Three characters largely drive the storylines of Rings of Power. From least to most screentime, they are: Adar, Sauron-alias-Halbrand, and Galadriel.

Adar: At both a writing and an acting level, he’s a somewhat nuanced, competently done villain who to me doesn’t really rate all the fuss and hype. I have a long, consistent pattern of not being that into method actors, so that’s probably in play here. I don’t care for the fact that Adar and Sauron are the only characters in the show to invoke the One, the Creator, and I disagree with the “uruk apologist” element in ROP fandom, because essentially the apologists are saying that the orcs getting a raw deal in life makes it okay for the orcs to pollute and colonize other people’s lands. I find the Bond-villain aspects of Adar’s plans in episode 6-7 more entertaining than annoying.

Sauron-alias-Halbrand: I’m actually not opposed to Halbrand’s schtick, which is “I’m going to play on this nice lady’s sense of compassion so she’ll empower me.” The modern world is full of sociopaths who try to use other people’s compassion to get what they want, and not enough stories address that. What I object to is that, except for the final episode and one scene on Numenor, the show does nothing interesting with the idea. The actor spends maybe 80% of the show looking greasy and skeevy and being directed to do a bad Han Solo impression. If he’s this master manipulator, shouldn’t he be doing a GOOD Han Solo impression at least? I will grant that the final episode really nails the character. In the background lore, Sauron is basically a fascist, and the final episode really conveys what that means in a way that cartoony WWII adventure movies do not. I am deeply unsympathetic to the Haladriel shippers (see, fascist, above). What chemistry the two actors have seems more intellectual than emotional to me.

Galadriel: I do not think the original intention was for ROP to lean into the more “tomboyish” aspects of Galadriel’s character, which are only mentioned briefly in Unfinished Tales. You don’t cast a delicate-looking 5’3″ woman, with a background in arthouse and horror movies, who needs immersion therapy to deal with battle scenes, to play a warrior princess type. (It might be worth mentioning that the producers only formed a writer’s room after they completed casting, which is apparently unusual.) The actress excels at the more cerebral aspects of the character: detecting the mark of Sauron in the northern fortress, discovering that Elendil speaks her language, her “research” scenes in Numenor and Eregion, unravelling Sauron’s web of lies.

The angrier, less diplomatic moments are not in keeping with any documented variant of Tolkien’s writings on the character. That nice, easy-going elf-bloke who’s her brother in the first episode? Apart from the George Lucas grade dialogue and some vagueness about his death, that’s a pretty faithful interpretation of the brother Galadriel is most like in personality, according to Tolkien. As far as Sauron initially deceiving Galadriel goes, I get why the writers did that, and why they made her foolish enough and reckless enough to sell the idea, but it’s a radical change from the source material (where Galadriel distrusts charming manipulator Sauron from the start) and not particularly fun to watch.

(…On a completely unrelated note, I kind of want a version of Pride and Prejudice with Morfydd Clark as Elizabeth and Tom Hiddleston as Darcy.)