New teaser trailer

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Alatar]

Not much to glean there. Visuals are good but I still don't get the meteor.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I am quite sure that it is Sauron's arrival.

[Alatar]

Yeah, but it doesn't make any sense to me.

Also, is that an Ent at 41 seconds?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It doesn't make much sense to me either, and yes that is definitely an Ent

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Apparently (according to DeadRabbits at TORN), Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Tar-Míriel can be seen at 0:36.

Tar-Miriel.jpg (56.55 KiB) Viewed 4665 times

[Alatar]

Lets just tease this out. We know Sauron was a fire Maia, and that he served Morgoth/Melkor in 1st Age in Beleriand during the Lay of Leithan's events. IIRC he went away and hid in the deep places when Morgoth was chained. What sequence of events could have him arrive as a meteor? I know, fan fiction, but just for fun.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Of the top of my head, I can't think of any way to make Sauron arriving in Middle-earth some time in the Second Age on a meteor square with anything that Tolkien wrote. But I'll give it more thought.

[kzer_za]

Sauron as Meteor Man seems like such a lazy on-the-nose mystery box. Characters asking "gee, I wonder what happened to Sauron, and why are monsters reappearing?" + "who is this cosmic stranger?" will come across as super-obvious even to non-readers I think. I hope it isn't him but probably is.

Everything else...well the visual design does feel less generic than the first trailer but there's not much to go off.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I like the gulls.

[Eldy]

I knew it, Meteor Man is Azor Ahai reborn!

[Anduril]

Say goodbye to the anti-European colonialist/imperialist themes of Numenoreans oppressing and enslaving other peoples, I guess. What for, they're already akin to a post-colonial melting pot if the rightful queen is like that (and I should know about post-colonial melting pots, I'm from one several times over)... What does this really have to offer anyone of us if they're not tackling the real stories and subtexts of the age?

[Alatar]

Well its offering me a bit of escapism in a familiar setting and some new characters along with new versions of some older ones. Its offering me the chance to experience the second age on screen for the first time. Its offering me the potential for 5 years of world and story building. Its offering me things I would not have dreamed possible in my wildest dreams as a kid watching Rankin Bass cartoons and Hawk the Slayer. That may not mean much to you, but it means a lot to me. Of course, it may all turn out badly, but I look forward to making an informed decision on that after I've seen more than 60 seconds of random clips.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Say goodbye to the anti-European colonialist/imperialist themes of Numenoreans oppressing and enslaving other peoples, I guess. What for, they're already akin to a post-colonial melting pot if the rightful queen is like that (and I should know about post-colonial melting pots, I'm from one several times over)... What does this really have to offer anyone of us if they're not tackling the real stories and subtexts of the age?

That's an awful lot to take from a one second view of a character who happens to have darker skin. But then, that is a much more allegorical reading of the Númenórean tale that I am willing to place on it, so I guess I have less infested in that particular pitfall. There are a definitely a few things that I have seen that give me pause about the new show (primarily the bizarre-seeming Meteor Man Sauron and adolescent Elrond), but there is a lot that I have seen that gives me hope, so we'll see.

[Eldy]

I've disagreed with Anduril about ROP before, but I think he has a point here. Colonialism is a pretty essential part of the Númenórean story as Tolkien wrote it, and it has very obvious parallels with Primary World colonialism (something Tolkien opposed, as per the Letters). I don't think we've seen enough yet (at least not in the officially released material) to say ROP will definitely be doing away with this, but the show being like, "actually, this canonically light-skinned imperial power with strong resemblances to the British Empire and primarily darker-skinned victims, against whom they conducted their first campaign of ethnic cleansing before Sauron was even in Eregion, had a multiracial ruling class" is ... maybe not the greatest form of representation? Or if they do completely cut out Númenor's oppression of the peoples of Middle-earth, or have this only start after Sauron obtains influence over them, they'd remove much of the moral ambiguity that makes the Second Age so interesting.

I completely understand and sympathize with the desire to have fantasy heroes of color, but the Númenóreans aren't heroes, at least not very good ones, and it's been one of my worries (since long before any casting decisions were announced) that the show will depict them as such.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I doubt that Tar-Míriel is going to be presented as a purely positive, heroic figure, but time will tell.

[Eldy]

Fingers crossed!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Another teaser (in Portuguese). I don't know how long this will stay up, as another link was taken down already.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This twitter thread reportedly has a translation of the dialogue.