‘The Rings Of Power’ Showrunner J.D. Payne On Warrior Galadriel, Building On Female Friendships From Tolkien’s Work

‘The Rings Of Power’ Showrunner J.D. Payne On Warrior Galadriel, Building On Female Friendships From Tolkien’s Work

If you’re a high fantasy fan, there’s without a doubt one series to rule them all, and that is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings. No, this is not open for discussion. You’re talking to a nerd who has been obsessed with Tolkien’s Middle-earth for a decade and a half. I’ve read the books. I’ve watched the Peter Jackson trilogy, perhaps one of the most perfect book-to-screen adaptations ever. And I’ve gone on and read some more books (The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The Fall Of Gondolin) with heavy appendices, meticulous maps, and lineage charts that might just drive you bonkers (Come on, really, who is Gil-galad’s father?) because Tolkien often wrote multiple histories for his characters and versions for some key incidents in the history of Arda. So imagine my utter joy at the announcement of Prime Video’s The Rings Of Power. And the unbridled, almost Pippin Took-like curiosity to pick the brains of showrunner J.D. Payne, who accompanied some of the series’ cast to Mumbai for a special India red carpet premiere.

 

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If you’ve seen the glimpses of The Rings Of Power that have come our way through trailers and promotional material, it’s hard not to notice how a record number of female characters are at the forefront of this story. I say record number, and I mean in the Tolkien on-screen universe. You see, while the LOTR film trilogy does give us some fierce women like Éowyn Shieldmaiden of Rohan and Arwen Undomiel, and of course, a photonegative-going Galadriel, we don’t actually get to see these women interact with each other, like ever. It’s almost as if these movies would fail the Bechdel Test, or might just pass it on a technicality.

That’s not to say that Tolkien’s original works don’t have rich female characters. Woven within his rich chronicles of the history of Middle-earth, from the First Age to the Fourth Age, there are some fascinating women that deserve to be talked about—Melian the Maian, Elwing, the wife of Eärendil the Mariner and mother to Elrond and his brother Elros, and Lúthien Tinúviel elf-maiden of Doriath, daughter of Melian the Maian and Telerian Elf King Thingol, and the first elven woman to have fallen in love and married a mortal man, Beren Erchamion, with whom she successfully pulled off a Silmaril heist.

In The Rings Of Power, then, watching Galadriel, Tar-Míriel, Disa, Bronwyn, Nori Brandyfoot and others at the forefront of all the action, as well as having conversations with one another and actual friendships and alliances, has gotten me rather excited for the series. The series builds on Tolkien’s notes and unfinished tales on the Second Age of Middle-earth, which left lots of gaps in the lore that could be filled with interpretations and characterisations, and it looks like the showrunners and writers have done exactly that.

When asked about whether having these female characters so prominently in the thick of action was a conscious decision, showrunner J.D. Payne said,

“Our watchword was always just “Go back to the books!” There are some awesome characters in the books and we found opportunities to go deeper into some of their stories. For example, Galadriel, her very name sort of loosely translates to ‘Elf Maiden with a crown of golden hair upon her head’. You see, when she would spar with other elves, she would put her hair up in braids like a crown on her head. So the idea of Galadriel as a warrior is just embedded into the very DNA of Middle-earth. So we said, ‘Okay, well what if we meet Galadriel before she was this wise matronly Lady of Lothlórien, and when she was a warrior on a battlefield?’”

If you ask me, I am super pumped for a Warrior Galadriel, and so are a lot of fans. Of course, there are always those who disagree with this version of the character that Cate Blanchett immortalised. In fact, even the younger version of Elrond, played by Robert Aramayo in The Rings Of Power is a different person compared to what he eventually becomes when we meet Hugo Weaving’s version in the movies. And that’s okay because people change, and so do immortal elves. How a warrior Galadriel becomes the calm and powerful Galadriel of Lorien we eventually meet, and how Elrond loses his faith in Men and becomes somewhat of the pessimist we see in LOTR, that’s going to be an interesting journey for fans to go on with their favourite characters.

 

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Speaking of journeys, we’re also meeting the ancestors of the hobbits of the Shire. The Harfoots aren’t yet all about cosy hobbit holes; they are nomadic, but still a jolly folk that will instantly make you care for them. It’s on one of their journeys that they meet The Stranger, a mysterious character that everyone has theories about that could be either Gandalf or the Blue Wizard.

J.D. Payne also talked about the friendship between the female characters, which were built on Tolkien’s writings. In the trailer, we see Galadriel and Míriel talking over a palantír. Another friendship is the one between Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards).

'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power'

“In terms of some of the female friendships, those grew very organically out of the stories of Middle-earth. J.R.R. Tolkien has this wonderfully tantalizing bit in ‘Concerning Hobbits’ where he talks about the Wandering Days and these three branches of Harfoots, Fallohides, and Stoors, and the Harfoots sounded interesting. It speaks of them being beardless, bootless, and of slightly darker skin than the other branches of hobbits.  And we thought, ‘That sounds interesting! What kind of people would live in that sort of world?’ And then we said, ‘Well, what if there were these two young women who develop this organic friendship between them, which is what became of the actors Markella Kavenagh and Megan Richards. And it brings a lot into the show! We were just excited to have all kinds of different relationships and people and stories in the show.”

Also Read: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Final Trailer: Galadriel, Míriel, And Disa Rally

I couldn’t end the conversation without asking Payne if we were going to see more Dwarf women and possibly even Entwives on the show. And guess what, he said we already have! Time to go back to the snippets and trailers and pour through the lore to see what little details we might’ve missed!

The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power will premiere with its first two episodes on September 2, 2022, followed by new episodes every week.

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Jinal Bhatt

A Barbie girl with Oppenheimer humour. Sharp-tongue feminist and pop culture nerd with opinions on movies, shows, books, patriarchy, your boyfriend, everything.

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