I first encountered The Lord of the Rings during the loneliest year of my childhood. My family had moved, my friends had been left behind, and I was lonely. The one friend I did make that year was an avid fan of the books and pleaded with me to read them. I did so and quickly got swept up into a world that transported me far beyond my problems. That was the first, though certainly not the last, time I read my way through the series. And though I’m not one of those super-fans who knows every fact of this fictional world (or, like an uncle of mine, who has gone to the trouble of learning Elvish), I do appreciate the books and the films that were generally faithful to them. And it’s probably for that reason that I have been dreading the long-awaited series. I have been dreading it because, as much as I love what Tolkien created, I have long feared that this series would make a mockery of it. This is, after all, 2022. And the series is made, after all, by Amazon. That’s not an encouraging combination. Before I settled in to watch episode one of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, I tried to corral my skeptical thoughts and consider this: What could make the series utterly fail in my mind? I already know it’s not truly Tolkien’s story, but rather bits and pieces of material that exists peripherally to The Lord of the Rings (i.e. the … Continue reading On What Basis Could The Rings of Power Completely Fail?