‘The Rings Of Power’ Has Completely Changed Middle-earth’s Second Age

I watched the first two episodes of Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power and came away pleasantly surprised by the lavishly produced show.

It was a bit of a slow burn, but I loved the world-building and the visual design, the music and the costumes.

I could tell that some big changes were being made to the established lore, and I knew that the showrunners were condensing the Second Age into a much more manageable timeline. But after the third episode, I have many more doubts and reservations about what Amazon is doing with this property, and what kind of story is actually unfolding.

Yes, part of this has to do with Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) who I find myself actively disliking at this point. It’s hard to feel upbeat about a show whose central protagonist is also its weakest link.

MORE FROM FORBES‘The Rings Of Power’ Has A Galadriel ProblemBy Erik Kain

But there’s a lot more than simply one character that’s starting to feel out of place or just plain wrong, and I’m beginning to question whether the sheer breadth of changes made to Tolkien’s established Second Age lore were necessary or if a different approach to this adaptation would have made more sense.

The timeline is perhaps the biggest problem, and it’s kind of a head-scratcher. The First Age ended with the defeat of Morgoth but this would have been thousands of years in the past at this point, and very few people would even remember that there was a Morgoth, let alone know of the existence of Sauron—and yet commoners in the Southlands bring up Morgoth like the war was fought yesterday.

This leads to other awkward moments. In Episode 3, Galadriel and Elendil travel to the Hall of Law, an ancient Númenorean library, where they discover that Sauron’s mark is actually a map of the Southlands. There’s an old document they handily discover almost instantly that has a map and some writing in the ‘black speech’ of the Enemy. Galadriel reads it:

“It speaks not only of a place, but a plan: A plan by which to create a realm of their own where evil will not only endure but thrive, a plan to be enacted in the event of Morgoth’s defeat . . . by his successor.”

“Galadriel?” Elendil asks.

“Matters are worse than I expected,” she replies breathlessly.

“Then the Southlands are in grave danger.”

“If Sauron has indeed returned,” Galadriel says, pausing for dramatic effect. “The Southlands are but the beginning.”

Cue dramatic music.

This scene was painful to watch. Just deeply cringey in the worst way. Did the Black Speech note really say that the plan was to create a realm where evil could not merely survive, but thrive? Is that how Sauron and his orcs and lieutenants speak to one another while twirling their villain mustaches?

“What’s your diabolical plan, Lord Sauron? Should Morgoth be defeated, that is?”

“We will create a realm!”

“An evil realm?”

“A very evil realm!”

“Where all of our evil can survive?”

“Not just survive you fool! It will be a realm where evil will thrive! Bwahahahaha!”

“Oh I love it, Sauron! So diabolical!”

“Yes yes, I hope you were writing all that down. No? Well please do. We need to send this to all our evil friends so they know the plan also! And be sure to draw a map. In fact, we’ll draw lots of maps so that the elves will find clues to the whereabouts of our new realm of evil!”

“Elves, m’lord?”

“Yes, what good is a diabolical plot and a realm of pure evil if we don’t lure the good guys to us? How can we monologue properly and regale them with all our evil scheming if they can’t find us?”

“Brilliant! Morgoth couldn’t have said it better, oh dark and evil one!”

“BWAHAHAHAHAH!!!”

“What will we call this new realm, oh master of darkness?”

“Mordor!”

“MORDOR!”

“No you have to roll the ‘r’ like so: Mordorrrr!”

And so on and so forth.

More to the point, I’m just not sure how this changes anything. Galadriel believed Sauron was still out there already. Finding what I presume to be a very old document (from a time when human spies would presumably be sent to spy on orcs, which would have to be a long time ago since nobody has seen any orcs for generations) doesn’t prove that Sauron is back.

And the whole “in the event of Morgoth’s defeat” bit just sounds ridiculous. Morgoth was one of the most powerful beings in existence. I don’t think anyone was making contingency plans to create a realm of evil if the dark god was slain. All of this just seems to give very human, mortal motivations and logic to beings that are operating on a whole different level. And why not create this realm of pure evil whether or not Morgoth is defeated? Why is this even set up like some contingency plan?

Sauron went into hiding at the end of the First Age and virtually nobody alive now would remember that he even existed—outside of ancient elves like Galadriel. But then here is where we get into all kinds of timeline issues.

Sauron returned from wherever he was hiding around SA 1,000 (1,000 years into the Second Age) and began setting up shop in Mordor, gathering his armies of orcs and trolls and other baddies to him.

Elendil was born in SA 3119, over two-thousand years later, long after Sauron had returned to Middle-earth and long after the forging of the Rings by Celebrimbor, who was tricked by Sauron, disguised as Annatar, and blinded by his own ambition.

That all took place around SA 1600, culminating in Sauron’s devastating assault on Eregion where he captured and tortured Celebrimbor, taking the Nine Rings and learning where the Seven were, but not learning where the elves were keeping the Three.

Toward the end of the Second Age, many centuries later, Sauron was captured and made prisoner by the Númenóreans which, in turn, led to the kingdom’s downfall as Sauron corrupted its people and leaders, leading Elendil and Isildur to lead the nation’s survivors to Middle-earth where they founded Gondor, eventually teaming up with the elves of Lindon—the last alliance of men and elves—and defeating Sauron in battle, Isildur cutting the Ring from Sauron’s finger but refusing to destroy it when he had the chance.

So the show is taking the forging of the Rings, the return of Sauron, the fall of Eregion and presumably the eventual capture of Sauron and the fall of Númenor all into one show and one timeline that will span a very short amount of time. This is quite a radical compression of the Second Age, though if done properly I can see how it would work over several seasons.

The trick is making it work—and if scenes like the one in the Hall of Law are anything to go by, I’m not too hopeful. We still need the timelines to make sense, even if they’re changed, and that doesn’t work if you introduce the show as taking place in a time when Sauron has essentially been gone so long nobody remembers him, but then have all your characters know exactly who he is and who Morgoth was as though the First Age just ended last year. These things directly contradict one another.

Still, I can see why they’d want to combine everything into one narrative, as most fans aren’t hardcore enough Tolkien lore zealots to care. It would make sense to have Ar-Pharazôn and his Númenórean army show up to fight Sauron after the fall of Eregion, for instance, and take him prisoner then, since clearly he can’t do it in SA 3261 when he attacks Mordor in Tolkien’s timeline (with a force so powerful and awe-inspiring that Sauron’s armies desert him and flee without fighting).

You could then have Sauron taken to Númenor where he worms his way into the king’s head, sowing the seeds that will lead to that kingdom’s turn to darkness and evil.

But here we also have some odd timeline stuff that doesn’t make sense. There’s already much discussion of who is and who is not faithful to the elves in Episode 3, but this would make more sense later, when Sauron begins turning Ar-Pharazôn into an acolyte of Morgoth—when things get very, very bad. It’s weird to establish this divide now rather than have it occur after Sauron arrives.

Another approach Amazon could have taken with this show would have been an anthology-style show with different eras in self-contained arcs, connected by the immortal elven characters. One or two seasons could have been the forging of the Rings and the fall of Eregion. The next couple seasons could have told story of the capture of Sauron and the fall of Númenor. Or there could have been something in-between these stories about the rise of the Witch King and the corruption of the Nine.

Of course, this would mean refreshing the cast every couple seasons (other than the elves) and that’s definitely a risk in and of itself.

I do think that this can all still work as one condensed timeline, and I understand why they’re approaching it this way, but the risk is a jumbled and incoherent end product that trips all over its own feet. Hopefully that’s not the case and The Rings Of Power will find its stride soon, but the third episode definitely has me more worried than before.

You can check out my discussion with my friend Patrick—who knows a lot more about Tolkien lore than I do—below. This is a pre-Episode 3 discussion so we’ll definitely have to do another one to talk about all these massive timeline changes.

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