.webp?h=8 "Merry Fistmas!")
You mentioned their relationship might remind people of their own relationships, including romantic. There were times watching Celebrimbor and Annatar that I wondered if there was some romantic, or even sexual, underpinning to what was going on there?
MCKAY I would say the nature of this relationship and its closeness, and the even the sexual tension in it, has been a source of speculation by may fans of the source material for many years. Anytime you're dealing with such powerful emotions as seduction and deception, I think it's easy for your imagination to go there.
PAYNE I think you can see it from the beginning of their interactions together in the second episode. Sauron is pulling Celebrimbor in by saying, "There are things I can only tell to you," and, "You always saw me the way no one else could" and "You're safe with me." You're seeing this intimate dance that Sauron is doing. So certainly we could see how people could take that a step further and ship them.
AAAAAAGHHHHHHHH 
I thought shipping the Dark Lord with Galadriel was enough but apparently Celebrimbor/Annatar fan-fiction was important to the plot too.
MCKAY And it's also a story of the orcs, right? Adar is an orc who believes that orcs could be something more. They could have a home. He even seems to promise Galadriel they'll leave the rest of Middle-earth alone. In some ways, it's not just the story of how Sauron claims the orc nation, it's also the story of how there was a chance that orcs could have been a people in their own right
Muhh uruk lives matter. NOOO YOU CAN'T MAKE THE ORCERINOS BAD! 
The chud sub discussion
And it looks like not even the normie schlock site enjoyed the finale
Also, the Balrog destroying Khazad-dûm is just like the heckin climate change 
Over in Khazad-dûm, I always had the impression that once the Balrog was released, he wreaked havoc and drove everyone out of the mines immediately. But in your story, this is more of a gradual corruption process. That city is still occupied and they're still going to be fighting for it going into season three.
MCKAY This is a thing where, how do societies fall? Usually it's gradually, and then all at once. If you want to use climate change as a metaphor, climate change is not an event. Climate change is a process that ebbs and flows, that's always headed in a dark direction. I think a kingdom as great and powerful as Khazad-dûm does not fall in a moment. The fall is the product of many disasters over time. And I think it would sell Khazad-dûm short for the Balrog to get out and then it's all over. It's more complicated. We think there's a bigger story to be told here.
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I know we here are woke
to the tumblr/fanfiction foid menace, but it's nuts to think that the attitudes towards shipping, etc I laughed at but thought was harmless 15 years ago is now mainstream and multibillion dollar corporations are stocking their writers rooms with such people 
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They're trying to give the potential audience fanservice, but the problem is, the people who ship Sauron and Celebrimbor etc. are not watching this show. The people watching are (1) Tolkien book and lore nerds like myself and we're infuriated by the crap they're throwing onscreen and (2) casual TV viewers/streamers who just want to watch something entertaining without having to think too hard, maybe they know about the movies but maybe not.
Neither set of viewers want to see Sauron getting it on with Celebrimbor or Galadriel. Lore nerds because WHAT THE ACTUAL EVERLIVING FRICK and the casuals because 'hang on, I thought she was the girlfriend of that Elrond guy?'
The worst thing is that they don't have the balls to come out and put a genuine gay relationship into the show. They've already fricked with canon six ways from Sunday, why not? But no, Amazon wants that family-friendly show that will be watched overseas, and the Indian and Chinese audiences are not going to watch gay smut. So they prefer to play coy little games like this with the media: "oh if you want to look at it like that it could be interpreted as a romantic relationship".
Idiots are one thing, cowards are another thing. But being both idiots and cowards is too much.
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Have they had any relationships on the show? Aside from Dwarf Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, everybody seems to be single, even characters who should be married.
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They could make shows in a generic fantasyslop setting that is Tolkien with the names changed (like how Warhammer and a bunch of Jap cartoons have done) with all the cute twinks kissing a foid consoomer could possibly ask for, and leave the pre-existing IPs alone but nooooooo.
Watch them figure this shit out once the iron is no longer hot and BookTok has moved on to something else besides whatever foid nonsense is going on here:
Like just do The Vampire Diaries in
not 
Middle-Earth, with Star Trek style makeup on the male love interests to make them look "monstrous". Cast non-whale actresses and make it fun and funny like Xena, and they could probably get straggot males tuning in too. This can be done cheaply.
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Then again it makes sense that those shipping-obsessed foids would be much more likely than normal people to try and get into showbusiness and writing than normal people...
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Hiring managers when they see a 23 year old staff writer candidate with 10 years of writing experience:
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It used to be pretty low to be considered a TV writer for a reason.
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