It makes a tale of worth telling to frighten the lads and lasses I guess, but there's far too much of it going around already in this so-called "real world", I don't knead it in my fantasies and I don't seek to lay that burden on the youngsters. Give me a slow tale of folk overcoming natural hardships and persevering by pulling together and helping each other. That's the only way we're going to get through this. Fighting is generally self-defeating anymore.
Unfortunately, I fear 'Spectacle' rather than 'Story' is still where the minds of
men and beasts
travel when they consider how to make the most money.
There isn't much offered in the visual medias anywhere, nor being newly created, giving an Ent a hope we're recognizing Story is far more fulfilling.
"Give me blood - give me
battles - give me sweeping death and dismay - that's what I'll lay my money and time down for.'
And we wonder why the real world is the way it is?
Hum. Methinks we're missing some obvious things, if so.
That said,
the one thing I'm hearing so far about Season 2 in all the talk is indeed the 'focus on the battles ahead' - which, like you Sir Will, does not attract me personally too much as a "drawing" feature encouraging me to watch.
Absent some other redeeming qualities, I may not be participating in the watch very long.
I'd almost rather see
Radagast in a sled being pulled by bunnies, or
Legolas skiing off an
Oliphaunt's trunk, than a long sequence of battles and bloodshed.
But... that's just this Ent's perspective of course.