{"id":974730,"date":"2026-01-05T07:28:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T07:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=454279"},"modified":"2026-01-05T07:28:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T07:28:26","slug":"rings-of-power-is-wasting-middle-earths-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/rings-of-power-is-wasting-middle-earths-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Rings of Power is wasting Middle-earth’s magic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Magic isn\u2019t an easy thing to depict in fantasy television shows. There are plenty of reasons why the creators of Game of Thrones<\/em> seemed so eager to shy away from that universe\u2019s most fantastical elements in their adaptation. It breaks the sense of grounded realism that recent versions of these shows are so overly fond of; it introduces extra complications to the story, like potential plot holes and new rules to explain; and most importantly, it\u2019s just extremely expensive \u2014 even for shows with budgets as big as The Rings of Power<\/a><\/em>. So it\u2019s no surprise that Prime Video\u2019s The Rings of Power<\/em> seems equally reluctant to engage with the magic that fills the pages of Tolkien\u2019s Lord of the Rings universe<\/a>. But by hiding Middle-earth\u2019s magic, the show is doing a disservice to its own plot \u2014 and to one of fantasy fiction\u2019s greatest worlds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tolkien never made much time for explaining the magic of Middle-earth. He would describe its mountains and rivers, its traditions, and its delicacies, but when it came to magic he just never seemed to find anything worth going on about. That didn\u2019t come from an uneasiness about the place of magic in his world, but rather a sense of such profound comfort. Tolkien\u2019s elves don\u2019t explain the many magics of Rivendell to Frodo the same way we don\u2019t detail indoor plumbing to our every house guest; magic is just another fact of life in Middle-earth, too familiar to even remark on most of the time, but always thoroughly present. <\/p>\n

The Rings of Power<\/em>, by contrast, feels terrified of the magic that inhabits its world. It doles magic out like secrets, showing it briefly but then rushing past, as if showing the trick for too long might ruin an illusion. Characters often react in shock or horror to any supernatural event<\/a>, despite the fact that they should be more familiar with it than even characters in the original trilogy, but for the audience the show rarely makes it clear how we should feel about magic of any kind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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In no place is the show\u2019s reluctance to let magic rest comfortably more detrimental than in the Rings of Power themselves<\/a>, particularly the rings of the dwarves. In the little time we\u2019ve spent with King Durin after he received his ring, its corruption of him seemed almost instant. The ring went from a helpful savior of Khazad-d\u00fbm to an object that Durin the younger recognized as pure evil in no time at all. There was no space for the magic of the ring to wash over the dwarves or King Durin, no time for the slow, seductive, unnatural power of evil to take root<\/a>. Rather than the complicated morality that Tolkien\u2019s original stories are imbued with, like the corrosion that accepting small evils can have on a civilization, or how weak rulers can be tempted by the promise of restored glory no matter the costs, Rings of Power<\/em>\u2019s morality is simplified into something like watching a child touch a stove: a misguided impulse with an immediate and obvious consequence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the rings aren\u2019t the only magical thing in Rings of Power<\/em> that\u2019s getting short changed. Just about every mystical element of the show suffers from the same problem. <\/p>\n

Tom Bombadil feels decidedly regular<\/a>, and his very questionable tutoring of Gandalf (or \u201cthe Stranger\u201d) in the ways of magic is relegated to an offhand mention. We saw a neat display of moth magic from the Easterlings, but we\u2019ve never gone back there and don\u2019t have much context at all for what to make of the person appearing out of thin air, or the evil bearded wizard who seemed in charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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None of this is to say that the show needs to take time to explain every single one of these elements to us. But when the show breezes past its mystical elements, only calling attention to them when they\u2019re relevant to the plot, it shrinks our understanding of the world. Background acts of magic, or little flashes of it here and there, could give the audience insight into how our characters live day to day in Middle-earth, but instead magic is kept mysterious for reasons that feel more dictated by the plot than by the world the story is actually set in. If we the audience barely understand magic in this world, and only rarely see it, then the show doesn\u2019t have to do the legwork of proving to us why things like the Rings of Power could be evil, or why the people of N\u00famenor recoil at the idea of using an elven-made palant\u00edr, even if there\u2019s no canonical reason for their confusion. It\u2019s a simple shortcut that leaves the entire world of the show so much poorer for its omission.  <\/em><\/p>\n

Magic is elemental to Tolkien\u2019s Middle-earth. It moves and shapes the most important events in the series, but it also passes unnoticed in the everyday lives of almost all the characters in the story. What\u2019s most important in all of this is that magic is present, it has its own space to live and breathe in the lore of The Lord of the Rings, all in service of us understanding what it means when Sauron uses his own corrupt and evil version. Instead, by relegating magic to a brief aside for the otherwise grounded drama of the show, The Rings of Power<\/em> shrinks Tolkien\u2019s world, making its heroes less heroic and its villains less evil, and making the whole story a little more dull.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Magic isn\u2019t an easy thing to depict in fantasy television shows. There are plenty of reasons why the creators of Game of Thrones seemed so eager to shy away from that universe\u2019s most fantastical elements in their adaptation. It breaks the sense of grounded realism that recent versions of these shows are so overly fond of; it introduces extra complications to the story, like potential plot holes and new rules to explain; and most importantly, it\u2019s just extremely expensive \u2014 even for shows with budgets as big as The Rings of Power. So it\u2019s no surprise that Prime Video\u2019s The Rings of Power seems equally reluctant to engage with the magic that fills the pages of Tolkien\u2019s Lord of the Rings universe. But by hiding…<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":974731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-974730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polygon"],"yoast_head":"\nRings of Power is wasting Middle-earth’s magic | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Magic isn\u2019t an easy thing to depict in fantasy television shows. 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