“The Rings of Power” Misses The Mark --Over and Over

Taking a detour from music to say something that needs saying

PR image for “The Rings of Power © Amazon

Prologue

In my sophomore year in college, a friend invited me to join his Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) group. The other players were people I knew who loved the same stories I did (The Iliad, the Nibelungenlied, The Lord of the Rings, and all the fantasy worlds in between). A game about elves and dragons and quests seemed like a lot of fun and a chance to join in creating adventures in imaginary worlds. I hoped to recapture some of the sense of magic I got from reading Homer and Tolkien.

However, after a few sessions, I lost interest. I didn’t analyze why at the time; I just drifted away. It was not because it was so nerdy—my friends were nerds, too, and it would be years before we realized how uncool the game was to the normies. Looking back on it, I think I was missing the sense of awe and wonder I got from reading the original stories.

For those unfamiliar with D&D, it is the granddaddy of role-playing games and the intellectual forebear of many video games. Participants play as a team with a shared mission. Each player picks a character to serve as his/her icon in the game, just as a Monopoly player chooses the shoe, the car, the iron, or whatever. The difference is that the icon you select in D&D shapes your options later in the game.

Game sessions consist of a lot of narrative back and forth, describing and responding to plot situations. During the game, you hunt for prizes, try to find ways to enhance your powers, decide when to fight enemies and how to fight them, cast spells or ward off spells, open doors to find treasure, avoid traps, and so on. A lot of the gameplay is facilitated by rolls of special dice made just for D&D.

For those who want to understand this better, there is a ton of literature out there about the game. D&D is a global thing. There are a huge number of variations on the game. Intellectually, it is quite complex. I should have loved it, yet I stopped finding it compelling.

To get at why: Imagine that you are playing the role of a wizard (a popular choice). During the game, as you accomplish goals, you get rewarded with additional powers — perhaps spells you can cast, a more powerful staff, or greater resistance to injury (so-called “hit points”). This happens stochastically in response to the twists and turns of the game and the rolls of the many-sided dice.

There is no link to the deeper back story. The grand concepts of courage, grace, and wisdom do not come into play. The moral dimension is stunted or absent — yes, some characters in the game may be defined as “good” or “evil,” but these are arbitrary designations with no implications for how they manifest in the in-game world. You keep track of your “points” (this is how you keep your score of how well your character is doing), but that’s all it is — keeping score.

Players were fond of debating things like “Could a Wizard beat five Ringwraiths in a fight?” or “How much more powerful is an Elf lord with a Ring of Power?” or “How does a magic sword detect the presence of goblins?” — i.e., incredibly geeky stuff, with no possible resolution since we will never know. The thing is that, in a group of 18–19-year-old dudes, the discussions would never go any deeper than this.

Hating “The Rings of Power” for the wrong reasons

This is where we arrive at “The Rings of Power.” If you are reading this, you no doubt know the basics: It is an Amazon TV series that premiered in 2022 and is based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium set in Middle Earth. It is set specifically in the Second Age, which is relatively sparsely accounted for in Tolkien’s original works. This is probably why the showrunners thought they had license to do whatever they wanted.

When the series first aired, audience reaction was mixed. Perhaps the biggest negative backlash came not from fans objecting to the way the show mangles Tolkien’s work but from racists objecting to the casting of non-white actors in some of the roles. So let’s dispense with that issue right away: The casting of black or mixed-race actors as humans, hobbits, or, for that matter, Elves, is not a problem. Period.

Some of the criticism hinges on the term “fair.” Tolkien uses the word to describe many of the characters in his works, but in context, the term means “beautiful” more than “white.” In fact, he describes the splintering of the Elves into various tribes, most of which became known as Dark Elves. Heck, why can’t some of them actually be dark?

I see no reason why not. Yes, it is likely that Tolkien, being white himself and living in England, probably pictured most characters as white. But he left no indication that this mattered. Suppose it did? Just what are the rules for determining how much an actor has to look like someone’s mental image of the character?

If we want art to reflect fidelity to presumed racial identity, consider that Jesus was likely five feet tall and looked like a modern-day Palestinian. How many modern representations of Jesus are true to what he actually looked like? Insisting on racial purity would mean we can’t cast non-white actors in Shakespeare plays (other than Othello). The hugely successful Broadway show “Hamilton” would not have been possible.

If you think the biggest problem with “The Rings of Power” is actors of color, then you may not see the point of the rest of this article. But I encourage you to read on because I think there is a much bigger problem with it.

Several problems, actually.

Time matters

The first problem with the series is the time-scape. Tolkien’s Second Age of Middle Earth spans over 3400 years. A small number of Elves remain in Middle Earth after the cataclysmic battle that ended the First Age. The Elves are immortal and appear to men to have magical powers. Over the centuries, they quietly try to maintain peace and prosperity.

Men, on the other hand, are scattered into many lands and tribes. Most of them had fought for the evil demigod Morgoth, and are now left to their own devices. For most of them, life is “nasty, brutish and short,” to quote Hobbes.

A few survivors who had fought alongside the Elves are given an island of their own (Numenor), eventually building a thriving, even glorious civilization. However, over many generations, they, too, fall victim to corruption and evil, and their land is destroyed. The survivors escape back to Middle Earth, where they establish two small realms in exile.

The showrunners decided that trying to depict all that history was simply too much bother. They also didn’t want to deal with the fact that, as mortals, none of the human characters would be around for more than one or two episodes. They figured their audience was too stupid to be able to adapt to having new characters show up every couple of episodes. (This ignores the success of series like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror, but hey, so what?)

They could have done what Tolkien himself did: He did not try to fit the entire story of the Third Age into a novel. Instead, “The Hobbit” covers about one year in that story, near the end of the Third Age, and “LOTR” covers the last year and a half of that Age. The rest of the history of the Third Age is conveyed either through in-world allusions or in the appendices, which read a bit like the Old Testament.

Tolkien’s genius was in knowing how to make the little glimpses of past history seem real. They are so real that many readers feel for the rest of their lives that they have actually visited Middle Earth. And of course, they have because it is our world, as it might have been in another timeline.

Anyway, the showrunners couldn’t make up their minds. So they chose the worst option: They compressed this epic 3000+ year history into a few years to fit into a human lifetime. In the process, they fed the story into a meatgrinder, with an unsurprising result: “The Rings of Power” is an incoherent mish-mash.

Some of it is taken from Tolkien’s accounts of the last few years of Numenor (the island kingdom), but even that is butchered. A lot of it is other stuff from earlier in the Second Age that is presented in parallel — ie., it does not belong there. Two pivotal events (Gandalf's arrival and the Balrog's release) are stolen outright from the Third Age and jammed into this mess.

Why does this matter? It matters because much of the impact of LOTR is the sense of depth of Tolkien’s imagined world. Even when we don’t see things happening, we feel them. When the characters encounter ancient objects (a sword, a jewel) those objects come with a hint of the stories behind them. That is magic, more so than some abracadabra spell. And all of that depth has been sacrificed for… what? Convenience?

The scope and scale of the tragedy

Tolkien’s works (The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and all the other work on Middle Earth that he left behind) form a connected story spanning at least 10,000 years, with one unifying theme: The Fall. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings chronicle the last few years of that long, inexorable, and tragic decline, ending with the emergence of Men (humans) as the inheritors of the now-fallen world.

For all the adventures, magic, and battle scenes that form the skeleton of The Lord of the Rings, what makes it so riveting and unforgettable is the palpable sense of longing and loss that hangs over the characters. It is their courage and grace in the face of that tragedy that makes us love them.

The Elves, beautiful, immortal beings who have fought for thousands of years to hold back the forces of evil, are losing their power and leaving Middle Earth. Men, flawed and easily corrupted, have achieved moments of glory, but most fight on the side of evil. The few who stay true are refugees, hunted by the Enemy.

The Hobbits, agrarian and peaceful, are caught up in a war that could destroy them, and even after they survive, we know their way of life is doomed. The lead characters have to sacrifice themselves by leaving the world they fought to save. The trees, once sentient, are falling asleep. Magic is fading out, and the world is getting greyer.

Tolkien was Catholic, and the Fall loomed large in his consciousness. Yet he found a way to tell the story without preaching or sinking into religiosity. He infused it with lore from many non-Christian traditions. Perhaps the most remarkable is his invocation of Finnish mythology, in which the gods literally sang the world into existence. It is a gorgeous and moving way to imagine how we got here.

Many people read his work without noticing the Christian references—it is a story for everyone, even non-believers.

The showrunners of “The Rings of Power,” alas, don’t seem to get any of this. They may have read Tolkien and commentary about Tolkien, but they apparently didn’t absorb a word of it other than battle scenes and spooky monsters.

Their characters are like tokens in a D&D game, casting spells because it’s cool, waving magic swords, and fighting goblins because goblins are bad. It all happens at the emotional level of our arguments as teenagers over who would beat who in a cage match.

The Casting

Let’s not mince words: The casting is terrible. It’s not because some of the actors aren’t white. It’s that the main actors are simply not up to the job. They are remarkably unable to make me care what happens to them.

The two biggest disappointments are Galadriel and Elrond. They are central players in the 3400-year history, yet their actors are almost comically incapable of projecting gravitas or any sense of tragedy. In the war against evil, Galadriel has endured thousands of years of struggle, with pyrrhic victories and horrifying defeats. Yet none of that shows in her bearing, face, speech… etc.

As for Elrond, he plays like a bratty gang member from West Side Story. For God’s sake, could they not have cast someone like Joseph Fiennes? They certainly had the budget!

It’s not just the fault of the actors: The writers should have approached this like a modern-day Iliad, but it reads more like Indiana Jones or Pirates of the Caribbean, only less interesting.

Making shit up

Some commentators have called this series glorified fan fiction. That is pretty accurate. The writers just made shit up. Now, Tolkien did not provide a lot of details about the Second Age. This is either an opportunity or a trap. But for chrissakes, even if you have license to fill in the gaps, at least try to keep to the spirit and intent of the original work!

We know that the Elves were facing the eventual loss of their magic, but this entirely invented story that they had a fatal illness, and it was linked to mithril, and the Dwarves had a possible solution…? This is more suitable for the Marvel comic universe or an episode of Stargate. It bears no resemblance to Tolkien’s work and removes yet another source of meaning in the story.

The truth is far deeper: The Elves are victims of their own pride, and their immortality is in part a curse. Tolkien scholars debate these nuances endlessly, and they tie into larger questions that have long occupied mainstream philosophers. They are themes of so much great art, but the show's producers give no hint that they have thought about any of this.

The Harfoots (Hobbits) are reduced to absurd caricatures of rural British villagers. There has been quite a bit of blowback from English and Irish people, with some saying this is the equivalent of Blackface but directed at farmers. Tolkien gave us little to work with regarding Harfoot history, but this presentation was gratuitous and unnecessary.

Gandalf was sent by the Valar (angels) to give hope to the people of Middle Earth, but he did not fall from the sky. He likely arrived in a boat and was met by one of the chief Elves, who gave him a Ring of Power. But more critically, he did not even arrive in the Second Age. He should not be in this series at all!

This is not just quibbling over plot details. Gandalf and the other Wizards were sent in the Third Age as messengers from the Valar to bolster hope even as evil became resurgent again. Instead, the showrunners have him arrive at the high water mark of both Numenor and the Elven realm of Eregion. The new Enemy (Sauron, protégé of Morgoth) is wary and is going about in disguise.

This removes the entire moral and spiritual rationale for the Wizards' role. To make it worse, to square up the timelines, they have Gandalf spend several episodes wandering in a state of amnesia, hanging out with the Harfoots until other events can catch up.

Conclusion

Why does “The Rings of Power” fail on many levels? The most important reason, by far, is that the showrunners don’t have the wit to understand the material they are working with. Tolkien was profoundly philosophical and morally aware. He had fought in the trenches as an infantryman in WWI. He saw firsthand the consequences of evil. He spent his life after the war studying the religions and origin myths of many cultures in a dozen languages—that and writing.

His work is not about swords and sorcery, though it has those things. He hated the term “sword and sorcery” for his invented genre.

No, Tolkien’s work is foremost about morality, freedom, courage, grace, and sacrifice. (The true hero of the Lord of the Rings is not a demigod or even an Elf, but a simple Hobbit, a gardener by trade.) The people who wrote and produced “The Rings of Power” either don’t “get” any of that or don’t give their audiences credit for caring.

In their hands, “The Rings of Power” is a bloated, overwrought Dungeons and Dragons game. I tried to view it from the viewpoint of someone who had never read Tolkien. Seen that way, it is a passable adventure and action series with a patina of fantasy to appeal to audiences who like fantasy.

However, if you have explored Middle Earth yourself, this show is likely to be a profound disappointment. It lacks a heart, a soul, and any sense of deeper meaning. The only worthy aspect of it is the special effects.