by Henry Ahrabi, Anna Jackson, Jonah Murray, and Jonathan Rolfe

Two years ago, out of our great love of Tolkien, we decided to begin watching Amazon’s new Rings of Power. It was a delightful time, holed up cozily in Koon (then, as now, a women’s dorm), watching it, offering a running commentary with our friends. We did not expect much faithfulness to Tolkien, and so, were never planning to hold it in much esteem. But it managed to fail in other respects: large plot holes, video game graphics, absurd lines of action, and, especially, the clichèd and decidedly un-Tolkienian dialogue. And so we watched it, making fun of it as we went, and talking of Middle Earth. Two years later, we came back for more.

“Hope is never mere, even when it is meager.” – Gil-galad

While summarizing the entire first season will take up too much space, the general plot relevant to this review runs as follows: Galadriel, accompanied by a human named Halbrand, searches for Sauron, upon whom she has sworn revenge. They clash with the Orc-father Adar (who is a character entirely made up for the show) and his army by protecting the men of the Southlands from the Orcish invasion. After the sudden eruption of Mt. Doom, Halbrand reveals himself as Sauron, and Galadriel is left heartbroken. In the meantime a mysterious stranger with long gray hair falls to earth with no memory of his name or where he came from. He falls in with the “Harfoots” which are Hobbit ancestors who call him “The Stranger.” He befriends one of them, Nori, and they set off together to try to recover his lost memories.

The second season of the show opens with Sauron once again under the disguise of Halbrand, putative king of the Southlands; he enters the orc camp to petition Adar, for, it seems, no reason at all, except so that he can say the line “Let my people go!” (Adar, needless to say, refuses.) Memorably, in a flashback to before the plot of the show, we see Sauron killed by Adar, before turning to a foul black goo that slinks about, consuming more and more organic matter, until he eats a woman and emerges as Halbrand. Unfortunately, this scene is more hilarious than horrifying, providing perhaps the opposite sense from that which the writers intended.

“Let my people go!” – Sauron

The strongest scenes of the show take place between Celebrimbor and Sauron, who has disguised himself again and taken the name Annatar. The audience watches Annatar masterfully gaslight the elvish Blacksmith into fashioning the seven and the nine rings, earning his name “The Deceiver,” but he oversteps, and Celebrimbor realizes at last who Annatar really is. The acting is excellent; Sauron is believable as the narcissistic gaslighter and Celebrimbor as the naive but intelligent victim. However, lines such as “You are He!” and “It is not strength that conquers darkness, but light!” make otherwise solid scenes difficult to take seriously.

“Sometimes, to find the light, we must first touch the darkness.” —Galadriel

On the other hand, the scenes between Elrond and Galadriel are painful to watch, not only because of poor writing, but because of the inexplicable decision to develop romantic tension between the two. There are constant lingering looks and touches, culminating in a kiss which Elrond ostensibly is using to distract Adar (whom Galadriel also seems to have romantic tension with). The relationship with Elrond might not be objectionable, except for the fact that he eventually marries Galadriel’s daughter in the original canon. Incestuous kissing is not particularly pleasant to watch.

“He is no man.” – Galadriel

The treatment of women in Rings of Power is generally problematic. There is such a focus on creating the “strong female archetype” that any sense of traditional femininity, aside from skirts and long hair, disappears. While Tolkein does not write many female characters, all those he does write are intelligent, capable, and powerful—especially Galadriel. This is not reflected in the women of Rings of Power. Galadriel is written with romantic tension with every male character she interacts with for any length of time, making her seem more like a pretty face than an autonomous character. The inclusion of the elusive “ent-wife” also illustrates this point well. She is characterized in the show as unreasonable, shrewish, and chaotic—very different from the orderly gardener Treebeard describes in The Lord of the Rings. The women of this show lack the grace and maturity of Arwen, Eowyn, and Galadriel, and of Tolkien’s writing completely. Instead, they are impulsive and reckless in their attempts at authority and leadership, leaving the audience not with the impression of strong women, but incompetent ones. 

“There is a tempest in me!” —Galadriel

The worst characterizations, however, are found in the plot following the Hobbits—err, the Harfoots as they are called since Amazon doesn’t have the rights to portray Hobbits—and Hobbits didn’t appear until the Third Age. In the Second Age in which the series takes place, the Harfoot ancestors of the Hobbits are nomads. The show’s writers are unable to capture the innocence and quirks of language that Tolkien gave the Hobbits, resorting instead to poor modifications of English idioms. The failure to portray people who live a good life matches the writers’ butchery of Tom Bombadil. Peter Jackson wisely left him out of his movie adaptation, but the writers of Rings of Power brought him in as a Yoda/Dumbledore hybrid to help The Stranger find his “gand.” 

“One thing we can do better than any creature in all Middle-earth—we stay true to each other, with our hearts even bigger than our feet.” —Nori, a Harfoot

Just as poor Tom seems inexplicably “Yoda-ish,” wizardry seems to be unexpectedly like The Force. The Stranger—wait, “Grand Elf,” lifts falling rocks, and the Dark Wizard performs what can only be called a “force choke.” In addition, according to Bombadil, a wizard doesn’t choose the gand; the gand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter… Wait, wrong universe.

The “gand” is a frustrating moment of its own. The sole word the Hobbits say in a non-English language is the word “gand,” meaning “staff.” This sets up awkwardly, albeit accurately to Tolkien’s etymology, Gandalf’s name, meaning “the elf with the staff.” However, the writers seem to decide halfway through the season that this would be too complicated to inflict on the audience: when a character referred to The Stranger as “Grand Elf” for the first time, there were audible groans in the room as we realized that yet again, Rings of Power was going to take the stupid way out.

That is a summary enough, though that only mentions three of the six or so plotlines. If you desire a more full account, you’ll have to undertake the dubious move of watching it yourself.

We cannot recommend this show, unless perhaps for the narrow purpose of contemptuous amusement. This season does not change that. While a portion of the acting and plot are much improved from the first season, the remaining poor plotlines and intermittent bad dialogue bring the show to an instantaneous and unanimous halt (much like the implausible ending of Elrond’s cavalry charge). The writers do not show the same care for Tolkien that his fans do; they rather depend on cheap tricks and common tropes. The Silmarillion this is not. We can only hope that this is not the first of many derivative and poorly written sequels, beating Tolkien’s lovingly crafted universe like Elrond’s dead horse.

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Henry Ahrabi is a senior Philosophy and Latin major from Louisiana. His favorite Lord of the Rings character is Gollum.

Anna Jackson is a senior English major and Philosophy minor. As the least Tolkien-savvy in the watch-party, she enjoys watching the horror on her friends’ faces as the source-material is butchered. Her favorite Lord of the Rings characters are Faramir and Éowyn. 

Jonah Murray is a senior Mathematics and Greek major. His preferred response to flat-earthers is to tell them that they’re out of date: that was only true before the downfall of Númenor at the end of the second age.

Jonathan Rolfe is a senior studying Greek and Latin. Ask him about Tolkien sometime.