The Official The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Podcast

Quotes from Episode 8, that has show runners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay as guests. I have made very minor edits of hesitations, ums, you knows, etc.

There are lots of spoilers in this podcast for Season One but also for Season Two - read on only if you are ok with these!










(When did the pair first talk with Amazon about their vision for the show) "The idea for this first season goes back to the very first conversations we ever had with Amazon in January of 2018." (Side note for those following the timeline - the deal between the Estate and Amazon was finalized in November of 2017)

"The first question that we really found in the source material and in the lore that was worth interrogation was why would these different peoples in Middle-earth accept the deception of receiving rings from Sauron in disguise. People don't make devil's bargains because they are stupid... they make them because they are desperate or it will solve some problem."

"That got us into this interrogation about the lore about the elven fading, why are Elves sad and leaving and sort of like perpetually autumn, and then the discovery that the rings wore were in some ways forestalling and preventing that...making them actually immortal instead of mostly immortal, and finding a way to dramatize that"

(speaking about Galadriel and Elrond) "She will eventually become his mother-in-law if you look down the seasons"

(speaking about male-female relationships that are "decidedly not romantic") "There's Nori and the Stranger...Galadriel and Elrond... Elrond and Disa... Hal and Galadriel - we consider an unlikely Tolkienian pairing, we always think of them, at least under the circumstances by which they meet, sort of like a buddy adventure movie... we were sure that some people would be shipping them from the moment when they see them, but we weren't"

(Sauron mystery) "we wanted him to come into the narrative in an unexpected way. If you think about the obvious way - a tall mysterious beautiful demigod named Annatar shows up and says 'let me help you with all your problems by making some rings'... who's going to fall for that?"

"There's this idea in Tolkien of chance meetings, upon which much hinges"

"Is her obsession, which character after character in the show tells her is not a good thing... is [Halbrand] calling her to him? Or is it just pure coincidence that she ran into the worst person she could possibly have run into because now she is the magic golden ticket he needs to get all the way to the top of the glass elevator? We liked the idea that there's an ambiguity there"

"We're really not about the big twist, the big surprise, the big shocker and that was never the goal here. I think we were much more interested in creating characters and relationships and dynamics that were engaging and hopefully emotionally rich and filled with conflict and hopefully delight and warmth. Episode 2, the minute you see this guy, and he says a thing that Galadriel later says to Frodo, go 'I bet that's Sauron'. You know what, you're going to have (hopefully) as great and valid a viewing experience as someone who has no idea until it suddenly happens."

We try to make it so that things are as enjoyable to rewatch as they are to watch. One thing we talk about a lot is Titanic, in that if you know the ship is going to sink... you're going to be watching it with a layer of tragedy over it... If you watch this knowing he is Sauron from the beginning, then you're going to have this feeling of sickening inevitability as you watch it go towards its inevitable conclusion. If the goal is to surprise you, then there's nothing to see in a second viewing."

"Is he sincere or deceptive?... I think the answer is yes, he goes back and forth. Tolkien says 'Nothing is evil in the beginning'. That's the first line of the show, and in the book the next line is 'not even Sauron was so'."

"To know Sauron, really all you need to do is step back and look at the affects the One Ring ultimately will have on characters in the Third Age. What does the One Ring do to anyone who possesses it. It takes your strength and it turns you into the uber version of that, to the point that the strength actually corrupts you and becomes a weakness.... look at Bilbo, who's been holding on to the Ring for decades at this point, he's become this sort of Emperor hobbit, right? What do Hobbits love to do, they love to eat and have parties and dance and sing, and he's now going to do the party to end all parties, I think that's because he has the Ring."

(Talking about the Stranger Sauron misdirect) "We know wizards can be good and bad, and wizards are of the same class as Sauron, they're both Maiars. So the answer is there is no point at which 'he's a wizard, oh great everything's cool' because wizards can be as evil and as dangerous, they can be rivals for Sauron or allies of Sauron, and the Stranger's journey will continue. I think that's still an open question still, although I think by the end of the 8th episode he sure seems a force for good.

(Nori seems to pull him back from being evil because she believes in him) "Oh my gosh I never thought of that but I love that observation"

(Casting the Stranger) "you have to cast someone who is silent almost the entire first season, can't talk, has to express both power and frustration and confusion, and he's lost his memory"

(Casting Nori) "find a powerhouse who can carry the show on her shoulders"

"Gil-galad is a really good king, and actually heroic. He's not so evolved as to be heroic for everyone, but for his people he's sort of doing all the right things in the best ways, the smartest ways, savviest ways he knows how. But I think there are many points in this season where, like Elrond, you are like 'where is he coming from?' and it seems like he's being quite selfish, and that's not an accident. We're thinking about what an audience feels about a character in those moments, and saying 'no no, this is the right thing to be feeling about this person now.' You'll feel differently next week. Galadriel is another one. There are times in which she is unlikable in as much as she's not doing what you would do if you were in her position."

(Magic battle between Mystics and the Stranger) "A rule we have for magic in the world in general is that this is not Harry Potter where there's a spell book of fifty different spells that you could cast at any moment. Magic is very restrained in Tolkien - even the word magic the characters in Middle-earth have a complicated relationship with... When it's used, it's used very sparingly... we wanted magic to have very strong constraints."

(Are we going to see Rhûn?) "Absolutely. Part of the aspiration is to go to new parts of Tolkien's world that have never been on screen before and this was tantalizing and exciting. The first map that was shown online five years ago when the show was announced has Rhûn featured prominently because of this. Because we wanted to go there."

(The Stranger using the staff) "It's a staff that was brought by the Dweller, that he is able to use and we've shown all season long that his magic is a little unpredictable and frightening both to others around him and to him. We've shown him struggle to wield it and understand it, and here is this moment of clarity where he now finally has this lightning rod that his electricity (so to speak) can flow through and he can really channel."

(The Stranger's name) "Obviously not in Season one. But that's part of the exploration in Season two, the mystery of this character and his journey of becoming a wizard continues."

(Shapeshifting Sauron and will we see other actors or more Charlie) "We don't want to say anything about this other than to say that the Ring poem starts with three for the Elves, then it goes to seven for the Dwarves, it goes to nine for Men, and we know Celebrimbor was deceived, we know the Elves were deceived, and I think season two you're going to see a lot of those stories. And a big part of that is, what form might Sauron take that he could now deceive them in, given that his Halbrand identity has been blown, although she has not, at the end of season one, told anyone that."

"There's a lot of canon here. Season one is a place where there's an enormous amount of invention happening between tent poles in the canon. Season two does a lot more canon that we're interested in adapting and bringing to life."

(Dwarves) "Why would characters accept these rings of power? We spent season one talking about why would the Elves get to a point where they wanted to make and needed the three rings of power. We're interested in exploring this very same question about the Dwarves and the world of Men."

(Arondir and Bronwyn) "When last we see them, they are ostensibly migrating to an old Númenórean colony. And meanwhile over in Númenor we've heard Pharazôn say things about wanting to exploit colonies in Middle-earth, so I think perhaps those two stories are on a collision course in some form or other."

"Eärien started off with certain political leanings, but then her brother gets sent off to war, and then they think isn't coming back, that's going to have an impact on her, and then she finds that the whole reason that they went to war was because the Queen was taking orders from an Elf crystal ball. That could have an impact on her as well. She just found the smoking gun that could potentially change the course of the country."

(Five seasons) "There is a long term plan with tentpole moments along the way and a very specific and clear end point, and that goes not just for big narrative plot lore things but also for character arcs. But you want to leave enough wiggle room along the way for discovery and for surprise and for taking advantage of unexpected things that you discover along the way like actors who have great chemistry or an actor who has a great color they can play that you didn't know. How do we weave that in here and take advantage of it. Searching for opportunities to delight, always within a general trajectory that has clear markers along the way."

(Season two) "Deep in the eye of the storm here. We have already started shooting, and it's all the things all the time with this show because you have half a dozen different worlds that you are approving and designing the costumes for and sets for and creatures for and visual effects extensions on worlds. We're also still casting different roles that will be people getting added to the party (so to speak) in season two... At this point we have our eight scripts for season two but we work scripts with a whole team of people to make sure that everyone is really invested in the creative vision for it. All the time we are writing, shooting and posting things all at once."

"We're really not about the big twist, the big surprise, the big shocker and that was never the goal here. Really? Are y'all sure about that?

"Gil-galad is a really good king, and actually heroic. No he isn't

Season two does a lot more canon that we're interested in adapting and bringing to life."
I hope so, because there was very little in season one.

"The first question that we really found in the source material and in the lore that was worth interrogation was why would these different peoples in Middle-earth accept the deception of receiving rings from Sauron in disguise. People don't make devil's bargains because they are stupid... they make them because they are desperate or it will solve some problem."

and already at the first question they went wrong.... people make devils's bargains because they want more wealth and/or power and think the bargain is alot better than it really is. Desperation is not needed. Human nature 101