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).

This is what makes Tolkien’s world so rich. There is a hierarchy—but not one of domination. It is a spiritual hierarchy: body, mind, feeling, soul… and soul in service to the divine. When this order is reversed—when the satisfying “lower” ambitions or appetites dominate the soul—evil enters. The ring is a symbol of that disorder – a re-engineering of order for the uses of evil. And the story is a path back to right alignment in the face of that evil.

Modern reinterpretations like The Rings of Power collapse that depth into superficial spectacle. They confuse representation with resonance. They replace archetype with trope. And in doing so, they betray the original purpose of myth itself: to initiate the soul into deeper alignment with truth.

More than this, they flatten archetypes in the name of progress. Characters who should represent humility, wisdom, stewardship, and spiritual depth are replaced by those who pursue validation, vengeance, and external power. In Galadriel’s case, the archetype of the wise and restrained feminine is replaced by a hyper-masculinised, combative hero. There’s a reason this grates. It breaks the internal logic of Tolkien’s world, and it disorients those who come to the story seeking guidance or inner nourishment.

Galadriel and the Feminine Archetype

Galadriel in Tolkien’s own writing is one of the most profound feminine archetypes in all modern literature. She is ancient, powerful, and wise. She wields great power, but only because she refuses to use it for domination. She carries the weight of her past rebellion, and she chooses instead to heal and guide.

The Rings of Power offers us a version of Galadriel who is brash, violent, and emotionally reactive. She has little of the mystique, grace, or inner serenity that made her so archetypally rich in Tolkien’s work. This is not merely a creative reinterpretation. It is a philosophical one—a replacement of the feminine with the female. Feminine energy, in Tolkien’s world (and in reality), is patient, intuitive, nurturing, deeply spiritual. But the modern imagination often replaces these with force, assertiveness, and firepower—traits that, while admirable in context, belong to the masculine archetype.

This is not a question of whether women can be warriors. Tolkien had Éowyn, a character who embodies honour, duty, and righteous defiance. But even Éowyn is offered a path of healing and peace. The story honours her wounds and her strength. In The Rings of Power, the feminine is stripped of nuance and reduced to a politicised caricature. It is not pro-female. It is iconoclasm.

The Desecration of Myth

Myths endure because they carry something sacred. They are not simply tales to entertain—they are vessels of cultural memory, spiritual insight, and soul alignment. Tolkien understood this. He constructed his world not just with incredible detail, but with theological and philosophical intentionality. His work was informed by Catholic theology, Norse mythology, English folklore, and philology. Every character, every storyline, every linguistic root was crafted with reverence for meaning.

The Rings of Power does not build upon this legacy. It plunders it for parts. It borrows the aesthetics but discards the soul. It trades in spiritual integrity for spectacle. In this sense, it is not just a poor adaptation—it is a desecration. To profit from (and in so doing, promote) the tiresome and unwise cultural norms of our times.

Many viewers and critics have noted this. Erik Kain of Forbes observed that the series “misses the heart and soul” of Tolkien’s work, replacing spiritual conflict with political intrigue and identity drama. Others, like The Guardian, described it as “a spectacular failure of imagination,” noting its superficial character development and soulless tone.

The real tragedy is not just artistic—it is cultural. When the sacredness of myth is no longer understood, we begin to rewrite our spiritual maps to reflect our current confusions rather than eternal truths.

The Cost of Cultural Amnesia

The deeper problem isn’t just with the show. It’s with the cultural mindset that thinks such a rewriting is not only permissible, but progressive. We have lost sight of why stories matter. They are not just entertainment—they are vehicles of wisdom. When we reframe them according to ideological fashion, we do violence to the very truths they were meant to carry.

Tolkien did not write for modern approval. He wrote with reverence—for language, for God, for the mystery of good and evil. To take that and repackage it as spectacle, stripped of its spiritual backbone, is not homage. It is desecration.

We need to protect the sacred in our stories. Not because we’re sentimental—but because we’re human. And humans need truth, not just content; meaning, not just messaging.

The great works were never just fiction. They were maps. And we are fools to redraw the territory without understanding what the original map was for.

References:

  1. Kain, E. (2024). “The Real Reason Tolkien Fans Can’t Stand ‘The Rings Of Power’.” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2024/09/14/the-real-reason-tolkien-fans-cant-stand-the-rings-of-power/

  2. “Themes of The Lord of the Rings.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_of_The_Lord_of_the_Rings

  3. “Tolkien’s Middle-earth Writings.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_Tolkien%27s_Middle-earth_writings

  4. “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings%3A_The_Rings_of_Power

  5. Bradshaw, P. (2024). “Hell on Middle-earth? The Rings of Power fails to spin streaming gold.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/sep/15/rings-of-power-streaming-disaster

  6. Romano, A. (2024). “Rings of Power is introducing moral grayness to a series that doesn’t need it.” Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/lotr-rings-of-power/446640/rings-power-trop-morality-lord-rings

  7. Peterson, D. (2024). “Tolkien, Myth, and the Modern Imagination.” The Rabbit Room. https://www.rabbitroom.com/post/the-works-of-j-r-r-tolkien