Sauron នឹងមានដូចជា Walter White, Tony Soprano និង The Joker

ចិញ្ចៀននៃអំណាច first season has finally come to an end, after eight episodes, a host of mystery boxes and some big reveals in the Season 1 finale.

You can read my review of the finale right here.

ស្ពាយមុខ។

និយាយជាមួយ របាយការណ៍របស់ហូលីវូដ, showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay discuss the first season, the big reveal of Sauron in the season finale, and what to expect from the show’s arch-villain in Season 2.

ការផ្សព្វផ្សាយពាណិជ្ជកម្ម

It’s quite the read, I have to admit, with the show’s creators likening their Sauron twist to Milton’s ឋានសួគ៌​បាន​បាត់បង់, and dropping references to Romeo & Juliette, របស់គ្រីស្តូហ្វរណូឡូន Dark Knight trilogy and casting Sauron as an antihero similar to Tony Soprano or Walter White.

This all strikes me as a little much for a show that is, at its best, a very pretty piece of fan-fiction and at its worse a wildly bungled screen adaptation of Tolkien’s Second Age.

In last night’s finale, Halbrand was revealed to be Sauron all along. This was something that many of us saw coming but hoped would not be the case. After all, Galadriel and Halbrand meet in the middle of the ocean in what can only be described as a wild coincidence, and any writer worth their salt knows that wild coincidences typically do not make for great stories. Worse, Galadriel—one of the eldest and wisest of elves—is thoroughly duped by Sauron’s deception until the very last minute, which makes the show’s central protagonist look even worse than she already did.

So why did they take this path?

“We felt Sauron should be a character in his own right,” McKay says. “We wanted to study the currents running within him in a way that hopefully would reward audiences as they follow him moving forward as he becomes the Dark Lord. You now know him as a person outside the name ‘Sauron.’ In some ways, we wanted to do an origin story for Sauron. We didn’t want to make a show that was about the hunt for Sauron, but we love the idea of Sauron as a deceiver who could, hopefully, deceive some of the audience”

ការផ្សព្វផ្សាយពាណិជ្ជកម្ម

““There’s something that Milton does in ឋានសួគ៌បាត់បង់ that we talked about a lot,” says Payne. “Where he makes Satan a really compelling character. In some ways, he’s the first antihero where he’s compelling and you can’t take your eyes off of him. Milton did that on purpose because he wants you to fall along with Adam and Eve. He wants Satan to be so persuasive that he also seduces [the reader] and you’re unconsciously won over, so that you perceive your own fallenness and your need for redemption.

“In Tolkien, Sauron is a deceiver and we know that in Second Age he appears in ‘fair form.’ So what if he sneaks up on you and is able to get you to sympathize with him and get you to be on board with him so that once you actually realize who he is, that he’s already got his hooks in you? So it’s not just as easy as, ‘This person is evil, I’m going to back away,’ because you’ve already formed some level of attachment to him. What if we could get the audience to go through a similar journey?”

In theory, this doesn’t bother me at all. But the show would have needed to focus on Halbrand a great deal more to pull it off in Season 1. Halbrand was just one of a huge cast of characters, and his true identity as Sauron was telegraphed too early on. The entire plotline about him being the King of the Southlands felt forced and contrived. He needed to be introduced in a more organic and less coincidental way. He should have been a more heroic figure who the audience truly grew to love—if the plan was to trick us (and somehow Galadriel) into falling for him.

ការផ្សព្វផ្សាយពាណិជ្ជកម្ម

Oddly, Payne says that they didn’t want the reveal to be a total surprise but rather confirmation of a “sneaking suspicion.” He notes that “There’s a reason people are still putting on Romeo និង Juliet hundreds of years after it was written even though you know what happens at the end. A surprise only rewards you on one viewing.”

What I find remarkable about this statement is that the first season of ចិញ្ចៀននៃអំណាច relies almost entirely on surprises. They set up numerous mystery boxes—who is the Stranger? Who is Sauron? What are the dwarves hiding? What is the sword hilt for?—and then give us one ‘shocking’ reveal after another. Mount Doom. The Balrog. Sauron. It seems that the entire season was written with surprises in mind.

On Galadriel, Payne says: “Season one opens with: Who is Galadriel? Where did she come from? What did she suffer? Why is she driven?” But I’m not sure these questions were answered in a particularly satisfactory way, so when he goes on to say that Season 2 will do “the same thing with Sauron” I am not filled with a great deal of hope.

ការផ្សព្វផ្សាយពាណិជ្ជកម្ម

“Sauron can now just be Sauron,” McKay adds. “Like Tony Soprano or Walter White. He’s evil, but complexly evil. We felt like if we did that in season one, he’d overshadow everything else. So the first season is like Batman ចាប់ផ្តើម, និង Knight ដោយងងឹត is the next movie, with Sauron maneuvering out in the open.”

Here I can only chuckle. Sauron will be like Tony Soprano, the sociopathic mobster from one of TV’s most lauded programs, The Sopranos? He will also be like the sociopathic, arrogant genius Walter White from បំបែកអាក្រក់, widely regarded as the best TV show ever made? Oh, and like the Joker from Christopher Nolan’s much-praised Batman movies, widely considered some of the best superhero movies ever made?

What can I say? This strikes me as self-aggrandizement by association. ចិញ្ចៀននៃអំណាច is neither a faithful rendition of Tolkien nor in the same league as Milton, Shakespeare, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad or The Dark Knight ។ This season has not been a deep character study of ណាមួយ of its characters, and has spent far too much time on tertiary and ultimately unimportant figures like Bronwyn and Theo to have been a real examination of Halbrand/Sauron (let alone Galadriel).

ការផ្សព្វផ្សាយពាណិជ្ជកម្ម

Oh well. I know many people enjoyed it. I am unfortunately not among their ranks. I have made វីដេអូអំពីរឿងនេះផងដែរ។, which you can watch below:

Read the full THR interview here.

ការផ្សព្វផ្សាយពាណិជ្ជកម្ម

Read my review of the Season 1 finale here.