It seems like Middle-earth March Madness 2022, A Battle of the Ages has only just begun, and already we’re down to the Sweet Sixteen round! To make it to Round Three, the events in our four brackets have had to win two duels thus far.
12,000 folks voted in Round Two; we’ll take a look at how those match ups played out, below.
Round Three Sweet Sixteen voting is open now until the end of the day Tuesday 29 March. Below is the updated bracket, and the buttons for voting.
Instructions: Click on one of the orange division buttons above. Then click the ‘Vote Now’ option that appears above the divisional bracket. This year you get to vote in each divisional match-up in one convenient and visual interface. Note – you need to click each division to vote in their respective brackets. So let’s get voting!
Round Two voting is open until the end of the day Sunday 27 March. Below is the updated bracket, and the buttons for voting.
How does it work, you ask? Simple! Click on one of the orange division buttons below. Then click the ‘Vote Now’ option that appears above the divisional bracket. This year you get to vote in each divisional match-up in one convenient and visual interface. Note – you need to click each division to vote in their respective brackets. So let’s get voting!
Round One is underway! This year’s Middle-earth March Madness tournament focuses not on characters, costumes, or movie moments, as with previous years. Instead, milestone events are stepping into the competitive arena: major creations, critical turning points, the founding and breaking of kingdoms, births, deaths, victories and defeats. These events appear in four competing divisions, each representing one of the epic ages that comprise the history of Arda and Middle-earth: Ages One through Three, along with the foundations – the ‘Pre-First Age’ that unfolded before the rising of the Sun and Moon.
Even casual fans are likely to be familiar with many of the landmark events of the Third Age, especially those covered by The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. With Amazon’s entry into the Tolkienverse, we will soon be drawn into a more extensive familiarity with Second Age affairs, like the rise and fall of Númenor and the forging of the Rings of Power. Thanks to the enduring body of work curated by Tolkien’s son, Christopher, we have a rich pool of resources covering First Age affairs, like the romance of Beren and Lúthien, the tragedies of the Children of Húrin, and the fall of the elven kingdom of Gondolin.
Now’s your chance to brush up on your History of Middle-earth, as we explore events which happened throughout the four ages leading up to the final departure of the Rings of Power. Stay tuned for posts taking a look at the events in the Pre-First, First and Second Ages; if you need reminding of the events of the Third Age, may we suggest it’s a perfect excuse to rewatch Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy?
For more discussion of the 64 events starting out in March Madness this year, join us TONIGHT on the TORn Tuesday live stream. And then – place your votes!
How does it work, you ask? Simple! Click on one of the orange division buttons below. Then click the ‘Vote Now’ option that appears above the divisional bracket. This year you get to vote in each divisional match-up in one convenient and visual interface. Note – you need to click each division to vote in their respective brackets. So let’s get voting!
You have until the end of the day Thursday March 24th to vote in Round One; on Friday 25th we’ll announce winners and open voting for Round Two! Let the games begin!
‘We come to it at last – the great battle of our time.’ Or – in this case – the great battle of the Ages! On Tuesday 22nd March we’ll kick off this year’s Middle-earth March Madness; and the theme is A Battle of the Ages.
Each of the four brackets this year represents an Age in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. This is the perfect opportunity to brush up on your history, as we get ready for Amazon’s Rings of Power – and the events of the Second Age – in September.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll have some posts to explore these brackets in more depth. What happened in the time of the Two Trees? Who conquered Glaurung in the First Age? And just when were those rings forged in the Second Age? Get ready to explore some History of Middle-earth together, as we vote to decide fandom’s favourite event from thousands of years.
How does it work, you ask? Simple! Staffers at TORn already voted to narrow down the many, many happenings to their top 64, and instead of seeding this year, the events appear in chronological order in each bracket. For each round, we will have a poll, where you vote for your choice in each match-up. Is Gandalf falling to the Balrog more significant than the Last March of the Ents? Are you more interested in when Beren first sees Luthien, or when they recover a Silmaril together? Which is more terrible – the destruction of the Two Trees, or the Elven Kinslaying? You decide!
Join us on Tuesday to kick off the Middle-earth March Madness tournament for 2022. 64 events will start out – but only one will be crowned Champion!
I’ve read a lot of responses to, and hot takes on, The Rings of Power in the last 24 hours (you can check some of them out here if you’ve missed our roundup). But, without a doubt, this is the most insightful and useful one so far.
In it, Vanity Fair writer Joanna Robinson puts 10 key questions about Amazon’s Rings of Power production to showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, and adds her own lore-based thoughts on their answers.
It’s just a terrific read, chock-full of amazing details.
An excerpt:
In studying the language from the first three episodes Amazon let Vanity Fair screen, we found a mix of cleverly repurposed lines of Tolkien’s dialogue as well as a few snatches of Biblical text. “Both Patrick and I have religious backgrounds,” Payne says. “I spent a lot of time just reading those sacred texts. I was an English major at Yale and loved Shakespeare at the time and still go back and reread the various plays. I’ve also spent a lot of time studying Hebrew poetry and parallelism and inverted parallelism and chiasmus and all these cool rhetorical strategies that poets and prophets from thousands of years ago would use to communicate sacred material. And Tolkien, sometimes, will play in that kind of a sandbox.”
McKay explains that they tailored the dialogue to fit each kind of character. The harfoots speak with an Irish lilt whereas the elves speak in elevated British phrases. “We even came up with hero meters for each different race in Tolkien,” Payne says. “Some of them will speak in iambs. Some of them will speak in dactyls. Some of them will speak in trochees.” That in-depth approach might please Professor Tolkien, whose specialty was philology, a.k.a. the history of language.
One of the best revelations is clear, direct confirmation on the rights situation simply because it immediately clears away so much fan debate:
So what did Amazon buy? “We have the rights solely to The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, the appendices, and The Hobbit,” Payne says. “And that is it. We do not have the rights to The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth, or any of those other books.”
So if you’ve been wondering (as I have), everything in the trees image must be explained by LOTR and The Hobbit alone. And if you can’t find it in those books, don’t expect to see it in The Rings of Power.
BOOTNOTE: Writer Joanna Robinson will be joining TORn Tuesday tomorrow from 5pm PT, 8pm ET to discuss her Rings of Power experience with Staffers Quickbeam and Justin. Join us then, and be sure to bring your own burning questions!
Galadriel, commander of the Northern Armies. Matt Grace/Amazon Studios.
