By God, I'll not lose Hardy!

A main takeaway from "Of Galadriel and Celeborn": if you look closer at the details...man, they really nailed her 👏🏻Also, bonus Brimby at the end 🔥⚒️🙏🏻

(Yeaaah I know the TRoP fam is focused on SDCC hype, but wanted to share this before it got lost in the shuffle, haha)

"...being brilliant In mind and swift In action, she had early absorbed all of what she was capable of the teaching which the Valar thought fit to give the eldar." ⚔️ Considering this, I love that they put her in a teacher role (also, badass scene, that is all) ⚔️

"The Eldar said that the light of the Two Trees had been snared in her tresses." 🌳💛 If you look closely at her hair, there are strands of silver. Amazing 🩶🌳

"But eventually Galadriel became aware that Sauron...had been left behind...she perceived that there was an evil controlling purpose abroad in the world." 😱 Yep, she knew, she always knew 😱

"From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding." 🫶🏻 She is fierce and strong-willed, but also shows a much softer side at times: such as with Theo, calling him to her and asking if he is hurt 🥺🫶🏻

"...Celebrimbor, who desired in his heart to rival the skill and fame of Fëanor" 🔥⚒️ This line stuck out to me because Charles Edwards mentioned that it made the character just click for him. And it was Celebrimbor's undoing 😮‍💨😭 Cautionary tale to only compare yourself to yourself (I try, and fail, to be clear, working on it 😮‍💨💙).

and yet!!!!

when she dies, you genuinely feel bad for her???? after every atrocity she’s committed???

like. the magic is that garnet cares for her, and mourns for her mother. and you witness this from vivi’s perspective, who hated brahne bc she’s practically a tyrant with zero redeemable moments.

but in caring for garnet, you care for brahne in turn, tbh? you care about garnet’s sadness, how she wanted to reach her mother when everyone gave up on her. and bc vivi cares about garnet, he also doesn’t want her to be unhappy. (does he care for brahne? no, but garnet is hurting, and so he hurts with her.)

and i think, brahne’s last words are really good too tbh. like we never got to meet the real her? the one who was kind and that raised garnet? the one who was adored by her people?by steiner? the one who probably was genuinely sweet and kind prior to her husband dying and called garnet darling and doted on her, bc garnet washed up on the shores of alexandria one day, and then became her daughter. brahne speaks like she’s waking up from a dream, like the madness that took hold of her finally let go of her at the moment of her death?

and it’s just. she is a victim. she met kuja at the wrong time, who took advantage of her grief, and exploited her greed. you can infer that she was probably influenced by soulcage, who targeted leaders to become full of bloodlust and wage war against other kingdoms. you can assume something similar happened to gizamaluke imo??? once known for blessing weddings and granting safe passage. now brutal and voiceless, that presumably the main party puts down.

“But my memory reaches back even to the Elder Days. Eärendil was my sire, who was born in Gondolin before its fall; and my mother was Elwing, daughter of Dior, son of Lúthien of Doriath.”

“I will say that your [Frodo’s] choice is right; and though all the mighty elf-friends of old, Hador, and Húrin, and Túrin, and Beren himself were assembled together, your seat should be among them.”

Perhaps she was a messenger originally to Varda, her form little more than the wisps and vapors that frequently make up the Maiar that sere the queen of the stars. She materializes rarely. When she joins Melkor, her form changes and smoke becomes sinewy wings, teeth forming and piercing.

Now, she is a shadow that passes over the stars she once worshiped

Or, Thuringwethil as a primeval hunter, fastened and shaped by Oromë to blur lines, to live in shadows, as an ambush predator who strikes not with great tearing claws but in smaller, burrowing ways. There is nothing unnatural about this and in the natural world there is nothing evil. But corrupted, her predation takes on a new form

Vána’s realm, cycles of life and death, spring and winter and growth and decay could be terrifying even without with the active malice of Morgoth. Thuringwethil starting out as a fruit bat, fluttering in the glades of Vána, a pollinator. Drawn to Melkor for the extremes he embodies. Pollinating the poisoned flora of the Ered Engrin, feasting on flesh as much as fruit.

TALIESIN: as photographed by tom doona.

good thing the director & producer hired a proper photographer, because i certainly didn't remember to take any good photos of the finished puppets when i was done working on them! these are all the things i sculpted/built & papier mache'd, though the final paint touches were done by eleanor ferguson, who also made the other half of the puppets (not pictured) plus the set, costume, and a boatload of other props. they're a whiz!

The showrunners have alluded that the main theme represented by Marnûkh is whether orcs are capable of redemption, which calls their natures into question. They were perverted in such a way that they became so far from what Eru intended for all living beings to the point that they're deemed something entirely 'other' and wrong. Marnûkh having distinct personality traits, individuality, desires to create art, etc. all humanise him in a way that's deeply unsettling to the elves because it challenges this perception of otherness.

We know that Sauron goes to Simon Pegg for help mastering the fires of the volcano, but also from the snippet of dialogue in the creature feature that they talk about the differing ways in which they've chosen to cloak their souls (basically calling Sauron a pretty boy lol). Usually, the forms Sauron takes are tactically designed to manipulate certain people. They don't reflect what he is, only what he wants other people to see, but there's also this element of him literally slipping inside the skins of these deceptions and getting so deeply into character that he swallows some of his own performance, almost like a method actor, but regurgitated through his own distorted lens—like his genuine belief that his vision for Middle-Earth is for its own good despite the obvious cognitive dissonance between this seemingly altruistic motive and violent method ("You really are the Great Deceiver, you can even deceive yourself")

I think the thematic connection between Marnukh and Sauron has to do with Sauron's nature as a deceiver, specifically in terms of being dishonest with himself, being what holds him back from successfully forging the One Ring. Charlie said his current look is essentially a corroded version of his Annatar form, which echoes the state of mental disrepair we saw Celebrimbor fall into and suggests that he’s still using his forging techniques, which came from a place of genuinity. But this method led to the creation of the Seven and the Nine because they’re merely perversions of the Three in the same way the orcs are twisted copies of Eru’s children—lacking all the facilities of the original creations, inherently flawed in design and subservient by nature, none of which are qualities Sauron is intending for the One, which is why the results aren’t the same.