Episode Enneagrams – Page 4 – Enneagram and Encaustic

Adar (Part Two)

Continuing the third episode of The RIngs of Power . . .

FIVE

We’re back with Arondir. The prisoners, at the bottom of a trench surrounded by a smoking ruin, are digging through the roots of a large tree. Because the sun is out, the orcs hide in their tented tunnel system while the elves toil. Morgoth has a successor, this orc leader with the elvish name, Adar. He seems to be searching for something, possibly a weapon.

Orc torture commences. Arondir, under duress, chops down the tree.

Galadriel, in a proper gown, wanders down to the city’s waterfront. Elendil, charged with watching her, assumes (correctly) that she’s choosing a ship to steal. She threatens him, and he speaks to her in elvish. He mentions their Hall of Lore, a day’s ride away, and Galadriel brightens.

Cut to the two of them cantering across an open field. In slow motion they ride along a beach. As the music swells, we see Galadriel’s face, alight with joy.

(It’s an overly precious shot, but then we get the pay-off. This is an expression we’ve never seen from her. We realize how sour she’s been before this. Is it the power and speed of horseback riding? Is it the sense of freedom? Finally Galadriel shows us more dimension.)

Adar (Part One)

Episode 3 of The Rings of Power . . .

LEFTOVER NINE

Arondir, woozy, is dragged by orcs in skull helmets. It’s nightmarish. We hear orcs arguing about who has to stay in the sun — “sun duty” — and the mention of Adar, who’s their leader.

Chained in a pit, Arondir digs with other elves. Whipped prisoners scream in the shade.

ONE

Cut to Galadriel waking. She’s on a bed in a ship’s hold. Halbrand brings her food. The ship is crewed by men in uniform.

TWO

The captain, who recognizes her as “one of the Eldar”, wears her dagger.

THREE

They approach a magnificent port reminiscent of the Argonath with its gargantuan rock statues carved from the hillsides. Galadriel recognizes the Kingdom of Númenor. (It’s an astonishing location that is given a number of expansive establishing shots.)

Adrift (Part Two)

Episode Two of The Rings of Power continues at the Harfoot encampment.

FOUR (CONT.)

The Harfoots notice that Nori is missing.

Cut back to her and The Giant. When she asks about “his kind” he takes a stick and draws in the dirt.

SWITCH

(Here it is! I just needed a little patience.)

Back to the Harfoots straining to raise a tent. Nori’s father (Largo) pushes on a beam held by a rope that finally snaps, as does Largo’s ankle. Poppy runs up to get Nori. The Giant screams in frustration that they can’t understand his meaning.

Adrift (Part One)

Episode Two of The Rings of Power . . .

ONE

Galadriel, abandoned in the sea, still treads water. With nothing in sight on the horizon, she starts to swim.

Nori stands at the edge of the fiery crater. A man with grizzled hair and beard, naked but for a loincloth, lies in the blaze. Poppy, rushing up to chastise Nori, accidentally pushes her over the slope. The flames are not hot, and Nori approaches “the giant”. She boops his cheek. With a horror-startle, he quickly grabs her hand and rises from the ash. Magical winds and a soul-long look between Nori and The Giant stop when he collapses. She insists that Poppy help her carry the stranger somewhere safe.

TWO

Sadoc, holding a lantern, comes to see what fell to earth. He anticipates a bad omen. He misses Nori and Poppy pushing The Giant over the hill behind him in a wheelbarrow. As the girls argue over what this man is — not human, not elf — they let go of the cart and it starts to roll backward. (The image of an oversized man in a rustic wagon rolling down a hill is played for humor.) Cut to him settled, asleep, under a tree. Nori explains that The Giant, who could’ve fallen to earth anywhere, seems like her responsibility. She was meant to find him. Poppy agrees to keep him a secret.

THREE

Dissolve to Bronwyn and Arondir in the burnt village. They find no bodies. Under a ruined house is a dug passage. Arondir will follow it. Bronwyn will go home to warn her people. Before parting, they share a longing glance.

A Shadow of the Past (Part Three)

Finishing Episode One of The Rings of Power . . .

SWITCH

While looking at a statue of her brother, Galadriel sheathes her dagger. Elrond approaches her with gentle congratulations of the honor to return home.

(The grove has heroic statues carved in the trunk of every living tree.)

Galadriel expected to become one of these statues, but instead she’s to be sent away. She decides she will refuse this “reward”.

(“You have not seen what I have seen,” Galadriel says to Elrond as explanation why she can’t stop hunting Sauron. Well, we haven’t seen it, either. We desperately need more show and less tell.)

FIVE

Putting up a convincing argument, Elrond asks if another dead orc will bring her peace? Will she lead more elves to die and become statues? Turning down the call to Valinor means it will never come again and she’ll be an outcast, left behind.

A Shadow of the Past (Part Two)

A continuing look at episode one of The Rings of Power . . .

ONE

Credits and a map. We’ve shifted to a new storyline.

Two hunters, laden with carcasses, walk through a field. Hearing something, one warns the other of a Harfoot. They continue on, and a small smiling person with a hay-covered hat rises from the grass and watches them leave. An entire community of Harfoots (Harfeet?) comes out of hiding. They have bare, hairy feet; these, presumably are our proto-Hobbits.

TWO

They unveil their encampment, bringing out baskets of food and uncovering their wagons. The leader consults a tome and determines these hunters are a bad omen. A mother and father worry about their wandering daughter, Nori.

THREE

Cut to Nori and Poppy (an instant reminder of Frodo and Sam). They lead the younger children on an adventure.

A Shadow of the Past (Part One)

Shall we look at The Rings of Power? Season One impressed me as a flawed, ambitious project. I want the show to succeed, and I’m willing to give it latitude to develop its themes.

However, the reviews were brutal. I’m curious. Is the show a structural boondoggle? Do the characters ignore their motivations? Is tRoP actually terrible?

The episodes are long, so I’ll partition them. Let’s begin.

LEFTOVER NINE

A child Galadriel folds a parchment boat. Other children (dressed like creepy Logan’s Run extras) demean her efforts. When the floating boat magically unfolds into a paper swan, the children sink it with rocks. Galadriel jumps on the loudest offender, but is stopped by her grown brother. He gives her a wise elvish pep talk.

Season One Overview of The Last of Us

Wow. Season One is a grim line-up! It’s a dark world out there.

I’ve bolded the episode titles as I work through the Storytelling Enneagram.

When You’re Lost in the Darkness

ONE

This encompasses the first half of the episode, including all of pre-outbreak life. Within here Sarah dies and twenty years pass. We’re also introduced to post-outbreak life under a military government.

Establish Joel and Tess; establish Marlene and Ellie.

TWO

Joel meets Ellie. This Trouble moment looks all the way forward to the final episode. He’s tasked with delivering her to the Fireflies at the Two, and he succeeds at the Eight (although not in the way we expect).

When Ellie discovers the radio code in Joel’s apartment, we also begin to see their dynamics together. We get the hint that their dominating and crusty personalities might be double Eights, and we see which person is going to lead the other. Ellie outsmarts Joel right from the start.

ELLIE WILLIAMS, EIGHT

Remember, Ellie is a leader. It’s something we’re told more than shown, until we look at her in comparison to Joel. The child leads the man.

Here’s an interesting thought: is Ellie an Eight? Usually I wouldn’t like two main characters sharing the same Enneagram number, but this might work. Ellie displays the positive traits of an Eight. Leadership, bravery, loyalty, and an awareness of how her actions impact greater society. Joel is the negative. He’s brave and loyal, but not in the same way. He’s the guy the mob boss can depend on to do the dirty work. Ellie and Joel are both the kind of people you need in a dystopia, but Ellie’s the one you want to keep around after society begins to rebuild. Joel’s the one you want following Ellie’s orders.

JOEL MILLER, EIGHT

Think back to the beginning, before the outbreak. Joel would probably be his truest self at that point. Even then he was socially disconnected. Sarah wants him to grab a birthday cake and he forgets. Later, certainly, he’s not socially comfortable. He ridicules Tommy for being a “joiner”. This is not a Heart Type.

He’s not a leader, either. That’s Tess. That’s Marlene and, we’re told by FEDRA, that’s Ellie. Joel is a follower. We can say, judging by the final episode, that he’s not a planner. When no one is in charge of him, he kills everyone in the building. He’s not strategic. (He would’ve kept the doctor alive if he had any sense of the post-apocalypse big picture.) We could even say that Sarah was the boss of him before she died. For Joel, he’s not just losing a daughter with Sarah (or with the threat to Ellie), he’s losing his purpose and identity.

This is a particular kind of Eight, the type society tries to keep busy in physical jobs. He’s a mastiff on a leash, if we’re lucky. In civilization, we want Joel to obey orders. In war, we let the dog slip.