The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/the-lord-of-the-rings/)
A truly engaging story is unbelievably hard to come by. I love to read, but my expectations for a good book are so demanding that I rarely find myself truly enamored with a story. These criteria give value to how I approach my favorite stories: does the world feel as if it exists beyond the story? Are the characters considered in a way that is coherent with their narrative purpose? Were the themes alluded to worth discussing?
For me, pacing is the main issue. Slow burn, exposition-driven elements are productive; it is rather that the writers seek a deeper narrative haste without taking much time to build the wheeling scale of epic. Númenor in particular falls victim to this, where we see only inklings of the all-consuming desire for eternal life that will eventually drown them. But where the Númenor storyline falters, it is rescued by the gravity of Elendil (Lloyd Owen) and Queen-regent Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), as well as their trials of faith.