Despite a lot of fan hate and criticism, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power became a great success series on Amazon. As we have previously mentioned in a number of our reports, the show was renewed for a second season, and the season premiered on August 29, 2024, being seen as a significant improvement by both fans and critics. Seeing how everything plays out will be interesting, especially in light of the showrunners’ most recent significant disclosures.

The fans have been discussing the series online and despite the fact that the second series has been described as being more lore-accurate than the first one, the issue of how the series relates to Tolkien’s lore has been a major one from the very start.

And while the series keeps on evolving, developing new stories and new takes on older, well-known stories, some of the novelties make more, some less sense. In light of that, a recent explanation provided by the series, related to the Rings themselves, makes even more sense than the explanation provided by Tolkien in the canon.

As you know, there are a total of 20 Rings of Power in the lore. Nine for the Humans, seven for the Dwarves, three for the Elves, and the One Ring to Rule Them All. If we disregard the final ring, it leaves 19 and that seems like a pretty random number. This wouldn’t be an issue per se, but considering that Tolkien was a very meticulous writer who put a lot of time and effort into crafting his world, this randomness seems too random and something that Tolkien wouldn’t do. But he did it.

The original books never properly explained why there are 19 rings in total. Sure, the Dwarven rings make sense, as there are seven kings, but what about the Humand and the Elves? Surely there were more than just nine Human kings in Middle-earth, and why did the Elves, a superior race, receive only three? Tolkien never properly explained that, and it has seemingly been a mystery up until recently when The Rings of Power provided us with an explanation that actually makes a lot more sense than the void left by Tolkien.

While in the process of forging the rings, the reason why the numbers are as they are is explained. Okay, the explanation for the seven Dwarven rings remained intact, so the series remained lore-accurate in that aspect. But what about the three Elven and nine Human rings? Well, the series actually draws its explanation from the perfection of the number three, which is a significant and important symbol in a lot of mythological systems, as well as regions, and we knew that Tolkien modeled his lore on that.

So, there are three Elven rings because of the perfection of the number three, and there are nine Human rings because the number nine is derived from the number three. And that actually makes a lot of sense and it actually sounds like something that Tolkien would – himself – use as an explanation, so kudos to the writers for this.

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