‘The Rings of Power’: Polarised politics can’t ruin the joys of fandom

It is easy, as the years wear on, to forget the bonds of fellowship that bind us to our closest friends. By the time the mid-30s come around, the raucous drinking sessions of the decade before have become a bit more staid and a lot more maudlin. Loud revelry, bar fights and romantic (mis)adventures are replaced by reminiscing (“do you remember the time we…”), pointless gossip (“did you hear what happened to…”) or the anxiety-inducing, never-ending drudgery of EMIs, SIPs, school admissions and IT return deadlines.

But perhaps the worst development of all, in recent years, has been the insidious ways in which the politics of virtue signalling on the one hand and deep bigotry — enabled in no small part by technology — on the other, have infected relationships. The final blow came when the fake sense of victimhood that marks majoritarian politics found its way to J R R Tolkien’s Legendarium in the long run-up to Amazon Prime releasing The Rings of Power.

First, a little background. There are levels to Tolkien fandom and many of the more extreme of us are no better than religious fanatics. Most people have seen Peter Jackson’s trilogy and rightfully judge it as one of the finest works of cinema in recent history. Then there are those who have read the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit — if they have done so only once, they may well be mocked by the more senior monks of this erudite order. To be a true fan, one has to also have read The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Children of Hurin, The Histories of Middle Earth as well as many of the compilations Christopher Tolkien published of his father’s letters, notes and other assorted writings. Finally, there are the crazies who start learning Elvish, Dwarvish and a bit of the Black Speech of Mordor.

Imagine, then, when a teenager (at least at the post-Silmarillion level) finds like-minded souls who see the fascinating layers of this universe. Like the hundreds of Ramayanas and several versions of the Mahabharata, they flesh out the book’s characters, see the story from the perspective of the villains, and imagine the political implications of the metaphorical “White Man’s Burden” in the myth.

The Rings of Power – along with, perhaps, House of the Dragon – was one of the most anticipated cinematic-television events of the last few years. Fans, while numerically minimal, often present themselves as an army of zealots, bound across geographies by their love of Tolkien’s universe. That universalism, as it turns out, was misplaced.

When the first look and trailer came out, many diehard fans insisted that the show would be a disappointment. It appeared to depart too much from the source material and took liberties by introducing new characters. The more disturbing kinds of criticism were just outright prejudicial: How can there be black, brown and women characters in the lead? How can a high-elf “glow” with the light of Valinor if they are a shade darker than the Nordic, Germanic, or Aryan idea of a superior race? How can a story revolve around Galadriel, who is fair and strong to be sure, but not a woman of action (in their eyes)?

Woke politics, concluded the largely white male fandom, without even watching the show, would destroy the universe.

There are, in this universe of nerds, many unfortunate parallels to the wider politics of hurt sentiments. For all its biblical imagery, the stories from the Legendarium have more in common with “pagan” myths and deities — from the Norse gods, to ancient Greece and closer home, to the Subcontinent’s great epics. In video games, fan fiction, and just conjecture videos on YouTube (in addition, of course, to private conversations) we have all added to the story, come up with our own interpretations and enjoyed the universalism of the tale.

Rings of Power is, in essence, the ultimate form of fan fiction – albeit on an astounding scale with an almost unthinkable budget. How can it be, then, that some from the community abuse those trying to do what they have been doing since they first read the books or were introduced to the mythical world through Peter Jackson’s films 20 years ago? This is supposed to be a band of the faithful, not an insecure government trying to police a syllabus.

So, in the run-up to the release of the show on September 2, there was an understandable, almost debilitating sense of despondency. Fantasy was supposed to be a refuge from the polarised politics that marks so much of life now. Politics, and the vitriol that accompanies it, had long ago crossed the water’s edge and invaded family WhatsApp groups and college reunions. Now, it would take away the joys that have sustained so many for so long — just as it has taken away our human gods and tries to dam the river that feeds our collective imagination as it splits into the many stories, the distributaries of our own making — through a singular idea of religion and nationhood.

But as the humble Samwise Gamgee said in the film version of The Two Towers, “this darkness too shall pass”.

On Friday, just after I binge-watched the first two episodes of The Rings of Power, the phone buzzed. And we spoke of who the new characters could “actually” be; whether the man on the boat was the Witch King or Sauron; whether The Stranger was Gandalf or one of the Blue Wizards. Gibberish, really, for all the people who are not in the know. Not so high-minded as the discussions about Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky in the soirees of the snooty, but not so basic as the MCU. Just the pure joy of being a fan. Or, maybe, it is the joy of fellowship that Tolkien wrote about so well, of friendships recalled and strengthened, slipping into old patterns and conversations like into a comfortable pair of slippers.

Politics and social media posturing may have contaminated the public conversation, spreading like the darkness out of Mordor. But it hasn’t yet infected the simple joys of Hobbits in the Shire.

aakash.joshi@expressindia.com