Well, they’ve already blown past it, but there’s a version in the Silmarillion you could work with if you wanted to, where Sauron’s sufficiently regretful after the War of Wrath to ask forgiveness of the gods, but not enough to face punishment. So he stays in Middle-Earth and ostensibly means well, but the Elves never…

Considering the only reason Gandalf is even in this show (likewise the proto-hobbits) is strictly for fan service, that’s not going to happen.

Well, FWIW, I think the Halbrand presentation is more about the writers’ love of misdirection for its own sake than anything else.

Considering the outage about the Harfoots being Irish Traveller pantomime, it’s probably for the best that they steered away from making them more recognizably Jewish, no?

The Walter White/Tony Soprano comparisons are especially odd because Sauron’s probably not going to become the protagonist of the series. In effect they’re really just saying they’re going to spend time developing things from his perspective rather than tucked into Galadriel’s basic arc.

Initially, I read this as “Go kill Galadriel, or else.”

None of the Numenorean stuff has been especially cogent, I don’t think, starting with Palantir being alive and mad (IIRC in Tolkien’s writing this is only ever mentioned as something that befell the King’s Men who would not simply die peacefully).

This isn’t inconsistent with how the elven-rings were forged in the writing. The implication I took from Celebrimbor forging them separately is that it explains why they were able to be used/worn while Sauron was dispossessed of the one through the Third Age, as opposed to the Ringwraiths.

So broadly, I think it’s mostly cut for time, same reason as Celebrimbor being in Lindon and not off at his own cavern/quarry. It’s a bit of a shame because I think you could have a lot of fun playing around with Sauron in fair guise, i.e. have him be Halbrand to get to Lindon, have Gil-Galad brush him off, and then…

Also: What are the showrunners going to do for the Seven and the Nine? There’s no reason for the elves to create those now. Is Sauron going to make those himself?

Why not start right out with them being this immensely powerful force?

If I had to spin a background narrative out of what we’ve seen, my guess is that Halbrand knew he needed Celebrimbor for the rings, identified Galadriel as his way in, and posed as a Southlander when meeting her because that would raise the least scrutiny in Numenor.

A betrayal based on two-weeks long relationship just does not have the same weight as one involving years of manipulation.

Two thoughts, neither of which are fully satisfying: the first is that it was all part of his plan, namely meeting Galadriel at sea to win her trust to gain access to Lindon. But also that this where the seams of the writing show, and this was only way to cram developing Galadriel as well as introducing Numenor and…

Well, I don’t think the time compression’s necessarily the problem—Ontamo’s or Sadoc’s deaths could have been given weight had the show simply stopped for a moment to reflect on them.

Yeah, it’s less about the blood storyline and more about the lack of any other resolution. The ideas this series has played with are who gets a say about when Jen is or isn’t She-Hulk, what kind of lawyer Jen wants to be, and more generally what’s the role of the legal system in a world where there are problems that…

But those who have human and dwarf friends will never see them again, hence Durin’s dilemma with Elrond.

That’s not a justification they’ve given. You could imagine specifically that Gil-Galad would rather be High King in Middle-Earth than merely a vassal to Finarfin on Valinor, or something along those lines.

Well, the thing about Mordor’s history is that it’s the show’s future. At some point in the series, Sauron’s going to show up, build Barad-dur, and forge the One Ring, and in the meantime, other less well-described bad things will be happening.

Instead we get Galadriel bailing out with Theo without him even trying to find his mother. Elendil taking off without even knowing where Isildur or his possible dead body is.