I didn’t make it past the first twenty minutes of Rings of Power. I’ve since watched a pile of clips and read enough commentary to confirm what those twenty minutes told me: the writers don’t understand Tolkien’s characters, and the result is a show that looks like Middle-earth but doesn’t feel like it. The biggest writing choice involves Galadriel.
What went wrong with Galadriel in Rings of Power?
In Tolkien’s legendarium, Galadriel is among the most powerful beings in Middle-earth. She’s been alive since before the sun existed. She refused Fëanor, survived the Helcaraxë crossing, ruled Lothlórien for thousands of years, and wielded Nenya, one of the three Elven Rings. When Frodo offers her the One Ring, her refusal is among the most important moments in The Lord of the Rings because the temptation is real. She has the power to use it. She chooses not to.
Sam’s decision to charge a cave troll with a frying pan tells you everything about his character in three seconds.Share on X
That’s what makes Galadriel formidable. Not sword fighting. Her power is wisdom, restraint, foresight, and the hard-won understanding that unchecked power destroys everything it touches. She learned that lesson across thousands of years of watching it happen.
Rings of Power turns her into an action hero who single-handedly kills an ice troll in the first episode. The writers apparently thought “strong female character” means “woman who fights things.” It doesn’t. Galadriel was already one of the strongest characters Tolkien ever created. If the writers had read the books, they could have made an excellent high-powered female character without reducing her to someone who swings a sword better than everyone else in the room.
The problem isn’t that she fights. Elves are capable warriors. The problem is that her fighting eclipses everything else about her character, and in doing so, it makes her less interesting, less complex, and less powerful than the Galadriel Tolkien wrote.
Watch: Rings of Power RECAP: Season 1, Man of Recaps
Why is the troll fight in Rings of Power bad writing?
Compare two troll fights. In Fellowship of the Ring, the cave troll sequence in the Mines of Moria is a model of ensemble action. Every member of the Fellowship contributes based on who they are. Aragorn and Boromir fight with swords because they’re trained warriors. Legolas uses his bow because he’s an archer. Gimli fights with axes because he’s a dwarf. The hobbits are terrified but brave, throwing rocks and stabbing when they can. When the troll spears Frodo, his companions rally around him.
The scene works because every character matters and no single person dominates the fight.
The emotional architecture of the scene matters as much as the choreography. The audience is watching nine people who have committed to each other being tested. Boromir’s protective instinct toward the hobbits foreshadows his later sacrifice. Sam’s decision to charge a cave troll with a frying pan tells you everything about his character in three seconds. The troll fight works as action, but it also works as character development, and that’s what separates good writing from spectacle.
In Rings of Power, Galadriel solos the troll.
The other characters become spectators to her invincibility. This is worse than a missed opportunity for ensemble storytelling. It breaks the power balance that Tolkien carefully maintained across his entire mythology. In Tolkien’s world, trolls are dangerous. They’re not minibosses a single elf dispatches to show off. When a troll goes down easily, it cheapens every other threat in the story. If Galadriel can handle a troll alone without breaking a sweat, what’s supposed to feel dangerous to her?
Peter Jackson understood this. His Fellowship troll fight is tense because the outcome is uncertain. The troll is stronger than any individual member of the group. Victory requires coordination, sacrifice, and luck. That’s what makes the scene work. Rings of Power replaces that tension with spectacle, and spectacle without tension is just expensive noise.
A Billion Dollars and Nothing to Show for It
Amazon reportedly committed close to a billion dollars to Rings of Power across five planned seasons, rights included, and the first season alone reportedly cost about $465 million.
You’d never know it from the CGI. It’s among the worst I’ve seen in a major production. Scenes that should feel epic look artificial. Environments that should immerse you pull you out instead. The troll in the first episode looks less convincing than Jackson’s cave troll from 2001. That was made with a fraction of the budget and two decades less technology.
This matters because Middle-earth depends on immersion. Tolkien spent decades making his world feel lived-in and real. Jackson’s films honored that by blending practical effects, real New Zealand landscapes, and CGI that served the story instead of replaced it. The Shire felt like a place you could walk into. Mordor felt like a place that would kill you. Rings of Power’s environments feel like wallpaper.
Money doesn’t fix bad creative decisions. Jackson’s entire trilogy cost roughly $280 million. Rings of Power’s first season alone cost more than that and produced something less convincing. The issue is taste, judgment, and understanding what makes Tolkien’s world work on screen. You can’t buy that. You have to earn it by understanding the source material, and the people running this show clearly didn’t.
What Went Wrong With Rings of Power?
The troll fight and the Galadriel problem point to the same root cause: the Rings of Power writers confused displays of power with engrossing storytelling.
In Tolkien’s work and in Jackson’s films, power means something because it has limits and consequences.
Gandalf is among the most powerful beings in Middle-earth, but he can’t simply blast his way through every problem. Aragorn is the rightful king, but he spends most of the story doubting whether he should claim the throne. Frodo carries the most dangerous object in the world, and it slowly destroys him. Every character’s power comes with a cost, and that cost makes the story gripping.
What Rings of Power strips away is the cost. Characters overcome obstacles without visible struggle. Galadriel is invincible. The show tells you the stakes are high, but nothing on screen shows it. When characters face no real resistance, there’s nothing for the audience to invest in. You’re watching things happen instead of watching characters fight through things that might break them.
A character who can do everything has no story, because the struggle is the story.
The Sauron storyline should have been the show’s strongest element. In Tolkien’s Second Age, Sauron disguises himself as Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, and deceives the Elven-smiths of Eregion into forging the Rings of Power. This is a story about manipulation, trust, and catastrophic misjudgment. The dramatic tension should come from watching intelligent characters get played by someone smarter. Instead, the show rushes through the deception in ways that make the Elves look incompetent instead of tragic.
There’s a difference between being fooled by a masterful liar and being fooled because the writers need you to be fooled. The audience can tell which one they’re watching.
This is the same mistake the Critical Drinker identifies in modern franchise filmmaking: prioritizing how powerful a character looks over how interesting they are to watch. A character who can do everything has no story, because the struggle is the story. I think the people who approved these scripts forgot that somewhere around the first budget meeting, and the audience spent eight episodes paying for it.
| Element | Tolkien and Jackson | Rings of Power |
|---|---|---|
| Galadriel | Power through wisdom, restraint and foresight | An action hero who kills an ice troll alone |
| Troll fight | Ensemble; every Fellowship member contributes by who they are | Other characters become spectators to her invincibility |
| Threat | Trolls are dangerous and the outcome is uncertain | An easy troll kill cheapens every other threat |
| Cost of power | Every character’s power has limits and consequences | Obstacles fall without visible struggle |
| Sauron as Annatar | Intelligent Elves deceived by someone smarter | Rushed deception that makes the Elves look incompetent |
| World on screen | Practical effects, real landscapes, CGI serving the story | Among the worst CGI in a major production |
My take
Rings of Power lost me in twenty minutes, and nothing I’ve seen since has changed my mind. A Galadriel who can’t lose gives the audience nothing to worry about. The Annatar deception should have been the best part of the show, and it made the Elves look incompetent instead of tragic. Tolkien already wrote the story. Anyone adapting him should start there and let the characters struggle, because the struggle is the story.
The Source Material Was Right There
The frustrating part is that Tolkien’s source material already contained everything the writers needed. The Second Age, which Rings of Power is supposed to cover, includes the forging of the Rings of Power, the rise and fall of Númenor, Sauron’s deception of the Elven-smiths, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. These are enormous, dramatic stories with built-in conflict, betrayal, hubris, and catastrophe.
Galadriel lived through all of it. A faithful portrayal could have shown her managing political alliances, recognizing Sauron’s deception before others did, wielding influence through wisdom and foresight instead of combat. That version of Galadriel would have been more interesting, more faithful to Tolkien, and a powerful female character whose strength comes from intelligence and experience instead of fight choreography.
Instead, the writers made choices that suggest they either didn’t read the source material carefully or didn’t trust it to be strong enough on its own. The second possibility bothers me more. Tolkien handed them one of the richest invented histories in fiction, and they treated it like a rough draft. The result is a show with the surface of Tolkien, the names and the scenery and the pointed ears, and none of the substance that made his work endure.
The problem isn’t diversity or progressive characters. I love the Murderbot series on Apple TV+, and that show is as progressive as science fiction gets. It works because the characters are well written and their identities serve the story. I’ve watched The Expanse six times through, and its cast ranks among the most diverse in science fiction television. It’s diversity done right.
Nobody notices the diversity because the writing is so good that every character feels like a real person with real motivations. That’s the standard. Trying something different with Galadriel was fine by me. What sank Rings of Power is that the different thing it tried was shallow and poorly written. See how to build characters that feel real.
