Amazon Prime Video recently released the first three episodes of the second season of The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power. Viewers had a question for the scriptwriters, who decided to present the orcs in an unusual light. Beware, spoilers!
We are talking about the episode in which the «father of the orcs» Adar argues with one of his subordinates. The orc explains that they do not need to fight, since they have already acquired a home and families. Adar still persuades him, after which the orc goes to hug his wife and child.
Many found this decision strange. Let us recall that in the Legendarium of John R. R. Tolkien, the orcs were presented as a corrupted version of the elves, committed only to evil.
The obsession with the idea of making the bad guys simply «misunderstood» is killing the genre. Let evil be normal, and heroism be a simple and fair response.
What if the orcs were just an oppressed minority (sarcasm)?
Shows like this try to make the villains likable and the good guys evil. Pathetic!
Remember when the bad guys were just bad guys?
Bro, they were never morally gray in any of Tolkien's works.
As a reminder, critics have given the second season of Rings of Power an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 67 out of 100 on Metacritic.
Previously, the digital artist recreated the elven city of Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings using Unreal Engine 5.