Is the Rings of Power Narrative Shifting Early?

Television

Every time a new, objectively bad piece of entertainment is released and artificially inflated, the same pattern is always apparent. Hollywood studios inorganically thrust diversity, inclusion, and left-wing politics into their products to create a shield from criticism that is picked up by stans, Access Media, and Mainstream Media sites. This shield is used as an excuse to hurl the most heinous accusations and labels imaginable against any who dare criticize these shows and movies, as the stans and media sites praise these products to high heaven as the best thing since the last thing, claiming that there has been no dip in overall entertainment quality. However, the moment they reach their conclusion, the defense of these products slowly slip away until they’re near entirely forgotten, and the next consumable entertainment overwhelms the cheerleaders, becoming their entire personalities. Months later, this Dory mentality soon results in the former defenders saying things like, “Oh, yeah. I saw Kenobi. Was it actually good?” They even struggle to remember the basic plots of these shows, and for those who do remember, they feel safe enough to be honest retroactively. Many knew this would be no different for the Rings of Power narrative.

As this is part of their endless cycle, a shifting of the endless praise narrative cannot be cause for forgiveness. They will still leap upon any opportunity to label anyone who criticizes the current product with all the hateful names in the book. Just because they may be a tad more critical or entirely forgetful of them months later does not excuse their heinous behavior. Retroactively agreeing with people who said these shows and movies were awful does not make these people forget all the horrible things that were said about them.

As predicted, this all-consuming praise of The Rings of Power is shifting back towards critical thinking. Once again, this does not excuse these  media sites hurling accusations at the early critics of this show, nor does it defend their support of the showrunners’ claim that any criticism of the show is “patently evil.” However, the surprising thing about this narrative shift that bears investigation is the fact that it has happened less than a week after the finale’s release. Typically, there is at least a month of coping from the stans and media sites that eventually fades away. Mere days after the premiere, the stans have almost entirely forgotten that the show existed and media sites are already approaching honest takes.

Several theories could explain this early shift, not the least of which is the further depths of depravity to which the quality of Rings of Power sank compared to the past shows and movies that have received this treatment.

Even The Guardian, which carries the narrative far longer than the others and forcibly requires a political bent to everything, has admitted that “The Rings of Power was a stinker.” They went on to say:

“My point is this: good television cannot function on ‘Who shot Phil Mitchell?’ cliffhangers alone. Yes, that might be the destination, but the journey also has to be enjoyable as well. And, in terms of both plot and presentation, The Rings of Power simply hasn’t cut the mustard. The biggest issue . . . was the acting . . . and there is no consistency whatsoever. . . It felt like it was made for nobody.”

This is all criticism that was called evil, racist, and misogynist during the show’s original tenure. However, with the general narrative at these media sites changing, they are now allowed to have these types of critiques without having the same labels hurled at them as the audience did.

As must be noted with any discussion of The Rings of Power, many of these sites compared it to its contemporary competition, House of the Dragon. The Guardian said:

“House of the Dragon has sucked up the spotlight. It has attracted tweets, theories, memes, discussions, all on a rolling boil since the first episode. Meanwhile, if The Rings of Power has been seen anywhere, it was only in places paid for by Amazon.”

Amazon may have spent far more in its marketing campaign, but the word of mouth and meme marketing of House of the Dragon has been far superior. None need look further than the below Google Trends to see where the general public’s attention has been focused.

Forbes’ Eric Kain has been the notable exception to this narrative throughout The Rings of Power, giving his honest take throughout its entirety. Adding his voice to these other narrative-changing articles is an interesting comparison, especially with his highly critical rebukes of the show. To end off the season, he had a biting article titled “Amazon’s Arrogant Betrayal Of ‘The Lord Of The Rings,’” where he wrote:

“Far from sticking to the stories and themes of Middle-earth, the showrunners created their own story entirely, abandoning Tolkien’s lore. . . Perhaps worse, Amazon’s ‘adaptation’ is badly made TV with a nonsensical story built on wild coincidences, contrived plotlines and a blatant disregard for the various building blocks that make any story complete: Logical character choices, a sense of time and place, and narrative tension.”

All this rightful criticism was said by many in the audience and on YouTube, but they were called Nazis and bigots when they voiced these same concerns. Mainstream journalistic privilege is not often spoken of, yet it is a real concern for any reviewer that does not belong to a prominent publication. It is doubtful that Eric would be so brazen if it were not for the protection Forbes provides. Nonetheless, his candor must be praised.

Many other sites wrote similar articles, such as: CNET’s “Why That Big ‘Rings of Power’ Season Finale Twist Doesn’t Work.” Business Insider’s “The Rings of Power appears to be struggling to connect with younger viewers.” Collider’s “The Rings of Power Needs to Cool It With the Death Fakeouts.” CNN’s “Amazon’s next battle: Convincing the world ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is a rousing success.” IndieWire’s “Is ‘The Rings of Power’ a Huge Hit? A Muted Flop? It’s Complicated.” And many more.

This is all far too little too late, but the fact that it’s happening this soon is an interesting phenomenon with no obvious explanation. It may simply be that these sites have noticed that the opinions amongst the audience are so profoundly divergent from their own that they’ve sensed this shift is necessary for their relevancy. Perhaps Amazon stopped paying them when they were not enough to make the show a groundbreaking success. Regardless, these sites’ participation in the hate campaign against fans cannot be forgotten. Their backbone only holds for as long as they feel that they are on the safe side of an argument. The known pattern is still very much at play with Rings of Power.