Of The Rings of Power And The Mystery Box, or: Why You Never Go Full Dark Lord
Spoilers for all episodes of The Rings of Power, and The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and even Game of Thrones.
Warning: this article gets a little fanfic-y, but so does The Rings of Power, and the only difference is that I don’t have 500 million dollars.
I come here not to praise nor bury The Rings of Power. Another Tolkien adaptation was inevitable. And when the Tolkien Estate stuck the TV rights on Streaming eBay, the offers from HBO and Netflix were… terrible. Every other pitch was “we try and beat Peter Jackson’s one-in-a-million achievement from a new angle.”
(I’d like to see a new screen version of The Lord of the Rings one day. For all Peter Jackson did right, the story is not whole without The Scouring of the Shire. But not yet. Give it another 10 years, till Sean Astin is a grandpa and can cameo as the Gaffer.)
The Second Age was the best choice. Harfoots wander into Eriador, so there’s some proto-hobbits for the casuals. The Elves struggle to hold onto the Middle-earth they’ve grown to love, and get into prideful bling spells again. The Dwarves of Khazad-Dûm dig up the Balrog of Morgoth (what did you say?) and Númenor falls, e’en as California, into the ocean.
Patrick McKay & JD Payne had the right idea. But hearken, young hobbit, to the name of their mentor in the article above, who feels foul yet seems fair:
JJ Abrams.
Detractors of the show have made a lot of Payne & McKay’s inexperience. It definitely did not help. Their biggest mistake, though, was that Abrams mystery-box structure!
A mystery works best as a 3-act structure. Act 1: crisis precipitated by the mystery. Act 2: false solutions, complications, perspective shifts and red herrings abound. Act 3: mystery is solved, giving illumination to previous events. See Knives Out.
Game of Thrones, in its first season, was not a mystery box by the Rule of Abrams. We learned in the first episode that Joffrey probably wasn’t the heir. And the infamous twist wasn’t a reveal. Ned’s death worked because holy shit, a fantasy series just killed the hero?
On the other hand, Lost. Do I need to say it?
If your Plot Twist of Withholding is worth 2 hours and you stretch it over 8, 10, 84 hours, your other plots have to wait around.
Nori and Grampa Baby Giant had the same story in every episode: Ooh, he can do magical good things! Ahh! He can do magical bad things! He breaks Largo’s leg, kills fireflies, hauls a wagon, defeats Wargs, then tries to heal a tree and kills said tree.
We get it. We got it the first time.
The mystery-box structure demands that you keep Grampa Baby Giant in the running for Sauron, so… same as last week, I guess!
Adar’s trip from potential Sauronian to revealed red herring moves more briskly, because he’s not a contender ’til episode three, and is eliminated from the running in episode six.
In half the time, he gets as much story as the other suspects.
And then there’s Halbrand, Actual Sauron, obvious by the sixth episode, and a strong contender previously. Because his only missing criteria was ‘be buddies with Celebrimbor,’ the making of the titular rings gets crammed into the back half of the final episode.
Why go with the mystery box? The easy answer is that it’s weekly TV and you want something for fans to buzz about. But this is The Lord of the Rings. We were all gonna watch it, even if we fan-raged the whole time.
Okay, punk, you think you can do better with 500 million dollars?
Yes, yes I do.
(Ai Elbereth Gilthoniel, it’s 500 mil!)
Here there be fic-y speculation (not my first rodeo):
Imagine this season, but the third episode resolves the mystery.
The conflict goes from ‘who is Sauron’ to ‘can Sauron change?’
Galadriel discovers Halbrand’s true identity in Númenor. BUT— he’s no more or less powerful than his form as Halbrand now! He lost his power in Morgoth’s defeat. He’s become a conjurer of cheap tricks.
(This would be why Sauron needs a Ring of Power in the first place.)
Tar-Míriel is there for the revelation — and she believes that Sauron is genuinely penitent. Elrond, Durin and Celebrimbor sail on over for what is now a suit for pardon.
It’s a fascinating question, and everyone, even Galadriel, struggles with it. Can a being who has fallen as far as Sauron repent?
(This is handwaving canon, where Annatar was a disguise, but it’s fine. The show handwaves all over the place already.)
Sauron wants to slum around Middle-Earth and prove himself a bit before he goes westward before the Valar, lest they destroy him on sight. Let me build instead of destroy, unite instead of divide. Let me do works worthy of a Maiar among the Children of Ilúvatar.
The Númenoreans love this. A rehabbed Sauron is a big flashing sign to the Elves: stop holding grudges from the First Age, because That’s So Over.
Meanwhile Galadriel‘s head is putting out as much steam as the 1800s.
Míriel, Elrond (a Númenorean by relation) and Durin all sit in judgment. Míriel is a big yes. Even Elrond entertains the idea for a minute, moved by the fallen Maiar’s plea. But of course, Elrond votes no. His people know the depth of Sauron’s evil. You’ll vote no, right buddy? Elrond says to Durin. Right?
Well…
Back up a bit.
So now we learn that Celebrimbor has been talking to HalbraSaur behind the scenes.
Before I served Morgoth, I served Aulë the Smith as Mairon, HalbraSaur says to Celebrimbor. What you seek to make — I can tell you how.
Celebrimbor goes to Durin in secret. We have the key to unlock the greatest works of Elves and Dwarves together, he says. Everything I learn of metalcraft will be yours as well. We just have to forgive and forget, uh, the whole First Age.
The whole First Age? Durin replies. How much pipeweed have you smoked?
Celebrimbor wouldn’t suggest it for anything else… but this is the ULTIMATE BLING.
Back to the vote scene.
Durin votes yes. Sauron is pardoned.
In this scenario, Charlie Vickers gets to flex his considerable acting muscles for more than just the last twenty minutes of the season. Durin and Elrond’s bro-ship goes from huggy to divided. Morfydd Clark gets to really explore the limits of Galadriel’s fury, turning it against her own kind for sparing the devil himself. Look how fast the story gallops when you stop trying to keep the mystery box in place! See it go!
The next three episodes focus on the making of the Rings, and the subtle ways Sauron binds Celebrimbor to darker magic, the making of the Seven and the Nine and the moment Celebrimbor stops believing, kicks out Annatar and completes the Three Rings on his own, hoping to Eru he’s purged any evil influence.
*Narrator voice* He hasn’t.
As for the other plots — if we establish that Grampa Baby Giant is a wizard in episode III, Nori can quest after the Stoors and Fallohides to bring all branches of their family safely into Eriador.
Beforedor could actually be a misruled province of Rhûn or Harad, and Bronwyn’s people make a devil’s bargain with the Orcs to help them overthrow their masters, explaining how Sauron gets a political foothold in those places.
There’s a lot to love about the series as it stands. Galadriel’s own tragic flaws blind her, Elrond and Durin get those great buddy moments, Adar brings up some of those deep moral questions that dog Tolkien’s work, and the Harfoots, though saddled with the worst writing, are frickin adorable. Charlie Vickers played the reveal in episode VIII note-perfect, penitent yet power-hungry all at once.
It’s easy to sit back and say, “I would have done X and Y,” especially with the hindsight of having seen someone else’s attempt. But Payne & McKay didn’t have to use my scenario, or anyone else’s, as long as they stayed away from one of the Seven Plagues of modern cinema. They call them mystery boxes because you get stuck inside.
The ultimate mystery box will be the question of how much better this series could have been.
