Elves And Dragons: The Fellowship That Could Have Been
Spoiler warning for House Of The Dragon and Rings Of Power.
September was an exciting time to be a geek, with HBO's House Of The Dragon and Amazon's Rings Of Power both dropping weekly episodes. Prior to their release, there was the obvious discussions about competition between the two shows, and which fantasy universe would swallow up the other, but I was initially surprised at how well the two shows were complementing each other by offering different things.
It was as if the Targaryens of Westeros and Elf Lords of Middle Earth summoned their own private council and agreed to some pact that they wouldn't try and out do each other. The Targaryens agreed to offer their expertise in political drama and exploration of dark modern themes, while the Elf Lords decided they would provide gripping adventure of monsters and magic.
This fellowship, however, was doomed to failure. One series fell behind, while the other soared ahead.
The first two weeks started off solidly for both series. I was gripped by the political manoeuvring already at work in House Of the Dragon, with compelling characters like Otto Hightower already making serious power plays in the Small Council. Rings Of Power brought me back into the world of Middle Earth with sweeping shots of mountain scapes, forests and lakes that felt like clear nods to Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings films. It felt like Rings Of Power was being true to the lore of Tolkien’s material, while also offering some intriguing changes to their 2022 adaptation.
By about the third week of consuming House Of The Dragon on Monday nights and Rings Of Power on Friday afternoons, I started to notice some significant differences in how I perceived each series. I was pulled even further into the intense political and family drama boiling in Westeros, but grew gradually bored with events unfolding in Middle Earth. The most notable difference - I was caring deeply about the characters in House Of The Dragon, but wasn’t at all caring about those in Rings Of Power.
Halfway through House Of The Dragon, every single character exhibited such a complex set of strengths and flaws that my perceptions of them were constantly changing - it kept the show exciting, added to the suspense, and meant that I often didn’t know what decisions each character would make. Halfway through Rings Of Power, however, I was left watching a bunch of characters that I knew nothing about except the most surface level details. Take Halbrand, for example; he’s introduced as a man escaping his grim existence in The Southlands. He’s a mysterious character, that was clear, but nothing was adding to his mystery throughout the show, because he barely did anything on screen, he just lingered around. Sure, he got into a bar fight and expressed some interest in becoming a blacksmith, but for the most part he sat in a jail cell. This is across the course of three episodes, that’s about two and half hours. If a character doesn’t do anything, they aren’t developing, and neither is their mystery.
Towards the end of House Of The Dragon, it was even surpassing Rings Of Power in terms of its epic fantasy visuals; Rhaenys Targaryen erupting out of the floor of the Sept Of Baelor on dragon-back, or the shot of the dragon Vhagar’s enormous form looming over the walls of Storms End, revealed by quick flashes of lightning. These jaw dropping scenes felt carefully considered and well earned in what was mostly a drama performance with moments of action. House Of The Dragon started feeling more like an epic fantasy because of how WOW’d I was during these scenes.
Rings Of Power displayed impressive visual effects and set designs, I loved the sulphurous decay of the orc prison camp, the Dwarven mines of Khazad-Dum looked incredible, and the battle at the Southlands felt immersive and realistic. The issue was that these epic visuals couldn’t outweigh my lack of interest in what the characters were actually doing in these places. Characters we barely knew were killed off in slow motion in the orc prison camp, Durin and Elrond went in circles in a failed attempt to mine mithril in Khazad-Dum, and I was expected to care about the fate of the Southlands as if the world depended on it, when half of them had already turned to the darkness.
What could have been the perfect combination of mouthwatering political drama in one series and sweeping adventures on an epic scale in another, was let down by passive characters in Rings Of Power milling about aimlessly in beautiful set designs and costumes. Experiencing both shows each week was a great reminder of what could be the most important aspect of writing our series, Unegen: The Burning Tree; our audience MUST care about the characters. Everything else is just sprinkles in the fantasy ice cream bowl.
