Latest / Mythmakers / Rings of Power - The Story Perspective (Amazon Prime)

Transcript

Rings of Power - The Story Perspective (Amazon Prime) · Mythmakers

0:00
Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
0:12
creators brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding, I'm
0:18
the Director of the Centre, a keen Tolkien fan and also an author in my own right. And today
0:25
I thought I would dedicate this episode to what I've cleaned as a storyteller about the
0:33
upcoming Amazon series Rings of Power. Now there is plenty of information out there,
0:39
the publicity teams are in full throttle, so you can find out lots of information about
0:45
the actors who are playing the parts and news from the cast and that kind of thing. So I
0:52
thought our added value was to look at it as storytellers and what we might expect and the
0:59
decisions that might have been taken in order to write this particular series. Because I think
1:05
is an absolutely fascinating challenge that they're facing. Most of their material is drawn
1:12
from the appendices in Return of the King. And in fact the information in that is very slight,
1:21
so they've had a very blank canvas to work on. But the absolute key thing they've done and I
1:29
can understand why they've done it is they've truncated the time periods. So if you just look at
1:35
the list of the people involved, the characters involved and you look at the name of the piece,
1:43
you can see what they've done. So in the second age there are two main events, both of which
1:51
involve Sauron. The first which happens earlier on is the establishment of a Elven Kingdom
1:59
just outside Casadumor, Moria, where Kela Brimbaugh who is one of the leading craftsman of the
2:08
era, he's in charge of that sort of area and he is creating rings of power. And into this place
2:15
comes Sauron, who appears quite a sort of attractive figure and because he is also a great
2:22
craftsman, he shows the elves how to make these rings and that's where the rock gets in
2:30
because he twists it for evil and it's also the time where he forces the one ring that dominates
2:38
the story of the Lord of the Rings. So there's that whole sort of nexus of characters, it includes
2:46
Galadriel, it includes Elron, it includes Gilgalad, Moria about all these in a bit later.
2:53
But that all happens in terms of the time of the second age, that all happens in about 1600.
3:04
So if you just want to lodge it in your head as like the equivalent of Tudor days for us.
3:10
Now the second area of major activity in that age is about the fall of Numenor. Up to that point
3:20
Numenor was set apart as an island for the sort of the good guys, the good humans, the good men,
3:27
and it was set between Middle Earth and the undying lands as a sort of special dispensation.
3:35
It's a kind of Atlantis and that gives you a hint of what happens there.
3:40
And there's a whole series of very interesting kings in that place. If you want to read more
3:46
about them, there's a lot in the unfinished tales, which are really well worth reading,
3:51
including a fascinating husband and wife story, which is quite unusual in talking.
3:58
Anyway, it seems as though where they've settled as the script writers is at the end of that.
4:06
And here we have a story about Miriel, who's in one of the name characters.
4:12
She is the last queen of that place. She was the legitimate queen, but was forced into marriage
4:19
with our Farazon. And it's his interaction with Saron that really causes and his a plot spoiler,
4:28
the downfall of Numenor. So she's quite a tragic figure if they're playing it straight because
4:34
she's in this forced marriage and disaster strikes. And Numenor is punished for the arrogance
4:43
of our Farazon, because Saron again comes in and persuades him that he didn't obey the God's
4:52
commands. It's a bit like a Garden of Eden story, very much like a Garden of Eden story,
4:58
that he can sail to the undying lands. And that forbidden fruit is what our Farazon
5:05
sinks his teeth into and impunishment Numenor is sunk. And the remnant escapes and they are the founders
5:14
of the Kingdom of Gondor, the ancestors of Aragon and so on. But the important thing about this
5:25
is all of this happens in the year 3255. So if I've said the events of the 40 of the One Ring
5:34
is back in Tudor times, you know that 3255 hasn't come. That's probably only appeared in something
5:41
like Star Trek. It's thousands of years in the future. So in order to bring those two stories
5:48
together, they've crushed the timelines. So the second age is really sort of squashed together.
5:56
I assume they're doing that rather than some time slip thing, would that be very hard to tell.
6:02
So let's I think they must sort of move one set of things from there and one sets from
6:08
the future as it were and they brought them in alignment. Now what happens as a storyteller,
6:13
when you do that, well I think it's really interesting to look at it in parallel tracks like that
6:19
because what you see is the same pattern. So Saron starts the second age defeated because his
6:28
great sort of Lord, the original bad guy, Morgoth has been defeated and chained. And so he's
6:37
like a remnant of that power. So he's in on the back foot. He comes to the elves with promising
6:45
he's going to be a good boy. He's going to show them how to do all these wonderful crafts.
6:49
And the overlord king who is Gil Gallad doesn't believe him. So he's the skeptic. But because he's
6:58
such a good artificer, the Elven Smiths of Aregion are persuaded to listen and to invite him in
7:07
steal his craft or share their craft secrets. And so you've got a seduction going on and that
7:13
word is actually used in the appendices to describe that relationship. It's a seduction.
7:20
Let's hope they don't take that too literal in the Amazon series. I think it's meant by talking
7:26
in a sort of intellectual seduction way. And so Saron appears as the temptor then because he's
7:32
holding out knowledge. Here we go back to the Garden of Eden again. It's the fruits of the tree of
7:38
knowledge. And so what then happens is basically the gig is up after a while because Caleb Rimbo,
7:49
who's the main Smith in that region, he works out or he sees the plot. The rings have give you access
7:59
as you remember from Lord of the Rings, rings give you access to the mind of Saron. So he sees
8:05
what's going on and they realise they have to defeat Saron. And there is a battle there
8:14
for supremacy and that's when Aregion is basically wiped out. Elrond flees with a remnant
8:21
to set up Rivendell and I'm afraid the future for Caleb Rimbo isn't that bright. So that's
8:30
sort of one set of battles. So you've got the pattern there is Saron as temptor. First of all,
8:37
despite the warnings is embraced and welcomed, people see what his up to
8:44
leads to a clash leads to a battle. That same pattern is repeated in Numenor. So he's first of all
8:54
brought there because our pharazon thinks he sells to Middle-Earth and to Umbar in fact which we've
9:03
not yet seen. And Saron sort of prostrates himself and sort of claims to be overwhelmed by his
9:13
marvels of his fleet and everything. But he's playing a longer game here. So he's welcomed
9:20
to Numenor where he then spreads his poison. There are people saying look out warning. He's not
9:27
all he's cracked up to be. So there are people doing the Gil Gallaud role of warning against him.
9:34
But that isn't obviously going down well with our pharazon. He wants to believe his top king,
9:41
his pride is his downfall. And so his plots aren't unmasked until too late. So the seduction has
9:54
gone on. And again that word is used in the appendices. He seduces the people. And that is what
10:04
leads to the attempt to overthrow, go as far as the undying lands, you know, try and be gods
10:11
themselves, which then means Numenor is destroyed. So another kingdom is destroyed. Same pattern.
10:17
You invite in your own destruction. You don't listen to the warnings. You're seduced by what he
10:24
seems to offer. You take a fatal step of creating rings or sailing to the undying lands.
10:33
And then you lose a kingdom. A kingdom is destroyed as a result. So I think what they're doing
10:38
is running those two stories in sync or in some way meshing them. Be very interesting to see where
10:45
they find the connective tissue. If it's going to be sort of this happens first and then that
10:51
for a second series or if they're actually going to run it parallel, though that has the
10:56
problem about where is Sauron going to be because he's clearly in a region for the first
11:03
set of events and clearly in Numenor for the second. So just guessing at the moment I would have
11:10
thought that they establish Numenor in the first series and possibly save that for what happens
11:18
next. But we'll see. So that's the big thing that I've sort of seen as a storyteller is looking at
11:26
what you would do if you bring those two big time gaps into alignment. What story you end up
11:34
facing and what you would then do with that story. And I think the other important aspect which
11:44
I've been thinking of from the point of view of telling a story is about the choice of characters
11:50
to feature and that's becoming plain or as well as we get more details about who's doing
11:56
who's playing what. And I think what's particularly interesting is the decision to bring in the
12:02
half-fits as sort of proto-hobits. Now the half-fits are mentioned in the sort of Tolkien backstory but
12:13
really I don't think that he was thought of them being present until the third age but let's
12:18
allow them that little bit of license. I've got to come from somewhere obviously, haven't they?
12:23
And we do know that there are races of small people, halflings living on the banks of the river
12:30
because that's where Gollum comes from and his society hasn't just sprung out of nowhere when he
12:36
finds the one ring in the river. So I can see exactly why they're doing that. It sounds perfectly
12:43
good idea but from a storytelling point of view, I think this is possibly an attempt to conquer the
12:52
most pressing problem that they have which is do we care about elves? Do we care about high
13:02
races of men speaking in rather more formal language? That's always the problem about adaptations
13:09
of high fantasy is where do we as human beings connect? In Lord of the Rings we connect at the
13:15
level of the hobbits. So introducing hobbits or smaller people into the story give us a
13:24
relatable level. What is interesting is how much these people will be the drivers of the story,
13:32
clearly Frodo's journey and those of his companions is the the substance of Lord of the Rings.
13:40
But with the material from the second age, they're not there. They aren't the people
13:48
driving the forging of the rings or the downfall of Numino. So what little we do know about this
13:56
is that one of the characters who are in the smaller people bracket is nori brand of
14:04
brandyfoot played by Markella Kavanaugh and she is brandyfoot sounds like one of these
14:12
and portmanto words brandy wine for our feet in all the rest of it. So you see where that came from.
14:20
And we know that she and a close friend Poppy Proudfellow played by Megan Richard
14:30
discover a man fallen a bit like a flaming meteor from the sky who's played by an
14:35
actor called Daniel Wayman. Now I'm sure this will all be revealed very soon but if I was a betting
14:41
person I would reckon that possibly that character could be Sauron possibly because that would
14:48
fit with the idea of like a fallen angel but we'll find out. So it may be that they're
14:53
introducing the hobbits as sort of behind the scenes, movers and shakers i.e. if you think of Sauron
15:01
being a bit like the ring, the role of the ring is to bring evil into different people's lives
15:08
in order of the rings. Sauron does that in the second age so it could be in that they are
15:16
mistakenly from their point of view introducing evil when they really didn't mean it. That
15:22
had been interesting directions take and of course there's another possibility there were so many
15:28
possibilities that the fallen man the naked man that could also be thinking it through a reference
15:36
to one of the wizards maybe even Gandalf. He isn't sort of as far as the texts are concerned,
15:43
present during the second age really but he's alive because he's one of these spiritual creatures
15:50
as opposed to a natural born human life span type person and looking at the last the trailers
15:58
there was definitely a touch of Gandalf the Grey about the actor playing that part so
16:04
so we know that the Gandalf has a friendship with the hobbits that started on before the time of
16:14
Frodo and Bilbo so maybe we're going to see the beginning of that that would be an interesting
16:21
an interesting development. No of course what the problem is he can't really intervene
16:26
in the major plots unless it's very subtle and behind the scenes because it's not there in
16:31
the appendices but we'll see but there is an attempt here to I think make us relate to these
16:40
characters which I think is absolutely necessary. What I'm worrying about is where their story goes
16:49
because it seems as though one of the main drivers of this series is Galadriel we know Galadriel
16:55
story so let's have a look at Galadriel. We have met her in Lord of the Rings as the mature Elven
17:05
lady. She's already very old by the second age so casting her as a young actress again we can see
17:13
why but she's pretty old already thousands of years old and she originally comes from the undying
17:20
lands as part of the Exodus of the Elves from that place. I would say that the Exodus of the Elves
17:30
is a shameful episode in Elf history because it involves internecine battles between Elven families.
17:40
She's sort of a little bit aside from that but still that whole episode is very fraught and
17:48
people you know there is a sense of the greed of Fianno who's the original Elven
17:56
craftsman who makes the Silmarils so the the Exodus is actually driven by a sense of pride
18:02
again over the things that have been created I wish to get out from under the thumb of the way
18:09
the undying lands are governed. So in Galadriel you have an Elf maiden who's already had a very
18:27
long history. She in the second age when she comes to meet the person she eventually marries
18:37
who's Kellaborn and if you look at Tolkien's writings there is a number of different versions
18:45
of where they live and when they live but again this is things you'll find in the Silmarillion but
18:52
and also find in the unfinished tales so they are present at the same time as the forging of the rings
19:00
and of course Galadriel ends up with one of them. So she's clearly going to be a major person
19:08
in this series but how human is she if she is this person of great power if she is this person who
19:20
has had all these thousands of years to grow and mature and gain her wisdom she's less relatable
19:28
to you and me isn't she than and I hope it that's that's one of the problems that's why I think it's
19:34
one of the reasons why people find the Silmarillion more difficult to read is because it's about heroic
19:41
figures done in a historical way rather than in a relatable way of the adventures of sore people
19:47
in a big world. So that's the problem they have to tackle as writers I can see strategies
19:55
they're taking so using the hobbits making Galadriel younger and of course what we yet to see
20:03
is quite what they do with a new minorians this will be fascinating and it's where it might end
20:09
up and get him a throne this territory because Muriel as the forced wife of our pharison
20:18
um clearly there's more potential there for um more adult material I think that the
20:29
the series is going to try and stay in family watching territory but still the
20:35
the the the tone of that story of its tragic trajectory does seem
20:41
outside the redemptive arc that you get in Lord of the Rings
20:50
I think that's a real that's that's that is a big challenge so maybe that is why they are
20:58
introducing completely new characters and among those new characters is possibly the one I
21:07
really looking forward to seeing is a female dwarf called Disa so whereas in the Hobbit films of
21:14
Peter Jackson we got a couple of uh dwarf women in the sort of background characters looks like
21:21
they've actually got one as a foreground character so I think another conclusion I've come to
21:27
as a sort of storyteller is the effort has been made to foreground really interesting female
21:32
characters because it's clear that when Tolkien was writing um he wasn't thinking in terms of
21:39
having leading female characters in his novels it just wasn't part of the way he thought and so
21:47
this generation is taking on the challenge to work out complex character arcs for the women so
21:54
hopefully we'll get some people who will be up there with Erwin Erwin and Galadriel so that we've
21:59
got more female Tolkien characters to talk about in future so that's my little overview just
22:09
prior to the series coming out we will be dipping back in to review the early episodes and then
22:16
an overview of the end of the first season and I think really the thing that I want to stop with
22:25
is what would you have done if you were given the the task of writing this it's such an enormous
22:32
task they're not gonna please everybody and I've been thinking about it ever since I heard this
22:39
series was coming out just thinking well what would I do I think I probably panic because of the
22:46
expectations that are weighing on me but it this little exercise of working out what they're doing
22:51
has actually been very revealing as to how creatives are thinking about this and so fingers cross
22:58
that what they've actually put together has picked up the sort of the idea of making it relatable
23:05
finding good story arcs bringing together the events which are central to the second age
23:12
to get away from the feeling that this is a kind of game of Thrones light that would be horrible
23:20
let's hope they've actually kept the spirit of Tolkien which I think
23:25
centers on somebody with Hobbit values not necessarily a Hobbit but somebody who is earthed
23:32
who is appreciates nature who is who is a character where we can sort of settle down and see the
23:40
events of the world with them that's what I'm hoping because that seems to be really one of the
23:45
huge reasons for the longevity of Tolkien's fantasy now I always end these podcasts with
23:55
where in all the fantasy world is the best place to be something this one's a bit of a challenge
24:03
because I've been trying to guess what the main themes are but clearly one theme I think I can
24:08
put my money on would be where in all the fantasy worlds is the best place to be a maker of rings
24:17
I don't think that is in the world of Lord of the Rings because what happens to you is not
24:24
not very good you get sucked in by your creation or find you've put most of your power in it so
24:32
you becomes your Achilles heel very bad idea sour on you should have thought this through
24:36
anyway um so where would be a better place in all the fantasy worlds to be a maker of rings
24:42
and the other place where rings are made in the world of the inklings of courses in the
24:46
magician's nephew um uncle Andrew makes some rings he starts off by sending guinea pigs off
24:54
and it takes you to the wood between the worlds so the ability to make those rings that take you
25:01
to a place where you can travel to other worlds sounds like a really good place to be a ring maker
25:08
so that would be my pick if I was going to be without because uncle Andrew is selfish and evil
25:14
um and unleashes the Empress Jadis on London through having sent the children to her world
25:21
leaving all that aside and just doing the bit where you get to travel that's what I'd like to be
25:27
I'd like to make rings and go to the wood between the worlds and have the ability to
25:31
jump into the pools and visit other worlds and take somebody with me as well because this isn't
25:36
just for one person this ring anyway so that is my thought on making rings of power thank you very
25:44
much for listening
25:53
thanks for listening to MythMakers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Center for Fantasy
26:00
visit oxfordcenterforfantasy.org to join in the fun find out about our online courses
26:07
in person stays in Oxford plus visit our shop for great gifts tell a friend and subscribe
26:14
wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide