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tolkiens-middleearth · 3 years ago

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Some thoughts on Amazon's LOTR series...

When the show was first announced, I was both excited and worried.

Excited, because Tolkien's Middle-earth is one of the fictional creations that is most dear to me.

Worried, because Tolkien's Middle-earth is one of the fictional creations that is most dear to me.

Any fan would be intrigued by the idea of seeing such a work on screen, be it on TV or in the cinema. But of course there is also always the risk of a show or series not matching one's own imagination.

It's not a bad thing if what's on screen does not match your own imagination. But it can be frustrating. Wanting to like something but not being able to is very, very frustrating.

So far not much is known about Amazon's LOTR series, it's too early to give a final verdict before the show has even aired. However, based on the recent Vanity Fair article and some leaks, I can at least say for sure that I don't have any hopes left for this show. There is of course the possibility of a miracle, I could actually end up liking the show against all odds.

But as it stands, it's quite unlikely, and so I want to analyse my disappointment and frustrations with all the news I've seen and read so far, starting with the confirmed information.

The Vanity Fair Article

For a long time, there was barely any information about this show available. The Vanity Fair article is now our first official source of information for this show.

Timline

In the novels, the aforementioned things take place over thousands of years, but Payne and McKay have compressed events into a single point in time. It is their biggest deviation from the text, and they know it’s a big swing. “We talked with the Tolkien estate,” says Payne. “If you are true to the exact letter of the law, you are going to be telling a story in which your human characters are dying off every season because you’re jumping 200 years in time, and then you’re not meeting really big, important canon characters until season four. Look, there might be some fans who want us to do a documentary of Middle-earth, but we’re going to tell one story that unites all these things." – Vanity Fair

The Second Age is a very long age. It is more than 3000 years long and contains various different events. The foundation of Númenor is at its beginning. The creation of the Rings of Power is in its middle. The downfall of Númenor is at its end.

The Vanity Fair article keeps pointing out that Elrond is young – but born at the end of the First Age, Elrond is only really young at the beginning of the Second Age. At the time of the creation of the Rings he would be already 1500 years old, and at the end of the Second Age over 3000 years. Considering that a young Elrond is around in the show at the same time when Isildur and Ar-Pharazôn are around means that the whole Second Age has been reduced to a very short timeline. Galadriel hunting down "the last remnants of [Morgoth's and Sauron's] collaborators" is another indicator that all these three major events are coming together.

Compressing these things into the short period of a human lifetime is a huge problem:

Númenor as it exists in Tolkien's Middle-earth cannot exist in Amazons LOTR series: the long history is missing, both the rise to the impressive kingdom that it came to be and its slow decline.

If Númenor actually has exitsted prior to the Second Age, it has a different history. It is no longer Andor, the Land of Gift, nor can its special characteristics come from the Valar.

The Elves barely had time to leave for Valinor, and a large part of their history will be lost: Elrond was over a thousand years old when he lead Gil-galad's troups into battle against Sauron. Gil-galad and Celebrimbor had time to found cities and realms in Lindon and Eregion. Elrond's brother Elros was King of Númenor for 500 years, is there now any room left for him?

Having the Fall of Númenor so close after the creation of the Rings of Power also means that there is no real threat coming from Sauron. There is no Dark Lord here, ruling the East and South of Middle-earth for half an age, there is just a couple of years left for Sauron between creating the One Ring and losing it in the War against the Last Alliance. It all happens in the lifetime of one man (that man being Isildur).

There is more to this of course, but these are the first major points to make here. The epic stories that Tolkien wrote were built on the centuries of history of that world. You can't cheat your way out of it.

Ridiculing fans by claiming that they want them "to do a documentary of Middle-earth" is unfair, because time matters in any story. Unfortunately series and film makers alike don't understand this anymore these days, and the stories shown on TV and in the cinema suffer because of it.

Middle-earth

“One of the very specific things the texts say is that hobbits never did anything historic or noteworthy before the Third Age,” says McKay. “But really, does it feel like Middle-earth if you don’t have hobbits or something like hobbits in it?”

– Vanity Fair

Here is a showrunner saying "I know this is not what Tolkien wrote but I'm going to ignore it" word for word. There are indeed no Hobbits during the Second Age in Tolkien's Middle-earth, nor any proto-Hobbits. Middle-earth was Middle-earth long before Tolkien invented Bilbo. Together with the quote that this material is "sometimes scary—and sometimes very intense, sometimes quite political, sometimes quite sophisticated—but it’s also heartwarming and life-affirming and optimistic" it makes me wonder if the showrunners understand the difference between the stories told in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings and the stories told in the Quenta Silmarillion or the Akallabêth. The Quenta Silmarillion as published in 1977 ends with the following sentence:

"If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos." – J.R.R. Tolkien. The Silmarillion.

That sounds like a very different tone to me – and the Akallabêth is the same. Galadriel spoke about fighting "the long defeat". Tolkien wrote that there is "little fun or earthiness but mostly grief and disaster".

The conflict of the high and the beautiful with the darkness and ruin was a central element of these stories. The optimistic part was based on hope and faith in Eru – and I have serious doubts that the series will even allude to that.

And then there are changes that have no foundation in Tolkien's lore at all. Some will be mentioned further down in the text, and here I just want to ask: what is this supposed to be and why do these people carry moose antlers on their backs?

And if it's not a weird look like this, it feels like a cheap look, at least going by the pictures. It's hard to imagine that Amazon has spent so much money on this production.

The Characters

I can't go as deep into the character and peoples analysis as I would like to, simply because it costs a lot of time and noone will read it. I want to discuss a few issues nontheless.

The Elves

Tolkien had described the Elves as the "fairest of all earthly creatures". Elves weren't just humans with pointy ears, but in a way the personification of human dreams and desires – completely unreachable. People so much like us but also so much unlike us.

Now it's impossible for any production to make us humans more beautiful than we actually are. But wouldn't it be possible to make them seem a bit more than they actually are? To make them appear a bit different, a bit other, a bit more?

Amazon's LOTR series certainly doesn't think so – instead it makes the Elves look as mundane as the friendly neighbore next door doing cosplay.

The first look on Elrond was disappointing for me, and probably the most frustrating part of that whole reveal. While Robert Aramayo certainly isn't ugly for human standards, for me there is no trace of Elvishness in his face. The fact that Elrond and Arondir (the only other male Elf with a picture) both have short hair makes them both look even more normal and human. They have pointy ears, that's it. Cover up the ears and you won't know the difference between Elves and Men. It's a very modern look for a story that is supposed to take place at least about 9000 years in the past.

Individually these characters come with their own problems in their designs and descriptions, too. I have mentioned Elrond's age and I'll do it again: he was an Half-Elf, aging slower than Men, but not as slow as Elves. When he was born, his father – a Half-Elf as well – was barely 30. And Elrond's brother Elros was old enough to become King of Númenor at the beginning of the Second Age. In addition, he is described as an "architect and politician" – and there is not really any trace of that in Tolkien's writings. Elrond was a healer, and Imladris was founded as a refuge, not as an architecture project. Elrond wasn't really a politican either, he was a subject of Gil-galad while he was alive, and and advisor later on.

Galadriel's character doesn't seem to fit Tolkien's idea of her either. While it is true that Galadriel was physically fit and did fight in her early years, her role in Middle-earth was a different one. As Melian's student she became calmer and wiser. In the show it seems she takes over the role of Elrond as "commander of the Northern Armies" (since there are no other armies in the north but Gil-galad's). There is also the little bit of her hunting down those who had killed her brother... more on that later.

The only other Elf we see is Arondir, and he is a made up Silvan Elf. As it was clear that Amazon would go for a more diverse cast, the most irritating thing about his design is the very short hair that I have already mentioned, and the fact that there is a bearded guy on his armour. Does that mean Elves get beards now, too? Another thing that made me role my eyes is the "forbidden love" between him and what appears to be a mortal woman. I guess I have to be content that it's at least not a romance plot between an Elf and a Dwarf, right? Right??

Dwarves

Speaking of beards: someone who should have a beard and doesn't is the dwarf princess Disa.

Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings clearly states that the dwarf-women "are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart".

Disa does not look at all like the male dwarf example that we were given (nor does the male dwarf look like her). Neither her face nor her clothes feel particulary dwarvish to me. The beard is missing, the gold jewerly looks cheap, and the clothes are... overall very undefined. Not the clothes I would imagine a princess living under the mountains to wear. Without the jewelery it would look more like the dress of an Elven maid on a warm summer day, and with the jewelery it looks more like someone living in the warm south, like a queen of Harad. Dwarvish it is not.

The Rings of Power

Funnily enough, one of the things that irritate me most is in the title of the series. The articles says about the Rings of Power in the series:

All this will center, eventually, around the incident that gives the trilogy its name. “The forging of the rings,” says McKay. “Rings for the elves, rings for dwarves, rings for men, and then the one ring Sauron used to deceive them all. It’s the story of the creation of all those powers, where they came from, and what they did to each of those races.” – Vanity Fair

Interestingly enough, the story of the Rings of Power is split between the Second and the Third Age. For the Elves, the Rings of Power were the cause of Sauron's invasion in Eriador, but aside from that the Rings didn't do anything to the Elves in the Second Age, because the Elves did not use them. They knew they could not use them while Sauron had the One Ring. So the story about the Three Rings of the Elves is, according to Tolkien's writings, not very exciting during the Second Age, once Celebrimbor is dead.

The Rings of the Dwarves are vague enough that more could be said about them in the show, and we pretty much know what happened to the Nine: they slowly but surely turned nine kings of Men into wraiths. Only that there is barely time for it in this condensed timeline now – prolonging their life would only come into effect if the story would take longer than a human lifetime, and it's basically confirmed that there is no time for that. It is doubtful if the nine kings of Men even come into play in this story – maybe in the end it won't really even be about the effects of the rings, and more of the threat that Sauron poses because of his desire for the rings?

Leaks

However, the Vanity Fair article is not our only source of information on Amazon's LOTR show. There have been quite a few leaks posted and collected by https://fellowshipoffans.com, and many have been proven right so far.

And in these leaks there are a couple of story points (not yet confirmed!) that I feel contradict Tolkien's writings heavily:

The are reports of an Orc leader, who is not an Orc, called "Adar" (Sindarin for father) – he is played by Joseph Mawle. There are also rumours that this Adar could indeed be one of Galadriel's brothers (but not Finrod). → If this is the case it means that either Angrod or Aegnor becomes corrupted and ends up as a leader of a group of Orcs, probably in the service of Sauron. Given that one of Galadriel's plotlines seems to be the hunt of those "who claimed the life of her brother" (fun Tolkien's lore fact: actually all her brothers are dead), it doesn't take much imagination to predict that the drama will come from realising that her brother is alive but corrupted.

There are reports on Galadriel coming to Númenor, most likely to ask for aid in the fight against Sauron. → With the condensed timeline, it becomes obvious that there is no space for the growing hositlity of Númenoreans towards Elves that would result in Elves no longer coming to Númenor. Galadriel's changed character also comes into play here, because Galadriel in Tolkien's writings wouldn't have had lots of reason to go to Númenor. Gil-galad and especially Elrond would have had better connections with the Númenoreans.

Speaking of Elves... Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor is all but officially confirmed. → Judging by the looks of the other Elves, make-up won't be of much help for this 52 old guy, so he will most likely look even less Elvish than Elrond or Arondir.

There are reports on a character arriving in Middle-earth as a meteor. And the leaks also say that this "meteor man", as he has been nicknamed by Fellowship of Fans, first appears nice but later on it will be revealed that this guy is in fact not nice. In addition, he apparently comes in contact with the Hobbits. There also have been rumours that Sauron has been seen at the Hobbit set. Furthermore, this character is associated with the poster of the guy holding an apple. → Everything points to this character indeed being Sauron, especially since it's unlikely that either Elf, Men or Dwarf would appear as a meteor. There is absolutely no reason for Sauron to be in the form of a meteor, or to come in contact with Hobbits prior to the business in the Third Age with Gollum, Bilbo and Frodo. This is a huge departure from Tolkien's writings.

There is probably more that I just can't remember right now. Vaguely I remember that Elves-being-turned-into-Orcs came up as a topic, Queen Miriel was mentioned, the actors of Isildur, Elendil and Ar-Pharazôn are known... as far as worrying leaks go, I think I've mentioned the main points.

Imagination

And then there is, of course, the now well know promotion picture of the series that shows Valinor and the Two Trees (the figure is rumoured to be Finrod):

Given all that I know about this show now, I hope we won't see too much of the First Age in this show (although it may seem like we get two whole episodes about it...). Series and movies have a way of overriding your own imagination of places and characters. Without a doubt images of this series will appear all over the internet, you'll see it whether you want to watch the show or not, especially if you discuss Middle-earth online in general. It's not like people know how to tag properly. So I'd rather keep most of the First Age to my own imagination.

I know that I'll try my best to not let these characters override my own imagination of the Tolkien's characters that I have loved for so long. And for me as someone who usually gets easily and quickly attached to characters this is the worst basis for any show to have.

The Vanity Fair article writes:

The driving question behind the production, he adds, was this: “Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?”

Unfortunately, everything I've heard about this show so far says that you can't. When they talk about "realizing [Tolkien's] vision of places and characters" it is now quite clear that they either have no idea what Tolkien's visions for these places and characters were, or they simply do not care.

It is no crime not to want to tell Tolkien's stories. But why would you then still try to pretend that you're telling Tolkien's stories? Be honest and do something else!

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