Arondir is pretty much my favorite character. He’s an absolutely brilliant hero and so well-played. Racist incels can suck on it. 

I don’t really understand the Galadriel hate, either. I mean, I don’t especially care about her character and wouldn’t have minded if she didn’t feature in the series, but her portrayal here seems more or less on point with what one might expect of an ancient immortal who was born the granddaughter of two of the three…

Is Pharazon “main cast”? Because that actor has him down to a T, he’s in line with my pre-existing image of him to an extent I haven’t seen since Lee’s Saruman.  

Arondir is the best part of the main cast and not by a small margin.  ICC is absolutely killing it.  I will entertain arguments for Isildur, but I said what I said. 

I’ve only heard second-hand accounts. I filter that shit out.

The very things that are making all the uber-nerds pull their hair out are making this show work.

Yep, I wasn’t buying it at first (I figured Sauron was gonna show up first as Annatar), but after last night’s episode, it’s putting a lot of hints in that corner - he’s a master blacksmith, appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the ocean, and then the “Do you remember me?” line, that didn’t mean much until Adar…

It’s a triumph of adaptation. We all know what’s going to happen, yet they made it episodic and compelling, while compressing thousands of years of history into a coherent narrative.

“The stranger” is clearly Gandalf, yes? 

I’m going to be really disappointed if Hal is Sauron or if he and Galadriel have a romance.

Some people have actually posted screenshots revealing that you can repeatedly see the future Mount Doom way in the background in wide shots of the Southlands throughout the whole season.

Did anyone else see that shit? I was already on board, but holy fuck…

That was a hell of an episode. The orcs weren’t just fucking around, digging tunnels, and scorching earth. They had a very specific public works project in mind.

About Graham McTavish, I was wondering the same thing. I have to assume he’ll have something to do in the second half of the season? Because other than one scene in the first episode he hasn’t done literally anything. Has he even had lines since then?

Episode 1: There’s a king. He’s old. He was a daughter, a son, and a brother that all want the throne. 

Episode 2: The king dies.

Everyone seems very caught up on the idea of the Thrones universe being an absolute monarchy where connected people can do what they like, but as the original show demonstrates, in real life the Monarch was in a very precarious position most of the time - and balancing the complex web of allegiances and alliances was…

Yeah probably.  Say what you will about The Crown but they understand switching cast members needs to be done gently. 

I feel like there’s a GoT a high speed effect going on. First few episodes we get careful character building (especially Viserys and Rhaenyra) and a slow building plot and now it’s moving at breakneck speed and a character like Larys Strong who makes Ramsay Bolton seem nuanced.

So...at this point, can anyone just admit this show is shit? Like, I was never a GoT fan because fantasy isn’t really my cup of tea but what I did see of it, that show was leagues better than this one by every metric: acting, dialogue, pacing, production design, etc. This? This is clearly HBO going we have no better…

“She’ll bring the baby to Alicent herself, even if that means expelling her afterbirth while her maids are helping her into a dress.”