When George Lucas, that sassy rascal, decided in April 1981 to make the slightest change to his massive hit film star wars, he inadvertently lit a fuse that would burn in a culture war that rages to this day. Added subtitle Episode IV – A New Hope immediately recontextualized everything that had come and would come in the future, suggesting a grand plan that even a cursory glance at the original trilogy’s production history would turn out to be largely bluster. However, 18 years later, Lucas would have having a blueprint he mostly followed until a T: The Prequel Trilogy, which spent most of its existence defined by its inability to live up to its predecessor. There is a lesson to be learned: great art pretends to have a plan. Ugly art often suffers from too many planes.
As with many big shows with huge stakes, the creators of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power wanted to assure his audience that a plan was in place. So far so good: it often pays off for good art to assert that there’s a plan it doesn’t have, and for lousy art to insist that its plan will work.
power rings Showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay are very vocal about their plan: exactly what they’re adapting from JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth legend and how long it would take to do it. From this point on, the plan is pretty much to show the preparation for Peter Jackson’s prologue The Fellowship of the Ring, to end their new opus where the old one began. Unfortunately, this plan becomes less exciting in its execution.
power rings was built around mysteries that neither Tolkien, nor his more famous adapters, ever cared about. The driving forces of the first season all revolve around identities obscured by the writers, not the deep desires of the characters. Thus, its biggest questions are the ones the show asks the audience: Who is the Stranger? And Sauron? Or Adar?
![The Guardian, one of Sauron's three sorcerer disciples, clad in grimy white robes wielding a staff adorned with the Eye of Sauron in an attacking pose.](https://oponame.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/The-first-season-of-Rings-of-Power-loved-secrets-more.jpg)
Photo: Ben Rothstein/Prime Video
The Lord of the Rings and his related works were never really about mysteries; most of the characters were what they seemed and few had much to hide. Some weren’t what other characters expected them to be, but the audience always knows – Aragorn, for example, is not what many in the story expect him to be, but from when the audience discovers his broken sword, the implication is clear: he is The heir to Isildur, the King of Gondor who makes the titular return in The king’s return.
This is the strength of Tolkien’s brand of high fantasy, and ironically the same reason it is rejected by more modern versions of the genre. That is why rings of power can coexist comfortably Dragon House and still feel like an entirely different experience – because it is. It’s a world where archetypal characters struggle with abstractions that represent good and evil in the purest terms, where the darkness is abysmal and the light that burns to repel it is weak but burning. It’s never really a question of whether the likes of the elf king Gil-galad or the renowned genius Celebrimbor are good or bad, it’s just whether or not they’re misguided in their lofty ideals. The characters of Middle-earth embark on journeys that will lead them one way or the other: the growing ranks of those who fight for the light, or the masses who give in to despair.
For this reason, much of Tolkien’s work is about incredible journeys, great distances traveled, and struggles endured toward an impossible destination. Perhaps the main reason why power rings fails in its first season is also the simplest: it goes nowhere.
![Arondir and Bronwyn watch each other very carefully in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.](https://oponame.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/1666394626_446_The-first-season-of-Rings-of-Power-loved-secrets-more.jpg)
Image: First video
![A boat heads towards a sunbeam on the quiet horizon with elves gathered on deck watching the birds fly in the sunbeam in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power](https://oponame.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/1666394626_193_The-first-season-of-Rings-of-Power-loved-secrets-more.jpg)
Image: First video
Of course, people travel. Faced with the threat of orcs led by the mysterious Adar, Bronwyn and the people of the Southlands constantly flee for their safety. Galadriel, who begins her story by going to the elven paradise of Valinor, decides at the last moment to refuse paradise in order to continue her hunt for Sauron in Middle-earth. Elrond goes back and forth to Khazad-dûm. The island kingdom of Númenor, long isolated under a policy of non-interventionism, finally sends soldiers into Middle-earth proper, an act that will be the beginning of its downfall.
However, none of these trips are journeys, not in the Campbellian sense. And that, I would say, goes a long way to explaining why power rings can seem so hollow: so few of its characters grow. It’s a shame, because there are some relationships here worth seeing, and the best moments in the series are usually when those relationships have a chance to play out: namely, between Durin the Dwarf Prince and his wife, his father and Elrond. That’s why it’s so deflating that most of the other characters are reduced to just learning the hidden roles played in the secret Werewolf game the writers played. Galadriel’s history with her husband, Bronwyn’s fate in the Southlands with her son Theo, absolutely everything about harfoots – it all boils down to a parlor debate over who might hold the card that says they’re the Lord of Darkness.
Galadriel, the show’s ostensible protagonist, is the same person at the end of Season 1 as she was at the beginning; the only appreciable difference by the season finale is the one it shares with most of the big players in power rings: A bunch of characters that projected skill now look like huge dopes. The final reveal of Sauron’s identity is portrayed in a way that unfolds primarily for the viewer’s benefit, as those who learn the truth are deceived into being made to be less observant, less active, and more trusting of a character who is essentially thrust into their story at a climactic moment for no good reason to be there.
Photo: Ben Rothstein/Prime Video
The preamble continually replaces the character on power rings. The distance between where the characters should be in the showrunners’ endgame plans and where they are now serves as a rationale for their current decisions, not character development. Why are Bronwyn and Arondir attracted to each other and pulled into each other’s orbit? Why do Elendil and Queen Regent Míriel suddenly have a connection? Why did the elves, after learning the identity of Sauron, still uses his ideas?
There’s a simple answer to that: it’s all part of the plan, and it will make sense if we keep going. But good plans and good television don’t place all their bets on what ends up happening. The present should count infinitely more, because a worthwhile journey is what ultimately guarantees that we reach our destination.
Ironically, power rings has so much to show us. Dwarven halls, human marines, elven woods. All of this wonderful. The series’ virtually unlimited budget never lacked when it came to sights and texture. It’s a Middle-earth that people live in, that a viewer would want to visit, it would be a tragedy if it were to face destruction. However, it’s built with the architecture of a video game, with prominent sightlines that draw attention to what’s on the horizon, dramatic shots so the viewer doesn’t forget the majesty of the fantastic cities he visits and thoughtful costumes that tell you where each person is from. It may not be a mistake that it is more interesting to imagine in this version of the Second Age of Middle-earth than to evoke the inner life of one of the characters. power rings the people with.
![Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) standing and holding mithril, with Elrond (Robert Aramayo) looking over his shoulder](https://oponame.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/1666394626_239_The-first-season-of-Rings-of-Power-loved-secrets-more.jpg)
Image: First video
![Galadriel and Theo walking through a post-eruption Southlands. They're halfway, and it's all filtered orange and there's ash everywhere](https://oponame.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/1666394626_921_The-first-season-of-Rings-of-Power-loved-secrets-more.jpg)
Image: First video
![A view overlooking the elven paradise of Valinor, a fantastic city bordered by a river and lit by the brilliant light of two radiant trees.](https://oponame.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/1666394626_329_The-first-season-of-Rings-of-Power-loved-secrets-more.jpg)
Image: First video
power rings is the work of cartographers, not storytellers. Maps are, after all, works of pride: you can only create one if you are foolish enough to believe the world is known. Yet many of the most memorable moments in the great history of Middle-earth reside in what is not shown in the map that precedes Tolkien’s work. The things that occur in Mirkwood, the haunted halls of Moria, the fields of Rohan. Whose stories diverge or end there, and how they are subsequently changed. something is moving these characters to travel, whether it’s for treasure or adventure or just a deep desire to do the right thing, because someone has to.
Maybe the best thing that can happen to power rings is if he would stop mapping this world so painstakingly and just walk around it with us.
Season 1 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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