Exclusive | The Rings of Power co-creator JD Payne reveals why Prime Video series is darker than The Lord of the Rings movies: ‘In the third age, they were worried…’

Payne says, “The second age (which is the setting for TROP) is, in some ways, a darker time than the third age (the period in which LOTR was set). In the third age, you have darkness rising in Sauron, but in the second age, you have an embodied Sauron. In the third age, they were worried Sauron is going to do what he did in the second age. They say he could cover the world in a second darkness, and in the second age, you watch him cover the world in darkness. In TROP, we are witnessing that happen and it’s difficult and hard.”

JD Payne explains that one can engage with the writer’s works in a variety of ways, allowing for diverse interpretations. When asked what he finds most intriguing about Tolkien’s literature, he tells us, “It is literature that reads like history, mythology and even religion at certain points. You read some of the early works and it feels like the elves’ sacred text. To be able to create that as a single author — something that bears that sort of feeling of truth and spirituality — is really mind-boggling.”

Watch JD Payne, Markella Kavenagh and Megan Richards interview for The Rings of Power Season 2 here:

“He then approached his fiction writing with the rigour of an etymologist and a linguist—as someone who loves language. He developed Quenya as an Elvish language and then slowly evolved it using the rules of morphology and syntax into Sindarin. Tolkien would often say he didn’t feel like he was creating Middle-earth, but discovering it—excavating something that already existed before him. When you read his works, it feels that way. You feel like you are reading something from another dimension, planet, or time that actually happened somewhere and that this is a true record. To have been able to accomplish that as an author is a tremendous feat,” he adds.

Patrick McKay chimes in, “Each of these societies and heroes that we set up in Season 1 reveals serious cracks in the foundations that Sauron can exploit. What the audience will start to realise as the season goes on is this is not a story about several different worlds but a story about one world – and Sauron is the spine that connects all of it. We’re going to watch as he uses deception, manipulation, lies, coercion and cunning to set the chess pieces in motion. This season is about reaching a deeper understanding of his modus operandi – and seeing it in action.”

ICYMI | The Rings of Power Season 2 first impression: Amazon Prime Video’s show takes a darker turn, but is that all it has to offer?

“There is good and evil in Tolkien. But what side you are fighting for is something that everyone has to struggle with. Evil is not something in some far-off place. One of the central themes is the evil that dwells inside us all,” he adds.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 debuted on August 29 and Prime Video has released six of the eight episodes so far, with the final two set to be available in the next two weeks. The season finale is scheduled to air on October 3.