Major Changes in ‘The Rings of Power’

But do they spoil the story?

Warning… this article contains plot details from The Rings of Power TV show, as well as from The Silmarillion, and The Lord of the Rings, both by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Are you watching the The Rings of Power? It’s Amazon Prime’s new headline show, and, incidentally, the most expensive TV show ever made.

If, like me, you’re a fantasy fan and a lover of Tolkien’s works, there’s a lot to enjoy.

From seeing Galadriel in her youth (sort of… ), to spending much longer with Elendil and Isildur than was possible in the LOTR movie prologue, we finally explore these wonderful characters in their own story, rather than as background detail to Frodo’s.

And visiting Númenor was a thrill, too!

However, there are also things that don’t fit well with the source material, and that inevitably upsets some fans.

I’m not talking about deeply disappointing and unnecessary furore over casting actors of color. Let’s face it, we don’t know what these fictional people looked like, and who really cares?!

No — I’m talking about the timeline.

Major timeline changes

So far, the show appears to have crunched many of the events of the Second Age of Middle Earth into a time period that allows its main human/dwarf/harfoot characters to be on the scene for all of them.

It certainly appears that the show is portraying crucial events that lead up the end of the Second Age.

Events such as the rise of Sauron and the forging of the rings do lead into the prologue of the Fellowship of the Ring movie, i.e. the ‘Last Alliance of Elves and Men’. However, in the books, these events were spread out over thousands of years!

Compressing that timeline probably makes for a better show, but it’s certainly inconsistent with the source material.

Consider the following:

• When Gil-galad and Elendil battle Sauron in the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, the year is 3,441. Given that some human characters from this battle are also in the first few episodes of the new TV show, it can’t be set very long before that year… even allowing for the long lifespans of Númenóreans. Isildur, for example was born in the year 3209, according to the books.
• The show also apparently portrays a period before the rise of Sauron. However, Sauron is said to have emerged from hiding in the year 500, and to have begun construction of his fortress Barad-dûr in Mordor a few centuries thereafter. In contrast, the TV depicts a Southlands where Mordor doesn’t yet exist (Beforedor, as some have called it! 😆)
• In the show, it seems that the Nazgûl have not yet made an appearance (and they may still be human). But according to the Appendices to LOTR, Nazgûl first emerge around the year 2251, over a thousand years after Barad-dûr is built, and centuries before the birth of Elendil and Isildur.
• Indeed, Sauron was openly warring with elves and men around 1600–1700 of the Second Age, and was defeated by Númenóreans at this point. Again, this happened centuries before Elendil is even born. Sauron later went into hiding (like we see in the show), but he wasn’t an unknown quantity in Middle Earth.
• We are also shown a time before Galadriel marries Celeborn, but in the books these characters met and married in the First Age, many millennia before the end of the Second Age (though that would be less fun, right?!).
• We don’t yet (at the time of writing) know the identity of ‘The Stranger’, but if he turns out to be one of the Istari, then they have arrived early; in the books they don’t come to Middle Earth until the Third Age.
• Perhaps most importantly for the story, the three elven rings and one ruling ring are forged almost 2000 years before the end of the age, according to the books. This all happens a long time before the Númenóreans break with the elves. In the show, however, we appear to be seeing a series of events that will lead to the rings being forged. Again, this must happen very close to the end of the Second Age in this adaptation.

I can understand that some book readers will feel uncomfortable about these fairly drastic changes to canon.

However, it surely does make for a better show to have all of these major events happen close together. The storytelling reasons for a great crunch of the timeline are fairly obvious.

Some fans will never accept it. However, perhaps what the majority will care about most is whether the show versions of characters like Galadriel, Elrond, Isildur and indeed Sauron feel authentic and well realized.

It’s all right to develop the characters in new ways (as every adaptation must do so), and to provide some details of their personalities which are often lacking in the books.

And as I see it, changing the timescale of events doesn’t have to be too much of a problem, as long as the events themselves (the rings, the downfall of Númenor, the rise of the Nazgûl, etc) play out in a way that is consistent with the overall story.

And ultimately, it’s a lot of fun to see the rise of Sauron, and to follow a badass troll-slaying Galadriel! 😆

How do you feel about these changes? Were you aware of the compressed timeline… and does it bother you?

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