Despite the negative opinions of many fans, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power became a popular series on Amazon. The second season of the show premiered on August 29, 2024, with three episodes, and the season is slowly picking up steam according to the recent official numbers from Amazon. At the same time, HBO’s House of the Dragon‘s second season aired earlier this year and the season also did great, having been renewed for a third season.

But, while both shows are seemingly doing great and have a large, devoted fanbase, they are far from perfect, as it seems, and the critics sometimes have solid arguments. We’re not talking about the so-called “fans” who hate the show out of ridiculous reasons, they are toxic haters, but about people who actually have some valid points.

This report is inspired by George R.R. Martin’s recent criticisms about how House of the Dragon was changed too much for the screen, and it seems that The Rings of Power is facing a very similar dilemma going forward.

Recently, as we have reported, Martin wrote a lengthy blog post about everything that went wrong with House of the Dragon Season 2, which included a lot of story elements being cut or changed and a lot of the books’ original rawness being watered down for the show, which – in turn – gave birth to other issues. He ended the post with the following words (you can read the full post here):

What will we offer the fans instead, once we’ve killed these butterflies? I have no idea. I do not recall that Ryan and I ever discussed this, back when he first told me they were pushing back on Aegon’s second son. Maelor himself is not essential… but if losing him means we also lose Bitterbridge, Helaena’s suicide, and the riots, well… that’s a considerable loss.

And there are larger and more toxic butterflies to come, if HOUSE OF THE DRAGON goes ahead with some of the changes being contemplated for seasons 3 and 4…

GRRM

And while we won’t be going too deep into these comments in this report, Martin definitely has a point. And when he, as the author, says that, well… it definitely has weight. It is natural for a show to be changed in the process of adapting the book for the screen, and while the fans (and Martin included) sometimes ask too much of television as a medium, more times than not – they are completely right.

Why reduce? Why change? The fans definitely want to see the book’s story adapted as it is, and while some things have to be changed due to practical reasons, it often leads to unwanted changes that completely alter the story. This is something that true Tolkien fans (not the haters) have said about The Rings of Power, but the series is – so far – handling that relatively well, although what Martin said about House of the Dragon can be said about The Rings of Power as well.

House of the Dragon has been renewed for a third season, and Martin confirmed that a fourth one is being worked on. After the initial numbers, it seems—as per THR—that Amazon is going forward with the five-season commitment for The Rings of Power.

Having said this, the producers and executives have a lot of work ahead of them if they want to silence the critics, and they will most certainly have to find a way to balance out the needs of television as a medium, as well as the needs of the critics who want lore-accurate adaptations.