Q: Which Lord of the Rings Characters Will Appear in Amazon Prime’s TV Show?
ANSWER: I have refrained from speculating about Amazon Prime’s “Lord of the Rings” show except when asked. As I don’t know any more than everyone else — I don’t see much point in speculating but there are a few things that keep coming up. I’ll update this article as we learn more details. Meanwhile, on to the questions.
Will Amazon’s Show Cover the Entire Second Age?
People keep saying each season will follow a different story. I don’t know where that came from. I don’t see why the show needs to follow such a format. I suppose the fact that it’s working title is “The Lord of the Rings” leads people to conclude it must be about Tolkien’s Second Age ring saga.
It’s my understanding Amazon committed to doing three shows, with a 5-year commitment to the first one. If that’s the case, they could cover just about everything and still leave room for possible spin-offs beyond the promised 2nd and 3rd shows.
I think it’s notable that their social media images focus on Númenor, not Eregion (Hollin), where Sauron and the Elves made most of the Rings of Power.
Will Amazon Use any LoTR Characters from the Book or Movie?
The short answer for now is “we don’t know” but many people have speculated on which characters can and should appear in Amazon’s show(s). Some people have gone so far as to rule out nearly every character in the books.
Sir Ian McKellen famously said he thinks if they use Gandalf that he should have a shot at the part. Of course, anyone who has studied Tolkien’s timeline knows that Gandalf didn’t appear in Middle-earth until around the year 1100 in the Third Age.
Orlando Bloom says he feels he is personally too old to play Legolas in the Second Age. No one knows when Legolas was born anyway, but it’s generally assumed that he was born in the Third Age. On the other hand, I don’t see why they couldn’t bring Orly in to play his grandfather or something clever like that.
Of all the characters who appear in the main narrative of The Lord of the Rings, these are the ones who were said to be in Middle-earth during the Second Age:
- Cirdan, Master of the Grey Havens
- Treebeard, leader of the Ents
- Quickbeam, the youngest Ent (he had to be born before the Ents lost the Ent-wives)
- Elrond
- Celeborn
- Galadriel
- Tom Bombadil
- Glorfindel (only attested outside the narrative)
Our list of Third Age candidates grows thin, as Movie-Elrond might say. Of course, there are a number of named Elves whom people presume lived during the Second Age (including Gildor Inglorion and Elrond’s chief counselor Erestor) but we have no information on their ages and histories.
That said, there are several ways Amazon could use virtually any Third Age character from any time period in a Second Age story, including (but not limited to):
- Time travel (let’s hope not)
- A future character narrating events of a Second Age story
- A foretelling (via “magic”)
- Foreshadowing in some other way (like a brief scene at the end of an episode, perhaps focusing on an artifact)
- A “past incarnation” (I hope not) [<– NOT a grandparent elf or ancestor]
If Amazon Tells the Ring Saga in 5 Seasons, What Stories Might They Do?
This touches on a question a reporter asked me a couple of months ago. Can Amazon really dig up five seasons of adventure from Tolkien’s Second Age notes and story fragments?
I think they could do it with just one character: Aldarion. His voyages to Middle-earth would be exactly the kind of undocumented fodder that an action/adventure TV show could manipulate into 5 agonizingly long non-canonical seasons. Think of “Sinbad in Middle-earth”, “Conan versus the Orcs”, and “Aldarion: the Legendary Journeys”. Every syndicated fantasy adventure show in history could easily be an inspiration for endless adventures.
But let’s assume that Amazon’s team wants to take the subject matter more seriously than having a bunch of heroes walking across an amorphous New Zealand landscape. Even Aldarion’s story could have a beginning (Veantur’s voyage to Middle-earth) and a conclusion (he passes the sceptre to his daughter in the hope she’ll continue to fight the growing darkness – and the audience already knows she won’t).
I think 5 seasons of Aldarion would be fantastic. We’d see hints of Sauron (which, by the way, was NOT his first name – that was lost in time). But Aldarion never actually confronted Sauron. Whatever his adventures entailed, his struggles were against lesser creatures. He was laying the groundwork for future Númenorean intervention in Middle-earth. His story would be incredibly important to establishing a multi-season ring saga, even a multi-production saga.
I will be greatly disappointed if Amazon doesn’t do Aldarion’s story in a big way. In fact, I don’t see how they cannot do Aldarion. It’s got to start with him. That appears to have been Tolkien’s intention.
Aldarion is known to have met Cirdan, Gil-galad, and Galadriel. Those are three great Elven characters to bring into Amazon’s story lines.
Here are my guesses at the five best stories Amazon could tell about the Second Age:
- Aldarion, the greatest Mariner of the Second Age
- The War of the Elves and Sauron (including the making of the rings)
- The Days of Flight (long wars between Sauron and his enemies) & Rise of the Nazgul
- The Fall of Númenor
- The War of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men
Amazon could tell other stories. Cliff Broadway (Quickbeam of TheOneRing.Net) seems convinced they have to tell the story of the founding of Eregion. Celebrimbor’s great friendship with the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm would serve as an interesting backdrop but what would the conflict be? Either Amazon writes an Elvish soap opera (and that kind of story-telling did not work so well with “Caprica”) or else there must be some sort of villain.
Tolkien had no clear idea of how to handle Celebrimbor. Maybe Tom Shippey has suggested ways the writing team could firm up Celebrimbor’s story but they would still need a villain and an evil plan. Maybe they could show how Celebrimbor becomes an ego maniac, first leading many Noldor to leave Lindon against Gil-galad’s will, then in seizing control over Eregion (although he founded the realm in some versions of the story), and finally in his fall through making the Rings of Power.
Annatar is clearly the bad guy in this story but how much of a “full” season would Amazon devote to making rings of power? How much to the war that follows? I think the story is less about Celebrimbor and more about Sauron’s first attempt at seizing control over Middle-earth.
But we’ll just have to wait and see.
Is “Tyra” A Real Character Name or Just a Code Name?
Many people freaked out when word leaked that Markella Kavanaugh had read for a character named “Tyra”. She is listed on IMDB as the only confirmed cast member and this is the character name they have assigned her. IMDB usually has pretty good information but they sometimes change listings. There is (or was at one time) a full-time editorial staff overseeing IMDB (which Amazon owns). The IMDB editors would not necessarily have any inside information about the show but they would (presumably) have access to whatever professional credentials have been released to a small number of databases.
Assuming Tyra really is just a code name for a ubiquitous character in an audition script, you anti-Tyrants have nothing to worry about. The casting info will be updated over time.
On the other hand, I don’t get the objections to the name. “Tyra” is not “not a Middle-earth name”. There is no such thing as a “Middle-earth name”; hence, there cannot be a “non-Middle-earth name”. The etymology of Tyra suggests it’s a perfectly good feminine Norse name. I’m sure many anti-Tyrants would have no objection if the character were called Gudrun but Tolkien didn’t use any Norse names for the Second Age (except for Dwarf-kings and he strongly implies those are Third Age names retrofitted onto the dynastic table).
Noone seems to object to Sam Gamgee as a Middle-earth name, and Tolkien apparently lifted that name entirely from a gentleman with an interesting local reputation in Cornwall. He just loved the sound of the name. You can add Fred, Rosie, Tim, Tom, and a host of other modern day English names to the roster of names that anti-Tyrants should be objecting to.
Assuming Tyra really is the character’s name, that doesn’t mean anything. They may have a whole etymology lined up for the show, ready to fill out fan dictionaries and populate coffee table books. I won’t be surprised to see Amazon release an entire library of books and media associated with the show. Maybe Tom Shippey’s consulting role has something to do with those kinds of projects. I’m sure they could have picked a worse consultant. You know they could have.
Whatever they do won’t be “canonical” with respect to Tolkien’s fiction; it will be derivative and canonical unto itself (as any Middle-earth fan fiction is). That’s all any adaptation can hope to be.
In the end I don’t think it matters if they really use Tyra or not. If the immediate reaction to the name is any indication of fan community behavior to come, I fear we may end up making the Star Wars “fans” look like passive couch potatoes.
Lighten up, people. It’s just a (streaming) TV show. Hopefully we’ll all enjoy it!
See Also
Could Amazon Have Covered 3441 Years of Second Age History in 5 Seasons? (2022)
How Faithful Is Amazon’s Rings of Power to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Books? (2022)
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
If we are just speculating…
Since I learned it will take place in the 2nd age, I have been under the impression that the show will be a simple palace intrigue show about the power struggle of the Nimruzîrim and Ar-Pharazôn.
Hope not!
Still, as you say, “Whatever they do won’t be “canonical” with respect to Tolkien’s fiction; it will be derivative and canonical unto itself “. Get over it and “lighten up”.
I’m curious then have you heard of the Tom Shippey interview, in which he apparently states that the Amazon must follow through with general canon outline of the events, they have freedom to add things, but apparently Tolkien Estate has a right of veto (in the same time he says he knows little about the project, which may mean he has either yet take part or his role will be place). In any case, I can understand reactions to the working name Tyra/Kyra (whatever it is I’ve seen two versions :)), mostly because most names of characters in Second Age would be more or less either in Sindarin, Quenya or Adunaic, or at the very least most known characters would have them, we can try to delve into more obscure names of unknown etymology like Forlong being derived from native tongue of pre-numenorean population living in areas of Gondor before it’s founding etc. The Hobbit names are in themselves oddity, plus their custom of surnames, but in the end Hobbits do not appear in Second Age 🙂 besides all names of Hobbits are supposed to be translations anyway Meriadoc is Kalimac Brandagamba hehe.
Whatever they do with the show let’s hope they won’t butcher it too much 🙂 hehe, I would love to see Aldarion and Erendis getting proper adaptation, it would be fitting for the Amazon, after all Mariner’s Wife is the most complete actual narrative, a real gem of Tolkien works with full dialogue and character interactions, lots of strong female characters to use for those whiners who demand more female presence and it fit neatly into larger picture of events setting a stage for the future events.
I did read the interview. I think it came out about a day after I published this post. Very interesting stuff.
How about Isildur’s squire narrating part of the story: the end of the Second Age into the beginning of the Third Age?
Yes I noticed Tom saying something about Third Age not being part of the planned show however Isildur lived only 2 years into the Third age, most of his life was during the Second. Just some Ideas. To me the most interesting parts of the third age are making of the Rings of Power, The Island of Numenor: The Kingsmen faction versus the Lords of Andunie and the Faithful and later the Exiles, The Elven Kingdoms: Gil-galad and LIndon, Celebrimbor and Eregion, Mirkwood and Lorien and the First War of the Rings. To me you can weave an interesting story line on those subjects alone and Aldarion’s story could be the beginning of this.