Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the most expensive television show ever produced, has proven divisive among fans of the J.R.R. Tolkien books and appendices upon which it is based. Marking the end of Season 2 of the series, several cast members remarked on the fan’s reception of the series in an interview with Complex.
The series has taken liberties with the source material, adding characters, like the Númenórean Kemen, and the Harfoots Nori and Poppy, who aren’t in any of the books. It should be noted that the rights to the Christopher Tolkien-edited The Silmarillion have not been sold, thus Prime could not fully explore the happenings in that book.
Elrond Actor Says He “Gets It”
“I get it. If you love the lore, you can allow the choices that we’ve made in the show to frustrate you if you want,” said Robert Aramayo, who plays Elrond in The Rings of Power. “I would just implore people to think that these are a set of choices that we’ve made based on the limited material that we have in the Second Age, and as any, this is what I think is great about Tolkien, it’s that if I make a point and I say, ‘Elves are like this.’ Then you can say, ‘Well, what about this story, and I can cite this, this,’ and that discourse can be fun.”
If you love the lore, you can allow the choices that we’ve made in the show to frustrate you if you want.
“But, if you weaponize it and it’s an attack, then it becomes more sort of problematic. So I don’t know. I would feel like I want to implore people just to look at the show,” Aramayo added.
Tolkien Estate’s Blessing
Some fans are taking issue with the series not being canonically accurate. In a previous interview, Dr. Corey Olsen, president of Signum University and Mythgard Institute, addressed the idea of canon in Tolkien’s world, saying there’s “no such thing really as canon in Tolkien.”
Simon Tolkien, the iconic author’s grandson, serves as a series consultant on The Rings of Power, and the Tolkien Estate is a fan of the series, Complex stated. “And I take comfort in the fact that the Tolkien Estate loves it. That’s a pretty good endorsement where I’m sitting,” said Benjamin Walker, who plays King Gil-galad in The Rings of Power.
Sauron Actor Weighs in on the Discussion
Charlie Vickers, who plays Sauron in the series, said the discourse can be strange “because it seems that people care about the show hugely. And I think, as a cast member, so much of the stuff is out of your control. We rock up as performers and we just do our job. And I can say that every performer, every crew member, has put in everything they can. And I think that you just have to be kind of like, ‘Well, I’ve given it my all, and we’ve done the best that we can,’ and let go of this weight of expectation and other peoples’ opinions.”
Well, I’ve given it my all, and we’ve done the best that we can.
However, Vickers added there can be “really constructive discourse” around the show. “But, a lot of things that are out there I just stay away from because I know that it can be, as you say, like an echo chamber and things can get blown out of proportion. But the thing that we know is that people care and it means a lot to us that people care about the show enough to feel very passionate either way about it. And it’s not up to us. People can interpret it how they will, and that’s not for us to control.”
Seasons 1 and 2 are both streaming on Prime Video.
