This week, TORn Discord moderator Webcrawler returns with a new article delving into a concept that Tolkien developed called Ósanwe (a Quenya word meaning “interchange of thought”), and how the showrunnners have used it for various story purposes in Season 1 of The Rings of Power.
Examining The Rings of Power through Tolkien’s Concept of Ósanwe
by TORn Discord moderator Webcrawler
Much has been said about what the showrunners of The Rings of Power have access to in regard to the source material. For those who think the showrunners are not allowed anything beyond the appendices, or are not digging deep into the text, let me introduce the concept of “Ósanwe” as outlined by Tolkien in an essay titled “Ósanwe-kenta”, or “Enquiry into the Communication of Thought”, and show how it applies to many of Halbrand’s (aka Sauron’s) actions in S1 of The Rings of Power.
Hall of Lore has a great thread that covers the concept in detail from the text.
A superior mind (like Sauron) could communicate a desired vision direct into another person’s mind, who would then see it as something external. There are limitations to the solidity of the vision if the recipient is a mind of less power (which probably means men).
But for our purposes we’ll simplify it to apply it to what we are seeing in The Rings of Power. The most basic concept is that all minds are equal and open.
All minds (sáma, pl. sámar) are equal in status, though they differ in capacity in strength. A mind by its nature perceives another mind directly. But it cannot perceive more than the existence of another mind (as something other than itself, though of the same order) except by the will of both parties.
Ósanwe-kenta, Enquiry into the Communication of Thought
Another important idea is that conversation is necessary to gain access to the mind. The use of language can only be done in person. To gain access to someone’s mind, you first must meet them and start speaking in person. And that’s what we see Halbrand/Sauron do in S1.
For, as the Ósanwe-kenta essay states, “the will to converse in lambe [Quenya meaning “tongue, language”] is a will to communicate thought and lays the minds open”.
Knowledge may be gained or imparted by what the text calls a Guest (someone seeking to communicate), even when the Host (the person receiving the communication) is not seeking or intending to impart or learn information.
The act of G will be effective, if H is simply ‘open’ (láta; látie ‘openness’). This distinction, he says, is of the greatest importance.
Ósanwe-kenta, Enquiry into the Communication of Thought
[Editor’s note: to avoid confusion, the “he” in the above means the elven scholar/historian, Pengolodh. The entire essay is a commentary on Pengolodh’s thoughts about how Ósanwe function. If you’re interested in learning more, it’s easiest to find this essay in The Nature of Middle-earth.]
During my rewatch of Season 1 of The Rings of Power, I noticed that Galadriel is at first unwilling to talk to Halbrand. He tells her, “you needn’t keep your distance”. As the previous tweet implies, speech is needed for ósanwe to “link”. He’s trying to get her to open her mind.
It’s only when Halbrand tells her that “It was Orcs” that attacked his homeland, that she opens to communicating back with him, seeking information. That is all he needed to start “worming” his way into her mind. She wanted something, and here only he could give it to her.
Habrand: it was orcs. Galadriel: your home. Where was it?
The Rings of Power. S1, E1: Adrift.
In the Ósanwe-kenta essay, Pengolodh outlines how by making himself seem useful, helpful, even friendly, Melkor could trick others into trusting him; Halbrand does the same with Galadriel here; she has been searching for proof of the return of the enemy, and he has just proved himself useful and being able to get that proof.
[Morgoth] would come by stealth to a mind open and unwary, hoping to learn some part of its thought before it closed… he was above all benevolent; he was rich and could give any gift that they desired to his friends; he had a special love for the one he addressed; but he must be trusted [emphasis mine].
In this way he won entry into many minds, removing their unwill [emphasis mine], and unlocking the door by the only key, though his key was counterfeit.
Ósanwe-kenta, Enquiry into the Communication of Thought
Halbrand hints at doing this: “Identify what your opponent most fears. Give them a means of mastering it. So that you can master them”. Halbrand’s gift to Galadriel is “knowledge”. By offering this gift, he gains Galadriel’s trust, and thus enter her mind.
He does this with Míriel and Pharazôn as well; When he appeals to Míriel to let them stay a few days, and when he offers to give Pharazôn intel on where Galadriel is going (Palantir’s Tower). Being willing to listen to him was enough to allow Halbrand into their minds; acceptance of advice creates a small enough amount of trust for Halbrand to create an opening.
Halbrand: Guards! My friends. [crowd silences] Halbrand: It seems to me that our leaving presents some complications. Perhaps it’d be better if we stayed… Míriel: Stayed? Halbrand: Long enough, good Queen, to give you and your advisors adequate time to weigh our request.
The Rings of Power. S1, E3: Adar
Halbrand: I wouldn’t advise that. Pharazôn: I can’t very well let her leave. Halbrand: You could. If you knew exactly where she was going.
The Rings of Power. S1, E4: The Great Wave
And this explains why Celebrimbor became ensnared in Episode 8 of S1. Here, Halbrand puts his powers of manipulation on full display: flattery, humility, advice and gratitude. “Call it a gift” he says of the knowledge he shared, giving him access to Celebrimbor’s mind. The hands touching represent the ósanwe connection being made.
Halbrand: Might there not be some alloy to amplify the qualities of your ore. Celebrimbor: Well, that is… an intriguing suggestion. Halbrand: Call it… a gift.
The Rings of Power: S1, E8: Alloyed
Later in this same episode, we get evidence of this mind infiltration: an image of Celebrimbor with a shadow of “chains” over him, while he speaks of using the mithril to craft a crown for Gil-Galad to wear to heal the elves.
Compare the dialogue and you see the Celebrimbor speaks the exact words that Adar spoke to Galadriel, yet he was not there in The Southlands to have heard it. He also says the words “over flesh” which Adar had told Galadriel about back in Episode 6: Udûn, when explaining to her why he killed Sauron. Galadriel most certainly did not tell Celebrimbor; so it must have been Halbrand. And yet, when asked, Celebrimbor “believes” those were his own words.
Lastly, when the spell is broken, and Galadriel realises Halbrand is not who she thought, she realises how much he planted ideas in her mind; wanting to get an army, and convincing Míriel to sail to Middle-earth. We are presented it as always having been her idea, but it’s not true.
Galadriel: There is no King of the South lands. The line was broken. The last man to bear your crest died over a thousand years ago. He had no heir. Halbrand: I told you I found it on a dead man. Galadriel: No. No, on the raft, you saved me… Halbrand: On the raft, you saved me. Galadriel: You convinced Míriel to save the Men of Middle-earth. Halbrand: You convinced her. I wanted to remain in Númenor. Galadriel: You fought beside me. Halbrand: Against your enemy. And mine.
The Rings of Power. S1, E8: Alloyed
As shown by Beyond Darkness here, Halbrand was one who initially planted the idea within Galadriel that she needed an army. And he continually reinforced it throughout the Season 1, subtly pushing her towards this goal that she thought was hers at first.
And so, we can see that Sauron has been using Ósanwe to influence Galadriel and others throughout Season 1 whenever he needed; and then Celebrimbor when he got to Eregion. And, based on some of the trailers, we can see that in Season 2 he will continue to do this with Celebrimbor, until the reverie is broken for him as well, and Celebrimbor, along with the other elves, will realise that they have been deceived.
About the author: Webcrawler is a full-time data analyst and a part-time Tolkien aficionado and moderator on TheOneRing.net’s Discord Server.When he’s not working or in the discord, Webcrawler is horsing around on Twitter.
TORn Discord Moderator DrNosy has the lowdown on what it all could mean.
———-
April showers bring May flowers and, with it, the much-awaited return of the second season of Amazon Prime’s The Rings of Power (TROP). The official marketing has kicked-off with an enticing teaser and a captivating behind-the-scenes look. Brace yourselves, as the series is set to return on August 29th of this year.
Stealing the spotlight and the most intriguing development is the return of our Lord-and-not-Savior, Sauron, portrayed by the talented Charlie Vickers. Sauron’s appearance in this teaser unveils Vickers in a dual role, as both Halbrand (Sauron disguised as a Man) and a character that die-hard Tolkien fans have long yearned for, the Annatar, where Sauron takes the form of an Elf and infiltrates Eregion.
The arrival of Annatar and his relationship to Celebrimbor is one of Tolkien’s greatest stories, but it was never entirely penned as a literary epic. The little we know of Annatar comes from the Letters of Tolkien, Unfinished Tales, and a short essay in The Silmarillion, “Of the Rings of Power.”
From today’s teaser, the Annatar makes his appearance after the events of “Alloyed” (S1.E8), where Sauron as Halbrand reveals himself to Galadriel. Though this encounter momentarily stifles Galadriel, she and the others proceed with the creation of the three Elven rings: Vilya, Nenya, and Narya.
Following the TROP storyline, Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), the genius and talented maker of the Elven rings and the others (lesser) that followed, has now become Lord Sauron’s prime target. The threat he faces from Sauron is imminent. Unbeknownst to Celebrimbor, when Sauron comes knocking on your door, he always comes bearing gifts.
Knock, knock. Who’s there? Annatar. Annatar, who? Annatar. I am an emissary of the Valar. I have come bearing gifts.
(If you were expecting a knock-knock joke, I have deceived you. The Annatar on your doorstep is not a laughing matter.)
The siege of Eregion, led by Adar (Sam Hazeldine) and his army of Orcs, will be catastrophic to the city and its vast forests. Will Galadriel, Elrond (Robert Aramayo), and the other Elven warriors be able to defend this Elven kingdom? Will King Durin (Peter Mullan) and the Dwarven warriors of Khazad-dûm come to their aid? Well, those answers probably depend on whether or not the ring the Dwarves have received is already tainted with Sauron’s evil influence. Compared to what I expected the last season, there are now more rings to keep track of than ever before.
What I find pretty delightful to observe is the three Elven rings that have made their way onto the hands of the first-ever Ring-bearers: the High King of the Elves, Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker), Galadriel as the Commander of the Northern Armies, and the wisest Elf that ever Elfed and his lovely beard we have yet to witness, Círdan (who will be portrayed by Ben Daniels).
We also witness other moments with rings, particularly with King Durin caressing a massive blue-crystal jeweled gold ring that might rival the Arkenstone. Also, what appears to be a consequence of the siege’s mayhem, we are teased with a moment where Celebrimbor seems to be destroying rings in a furnace. We also see him missing a hand. (That probably has many Silmarillion fans wondering if this is something to do with the Silmaril-mithril connection (S1.E5), how Beren lost his hand, and… Alright, alright, I won’t go there!)
With these rings and the return of Sauron, now comes all the things I find myself scratching my head over. As a horror genre fan, I could not ignore the highly spooky vibes of this teaser. I’ve often said that to understand the eucatastrophe described by Tolkien, you must also (sometimes) recontextualize what he wrote in the framework of existential nihilism. For a Tolkien-inspired television series, this recontextualization can translate to the screen as (seemingly) unrelated horror moments. As far as this teaser goes, I have no Tolkienian clue what is happening with the tar creature, the Rhûn moth witch, the creeping vines, and the horrifying Cthulhu-shark. All I can say is that I’m disturbed, unnerved, and distressed, and this is precisely the feeling I want when Sauron comes to visit.
The image of an Orc-licking a blood-soaked dagger… BRING IT ON, HERUMOR! DEAAAAAAATTTTHHHH!
Finally, I would like to make a statement. Fans of fantasy television can debate ad nauseam about which show is better, The Rings of Power or The House of Dragon. Regardless, I would like it settled once and for all that there is only one Lord (of the Wigs), and he does not share fashion power!
An addendum. For the few who know me and my fondness for Númenor and Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle). There is much I can speculate about Númenor, but I will not do so. (I’m still sore about Season 1.) What I do offer, however, is one hypothesis that Pharazôn will most definitely be riding an eagle this season. He absolutely has no ill intentions toward any of Manwë’s beloved creatures. Given his beard, I’m sure that makes him look ultra-friendly to the giant birds, who have always loved helping out other bearded dudes in the Third Age.
The artist behind Pharazôn Rides An Eagle is Stickybeebae. You can follow (and tip) her on Instagram.
About the author:
DrNosy is a scientist (physical science), scholar, and Tolkien enthusiast. Her primary interests lie in review and analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. She is an active contributor and Moderator on TheOneRing.net Discord where she also hosts live open-forum panel discussions on The Rings of Power, The Silmarillion, and a variety of Tolkien-related topics. You can reach her on Instagram.
If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share, then send it to poetry@theonering.net. One poem per person may be submitted each month. Please make sure to proofread your work before sending it in. TheOneRing.net is not responsible for poems posting with spelling or grammatical errors.
Recent SPY REPORTS for Season 2 of Prime Video’s The Rings of Power series sourced from anonymous but now-deleted posts on internet messageboard 4Chan are currently prompting a wave of discussion about their veracity and implications across Discord and Reddit .
WARNING: potential SPOILERS for Season 2 abound below.
.
.
.
.
Last chance to not be spoiled by significant story leaks for The Rings of Power.
Without further ado, here’s the potentially explosive leak about the story direction for Season 2 of The Rings of Power. While TheOneRing.net has no way of confirming this, the sources are allegedly people close to the series Producers.
Funko have taken the collectibles world by storm. Every time you look, there seems to be a new addition to the range, which you just have to have! Today, we can exclusively reveal a new figure they are adding to their REWIND collection – one which we know for sure will be of interest to The Lord of the Rings fans.
If you are not already familiar with Funko’s REWIND range, here’s the official word about it:
In collaboration with Blockbuster, the retro entertainment products offer collectibles and packaging fashioned around the iconic home video retailer’s design, allowing fans to tap back into the joys of the prime VHS era. Expanding the collectibles footprint, Rewind figures differ from the typical Funko Pop! aesthetic, celebrating the nostalgia and overall creativity of the ‘80s, ‘90s and ‘00s. Fans have the opportunity to relive the cherished memory of renting a movie on a Friday night with family and friends with a collectible encased in VHS-type packaging (unique to the IP) and a membership card designed to mirror Blockbuster’s memorable design.
The latest addition to these products is the dark lord himself: Sauron. Here’s what we know:
MSRP: $11.99
Description: Wield the power of the One Ring™ and expand your The Lord of the Rings™ collection with REWIND Sauron™! REWIND collectible comes in VHS-inspired packaging with a matching character card! There’s a 1 in 6 chance you may find the chase of Sauron™ with Eye of Sauron™. Vinyl figure is approximately 3.7-inches tall. Collectible case is approximately 5.85” H x 3.6” W x 1.65” D. Chase variants are shipped at random. Receiving a chase with purchase is not guaranteed.
If you can’t wait to get your hands on this fearsomely cute version of the Lord of the Rings himself, the good news is that you can find Sauron now at Funko.com.
PureArts and Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products are partnering on a cool The Lord of the Rings project. The Mouth of Sauron will be the third character to get the 1:1 treatment by the folks over at PureArts. This awesome helm will be made of polyresin, including the lower part of the Mouth of Sauron’s face, LED lit base, black cloth hood, and a PureArts exclusive Mouth of Sauron Metal Necklace. This helmet will be limited to only 150 pieces, so fans should expect the supply to dry up quickly. Pre-orders for this open on March 9th at 1 PM EST, with the piece having a price tag of $749. You will have time to save, as this does not ship until Q1 of next year.
From the art of The Vatican to Lawrence of Arabia.
The showrunners of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are bringing us back to Middle-earth. Now, with the entire season now out showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have been sharing influences and the creative process behind their most-beloved and most-challenging aspects of the show.
From many interviews across the web, here are some of those in their own words.
On Building Relationships
“From the beginning we wanted to build a relationship between Sauron and Galadriel.” – J.D. Payne, Co-Showrunner
“I hope after the last episode airs, viewers watch the whole season again, which is now a different experience… We were concerned about a situation where the part of the audience steeped in lore is six or seven episodes ahead of the characters. If deception is an important part of the journey, we wanted to preserve that experience for book readers too.”
“Season one opens with: Who is Galadriel? Where did she come from? What did she suffer? Why is she driven?” says Payne. “We’re doing the same thing with Sauron in season two. We’ll fill in all the missing pieces. Sauron can now just be Sauron, like Tony Soprano or Walter White. He’s evil, but complexly evil. “
Galadriel’s in this place of betrayal and anger and mad at herself and at him, and Sauron’s really coming from this place of, “No, no, no, no, no. This is good. It’s all been leading up to this. This is what we’ve been doing all season. By combining our powers, look at what we’ve achieved. We could do so much more together.”
Halbrand’s first lines to Galadriel on the raft are: “‘The tides of fate are flowing. Yours may be heading out.’ That’s the same line that Galadriel says to Frodo when the ring comes into her orbit in LOTR. She’s repeating the first thing Sauron ever said to her.” – J.D. Payne to Vanity Fair
Introducing Sauron
“We began filming before telling Charlie Vickers he was Sauron. After filming episode two, we talked to Charlie during the pause we took because of COVID, and then episodes three through eight he was fully aware.” – J.D. Payne to Vulture
“It’s not an option calling him Annatar because the audience would know ahead of the character.” – McKay on The Ringer podcast. McKay also admits the clues are all there from the start, “in his very first shot, he’s looking over his shoulder with one eye. His second line is ‘Looks can be deceiving.'”
Vulture asked: “Why introduce Sauron through the form of this human disguise?“ Patrick McKay responded: ‘One of the earliest ideas we had for the storyline came from the moment in The Fellowship of the Ring when Galadriel is tempted by Frodo’s offer of the Ring. She talks about how well she knows and understands Sauron, and there’s a quote where she says, “I know his mind, and he gropes ever to know mine, but still the door is shut.” She clearly has a darkness — that turning down the Ring is a test she feels she has to pass to finally go West — and that the darkness in her is linked with her feelings about Sauron.’
“We wanted to do an origin story for Sauron. We didn’t want to make a show that was about the hunt for Sauron, but we love the idea of Sauron as a deceiver who could, hopefully, deceive some of the audience.”
Patrick McKay
Seems that the showrunners were trying to pull off a mic-drop moment only the greatest directors have ever successfully done, per this Empire magazine question from Patrick to James Cameron:
We tried to set it up where every single line would be true to a certain extent, no matter who he is.
Patrick Mckay
On Inspirations That Few Viewers Spotted
Patrick tells The Ringer podcast that the entire concept of Galadriel and Halbrand meeting at sea is based on the Neo-classical Romanticist painting “The Raft of Medusa” which hangs in the Louvre, and is surprised nobody picked up on the connection. The painting depicts the real life story of an actual boat named the Medusa that crashed at sea and led to cannibalism among the survivors on the raft.
The Raft of the Medusa, 1818, by Théodore GéricaultRings of Power Episode 2
“There’s something that Milton does in Paradise Lost where he makes Satan a really compelling character. In some ways, he’s the first antihero… and you (the reader) are unconsciously won over, so that you perceive your own fallenness and your need for redemption.” – Patrick McKay
“For my final audition, I had to do a speech from Paradise Lost. Literally, as Satan.” – Charlie Vickers, who plays Sauron. “By no means is this the definitive portrayal of Sauron. I think there’s comfort in the fact that it’s just adding another colour to what is already a really colourful page.”
In Episode 7, we see Galadriel and Theo hiding under a log. But that’s where the connections to Bakshi’s and Jackson’s films end. “It was written that they were hiding under a log, so it was ultimately led by the scripts I don’t think we ever consciously went back to the films and said ‘we want to do it like that'” says Alex Diesenhof, the DP for the episode, in Newsweek.
Ralph Bakshi’s LOTRPeter Jackson’s FellowshipRings of Power Ep 7
All of us on the ground who’ve made the show, we approached it with love and so many of us are huge fans, and we just want people to live in Middle-earth again, just like we want to live in Middle-earth again.
Alex Diesenhof, director of photography
image: Screenrant
On Mithril and Legends
One of the most controversial ideas put forth in The Rings of Power is the source of Mithril’s magic. Fans worldwide — from the Tolkien Professor, Corey Olsen, to the Tolkien Society, to nearly all lore YouTubers — universally loathed this effort to expand the Legendarium. The Showrunners justify their choice:
“What if there’s a grand unification theory that could connect the light of the Two Trees of Valinor, which went into the Silmarils, to the rings? The three elven rings were at least partially made of mithril… It was a way to connect many parts of the canon, including the elves fading.”
J.D. Payne, co-showrunner
“Mithril is unusual in Middle-earth. It’s Tolkien’s vibranium, or adamantium, or like the one in Avatar, unobtainium. I would trust Elrond’s read on this piece of lore.”
“I think we’re quite used to the elves doing exactly the right thing and knowing exactly what to do. And that’s not necessarily the case here. [Galadriel] knows that if she [reveals Sauron to Celebrimbor], the rings wouldn’t get made. She needs the rings to be made so that the elves can stay in Middle-earth and continue to fight him. But I don’t know whether that’s the right thing to do!” – Morfydd Clark
“She’s gonna get a bit more magical! I’m really looking forward to that. The gift, or curse, of foresight, I found quite interesting.”
These witches are lesser conjurers than one of the wizards would be, and are bested here, but they escape in another form. While the visual language is a little similar to the Nazgûl, we’re also thinking about Macbeth and we’re thinking about the old crones and the three witches and just trying to come up with something strange and weird. We know they come from Rhûn, and we know there are magic cults in Rhûn, which is one of the things Tolkien writes about. So maybe there’s a slightly different kind of magic and we can peel back the layers in future seasons.
Patrick McKay
J.D. Payne continues that we haven’t seen the last of the three witches, “were they just temporarily vanquished? I think that’s a story point that people can be thinking about… That’s him seeing into the Unseen world. The ring takes you into that place where you can see the true form of things.”
Númenor
The showrunners tell Joanna Robinson at the Ringer podcast that they are shocked nobody has compared the reveal of Elendil to its inspiration from Lawrence of Arabia. In the classic film, considered one of the top 5 films of all time, the shadow scene represents the title character Lawrence adopting his savior-ego complex and leading the Arabs to potential freedom. In Rings of Power season one, Elendil loses his children to politics and war, but will eventually lead some Númenorians to safety and freedom.
Above: Lawrence of Arabia, Rings of Power episode 2
“If you look back over her trajectory this season, it seems like Isildur’s sister has been pulled into the Pharazôn camp, and that could mean big things for Númenor moving forward. Could she touch the Palantir and increase her sympathies toward the faithful, Or take issue with the idea that the queen has been using an Elven artifact and go the other way?” – via Vulture
“There was more about Isildur not wanting to be a sailor. We could do a whole season on that.” J.D. Payne to The Ringer
The School of Athens by Raphael, c.1510
Númenor’s aesthetic is directly based on the classical Raphael portrayal of Athens as seen in the Vatican, McKay tells the Ringer podcast. Tolkien famously based his myth of Númenor on the ancient Grecian stories of Atlantis, made popular by Plato in his Athenian storytelling. In Letter 163 J.R.R. Tolkien admitted, “I have what some might call an Atlantis complex. … I mean the terrible recurrent dream (beginning with memory) of the Great Wave, towering up, and coming in ineluctably over the trees and green fields.”
Responding to Fan Criticism
Hollywood Reporter asked the writers to respond to five constant criticisms of the lore, paraphrased here:
Dwarf women have beards. “Tolkien has answered this particular question both ways.”
Elves all have long hair. “If Tolkien ever wrote a comprehensive style guide to hairstyles, I would love to see it.”
Galadriel is too masculine. “Her nickname [by Tolkien] is “Nerwen,” which means “man-maiden.”
Costumes are too new. “Guess what? Sometimes clothes are new.”
Pacing is too slow. “Tolkien will take his time and let you sink into characters, into a journey, and… I hope people will have the patience to settle in for a Tolkien epic.”
“The storytelling will be different next time, not because of the response to the show, but because of the experience of making the show for us. We’re certainly listening to the critics and to our audiences. You don’t want to give any one voice too much weight, but figure out what people are responding to.” – via Vulture
“We felt it was very important that season one be about reintroducing Middle Earth in this new era. Introducing all of these kingdoms, and all of these peoples and all of these characters and knowing what was important to them, and what they had at stake.” – Patrick McKay, who still needs to introduce 16 leaders of men and dwarves to be corrupted by the rings of power.
“People of the world will think everything, love/hate & in between, I’m quite sure, but it certainly seems like everybody’s talking about it and people are watching. I think we always knew there would be a lot of chatter from all corners, and it’s good to be talked about.” – Lindsey Weber
“It’s not a mystery it’s a character journey. Watching fans fight each other bums me out. Sauron enjoy seeing us tear each other part” – J.D. Payne
“Some portion of audience don’t want to go in journey of discovery. That surprised us. We thought fans would enjoy Galadriel not having husband and child.” – Patrick McKay on The Ringer podcast
“The guys really wanted to devise a story that would work from service level the first time and then would work on a whole new level when you saw it again with the full knowledge of the season.” – Lindsey Weber
“What matters to us is if it’s entertaining enough that people are digging into it and debating it. One of the big things we learned was even when it’s a small scene, it always has to tie back into the larger stakes. It has to be about good and evil and the fate of the world or it doesn’t have that epic feeling you want when you’re in Tolkien.” – Patrick McKay
“Bezos is a huge fan of Tolkien and has a great knowledge of the lore. The whole idea of why we got the rights to begin with was to tell the story of good versus evil — of people coming together from all different worlds to fight evil, really. Leaning into light was the other thing that was really appealing to everybody — bringing something to our global customer base that is hopeful and has light and that a family can watch.” – Jennifer Salke, president of Amazon Studios
Good Things Are Worth Taking Time
“We wanted to explore what it meant for Galadriel to, who had been right a lot, to be wrong, really, really wrong for a minute. We wanted her to have to live with those consequences, and in a way that she couldn’t fix in the short term.” – Lindsey Weber, Executive Producer formerly from Bad Robot, on why the volcano wasn’t the triumphant climax of season one.
“JD and Patrick talked about Stalingrad and Battle in the Streets, not sort of full epic but more hand-to-hand and brutal with surprising twists and turns.” – Lindsey Weber
Mystery Boxing The Obvious
When quizzed about the Gandalf-like similarities of The Stranger’s voice and accent Patrick McKay responded: “The specifics of these things matter so much. Daniel Weyman, who plays The Stranger, developed a voice with vocal coach Leith McPherson that has a little twinge of the Irish lilt the Harfoots have. Whatever name he may one day be known as is not actually important at this stage of his journey. What matters at this stage is… his own relationship to power and good and evil and darkness and light.”
“I was playing what was put in front of me. I felt I could really play it honestly.” – Daniel Weyman, who is following his nose to Rhûn, wasn’t told his character’s name at first.
“There’s even references to Gandalf himself possibly coming much earlier in some different form — he ‘walked among the elves’ — there’s a story to be told with a wizard in this age feels in harmony with Tolkien’s canon.” – Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay
“Apples have a lot of mythological resonances in cultures really across the world. There’s, obviously a biblical idea. I mean, it’s also commonly associated with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The taking of fruit in a garden setting is something that portends kind of a loss of innocence, a leaving of Eden and heading into the difficult world. But rather than eat the apple, he holds on to the apple, as you know, holding onto the friendship.” – J.D. Payne
Sticking to the Plan
Lindsey Weber, Rings of Power producer who previously produced Star Wars Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker, told the Ringer that “their (Patrick and J.D.) passion for and knowledge of Tolkien—combined with their clarity of vision for the whole series, across multiple seasons—was uniquely impressive.”
“We don’t want to make something disposable,” Payne says. “Carrying the responsibility of this material and this man’s life’s work, we aspire to making something that’s special and not like anything else you’ve seen before. … It’s not ours. We have a responsibility to this world and this history and this mythology that this guy created that means so much to these people and want to do right by it.”
J.D. Payne
“I wouldn’t say we’re over-correcting for any of it, but we’re certainly listening to people’s responses.”
Patrick Mckay
McKay tells Vanity Fair in a season-ending interview: “In the fourth episode, she asks him for advice, and he says basically, “the way you beat your enemies is to figure out what they need and figure out how to give it to them. Help them master their fear. And then you can master them.” And that’s exactly what he’s doing to her the entire season — maybe what he’s going to do to everybody over the following seasons. That’s his modus operandi.”
Here’s some reactions from the writers of Season 1 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, now streaming all episodes FREE with your existing Prime membership that most people already have for free shipping.
From a handful of us writers in a room imagining what felt like impossible things to amazing artists and craftspeople making those impossible things possible — what a privilege. I will forever be grateful to be a part of this show, among these wonderful people.
Before this TV show was a worldwide phenomenon, it was just words on a page, and some of those words came from my brain! Seeing my name credited on such an epic show is without a doubt one of the most surreal moments of my life. Hope you all enjoy episode 6 of the Rings of Power! pic.twitter.com/KeXBo6bdNE
