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Three episodes into the Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power, it's very clear that the writers of this show are trying to capture the central theological framework of Tolkien in their story. Tolkien's view of providence and the portrayal of the faithful remnant in Numenor is simply getting him right, at least so far. I was expecting this to be completely insensitive to Tolkien's major themes, perhaps even contradicting them, as Peter Jackson did numerous times in his original trilogy (less so in the Hobbit, ironically, given how much more hate there is from Tolkien fans about that). I could list numerous things: 1. Aragorn as reluctant king rather than biding his time for the right moment to assume his rightful throne while working behind the scenes to meet his kingly responsibilities, as in the books 2. Eowyn as seeking the second-wave feminist goal of trying to make women be like men rather than Tolkien's view of recognizing differences between men and women as something to affirm in women as equally good to any virtues more typical of men 3. Faramir's reduction to being a second-rate Boromir rather than the faithful remnant within Gondor who valued the right things 4. the Ents' motives for helping at Helm's Deep being presented as a hasty decision, completely contrary to their character 5. the presence of any elves besides Legolas at Helm's Deep running contrary to the entire theme in Tolkien of the elves in the Third Age largely hiding and avoiding the evil that was on the rise I don't see anything as egregiously offensive as that in this show. Some are upset that this show has been forced into inventing their own details to fill in, because the Tolkien estate refuses to let them use Tolkien's actual second-age materials outside the appendices, but that is the fault of Tolkien's heirs, not the creators of this show. What matters more is whether it is consistent with the world Tolkien gives us, and so far it mostly is. And what matters even more than that is whether the moral and theological framework is compatible with Tolkien's, and it seems from the third episode that they are actually trying hard to get it right. Now there are a few things they could do to alienate Tolkien fans that I sure hope they do not do. If Meteor Man turns out to be any of the Istari other than Alatar or Pallando (or whichever other names Tolkien used -- I know there are several versions, and one version does have them appearing in the Second Age), then there is reason to be outraged. I think he is more likely to be Sauron than Gandalf, though, but we'll see. If they don't follow through on the promise they have made that this is a transformation of a very imperfect Galadriel into what we see in the Lord of the Rings story, then that would be bad. But I am taking them at their word on this and thinking the claims of critics are simply premature. This is the Galadriel who becomes that Galadriel, and these experiences will serve to explain why she would know herself well enough to think Frodo's offer of the ring to her would play to all her bad tendencies. They have to had existed sometime in her long life for that whole scene in the Lord of the Rings to make sense. Some I see are complaining that the show is woke, which of course is a stupid term at this point in its unclarity and lack of precision. I can think of a couple things that the now-orthodox social justice movement in our society wants to see that this show is doing, but they seem hardly concerning to any healthy conservative on social justice issues. There might be some issues on faithfulness to Tolkien's world, but I'm conflicted on that, even. 1. They do have leads who are female. I do think some who complain about wokeness will do so in many cases because a lead is female, when they inconsistently do not do so with the stories of their youth. For example, they complain about Rey in the Star Wars sequels but not about Padme in the prequels or Leia in the original trilogy. They then claim it is woke in some bad sense, but there is no real argument there.
2. Sometimes there is more substance to it. They claim that the female leads are somehow being favored over the male leads. That complaint usually does not hold up. In Captain Marvel, was her focus as the main character in any way at the expense of Samuel Jackson's Nick Fury? Hardly. In Star Wars, was Poe Dameron portrayed as unimportant or even not very masculine simply because some female characters got center stage for parts of the movie? Not really. Were all the female characters even portrayed as all that great? Holdo made a huge blunder in not including Poe in her plan, for example, so I'd say no. So I'm not so sure what's even supposed to be woke about Episode 8. Episode 9 even marginalized some of the newer characters of color, as some of the actors have pointed out, ones who were set up to be the important new generation for younger fans. This seems like a dumb complaint when it's occurred before, and I see nothing in this show that's in the area of that to justify complaining about it. They have male and female characters who are imperfect and who will develop as characters, and they all do seem central to the story. 3. Some who claim wokeness have taken over are simply upset that LGBTQ characters are portrayed at all. This is odd to me if it's taking place in a world where LGBTQ characters would likely be present. Some are worried that controversial ideologies about those issues are being presented, and that certainly happens in some stories. Without question the Arrowverse shows on the CW network have tried very hard to make LGBTQ characters feel normalized in their stories. But the mere mention that America Chavez had two moms, as she does in the comics, is not even doing that. Yet people refuse to watch the movie as too woke because they heard it mentions her having two moms. I find that weird. What's also weird is that the same people might complain that some show or movie is not faithful to the source material, but they complain that this tiny reference in a movie about other things actually is faithful to the source material. But in any case, I have seen nothing along these lines at all in the Rings of Power series. I would even be surprised if the Tolkien estate hadn't put some stipulations in about this. There are fans of Tolkien on both sides of these questions, and they probably are aware of how easy it would be to alienate either side. My guess is we will not see anything along these lines, but again we will see. 4. One thing I do find strange is the weird mixes of skin colors of characters in this story. In Tolkien's world, the northwest of Middle-Earth is meant to be what becomes Europe. The Haradrim to the South are meant to be the fictional ancestors of Africans, and the Easterlings are meant to be the fictional ancestors of Asians. In Tolkien's story, the humans of color are enslaved by Sauron against their will, as the elves in episode 3 of this show are. The uncareful complaints that I see that it shows some kind of racism in Tolkien are simply unfounded (there is even a comment from Sam in the Lord of the Rings about how terrible it is that Sauron has enslaved these people), but it remains true that the few remaining groups that have not been enslaved are the ones that he is presenting as the ancestors of Europeans, even if it is also true that he does not attribute this to some essential qualities of those people that make them superior (he in fact shows a huge amount of flaws in those people (consider Denethor, Boromir, Theoden, and even Saruman), other than the rare faithful remnant characters like Aragorn. Why is there so much skin color variation among the peoples in this much earlier period, within each group? It makes no sense scientifically, because reproductive isolation means differences are reflected in different groups that don't interact, and you only get mixing when those groups come back together in a more cosmopolitan time. Unless there's a story reason to explain this, I cry foul. But this is something stupid about what the Amazon show is doing, not something morally problematic. I can understand their motives as aiming to show representation of the different groups in our time and as wanting to have diversity in the main cast and all that. I think that generally is a good thing to do. It's also inappropriate in Tolkien's world (and, as I just said, not because of any racism in Tolkien, which I think just doesn't understand what Tolkien is doing, as much respect as I have for some of the people who have made such claims). So is this a reason to complain about wokeness? Well, I'd say there's something that rubs me the wrong way about it. It doesn't fit with the canon of the world. It doesn't respect the source materials. It's not ill-motivated, though, and this really is a pretty minor complaint in the grand scheme of things, similar to the complaint about a female dwarf not having a beard (which, honestly, is not even an issue of canon, since Tolkien's one remark on that is rather ambiguous about whether it's even true in the fiction). So I don't think the complaints of wokeness, if they are any more than this one narrow point, are all that well motivated, and I don't think this point is all that significant in comparison to the things I think they are getting right or are at least doing in a way that is consistent with Tolkien's world when they are forced to invent things not in the appendices because of the Tolkien estate's refusal to let them use Tolkien's actual stories about this period. After three episodes, I'm much more positive about this show than I was after two, and I was much more positive after two than I was expecting to be before watching any of it. I'm not seeing real substance to most of the complaints, and a lot are reading things into it that they expected to be true of it but quite frankly are not actually true of it. It's as if they want it to be bad, so they choose to see it that way.
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AuthorJeremy Pierce is a philosophy professor, Uber/Lyft driver, and father of five. Archives
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