@CH4R10T_TV

4 months ago

23:34 Loving this video so far, just thought I'd point out that this exchange between the orc and the frail man isn't literal; the orc says the frail man is "a useless millstone chained to [his] foot," and the frail man corrects him: "neck." This is because "a millstone about one's neck" is a common idiom referring to something that drags one down. The orc, being an orc, doesn't understand the saying and so says it incorrectly. The man, being more cultured, corrects him, which the orc takes poorly. It's a brief exchange that is more culture and characterization than a literal question of literal chains tied to literal feet or necks. For as janky as this game is, this moment makes sense. EDIT: 1:09:57 You've brought up the idea the game has assigned some strange motive to the elves a couple times, but is this really so weird? Of all the things you would easily expect from a Gollum game, or a game that features servants of Sauron, negative opinions of the elves, their culture, their objects of worship, etc. would probably be a given. From what we know from dialogue from Gollum and orcs in The Lord of the Rings, the elves are viewed as strange, fierce and weirdly associated with light in a negative contexts. Creatures of darkness probably would find that idea intimidating. But even Faramir in the books and Gimli in the films have, at first blush, a misconception about Galadriel, one of the most important elves. Treebeard himself describes the land of Lothlorien as if it were dangerous, and he likely knows everything there is to know about this woods. Alternative perspectives on the elves aren't hard to come by, and the idea that servants of Sauron would view starlight with suspicion makes sense in the canon given that Sauron was a servant of Melkor, enemy of the Valar (including Elbereth, who wove the stars into the sky, which is why stars are one of the symbols of the Valar and of everything good in Middle-Earth) makes quite a bit of sense. It's actually pretty funny to think of Sauron's followers having weird conspiracy theories about why the elves are secretly the real bad guys. EDIT 2: 1:35:57 Actually, and this might genuinely interest you, as I believe in the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings and in writings published elsewhere such as The Silmarillion, the Free Peoples in the North have a real struggle on their hands defending the Lonely Mountain in particular from the forces of Sauron. Legolas actually references this fact when he and Gimli make small talk in Helm's Deep about how they wished they had some elves or dwarves to help with the defense. However, if you really want a Lord of the Rings related video game rabbit hole to go down with respect to this idea, you should check out an older title called "The Lord of the Rings: The War in the North." It adapts a few gaps in the story of The Lord of the Rings, just like "The Lord of the Rings: Gollum" does, and came similarly from a small studio that suffered afterwards. But that's another story, for the interested.

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