As is with all things, I am going to offer some context as to where I am coming from, going into watching the first two episodes of Amazon's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, because I feel that if I do not talk about my own history with J.R.R. Tolkien's books, I will be called everything from a fake fan to a Hobbit trilogy apologist because I enjoyed The Hobbit movies.
I have read The Silmarillion at least three times, so I am familiar with many of the published stories. I have also read 11 of the 12 books in the History of Middle Earth series, which are more-or-less rough drafts, expanded, and incomplete versions of the stories in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. These books contain several iterations of a lot of the same stories like the Music of the Ainur (the creation of all things), Fëanor and the Silmarils, Melkor and Ungoliant, The Fall of Gondolin, the tragedy of Turin Turambur, Beren and Luthien, Thingol and the Thousand Caves, and a lot of others that I cannot remember off of the top of my head. And therein lies my problem. I am not very good at recalling a lot of the lore from The Silmarillion from memory. While reading books and stories, I am more able to recall characters and events. Even when trying to recall events to Conklederp the other night, I later realized that I had forgotten key points in Fëanors forging of the Silmarils and the flight of the Noldor to Middle Earth. Right now I could not give you many details about the battle between Fingolfin and Morgoth outside the gates of Angband (are there gates?), but I can tell you that this is one of my favorite events in the entire Silmarillion, and every time I have read it (and the different variations and drafts of this fight), that I get literal chills and that itchy-eye-nearly-watering-not-quite-crying thing happens.
So despite having read The Silmarillion and the History of Middle Earth series (minus the last book, The Peoples of Middle Earth because I have not gotten back around to it yet), I felt a little lost during the first two episodes, but some of that also might have had to do with how much of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings that Amazon had access to with The Rings of Power. We "know" that when Amazon purchased the rights from the Tolkien Estate, those rights only included The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but according to the Wikipedia article about the writing process, Amazon was also able to use letters from J.R.R. Tolkien, which could expand on lore not covered in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, or The Silmarillion. Additionally, one of his grandchildren, Simon Tolkien (eldest child of the late Christopher Tolkien) consulted on story elements and character arcs for the series. But what Amazon does not have access to is The Silmarillion.
Over the last few months leading up to the show's release, I feel like I have read conflicting accounts regarding finer details about what Amazon could and could not include in the show. Everything from not being able to mention any places or characters not specifically mentioned in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings out of fear of legal suit, so if it was referenced in The Lord of the Rings and/or its appendices then it is fair game if the more detailed story is in The Silmarillion; think the "Lay of Luthien" or whatever the official title is whenever it is published. The general consensus seems to be that it is The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Maybe?
All of this is to say that there were a lot of times during the first two episodes that I felt lost, not because I was not following the story that was being told, but because I found myself trying to recall how what I was watching compared to what I could remember about what I knew about the Second Age. How much of Galadriel's quest to hunt down Sauron was in The Silmarillion? Why were they having her be stranded in the middle of the Sundering Sea for an entire episode and did she ever visit Numenor (because that is where it feels like this might be leading; I know the guy said he was from "the Southlands," which I think end up becoming Mordor?) I knew that she has always been pretty bad-ass and powerful, and not always as she was portrayed in both the books and movies; although her saving Galdalf in Dol Guldur in The Battle of the Five Armies I knew was in her characters wheelhouse. And while I do not specifically recall her taking a contingent of Elves into the northlands, it could have been a sentence or two that was expanded into the opening of the first episode.
I know that the story elements having to do with the Harfoots is created for the show and I think I find myself enjoying that because there was no pre-existing story there, only elements take from the Prologue in The Fellowship of the Ring, "Concerning Hobbits," that:
"The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble; and they preferred highlands and hillsides," "The Harfoots had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long lived in the foothills of the mountains. They moved westward early, and roamed over Eriador as far as Weathertop while the others were still in Wilderland. They were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous. The were the most inclined to settle in one place, and longest preserved their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and holes."
And you know, I think I have come to the conclusion that I need to reread the Appendecies. I think the last time I read The Lord of the Rings, I glanced over a lot of Appendecies A I - II, but really dove into A III "Durin's Folk," because it delt with Dwarves and their histories, something that I have felt was always lacking in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion; but it makes sense that a book about the history of the Silmarils would not focus on the Dwarves.
So thank you very much for working through this with me. I think that rereading the Appendecies I will feel less lost in the story that is being told, not that I think that the Appendecies are required reading to "get" The Rings of Power, but for me, myself, and I, it will likely allow me to better enjoy it, because that is the way my brain works.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
I Only Want Your Heart to Find a Special Place
P.S. I think the takeaway from this is that I just need to reread the specific source material and stop my complaining and enjoy a show that I am otherwise enjoying.
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