Angelus News | September 23, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 19

and many more characters.
So, how do you make audiences believe
they are watching Tolkien? First,
the show is kept entirely consistent
with Peter Jackson’s movies. The visuals,
scenery, costumes, the soundtrack:
everything feels like a spinoff from the
earlier cinematic adaptation.
Second, the authors have copy and
pasted some ideas, themes, and characters
from the works of Tolkien. We
encounter a young Harfoot girl who,
unlike the rest of her people, is curious
and wants to see the world — much
like Frodo and Bilbo of “The Lord of
the Rings.” There is conflicted love
between an elf and a human — much
like Arwen and Aragorn from “The
Lord of the Rings.” You get the idea.
Still, there appears to be little of
Tolkien’s “aesthetic and philosophical
impact,” at least judging from its first
two episodes.
The show tries to convey Tolkienian
themes here and there, like the notion
that things do not happen to people by
chance, or that true bravery consists
in responding to a call that manifests
itself through concrete people and
events. But these Tolkienian ideas feel
somewhat watered down, domesticated,
often reduced to feel-good platitudes
(“follow the light,” etc.).
What is missing is what makes Tolkien
history’s greatest fantasy writer: the
mark of his own original “philosophy.”
Not Tolkien’s own philosophical ideas,
but rather the eternal truths about
human beings and their destiny that
are expressed through his stories.
The events that lead to the forging
of the rings, which are created to
wield power, are crucial to Tolkien’s
worldview. Men want power to ward
off death. Through the rings, the
Numenorean kings of the Second Age
seek to make themselves immortal.
The elves, on the other hand, want to
use power to block the progression of
history. Their goal is to keep Middle-earth
as it is, a beautiful garden
in which they can preserve what they
love and enjoy their creations.
This longing to safeguard what exists
is what motivates the elven queen Galadriel’s
actions in Tolkien’s original
design — in the Amazon show, she is
merely seeking revenge for the death
of her brother. Ultimately, however,
these attempts to control time and
death are misguided. In their desire to
arrest the decline that is inherent in
the passing of time, the elves are, in
Tolkien’s words, “oppressed by sadness
and nostalgia,” for to refuse change is
to go against the design of God.
In “The Lord of the Rings,” Gandalf,
Galadriel, and Elrond, who originally
possessed the three elvish rings, are
faced with the opportunity to seize the
one ring and use it for good, but all of
them renounce it. Why? They have
realized that using power to preserve
what is one’s own eventually produces
only solitude and death.
They understand that the mysterious
force that ultimately governs
the course of history has an entirely
different plan, one in which power is
defeated by weakness. In this plan, renouncing
power and the urge to keep
everything for oneself bears a fruit of
life and love that beats the passing of
time. None of these concerns seem
to have left the
faintest trace
on the Amazon
show.
The parallels
between the
events of Tolkien’s
Second
Age and those
of our times are
too obvious to
be ignored: the
conflict between
good and evil,
the seductive
force of power afflicting
good and
bad alike; a long
A scene from “The Rings
of Power.” | COURTESY
AMAZON PRIME VIDEO
time of relative
peace giving way
to conflict and
uncertainty.
One would
hope that the
Amazon series will convey what
Tolkien would have suggested in these
times: that power will be defeated by
weakness, not by force, that the humble
will triumph, that God has a plan
for salvation invisible to the eye of the
mighty, and that renouncing oneself
and letting the light shine on others
bears a fruit for eternity.
Instead, I fear, we will get plenty of
entertainment — but in the end, little
more than that.
Stefano Rebeggiani is an associate
professor of classics at the University of
Southern California.
September 23, 2022 • ANGELUS • 29