An early Christmas present was dropped in the stockings of Lord of the Rings fans around the world earlier this week. Amazon announced it has opened its deep pockets to drop $250 million for the global TV rights to all Tolkien properties. They also announced they will produce at least one show based in Middle Earth (with heavy emphasis on the possibility of a sequel to follow). This of course comes with no casting, no script, not even a basic premise announced on what the show might be. Speculation is already rampant on what the show could cover given the vast expanse of Middle Earth material Tolkien produced and his son Christopher organized and expanded upon during their lifetimes.
Jokes about Sam Gamgee cooking shows and Aragorn Survivorman aside, there is actually a wealth of material available to Amazon if they follow through on their plan to follow Tolkien canon in the time before Fellowship of the Ring. As Rise Up Daily’s self-appointed Chief Tolkien Geek, I have taken it upon myself to share with you a brief list of stories Amazon could tell from Tolkien canon, and a bit of background on where this all fits into the larger story of Middle Earth.
The story of Middle Earth is broken up into three Ages. Tolkien actually intended for these stories to continue on into the present, which means, depending on who you ask, we are currently living in the Fifth or Sixth Age. The Age we all know and love the best is the Third Age, which ends at the conclusion of Return of the King. Yes that’s right, the six movies that comprise Peter Jackson’s magnum opus of cinema cover only a teeny tiny speck of Middle Earth history at the very end of the story.
The Third Age is bookended by two major events shown in the movies. In the opening scenes of Fellowship, Galadriel narrates the final battle between the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and Sauron’s forces. This event ends in Sauron’s defeat and officially ends the Second Age and starts the Third. The Third Age ends when Aragorn and Frodo defeat Sauron for the last time by destroying the One Ring in Mt. Doom. In between? Not a whole lot. Gondor rises and falls, entering into and falling out of a great Golden Age. The five wizards, including Gandalf, Radagast, and Saruman, arrive in Middle Earth to investigate the local pipe weed scene. In other words, there’s not a whole lot going on here.
Potential story ideas from the Third Age:
- Young Aragorn. We know a fair bit about his youth, romancing Arwyn, hanging out with the elves, ranging with the Dunedain, and also spending time with both the armies of Gondor and Rohan. He’s perhaps the best vehicle to create a world spanning story in this era since he gets around a lot, fans already know who he is, and there’s some good, if vague, material describing his life during this period before the Hobbit.
- Gandalf: The Early Years. Gandalf doesn’t really have a youth, per se. He’s actually a demi-god spirit wrapped in an old man’s body. I’m not really sure Gandalf wandering Middle Earth when there’s not really anything going on, making friends and drinking ale is really the Game of Thrones challenger that Amazon is looking for, so I’d rate the possibility of this as pretty low.
Shall we go back a bit further? What happened in the Second Age?
A couple major events happen during this period that are worth mentioning. Sauron crafts the One Ring and tricks the elf Celebrimbor into making the Rings of Power that are worn by the Ringwraiths, the Dwarf Lords and the elven lords. It’s the last time we really see the elves. They’re already past their prime. By the time the Third Age rolls around, most have already left Middle Earth. But in the Second Age, they are still plentiful and under the rule of the last great Elf King, Gil-Galad. Elrond and Galadriel are around as well.
Tolkien focused his storytelling during this period on the tale of Numenor, the greatest kingdom of men to exist, and where Aragorn’s ancestors came from. Numenor was an island that lay between Middle Earth and Aman (basically, Aman is heaven). In this time, the world was flat, and you could literally hop on a ship and sail to heaven (cue the 80s glam rock music). For the men who kept faith with the elves during the greatest pains of the First Age, the gods awarded this group of men with long life, four times the span of normal men, great wisdom, many gifts, and an island within sight of heaven itself. If you’ve seen the Extended Edition of Two Towers you may have caught Eowyn referencing Aragorn as a descendent of Numenor, blessed with long life.
But of course, all good things must end. Inevitably, after many hundreds of years, the kings of Numenor grow jealous of the elves and their immortality. They grow so powerful they even capture Sauron, who in this time is a Loki-esque good looking charmer full of mischief. Sauron corrupts the rulers even further and tricks them into breaking the one unbreakable law, all so they could no longer be cheated by the other powers of the world and to Make Numenor Great Again (sound familiar?). The gods punish them, destroy their island, and remake the entire world to make heaven inaccessible to men. Harsh.
Potential story ideas from the Second Age:
- The Rise and Fall of Numenor (but mostly the fall). Here is Amazon’s great shot for a political thriller. You’ve got a powerful royal family with competing figures jockeying for power, and you have Sauron trying to manipulate everyone into doing all sorts of stupid things with the goal of bringing about the Kingdom’s destruction. And there are tons of battles as Numenor lands troops all along the shores of Middle Earth. It would mean a lot of new stuff for fans of Lord of the Rings, but it has a ton of potential. It also introduces a family that, many thousands of years later through an unbroken line, produces Aragorn.
Cool as I think that show would be, for me, the real meat of Tolkien’s writings is in the First Age. This is going way back, ten thousand years before Aragorn and Frodo were even born. Back when elves and dwarves were young and men still had that new earth smell to them. Some pretty epic battles and feats of heroism go down in the First Age, and I’d suggest to any Tolkien fan who hasn’t already read it to check out the Silmarillion for more. Tolkien wrote three great tales of this time that he considered the essential stories of the Age. As it happens, these make up the three most likely areas Amazon could draw upon
Potential story ideas from the First Age:
- The Fall of Gondolin. This story was unfinished by Tolkien, but if you like elves fighting hordes of balrogs, this is your story. Gondolin (where Bilbo’s sword Sting comes from, as well as Gandalf’s Glamdring) was a great hidden city of elves and a single man, Tuor, who would likely be our main character. He is one of only three men (including Beren and Aragorn) to marry an Elf. There are a lot of fun fan connections here as his son, Earendil, is father to Elrond, who we already know and love. If they chose to do a show on Numenor, they could introduce his other son, Elros, who becomes the first king of Numenor. This is a pretty sad story, as the last great elven city is utterly destroyed by Morgoth’s (Morgoth was Sauron’s boss back in the day) forces, but it’s also a really cool battle, and Tuor barely escapes while fighting a horde of balrogs and orcs to secure his family’s safety. Tuor’s service to Middle Earth is so well recognized that gods themselves make a one-time special exception to make Tuor an immortal elf and allow him to pass into heaven to live forever. So happy ending, sort of.
- Beren and Luthien. Another story briefly referenced in Lord of the Rings by Aragorn. Beren is a regular guy who falls in love with Luthien, an Elven princess (it’s always a princess with these guys), but Luthien’s father will not let a lowly human marry his daughter unless he performs an incredible act: recover one of the fabled lost Silmarils, holy jewels prized above all things in Middle Earth and currently residing in the crown of pure evil; Morgoth. Long story short, Beren heads off to get one, fights some vampires and werewolves, his best friend dies to save him, Luthien comes to help out and proves to be a total badass, and they end up happy ever after, again, sort of.
- My personal favorite of all the possible stories is the tale of Turin (fun fact, he’s Tuor’s cousin!). Turin is a thoroughly tragic figure. His father is killed at a young age and he is left to fend for himself and defend his family from marauders who have conquered the land that by right should be his to rule. He escapes to live among elves, and is raised as the son of the king. His pride gets the better of him in an altercation with another elf and he self-exiles himself to the wilderness to live as an outlaw. The story gets strange here. He fights evil, leads a band of thieves, fights some more with his best friend, an elf, marries his sister (that’s worth a season all by itself) and slays a dragon. There’s a ton of good, epic material here that could keep a fanbase happy for years.
So, what will Amazon do? My money is on young Aragorn because it’s the most accessible. I’ve been saying for years that most of the Silmarillion, Tolkien’s Middle Earth history textbook, is basically unfilmable and I stand by that. But I’ve also said that if they went at it the way HBO tackled Band of Brothers they could do the show justice and have a hit on their hands. It looks like I might get my wish after all.
