights to this book, but they didn’t have to throw it in the trash either. Lack of rights could be circumvented in an intelligent and coherent manner. But hey, since we’re talking about no one from the JJA stable, you shouldn’t expect intelligence and script coherence.
I will pass over the small errors (Sauron is NOT the master of the orcs, but that of the Werewolves; the elves did not follow Morgoth because he had destroyed the Trees, but because he stole the Silmarils from them , etc). The fact that Finrod Felagund, Galadriel’s brother, dies in a fight against Sauron bothers me more, because we are completely changing a character here.
Let’s talk about Galadriel. In the Silmarillion, at the time of the Series, she rules Eregion with her husband Celeborn. She is not a 2000 year old teenager (yes…) who is chasing her brother’s killer. Already, I was quite upset. They would have created a new character, a young elf killed during the wars of the First Age, why not? But here we are talking about Galadriel.
There I was starting to want to bang my head against a wall. Create a new story, why not? But why change the very nature of a character?! On the other hand, I won’t say anything about the actress, she tried to do what she could with what she was given. And with the insipid dialogues that we made him say.
“My brother dedicated his life to hunting down Sauron.” No, girl, your brother dedicated his life to creating Nargothrond, then fulfilling his oath to Barahir by protecting his son Beren. And he ended up eaten by Sauron’s werewolves.
Hey, let’s talk about the Dialogues…
“a boat floats better than a stone because it looks at the sky.” Yes, I swear, this sentence is pronounced by Finrod! There is a guy who thought it was smart to put this sentence somewhere other than in a children’s book with anthropomorphic boats!
Elrond Half-Elf then appears. He’s young, normal, he’s only 550 years old, after all. And he is played with his feet by an actor with oyster charisma who is great friends with Galadriel. MILF syndrome, maybe? And then it hit me: some elves arrive and tell him that he shouldn’t go to the council, because only “real” elven lords can go.
We’re talking about Elrond, girls!! The guy who is a direct descendant of Beren and Luthien, and therefore of Thingol and Melian. The guy has Maiar blood in his veins! In my opinion, there was no nobler person in Middle-earth at that time. Even Galadriel doesn’t have Maiar blood in her veins. His great grandmother was born BEFORE THE CREATION OF THE WORLD!!!
But no, have a little racism, obviously we don’t like bastards, huhuhu, elf laugh.
Here again, we create something that distorts Tolkien’s world, without really adding anything to the plot, since Elrond is subsequently everywhere.
Be careful, there is racism in Tolkien’s work: the elves were suspicious of the brown men of the eastern tribes, for example, but not because of their race, but because their leaders, Bor and Ulfang, had betrayed and had ranged themselves under the banner of Morgoth.
Hey, I’m still going to talk about the multi-ethnic casting. I generally get used to it. Only idiots worry about the color of the actors for an imaginary work.
But this is too artificial and remote-controlled. When other series change the ethnic origin of characters, without changing the character himself, only the racists scream. And I’m the first to stick my nose in their poop.
But here, even I, the SJW Woke Islamo Leftist, am forced to recognize that no, this is too much.
I am copying here the remark made to me by a very close friend:
the presence of distinct ethnic groups, with marked physical characteristics, in isolated and pre-industrial humanoid groups can a priori only have three explanations:
- communitarianism (distinct ethnic groups choose to reproduce only among themselves),
- segregation (the previous choice is not one, but is imposed by the culture of the group/society)
- an exogenous contribution, for example possibly population exchanges with other ethnic groups from which these individuals come. And for the latter, there are two possibilities not necessarily distinct or opposed (again, for isolated pre-industrial groups): marriage, and slavery/capture.
And in both cases, segregation or communitarianism in these so-called external groups must also be considered.
Show the richness of the cultures of Harad or beyond Rhûn, how they willingly or by force underwent their enslavement to Angband and how they lived afterwards, how they (particularly in Harad) exchanged with the Numenoreans, *that* could have been a beautiful and rich opportunity to celebrate diversity, cultural variety and to highlight or condemn beautiful things and bad things.
Because racism is mentioned and in its own way criticized in Tolkien. Whether towards the Three Houses, in the First Age, from those who (again, willingly or unwillingly) served the Enemy. Or on the part of the Numenoreans, including in Gondor in the Third Age, towards Lesser Men.
But no.
Instead, we have WTF, we have zobbites with, excuse me for saying that, once again the trope of the “good black” among the Nabots or the pointy ears
And we have anti-half-elf racism (elrond-elrond-petit-patapon) or anti-zears (arondondidoudir).
And that, my guys (used in the neutral), is racism. Real racism under the guise of progressivism.
Yeah, we think with my loved ones, beyond “there are black people, it’s not normal.” Because we, for example, Black Death in Sandman, we don’t care, because it doesn’t change the character, while remaining consistent with the world.
Feminism, showing a strong female character, is not just putting a sword in the hands of a woman, making her a dark and tortured character who behaves like a man. Diversity is not about putting the “black on duty” from the 50s and doing racial change. We also need to think about the characters. This reflection took place in a lot of series where the characters were changed: Sandman, Paper Girls, GoT, and even the Trojan War where Zeus and Achilles are played by black people. In all of these examples, the essence of the character was not changed.
The essence of a character is not their skin color. It’s understanding the source material, and adapting it to the moment.
Here, we clearly have the service black, the Mary Sue, in short tropes which, under the guise of inclusiveness, remain in the usual boxes.
But back to the series.
And let’s talk about the ridiculous scenes.
- The fight against the troll, for example. Galadriel runs on another’s sword, jumps on the troll and kills him.
First thing: there is no way the elves could have drawn their swords. Not with the way they carried them, namely on their backs. This trope of the sword on your back is a joke: it’s classy, it’s cool, except that if you don’t have a two-meter arm, you can’t draw it. So here we have a series that didn’t even ask for the advice of a weapons master for the choreography of its fights. But hey, the Ouitcheur does the same.
- The return to the West
So the guys, during the entire trip, they stay in full armor, sword on the ground, without moving? And without a sailor either, for that matter. Damn, even the Vingilot (Elrond’s father’s ship) had sailors. And he was flying, the guy!
Ah yes, the Nelwyns, not hobbits. Look at LotR, then look at Willow. Now the hairy feet of the series are closer to who? So let’s call the Nelwyns, if you like.
But hey, we could forget this collective rape of Tolkien’s work, if the plot or the dialogues still followed the road. Or if the actors were good.
But no… The dialogues bring together all the possible clichés of the genre. All the empty phrases you hear in movies where people explain things. Finrod explaining life to Galadriel is a perfect example.
The actors, I only see three who come out of the gloubiboulgesque magma of the casting: Galadriel, whose actress believes in what she does (but who is unfortunately served by the soup she has to say), Nori the Nelwyn , and Bronwyn, the woman who accompanies Black Elf. But this latest actress is good at everything she does.
The others are a disaster: the actor who plays Gil-Galad has a falsely bombastic voice in the original version which would come across creamy in the theater, but on TV it’s atrocious. Imagine someone spouting platitudes while still having the tone to declaim Shakespeare (like the Saint Crispin speech, or Cesar’s “honorable men”). Black Elf looks like he has a broom stuck in his rectum (plus I feel the cliché of the Elf attracted to the human coming)
The plot is hollow, let’s say it. I felt like I wasted an hour of my life.
Clearly, the money went into the sets, costumes and CGI, but not into the script or the actors.
In short, I didn’t like it.
Now House of Dragons
I started watching this series with a bit of apprehension. I hadn’t watched GoT beyond the 2nd season. I realized that I preferred reading the books, rather than seeing the changes made in the series. Considering the reactions to the last episode of the last season, I think I did well.
In short, here we are in another paradigm: the book exists, but it is a historical chronicle written by a Master for the edification of readers. So we have no dialogue, no detailed story. This left the writers of the series a certain latitude in the “short story”.
So let’s go into my impressions, then I’ll talk a little about the good use of diversity and what to do or not to do.
Already, the production is impeccable. There is nothing to throw away in the realization.
Then the dialogues are also realistic and they do not descend into ridicule. I come back to this sentence from another Fantasy series: “Do you know why a ship float and a stone cannot?” Well there is no sentence of such an abysmal level of stupidity in this series. The dialogues are well laid out, realistic, not trying to write poetry about death just to make people believe that they have read a book.
Consider this sentence: “For men marriage might be a political arrangement. For women it is like a death sentence.”
Rather than a ridiculous allegory between a stone and a boat, here we have a sentence which touches on the reality of princely marriages (remember that, historically, half of the women of high nobility died in childbirth due to successive pregnancies… And no , the women of the people died much less in childbirth than them, because the pregnancies were less closely spaced… and less consanguineous) .
No allegory: the simple and cruel reality of the lives of women in royal families. Effective.
The writers managed to make a story, and make it interesting, while the readers of “Blood and Fire” already know the conclusion, already know who will die, who will survive, and who will sit on the Throne of Iron at the end of the Dance of Dragons.
It is a strength on the part of the screenwriters to have been able to create dialogues, relationships, intrigues, between the interstices of what is in the book. We know the ending, but we want to see how they get there. It’s a bit like Colombo: we know who the murderer is but we want to see how the inspector manages to unmask him. There, we know who is going to die, but we want to see how the series will make the moment powerful and interesting.
The actors are good. But really. Matt Smith once again showed me that he’s not just a Raggedy Man with a bow tie or a fez. He’s a real actor. His Daemon is dark, resentful, and he has the madness of the Targaryens buried within him. I was impressed by two actors in particular:
- Paddy Constantine, who plays King Viserys II Targaryen. Georges RR Martin praised his performance, saying that he was even better than the Viserys he had imagined. And the scene of his ascension to the throne is splendid, with a depth that all the CGI in the world cannot replace.
- Eve Best as Rhaenys Targaryen. At first I didn’t pay too much attention to her, but for a few episodes, I find that she is the one who fills the screen when she is present. And that final scene in episode 9, raaah.
And the other actors are good too: Milly Alcock (Rhaenyra Jeune) is perfect, as is the one (no, that’s not a typo, deal with it) who replaces her, Emma d’Arcy. However, I found it regrettable that certain characters did not seem to age, like Daemon Targaryen or Otto Hightower. In this regard, Rhys Ifans, the actor who plays him, is also perfect.
In short, we have a high quality series here, and this is seen in the ratings given both on imdb (8.6) and on Rotten Tomatoes (85%/84%). When we compare to the other fantasy series released at the same time, it’s total domination. (6.9; 85/39%).
Now we digress, and we talk about diversity. This will be a long digression on the series.
As a preamble, I will say that diversity is necessary to reflect the reality of our Western societies. If you don’t agree with this idea, I can’t do anything for you. Our societies, and US society in particular, are multiracial, and having it appear in a TV series is, if not important, at least a certain common sense.
Today, we can no longer make series in which only heterosexual white people appear, unless they take place in a given historical period.
But to ensure that this diversity is accepted, it must be done well. Diversity doesn’t just mean putting black people or gay people at random and presto! They also need to fit into the world they are supposed to be in.
But for a big company like this, it has another interest: to show off (“look at how progressive I am”) and defend yourself (“if you don’t like our show, it’s because you’re racist!”).
Except that when diversity is well done, well brought about, yes it is only the racists who scream. So we don’t care about their opinion.
We have two ways of doing things: putting racialized people as we feel without any coherence but putting them forward in communication, or ensuring that there is coherence in the world, and not making them into tons because the diversity present in everyday life does not need to be highlighted in a series. It must be, but we don’t promote it.
In the first case, a lot of people will scream, and not just racists, and in the second case only the racists will… And as I already said, the opinion of the racists is insignificant.
By racist, you will have understood that I am talking about those who shout about “wokism” as soon as we put an actor of color or a gay character, without trying to go further. Like those who yelled at Sandman for being too “woke” even though it was the basis of the 1988 comics. But hey… Knowing how to read isn’t given to everyone.
Let’s return to HoD and Ring of Power, because here we have the very example of both ways of doing things.
In RoP, we have people of color in the middle of nowhere: Grandpa Harfoot, an isolated elf, a dwarf… It’s illogical. Where are the others ? Where are their people? Their brothers and sisters? In addition, it is these people, the dwarf in particular, who were highlighted in the advance announcements. It was obvious that this was going to get people screaming, and so Amazon said “if you don’t like the show, it’s because it’s racist.” Except no. The series is bad without it. But one can comment on the incongruity of an isolated black dwarf, an isolated black harfoot, an isolated dark elf.
If Amazon had wanted to add diversity while maintaining consistency in their mediocre series, they could have played on the Haradrims, described as having dark skin by Tolkien. However, the character Haradrim is played by a white man (and I haven’t heard the racists yelling on the subject, by the way.) It would have been intelligent, it would have brought an interesting diversity to the series, it would have been relevant to the coherence of the world.
Conversely, in the promotional images for House of Dragon there was no highlighting of black characters.
The idea of having made House Velaryon, which has links with Pentos, with ancient Valyria, with places where we know there are black people, a house whose members are black, it is a great idea. It’s logical, it’s in line with the cohesion of the world, with “World Building”. And as we do not know in the books the name of Corlys II Velaryon’s mother, nothing prevents her from being from a part of Essos populated by blacks, married by Corlys’ father (whom we don’t know either) during one of his trips.
Amazon would have put a black Lannister, an Asian Stark, would have put these secondary characters in the lead, then with a falsely outraged air would have cried racism. This is not “wokism”. This is manipulation into which the racists have plunged like mindless lemmings, and which prohibits any criticism of this poorly done series.
HBO has always tried to find realism and coherence in its historical or fantasy series. We will not see historical figures who do not correspond to the color they had, unless the subject is treated in a humorous manner (in which case satirical license allows it). This earned them criticism during the broadcast of Game of Throne, unjustified criticism for the parts of the plot taking place in Westeros, but partly justified when they took place in Essos. But this was consistent with “world building”
This is not the case for other companies who prefer to “sell” their so-called progressivism to make money. If you think this is “wokism”, then you don’t understand what “woke” means. And therefore your opinion is of little relevance. (yes, that’s a lot of people whose opinions I don’t care about, actually).
So what did HBO do in HoD? She made sure to add diversity (black and gay) where possible. A gay character is already present in the book, so no worries. And what better way to put black people than to link them to a house known for its distant travels?
House Velaryon is therefore black. The children of the Sea Snake and the Queen Who Never Was are mixed race; their children’s children (except the bastards) are also mixed race. It’s coherent, it’s explainable in the history of the world, it’s well done. They didn’t care about genetics like in RoP.
We have two examples here: some who “force” diversity because it has to be there even though they don’t believe in it any more; others who integrate it harmoniously into a series, in an intelligent and coherent way. I’m not saying they believe in it anymore, but at least they’re trying to make it coherent.
In the first case, even the “woke” people shout because it is counterproductive. This creates an immediate feeling of rejection, like when someone tries to force you to swallow a pill. In the second case, only racists, admitted or not, do it, because there are no real objective reasons in relation to the world created by Georges RR Martin.
It’s like a few years ago: Troy Fall of a City. Black Zeus, why not? The guy transforms into a swan, a bull, to dip his biscuit. He can look whatever he wants, so if he wants to appear as a black man, why not? There is consistency. But Black Achilles? There it was incoherent, since we are talking about a myrmidon, a white people.
In short, House of Dragon is a pure success, both in terms of production, scenario, dialogue and intelligence on the part of the designers.
And frankly, I can’t wait to see the second season, where the Dance will finally begin.