The Rings of Power was a real treat and I'm a fan of hot and thirsty Sauron.

I feel like I'm in the minority based upon online conversations regarding The Rings of Power. But my close friends who watched it with me had as much fun with it by the end as I did. There was some small validation in knowing that we were right about Halbrand being Sauron, although the mystery of who that "other wizard" is, and for that matter who those three white-robed ascetics were who came for him thinking he was Sauron, is another matter. I had previously thought that the kind of power they wielded was reserved for other Istari or "Maia." They most certainly were not at that level, and I got the impression that they'd fought with Gandalf's kind before.

As for the one they referred to as an "Istar," most people think that the "follow your nose" comment means it was Gandalf. If so, I'm okay with that. But other online people who don't outright hate the show think he may be one of the blue wizards whom we know nothing of other than their names in notes from Tolkien: Alatar and Pallando. I think it unlikely that we would get any kind of story about those two, because their names don't appear in The Lord of the Rings or in The Hobbit to my knowledge. And since Amazon has the rights to the footnotes and endnotes of The Return of the King and the names aren't there, it may be that we can't get stories of them for that simple reason. It's also why Gandalf in the movies says of the two blue wizards, "I've quite forgotten their names." They didn't have the rights to them, so they can't say them on screen. It seems like a slight "missed opportunity" when it comes to storytelling. However, I can forgive them given that Sauron makes me thirsty. I think they were like, "Yeah...Sauron needs to be prettier than Aragorn was in those Jackson films." Mission accomplished. Hot Sauron it is.

One thing I learned about yesterday that I thought was impressive is that this show can't get canceled. Apparently, the Tolkien estate insisted as a part of the rights being turned over to Amazon that the show have a run of five seasons consisting of eight episodes each. That makes me happy, because I know I will get an end to this story, or at least one that meshes with the stuff of which I'm way more familiar. As for Galadriel and (almost-certainly-Gandalf), there will be a lack of tension in those two stories. They will spend the next four seasons walking around with invincible plot armor. And unfortunately, almost-certainly-Gandalf will have every nanosecond of his performance compared to Ian McKellan's.

I do have questions though, and they may go unanswered. One big one is: what the hell was Sauron doing in the ocean with those people, in the very first episode? There's no way he could have actually been looking for Galadriel, could he have? It seems like such a huge event to occur out of complete happenstance. I mean...a massive ocean and the one wayward Maia is able to find the one elf who decides at the last minute that she doesn't want to go to Valinor? Right place, right time? Those are some astronomical odds, and "Fate" just isn't enough to explain it. So, I'm thinking, maybe the others on the boat were more of the devoted "Ascetics" and they were trying to help Sauron sneak into Valinor and subvert the Ban of the Valar somehow? Or maybe Sauron was on his way to repent before the Valar, but Galadriel came along and changed his mind and plans?

Another question I have is that almost-certainly-Gandalf uses a lot of power without the need of a staff. And once he gets a staff from one of the Ascetics, he then becomes unbeatable. I'm just wondering why he was able to use the powers that he did before he got his staff, because I remember something about wizards being quite diminished without their staves.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to season two. Anyone else in that boat?

Here are all the thoughts I have about Rings of Power that must be said.

This last Friday, we were treated to a pretty spectacular episode of Rings of Power. The title of the episode was called Udûn, and from what I understand, in the Elvish Sindarin it means "dark pit" or "hell." Additionally, it is a valley of Mordor thought to have been formed by volcanic activity. Okay then.

In the events of episode 6, we saw (essentially) the formation of Mordor. I wasn't expecting this, but it was a real treat. I had just assumed that Mordor was always a choking ash-filled place of death. I never thought that it would have been green and lush with livestock around and people living there. I just didn't. And suddenly, I have so many questions and thoughts about what is going on in Rings of Power.

Using the magical handle of a broken sword, one of the humans (Waldreg) who swore allegiance to Adar (an elf that claims he killed Sauron, but obviously serves Sauron) in the last episode grabbed the handle and used it to "unlock" whatever it is that it was supposed to unlock. It turns out that it started a series of events that had been built (presumably) by Sauron. All of this is so damned unclear. But who else could engineer something like that? Here's what happened.

A dam that trapped a lot of water was released, the water flowed through tunnels dug by the orcs (so this was purposeful and maybe they got the message that these tunnels are essential for them to have a home), and it all emptied into the heart of a volcano which forced an eruption. I can only assume at this point, that this volcano is Mount Doom. And its eruption must create Mordor, which is a safe place for the orcs to live. They burn in the sunlight, and they really don't like green things at all. Smoke and ash and apocalyptic landscapes are kinda where they do their best thriving. And this suddenly made me understand that the orcs just wanted a place to live, and Sauron gave it to them.

So suddenly, I'm like...wait...the orcs just wanted a home? Am I becoming sympathetic to these blackened, slimy, crusty, ugly, and evil creatures? I mean...if I was an orc, I'd want a place where I could live and have baby orcs. I'm so confused now. Rings of Power is inserting all of these thoughts into my head that just weren't there before about this Tolkien property. But I seem to recall that Tolkien (somewhere) wrote that the orcs weren't inherently evil creatures. I just never assumed that this meant anything of real note here as it is a subtle thing to assume about orcs in Tolkien's Middle Earth. Like...what does that mean exactly? It turns out, it means a lot.

Here's another thought: I think Halbrand is Sauron, and Adar killed him like Gandalf got killed, but now he's back because some of the Maiar do that thing where they come back (sometimes more powerful). I also think that Halbrand/Sauron might have kinda wanted to go straight and just live as a Numenorian smith for a while, but Galadriel fucked that up. So suddenly I'm seeing that Sauron might not have been all bad (read this as he had good within him), and Galadriel has evil in her in that she's directly responsible for returning Sauron to Middle Earth (because she has a clear obsession with him). Additionally, there are such things as orcs who don't want to serve evil at least in the form of Sauron, but other kinds of evil. Maybe. Honestly, my mind has really been opened a lot by Amazon's take on this.

But someone might ask, why would Sauron be content with being a smith? I do remember something from The Silmarillion which described Sauron humbling himself and showing true repentance to Eonwe, the herald of the Valar, after Morgoth's defeat. Sauron was told that he would have to travel back to Valinor to beg forgiveness from the Valar directly, and then do many years of penance. Would you want to do that? Me neither. So suddenly, Sauron seems more humanized when I recall this tidbit of information. So Sauron, just like what we'd do, hides away until the Valar had all left Middle-Earth. So this is essentially what he's doing now, and killing time as a Numenorian smith seemed like something that wasn't "unreasonable" for Sauron to do.

And then there's the stuff about Sauron being in the North, and about trying to find some dark magic that eluded even him. I think this "dark magic" thing is probably Mount Doom. He needed to get that volcano going, and Mordor transformed so that he could use it to forge the One Ring. There's something special about Mount Doom. Maybe its fires burn hotter or there's some magical concentration of something that we don't know about yet that is crucial to him being able to forge the One Ring there. I need Amazon to tie the threads together for me on this, and relate it back to Celebrimbor and the super forge being constructed which will obviously be producing the other rings. 

Anyway, as you can see a lot of thoughts got started because of this last episode. I'm looking forward to more, and season 2 is already filming. What a treat we have all been served. Anyone else have any thoughts?

As far as I'm concerned the Rings of Power has come into its own.

This last episode really sealed the deal for me. The Rings of Power has not been a fast burner, at least as putting together a cohesive plot has gone. But the individual threads that have storylines in 1) the people of the south lands, 2) the harfoots (an ancestor of the hobbits I think), 3) the dwarves of Moria, and 4) the elves trying to stamp out the last vestiges of Morgoth are at last becoming entertaining to me (spoiler alert: they fail at doing this).

I just needed to switch my focus from trying to force a story out of this thing, to realizing that what I was witnessing was a "slice of life" tale that peeks in on all those living in a significant portion of an age of Middle Earth. This series is a chronicle of those lives that influenced the great ones that have most been visited upon in Tolkien adaptations and in the Tolkien books of which we are familiar. It isn't here to give us another Frodo or Elrond. It's here to give us the reason as to why there is such biting emnity between elves and dwarves (just one example). It's here to explain why Gimli says, "Never trust an elf" in his casual off-handed racism. There's a story behind why this happened.

So, I needed to let go of "What is the purpose of this character?" and embrace the idea that "this character is one that did a thing in Middle Earth, and it was important enough to warrant a footnote" in The Return of the King. But in order for me to like that character, I need to watch them eat, train, and interact with other characters. So there's a lot of the boring minutiae of life interspliced with these "events" that happen, which are significant for the characters.

Events like: 1) Is Sauron returning, and 2) what does he look like, and 3) yes the dwarves eventually release the Balrog, but...before that happened...what did their homes look like and was Durin a nice guy? These are all things that we get to see, and I actually love it all. The series is there to build the world, and in all of that world-building there are few plot-based stories and more "slice-of-life" stories that allow us to sympathize with these characters that (honestly) are not fleshed out enough by Tolkien to even be interesting outside of "facts about Middle-Earth."

Amazon is also being pretty daring with their series, which is angering some people who may not have wanted that daringness (I am not one). These are the same people who really could have cared less about what Durin looked like or even what his wife looked like or if she had a nice voice or cooked a tasty dinner. All that they were interested in was that the Balrog in Moria was called "Durin's Bane." That's where their interest began and ended.

It was also enough for these people that mithril was this legendary metal that only the dwarves had, and it was as light as silk and stronger than steel. It didn't need to have an origin. But Amazon is deciding to give us an origin. It's choosing to say that the light from one of the lost Silmarils went into a tree and that it penetrated the earth through its roots, and this may be where mithril gets its precious light from.

Okay...I have no problem with that, and it's actually kind of cool. Whatever. I also like that Amazon is explaining how important light is to the elves. In Rings of Power, physical light is so important that it actually sustains their immortality. I didn't realize this, and it's probably a thing that Amazon made up, but I don't care. It actually makes more sense in all the things I've read and seen because light is always the magical thing that gets rid of evil. It makes it seem more mystical rather than Gandalf just needing to turn on a lightbulb to drive a swarm of Nazgul away.

I also love the scenery and the music. Amazon got its money's worth on this series, and I hope that there is a season two. It's absolutely stunning in its beauty, and I don't mind that I'm actually walking side by side with these characters just going through the motions of their lives as opposed to being focused down on a singular quest: to throw the one ring into Mount Doom to destroy Sauron forever! I'm glad I gave this show the time it needed to unfold what it wanted to say about the magic rings. It turns out that there were a lot of puzzle pieces that needed to come together in order to get these things forged. It just took me longer than I expected to understand this about the series, and with my expectations properly adjusted, I'm finding it pretty hard to wait for the next episode to drop.

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a $400 million dollar story made from footnotes and appendices.

Today I learned that The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power does not have the rights to The Silmarillion. I was like...what in the hell? I guess the rights to Tolkien's properties are complicated. What they do have are the rights to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, all of its appendices that go with it, as well as The Hobbit. So, the appendices cover a good amount of the Second Age. Additionally, I guess the showrunners were allowed to ask to use certain elements from the other books (or to get permission) if even one name was (for example) mentioned in the appendices. In other words, if a person, a place, or an event is referenced in the Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit in any way that they were allowed to use all of the connecting details that appear in The Silmarillion. However, they couldn't use anything that appears solely in The Silmarillion.

This is a really weird way to spend $400 million dollars (the cost of the first season). I'm a little in awe that someone would greenlight a show adaptation from what are essentially scraps and footnotes, when there are entire novels out there written by other fantasy authors that are relatively cheap (in comparison) to get. I understand that The Lord of the Rings has name recognition. However, there are a lot of fantasy stories out there that are just as good if not better in their overall story.

All that being said, there are additional considerations that I would have had if it was my $400 million being invested in this thing. For example, I've noticed online that this series (it isn't even out yet) has become something of a lightning rod for folks who are mad because there are strong women and non-white people being represented. This means that the series will start with a lot of bad will (assume that half of the United States is basically racist). Even if the series is good, it runs the risk that this "bad will" could spread online and infect even non-racists and non-sexists. To simplify, if the series ends up not being all that great of a story because it is drawn from appendices and footnotes, there will be huge arguments that state (wrongly I might add) that the show exists to showcase diversity and that therefore the problem is diversity.

We live in interesting times, folks. I am looking forward to The Rings of Power. It's going to be here soon.

The Copycats Of Fiction Have No Shame And Make Millions

When Terry Brooks published The Sword of Shannara, I was one of the first kids to dive straight into it.  And even at that early age (I was in junior high school at the time) I remember being shocked at how much it followed Tolkien's Lord of the Rings point-by-point. In LOTR you had the nine ringwraiths...in Brooks you had the nine skullbearers, in LOTR you had Sauron, in Brooks you had the Warlock Lord, and it goes on and on.  The King of the Silver River is Elrond, the Hall of Kings is Moria complete with monster at the gate, and the druids are simply the Istari wizards.  The Druids Keep is Isengard and Allanon is Gandalf, etc.  You even have two hobbits...only they aren't called hobbits but they are from Shady Vale...a place a lot like Hobbiton. And their names are Flint and Shea instead of Frodo and Sam.  Anyway...this is a well documented thing...the fact that a New York Times bestselling author blatantly stole from the grandfather of all epic fantasy and in the end...no one gave a shit.  And to Brooks' credit, it didn't stop me from reading his books. I was hungry for fantasy at the time so I bought all the Shannara books as they came out and they steadily got better and better (and more original).  I thought Elfstones of Shannara was awesome so yeah...he forged himself a great writing career. However, just out of the gate (so to speak) I thought things were so shameless with his first book that I would have been downright embarrassed had anyone called me on it.

Anyway, this is happening again in a book I'm reading.  What book you ask?  It's Amanda Hocking's Trylle trilogy and the first book is called Switched. Don't get me wrong...Amanda is a wonderful writer.  I enjoy her prose but the woman doesn't have a story. No, she has Stephanie Meyer's story.  Things started smacking me over the head about Chapter Six.  Let me see if you can pick what book she is following point-by-point as I lay them out for you.

These two books are essentially the same story. Only names have
been changed.  

We are introduced to the female protagonist named Wendy.  She considers herself unattractive, her hair is awful, and she has no friends.  She's the new girl in a high school in a small town and awkward as hell.  One day, a gorgeous boy starts staring at her and continues to do so until it makes her so uncomfortable she can't stand it.  When she asks him about it...he is evasive...won't give her a straight answer.  Only later on does she discover that he's a Trylle...the word for troll...and that he has essentially super powers.  And he's very long-lived.  Oh and he visits her in her bedroom at night...does this scene sound familiar?

One night outside her home, her life is threatened.  Not with a careening car but setup almost the same.  Two people attack her and "Finn" the hot dude saves her all by himself (pushing the bad people away). Then he takes her to his home which is absolutely gorgeous to meet his family of other trolls who are Gucci and Prada wearing, sushi-eating, upper class snobs.  I mean super rich. Like millionaire rich (high society). And it's secluded in the woods (think evergreen forests) with a view of the Mississippi River... Instead of a black Volvo we have a black Porsche.  She also finds out that there's something inherent in her that makes Finn stare at her. He can smell her.  It's her hair (not blood) and it's irresistible to other Trylle.

That's all the farther I've gotten...but does that sound familiar to you?  Does that point-by-point sound like a certain highly successful New York Times bestseller?

I know that some of you writers out there always say, "There are no original ideas." But COME ON! for Pete's sake!?

I mean, is there any shame to this?  Here...let me give you an example of what I mean...

Hey author friends! Here's my AMAZING plot for my story...OMG...IT'S SO GOOD AND I WILL MAKE MILLIONS. I even have cover art for it already made...check it out:

Dude from a future where mankind is pushed to extinction by machines escapes through a portal into the past.  He's on a mission to save a woman targeted by the machines of the future.  He has to stop a killer robot only, along the way, he falls in love with the woman and they have sex and she gets pregnant.  Here's the hitch...her baby will someday be this guy's father.

Holy shit!  Isn't that great?!  I iz so smart this is sure to be a bestseller and you all will be jealous while I'm making millions.

Anyway...what do you guys think? Amanda's books are huge bestsellers (maybe not as big as Twilight) but they've made her rich.  Terry Brooks is a rich fat cat too and he blatantly copied Tolkien.  I'm wondering why someone isn't blatantly copying J.K. Rowling.  I mean you could do it and self-pub and probably catch a portion of the same audience that J.K. has.  Even at 1% that's 4 million people that are going to buy your books.  How would you like to sell 4 million books?

Oh ummm...here's my story...there's this paranormal school that teaches wizards ghosts, vamps, werewolf kids how to properly use their powers.  Each one has a wand fetish like a silver bullet or locket that they channel their magic through.  There are professors in the school.  One paranormal boy named Charles Hatter is the only kid that survived when dark wizards ghosts, vamps, and werewolves led by Voldemort a real powerful dude attacked the family and left a mark on his forehead eyes (his eyes have flickering lightning bolts in the irises).

And to any of you that would say "You can get sued for this kind of copycat behavior"...I don't think that you can. Maybe Mr. Pagel can weigh in on this because he's a lawyer. But I'm pretty sure that ideas cannot be copyrighted...meaning a general idea...like a plot.

Anyway...authors that do this have no shame.  I'm actually kind of disgusted.  But they are richer than me and have huge publishing contracts so does what I think really matter? Nope.

How the hell did publishing get to be so terrible? Is it money? Are people so hard up to make a buck that they clone what other writers come up with and pass it off as their own story?  Does it ever occur to people that if they are just blatantly going to steal a novel point-for-point, chapter-by-chapter and just change names and setting that...I dunno...maybe the world doesn't need another book like this?  I guess I'm old school.  Writing isn't just about writing for me. It's storytelling. And please don't tell me a story I've already heard. I don't want to read George R.R. Martin's story as told by John Doe with all the names changed and have to put up with all the praise you get lauded because the idiots out there who read books aren't well read enough to know that a story is a ripoff.