The fucking hobbits got away from Talion, Ranger of the black Gate, the man who at one point fucked over all of Mordor, besieged Minas Morgul singlehandedly, and then bitch slapped the Witch King, but yet ultimately never did anything that mattered. FFS, even as a member of the Nine he didn't do anything. Maybe that line was supposed to be a reference to the fact that he died in the start of game one, so he hasn't been in control of his fate ever since then? But, imho, it's really underwhelming and frustrating to have such an interesting character have no agency, not achieve anything, then die. They even have a line that seemed like foreshadowing to me, 'As long as I draw breath my fate is my own' in that he's going to try to destroy Sauron/Celebrimbor, then take off the ring and finally die. If he takes the ring off, without Celebrimbor bond to him, his throat goes back to being slashed and he'll die. And with Celebrimbor busy fighting Sauron/trapped in an eye (unclear) and her not wearing the ring anymore, she wouldn't even still be corrupted by CelebrimborДЄnd finally, it makes no fucking sense at all that he would actually fully fall and become one of the nine, or at least not the way it happened. Maybe I'm just being a sap but I want some resolution here, I mean, why does Eltariel never show back up again to help fight the orcs/nazgul/fucking apologize? She didn't get sucked into the eye. He silently defends against waves of orks, never trying to go destroy Sauron or get revenge on Celebrimbor. And then instead of having any dialog/character/real story of talion falling to the corruption of the ring, he just gets cat eyes, and two janky, underwhelming powers. But after his betrayal they never see each other again.

He traded a ring of power so that Celebrimbor wouldn't be tortured. After spending so long in the same head, and working so closely together, it seemed at least that Talion cared for Celebrimbor. It was an awesome twist that caught me totally by surprise when Celebrimbor just ice cold back stabbed me like that, and I was incredibly excited for where the story was going after that. The most interesting parts of the story weren't the balrog wacky chase side quest, or helping the people of Gondor fuck around for a bit then being like w/e they've accepted death, I'm out, but watching Talion and Celebrimbor become more and more like they thing they were fighting. Watching a noble character fall to the corruption of a ring of power is an incredibly interesting story arch. thats what I just spent 15 hours grinding for.? That's the payoff of two games? And even then, why does Talion really need to do anything? Aren't Celebrimbor and Sauron still fighting for control of each other, nether one yielding? Celebrimbor says that he wants to conquor middle earth, but he spent 2 games trying to fuck over Sauron first, so it doesn't make any sense that they'd start working together. Talion then puts on one of the nines rings, knowing it will eventually corrupt him, and for what? As Shelob puts it 'to hold back the forces of Mordor until the War of the Ring' Sooo the reason is to stall until the events of the movies. The tag line of the game is 'nothing will be forgotten' but a character we spent 2 games with, having him constantly narrate in our heads, kills us, watching us bleed out then walking off without saying a word. I really wanted some resolution to the Celebrimbor betrayal. I thought the ending after shadow wars was infuriating unsatisfying. I wouldn't have taken the time to write all this about a game I didn't like, but I do have a lot of issues with acts 3 and 4 I also should say I really really really enjoyed act 1 and 2, and was super invested in seeing how Talion and Celebrimbors arc would resolve. I had had a couple of drinks, and been hanging around with Treebeard, so it might be a bit confusing at points, but I've edited it, and hopefully caught all of my beautiful mind moments.

This is a copypasta of a comment I made last night immediately after finishing Shadow Wars and seeing the 'true' ending. Massive Spoilers below, you have been warned.

Shadow of war witch king