If Amazon’s Middle-earth series is going to be set in the Second Age …
Well, that really doesn’t narrow it down much. It’s a bit like saying, “We’re setting a series here on Earth, somewhere between King Tut and the modern era.” That’s sort of hard to build a coherent narrative around.
That said, there are two major story arcs taking place in Middle-Earth after Morgoth (Sauron’s former boss and a much more powerful dude than Sauron ever was) is defeated at the end of the First Age. The first is creation of the island of Númenor and the rise of the race of Men living there (who are sternly warned by the Powers that Be that they can do whatever they want, as long as they don’t sail west out of sight of their island, toward the Undying Lands, and you know how that story is going to end).
The other thing going on during this vast 3500-or-so years is Sauron, having survived the fall of his boss Morgoth …
a. … becoming an advisor and friend to the Elves, and advising one of them on how to craft some nifty Rings of Power, and, through charm and wit and a bit of black magic, cutting himself in on that Ring action: forging the One Ring that has power over the ones the Elves have, as well as others he then hands out like candy (“The first powerful mind-controlling artifact is free!”) to lords of the Dwarves and Men.
b. taking over Middle-Earth, except for some areas of resistance by Elves and Dwarves, but then being defeated by the prideful Men of Númenor and taken captive.
c. As a captive, becoming an advisor and friend to Ar-Pharazôn, the King of Númenor. Sauron’s the one who whispers in his ear that all those injunctions against sailing West are “Sad!” and “Unfair!” and “Fake Curses!” This leads to the inevitable Númenórean expedition to conquer the West, which in turn leads to Númenor being sunk Atlantis-style and only some of the Men who were “the Faithful” getting to flee to Middle-earth proper, there founding the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor.
d. Having survived the drowning of Númenor, eventually launching a new war on the Elves and Men, leading to a Last Alliance between those races, which leads to the defeat of Sauron — for a time — while the One Ring is lost — for a time. And that’s the end of the Second Age.
Some of this may sound familiar …
(The Third Age which follows is basically a slow diminishment of the Elves and Dwarves and even the Men, in part through their own doing, in part from the actions of the rings, in part as guerilla warfare by a slowly recovering Sauron. The northern Man kingdom of Arnor is destroyed by Ringwraith action, the southern of Gondor is ground down by action coming out of Morder, the Dwarves suffer setbacks in Moria and Erebor, the Elves start booking trips to the Uttermost West, and so then we get the whole Lord of the Rings saga.)
So there’s definitely stuff — over thousands of years — that you could build a multi-season story around. The rise of Númenor , Sauron shenanigans, the forging of the Rings, the fall of Númenor … depending on how much they want to butt up against that Peter Jackson prologue, they could go all the way to that Last Alliance.
If you go over that long a period, you have very few characters that are around that whole time — Sauron, certainly, and the Elves. No humans, though, which means either zeroing in on a particular time frame within that period, or having an evolving cast.
The only other candidates might be the Istari, the wizards — but canonically they don’t get sent to Middle-Earth until the Third Age. Still, as Maiar, lesser angels, one or more of them could still show up in some role. It’ll give the purists fits, but that’s almost inevitable anyway.
You could zero in on one particular period, at the end of the age: the fall of Númenor, the founding of Gondor and Arnor, the Last Alliance of Men and Elves, the fall of Sauron. There are humans whose lives span that period. But that gets squarely into Peter Jackson-adjacent territory chronologically and narratively (“Oh, look, yet another Elves & Men vs. Sauron saga”).
Sadly, despite the desires of the article author below, it’s highly unlikely we’re going to see Cate Blanchett or Hugo Weaving reprise their elvish roles for an Amazon TV series. But the geek in me looks forward to debates over “who’s the better Galadriel?” and the like, so it’s all good.
Or, so I hope.
Do you want to know more?
- Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series is going to the Second Age — here’s what we might expect | SYFY WIRE
- Second Age – Tolkien Gateway
Ah. Maps for the show.