Like I’ve mentioned several times now, the major complaint about Rings of Power is “It’s not like the books!” And, like I’ve mentioned several times now, I don’t find that a completely fair criticism given that Amazon doesn’t have the rights to most of the material that actually fleshes out the events depicted in the show.
Still, with the first season of Rings of Power having just wrapped up, I think now’s a timely, uh, time to present this pretty cool video essay about Tolkien’s major thematic statement.
Now, to be fair, the video doesn’t tie into Rings of Power in any meaningful, direct way given that the video was posted long before Rings of Power started airing.
But, still, if you’re worried about Rings of Power not adequately capturing the themes of Tolkien, it might just be helpful to gain some insight into what Tolkien’s themes actually are.
A lot of my previous write-up about the video isn’t really that relevant to that specific discussion, but I think it’s worth it to revisit at least one major point:
[T]he fact that Tolkien can write the human (or Elf or Hobbit, as the case may be…) condition so well is because he had first-hand experience with most of the human condition is.
Mostly, it’s pain.
And that gets tied back into The Wanderer basically being the quintessential Anglo-Saxon statement on the human condition.
Me, quoting me.
You can find the rest of the original recommendation here, and the rest of my recommendations here. And, if you’re interested, you can mind Empire of the Mind, the channel I found that video on here.
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