Movies

Amazon's 'Lord Of The Rings' TV Series Introduces A New Map Of Middle-Earth

By Chris Evangelista

Amazon's very expensive Lord of the Rings TV series is still shrouded in mystery, but social media accounts for the show went live yesterday. And today, those accounts gave us our first official...something...from the series. It's a map! And while J.R.R. Tolkien's books were big on maps, this map is a bit underwhelming. For one thing, it's not interactive – you can't click on anything. It's just an image. For another, there are no landmarks, no location names, no indicators. Still, if you're as hungry as a Hobbit who skipped second breakfast for some sort of material from this show, perhaps this will satiate you. 

There it is. That's it. "Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky," is the description attached to the pic, which is of course a quote from the Lord of the Rings books, explaining the rings dolled out to specific Middle-earth denizens. Here's the full quote:

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,One for the Dark Lord on his dark throneIn the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind themIn the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

It's worth noting that the comment with the pic ends with a comma rather than a period, which means we're probably going to be getting more maps for each one of those lines. A map for the Dwarf-lords, a map for the Mortal Men, and so on. I'm not sure if this is a sign of what the show will feature, or if it's just kicking things off with a familiar quote.

You can also hear this set-up about the rings at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, via a narration by Cate Blanchett's Galadriel.

Here are some specifics about the Three Rings, via the Lord of the Rings Wiki:

The Three Rings of Celebrimbor, son of Curufin, were forged by Celebrimbor alone, and were never touched by Sauron. They were called Narya: Ring of Fire, held first by Gil-galad, who later gave it to Círdan and then to Gandalf; Nenya: Ring of Adamant, worn by Galadriel; and Vilya: Ring of Air, borne first by Gil-galad, who later gave it to Elrond. They remained hidden, and the whereabouts of the three were not openly revealed until the end of the Third Age, after the One Ring was destroyed, and the Dark Lord Sauron was overthrown. These rings are invisible instead of making the wearer invisible. Galadriel revealed her possession of one of the rings to Frodo while he was in Lothlórien after he saw her ring. This is because of his possession of the One Ring. Later, while traveling down the River Anduin, Frodo spoke of it to Aragorn, who admonished him not to speak of it outside of Lórien.

Each of the Three Rings had special properties, but their powers were limited. During The Council of Elrond, Elrond stated that neither he, nor Lórien, nor the Havens (the locations of the Three Elven Rings) had the power to withstand the might of Mordor.

In the grand scheme of things, I wish there was a bit more to go on here. There's a link that offers users to "explore the map", but it takes you to the same exact thing – an image of the map without any markings or interactive features. Perhaps interactive elements will arrive as time goes on.

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