Tolkien: lost in adaptation (Part Three)
The lost meaning of a great author: universality
Note: This is Part Three of a three-part series. In case you haven't read them, here are parts One and Two.
Now we’ll talk about what I believe is the last key reason for J. R. R. Tolkien’s success and what it takes to make a good adaptation of his work: universality.
In this post, universality is an attribute of stories that move the audience, evoking feelings and reflections regardless of background, personal experience or culture.
In other words, universality is the ability to speak to people as human beings by addressing themes that matter to us all. The easiest (and probably the most effective) way to achieve this is through well-written characters and their arcs1.
We can roughly define a character as an individual who possesses agency, needs and desires, and an arc as the internal plot of said character, which allows them to develop into something other than what they were at the beginning of the story.
In that sense, Tolkien created some of the most iconic characters in the history of fiction.
He writes about friendship and shows us friends we would like to have. He writes love stories we root for (have you read about Beren and Lúthien?), families tragedies that break our hearts (Children of Húrin is really dark, guys) and so much more about loyalty and treachery, bravery and fear, joy and sadness, peace and war, good and evil.
We relate to Tolkien’s writing because he speaks to us, not at us.
First, let’s address the elephant in the room.
One of the controversies surrounding Rings of Power (and many other recent movies and TV shows) is race-swapping.
Race-swapping is the practice of changing the race or ethnicity of an established character or historical figure. Hollywood has been doing it for decades — the “novelty” is the orientation of the swapping.
They used to cast white actors or actors with light skin tones to portray people of color, making them more “appealing” according to the dominant cultural standards. Now they cast people of color to portray white characters, pretending to care about inclusivity.
If they really wanted to include people of marginalized communities in the entertainment industry, they would invest in stories written and performed by those communities, giving them an opportunity to showcase their own cultures and experiences.
Race-swapping only serves the status quo by abstaining from true representation and pretending we have become blind.
We need to confront prejudice and discrimination. We most definitively don’t need to sweep the problem under the rug.
At the very least they could have made it consistent.
Other than the seafaring Númenor, it doesn't make sense to have such random variety races within groups in the show (there is not enough dept to infer any resemblance of ethnicity in the ROP).
Tolkien’s fictional universe is known for its multiple Races (species, not color/ethnicity) and nations2. They could have attributed different skin colors, accents, cultural practices to each group, making the continent seem richer in detail.
That being said, let’s move back to characterization and plot — the things that actually make you care about a character.
The biggest challenge in adapting Tolkien is probably the size of the legendarium and the number of characters3.
Of course the challenge gets even bigger if you don’t actually acquire the rights you need to adapt the story.
Nevertheless, a little Tolkien goes a long way in the hands of a competent writer.
I thought a lot about how to approach this subject, but I couldn't think of a better strategy than comparison.
In addition to the bad writing, ROP simultaneously relies on our previous knowledge of Tolkien’s characters and presents them in unrecognizable ways without motive, creating dissonance and repealing their target audience.
When adapting a popular piece of fiction, you can either take advantage of pre-established background and go straight to the action or you can take time to develop the origin of your characters (they do neither of those things).
The most obvious example of this would be the Orcs.
In Tolkien’s writing, there are a few versions of their origin story, but, in a nutshell, they are a mockery of the Children of Eru Ilúvatar. Morgoth made them by corrupting other living creatures4, resulting in a Race that both fears and is drawn to Evil.
In the Lord of the Rings (LOTR), particularly when we follow Merry and Pippin’s capture and Frodo and Sam’s journey into Mordor, we can see Orcs are intelligent, competitive, ingenious and capable of making decisions.
However, even when they dream of scaping Sauron (they don't serve him willingly), orcs still plan nefarious deeds (fighting, looting, keeping slaves). It’s part of their twisted nature to engage in destructive behavior because the Evil that tainted them is destructive.
In letter n. 1535, Tolkien writes that Orcs are “…creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote 'irredeemably bad'; but that would be going too far. [...] even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God's and ultimately good.)”.
There is nothing Elves, Men and Orcs can do to heal Morgoth’s corruption6 — the fate of Orcs and their potential redemption is up to the Creator himself.
Yet, in ROP, the Orcs (led by Adar) want to live a peacefully, away from conflict and Evil.
The question is why? How are these orcs different from Tolkien’s? How they came to be? What is the fabric of the world in Rings of Power? We don’t know ‘cause they didn’t bother showing us.
This problem could have easily been avoided by creating a new origin story (which would distance ROP even more from the legendarium) or replacing Adar and the Orcs with tribes/nations of Men who had agency and chose to follow Sauron. Either way, it would have been better than what we got.
After that, they would still have to fix the plot, which makes no sense7.
Similar criticism falls on Sauron. Why is he so different than what we expect?
Now let’s talk about ROP’s protagonist: Galadriel.
She is not a main character in the books, so there isn't much written about her. What we do have was edited and revised multiple times.
Still, we have enough to get by.
Galadriel is old and wise, some might say the wisest of the Noldor (one of three main groups of Elves, usually at the center of whatever mess is going on).
She was born during the First Age, before the Sun and Moon were created, and the lights of the Two Trees of Valinor were captured by her hair. She is tall, athletic and beautiful. But her most distinguishing feature, apart from being the highest born elf lady you’ll find in Middle-earth, is her mind.
I have no doubt that Galadriel could be a great warrior if she wanted to. I just think that role is beneath her (anyone can train to pick a sword and fight, only a handful of elves had the potential to become as powerful as she became in the books thanks to her knowledge and magic).
If they want to show us a soldier/commander version of Galadriel, we need to see how she became that. The motive they give us8 explains why she is after Sauron, but not the reason she became a warrior (she could have fought against him the way she does in LOTR).
I can not understand the annihilation of her mind.
Galadriel is not a fool (she was, in fact, never deceived by Sauron's disguise). She advises the elven lords in Middle-earth on various matters, including to be wary of Sauron. She sees through people’s intentions and forgers her own path. She is revered and respected.
I think they picked the perfect (and accurate) character flaw for her: pride. But they botched the execution.
Even if they wanted to show us a young and inexperienced Galadriel (she is neither of those things at the time the Rings were made), they could have done it without killing her wisdom and grace9. The same applies to the action scenes (better choreography needed). They could have added her prowess in battle without making her behave and sound like an idiot10.
But the worst part of it all is her lack of character development. She constantly screws things up and faces little to no consequence for her actions. How can we relate to such hero?
I’m not going to touch the matter with Elrond, who, by the way, is Gil-galad “right-hand elf” and commander of the elven troops (not Galadriel).
The High King Gil-galad is a great example of a underutilized, subverted character from the Second Age.
In the books, Gil-galad is a great king and warrior11. He is wise (also not fooled by Sauron’s disguise), diplomatic (forges an alliance with Men) and respected by his people.
In ROP, he just stands in an audience “room” being disregarded by virtually everyone and has zero presence in the battle of Eregion. We don’t even get to see his people or the kingdom he is trying to protect12. He doesn't change, learn or grow in the slightest. He has no character arc!
For comparison, we could talk about king Théoden13. A side character in LOTR, he gets a full arc — from being manipulated by Saruman to becoming a symbol of valor and hope to the free peoples of Middle-earth.
Jackson’s adaptation changes a lot of things about the Rohirrim, including Théoden, but he manages to dive deeper into the psychology of the characters by highlighting relatable and believable flaws. In the movies, Théoden is scarred by Saruman’s betrayal and afraid to trust people again. He has to learn how to open up to those who prove, by their actions, to be on his side and become someone people can depend on.
That is the kind of character you can empathize with and root for — someone who faces a universal struggle.
Unfortunately, the lack of arcs and origin stories also plagues the new, original characters.
Take Arondir.
In the beginning of the show, we see him disrupting a game (chess?) played by two of the men he is supposed to watch over. I don’t know about you, but I think he bahaves like an ass.
It would have been a completely different story if they showed us a flashback of when Arondir first arrived there and encountered a game he was not familiar with. The men could have teased him for not knowing something even children can do, therefore establishing some form of banter between them and making Arondir look cool for learning something from those people (further adding depth to his connection and desire to protect them).
But we don’t see that. All we get is a jerk ruining someone else’s leisure.
In the second season, he goes on a revenge journey for the death of Bronwyn, only to set it aside when Galadriel asks him to (reasons?), followed by an anticlimactic fight with Adar that has no consequences whatsoever (Adar stabs him, but Arondir is fine right after). His internal plot is dragged and nonsensical14.
Then you have all the characters whose storylines progress at a glacial geological pace and have very little impact on the main plot (a.k.a. the creation of the Rings of Power)15.
The stranger/Gandalf, the Harfoots, Isildur, Theo and many more fall on this category. Frankly, most of the characters on the show could have their screen time cut by half and it wouldn't make a difference.
Again we are confronted with a gross contradiction: they expect us to care about characters we already know (Gandalf, Isildur, Gil-galad, to name a few), but are represented differently (and uselessly) from what we remember without giving us anything else to hold on to.
They also try to get us to care about random characters without dept or personality (like the asian elf who dies pierced by many arrows in Boromir fashion).
To add insult to injury, the show is constantly reminding us of better storytelling with lines and scene panels that have been taken out of LOTR.
If you, like me, have watched ROP and realized that you don’t care about what happens to the characters, it’s because the showrunners failed to give you a reason to care.
I will stop now or I might never finish this essay. There are plenty of detailed character analysis available for the books and adaptations out there.
This concludes our Tolkien: lost in adaptation series. I hope you enjoyed it. If not, I'm open to advice and suggestions.
As usual, I’m sorry for the typos I'm probably going to miss despite rereading this post several times.
See you soon with more essays on culture, entertainment and books.
Tolkien pre-dates the highly psychological storytelling that dominates media today and, even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t make sense to tell his stories in this way considering they are meant to sound like medieval fantasy tales – he was trying to create a “mythology” and not merely an engaging book series.
For example, the Dúnedain, Rohirrim, Haradrim, Easterlings and other groups of men were different from one another.
Contrary to what you might have heard, Tolkien’s extensive revision process doesn’t mean there is no canon — the main events are established, the main characters reasonably defined, his writing is purposeful and his sources are clear.
You can find this version in Chapter III of the Quenta Silmarillion.
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition, 2023.
It’s worth mentioning Melkor/Morgoth was the most powerful of the Ainur (beings created by Eru Ilúvatar to rule and shape the world).
In addition to the teleporting abilities everyone in the show seems to have (scale and distance don’t matter in ROP), Adar’s decisions follow no logic I can identify. Can someone explain to me why he went all the way to Eregion (talk about a pointless, poorly executed battle) if he knew Halbrand was Sauron? Also why was Sauron aimlessly walking around Middle-earth before Season One starts? What was Galadriel’s plan jumping in the ocean like that?
The death of her brother. I talked about it in the previous post of this series.
Legolas, played by Orlando Bloom in Peter Jackson’s LOTR, is a good example of a young and hasty, but gracious and competent elven lord.
Does she know how to talk to people instead of giving speeches?
Gil-galad and Elendil defeat Sauron in combat during the War of the Last Alliance.
For the budget they had, I expected a lot more sets and extras.
As I said before, the Rohirrim are my favorite people in Middle-earth and I will talk about them whenever I get a chance to do it.
The same goes for the vast majority of the characters in the show, including some of the most developed, like Durin.
ROP suffers severely from excess of characters and storylines.