Amazon’s ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Series Will Be Set In The “Second Age”
It has been a while since we’ve hear anything about Amazon’s upcoming ‘Lord Of The Rings’ tv series, but today the official @LOTRonPrime Twitter account released a little bit more information about the setting for the epic drama.
Rumours had been flying around about it maybe being a “Young Aragorn” series, but that is not the case, as the show will be set in Tolkien’s Second Age of Middle-Earth. For those of you not sure exactly what that means, let us try and explain.
It’s in the past… way WAY in the past. Long before the Third Age, when the Fellowship took a long walk to Mordor, and long before Bilbo met a dragon. We have seen a little of the Second Age on screen already in the opening moments of the film trilogy. If you remember, there was a huge battle scene between the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and Sauron, which leads to him physical form being defeated and heading to Mordor to lick his wounds… and become a giant eye on a tower. That battle marks the end of The Second Age, but the entire period spans 3441 years, so there is plenty else going on for the series to delve into!
The Second Age is in a time when the dwarves are flourishing in Khazad-dûm (later known as Moria) beneath the Misty Mountains. Elrond (he is very old!) founded Rivendell during this period. It is also during this time that the rings of power are created by the elves and The One Ring is created by Sauron.
You may notice on the map above the island of Númenor, which was the kingdom of men. It’s not something you usually find on a Middle-Earth map, due to it being sunk by “The Valar” (basically the Gods of Middle-Earth) after the Númenóreans disobeyed them when the king was corrupted by Sauron – yep, that guy again… It is also the place from which Aragorn’s bloodline descends, so it’s possible there maybe some great (great, great, times… a lot!) grandparents of Aragorn in the series. The fact it appears on the map does suggest Númenor will play an important role in the show. Númenor actually is destroyed 122 years prior to the battle which ends the Second Age, so it depends exactly where in the thousands of years of timeline Amazon decide to set the series as to whether we see its demise.
Our gut feeling is the period they are most likely to focus on would be around 200yrs in the middle of The Second Age. From 1,500 to 1,700 covers the forging of the rings of power, the founding of Rivendell, and the War of the Elves and Sauron. That would seem to have enough key elements familiar with fans, and make for a pretty spectacular tv series. We will have to wait and see though.
There is no casting or air date info for the ‘Lord Of The Rings’ tv series yet, but you can be sure we will post more when we get it.
