The Lord of the Rings has many incredible, strong female characters, but adapting the strongest for the screen may require a challenging dive into Tolkien’s legendarium. J.R.R. Tolkien released his magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings, in three parts between 1954 and 1955. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy adapted a part of the novel per movie between 2001 and 2003. But only a few of Tolkien’s powerful women were in the novel and movie, with the majority packed into The Silmarillion, which was released posthumously in 1977. And adapting The Silmarillion is hard.

There are many reasons why adapting The Silmarillion is tough, as Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power proves. The 2022 TV show adapts The Lord of the Rings’ Second Age, which largely amounts to content from The Silmarillion, even though it only has the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The show has had strong ratings but mixed reviews, pointing to the difficulty with adapting this content. If a Lord of the Rings adaptation was to address the most powerful females in the legendarium, it would come up against similar challenges.

Some Of The Lord Of The Rings’ Strongest Female Characters Are Only In The First Age

Many Of LOTR’s Strongest Women Are First Age Characters

Some of The Lord of the Rings’ strongest women were around in the First Age, requiring an adaptation of them to focus on this era. Although subjective, any list of Lord of the Rings’ strongest women wouldn’t be complete without Éowyn and Galadriel — plus, Shelob, since LotR’s females aren’t all humanoid. These excellent Third Age characters are some of the best characters in The Lord of the Rings, but they aren’t the strongest women in the story. Stronger than even Shelob was her mother, the First Age character Ungoliant, who nearly beat Morgoth himself.

Tolkienian Age
Event Marking The Start
Years
Total Length In Solar Years

Before time
Indeterminate
Indeterminate
Indeterminate

Days before Days
Ainur entered Eä
1 – 3,500 Valian Years
33,537

Pre-First Age Years of the Trees (Y.T.)
Yavanna created the Two Trees
Y.T. 1 – 1050
10,061

First Age (F.A.)
Elves awoke in Cuiviénen
Y.T. 1050 – Y.T. 1500, F.A. 1 – 590
4,902

Second Age (S.A.)
War of Wrath ended
S.A. 1 – 3441
3,441

Third Age (T.A.)
Last Alliance defeated Sauron
T.A. 1 – 3021
3,021

Fourth Age (Fo.A)
Elven-rings left Middle-earth
Fo.A 1 – unknown
Unknown

Morgoth was LotR‘s original villain; Sauron started as his follower. But Lúthien beat Morgoth and Sauron with little more than a dog and the clothes on her back. The First Age hero Lúthien is probably the strongest humanoid female in the legendarium, descended from a Maia and an Elf. She had the aid of the divine wolfhound Huan and a magic cape that tapped into her natural magic and cast spells of sleep on Sauron and Morgoth when they most needed to be awake. Idril and Haleth are also epic women from the legendarium who only appear in the First Age.

A First Age TV Show Or Movie Would Bring Some Of Tolkien’s Best Characters To The Screen

A First Age Adaptation Is What Many Fans Have Craved For Years

A First Age adaptation would put some of The Lord of the Rings’ best characters and stories on screens. However, The Rings of Power highlights the difficulty of adapting any LotR era other than the Third Age. The Third Age is well-documented in the form of two novels: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. These modern formats provide dialogue and character descriptions. But the Second and First Ages are covered by essays, poems, and archaic tales. Nonetheless, the rewards of adapting characters like Lúthien and Ungoliant could be huge.

A First Age adaptation could cover not just Lord of the Rings’ most powerful female characters, but the mighty foes they come up against. There may be few more exciting LotR adaptation opportunities than Morgoth, the leader of some of Lord of the Rings’ toughest strongholds. A First Age adaptation covering the tale of Beren and Lúthien would cover these two lovers — two of the legendarium’s most heroic and tragic — and Morgoth and Sauron. Without a doubt, the First Age offers would-be adapters and studios huge potential if they can overcome some key obstacles.

A First Age Adaptation Would Be Even Riskier Than The Rings Of Power

Lord Of The Rings’ Appendices Covers Very Little Of The First Age

A First Age adaptation would be even riskier and harder than a Second Age adaptation like The Rings of Power. The only Tolkien works that anyone currently has full adaptation rights to are The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, including its appendices. Warner Bros. and Amazon Prime Video have the rights to the same content: these two novels. The only difference in rights is that Warner Bros. can make movies and Amazon can make a multi-season TV show. Both rely on the appendices for First Age details, which are even more scarce than Second Age details.

The Second Age is heavily relegated to timelines given in Appendix B and some general knowledge scattered throughout the other appendices, whereas the First Age mostly gets a brief intro in Appendix A and Appendix B.

Warner Bros. has, thus far, adapted the content of both the novels in their rights agreement by making The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies. That leaves only the appendices to tackle. The upcoming War of the Rohirrim movie will take, for its source material, a Third Age short story from the appendices, as the Third Age has a few short stories. However, the Second Age is heavily relegated to timelines given in Appendix B and some general knowledge scattered throughout the other appendices, whereas the First Age mostly gets a brief intro in Appendix A and Appendix B.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power showed flashbacks to the First Age, including the Two Trees of Valinor and the War of Wrath.

Warner Bros. or Amazon could tackle the First Age stories through their rights deal by taking Amazon’s approach to Rings of Power. They can follow the appendices’ guidelines and flesh out their stories using details in The Silmarillion and the legendarium without using too many explicit names that violate the agreement. Naturally, the less detail there is in the appendices, the further from canon the adaptations would stray. However, the Tolkien Estate may allow one-off rights where needed, as it did for Rings of Power. This makes a First Age Lord of the Rings adaptation risky but rewarding.