To be fair the entire point of that scene is to show Galadriel's thrist for vengeance will end with her being no better then Sauron or Morgoth. Heavy handed and trite but it made sense in the context of the show.

Anyways would the show have been better if there weren't a black elf and hobbit? Being "woke" is the least of the shows problems and certainly not the source of the worst ones.

I don't know why so many Hollywood writers these days feel like they are "smarter" then their source material and want to "subvert expecations" instead of just faithfully adapting it. That's the cause of why New Trek/Star Wars/Tolkien shows have been so mediocre in my opinion.

Marvel, for better or worse, realized that just ripping stuff directly from the comics works and when they do that they tend to be successful. It's formulaic to a fault at times but I prefer Marvel's stuff then this new reimagined mediocrity that other studios are putting out.
 

I can't say my expectations were subverted. Galadriel is this extremely unpleasant character of the "I am right, and the whole world is wrong!" type. And in the end it turns out that she is wrong on several levels, including having helped her arch-enemy. That is pretty much expected. I maybe would have expected these events to help her grow her character, and use them to explain how she became the Galadriel of the LotR movies/books. Well, maybe next season; although I'm not sure the actress has other expressions than grim determination in her repertoire.

I fully agree that diverse casting is not a problem. It is only the idea that "we have diverse casting, we don't need good writing anymore" which hurts. And after widespread accusations that Tolkien was racist because his elves where "too white", I was genuinely surprised that the Rings of Power version is more overtly racist than the books.
 

I thought D&D changed racial stat modifiers so that my orc wizard wouldn't be gimped from the outset and thereby give me a reason to buy the supplement with the extra playable races. Have you seen the charts of race/class choice frequency that they were possibly looking to even out more? This "prevailing opinion" is fringe nonsense.
 

The writing does indeed leave much to be desired for. I won't say it's a completely terrible show as it has some redeeming qualities in my opinion, namely the visuals and scenery, but it's writing is just bad.

My wife enjoyed the show enough that we are now working through the movies first 3 movies.