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October 24, 2020

10 Things Amazon’s “Lord Of The Rings” Should Include That Will Shock The Fandom

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about my favorite topic, The Lord Of The Rings and all things Tolkien (it really hasn’t, since I somehow manage to bring it up in most completely unrelated posts, but that’s beside the point), or since I’ve written a “top ten” list like the ones I did sometime back in March, where I discussed things I wanted to see in Amazon Prime’s upcoming adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings on the Second Age of Middle-earth, as well as things I didn’t want to see, and characters I hope the series will handle with the utmost care. In the meantime, the Tolkien fandom has found other things to argue about – most recently the topic of sexuality in the Professor’s works, something I will address later in this post, and which was in fact the inspiration for this post. After seeing how shocked and outraged a portion of the Tolkien fandom was in response to the news that nudity and sexuality might be present in the Amazon Prime series, I asked myself: what other things might similarly shock them, if it’s mature content they’re opposed to? Things straight from the Tolkien canon, things that the Professor himself sketched out in detail or tantalizingly hinted at, and which will now have the opportunity to be realized onscreen?

Of course, this list will only be dealing with shocking events and themes of the Second Age of Middle-earth, which is when the Amazon Prime series will be set (no, it’s not really The Lord Of The Rings, and I still don’t understand why they haven’t given us some indication of what the actual title will be). The Second Age just so happens to be the second darkest era in Middle-earth’s history (the First being, both figuratively and, until the creation of the sun and moon quite literally, the darkest), which means there’s a great deal of strange, terrifying, controversial or just uncomfortable things for Amazon to draw from for their adaptation. And now, without further ado, let’s get into it.

10: Different Magic. Let’s ease into this and start out fairly tame, with something that Amazon doesn’t necessarily have to include, but definitely should if they can find a way to do so naturally without alienating a massive part of the Tolkien fandom. In Tolkien’s assorted early writings on the Blue Wizards of Middle-earth, he briefly mentioned something that has always fascinated me and has always intrigued me because of how it seemingly challenges the loose rules of his soft magic system. “I fear that they failed…,” he wrote of the two Wizards, “and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and ‘magic’ traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.” Tolkien would later rewrite the story and have the Blue Wizards play an active, heroic role in bringing about Sauron’s downfall secretly from the east, but the idea of the duo spreading the knowledge or understanding of magic throughout Middle-earth is almost too irresistible to pass up on – even if Tolkien put magic in quotes, and clearly didn’t intend for it to mean real magical power like that possessed by Gandalf or the Elves. We’ve never seen magic used quite to this extent before in Middle-earth, certainly not with regards to cults or occult practices. And considering how Tolkien’s magic system is often used as the gold standard for soft magic systems in fantasy, it could be risky to explore this in too much detail – though it could be rewarding because it would give the show a chance to explore uncharted territory.

9: The Valar. As with occult magic, this has the potential to be both a good idea and a bad idea, depending on who you ask. Most hardcore fans know and love the Valar, but more casual fans might be weirded out by the reveal that Tolkien’s world comes with an entire pantheon of gods, goddesses and other minor deities – like the sun, and the moon…and Gandalf. In the semi-biblical narrative of The Silmarillion, the presence of the Valar feels very natural and I would argue it’s no different with the Second Age – but I’m just one person, and I have previously seen some quiet backlash to the idea of the Valar ever physically appearing. Some simply feel like it’s too radical a departure from the Middle-earth that most people know from The Lord Of The Rings, while others specifically don’t like The Silmarillion because of the gods and goddesses and other somewhat religious elements of the story. Amazon will have to include the Valar either way, because they’re critical to the story, but I’m interested to see what the reaction will be from the fandom. Personally I’d be thrilled.

8: The Burning Of The Entwife Gardens. Let’s get a little more specific now. In the cinematic Middle-earth franchise thus far, the most explicit act of desolation we’ve seen has been a single vision of a ruined Shire in the Mirror of Galadriel, and the wreck of Dale by dragon-fire in The Hobbit. But we’ve never seen anything on the scale of the torching of the Entwife gardens near the end of the Second Age. The Entwives cultivated a tranquil land east of the River Anduin, which unfortunately fell directly on Sauron’s warpath as his armies returned from defeat in Eriador to Mordor. In an attempt to deplete the approaching Last Alliance’s resources, he torched the Entwife gardens, and the Entwives themselves disappeared from recorded history. Were they burned? Enslaved and put to work in Mordor (in which case, that will be even more disturbing content to watch out for)? Or did they escape to happier lands? Whatever their fate may have been, watching their gardens be uprooted and scorched will be shockingly brutal enough. Not unpredictable, but definitely the stuff that season finale cliffhangers are made of.

7: Celebrimbor, Gil-galad And Anarion’s Deaths. The Second Age is filled with a lot of very violent deaths. Nobody knows this better than Celebrimbor of Eregion, the Elven smith who forged most of the Rings of Power and was later betrayed by his partner and confidante, Annatar – who turned out to have been Sauron in disguise all along. Sauron and his orc armies attacked Eregion with the hope of locating the Three Rings that Celebrimbor had made for the Elves: they pillaged the city without any luck, and eventually Sauron captured Celebrimbor and tortured him mercilessly for information. Celebrimbor refused to relent, and so, of course, he was killed. But Sauron wasn’t content with just murdering one of the last of the Fëanorian bloodline. No, he also horribly mutilated the Elf, shot him full of arrows, and had his body hung from a flagpole and carried into battle like a banner by his orc army. That’s straight out of Game Of Thrones right there, and is almost certain to land the show a TV-MA rating no matter what. As for Gil-galad, last High King of the Noldor, he was apparently burned alive by the fiery heat of Sauron’s hand during their duel on the slopes of Mount Doom. And Anarion…well, he got his whole head bashed in by a rock thrown from the parapets of Barad-dûr, killing him and crushing the crown of Gondor. I don’t know which of these three fates was the worst, but all will certainly be graphic and stomach-churning onscreen.

6: Death And Mortality. Speaking of death, it’s actually one of the major recurring themes throughout the Second Age – and when the series begins to tackle the subject of Númenor and their relationship with death and mortality, that’s when it’s going to abruptly steer away from the realm of fantasy and into disturbing, cynical, psychological horror. For many fans of The Lord Of The Rings, it might come as a shock to realize that Tolkien’s world isn’t always escapist entertainment, but can be horrifyingly realistic when it needs to be. It’s in Númenor where this will surely be most apparent, as the island kingdom’s long-lived people slowly begin to lose their famous longevity and wither away: in desperation, they cling to life but fall into madness, chaos and a frantic search for a cure to death, or an antidote to their fear – which some of them find in Sauron’s evil, or in the nihilistic worship of the dead. They turn away from the wisdom of the Valar and the Elves, and descend into an abyss of their own making (and ultimately into the very real abyss beneath their island. Too soon?). It’s really grim.

5: Commentary On Imperialism. Tolkien was no fan of the British Empire’s global expansion, and his works reflect that: much of the trouble in Númenor first begins to emerge after the island kingdom starts occupying lands in Middle-earth across the sea, starting wars with the native peoples there and bringing back riches to fuel and fund ever more conquests. For our own sake, I hope that any violence against the native peoples of Middle-earth will be shown as it is – an unjust brutality – and not glorified or normalized. Some will complain that it’s politicizing Tolkien’s work or “pushing an agenda”, but they will be purposefully ignoring the fact that Tolkien’s work is already very political and itself pushes a very anti-imperialist agenda. The Númenóreans are also responsible for deforesting almost the entirety of Middle-earth’s western shore from the Elven kingdom in Lindon all the way to Harad at least, but probably even further. Remember in The Lord Of The Rings, when Treebeard the Ent laments the vast forests that once covered the earth? Yeah, Númenóreans tore them all down and used the wood to build ships. If you’re not shocked by that, you probably should be.

4: Human Sacrifice. Just a little bit more graphic violence, don’t worry. When the Dark Lord Sauron arrived in Númenor and began playing on the growing fears and prejudices of the Númenórean people to increase his own power, he also had a plan to try and make Middle-earth great again – a plan which involved sacrificing political prisoners to the memory of his former master and mentor, the fallen angel Morgoth. So he built a truly massive domed temple in Númenor and used it to perform these sacrifices: we don’t know exactly how, but we know the bodies were disposed of with fire, because smoke rose from the temple so often that the dome was stained black by soot. The first victim to the flames was the original White Tree, which had stood in the King’s Court for years and was a symbol of the friendship between Elves and Men. Sadly, many Númenóreans fell for Sauron’s lies and gladly gave up their friends and families to the Dark Lord’s altar.

3: Ar-Pharazôn. If you’re wondering who allowed all this to happen, well, you should probably blame Ar-Pharazôn, the last King of Númenor and the guy who decided it was a good idea to bring Sauron into the very heart of his empire. He makes this list not only because he was a corrupt leader who allowed Sauron to slaughter his own people, declared war on the Valar, and doomed his entire nation to a watery fate, but because of what he did in his personal life. You know, the whole bit where he usurped his kingdom’s throne by forcing his first cousin, Míriel, to marry him against her will – thus stealing the rule of Númenor from her, the rightful heir. It’s probably one of the greatest tragedies in Middle-earth’s history: that a capable woman could have been so close to averting all the horrors that would befall her kingdom, but because of an unqualified man was forced to the sidelines, where she could only watch and wait for the inevitable. Her last act was to try and plead with the Valar to show mercy on her people, but she died in the cataclysm like all the rest. You might be noticing a pattern at this point, and yes, the Second Age really is this hopeless and horrible.

2: Commentary On Gender. Since we’re now on the topic, I feel like we have to talk about this (though I’m well aware that a certain subsection of the Tolkien fandom would rather not). Truth is, you can’t read the tale of The Mariner’s Wife, the most complete extant writing by Tolkien on the Second Age, and not see how it’s a story about gender. I mean, it’s not even subtext. Erendis, the story’s protagonist, literally has an extended, passionate monologue about male privilege and how men will do anything in their power to undermine women, even the great women of history – whose heroic deeds they diminish and leave out of their legends. No matter how much it may cause some people to squirm and start muttering under their breath about “social justice warriors”, I want this entire speech recited onscreen. It’s among the most important and exceptional things Tolkien ever wrote, and it’s true, both in-universe and in real-life. But Amazon shouldn’t stop there: considering what we’ve just discussed about how Númenor’s downfall might have been averted by a woman, I think they could find further opportunities to comment on the empire’s oppressive, patriarchal system.

1: Sexuality. At last we come to it: the great battle of our time. Is sex and sexuality wholly foreign to Tolkien, or is it instead woven subtly and cleverly throughout his work, a thematic goldmine waiting to be properly explored? Both answers are nearly right, in my opinion, but the latter more so. Tolkien’s depictions of sexuality aren’t gratuitous, something I feel the series should reflect, but they’re there: prominently, in the First and Second Ages. For examples, read The Mariner’s Wife (no, but like, seriously, read The Mariner’s Wife: it’s amazing), and you will find that the whole story is bristling with sexual energy. Erendis and her husband have an epic back-and-forth about how he leaves her bed cold, to which he replies that he thought she preferred it that way. Tar-Ancalimë accidentally interrupts a mass wedding and then has to stay the night, listening in embarrassment to the sounds of “merrymaking” all around her as the bridal-chambers are occupied one-by-one. Amazon is going to have to expand on all of this because they’re creating something in a visual medium, but it’s also just common sense to be more explicit rather than less so because it helps to make the existing commentary on gender and sexuality more explicit as well, lending thematic depth to the entire story of Númenor. And for those worried about “the children”…well, I’m honestly not sure you can make a series about the Second Age child-friendly without actually rewriting the entire thing anyway.

So there you have it. Ten examples of things that are either going to shock the Tolkien fandom, or already have (though, to be quite blunt, it seems to be mostly the thought of nudity that has people all riled up: because apparently graphic violence and human sacrifice is fine, but some bare skin is where our fandom draws the line?) It should go without saying that I love the Tolkien fandom, and this isn’t meant as an attack on anyone in particular. So what did you think of my list? Feel free to share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below – and if you have any more shocking things to add to the list, say so!

August 20, 2020

Is Kaya Scodelario In The Lord Of The Rings Or Not?

We’re all hungry for more news and information about Amazon Prime’s adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings, and so, unsurprisingly, many of us have taken up the habit of theorizing to try and piece together our own news and information. But while many theories have no basis in factual evidence, there’s one that’s been making the rounds recently that actually sounds pretty plausible. I speak of the rumor that actress Kaya Scodelario has possibly joined the cast of The Lord Of The Rings and is moving to New Zealand to begin filming.

The theory came to my attention when it was posted by TheOneRing.net on their Twitter account, but their post did not credit the original theorizer, kayascodsnews, a Kaya Scodelario fan account on Instagram that actually did some very nifty sleuth work and managed to construct a fairly elaborate and convincing theory about Scodelario’s new whereabouts.

As they noted in their theory, Scodelario has been talking on her Instagram about moving away from her home country (the United Kingdom) to an unidentified new location: but she seems to only plan on moving for a year, suggesting that this is for her career, not for any personal reasons. Just a few days ago she embarked on a flight, which she mentioned in her Instagram story would last up to 27 hours – pretty much the exact time it takes to fly between the U.K. and New Zealand. As a going-away present, Scodelario’s friends gifted her a poster for The Hobbit with their faces edited over the thirteen Dwarves and other characters: a funny gesture, or something with a little more significance? If Scodelario has already told that many of her friends that she’s working on The Lord Of The Rings, then she’s not doing a very good job of keeping Amazon Prime’s secrets: but it wouldn’t be at all uncommon for this to happen. Besides, Amazon Prime has been a bit too secretive for my taste recently: since the main cast reveal, we’ve gotten hardly anything from any of their official channels.

That’s the extent of the theory, and since then we’ve had no updates: Scodelario hasn’t yet confirmed where in the world she is now. But with all this in mind, let’s imagine for a minute that Scodelario is, in fact, onboard The Lord Of The Rings series in what I have to assume will be a major role. Who would she be playing? TheOneRing.net pointed out that she bears a striking resemblance to Liv Tyler, who portrayed Arwen Evenstar in Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and deduced that Scodelario could be playing Arwen’s mother, Celebrían (she can’t be playing Arwen herself, because Arwen isn’t born during the time period when the Amazon Prime series takes place; during the Second Age, over three-thousand years prior to the Quest of the Ring). In the histories of Middle-earth, Celebrían is a bit of a background player until the Third Age, when she gets abducted and brutally tortured by Orcs, leading to her eventually leaving Middle-earth entirely and setting sail for the West. In the Second Age, all we really know about her is that she’s the daughter of the Elven lady Galadriel, and accompanied her during several of her travels. At some point, she met and fell in love with Elrond Half-elven. For an actress like Scodelario (who has had major roles in several franchises, including the most Pirates Of The Caribbean movie) to be attracted to this role, the character’s story would almost certainly have to be expanded through original material – which isn’t a problem, if you ask me, but anything that diverges even slightly from the books is bound to court with controversy. Whoever she’s playing, Scodelario’s recent success as an action star in the horror-thriller Crawl suggests to me that her character would have some sort of action element (and on a side-note, Scodelario’s sister in Crawl was played by Morfydd Clark, who will play Galadriel in The Lord Of The Rings according to all sources: would it be so much of a stretch for Scodelario to now play her daughter?).

But now we’re moving away from the facts. Simply put, we don’t know whether Kaya Scodelario is in The Lord Of The Rings: it’s possible she’s filming something else entirely (the Resident Evil reboot, for instance), or not filming anything at all. It’s possible she’s not even heading to New Zealand. But while this is merely a rumor for right now, it’s a rumor with a grain of truth – which means we shouldn’t discount it just yet, but should instead keep a close eye on Scodelario’s next move.

What say you? Does it seem likely to you that Scodelario has joined the cast, or are you wary to jump to conclusions? Share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!

April 1, 2020

10 Characters Amazon’s “Lord Of The Rings” Must Get Right!

The past few days, we’ve been through all the basics: what Amazon Prime needs to do in their upcoming The Lord Of The Rings adaptation; what they should do; and, of course, what they should never do. So with that in mind…how many more “Top 10” lists can I think of? The answer is: at least one more, because today we’ll be looking at the ten characters I’m most hyped to see in The Lord Of The Rings.

As always, let me throw out a quick reminder to all of my readers who haven’t been following along (though, if you haven’t been at least following this series of posts, then why are you here now?): Amazon Prime’s series is not a straight-up adaptation of the best-selling novel by J.R.R. Tolkien – instead, it’s set at least three-thousand years prior to the events of that story, during a time period known as the Second Age. Thus, most of the characters you know and love won’t show up in the series, except a handful of immortals such as Galadriel, Elrond, Thranduil, and Sauron. All of these characters, however, will be either significantly younger, or just very different with regards to personalities, appearances, motivations, etc.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at my list, shall we?

Lord Of The Rings Thranduil — getwallpapers.com

10: Thranduil. Firstly, let me apologize for a glaring factual error in one of my previous posts, where I referred to Thranduil and his father Oropher, both Sindarin Elves of great prestige, as Silvan Elves. In fact, it’s partially because of this error that I realized Thranduil belongs on this list – the King of the Elves of Mirkwood (called Greenwood in the Second Age, and ruled from the hilltop city of Amon Lanc, which would later fall into ruin and be renamed Dol Guldur) was a Sindarin Elf who nonetheless looked out for his Silvan citizens and treated them with respect and benevolence, seemingly even adopting their “rustic” customs – at least in The Hobbit, where he’s most commonly found feasting in the woods, hunting wild animals or merrymaking. This is the Thranduil I want to see: he should still have some of Lee Pace’s steely, ice-cold hostility, but in private, I’d love for the King of the Woodland Elves to open up to his citizens, to share in their traditions, and to come across as a powerful leader and a guardian for his people.

Lord Of The Rings Ar-Pharazon — quora.com

9: Ar-Pharazôn. Whereas Thranduil was actually a decent guy, Ar-Pharazôn, the twenty-fifth and final king of Númenor, only gets worse when you learn more about him. On the surface, he doesn’t seem too bad: he was just a particularly strong-willed, stubborn and slightly dim-witted military commander who happened to get tricked by Sauron into declaring war on the gods and invading paradise, right? But how did he become King of Númenor in the first place? Well, by unlawfully marrying his cousin against her will, of course. The Dark Lord Sauron, ostensibly the King’s prisoner, flattered Ar-Pharazôn with lies until he was at last given freedom to come and go as he pleased in Númenor. It wasn’t long before Ar-Pharazôn had consented to worshiping the ancient evil Morgoth, and the ritual sacrifice of political prisoners. He burned the White Tree of the Elves, severing that link between the two peoples. And, yeah, he did also doom his country (not to mention untold numbers of his own citizens) to a horrific, watery end – all because he thought he could live forever if he bested the gods in open warfare. Still, I can’t wait to see this villainous puppet of Sauron’s get pulled apart in real-time.

Lord Of The Rings Elrond — nydailynews.com

8: Elrond. We’ve seen Elrond Half-Elven, master of the Last Homely House of Rivendell and bearer of the Ring of Air, a couple of times on the big screen before – but always as a stern, proud scholar with a particularly melancholy attitude towards life and humans in general (not entirely surprising: considering that most of the problems of the Second Age resulted from his brother’s decision to become a human Man instead of an Elf). The Elrond that we’ll meet in Amazon’s Lord Of The Rings is going to be very young by Elven standards: so when I consider what his personality might be like, I imagine him as a generally optimistic and light-hearted individual who hasn’t yet been weathered and worn down by centuries of pain and sorrow. He hasn’t probably even met his future wife, Celebrían (who will eventually be tortured by Orcs until she can no longer bear to live in Middle-earth), and he has no idea he’ll one day be called upon to bear the weight of one of the Three Rings (which I’m sure King Gil-galad will give to him shortly before his brutal death at the hands of Sauron). Let’s just say: he’s in for a ride.

Lord Of The Rings Glorfindel — lotr.fandom.com

7: Glorfindel. This guy is one of the coolest in all of Middle-earth’s history – and when I say all of it, I mean all of it, because he’s been around for just as long as characters like Galadriel and Círdan, and been to Valinor, Middle-earth, the Halls of Mandos and everywhere in between. Originally an Elf of Gondolin who sacrificed his life to save fleeing refugees in the First Age, Glorfindel was judged to be so pure and good that he was almost immediately reincarnated and sent back to Middle-earth to help out the Elves during their war with Sauron in the Second Age. Not only that, but he was given semi-magical powers that put him almost on the level of Maiar like Gandalf. Throughout the Second Age, he fought alongside the Elves, rarely using his powers in war, and continued on into the Third Age as a great warrior and hero of legend, challenging the Witch-King, leading armies and rescuing Frodo Baggins. Remind me again why Legolas was chosen to represent the Elves on Frodo’s quest and not Glorfindel? Oh right, because Glorfindel was so powerful that Sauron would have sensed him coming from miles away, that’s why. Yet despite this, we’ve never seen him onscreen. Even if they do nothing else right, I will be forever grateful to Amazon if they make Glorfindel a major player in the series.

Lord Of The Rings Erendis — deviantart.com

6: Erendis. In The Lord Of The Rings, there are far fewer women characters than men, and even some of the most prominent, like Galadriel and Arwen, are still only in a couple of chapters. But that’s not the case in the Second Age and Middle-earth’s ancient histories, where strong and complex women populate the legends – and one of the most interesting is Erendis. This Númenórean noblewoman put up with a lot; from her husband, her family, and her patriarchal society. But she wasn’t afraid to make enemies (she even publicly declared herself to be the personal nemesis of the divine Maia, Uinen, one of Númenor’s patron goddesses), and she stood her ground when attacked for her beliefs – which were radical for her time, as she counseled her daughter never to submit to the will of men. She’s loud, she’s persistent, and she’s exactly the type of character I want to see in Amazon’s Lord Of The Rings.

Lord Of The Rings Tar-Ancalime — hollywoodreporter.com

5: Tar-Ancalimë. Erendis’ daughter was no less interesting: neglected by her absent father and raised only by her mother and the women of their sheep-farm, Ancalimë almost never encounters men before suddenly becoming the first ruling Queen of Númenor. This scenario screams to be depicted onscreen: in my mind, I picture it playing out much like the film Elizabeth (in which The Lord Of The Rings‘ very own Cate Blanchett starred in the lead role), but with the newly-crowned Tar-Ancalimë having no one to turn to for counsel but herself and the advice of her mother. We don’t know much about the Queen’s reign, save that it was one of the longest in Númenórean history, and, in an act of revenge against her father, she withheld aid from her father’s ally, Gil-galad, during his war against Sauron. With so much blank space, there’s plenty of room to write new material.

Lord Of The Rings Celebrimbor — gameinformer.com

4: Celebrimbor. Though only briefly mentioned in The Lord Of The Rings proper, Celebrimbor is one of the few Second Age characters that general audiences might know, thanks to the incredible popularity of the Shadow Of Mordor video games – the games themselves are not a very accurate adaptation of Middle-earth (as should have been obvious when they had Celebrimbor’s ghost team up with a Gondorian Ringwraith, a human version of Shelob, and Gollum to forge his own Ring and take down Sauron), but they did at least introduce a bunch of people to the character of Celebrimbor, and his identity as the craftsman behind the Rings of Power. Last of the line of Fëanor, Celebrimbor inherited much of his grandfather’s rebellious attitude, though he is generally viewed in a more positive light than his violent ancestors. Most of his faults were either exacerbated by or derived from Sauron, who deceived Celebrimbor into trusting him. Sadly, that was to be Celebrimbor’s fatal mistake, and he was killed after months of exhausting torture, refusing to disclose the locations of the other Rings of Power that he had forged. The Elf’s mangled body soon became one of Sauron’s favorite military souvenirs and hung from a banner when the Dark Lord marched into battle.

Lord Of The Rings Witch King — lotr.fandom.com

3: The Witch-King. Very little is known about any of the nine mortal men doomed to die, all of whom willingly bound their lives to the fate of Sauron and his One Ring in a bid for…what, exactly? Did they desire immortality? Magic? Power? We don’t know. Tolkien wrote that at least three of them were Númenóreans – likely imperialist military officers dispatched to Middle-earth to safeguard the empire’s colonies, who fell under the Dark Lord’s sway while there. Some of them may have been sorcerers. The only named member of the Nine was Khamûl, and he was an Easterling. But who was the enigmatic Witch-King, whom prophecy foretold would never be slain by any man? There’s no hint as to his true name, personality, or motivation for accepting one of the Nine Rings – which means Amazon Prime can do whatever they want with the character.

Lord Of The Rings Galadriel — whatculture.com

2: Galadriel. She’s always been my favorite character in the Tolkien legendarium, and not just because she was masterfully portrayed by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson’s trilogy. In Tolkien’s published works, you only see a tiny fraction of this heroine’s long and eventful life in Middle-earth: it’s only when you begin to find mentions of her in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales that you realize she is fascinating, nuanced, and, honestly, more complex than most of Tolkien’s male heroes. She started out as a woman of great physical strength, who participated in a variety of sports in her homeland of Valinor and was described as being an Amazon. She openly defied the Valar and chose to leave Valinor to pursue fortune and glory in Middle-earth, and when called upon to repent for that “crime” at the end of the First Age, she refused. She was an open-minded and intelligent leader: she fostered a close friendship with the Dwarves when other Elves shunned them, and she viewed them with the keen eye of a commander, helping them to ready their armies against Sauron’s onslaughts in the Second Age. She and her husband traveled all over Middle-earth, searching for allies in the coming war, settling in several different locations. She presumably led troops into battle on many occasions. In the Third Age, she gave magical aid to heroes such as Eorl and Frodo Baggins, and she entered Dol Guldur and drove back the darkness that hung over Mirkwood. And these are just the highlights of her life! If she’s not also my favorite character in the Amazon Prime series, I’d be very surprised.

Lord Of The Rings Sauron — crisismagazine.com

1: Sauron. The only character I could see possibly vying with Galadriel for my undivided affection in the Second Age is…Sauron, base master of treachery, shape-shifting dark wizard and sadistic fallen angel. But that’s because Sauron, while he is indeed a villain, is still a villain with a purpose – and a good one, too. Originally a divine Maia whose chief virtue was supposedly perfectionism, Sauron was allured by the demonic deity Morgoth, whose visionary ideas of reformation appealed to him. Sauron, however, disagreed with Morgoth on many issues: in particular, he had no desire to see the world destroyed, instead hoping for a future in which he could be Middle-earth’s sole leader, and build a perfect utopia for himself and all his loyal subjects. Upon Morgoth’s fall, Sauron decided to make this a reality: he refused to repent for his crimes against the Valar, instead taking a beautiful human form and going among the Elves, offering them a chance to rebuild the world alongside him. At this point, Tolkien was explicit in saying that he was not fully evil. He did, in fact, want to make the world a better place – but because he could not be content with any imperfection in his plan, and because he had turned away from the teachings of Eru, the True God, and so could only mimic Morgoth’s flawed designs, he failed in his purpose and slipped into a feral rage, becoming tyrannical and too ambitious to be contained. That’s a great villain arc right there: all too often I hear people say that Sauron is a one-dimensional floating eye in the sky (I mean, it’s hard to even find an image for this post that isn’t of him as a floating eye!), and all I have to say to those people is that they’re wrong, and I will not tolerate your foolish arguments…and yes, I realize I just sounded like Sauron, so what?

Do you like my list? Would you add a couple more characters to it, or remove some? Share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!

March 30, 2020

10 Things Amazon’s “Lord Of The Rings” Needs To Succeed!

Yesterday, I laid out ten defining moments from the Second Age of Middle-earth that will probably comprise the backbone of the Amazon Prime The Lord Of The Rings series coming to streaming in the near future: the misleading title would have you believe that Amazon is simply adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic and beloved novels (and I’m sure Amazon is fine with that, if it lures you into watching their series), but this is anything but a retelling of the author’s most popular work. Instead, Amazon is going to be telling some of the less well-known stories from the depths of Middle-earth’s extensive history, specifically the Second Age.

But because J.R.R. Tolkien wrote so little about the Second Age, and so much of what he did write was only published posthumously by his son, many people don’t have a very clear idea of what to expect from the series, which is why, today, I’ve compiled a list of the top ten things that I want to see in The Lord Of The Rings. These aren’t necessarily things that will happen, but I feel that each one is a necessary element that would add whole new layers to our understanding of Middle-earth.

Lord Of The Rings Entwives — neoseeker.com

10: The Ent And The Entwife. While it would obviously be a non-canonical answer to an age-old question, it’s about time we finally saw what happened to the mysterious Entwives after Sauron swept through their gardens with a destructive slash-and-burn policy, near the end of the Second Age. By the time of Frodo Baggins’s quest, these gardens had been deserted for so long they were only known as the Brown Lands: but in Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings, we have a chance to see a flourishing Entish culture, maybe even some of the elusive Ent children that were so rare in later days. The Entwives passed on their agricultural knowledge to humans during the Second Age, giving them a narrative purpose (remember that one of the rumored main characters is said to be a farmer). As for what happens to them after Sauron attacks, well, that’s up to Amazon to decide: if they want to be really controversial, they could have them escape to the Land of Rhûn, backing up the claims of a recently uncovered map.

Lord Of The Rings Blue Wizards — lotr.fandom.com

9: The Blue Wizards. This is a complicated subject. The two Blue Wizards are usually believed to have arrived on the shores of Middle-earth at the same time as their more well-known brethren – characters like Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast – and to have failed in their purpose, becoming servants of Sauron or founding mystic cults in lands like Harad and Rhûn. But one version of the story, written later in Tolkien’s life (and thus, by the generally-accepted laws of determining canon, the more accurate version), outlines a scenario where the Blue Wizards, individually named Alatar and Pallando (or Morinehtar and Rómestámo), entered Middle-earth during the Second Age, and journeyed far into the East and South, helping to disrupt Sauron’s plans and playing a crucial part in his defeat, both in the Second and Third Ages. In this version, they enter Middle-earth at about the same time as Glorfindel, a resurrected Elf of Gondolin sent back from death to aid in Elrond and Gil-galad’s defense of the citadel of Imladris (Rivendell). This is the version I want to see: while one of the two Wizards could potentially be corrupted by Sauron or otherwise fall from their higher purpose in the series, I’d like to see them depicted in a more heroic light – and since they’ll be journeying into lands more akin to the Middle East and Central Asia than Western Europe, I’d want to see them played by actors of color: specifically women of color, if that’s possible.

Lord Of The Rings Harad — lotrfanon.fandom.com

8: The Haradrim. In all of Tolkien’s legendarium, only two Haradrim are mentioned by name – and both come from the Second Age. Herumor and Fuinur were both Black Númenórean lords of Harad who fought alongside Sauron in the War of the Last Alliance. In the Amazon Prime series, we should see storylines – entire story arcs – set in the desert country, providing a welcome change from the more familiar lands of Eriador and Mordor, and giving us more racial diversity in Middle-earth. Helped by the subtle efforts of the Blue Wizards, we could see heroic Haradrim characters rise up against their villainous kings and resist Sauron’s influences.

7: Galadriel And Celeborn. Even Tolkien himself never came to a conclusion on how Galadriel and Celeborn met, what they did in the First Age, how they came to Middle-earth, or what they did when they got there. In the scraps of his unfinished tales, the two characters are constantly changing: at one point, they’re the parents of a son and daughter, but later they only had a daughter; sometimes Celeborn was a Telerin Elf, other times Sindarin; in some versions Galadriel rebelled against the Elf, but in others she left Valinor for different reasons. Amazon can’t adapt every variation on the same story. My suggestion is that, rather than try to stick to just one version of the tale, they’ll take all the best parts from many different versions and piece them together into one cohesive whole. Just so long as we see the Galadriel who was obsessed with Dwarves and the Celeborn who stayed behind in Eregion with Sauron rather than travel through the Dwarven city of Khazad-dûm, I’m good.

6: Valinor And Valar. Amazon will be limited by the restrictions placed upon them by the Tolkien Estate, but if they want to fully flesh out the ancient history of Middle-earth in a way it never has been before, they’d be wise to make it clear that a number of gods, demigods and angels inhabit the world of Arda. Even Peter Jackson hinted at this, during Gandalf’s rebirth. With the Númenóreans constantly praising Maiar like Uinen and Ossë, the Elves worshiping Varda, and the eagle messengers of Manwë showing up to forewarn people of impending doom, there are many opportunities to slip in references to these deities. As for Valinor, the Blessed Realm of the Valar, there’s no way to tell the story of the Fall of Númenór without seeing that far green country at least once, through the eyes of the would-be conqueror Ar-Pharazôn, just before he and his army get crushed under a mountain.

5: Different Elves. In previous adaptations of the Tolkien mythos, there haven’t been many obvious distinctions drawn between the different Elven cultures, but in the Second Age, such a distinction will be necessary with so many characters sharing the screen. The High Elves or Eldar are the ones we’ll probably be following most closely: after being forced to migrate en masse from their ruined homelands in Beleriand, the High Elves settle down in the vast lands of Middle-earth, often uprooting the defenseless Silvan Elves from their own homes. Silvan Elves whom we might see include Amroth, the Prince of Lórien; Nimrodel, a notable Lórien resident and inventor of the flet treehouse; and a young Thranduil then living in Amon Lanc (which would later be overrun by Sauron’s forces and turned into Dol Guldur) with his father, the proud king Oropher. Though the simmering resentment the Silvan Elves feel toward the High Elves never boils over into aggression in Tolkien’s works, there’s certainly room for Amazon to go there with their story: not only to give the Elves some interesting dynamics, but to parallel the similar situation between the Númenóreans and the Men of Middle-earth.

Lord Of The Rings Numenor — numenoreanpower.blogspot.com

4: Númenórean Imperialism. Tolkien himself went on the record as being anti-British Empire, and in his stories, imperialism is never viewed in a positive light: the Númenórean desire to rule over the “lesser” Men of Middle-earth during what was already the heyday of their power led them to ever bloodier, more brutal conquests that in turn led them straight to a watery end. To stay true to Tolkien, depicting the Númenóreans faithfully will require Amazon Prime to turn the initial heroes of the story into the villains, as the once peaceful culture devolves into an ambitious, power-hungry assortment of misguided kings and warmongering military leaders. It’s not going to be pretty.

3: The Refusal Of The Gift. One of the darkest – but most crucial – elements that Amazon will have to nail down in their series is the Númenórean society’s fear of death. In the beginning of the Second Age, the Men of Númenor are long-lived, surviving for hundreds of years and being given the ability to basically die whenever they feel like it, thus “giving up the gift” – that being the gift of death that was given to them by Eru, Middle-earth’s ultimate deity. But as the Second Age wanes and Númenor tries to extend its reach around the world, killing and pillaging in the process, these Men begin to grow jealous of the immortal Elves, and they become more obsessed with their own inevitable mortality than the years they have left to live. This is the volatile situation that Sauron the Deceiver will enter and masterfully manipulate to his own advantage – it’s critical that we understand why the Númenóreans would be so willing to listen to his lies.

Lord Of The Rings Middle-earth — pinterest.com

2: Aldarion And Erendis. There’s absolutely no better place to begin foreshadowing Númenor’s downfall than in the story of Aldarion and Erendis. One of the only complete stories from the Second Age that Tolkien ever wrote, this tragedy tells the complicated tale of a long-lived Númenórean Prince named Aldarion who falls in love with a woman, Erendis, whose lifespan is far shorter than his own. Aldarion disappears on voyages to Middle-earth that last for years, sometimes even decades, as he establishes colonies, starts wars, and fells entire forests for timber, caring little for his duties back at home. Erendis, meanwhile, after openly declaring herself to be hateful of the Sea and a foe of the Maia Uinen, is forced to watch and wait for her sea-faring husband, while precious time slips through her fingers, robbing her of the best years of her life. Not only does it shed light on the interesting gender dynamics of the Second Age, but, with just a little tinkering, it could become an effective prelude to all of Númenor’s later troubles, with Aldarion and Erendis representing both the imperialistic tendencies and the fear of death that would combine to bring about the empire’s downfall.

1: The Lord Of The Rings. Confused? Well, don’t be, because what you might never have considered is that the title of the novel, which refers – obviously – to Sauron, is perhaps still just as fitting a title for the Amazon Prime series. After all, Sauron is going to be the prime antagonist of the show, and Amazon will give us an opportunity to finally see his true power. Throughout The Lord Of The Rings (the novel, not the series: I can see why using that title would be confusing), we’re told that Sauron reclaiming his One Ring would cause a second darkness, and give the Maia almost unlimited power – but in the Second Age, when Sauron did have the Ring and was still busy causing his first darkness, he was defeated (albeit temporarily) by one lucky guy with a broken sword. Amazon has a chance to show us, for the first time, what the Ring is actually capable of doing when bound around its dread master’s finger. I’m not saying I want to see the Lord of the Rings summon whirlwinds of fire or rain ruinous lightning down on his foes or anything…but no, actually, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

So what do you think? Would you care to see any of these ten things, or does it not matter to you what ends up in the series, so long as it’s good? Share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!