I’ve been watching the second season of Rings of Power here and there. I’m not quite caught up yet, and part of that has been because the second season has been mostly fine. It’s difficult to explain why it’s all just so ‘fine’ without going into long rambles about how and where it diverges from Tolkien’s legendarium and how so many of those changes tend to just muddle the show and detract from it (as opposed to how many of the changes in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of The Rings served to make the films more elegant and cohesive on screen). In short, my real-life rants after each episode have only gotten longer.
The frustrating part is that the show peddles in fan service and I am a sucker for its wiles. We meet Círdan the Shipwright and he mentions Rúmil! But then time and time again these glimmers feel undercut by their use. We finally see Tom Bombadil on screen — a character who I think is a wonderful and perplexing part of Tolkien’s world that absolutely did not fit in Jackson’s adaption — but his role in the show is to play Obi-Wan to the Istar-who-is-totally-not-Gandalf. Which feels weird, because part of the beauty of Tom is how outside the narrative he is and unimportant to Middle-earth beyond his little realm. The Tolkien nerd in me is geeking out about getting to see Tom on screen, but bummed that this is how it goes.
(For the record, Tom’s presence in The Battle For Middle-earth II, where he shows up as a summon that will fight for your side for a little while singing his silly songs before peacing out whether or not the battle is won, is delightful)
I’m gonna keep watching the show, if only because I can’t help but to wonder what other little nuggets they’ll throw in the mix. But there’s some trepidation there too, because, well, I don’t want to see it adapted wrong. At the end of the day, I’ll still have the original books of The Lord of The Rings and The Silmarillion, nothing can take those away from me. Nonetheless, I can’t help but wish that if we’re getting Gil-galad and Tom Bombadil and Barrow Wights and Entwives we were getting them in something that, well, was better than fine.
Essays, Not Rants! 