For the want of a comma, or, READ THE ENDNOTES!

 As promised, my detailed deconstructions of episodes 5-8 of Rings of Power are on my lengthy to-do list. However, there is such an inexcusable screw-up hinted in Episode 7, "The Eye," and turned into a festering wound in Episode 8, "Alloyed,"  that it deserves its own call-out. It involves the mysterious constellation that the Stranger aka Meteor Man is desperately seeking. 

In Episode 7, Sadoc is talking to the Stranger, sending him off beyond Greenwood the Great to find "big folk settlements" who hopefully 

can help you find your stars. [He passes the drawing of the stars to the Stranger] ‘Cause all I can tell you is, Harfoot-folk haven’t seen ‘em since the days our ancestors lived in parts unknown over a thousand years ago.

 

My reaction: 

The reaction was caused by my instant realization that the showrunners:

a) don't know the world of Numenor is flat

b) don't know how stars work in a flat world

c) don't care

d) all of the above

I must confess this didn't surprise me, as I had had my suspicions from fairly early in the series. Let me explain. The reason why we can't see the Southern Cross from New England, and Australians can't see the Big Dipper, is because of the horizon caused by the curvature of the earth

[Courtesy of https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/astronomy1105/chapter/2-1-the-sky-above/]

The only latitude from which you can see all the stars (at some point during the year) is the equator. Even then, given stars are not seen at the same height above the horizon as they are in either New England or Australia.

On a flat earth all the stars are seen from every location and at roughly the same angle above the horizon. The greater the distance to the stars relative to the size of the planet, the more nearly the same the angle is.  

[Courtesy of https://www.mezzacotta.net/100proofs/archives/488]

Therefore, it doesn't matter where the Harfoots would wander on a FLAT planet, they would see the same stars. If they are on a round planet and wandered far SOUTH, they would, indeed, see different stars. Therefore, we are led to either a round Middle-earth or showrunners who are engaging in sloppy astronomy.

So on to the Season 1 finale I go, and it gets worse - MUCH worse.

The Three Stooges - Curly, Larry... I mean the Dweller, the Ascetic, and the Nomad - have found the Stranger, and think he's Sauron returned (more on why this is SO wrong in my full Episode 8 screed). They offer to bring him back to their lands. He pulls out his map of the stars, and the Ascetic, who has them engraved on the buffet platter she carries (because?) calls it 

the Hermit’s Hat. A pattern visible in but one place.  Far to the east, where the stars are strange. The lands of Rhûn.

My reaction this time:

So... much... wrong! Let's break this down. 

Recall that on a FLAT world all stars can be seen from all locations, and on a ROUND world there is a North-South difference between which stars you can see. On the map, Rhun is at roughly the same latitude as much of the other main locations in Rings of Power (with the exception of the Southlands) so the stars should look fairly similar. There is no logical reason why any constellation should be visible only from a location in the east in a FLAT or ROUND planet! I suppose you could invoke a magic wall that you can only see through or around from one location that conveniently blocks the constellation from all other locations, but that is just one pretzel too much for me to take seriously. 

Where did the showrunners get this erroneous idea from? We don't have to guess, thanks to an interview posted on Vulture.com on October 14, 2022:

The story seems to be headed off to Rhûn, off in the east, which hasn’t been seen onscreen. What do you want to explore in depicting that?

Patrick McKay: In our very first conversations with Amazon about this, our aspirations were to go to the far reaches of the map. You see the northernmost wastes in the first episode. In the books, Aragorn talks about how he’s done some traveling in Rhûn and the stars are strange there. That felt like an opportunity, to have the stars the Stranger is following lead him to a continent that lovers of the lore have never visited.

My reaction: 

Let's go back to the source material, shall we?

At the Council of Elrond, Aragorn explains

I have crossed many mountains and many rivers, and trodden many plains, even into the far countries of Rhun and Harad where the stars are strange. (Fellowship of the Ring, 1993 edition, pg. 261)

One could argue that Tolkien was being grammatically vague here, and that a comma belonged after "Rhun." I can see this. But Tolkien certainly knew enough astronomy to clearly understand the North-South difference in constellations. 

So let's give the showrunners the benefit of the doubt for a few nanoseconds. In case you weren't paying attention over the first seven episodes, Episode 8 made it clear that the Stranger is one of the Istari. While the series doesn't have the rights to Unfinished Tales, one would hope/expect/demand that the showrunners would at the very least have read the one clear essay Tolkien wrote in 1954 about the Istari and the other ancillary materials published alongside it in Unfinished Tales, and not openly contradict it!

In particular, there is a note that Christopher Tolkien dates to "before the publication of the second edition of The Lord of the Rings in 1966" (UT pg. 397) that begins: 

The date of Gandalf's arrival is uncertain. He came from beyond the Sea, apparently at about the same time as the first signs were noted of the re-arising of 'the Shadow': the reappearance and spread of evil things. But he is seldom mentioned in any annals or records during the second millennium of the Third Age. Probably he wandered long (in various guises), engaged not in deeds and events but in exploring the hearts of Elves and Men who had been and might still expected to be opposed to Sauron.

If you add "Harfoots" into the mix, it reads like a decent synopsis of what the Stranger is doing, no? It certainly sounds like the showrunners were taking a page from the Professor himself here. But unfortunately for them, the passage then continues:

His own statement (or a version of it, and in any case not fully understood) is preserved that his name in youth was Olorin in the West, but he was called Mithrandir by the Elves (Grey Wanderer), Tharkun by the Dwarves (said to mean 'Staff-man'), Incanus in the South, and Gandalf in the North, but 'to the East I go not'. (UT pg. 397)

It is further said of Gandalf that "beyond Nurnen Gandalf had never gone," the reference to the lake of Mordor (UT pg. 398). 

Taken at face value, this might suggest that the Stranger isn't Gandalf after all, but that isn't an argument I am interested in getting involved in at the moment. What is most interesting is Tolkien's next comment:

This passage is the only evidence that survives for his [Gandalf's] having extended his travels further South. Aragorn claims to have penetrated 'the far countries of Rhun and Harad where the stars are strange' (The Fellowship of the Ring II 2). It need not be supposed that Gandalf did. (UT pg. 398)

There is an endnote to this passage (written by Tolkien, not Christopher, as clearly noted by the designation "Author's note"), which reads 

The 'strange stars' apply strictly only to Harad, and must mean that Aragorn travelled or voyaged some distance into the southern hemisphere. (UT pg. 402)

Current mood:

Since this note was written BEFORE the second edition of LOTR, Tolkien apparently expected his readers to understand that it was only Harad that had 'strange stars' and didn't feel the burning need to include the comma to make it any more explicit.

Let's recap, shall we? 

The showrunners had, as one of their original "aspirations" that they pitched to Amazon, that is apparently central to the plotline of their series, something that is both astronomically impossible AND clearly, unequivocally, goes against what Tolkien said, and could have easily been prevented if they had just read a single author's note.

The showrunners are apparently scurrying around the internet saying that Season 2 will be closer to Tolkien "canon," a loaded term in itself, although I have yet to see a definition of it that does not include The Lord of the Rings. I want to see how they retcon their way out of THIS particular mess.

Perhaps a Dallas approach is called for...