Tolkien’s Vision vs Rings of Power: A Storytelling Betrayal

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Some works of art are so powerful, so archetypally rich, that they resonate across generations. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is one of those. It is not merely a fantasy epic—it is a spiritual work, rooted in a profound understanding of the human condition, the nature of good and evil, and the sacrificial path toward the light. When modern storytellers inherit such a legacy, they carry a responsibility: to steward, not rewrite; to serve the source, not subvert it.

Amazon’s The Rings of Power fails that responsibility. It does not extend Tolkien’s world—it fractures it. And in doing so, it misunderstands not just the details, but the essence of what Tolkien carried forward for us.

Will, Sacrifice, and the Rightful Order

Tolkien’s legendarium revolves around the struggle between domination and surrender—not surrender to weakness, passivity or other people, but to a higher good. The One Ring represents a perversion of will—the desire to dominate rather than to serve. It’s not will itself that is dangerous. In fact, characters like Frodo and Bilbo must summon great willpower to make soul-aligned choices: to carry the burden, to let go of power, to serve the good at great personal cost.

This is the correct order: body, mind, and emotions submitted to the soul; the soul in service to God.

What made Tolkien’s stories powerful was that they honoured this spiritual architecture. Every act of heroism was rooted in humility. Aragorn did not seize his crown immediately; he was reluctant to rule due to the responsibility he knew that entailed. Frodo did not boast his unique capacity to carry the ring to Mordor; he suffered the reality of that capacity. Even the greatest among them, like Gandalf or Galadriel, were most noble when they refused the power to influence others. Galadriel’s famous line in The Fellowship of the Ring—”I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel”—is a line of deep spiritual import. It is the triumph of submission to divine order over self-assertion.

Contrast this with The Rings of Power. Characters are driven by vengeance, ambition, trauma, or pride. The will is no longer the means to serve the good; it’s the engine of self-assertion. Galadriel is transformed from a figure of wisdom and restraint into a warrior-leader consumed by anger. It’s not that female characters shouldn’t be strong. It’s that this kind of strength misses the point – the archetypal truth – entirely.

A Misuse of Archetype

Tolkien’s characters are deeply archetypal—not just in their roles, but in how they relate to the spiritual order. Gandalf is not a “powerful wizard” in the way Dr. Strange is portrayed. He is a steward, a servant. His power flows from restraint, not assertion. Even the hobbits (granted, the more exceptional ones), the most “powerless” in the world, become heroes precisely because they are aligned with what is right and true—not because they conquer, but because they resist corruption (and there is more to their story, to do with their realtionship with the Earth, that I will speak about another time).

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— David

Building the New Culture