When Does The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Take Place?

The forges are beginning to heat up in Middle Earth because Amazon Prime released the first teaser for their long-awaited Lord of the Rings series, a title card sequence for Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power! The series is hitting streaming September 2, 2022 and will take place primarily in the Second Age of Middle Earth—ie, before the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and during the forging of the rings of power.

Amazon revealed the setting of the Second Age in a series of tweets in 2019, one displaying a map of Middle Earth that includes the island kingdom of Numenor, and a follow-up that stated “Welcome to the Second Age.”

For die-hard Tolkien fans, this was exciting news! And things got even more exciting when Amazon released a brief synopsis of the scope of the show on Jan 19, 2022.

According to the official press release, Showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay said “This is a title that we imagine could live on the spine of a book next to J.R.R. Tolkien’s other classics. The Rings of Power unites all the major stories of Middle-earth’s Second Age: the forging of the rings, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the epic tale of Númenor, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men… Until now, audiences have only seen on-screen the story of the One Ring – but before there was one, there were many… and we’re excited to share the epic story of them all.”

But what happened in the Second Age of Middle Earth? Well, a whole heck of a lot. And Amazon’s show wants to focus on all of those heroic legends. According to the press release:

 This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and one of the greatest villains that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared reemergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the farthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.

The Second Age covers a period of thousands of years, and includes everything from the rise and fall of the kingdom of Numenor, the Valar (Middle Earth gods) leaving Arda after being attacked by men, the remaining men fleeing to Middle Earth and establishing new kingdoms, and of course Sauron tricking elves, dwarves, and men with the Rings of Power in his bid to control and dominate all life!

We will also get to potentially see early Hobbit civilization, dwarves, the men who were already on Middle Earth (like the riders of Rohan) and perhaps even some Ents! And maybe even the long-lost Ent-wives??

I might be getting ahead of myself.

Either way, we can’t wait for September to arrive so that we can delve (but not too greedily or too deep!) into the history and lore of Middle Earth in a whole new way!

(image: Amazon Prime)

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