Rings of Power: Choices in Adaptation

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So, I'm sorta Twitter buddies with Gareth Hanrahan, author of the Black Iron Legacy novels, who also worked for years on Lord of the Rings RPG material, so, he's used to working round the framework of an existing chronology. Anyway, I asked him how he would have chosen to adapt RoP!



Here's the text for those not on Twitter:

Me:
Out of curiosity, as both an author yourself, and someone used to colouring between the lines and round the margins of Tolkien for RPG Sourcebooks, how would you have tackled a 5 season treatment of the forging of the Rings? What would you have done differently?

Gareth:
Assuming I've only got access to the appendices, and off the top of my head - do it with each season covering a different time period. Mortal cast changes each season, elves stay the same.

Season 1: Founding of Númenor. Open with the aftermath of the War of Wrath, elves and humans fighting against Morgoth's remaining forces. Maybe do Elros + Elrond + Galadriel hunting Sauron and other foes. Choice of the half-elven; Elrond stays in Lindon, Elros founds Númenor.

Season 2: Elves are fading, but Númenor's getting stronger and stronger. To arrest their fading, elves in Eregion start experimenting with ringcraft; at the same time, you've got quarrels with humans. The elves think they need the rings to avoid being eclipsed. But really, behind the scenes, it's Sauron whispering to Celebrimbor. Maybe have Galadriel & Elrond uncovering his treachery. End with forging of the One and the Three.

Season 3. War of the Elves & Sauron. Sauron kills Celebrimbor, seizes rings. Númenor shows up, stomps Sauron.
We skip on a few hundred years again. Now Númenor's a massive, overwhelming empire, and we have some Númenor intrigue - then the stolen rings start showing up again.
Sauron's using the rings to make wraiths and suborn lesser Númenórean nobles to his will; at the same time, he's rebuilding his army. It looks like we're building to a huge fight all the start of the season... Númenor sends a fleet to Middle-earth - and Sauron surrenders.

Season 4, then, is Sauron corrupting Númenor and whispering to Ar-Pharazôn. We introduce Elendil etc. Big cataclysm, Númenor sinks.

And then Season 5 is the Last Alliance.
The virtue of doing it this way, as well as being closer to Tolkien, is that you'd have a great sense of scale and time - we've built Númenor up over five seasons, we've seen Sauron get defeated and then undermine and destroy the forces who defeated him.
And we don't have nonsense like 'elves need mithril or they'll die.'

[Eldy]

Interesting stuff! I think it's definitely worth remembering that ROP's degree of timeline compression was a choice, not an inevitable consequence of adaptation, though I can understand why McPayne went that route. I'm not opposed to all compression of events, though, and I think they could've found success with just one big time jump between the War of the Elves and Sauron and the main action of the Akallabêth. (Or two time jumps, if they also wanted to include the founding of Númenor. It's neat to see that brought in this Twitter thread, since it usually gets left out of these discussions!) I'd have no objection to them condensing the last couple centuries of Númenor into a matter of decades at most, and I would've been perfectly happy to see Aldarion and Ancalimë in power during the WotEaS. It'd be a change, but not one that I think would be as baffling and disconcerting as, say, the mithril thing. I think that would have provided a workable balance between maintaining the sense of scale and time Hanrahan talks about and having tighter, more conventional narratives with each set of characters.

[Dave_LF]

Mortal cast changes each season, elves stay the same.

This seemed like such an obvious and powerful creative decision, it sort of baffles me that they opted not to make it. I assume we will at least be seeing the younger mains (e.g. Theo, Isildur) replaced with older actors as decades pass.

[Inanna]

That’s a pretty neat adaptation.

[Eldy]

I assume we will at least be seeing the younger mains (e.g. Theo, Isildur) replaced with older actors as decades pass.

Honestly, I expect the chronology of the show to be measured in years, not decades. They haven't given any indication of wanting to tell a story on a longer scale than that, IMO. But I'd love to be wrong!

[kzer_za]

Here's my armchair-quarterback of how I would map out five seasons, trying to balance both honoring the passage of time that is so important to the second age and also keeping in mind the practicalities of TV production. Closer to the chronology than Amazon but not too literal:
Season 1: Open with Númenor under Meneldur, then the main Númenor storyline is basically Aldarion and Erendis. Meneldur is Númenor at its height, Aldarion exhibits some of the vices that will ruin Númenor, but still in a relatively benign and sympathetic form at this point. Forging of the RIngs is moved alongside this. A couple hundred years pass total. End with Sauron's reveal. Aldarion dies of old age in the finale but Erendis and some of his other contemporaries are still alive.

Season 2: - War of the elves and Sauron. Some political drama going on in Númenor between Ancalime, Minastir, and others some of whom would already be set up in S1. I'd combine various things from the Númenórean king/queen chronicles, together with the later parts of A&E, all the politics keeps them from helping much in M-E until late. Every Númenórean character from Aldarion's generation is dead by the midpoint (making Erendis the last one feels fitting). End with Númenor under Minastir or another monarch finally saving the day when all hope seems lost, but we see the Numenoreans enjoying their newfound status in Middle-earth too much and they establish their first real colonies.

Season 3-5: Skip forward somewhere between 500 and 1000 years. Hard reset of the mortal cast, Númenor is now a full-blown empire, Gimilkhâd or palantír is king, Sauron has regrouped. From here it's basically the Akallabêth and Rings of Power and the chronology becomes more straightforward.

I haven't worked out all the details but I'd also have some storylines about the intra-elf poltiical conflicts - "Galadriel and Celeborn" really gives quite a bit to work with. Celebrimbor's coup against Galadriel is the best-known, but Tolkien actually gives a lot of other plot hooks and nuance, like the Noldor are viewed as colonizers who bring war everywhere they go, etc. One liberty I would take is to move a slightly modified Amroth and Nimrodel into the Second Age - you don't have to change that much, it fits the second age themes, and it gives another elf story for the second half.

(Been away for awhile, eventful second half of the year. I still need to watch the second half of season 1!)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Nice to see you here, k_z. I like your outline, but obviously, what we got is a hell of a lot different from that!

[Eldy]

Likewise, it's good to see you again, kzer_za! I hope you'll share your thoughts on the rest of S1 when you get the chance to see it.

I was ambivalent at the initial pre-release mentions of Eldarin colonialism, but honestly I would've liked to see the show do more with that. It provides some backdrop to Arondir and Bronwyn's relation and is fleetingly mentioned by Durin IV, but that's about it. You raise a good point about Amroth and Nimrodel being workable here—that's one element of the Third Age I think I wouldn't have minded so much if it was repurposed—though the details of it were likely out of bonds to Amazon.