Amazon ’ s Rings of Power the Aftermath - The Difference Between Literary and Cinematic Artforms This video will show why it is unwise to view any adaptation of Tolkien’s works as a ‘shortcut’ to truly understanding them. The central reason for this is that inherent differences in story-telling artforms, in addition to the demands on a studio to create a profitable film and thereby cater to overcultural expectations (‘wokeness’, ‘Grrl-power’, etc.) will unavoidably introduce distortions in the portrayal. This is true whether the portrayal-team is avidly inventing things as Amazon did – the spurious retcon of the origin of mithril probably being the most egregious example 1 – or in adaptations in which the director has some respect for the source material, as was reportedly the case with Peter Jackson. Finally, after the film has reached the theaters (or nowadays: streaming services), it is an unfortunate truth that humans have an innate tendency to misremember and misattribute. 2 Evidence for the latter can been seen in the many purported “Tolkien Quotes” online which contain material he never said or wrote. Traveling backward in time and progressing forwards, we get a few examples: The nonsense that was “10 J.R.R. Tolkien Quotes to Live By” (blog; published October 2014; cited reference published December 17 th , 2013; my personal memory of these quotes goes back to the theatrical runs of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies: to a literary-centric person such as myself, deviations like these immediately “jump out at me”) – A good reference for the whole misattribution process, as the author goes into some detail of how this behavior comes about. Fake Tolkien Quotes (reddit; Original post July 8, 2019) – Actual misattributed quotes mixed in with attempts at humor. Why are misattributed quotes relevant? Because Tië eldaliéva is a path based upon Tolkien’s literary works, (we refer to these as primary sources) not anyone else’s cinematic, theatric or literary adaptation. However, a problem arises when people think of an adaptation as a primary source. To use an actual Tolkien quote, “The canons of narrative art in any medium cannot be wholly different, and the failure of poor films is often precisely in exaggeration , and in the intrusion of unwarranted matter owing to not perceiving where the core of the original lies .” (emphasis mine) 3 Although this can happen to a greater degree (Amazon) or a lesser degree (Peter Jackson’s Tolkien films) it is an inherent difference between the written and filmed narrative artforms, and so can never be completely eliminated – other than producing a film directly from a screenplay with no intervening adaptation (a personal preference of mine and some others). 4 In preparing this document, I found a good article which explains these differences in detail from the POV of the Modern movie-watcher, Six Important Differences Between Filmed and Narrated Stories [link], with the subheading ‘Treating written works like they are movies is a mistake.’ This article explores these differences from a movie aficionado’s point of view, and so Copyright ©2023 by Dave Woosley (author) and Tië eldaliéva. All rights reserved. may be more comprehensible for our viewers. Let’s go through these six differences in light of Tolkien’s written works, upon which our path is based , and compare each point to its cinematic variant(s) : {Display ‘ Differences Between Filmed and Narrated Stories ’ webpage } 1. Films Can Convey Large Visuals in Detail This is true. However, I don’t think it is true to say that “text isn’t capable of the same feat”. After all, a screenwriter designing a film must have some idea of the visual placement of characters and objects. As a visual-thinker on the autism spectrum, I also have this ability, but my writing talent runs rather to investigative whitepapers such as this one. It is probably true to say, though, that “thinking in pictures” i s neither universal nor guaranteed. 5 It is also to a large degree dependent upon the skill and style of the author: Tolkien is a very good describer of situations and landscapes; Leo Tolstoy, on the other hand, in the stream of consciousness monologues found in War and Peace , leave s me with nothing but a confused jumble of images. 2. Narration Still Conveys Information Better One can easily see this in the variances in depiction of Galadriel’s character between Amazon’s show (“¡ ¡ There is a tempest in me!! ”) and the original sources: “Her mother-name was Nerwen ("man-maiden"), and she grew to be tall beyond the measure even of the women of the Noldor; she was strong of body, mind, and will, a match for both the loremasters and the athletes of the Eldar in the days of their youth.” [...] “Galadriel was born in the bliss of Valinor, but it was not long, in the reckoning of the Blessed Realm, before that was dimmed; and thereafter she had no peace within. For in that testing time amid the strife of the Noldor she was drawn this way and that. She was proud, strong, and selfwilled, as were all the descendants of Finwë save Finarfin; and like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage. Yet deeper still there dwelt in her the noble and generous spirit of the Vanyar, and a reverence for the Valar that she could not forget. From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fëanor. In him she perceived a darkness that she hated and feared, though she did not perceive that the shadow of the same evil had fallen upon the minds of all the Noldor, and upon her own.” 6 No ’Grrl-Power’ necessary in the original version. PJ’s version is somewhere between the two, but is closer to the original. 3. Narration Can Be More Imaginative In place of the “forehead aliens” mentioned in point three i n the article , substitute “giant- eared aliens” in Amazon’s and to a lesser extent PJ’s cinematic efforts. This is a pet peeve of mine for which there is no textual justification in either the Legendarium nor older folklore 7 , but it s actual affront is that it ignores the primary descriptor of elvenness/ elven qualit y in Tolkien’s works: “elven light” , often said to emanate from the eyes. A few examples: ‘But suddenly her eyes looked into his, and then Húrin knew her; for though they were wild now and full of fear, a light still gleamed in them hard to endure: the elven-light that long ago had earned her her name, Eledhwen, proudest of mortal women in the days of old.’ – The Children of Húrin ___ ‘Then Aragorn was abashed, for he saw the elven-light in her eyes and the wisdom of many days; yet from that hour he loved Arwen Undómiel daughter of Elrond ’ – Tale of Aragorn and Arwen ___ The “perception of elvenness” can work in reverse, also, as this fragment from Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin shows: [...] ‘But their whispers aroused the sleeping echoes, and they were enlarged and multiplied, and ran in the roof and the unseen walls, hissing and murmuring as the sound of many stealthy voices. And even as the echoes died in the stone, Tuor heard out of the heart of the darkness a voice speak in the Elven-tongues: first in the High Speech of the Noldor, which he knew not; and then in the tongue of Beleriand, though in a manner somewhat strange to his ears, as of a people long sundered from their kin. "Stand!" it said. "Stir not! Or you will die, be you foes or friends." "We are friends," said Voronwë. "Then do as we bid," said the voice. [...] Suddenly an elven-lantern was unhooded, and its bright ray was turned upon Voronwë before him, but nothing else could Tuor see save a dazzling star in the darkness; and he knew that while that beam was upon him he could not move, neither to flee nor to run forward. For a moment they were held thus in the eye of the light, and then the voice spoke again, saying: "Show your faces!" And Voronwë cast back his hood, and his face shone in the ray, hard and clear, as if graven in stone; and Tuor marveled to see to its beauty. Then he spoke proudly, saying: "Know you not whom you see? I am Voronwë son of Aranwë of the House of Fingolfin. Or am I forgotten in my own land after a few years? Far beyond the thought of Middle-earth I have wandered, yet I remember your voice, Elemmakil." "Then Voronwë will remember also the laws of his land," said the voice. "Since by command he went forth, he has the right to return. But not to lead hither any stranger. By that deed his right is void, and he must be led as a prisoner to the king's judgement. As for the stranger, he shall be slain or held captive at the judgement of the Guard. Lead him hither that I may judge." Then Voronwë led Tuor towards the light, and as they drew near many Noldor, mail-clad and armed, stepped forward out of the darkness and surrounded them with drawn swords. And Elemmakil, captain of the Guard, who bore the bright lamp, looked long and closely at them. "This is strange in you, Voronwë," he said. "We were long friends. Why then would you set me thus cruelly between the law and my friendship? If you had led hither unbidden one of the other houses of the Noldor, that were enough. But you have brought to knowledge of the Way a mortal Man – for by his eyes I perceive his kin. Yet free can he never again go, knowing the secret; and as one of alien kin that has dared to enter, I should slay him – even though he be your friend and dear to you."’ ___ Finally it can be used as a kind of ‘shorthand’ for elven qualities generally, as is see n in this passage from the unpublished Epilogue of The Lord of the Rings: ‘Elanor was silent for some time before she spoke again. ‘I did not understand at first what Celeborn meant when he said goodbye to the King,’ she said. ‘But I think I do now. He knew that Lady Arwen would stay, but that Galadriel would leave him. I think it was very sad for him. And for you, dear Sam-dad.’ Her hand felt for his, and his brown hand clasped her slender fingers. ‘For your treasure went too. I am glad Frodo of the Ring saw me, but I wish I could remember seeing him.’ ‘It was sad, Elanorellë,’ said Sam, kissing her hair. ‘It was, but [it] isn’t now. For why? Well, for one thing, Mr. Frodo has gone where the elven-light isn’t fading; and he deserved his reward. But I have had mine, too. I have had lots of treasures. I am a very rich hobbit. And there is one other reason, which I shall whisper to you, a secret I have never told before to no one, nor put in the Book yet. Before he went Mr. Frodo said that my time maybe would come. I can wait. I think maybe we haven’t said farewell for good. But I can wait. I have learned that much from the Elves at any rate. They are not so troubled about time. And so, I think Celeborn is still happy among his trees, in an Elvish way. His time hasn’t come, and he isn’t tired of his land yet. When he is tired, he can go.’ 4. Films Benefit From Sensory Spectacle Well, there’s certainly a lot of spectacle in Amazon’s effort , including a depiction of the creation of mithril which never happened, and a volcanic eruption (technically, a pyroclastic flow ) that wasn’t hot. Wow, some folk have all the luck... 5. Films Have Trouble with Internal Conflicts I seem to remember a certain Amazon character talking about “internal tempests” – or , something like that. 6. Actors Can Doom Their Characters Hmm, a certain actress named ‘Morfydd Clark’ springs to mind. To summarize, these differences in narrative type are important because literature and films have to be presented differently to be workable. The best method would be to create literature as literature and films as screenplays. It may seem that adapting a film from a book would be easier than writing a screenplay from scratch, but I would argue that this is actually no more difficult than adaptation, and in fact may be easier, since one would not have to keep these six points in mind in addition to harmonizing ones’ creative effort to a preexisting very large secondary world such as Tolkien’s. The alternative is to just not care an d throw arbitrary amounts of money at a film project, confident that something will be produced, regardless of quality. This seems to be exactly what Amazon did. Unfortunately for them, I’m not the only person who doesn’t like it – from even a cursory examination of “Amazon Rings of Power” YouTube video s , the dislike and opprobrium seem to be supercritical and nearly universal. Mytho-historical Thinking and Tië eldaliéva As the chief Legendarium Researcher in Tië eldaliéva, I frequently engage in mytho-historical thinking. Since this term is not in common use, I shall give a brief explanation here. Since the early 19 th century, there has existed a sharp separation between the concepts known as ‘history’ and ‘mythology’. In former days, the distinction was less clear – and this can even be the case in some cultures today. 8 However, i n the pervasive Western cultural philosophy that developed around this time, known as Positivism , history was regarded as ‘true’ (a recounting of things that “actually happened”) as opposed to mythology, which was regarded as the best explanation for natural phenomena by ‘primitive’ peoples who did not have access to Modern ways of thought , and thus was mostly false. This conviction has continued to the present day. For many people, the very word ‘myth’ is synonymous with ‘falsehood.’ This definition completely ignores the sociological, cohesive aspect of myth in human societies, however. Myths – religious or otherwise – are those stories that shape our understanding of reality: of how we see the world and our place in it. Myths have, for good and for ill, inspired innumerable people, countless cultures and not a few nations into bold action. At a more fundamental level, the idea that myths are false does not represent the actual situation. Both history and mythology are creations of human imagination. History, however, is limited to retrieval of verifiable ‘ facts ’ and evidence from the past, which is regarded as reality, even as it varies from one school of history to another or even from one historian to another. Mythology has no such limitations. It is not bound by space, chronology, and evidence that is indisputable. Space and time here are created in the mind, just as in a novel, even as it bears a semblance of reality. The nature of folklore is similar. Both are what Tolkien referred to as ‘Sub - creation’. Tolkien used 'Sub-creation' to refer to the authorial process of world-building and creating myths. In this context, a human author is a 'little maker' creating his own world as a sub-set within God's primary creation (Tolkien was a devout Catholic). 9 Like the beings of Middle-earth, Tolkien saw his works as an emulation of the larger creation performed by God/Eru. In his mythical creations, or sub-creations as he would call them, he shows how the unseen hand of God is felt far more forcefully in myth than it is ever felt in fiction. Paradoxically, fiction works with facts, albeit invented facts, whereas myth works with truth, albeit truth dressed in disguises. Furthermore, since facts are physical and truth is metaphysical, myth, being metaphysical, is spiritual. 10 This does not make myths untrue, but it does make them unprovable in the scientific sense (technically ‘ unfalsifiable’ ). How, then, does one clarify this somewhat confusing situation ? I shall present here a quote from Bishop Stephan Hoeller’s lecture J.R.R. Tolkien's Gnosis F or Our Day , as he describes it rather better than I can : [...] The 19th century had a kind of exaggerated view of science and of the world of facts. And so, anything that was ‘real’ was factual . And there was no understanding of something that can be very true and yet not factual . That there are truths and there are realities which are not factual. You can't prove them. And that this is a very important reality. And this was sort of something that was discarded by the Victorian mind and I think is still discarded by most people who have come to associate their own world view really with that kind of late 19th century Victorian outlook. Yet when you look beyond that you find that in most ancient spiritual traditions, especially in the ones that are sort of the alternative nature; the mystical nature - not so much the mainstream - there was always the understanding of what Henry Corbin and some other modern scholars, especially of the Sufi traditions, have called the I maginal W orld . Now, that is not the same as imaginary . But rather, let's say the Sufi mystics who were of course nominally (at least) Muslims. tended to explain that that here is the world within which we live: the created world, then there is God - Allah - but in between that is an I maginal W orld to which one gains entry by way of one’s imagination. Many of these ideas they have really assimilated from the Neo-Platon ists and other early sources. And it is hard for us to deal with these ideas because, to us, something is either true or it isn't true . It is either factually true or it doesn't exist. And yet , think of it a little bit : e ver since the 1840's or so, with the beginning of S piritualism, people have tried to prove the factuality, let us say, of life after death. Or the factuality of spirits. They haven't. Why? Because it may be true , but it isn't a fact . These things you cannot approach in the same way in which you approach the - I don't know - the content of your refrigerator. It has to be approached with a different kind of faculty. And this is the sort of thing that Tolkien was talking about when he said "look, if you use certain functions within your own mind, within your own psyche, then you gain entry into this imaginal reality". And it can be of very great value and of very great use to you. 11 {Link to audio lecture: https://archive.org/details/tgs_lecture_19981002 } {Link to lecture transcript: http://westofwest.org/docs/jrr_tolkiens_gnosis_for_our_day.pdf } What, then, is the mytho-historical thinking referred to in this chapter heading? It is a form of working with the Imaginal World and receiving imaginal (visionary) information while keeping one’s logic, rationality and discernment active simultaneously. This allows a perceiver utilizing this method to recognize valid mappings [ video definition ] between the Legendarium and consensus reality (e.g., Doggerland ) as well as those having no such validity (“Tolkien derived his alternate words for the Valar – Ainu and Ainur – from the Sumerian Anu and Anunnaki ”). Usually, mappings from the Imaginal to the Ordinary are of the Many to One or Many to Many varieties ; they are rarely One to One (bijective). This tends to mislead many people who are used to bijective mappings in their daily life ( airline or b us schedules , a student’s grades, the very process of counting items, etc.): they often find a chance correspondence ( “ ‘Anu’ looks like ‘Ainur’! ” ) and believe that this discovery is the key to understanding what Tolkien wrote. The truth is closer to this quote by French writer Jean Cocteau , one of Tolkien’s cotemporaries : “I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.” Sometimes, mytho-historical thinking allows one to discover new information related to the Legendarium, like my discovery that stellar configurations mentioned in the Lost Tales match actual plotted archeoastronomical data in c . 32,000 and c . 58,000 BCE. There is good evidence that Tolkien himself thought in this manner: [ link ]. It is related to shamanism, but it is not identical with it. [ link ] (One can think mytho-historically without demonstrating shamanic talent, for example.) For me , thinking mytho-historically is a natural mode, but I have been told by others I trust that it isn’t too usual (as one can probably deduce from the plethora of ‘channelings’ of Ra , Seth , John , etc.). Most people either keep the Imaginal and Factual separate, or blend them in a disordered fashion , as those channeled examples demonstrate. I’ve only come across one description that is a fairly close match to my own experience , on the Native site PowWows.com : No Division Between the Spiritual and Real World Before delving into more specific information about what American Indians believed, it makes sense to explain that the concept of religion as an organized thing is not really a part of most traditions. Religion describes a division between the {natural and} supernatural, which is ruled by one or multiple deities. Native American spirituality does not separate the two concepts in any real way. The spiritual or supernatural world is the same thing as the real world. Every supposed division is completely permeable and people can access everything spiritual just as easily as they can wade in a river or feel the sun on their skin. – From ‘ Native American Religion and Spirituality – Common Threads, Unique Beliefs, and Too Many Misconceptions ’ Even someone with a limited knowledge of Native culture can recognize that when living in this way, they retained full powers of discernment – or they would not have been such excellent trackers and natural-world observers. To conclude this chapter, I cannot explain to you precisely what thinking mytho-historically “feels like”, but I can show you a dramatization of significant aspects of it. If you watch the following episode from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in its entirety, you should have a good idea of what is meant by that term by the end of it. Or, at any rate, I have tried my best. { ST:TNG S05E02 ‘Darmok’ } Why Amazon's Series is not Useful as a Guide to Tolkien's Works Simply put: because it has almost nothing to do with Tolkien’s works 12 , but very much to do with the showrunners ’ and Amazon’s sociological agenda. 13 , 14 It really is that simple. None of Amazon’s episodes can be used to gain any insight into Tolkien’s worldview or insights regarding the Legendarium in any way whatsoever. As the Cylons o f Battlestar Galactica used to say, “End of Line.” 15 Some Final Words Insofar as I can determine , Amazon wanted a more ‘diverse’ cast, since pale skinned humans are now passé in Hollywood. For a writer with skill, this can actually be done while remaining completely within the bounds specified in the Legendarium. My friend Luthien (the webmaster of Ilsaluntë Valion and the T-e forum) is the friend of such an author named Ruth Lacon Ruth wrote a short story of what happened immediately after the main battles on the Pelennor Fields called Pelennor Afterwards She has given me permission to share the PDF with viewers of this video here: https://pdfhost.io/v/0HPli5gC~_Pelennor_Afterwards Of this story, Ruth says: {This story } is, by the way, structured to work only from the material Amazon had rights to use, to keep it inside the bounds they were stuck with. It could be considerably elaborated outside that, but that's hardly fair. Nor did I dig into some of the wider problems re depiction of different cultures. If you keep it to the storyline Tolkien sets, as I suggest in the attached piece, that reduces the problem... but doesn't eliminate it. Dwarves need a really good look by somebody who thinks outside the box set up by Peter Jackson, so do early Hobbits (why in the name of wee green apples the cod- Irish accents??!!), and as for the ancestors of the Dunlendings (who were after all as JRRT himself points out, close relatives of the Second House of the Edain, and written off by the Numenoreans only because their language didn't contribute to Adunaic)... well, once upon a time I was thinking prehistoric Europe, but some of the less well-known and more interesting cultures. If you want 'diversity'' in one sense, it's right there in the archaeology - physically female people buried with weapons and physically male people in 'feminine' dress with tons of jewelry, and all. And the artwork can be right outside the cliched 'Celtic' (Late Pre-Roman Iron Age at best, Post-Roman 'Dark Age' at worst) mould - there's lots of fun stuff around. It takes research (as Dave already noted, I do my research as well as writing a good story) but there is a great deal of unfamiliar, interesting and even exciting material around. Since I can't resist throwing a few ideas in - Eregion is just inland of the marshes around Tharbad, which we know from JRRT's own remarks are vastly more extensive than those shown on the LotR map. And just to seaward of them is the major port we know the Numenoreans had, Long Daer on the Greyflood estuary. So... Why not have marsh-Dunlendings, living in round houses in stilt-villages, using coracles and dramatic war-canoes with high decorated stem and stern pieces, and making gorgeous woodwork - whilst controlling the trade between Moria and Numenor? Both of us {Ruth and her husband Alex} are also writers of fiction, both stories set in Middle- earth and creations of our own. We have always striven to be 'true to Middle-earth' to the very highest standards. That, as you can imagine, has made it all the harder to see the wreck that Amazon managed to make of 'The Rings of Power'. It could have been infinitely better. I have written a piece on exactly this for Beyond Bree, the American Tolkien group connected to Mensa. [...] As it was intended to make sense to an audience outside our usual range, it was necessarily couched in language far different to my usual choice. Nonetheless I hope you will understand what I was trying to do - put simply, tell them to trust Tolkien! 16 If you read her story, you will notice some names which are seemingly invented, such as ‘Hanigalbati’. In this and some other cases, however, they come from published archeological articles, just usually not published in English. For this word, a Google search brings us to this page: https://www.janaorlova.cz/en/maqlu-burning-4th-part upon which we find this Czech text: Obyvatelky Kútu, obyvatelky Elamu, dcery Hanigalbatianů. Šest jich na souši váže uzly. Šest je jejich uzlů, sedmý je mé vysvobození. Co v noci svážou, rozvážu během dne. Which, when translated into English, gives us: The inhabitants of Kut, the inhabitants of Elam, daughters of the Hanigalbatians. Six of them are tying knots on land. Six are their knots, the seventh is my deliverance. What they tie at night I will deliver during the day. It is this level of detail and skill one must aim for to produce any true ‘adaptation’ of Tolkien’s works. To do less is simply to produce another inferior conversion, as Amazon has recently done. A mateurs like Amazon often selectively quote Letter #131 to Milton Waldman , citing “ I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. ” Yet they almost always omit the final negation: “Absurd...” Why ‘absurd’? A good look at Amazon’s Rings of Power will answer that. Or as my Tyger-spirit Richard Parker likes to say, “No talent ain’t no excuse, yo.” 1 ‘Rings of Power RANT - The SACRILEGE of the Mithril Retcon’ [YT link] 2 ‘Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past’ [link] 3 Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien , Letter #210 4 ‘Why I Don't Watch Movies Based on Books I Care About’ [link] 5 ‘The Struggle of Reading with Aphantasia’ [link] 6 ‘The History Of Galadriel And Celeborn’, Unfinished Tales 7 ‘Do Tolkien’s Elves Have Pointy Ears? No.’ [link] ‘Why Do Elves Have Pointed Ears?’ – “It's generally assumed in Western culture today that elves, and more widely many types of fairies, have pointed ears and the image has become so ingrained in popular culture as to be a trope. Yet why do we picture elves and fairies with pointed ears, when most descriptions from European folklore emphasize how human-like these beings appear?” [link] {Blog entry of Folklorist Morgan Daimler} 8 ‘History vs Mythology – It’s Not Fact vs Fiction’ [link] 9 ‘The Effect of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Mythopoeia – A Pilgrim in Narnia’ [link] 10 ‘J.R.R. Tolkien: Truth and Myth’ [link] 11 For an excellent supplement to these concepts, see ‘The Third Road: Faërie in Hypermodernity’ by Patrick Curry [link]. Author’s site: [link] 12 Everything WRONG with The Rings of Power - PART 1 [YT link] Everything WRONG with The Rings of Power - PART 2 [YT link] Everything WRONG with The Rings of Power - PART 3 [YT link] Everything WRONG with The Rings of Power - PART 4 [YT link] Everything WRONG with The Rings of Power - PART 5 [YT link] Everything WRONG with The Rings of Power - PART 6 [YT link] Everything WRONG with The Rings of Power - PART 7 [YT link] Everything WRONG with The Rings of Power - PART 8 [YT link] 13 ‘Rings of Power: The Making of a DISASTER’ [YT link] 14 ‘How Rings of Power Exposed Amazon's Evils’ [YT link] 15 'End of Line', Battlestar Wiki entry [link] 16 Ruth Lacon in private emails; Dec 6-8, 2022. References: