The Culture War Surrounding ‘Rings Of Power’ Was More Interesting Than The Series Itself

Before it even aired, The Rings of Power was engulfed in controversy; Tolkien fans were alarmed to hear that Jeff Bezos now held the rights to the beloved IP in his Smaug-like talons, especially after it was revealed that Bezos intended to replicate the success of HBO’s Game of Thrones.

The fact that Amazon only had the rights to one of the Lord of the Rings appendices, a summary of the Second Age, and none of Tolkien’s stories, was another concern; when Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey mysteriously left the series after serving as a consultant, fans grew worried that the adaptation would not be faithful, more focused on building the Amazon brand than respecting Tolkien’s work.

Not to mention, Peter Jackson’s near-perfect Lord of the Rings trilogy raised the bar incredibly high, and fans saw what happened with the disastrous Hobbit trilogy, which cynically stretched a short children’s novel of little more than 300 pages into three bloated blockbusters, showing that corporate greed could easily taint Tolkien’s legacy, even with Jackson’s involvement.

When the first trailer for Rings of Power dropped, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative; shoddy CGI and an emphasis on floaty, weightless action sequences hinted that the worst fears of the fanbase were coming true. Commentators on YouTube spammed the trailer with a pointed quote falsely attributed to Tolkien: “Evil is unable to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or created by the forces of good.”

The diverse casting of the new series also sparked a loud, racist backlash; Tolkien’s world, like many fantasy worlds, is a place of racial essentialism, and the fanbase has always been infected, to some degree, by racists.

While Tolkien described his own political beliefs as leaning towards anarchism (a left-wing ideology which aims to abolish hierarchy), and openly despised the horrors of Nazism and apartheid, the far-right has always found his framing of orcs as irredeemably rotten savages, and elves as noble spreaders of civilization, rather appealing, for obvious reasons.

But Amazon pushed back against the racist backlash, and subsequent trailers were far more polished, promising an adventurous return to Middle-earth, with an eye-watering budget that aimed to replicate the production quality of the blockbusters. Including the cost of securing the rights, the series cost no less than $715 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, leading to The Rings of Power being labelled “the most expensive series ever made.”

After the first two episodes dropped, critics were impressed, and the public reaction was mixed, somewhat muted by the slow pace of the series. But the backlash remained loud, and the show was review-bombed by trolls, which led to Amazon taking the unusual step of locking user reviews for 72 hours, which sparked criticism that a powerful corporation was blocking public feedback.

The show had, inevitably, become a high-profile battleground for the ongoing culture war, becoming a popular topic for reactionary YouTubers to rant about.

As the series progressed, it became clear that a significant portion of the audience was only tuning in to “hate watch,” making fun of the storytelling and pointing out deviations from Tolkien canon, which were sometimes inconsequential, and other times, ill-advised.

There was also a disproportionate amount of anger and mockery directed at Galadriel (played by Morfydd Clark), a spiky, disagreeable character whose obsession with Sauron drives the main plotline of the series. By the end of the first season, Galadriel’s paranoia is proved correct, but her actions have sparked disastrous consequences.

Galadriel was instantly labeled a “Mary Sue” and a “Karen,” and became a focal point for angry fans.

At one point, Elon Musk joined in, tweeting that Tolkien “is turning in his grave,” complaining all the male characters were unlikable and that only Galadriel is “brave, smart and nice” (which, aside from being a childish observation, simply wasn’t true).

As the weeks passed, the critical segment of the fanbase continued to complain, while those who enjoyed it kept fairly quiet. The show never really managed to seize the zeitgeist, failing to inspire popular memes or social media discourse, beyond hate-watching. Soon, it became obvious that the series was being outshined by HBO’s House of the Dragon, which managed to retain the quality of Game of Throne’s best seasons.

Rings of Power wasn’t the flaming disaster that naysayers had predicted … but it wasn’t particularly good. Indeed, few were still talking about it – the show’s haters seemed to be driving the vast majority of discourse, while earnest fans of the show were accused of being “Amazon shills.”

Generally, the series proved unevenly paced, and had a strange approach to Tolkien’s lore, referencing very obscure elements of Tokien’s work, while deviating significantly from canon. Hence, much of the show felt inaccessible to those unfamiliar with Tolkien’s legendarium, while dedicated Tolkien fans were often infuriated by the lore-breaking, which led to the series being labelled “expensive fan fiction.”

During the finale, the sluggish pace of the series suddenly quickened, and the story sped through some important plot twists, like a student rushing to finish an essay after midnight. Sauron was revealed to be a guy who looks like the default option of every fantasy RPG character-creation screen, and Gandalf was given a clunky origin story which “explained” why he likes hobbits so much.

The titular Rings of Power were forged at lightning speed, after Sauron informs the master smith, Celebrimbor, that he could perhaps strengthen a metal’s properties by using an alloy – Celebrimbor’s mind is blown by the suggestion.

The Rings of Power wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t Tolkien. And it wasn’t really its own thing either; the series’ blatant attempts to echo the Jackson trilogy, such as hiring the same composer, repeating the design of the Balrog, and copy-pasting lines from the trilogy, invited unflattering comparisons.

At times, the series felt more like Skyrim than it did Middle-earth, a Tolkienesque fantasy world inhabited by NPCs with bad haircuts, throwing out clunky lines of exposition before randomly exiting the room.

All the money poured into the series, and all the increasingly ridiculous debates seem, in hindsight, like a monumental waste of time. It was fine. And in the current, hyper-competive and over-saturated streaming landscape, mere mediocrity isn’t enough to stand out.

But The Lord of the Rings is a powerful IP, and will likely always find an audience, enthusiastic or critical; the fanbase is always going to pay attention to adaptations.

Even if they spend every week complaining, they’re still watching.