The hand of the GM

I'm going to delve back into my Dungeons and Dragons metaphor because it works for this latest episode of Rings of Power in more ways than simply the subject matter. Yes, D&D and Tolkien are almost the standard-bearers of nerdism, hand-in-hand. The former is the outward expression of the genre that the latter almost introduced into modern storytelling. Fantasy was an aspect of storytelling from the time humans began sitting around campfires and entertaining and/or educating each other. But in the 20th century, it became a literary genre of note when Tolkien did his thing, even if it was long-preceded by things like Robert Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories. That story (The Lord of the Rings) spawned the role-playing game culture as we currently know it. That, in turn, kept Tolkien alive and in the minds of kids who became adults and that's why we had Peter Jackson's films 20 years ago and why we now have this Amazon series. You can't really escape it and so it's often easiest to use the techniques that the game has both taught and presented to demonstrate how good and bad storytelling is conducted. I've referred to this before when I mentioned the difference between the good DM and the bad DM (dungeon master, traditionally, although "GM" (game master) is probably more appropriate these days.)

You have your group of characters and they're given a set of circumstances to react to and engage with. These are player characters, meaning that they're people involved in the story that, you, the GM is creating, but they're also other humans that you have to entice to play along. In the case of Galadriel and the people around her, the enticing circumstances are the eruption of Orodruín and the creation of what would be known as Mordor. We already know what this is and we know where it is. Outside of the fact that, in any normal situation where a volcano would release a pyroclastic flow, all of those people that it swept over would be instantly dead, we can at least follow along with this set of circumstances and see massive changes to one key figure, Miriel, and more subtle changes to others, like Galadriel. Miriel being blinded and the devastation wrought by the orcs and the mountain compels her to bring her people back from their island kingdom to make a stand on behalf of the other humans that have also been devastated by this. While this is kind of a stretch for any regular player characters, this is at least a premise that's been put in front of them that they can react to in a relatively reasonable manner. They've been wounded and those around them have also been, so it's easy to see how simple vengeance and/or a sense of justice would compel the characters to act in this way. Fair enough. It's a little on the obvious side, but a good GM could make this work, given that there's already been a character with a driving motivation (Galadriel) dropped into the midst of this scenario. The problem with that character is that she's been so monochromatic that it's more likely she's an NPC (non-player character) than someone who would naturally be inclined to act that way. She's a storytelling device, rather than someone who acts normally, like you'd hope a player would in response to what's happening around her. Miriel, Elendil, Theo, and the rest in this scenario are more like players and are the people you'd hope that the audience could relate to, given what's happening, and much of this storyline is made to work by them, rather than the obsessed elf. But it's still kind of a mixed bag and the producers do themselves no favors by not only providing the very obvious cues, but then providing the very obvious labels to everyone (e.g This was The Southlands and it is now Mordor, just in case you somehow didn't get it.)

Similarly, we were kind of hit over the head with the mithril story. Anyone could see what was coming, when NPC King Durin denied the desires of nominally PC Elrond and Prince Durin and Disa. They're given a bit more to work with, in that Prince Durin has to overcome the distrust of the elves that his father and culture have taught him and Disa gets to express her personal desire for power and how she and her husband will step into it when the old man is dead. Likewise, Elrond gets to express not only his exceptional character but his rueful understanding of the violence to come when Gil-galad is informed that the dwarves have essentially told him and his people to piss off and die. All of this is decent reaction to a very obvious situation that, again, we all could see coming from leagues (traditionally, the distance one could walk in an hour; roughly three miles; fantasy term) away. We also get to see non-traditional emotion from hardened dwarven warrior Prince Durin, so we understand how difficult this situation is for him on a governmental, cultural, honorable, and personal level. Similarly, we see the legendary wisdom of Elrond in his understanding of both King Durin and Prince Durin's choices, despite his dismay that they're making said choices. All of these are good storytelling choices by the GM and actions by the PCs. It all gets almost completely ruined by the "teaser" scene at the end showing the balrog incinerating the leaf at the bottom of the mithril vein. For some reason, the incredibly powerful servant of Morgoth isn't sleeping entombed in the ground with the departure of his master (what actually happened in the books) but is instead laying in wait for a dramatic moment next season...? It's right there and it knows they're right there because they just dropped a leaf apparently 50 yards down an open hole. As soon as they crack that hole a little wider and start grabbing the shiny stuff, it's ready to grab them with that famous whip. The importance of the whole story concept was that the dwarves were so greedy for the stuff that they dug too deep after centuries, not that they could drop a piece of paper down a hole after first discovering it and realize that an immortal fire demon is present. They basically just trivialized one of the eeriest legends of the whole Tolkien mythos and one of the trademark scenes of the standard-bearing novel to make a ham-handed teaser.

But the best GMing example is the storyline with the (sigh) Harfoots. Here we have multiple PCs that are allowed to make what seem to be mistakes but which actually just continue the story in the direction that the GM probably wants it to go. They brought the big man along, but then they sent him away because he seemed to be doing destructive stuff. Both of those choices moved the story along. Now several of them are setting out to retrieve him in the name of charity and understanding, which are also very human choices that may not make much practical sense, but are perfectly understandable and relatable motivations. On the practical side, it is kind of odd for them to give rousing speeches about sticking together being the most important thing to the Harfoots as a people, only for four of them to split off from the rest to pursue an adventure but, yeah, most people aren't always consistent even when trying to be noble. In fact, they're pursuing the big man because they don't know who or what he is, but they also told him to leave because of the actions of the trio of white-robed people whom they also don't know. And the best part about all of that is that we, the audience, the largest group of player characters, also don't know who he is or who they are, even as Tolkien fans. (I'm still kinda thinking that he's Beorn, especially since they sent him north to Greenwood (later Mirkwood), but I still wouldn't put money on that.) That's the least amount of recitation of history and the most amount of new story in the whole series so far. My only gripe is that it has to come via the hobbits. Again.

The way to keep your readers/viewers/players interested is to present them with stuff that they have to sink their proverbial teeth into. They have to explore. They have to discover. They have to question their own actions and they can't just have everything served up to them on a plate. That's boring. That's obvious. That's not the way to keep their/our interest. Riugs has run into a similar problem to House of the Dragon, in that we know all this stuff already and there has to at least be an interesting presentation of it to keep people coming back. I don't think I will be with House, but I can be convinced as long as Rings does away with idiotic moves like the balrog teaser and tries to make its leads a bit more like people and a bit less like devices.

Re-forging the rings of storytelling

Amazon's long-anticipated series about the Second Age of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth, The Rings of Power, was released in the last couple days and brought with it my usual personal complications around Tolkien's work. I'm a long-time fan, having read pretty much everything he's ever written about his world (yes, including the collections of notes and letters; a lifetime ago, I worked for Borders and got'em on the cheap. I used to read a lot more then, too.) However, Middle-Earth became the bog standard for fantasy literature, TV, and films so long ago that there's some degree of disdain that now accompanies it. While I was fascinated by Peter Jackson's films bringing the world I'd known for so long to visual life, those felt like isolated instances and not something I was really interested in reengaging with on a creative level. If you'd asked me if I ever wanted to write a bog-standard, Western fantasy story at any point over the past thirty years, my answer would've been a resounding: "No." It's been done. I see no point in my doing it again. In that respect, it wouldn't be illogical to extend that to more productions about Middle-Earth. I thought The Hobbit was an overproduced and overlong video game with a half-assed script and didn't see either of the sequels. Consequently, I went into Rings with a certain degree of weary trepidation because I didn't expect to see anything more than the usual routine of orcs, elves, and dwarves. Having watched House of the Dragon tread heavily over the same ground that Games of Thrones did in the past two weeks certainly didn't help my attitude. But now that I've seen the first two episodes of Rings, I have to say that I'm not entirely convinced, but I'm at least more interested in watching episode three of that series than I am House. (Of course, I'm far more interested in the season opener of Rick and Morty on Sunday than anything else, but that's a (very) different story.)

One significant upside of Rings is the tonal shift that they've taken in terms of storytelling. In LotR, everyone but the hobbits seemed to know everything that was going down. The hobbits were the new players at the RPG table, while everyone else had read the Monster Manual years ago and knew just what to do and when to do it at almost all times. All the bad guys and good guys were clearly marked. The approach to Rings is somewhat different. Rather than being straightforward D&D, the atmosphere felt far more Diablo-esque, in that things were dark and murky and uncertain and everyone was attempting to figure out just what was happening during much of it. The hunt for Sauron in the far north; the skull-wearing goblin bursting from the ground; the sword that feeds on blood; the secret that Durin is hiding from Elrond; all of these things are not hugely innovative fantasy elements (far from it) but they were presented in such a way that even those of us intimately familiar with Tolkien's world were dropped into a bit of uncertainty, just like the characters were. That's a distinct advantage of the story being set in the Second Age, which has only just emerged from an almost-literal war of the gods (The War of Wrath between Morgoth and the Valar.) What that means is that everything is somewhat new, as Middle-Earth has lost about a third of its land mass and a lot of it has to be genuinely explored by the people in front of us. But since it had still been partially inhabited for thousands of years prior, one still gets the mystery of the "people who came before us" that has always been one of the enchanting parts of Tolkien's work (and subsequent epic fantasies by other authors.)

Certainly, one can't fault the notorious budget that was put into this series, as everything looked like it had just come out of a nine-figure film production. Also, unlike House, there was the occasional moment of interesting dialogue ("Why should we enter where sunlight fears to tread?") and the majority of the characters felt like something other than people slotted into roles to move the plot. I can't say I'm thrilled with the large presence of the Harfoot; both as a Tolkien fan (Hobbits don't appear until the Third Age, whereas the Harfoot were an offhand comment of his) and as someone who feels like this series should stand on its own (relatively) without pandering to the people who think that "Middle-Earth" means "goofy characters with big feet" by default. There are enough "regular Joe" humans present that I'm not sure we really needed more of the "people who have no idea what's going on" since, as noted, that's largely everyone in the first place. We don't need little roly-poly people for the audience to identify with. We have the real humans to do that with already, plus elves and dwarves who are a lot more emotional and approachable than Orlando Bloom will ever be.

On the topic of storytelling in the big picture, my friend, Nathan, did point out that in their condensed telling of the First Age at the beginning of episode one, they missed a rather grand opportunity to build upon the fact that the Noldor elves had pursued Morgoth to Middle-Earth against the wishes of the Valar and had slaughtered other elves in order to do so (the Kinslaying; one of several.) It was pride that created that war and that's a great dramatic building block that could have been carried by Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and everyone else who remembers what things were like before Morgoth was defeated and Beleriand sank into the ocean. I'm not sure how many people would have caught the note about Elrond not being allowed into the council because it was for "elf lords only" and Elrond, of course, is only half-elven; a topic that was ignored in Jackson's films. It's not beyond the realm of reason that those things might be included and/or elaborated upon later in the series (five seasons are planned) but it was an opportunity to inject it right away. Certainly, loading down newcomers with that much lore might be a bit much to ask. It's easier, for example, to present the ingrained dwarven distrust of elves as something personal between Durin and Elrond than it is to point out how the dwarves were actually created first by the Valar, Aulë, who was forbidden from awakening them because Eru, the big god, wanted his chosen folk, the elves, to come first. There's a fair amount of subtext built in there that's more complex than just "You missed my wedding!" and that's the same for a lot of Tolkien's world that didn't really become obvious to readers who may have only confined themselves to The Lord of the Rings. Is all of that necessary to tell a good story? No. But I think it helps tell one that can be a straight adventure story, like this one was for the first two episdoes, as well as a more involved political tale, like GoT was and House is attempting to be. Of course, much of that kind of story will likely emerge as we introduce the men of Númenór starting next episode (speaking of pride leading to disaster...)

So, if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm feeling a lot more positive about Rings than I am House. It wasn't earth-shaking. It wasn't mindblowing. It didn't even stray that far from the dread "bog standard." But it was solid and somewhat interesting and has me looking forward to the next episode to see where the showrunners take us both within the boundaries of Tolkien's tales of the Second Age and beyond. And whether the guy who fell in the meteor is Beorn (which was another very Diablo-esque moment, for anyone who played Diablo III, for example.)