Anduin the Great and the Three Second Age Series They Should Be Making 

One of my readers has kindly reminded me of something I previously wrote on the subject of Tolkien adaptations, and I would do well to remember it. They were my closing remarks in my review of the first three episodes of The Rings of Power.

This is from 2022, when the show had only just begun to air . . .

The entirety of J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary work is like the Anduin, the great river that flows southward through Rhovanion and across a significant length of Middle-earth until it reaches the sea at the Bay of Belfalas. It is fed by many sources—the linguistic and mythological mountains of Tolkien’s inspiration—and it flows down over the Falls of Rauros and beneath ruined bridges of Osgiliath. It is long and winding and unchanging.

Every bit of music, every painting, every film or TV adaptation that is made by people other than Tolkien himself is either a pebble or a great boulder thrown into that river. It can be enjoyed in the moment by those who notice it, creating a splash that some enjoy while others miss it completely. But the river flows relentlessly on.

I suppose you could cry out, “Stop throwing rocks into the river at all!” and yell at those people who like to make art and adaptations, but the river doesn’t care. Or you could just not worry about it, and just enjoy the river. Or better still, hop into an Elf-boat and go along for the ride (i.e., just read the books and enjoy). But don’t worry about the pebbles and boulders, no matter how expensive they are or how much other people fuss over them.

“At the Falls” by Ted Nasmith

I might seem grumpy about, well, most choices in The Rings of Power because I feel the vast majority of them are wild swings that miss their mark—and sometimes don’t even attempt to aim to hit a Tolkien mark, as if the writers felt they were improving upon his work. But ultimately, the show has got people talking. When they’re not being hostile internet trolls about it, the discourse is actually fun any which way.

And it usually all leads back to the books. That’s never a bad thing. This is why I have defended Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films more often than not. I can and absolutely did quibble about some of those films’ awful inventions (e.g. Alfrid) and their moments of misdirection (e.g. losing sight of Bilbo as the protagonist), but I always appreciated that they still brought more eyes to the page. As did The Lord of the Rings films. And so will The Rings of Power, I think, I hope, when all is said and done. It does come at the cost of a certain amount of pop culture misunderstanding. It’s a compromise.

The movies-only crowd will never know that Tolkien’s Faramir isn’t just Boromir’s little brother who manages to resist the Ring just barely . The show-only crowd will think Tolkien’s Gil-galad must be a haughty politician who treats nearly everyone, his own people included, with unrelenting contempt. So be it. I think I’m less bothered by those particulars as I am the choices made for Galadriel and Sauron (especially the weak red-clad prologue Sauron). Rauron and Raladriel.

But as I watch each new episode, I do enjoy the show moment to moment. I legitimately eyeroll when unearned callbacks and “Easter Eggs” are revealed, bit I generally try to find the good things. You can find them when you sort through things like famous wizard-trainer Tom Bombadil.

But I will also be frustrated about what they didn’t do. Like, rather than condensing all the most dramatic Second Age events into one short period of time that spans a few months instead of years and centuries, why didn’t they just pitch one shorter series that addressed the actual Rings of Power and not everything else all jammed together?

Basically, here’s what I wish they’d done: made three shorter series, each could be like 3 seasons. If the first was a hit, they’d of course greenlight the next, and the next. You could make both book fans happy and Jackson film fans happy with this scheme.

Hear me out.

Series One: The Rings of Power

This would only be the Rings of Power storyline, taking place roughly between the year 1200 (when Sauron first begins to fool the Elves, even before he starts ringmaking) and the year 1700 (after the One is made and Sauron is driven out of Eriador).

• This way, we get Annatar, Celebrimbor, the jewel-smiths of Eregion as an elite guild (rather than just as Celebrimbor’s crew of assistants). We’d get the sixteen Rings of Power—all made for Elves, not Dwarves or Men. Then the Three made by Celebrimbor alone, then soon after the One made by Sauron alone in Mordor.
• We’d only catch a few glimpses of Númenor during this time, back before the shadow fell on it and its people were still mostly faithful to the Valar, and still friends with the Elves. That way we can see with our eyes when things were better, so we can appreciate its later fall and feel the loss deeply. Or maybe we’d only see the Númenóreans when they came to the shores, in helping the Elves. (That way no budget woud be needed on depicting the island-kingdom itself yet.) Essentially, we’d first see the Númenóreans as the lesser men of Middle-earth see them: as benevolent and almost godlike Sea-kings.
• The show would end with a triumphant and powerful Númenor. After all, they do aid Gil-galad and help drive Sauron and his forces out of Eriador at the end of the War of Sauron and the Elves. This way the Númenóreans are cast them as valiant and powerful allies.
• Eregion would be in ruins, Celebrimbor would be slain, but with Elves on the whole having survived. Imladris (Rivendell!) would be founded. Sauron has retreated ot Mordor, defeated and angry, but now also has his Ruling Ring. Now he’s really pissed at the Númenóreans and fearful, too. Just like in Tolkien’s actual writing.
• Fans of Jackson’s films who don’t know the books would have a good introduction to Númenor, but they’d hjave a bunch of familiar characters to help them through it: Elrond, Galadriel, Celeborn, and even Sauron (but now they get to actually meet him). Plus some locations like Rivendell, Moria, and Lórinand (earlier Lothlórien). And they’d see how the One Ring was made and under what circumstances.
• The whole thing could be in like 2 or 3 seasons.

Series Two: The Fall of Númenor

If that Rings of Power show did it well and didn’t piss off so many people with lots of deviations, then we get this new series (which the marketing people can call “spin-off” if that’s what viewers want to hear).

• This one jumps forward in time and tackles the Fall of Númenor properly. Hundreds of years—more like a thousand—have gone by, and we have all new mortal characters (but the same Elves!). Tar-Palantir, Míriel, Pharazôn, Elendil and his boys, Isildur and Anárion. It would be fine to invent some new ones, to fill in the story. Tolkien never named her, but Elendil would have a wife; let’s meet her! The wife of Elendril and mother of Isildur is bound to interesting and probably just as heroic. It makes me think of Emeldir, the wife of Barahir and mother to Beren, “whose mind was rather to fight besider er son and her husband than to flee.” She doesn’t feature in the narrative long, but that’s because she helped save the women and children of the people of House of Bëor—some of whose descendants are these Númenóreans!
• A prologue could show us the moral decline of the Númenórean worldview up to this point, which is proably around the year 3175. They’ve become obssessed with death, in forestalling it, resenting the Elves and the ban of the Valar forbidding them from sailing to the Undying Lands. Now they’re the worst imperialists and conquistadors, subjugating and not helping the men of Middle-earth, as the Elves are nearly powerless to stop them.
• Yet the series could begin with with Tar-Palantir (the 24th king), Míriel’s father, one of the Faithful. He’s trying to roll things back and go back to the old ways, trying to undo the damage.
• But then we get Ar-Pharazôn seizing power, usurping Míriel’s rightful rulership. So now things are going to get way worse. Sauron does his Sauron thing and “surrenders” to Ar-Pharazôn. He’s taken as a captive to Númenor, and he corrupts it from within. A temple to Melkor is built, the Faithful starting getting sacrificed, and at last the Númenor seals its fate when Ar-Pharazôn, at Sauron’s manipulations, tries to attack Valinor.
• The show comes to an end with island’s sinking, and with Elendil and the Faithful washing ashore on Middle-earth, exhausted, barely haveing escaped the ruin. Sauron “won” but to his own immediate detriment, and is disembodied again. He flies to Mordor to recover. Curtains draw shut. The second series ends with Sauron’s second Pyrrhic victory.

Series Three: The Last Alliance

If The Fall of Númenor series also did well, too, and the audience was still interested, then this third series will lead to the end of the Second Age with the forming of the Last Alliance and the greater defeat of Sauron that results in his losing the Oen Ring.

• The year is 3320 or thereabouts. Elendil, his two sons, and the surviving Faithful now have established the Realms in Exile: Arnor and Gondor. Elendil becomes king of Arnor, while Isildur and Anárion are co-kings of Gondor.
• This show would properly introduce the palantíri, which are familiar enough to film viewers, except we’d get to see them used in their heyday to communicate and survey, and where they were placed. And how they worked when not misdirected by Sauron.
• Sauron eventually attacks Gondor from Mordor and probably one of the season finales is Isildur’s defeat, when Minas Ithil (the city that becomes Minas Morgul) is claimed and the White Tree is burned. But Isildur regroups in the north with his father and brother, and the Last Alliance is formed.
• Galadriel and Celeborn advise from Lórien, Elrond is already established in Rivendell, and Gil-galad arms up in Lindon. Even Círdan helps (as he always does)! The Last Alliance gathers and eventually marches on Mordor for the great siege. We’d get to see an adaptation of this very evocative quote:

All living things were divided in that day, and some of every kind, even of beasts and birds, were found in either host, save the Elves only.

• Like, we’d get to see some Dwarves fighting for Sauron, manipulated into the war, which would be new for everyone. But we’d also get the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm (which, by the way, is still unbothered by any Balrog at this time) marching out to join the armies of Elendil and Gil-galad. What other creatures might we see “in either host”? How fun.
• Then the actual Battle of Dagorlad takes place at the Black Gate (the origin of the Dead Marshes), and then the Siege of Barad-dûr, and even at the slopes of Mount Doom.
• Elendil and Gil-galad take Sauron down in combat, though it kills them both in turn.
• Isildur takes the Ring. Elrond and Círdan advise him to destroy it, but instead of ominsously saying, “No,” we see him grieving at the death of both his brother and father. We see his emotion, we’re there with him, and we can almost understand when he takes the Ring and says, instead, “This I will have as weregild for my father, and my brother.” He thinks it a prize, a compensation, for his loss. Not an artifact of great evil that will foster all new evils in the next age.
• Perhaps the series ends not here in this moment but with the disaster in the Gladden Fields, when the Ring comes off his finger and the Orcs get him. Because by then he himself knows the Ring is trouble and he’s actively trying to bring it to Elrond for counsel.

So, three cool series each in their own time, with happier fanbases.

Ehhh. Just my foolish pipe-weed dream. What do I know about pitching to Amazon?

Featured image: “The Pillars of the Kings” by Ted Nasmith