Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne have had to thread a difficult needle, satisfying Tolkien die-hards and average viewers. The finale gave everyone plenty to mull.
The showrunners Patrick McKay, left, and J.D. Payne during the production of Season 1 of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”Credit...Ben Rothstein/Amazon Prime Video
By Jennifer Vineyard
Oct. 14, 2022
This interview includes spoilers for the Season 1 finale of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”
The Amazon prequel series “The Rings of Power” has always had to serve two masters: the most obsessive fans, whose intimate knowledge of the J.R.R. Tolkien Legendarium has empowered them to call out any perceived transgressions, and the general audience, whose knowledge may run only as deep as the Peter Jackson films. Geeks alone won’t pay off the first season’s reported
$715 million invoice.
Winning over those average viewers wasn’t easy, though, said Patrick McKay, one of series’s two showrunners, in a group phone call on Wednesday. “It seems such a heavy lift to go, ‘No, you’ll understand; you don’t have to speak Elvish.’”
This week’s season finale neatly underscored the challenge: When Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), one of the apparent central heroes of the series thus far, was revealed to be the supervillain Sauron, it put to rest what, for many fans, had been a
season-long guessing game. But how to make those big moments land on multiple levels, when much of the audience may not even have realized they were
supposed to be guessing?
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“It’s a question we’re still searching for the answer to,” said the series’s other showrunner, J.D. Payne, who was also on the phone call. “It’s something we’ve talked about a lot throughout the process.”
The solution has been to attempt to tell a story that allows both levels of fandom to meet in the middle, with clear emotional dynamics for everyone and extra lore for the hungry book readers. For example, the writers originally planned to have Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) pursue rumors about a possible successor to Morgoth, whose existence and identity was still unknown. But then McKay and Payne realized they could make Galadriel’s mission much more specific — and more emotional.
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They worked backward to develop her personal stakes, tying Sauron to the death of her brother, Finrod.
Explore the World of the ‘Lord of the Rings’
The literary universe built by J.R.R. Tolkien, now adapted into a new series for Amazon Prime Video, has inspired generations of readers and viewers.
“Even if you know nothing about Tolkien’s Legendarium, you can tell, ‘OK, this guy Sauron is bad news,’” Payne said. “And if you do know, you’ll be like, ‘Oh, Finrod was killed by werewolves that were controlled by Sauron.’”
Taking a break from production for Season 2 outside London, McKay and Payne discussed several revelations from the finale, including the big news about Sauron. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
As you know, there are multiple Saurons: Sauron who seeks redemption; Sauron the deceiver; Annatar, the lord of gifts. Which Sauron is this?
PATRICK McKAY Those are all ideas we talked about, the idea that he went through a period where he wanted redemption, the idea that he is a deceiver, in disguise, and an opportunist. Sauron might say to Galadriel: “Look, I was ready to walk away. You pulled me into this.” But if you look at the chain of events, he’s been greasing the wheels. He’s been encouraging her.
You could make a really good case that he was at a low point on that raft, and then the magic golden ticket showed up. He was playing hard to get. How many times does he say, “When are you going to get that army?” There’s a really good case to make where he was manipulating and deceiving her every step of the way.
To what extent is he an improviser, an opportunist, a master planner? The missing piece of this guy you’ve gotten to know as Halbrand, who has all of these qualities about him, is that he has another name, and it’s Sauron. And now everything you’ve learned about him means something a little different.
J.D. PAYNE A way we commonly talked about Sauron is that he’s a power addict. There’s a couple of ways we toy with his desire to go on the wagon, so to speak, to renounce power and seek healing. You can view his actions the way you view an addict’s actions because every step they take, they wonder, “Am I getting closer or further away from a fix?” They can always rationalize it: “Oh, I have control over this. I’m fine. I can go to that grocery store.” And the liquor is on Aisle 20. There’s always the addict in Sauron pushing him toward getting into places of power.
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McKAY From Minute 1 in the writers’ room, we were talking about Milton [and his characterization of Lucifer in “Paradise Lost”], Ahab [in “Moby-Dick”], Fagin [in “Oliver Twist”] and Richard III. Not just pure evil and danger, but the complexity of evil. Sauron is a rich character who continues to have layers.
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Among the revelations of the Season 1 finale was confirmation that the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) is an Istari, or wizard.Credit...Ben Rothstein/Amazon Prime Video
What is the nature of Sauron’s relationship with Adar (Joseph Mawle)? Was Adar’s story another lie?
McKAY: The whole idea of Season 1 being an origin story for Mordor, in a way, was one of the early ideas in the writers’ room that we all felt a lot of gravity pulling toward. There are core thematic ideas in the lore about destruction of the environment and evil rising and falling again. Mount Doom goes fallow and then awakens again. There is a cycle that plays out through the centuries. Dramatizing one of those reawakenings felt in harmony with canon to us and potentially delicious.
PAYNE: Adar co-opts the plan for his own purposes, but it still was, basically, Sauron’s plan. If one person designs the car, and the other person builds it, whose car is it? There are multiple ways to read that.
Sauron unlocks the dam, as they put it, with the mithril. How much manipulation happened behind the scenes?
McKAY: That’s an honest breakthrough. Celebrimbor [Charles Edwards] has an idea about creating things that are so beautiful, they could heal the world. On the other side of the map, Sauron is trying to build a power of the unseen world. It’s peanut butter and jelly.
Sauron is powerful, but he is not so powerful that he can engineer everything. We talked a lot about the idea of Steve Jobs over here, Bill Gates over there, and it’s not until the two come together with the right technology that this new power can be harnessed. Sauron needs Celebrimbor as much as Celebrimbor needs the right metal and Sauron’s inspiration for it to all come together.
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Let’s talk about how mithril is supposed to cure the sudden fading of the elves, which has been a somewhat controversial addition.
McKAY: There’s this poetic idea in Tolkien about the fading of the elves, that elven immortality has a time limit. It felt important to us to turn up the heat on the frog in the pot, because part of what the rings do is halt this fading. So some of how we came to the mithril and a legend about how it might well actually have magic in it was all a way to wrestle with the canonical problem of elven fading, and how the rings stop it.
PAYNE: In terms of the time scale, the elves in the Third Age are getting ready to leave Middle-earth because whatever happens with the One Ring, their fate is sealed. Their rings become ineffective, or everybody is screwed. So what was the fading like right before the rings hit pause? They could have been in a desperate place.
How did you handle instances where you might be contradicting the lore?
McKAY: One of the places where we’re taking a real liberty is the time compression. What was important to the Tolkien estate was the principle of the narrative flow and the sequence of events, not the dates. The rings are made here, there’s a war between Sauron and the elves after that, a later Sauron is taken to Númenor, Númenor falls, Gondor is established, and you end up with the Battle of the Last Alliance. Does it matter if a hundred or 500 years passed between those events? No.
The finale reveals that the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) is an Istari, or wizard. Can you confirm which one? Some might think Gandalf, given his comment to “always follow your nose.”
McKAY: Nothing to confirm! One of the earliest ideas we had about the precursor to hobbits was that a being of incredible power lands in their backyard. It was less about who, and more about how this being disrupts this girl’s life. That’s an archetypal, universal and relatable story. He’s on his own journey of self-discovery. He has not yet discovered any name. He doesn’t know, and neither does Nori [Markella Kavenagh]. That’s going to be part of their story moving forward, if and when he does learn his name, or a name.
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Tell me, where is Celeborn, for I much desire to speak with him.
PAYNE: [Laughs.] Galadriel does not say he is dead. She says, “I never saw him again.”
McKAY: Hopefully the delight is that more beloved canonical characters will join the party.
Círdan will be part of Season 2.
PAYNE: There are many places Celeborn could be, and many different ways in which he could or could not come back into Galadriel’s life. Middle-earth is wide, and elves are immortal.
Which one of you is Sauron?
McKAY [Laughs.] I am.
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