Charlie Vickers as Sauron and Morfydd Clark as Galadriel n The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2024), Amazon MGM Studios

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power showrunner J.D. Payne recently claimed that the show’s second season was “reviewed by the Tolkien Estate and a team of Tolkien scholars to assure the story adheres to the legendarium.”

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 25: (L-R) Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay speak onstage during The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power SDCC Press Preview Event at Venue 808 on July 25, 2024 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Studios)

A post to the official Amazon MGM Studios account on X states, “Source to Screen: Showrunner J.D. Payne revealed the season overview is reviewed by the Tolkien Estate and a team of Tolkien scholars to assure the story adheres to the legendarium.”

It is a bold-faced lie on a number of levels. Clearly, the show does not adhere to the legendarium in any regard whether that be the story, the characters, or even the locations. The only thing the show has in common with Tolkien’s legendarium is the name of the show and the name’s of the characters. Nothing else is in common.

For example, one of the show’s directors claims that Galadriel was in love with Sauron while he was in his Halbrand form. Charlotte Brändström told Nerdist, “Yeah. Galadriel obviously was in love with Halbrand. She was very attracted to him. So when Sauron changes shape… Sauron knows this because he gets into her head, so he knows what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling.”

“So when he immediately takes Halbrand’s shape, he completely destabilizes her because that was her weakness. She had very strong feelings for the King, for Halbrand, obviously in the first season,” Brändström added.

Halbrand does not exist in Tolkien’s legendarium let alone does Galadriel love him. He is a complete original invention by Amazon MGM Studios.

Morfydd Clark as Galadriel and Charlie Vickers as Sauron in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2024), Amazon MGM Studios

Nevertheless, Amazon MGM Studios recently trotted out Corey Olsen, who calls himself the Tolkien Professor, where he claimed there was “no such thing really as canon in Tolkien. Tolkien’s ideas were ever evolving.”

So which is it? Were they assuring the show adhered to canon based on a review from the Tolkien Estate and Tolkien scholars or is there “no such thing really as canon in Tolkien”?

Regardless of their hypocrisy and contradiction, the purpose of this show is clear. It is to pervert and subvert Tolkien’s work in an attempt to make it serve the Left or at the very least ruin The Lord of the Rings.

Sam Hazeldine as Adar; Morfydd Clark as Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2024), Prime Video

Novelist Isaac Young explains that modern Hollywood exists to make stories that specifically serve to push the Left’s politics and to increase its own power, “Hollywood exists to reward its friends and punishes its enemies. And its products are emblematic of that fact. Hollywood does not exist to entertain you. It is an organ of a greater international apparatus that has declared war on native populations of the West.”

He then used The Last Jedi’s depiction of Luke Skywalker as an example, “Making Luke Skywalker feed at its breast was not a poor decision of a worse screenplay. It was a deliberate choice backed by corporate executives, directed, written, and shot by industry leaders, funded with the backing of millions of dollars, packaged into a movie called Star Wars, and subsequently broadcast to the entire Western sphere.

“Make no mistake, this was done with the same spite of a child ripping a toy out of a younger infant’s hands and declaring it to be their own. And to make sure it would be their own by s***ting all over it.”

He then concluded, “What has happened to Star Trek and every media franchise is not the result of incompetence though today’s writers are thoroughly incompetent. It’s the result of a seething artistic class that wishes to pervert all film, TV, and literary achievement for the sake of applauding themselves and humiliating their enemies. And in this task they have unequivocally succeeded.”

“The only thing to do, the only way to win is to step back and let them fester on the dung hill they have created for themselves,” he finished.

Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2024), Amazon MGM Studios

What do you make of Payne’s claim that the second season was reviewed by Tolkien scholars and the Tolkien Estate so it was in accord with the Legendarium?