Why ‘The Rings of Power’ Writers’ Room Started Every Day With a Tolkien Quote
Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is based on the Middle Earth stories created by J. R. R. Tolkien. The series itself takes place thousands of years before the main events of The Lord of the Rings and is not based on a specific novel of Tolkien’s. However, the lore is still a Tolkien creation, and the showrunners wanted to stay true to Tolkien’s vision. One way they did for The Rings of Power was starting each day with a Tolkien quote.
‘The Rings of Power’ is a prequel to ‘Lord of the Rings’
The Rings of Power is a prequel to Lord of the Rings and is set in the Second Age of Middle Earth. It features brand new characters and some familiar faces, including Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark). The series will portray the events of the forging of the Rings of Power and the rise of Sauron.
While The Rings of Power is heavily influenced by Tolkien’s work, it is not based on a specific novel of his. The material for the story comes from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, which mentions the Second Age.
‘The Rings of Power’ showrunners began every day with a Tolkien quote
In an interview with Collider, Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne discussed how they kept the series close to Tolkien’s vision. McKay and Payne shared how they worked with Tolkien scholars and the Tolkien estate to ensure the series didn’t veer off track from how Tolkien would have told the story.
“We work with a whole team of people to make sure that doesn’t happen,” McKay said. “It’s important, as storytellers, to let your imagination run. We’re constantly going back to the books for inspiration. We start every day in the writers’ room with a Tolkien quote, and we’re always reading it, constantly. And then, we go in all kinds of different directions to figure out how we’re gonna connect the dots of these different stories that Tolkien gave us, and we have a Tolkien expert in the room at all times. He’ll say, “Oh, you know that little thing? That breaks it. You’re not just bending it. Let’s try to go back here.” And we’ll say, “Okay, cool.” We also have Tolkien scholars that we’ve worked with, like Tom Shippey, Carl Hostetter, who’s a Tolkien linguist, or John Howe, who’s a visual artist. And Simon Tolkien, who’s a member of the Tolkien estate, is a consultant on the show and has worked very closely with us. We always feel like we have a really good fellowship of people to help us along the journey.”
The showrunners balanced their own voice with Tolkien’s voice
Hardcore Tolkien fans would complain if The Rings of Power felt like it wasn’t sticking to the author’s voice. McKay and Payne learned how to balance creating Tolkien’s world without putting too much of their own stamp on it.
“We think of our job as stewards and caretakers of this incredible world and mythology that Tolkien created,” Payne told Collider. “This was his life’s work. It’s the books he wrote, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the Appendices, which is a chronology of 9,000 plus years of Middle-earth history. There were so many great ideas, great characters, and great themes in there that are so rich and layered. We felt that if we just extracted a new story out of those books and tried to realize it in the grandest way possible, there was a chance. If we thought it was ours, or that it was time for us to put a stamp on it or something, we would have run away. But sublimating our own instincts and our own prejudices as storytellers to Tolkien’s, allows you to avoid the imposter syndrome that would cripple you otherwise.”
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
