BBEG Of Our Current Campaign - Lich Tar-Baphon, My GM's @drartslog Description

commission for my friend (ﾉ>ω<)ﾉ :｡･:*:･ﾟ’★,｡･:*:･ﾟ’☆

oh my, the first humanization in my life

age 1 and 2 where everything is the same but sauron in the forge acts LIKE THAT

Gif rights: @haladrielgifs

I can’t unsee the similarity between this and an old but gold video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blPFDWEMRDU

There are English subtitles for this. The line the dude is screaming all the time is just “EYYYYYES”

sauron goes brrrrrrrrr

Hi! I saw your art of Tar-Baphon (what? He's cute? Haha what a charming twist) and Arazni and damn I'm curious what's going on in your campaign. Can you please tell me about it?

ура, можно писать на русском кхм

Привет) На арте вместе с Аразни не Тар-Бафон, а Сокорро, который тоже был успешно яссифицирован нашим дорогим ГМом на радость всем участвующим. Тар-Бафон вот тут: https://www.tumblr.com/papugaka/767047553458044928/bbeg-of-our-current-campaign-lich-tar-baphon-my?source=share

На арте момент из нашего кампейна: РС на данный момент находятся на крепостной стене Ардиса, который осаждает армия ТБ и Сокорро. ТБ, правда, не особо участвовал, он пришел посмотреть, как выеб... сработает Сокорро. К несчастью для гордости Сокорро, в Ардисе на тот момент была и андеднутая Аразни, которой было _очень_ надо чтобы ТБ рванул осколок так же, как он взорвал Дозор и остальные города. Она вызвала его на бой и в ходе месива продырявила Сокорро со спины и вообще сделала все, чтобы ТБ выбесить. Но тогда не вышло)

Я видел у вас на странице, что вы тоже ГМ, но я не очень знаю, где проходит граница между переработками нашего ГМа и канонным приключением, поэтому если что-то странно звучит, готов пояснить)

This is the paired art to this one

Tumblr

the borbest

I'll sip your soul in Wake your desire I am the promise and a liar Show me your hands and No misbehaving I'll pin the wire and you'll be wa

@the-winnowing-wind thank you so much for the idea!

(人´∇`)

Forest scene breakdown

Okay, everyone’s already said it was great. Let me tell you it was cinematically ingenious, because it makes us believe that the actual abuser (Sauron) is the abused (as Halbrand) and the abused (Adar) is the abuser (for viewers & Galadriel).

There’s a TLDR below.

After getting a spear through his hand, you can see Adar struggling on whether he still wants to try and grab the bundle because his gaze wanders between the bundle and his hand.

He seemingly decides he won’t make it away, so he turns around to see the attacker.

Sauron is already waiting to meet his eyes. The shot is a clear one, set vertically so we can easily see the facial expressions of the one we know as Halbrand. His head is tilted sideways, he is smirking, teeth showing, his jaw set, his breath heavy – he is clearly satisfied.

I dunno whether the next thing he does was intentional or it was just Charlie moving his feet taking a better position, not to say whether it had any role to play in Adar recognizing Sauron, yet…

He does a circular movement with the spear which certainly moves the blade inside Adar’s hand. Was it purposefully done to make it hurt? I have no idea.

Next moment Adar is looking up and while we may think we all saw the fear and the trembling, it is not the case. Up until today a lot of people claim there is no recognition at all, and you know why?

Not only because Adar says “no” but because the shot is tilted, bent sideways. This is not the camera angle at which we recognise emotions clearly.

And this was 100% done on purpose.

I’m giving it to you clear and with some metacommentary

All of these emotions flash so rapidly they are horrifyingly hard to catch. Add to that the camera tilt – voila, a lot of people understood nothing! Some put in that it was just Adar fearing death.

Adar denying Sauron the satisfaction makes someone go very angry.

The shot is, once again, straight and vertically set. You can clearly see Halbrand’s eyebrows move in confusion, then understanding comes in. For the viewers it is seen as Halbrand acknowledging Adar’s lack of memories, while in reality Sauron just goes

Steps on arm to pull out the spear but does so uncaringly, indicating he’s not concerned with what Adar’s feeling at all:

(Adar gasps but doesn’t flinch or even move his hand closer to himself: he’s all too familiar with pain, as we know)

Jaw angrily clenched:

Sheer act of dominance + quite a interesting thing if you think about Sauron & Adar relationship. Sauron steps on Adar like he’s nothing, like he’s a thing. Adar doesn’t even flinch, the “been there, done that before” moment.

Also, the shot is upside down, Adar’s face is covered with his hair, his eyes are all but closed. It is impossible to say what exactly is he feeling.

It is very obvious what Sauron/Halbrand is feeling with his nostrils flaring and jaw still clenched

“I hate you for what you did”.

It is clear he’s going for a kill (although no one would be able to stop a spear like that but oh-kay, he’s a goddamn Maia).

Reminding you, that at this moment Adar has both hands free. And still he decides to do nothing. He doesn’t try to grab Sauron’s foot or to cover his throat or anything. With his eyes fluttered shut, he just accepts his fate and the revenge Sauron is about to inflict.

It is perfectly seen he is afraid of death. And when Galadriel calls out to Halbrand, Adar doesn’t even try to look at his unexpected savior. His gaze is still fixed on Sauron.

Once again, very clear shots. All the faces and all the anger are perfectly seen.

Sauron’s gaze is fixed on Adar in return.

And Galadriel is like “they have a history, poor Halbrand…“. Her eyes are fixed on Halbrand, the shot showing her concern and compassion for him, because Galadriel has no idea it isn’t Halbrand that is the victim. And the viewers follow her trail of thought and emotion.

Then comes the part that tricked most of us.

Attention, please.

The shot is once again upside down, there’s hair all over Adar’s face, the camera does a JOB of filming this from the opposite direction of where Adar’s staring (at Sauron), so we don’t see his eyes or much of his face.

The fact that we don’t see his face clearly makes us rely on what he’s saying. And what he’s saying sounds like a mockery, although it’s actually a bitter retort.

Doing nothing to resist physically (probably knowing it is impossible against Sauron), Adar still puts up a verbal fight.

This might be the first time he says his pain out loud.

But it looks like it’s Adar who is guilty. Galadriel is even more concerned. The camera shows us that she is awaiting Halbrand’s reaction and his response.

The camera tilts sideways, showing us less hair, more face:

It seems a mockery once again. And now it is. This “woman” line concerned me for a while because I couldn’t get why would Adar mock Sauron with something as distant as a woman lover (Angbang forever, mates), something he clearly wasn’t interested much in.

Then it dawned that Adar is probably referring to his lover. Someone that Sauron, or Melkor, tortured and hurt (and most probably put to rape and breeding orcs…) and made die a long time ago.

Look at that bitter smile.

But oh, Sauron doesn’t like to be mocked for his deeds, does he? He’s once again trembling with rage, it’s perfectly seen:

While we are made think Adar hit the spot in Halbrand’s past life.

The camera’s certainly now zooming in, indicating there’s a tension building between these two. The shot is still tilted, making it hard to analyze Adar.

Adar’s breathing it out very accusingly. The wound of letting his orcs be put to torture is still fresh, in contrast to the probable woman he had lost a long ago. If we take into account that Sauron commanded legions of orcs during the First Age, then Adar is talking about thousands of his children being sent to fight and die by Sauron and for Sauron.

Really, what did Adar do to Sauron that could match the kind of pain Sauron brought him?

Then Galadrial cuts the string of tension:

Of course she’s protecting the person she knows! Any of us would do that.

Now this is the most mysterious moment. While it seems it’s Halbrand remembering his family, it is actually Sauron… grieving over Adar’s betrayal? He looks genuinely hurt, like he’s almost on the verge of tears.

And then this.

Okay, let me slow it down for you:

It seems like Adar, seeing that hurt look on Sauron’s face, realizes something. Something that makes him feel some kind of awe and breathe in in disbelief. Probably he’s shocked he meant something to Sauron. Probably he’s impressed that he managed to truly hurt him. Probably he thought it wasn’t possible.

Galadriel has a different reaction seeing that face.

This seems to settle Sauron for now but a whole complex of emotions is still clearly shown in the last, most close-upped of all shots:

TLDR: The composition of this scene gives us straight, clear shots of Halbrand & Galadriel while giving very angly, difficult shots of Adar for us not to comprehend his emotions well so we’d not guess Halbrand is SUS too early.

"I won't hurt you" said the liar

For me, his death was not cynical. I didn’t see a single sign that the creators of the series treated him cynically or wanted to kill him just to shock the audience. This was in the cards from the very beginning. Even with how expected such an ending was for Adar, it is a very, very bitter storyline. As Poppy said – some things simply cannot be dealt with; they are above and stronger than us. This ending is brutal, but it is much more realistic precisely because in epic fantasy, we expect the hero to win, and that’s okay. In this regard, Adar is much closer to the brutality found in non-epic works. It’s terrible, unfair, nightmarish, but life is an unfair and cruel thing. That’s how I see it.

Honestly, I haven't seen such a terrible story as Adar's in a long time. Not in the sense that it is poorly written, but in the sense that his storyline and his entire life are absolutely hopeless. His life was spent in suffering alongside Morgoth and Sauron; he witnessed how they killed and tormented his children, he was tortured too. For a brief moment, they freed themselves from Sauron's power, and Adar did everything to ensure that Uruks did not fall under his control again. He was ready to turn them against him, to feel their distance and their waning love for him, he was prepared for them to kill him, just so they wouldn’t become slaves again.

He dies right after realizing that the ring could heal him, after a new path opened up for him in alliance with Galadriel. Sauron looks at him and Adar understands that Sauron has won, and that everything that came before was in vain.

This is an absolute, total nightmare and shattering of all hopes.

Halbrand + text posts