My whole reason for enjoying assassin's Creed is because I like history to the point that I wanted more representation of less culturally popular eras.... Crusades era Mideast the Italian Renaissance, the American Revolution all have lots of serious representation, AC gave us the chance to enjoy that history in a more…

Wondering if HEXE could be Northern European/Baltic based. Plenty of history in that part of the world that would rekindle the first game’s focus on Crusade zealotry and mostly unexplored in gaming and wider pop-culture.

True, Japan when America was pushing to modernize japan and the Satsuma rebellion happened would make a good setting. Templars come over with the Americans, the assassins fight with/for Satsuma, etc.

I get that the point was to contrast her with Halbrand who can be diplomatic and likeable even when clearly angry (speaking fair but feeling foul, maybe?). But I’d expect someone who’s been alive since the literal dawn of time to have a little more self-control 

Halbrand’s story will probably a Boromir story. He is probably one of the kings of men who gets tempted by the power of the rings and becomes a Nazgul. There’s nine of those guys and we barely know anything about them.

Well that was decades of imagining Numenor completely exceeded by a production team that clearly spent as long wishing for it. Absolutely thrilling. And they’re using at least some natural landscapes for it. Production photos show the beach scenes are on location and really look like that (if a bit color enhanced.)

Were they using the Straight Road? If that term was used, I must have missed it. Prior to the fall of Numenor elves could just sail back to Valinor and be accepted, which is I thought they were depicting. Though they obviously changed it up in the sense that Galadriel got that close and jumped into the sea rather than…

I doubt Halbrand is being set up to be Sauron. He’s a king remember. Him and eight other guys are about to receive some pretty impressive designer jewellery.

“Somehow every man she talks with gets pegged as her love interest against all evidence.”

It’s for budget/quality reasons. They have a certain budget, and they can use that to make 22-25 really cheap episodes, or 8-10 higher quality ones. Lost was a fairly high budget show by the standards of the time, but it also didn’t require a lot in the way of sets, costumes, or special effects (though those did come…

I mean, I don’t find this particularly “Disney-esque,” but I do think they had to keep things somewhat conventional. Unfortunately, you probably can’t spend billions on a show that experimental. 

Her attitude was baffling to me, too. But anytime a character— especially one meeting with strangers— leads with negativity and hostility, I’m always confused. Like, haven’t they heard the saying, “catch more flies with honey?” lol. It just didn’t track with what she’d just gone through. Saved from the open seas,…

The Gray Havens are not to the west of Middle-earth. They are a harbor  city within Lindon, also called Mithlond. 

The people who built Gondor are descendants of the people of Numenor, who had a serious hard-on for boats and the sea (as well depicted in this week’s episode). In the books, this is how Minas Tirith is described:

The timeline is sped up. Which makes practical sense, I guess. If you want the human characters to be consistent over several seasons, you have to speed up and squish the timeline. Since the canon version is defined by the lifespans of deathless elves.

The Dwarves seem like they’ll be more important further down the line, so this season might just be getting us generally acquainted with them.

Aesthetics intended to evoke a vast ship, I assume. Makes sense since Numenor is a nautical culture and Gondor is made up of Numenorians descendants. 

I found myself rather liking how the design of Numenor clearly takes a lot of inspiration from ancient Mediterranean civilizations. It feels perfectly appropriate considering it’s sort of the Tolkien version of Atlantis.

Well if Halbrand isn’t Sauron, he and Theo (they may be relative) definitely going to turn into Nazgul.

There’s little expected to be accurate in this film, it’s a joke biopic.