{"id":115463,"date":"2023-01-09T09:25:37","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T14:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=115463"},"modified":"2023-01-09T09:25:40","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T14:25:40","slug":"rings-of-power-showrunners-reveal-secrets-you-might-have-missed-and-tease-season-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2023\/01\/09\/115463-rings-of-power-showrunners-reveal-secrets-you-might-have-missed-and-tease-season-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Rings of Power Showrunners Reveal Secrets You Might Have Missed And Tease Season Two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the art of The Vatican to Lawrence of Arabia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From many interviews across the web, here are some of those in their own words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Building Relationships<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

“From the beginning we wanted to build a relationship between Sauron and Galadriel.” – J.D. Payne<\/a>, Co-Showrunner<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI 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.”<\/p>\nPatrick McKay<\/a>, Co-Showrunner<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSeason one opens with: Who is Galadriel? Where did she come from? What did she suffer? Why is she driven?\u201d says Payne. \u201cWe\u2019re doing the same thing with Sauron in season two. We\u2019ll fill in all the missing pieces. Sauron can now just be Sauron, like Tony Soprano or Walter White. He\u2019s evil, but complexly evil. “<\/p>\nPatrick McKay<\/a>, Co-Showrunner<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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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.”<\/strong><\/p>\nGennifer Hutchinson<\/a>, co-writer Episode 2 & 8<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Halbrand’s first lines to Galadriel on the raft are: “‘The tides of fate are flowing. Yours may be heading out.’ That\u2019s the same line that Galadriel says to Frodo when the ring comes into her orbit in LOTR. She\u2019s repeating the first thing Sauron ever said to her.” – J.D. Payne<\/a> to Vanity Fair<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introducing Sauron<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

“We began filming before<\/strong> 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<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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<\/a> 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.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vulture<\/a> asked: “Why introduce Sauron through the form of this human disguise?<\/strong>“
Patrick McKay responded: ‘One of the earliest ideas we had for the storyline came from the moment in\u00a0The Fellowship of the Ring<\/em>\u00a0when Galadriel is tempted by Frodo\u2019s offer of the Ring. She talks about how well she knows and understands Sauron, and there\u2019s a quote where\u00a0she says<\/a>, \u201cI know his mind, and he gropes ever to know mine, but still the door is shut.\u201d She clearly has a darkness \u2014 that turning down the Ring is a test she feels she has to pass to finally go West \u2014 and that the darkness in her is linked with her feelings about Sauron.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“We wanted to do an origin story for Sauron. We didn\u2019t 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.”<\/p>\nPatrick McKay<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We tried to set it up where every single line would be true to a certain extent, no matter who he is.<\/p>Patrick Mckay<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Inspirations That Few Viewers Spotted<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>” 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Raft of the Medusa<\/em>, 1818, by Th\u00e9odore G\u00e9ricault<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Rings of Power Episode 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something that Milton does in\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/a><\/em>\u00a0where he makes Satan a really compelling character. In some ways, he\u2019s the first antihero… and you (the reader) are unconsciously won over, so that you perceive your own fallenness and your need for redemption.\u201d – Patrick McKay<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor my final audition, I had to do a speech from Paradise Lost<\/em>. Literally, as Satan.\u201d – Charlie Vickers<\/a>, who plays Sauron. “By no means is this the definitive portrayal of Sauron.<\/strong> I think there’s comfort in the fact that it’s just adding another colour to what is already a really colourful page.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ralph Bakshi’s LOTR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Peter Jackson’s Fellowship<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Rings of Power Ep 7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em>.<\/p>Alex Diesenhof, director of photography<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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image: Screenrant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Mithril and Legends<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the most controversial ideas put forth in The Rings of Power is the source of Mithril’s magic. Fans worldwide \u2014 from the Tolkien Professor, Corey Olsen, to the Tolkien Society, to nearly all lore YouTubers \u2014 universally loathed this effort to expand the Legendarium. The Showrunners justify their choice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“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.”<\/p>\nJ.D. Payne, co-showrunner<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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“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.”<\/p>\nPatrick McKay<\/a>, co-showrunner<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI 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!\u201d – Morfydd Clark<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe’s gonna get a bit more magical! I’m really looking forward to that. The gift, or curse, of foresight, I found quite interesting.\u201d<\/p>Morfydd Clark, on Galadriel getting her ring<\/a> for Season 2<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Screenrant caught up with the boys<\/a> to talk about those not-yet-Nazg\u00fbl witches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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 Nazg\u00fbl, we\u2019re also thinking about Macbeth and we\u2019re 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 Rh\u00fbn, and we know there are magic cults in Rh\u00fbn, which is one of the things Tolkien writes about. So maybe there\u2019s a slightly different kind of magic and we can peel back the layers in future seasons.<\/strong><\/p>\nPatrick McKay<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

J.D. Payne continues that we haven’t seen the last of the three witches, “were they just temporarily vanquished? I think that\u2019s a story point that people can be thinking about\u2026 That\u2019s him seeing into the Unseen world<\/strong>. The ring takes you into that place where you can see the true form of things.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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N\u00fa<\/strong>menor<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>, 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 N\u00famenorians to safety and freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Above: Lawrence of Arabia, Rings of Power episode 2<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If you look back over her trajectory this season, it seems like Isildur’s sister has been pulled into the Pharaz\u00f4n camp, and that could mean big things for N\u00famenor 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<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was more about Isildur not wanting to be a sailor. We could do a whole season on that.” J.D. Payne to The Ringer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The School of Athens by Raphael, c.1510<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

N\u00famenor’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 N\u00famenor 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\u00a0the terrible recurrent dream (beginning with memory) of the Great Wave, towering up, and coming in ineluctably over the trees and green fields.<\/em>” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding to Fan Criticism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Hollywood Reporter<\/a> asked the writers to respond to five constant criticisms of the lore, paraphrased here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n