I love THE RINGS OF POWER: as a week to week television series, as something that is evocative of a Tolkien aesthetic, and as something that ultimately has a good heart. Yes I get that it takes some departures from the source material but I would also say that its source material (largely the Appendices of THE LORD OF THE RINGS and selected letters and writings) has contradictions that even the Tolkien estate has admitted exist. Adding to the issue is a 5 season order for a series that must be drawn from limited and sometime contradicting material. So liberties and departures will be and have been taken by showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay. Whether or not you like them is a huge point of contention on the internet and among fans and critics currently. I happen to like them.
THE RINGS OF POWER can also be slow at times, especially to modern audiences primed to GAMES OF THRONES pacing – but I think Tolkien’s own writings can also be highly descriptive to the point of almost being transcendental – and some modern audiences would also call that boring. I guess my point is that even when the show might be displeasing you it could still be adhering to Tolkien more than you think.
All that being said, I am also enjoying the show as a place to “theorycraft” – and that says something. I like these characters, their predicament, and their world enough to want to speculate about what is coming next and where their journeys are going. So I decided to pick five of the biggest questions I have going into the finale and Season 2 and write about each one.
PREFACE: I am not discussing the question that you’ve probably heard the most: “Who Is Sauron?” There has been a big rumor floating around social media from fans and foes alike involving one of the main characters – that sounds like it could be correct. But I’m also hoping it is not. And honestly if you have watched season 1 and haven’t heard those rumors you probably have a similar idea at which character the rumors might be pointing to. But the showrunners are fantastic at misdirection, so who knows. And the showrunners have also said that they want Sauron to mimic the shadow following over Middle-Earth in Season 1, and that viewers should be wondering whether or not this character or that character might be coming because the viewer should feel that evil can come from anywhere. And to that I would say they have been quite successful.
So what are my five questions…
1. What happens to Adar in season 2?
Adar is the most interesting character in season 1. He’s a man who has wrought destruction and misery across the Southlands BUT who also thinks he has killed Sauron and found himself at odds with the dark lord. Despite his creation of Mordor, he seems to not be willfully acting in concert with him now. And he also has some sort of justifiable reason for everything that he is doing. He is a champion of the Orcs. And he is also great at calling out the problematic aspects of other characters like Galadriel – something that characters who exist in a morally gray area are always fantastic at doing – like HRG in HEROES or Ben Linus on LOST.
Now I want to also say that Adar’s morally gray characteristics WORK because we have people like Galadriel, Isildur, Arondir to shade him against. There is another fantasy show that is filled with gray characters and while it has many strengths, when you have a show full of gray characters none of them are actually gray. Did I say gray too many times?
So what happens in season 2? The Mordor that his actions have wrought surely will not be his kingdom for long with the promise of Sauron ahead. I mentioned HRG and Ben Linus above for a specific reason. I can see Adar becoming that sort of “good bad guy” like those two. Someone who is in contact with our protagonists, who is a thorn in their side, who has caused them much pain and misery, but could also end up helping them. It is for characters like Adar that I loved classic shows like LOST and HEROES and I can see him fitting in here in just such a role in Season 2. If he is cast out of Mordor and has to take up in Lindon or Numenor, I could also see him as someone who sees through whatever glamor Sauron might be using and warning our protagonists, only to see some of them frustratingly cast off his warnings. Moreover, I hope he survives and stays with the show.
2. Will Isildur ever live up to the “Heir to Isildur” rep?
After the Mount Doom explosion, Isildur has gone missing. His father Elendil is dejected and wants to go back to Numenor. But we all know Isildur is not dead. So where is he? But perhaps an even better question would be WHY is he? What does that even mean?
Well up to this point on the show Isildur to me has not felt like the Isildur we know of in Tolkien-lore. Now haters are going to say the same thing about Galadriel but I would caution that Galadriel has an eon between the events of this show and LOTR and even in LOTR we get a sense that she has a darker side but has taken herself out of situations where that might get “activated”. However Isildur presumably has less than a decade before his final confrontation with Sauron and at that point it is presumed that he would be thought of as a great warrior and potential ruler.
I think one of the things that makes me so apprehensive about this portrayal of Isildur is that we constantly hear the words “Heir of Isildur” when people describe Aragorn in LOTR (even The Mouth of Sauron says this in jest!). The current Isildur is not a person that I continue to be invoked in 1000 years time. While this is a 5 season show, I still want to see signs of Isildur’s character arc soon. And I think his current absence could be the beginning of that.
I can only imagine that being alone in the Shadowlands during this tragedy will give him a chance to grow – facing adversity alone and without people like Elendil or Galadriel or his friends. Also one of the most exciting moments of the preview was seeing an unknown hand with a sword exit the water, reminding me of imagery from John Boorman’s EXCALIBUR (but on a second watch it appears to be Galadriel with her dagger – oh well). Perhaps we will finally see someone that will fit the title legend invoked in the title “Heir To Isildur”.
3. What will Gil-Galad and other Elven Leadership do when Galadriel returns?
I think one of the biggest and most obvious questions that constantly gets glossed over in videos that I’ve watched is what will happen to Galadriel when she returns to Lindon. Right now she is on her way, presumably, with Halbrand to seek medicine for his wounds. I know that in the lore of Tolkien, Galadriel was banned from going back to Valinor and I could see the show transmogrifying that event into the fallout of her return to Lindon.
Either way, I don’t see good things for Galadriel upon her arrival. I think Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor will be VERY upset and see her as partially responsible for the creation of Mordor. But I think her bringing Halbrand there could be an even worse decision down the road. If Halbrand is somehow corrupted or an agent of Sauron as many have theorized, then her letting the proverbial devil into the garden of eden will be an even worse decision than those that lead to the destruction of the Southlands.
It is almost crazy to think that by the time LOTR comes around she is thought of as someone who has such honor and esteem in the Elven community. I know many haters have called this Galadriel a “Mary Sue” but in my opinion she is far from it. Sure she can fight with a sword but that is immaterial to her poor decision making that has now put an entire Middle Earth in jeopardy. And I’m not saying that writing her that way is a bad thing. I’m saying it is an interesting thing and calling her names like “Mary Sue” is really overlooking the finer points of the character.
4. The Theo Mystery
Who is Theo? What is Theo? These are two of the bigger questions of Season 1 that have yet to be answered but also big questions that no one seems to be asking. Is Theo an elf? Maybe we don’t know though because we haven’t seen his ears yet. Is Theo Arondir’s son? Maybe. Is Theo Halbrand’s son? Probably not judging by Bronwyn seemingly not knowing Halbrand.
But who will Theo become? His dabble with the hilt/sword that ended up breaking the damn and his bonding with Galadriel laid paths to both the darkness and the light. So could he end up being someone that does something legendary? Yes. Could he also end up The Witch King or The Mouth of Sauron? Yes.
I think one of my small quibbles with the series is that Theo has no decipherable internal compass on the show. In one week he is bonding with an Orc, in another he is killing an Orc, in another he is bonding with Galadriel. It is all a bit messy but it does create some great questions for the character.
5. Who is joining the show in Season 2?
“The Hollywood Reporter” recently interviewed JD Payne and Patrick McKay, the two showrunners for RINGS OF POWER Season 1. And they mentioned that “they plan to introduce more iconic location, more FAMILIAR middle earth characters, and a two episode battle”. When you use the word “Familiar” I would assume this would mean characters that we know from Tolkien’s writing. So who or what could be down the road? Here are my top three bets:
Thranduil. The father of Legolas has been alive in Middle Earth since the First Age and took part in the Battle of the Last Alliance. He has yet to appear on the show but is one of the more important elves during the second age and in the history of middle earth, that has yet to make an appearance on the show might be telling. Some have speculated that because he appears in THE HOBBIT so prominently that he might not be a character in the series due to rights. But I do feel like the creators have side-stepped this issue before (as they might with the next two characters as well).
Tom Bombadil. An enigmatic character that has lived in Middle Earth throughout the first and second age and into the third age, famously excised from Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS film, He came to be known by many names during his pilgrimage: the Elves called as Iarwain Ben-adar (“Oldest and Fatherless” in Sindarin), while he was known as Orald to men and Forn to the Dwarves. Tom was both very powerful and also
Smaug. The dragon famously portrayed in The Hobbit is likely alive during the second age. I’m not quite sure what could make our heroes square off against a dragon. But Smaug only lived in the Lonely Mountain for 150 years before the events of the Hobbit meaning he could easily be around and roaming during the second age.
Well I am looking forward to the finale tonight. Let’s see what happens and gets set up for season 2.
No Scoops Club 