Where Is the Good Worth Fighting For in Rings of Power?
Season 3 presses into the darkness
It’s been so quiet on the Rings of Power front for so long that you might have thought that the third season of Amazon Prime’s fantasy epic was never coming.
But you would have, all of you, been deceived, for another season was made.
And this season, which premieres November 11th, the focus is all on Sauron’s efforts to forge the One Ring to Rule them all.
With San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend, there’s been a veritable eruption of updates on the upcoming third season of The Rings of Power.
To keep spoilers to a minimum for anyone who wants to go in without seeing too much beforehand [as I tend to like], I’ll keep any more specifics down below the break.
As a fan generally of what Seasons 1 and 2 had to offer, these updates are mostly exciting to me. From the limited look so far, Season 3 looks to be a continued improvement for the series, as Season 2 was compared to Season 1.
But though I’m generally optimistic, over the past few days I’ve had a feeling about the show that I’ve had since the first season but been unable to really put into words finally coalesce into something of a critique.
I’ve been reading Craig Bernthal’s Tolkien’s Sacramental Vision—which I definitely recommend if you’re interested in a close analysis of the religious themes and parallels in Tolkien’s legendarium—and a particular comment of his came to mind as I was viewing all the promotional material for season 3 so far.
After speaking of the character of Galadriel, Bernthal comments more generally on Tolkien, observing: “It is one of Tolkien’s rare accomplishments that he can make goodness exciting and intensely desirable” (Bernthal, 198).
While it has had its strengths these past two seasons, one of the weaknesses of The Rings of Power is that I have found its depiction of goodness passable, but rarely exciting, sometimes interesting but not often desirable.
In my experience, much of the excitement and focus in The Rings of Power has centered on the depiction of its evil characters. The most interesting and fully developed characters in the series to this point have been characters like Sauron and the Uruk leader, Adar. To be fair, there are plenty of heroic characters to be found in the series: Arondir, Miriel, Elrond, Celebrimbor, Disa, Durin and Elendil all stand out to me. But many of the characters meant to be heroic are either uninteresting and uninspiring—e.g. Bronwyn as well as almost the entire Harfoot storyline—or made out to be more complicated or sinister than they initially appear and/or we would expect. Galadriel’s entire first season arc had to do with touching the darkness to find the light, which is an interesting choice but also far from the Galadriel we are most familiar with. Celebrimbor’s arc in the second season was focused on the pull of evil and the devastation that follows. The Stranger’s entire arc has focused on him trying to remember who he actually is, which to this point has been serviceable but not striking. Elrond started strong in season 1, but I found his season 2 storyline to be less robust and less positive. Even the best of our heroes have not always been given much of interest to do or been able to convincingly demonstrate to us why what they are doing matters. (Perhaps this is just my recollection of the series and I’m not being entirely fair to it. Feel free to jump in the comments to remind me of examples if you think that’s the case! But it would still be telling if these are more the impressions the show left with me than its reality).
So far, the forces of good in ROP have been a little one-note, a bit flat. From the promotional material so far, season 3 only looks to lean further into this focus on the evil. Sauron and the Balrog are prominently featured, and the Nine Nazgûl look to be joining them as well. The forging of the One Ring to Rule them all takes center stage, but our heroes receive relatively little screen time and attention in the teaser and even promotional images. The Harfoots will be either mostly or entirely absent from this season. Elrond and Elendil get brief highlights in the trailer and are only in a few images so far. Galadriel, Arondir, Durin, and the Not-So-Strange-Anymore-Stranger look to feature more prominently, but they hardly seem enough to tip the scales against Sauron, the Balrog, the Nazgûl, and the One Ring.
The clear major interest and excitement for this coming season is on the evil, not the good. While this may just be the current marketing angle, it’s still telling that this is the focus thus far.
But The Lord of the Rings stands apart from much other fantasy in literature and on screen because Tolkien does not shy away from making the struggle one of Light versus Darkness, capital-g-Good versus big-e-Evil (though his depiction of both are far more nuanced than those who criticize him for this might admit). It stands to reason then that Rings of Power should feel more like The Lord of the Rings than A Game of Thrones, where subversion of classic tropes and an unflinching, grim depiction of the the worst of human nature account for much of the interest, power, and draw of the story. For though the forces of Good are similarly outnumbered and seemingly outmatched by Sauron in the Third Age as they are when ROP is set thousands of years earlier—even more so, in fact!—Tolkien nevertheless makes us care about the struggle and gives us heroes who we root for because be believe that the good they love is worth saving, worth fighting for. The show is building towards the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, so yes, it does need to get darker before the ultimate triumph, but when the darkness itself becomes too much of the focus, I fear that the show loses (or just doesn’t achieve in the first place) part of what makes Tolkien…well, Tolkien.
To its credit, the show has engaged with the theme of Good and Evil, Light and Dark. Some times have been less than successful in my opinion, such as Bronwyn echoing Sam’s thoughts in The Return of the King that the Shadow is a “small and passing thing” and there is “light and high beauty forever beyond it’s reach” (totally broke the immersion of the scene for me: how is she saying almost the exact words he though hundreds and hundreds of years before he thought them?). Others have worked better, like Celebrimbor’s encouragement at the end of Season 2 to Galadriel that “it is not strength that overcomes darkness, but light.” But I think the show could stand to illustrate the idea of goodness and light a bit more instead of discussing it.
Whatever else you think of Peter Jackson’s adaptations, this is one of their strengths. Characters like Aragorn, Frodo, Sam, and Gandalf reflect the goodness and heroism of their literary inspirations. And they don’t just talk about it, they act heroically and sacrifice for each other, treat each other with kindness and affection, putting the greater good above themselves. Even when they are not 100% faithful to the source material, it is still often in ways that ultimately reflect or are in alignment with those roots. So when it comes time to discuss the themes of the story, it resonates because we believe that’s what these characters truly believe because it’s who they genuinely are. Sam’s speech in The Two Towers, for instance, crescendos with the line “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.” Tolkien did not write this line, but it resonates because we have come to care for Sam and Frodo and seen them live it out, as well as because it feels at home in Middle-earth and matches our desire to see good in our own lives.
Perhaps one of the ways The Rings of Power can stand to grow more Tolkienesque in heart is by focusing on making not just the evil nuanced and believable but also on making the good exciting and desirable.
There is good in the world of Middle-earth, both in the Second Age when The Rings of Power is set and in the Third Age setting of The Lord of the Rings. Let us hope for more glimpses of that light to shine forth as The Rings of Power continues on.
What are your thoughts on Season 3 of The Rings of Power? And have you felt similarly about the show so far, or do you have a different take?
(Nota bene: only interested in genuine conversation, by the way. I really do enjoy the show and hating on the show in my comments section won’t change that.)
Special shout-out and thank you to Kami S for upgrading to a paid membership this month!
A Sampling of Season 3 Promotional Materials
In case you haven’t seen some or all of it yet and are interested, here’s some of the looks at season 3 of The Rings of Power.
First, we have the teaser trailer that debuted:
And here’s some of the promotional photos from Empire magazine and from San Diego Comic Con:
📸 Credit for these to Keeton on X
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“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”
--Simone Weil
Tolkien got this; sounds like the ROP folks are still learning the lesson.
Something I thought of while writing but didn't have space to mention: Disney is having this same issue with their new Star Wars content. It's easier to make imaginary evil look exciting and interesting! Darth Vader has had some of the best content and focus in the Disney era, as has Kylo Ren. Andor's exploration of the Era of the Empire also falls into this category as well, since its focus even with the heroes is on showing the moral complexity and gritty reality of war. But (in my opinion), Disney has also struggled with making the Good desirable and interesting in Star Wars, at least as compared to the earlier films. The best and most interesting heroes have mostly been morally complicated, which again is fine in individual cases but begins to be an indicator of something else if it is the focus or only example.