Female Ents? The Rings of Power risks breaking a Lord of the Rings taboo

Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Rings of Power Season 2, Episode 4.

The story of the Ents bears one of the longest-standing mysteries in JRR Tolkien’s mythology, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is close to solving it. Middle-earth’s lumbering, sentient trees played a major role in The two towersHelp Merry and Pippin overthrow Isengard and defeat Saruman. The Ents made a very brief cameo in Amazon The rings of power season 1, but enjoy much greater prominence in season 2. With Adar’s orcs rampaging across the south of Middle-earth and the Southlands now transformed into Mordor, the Ents are on the attack.

One notable difference, however, is that The rings of power Season 2 incorporates the Entwives, females of the wooden species. in The Lord of the RingsTreebeard commented on the absence of the Entwives, telling his hobbit companions, “We lost them… we lost them and we don’t know them.” While Tolkien’s writings confirm the existence of female ent, however, some mysterious event causes them to disappear, leaving their male counterparts perplexed for thousands of years afterward. With the entwives now involved in The rings of powers second age timeline, answers may finally be imminent.

Tolkien considered the disappearance of the Entwives mysterious

Divorce is an expensive business in Middle-earth

The Lord of the Rings and other writings by JRR Tolkien deliberately avoided revealing the fate of the Entwives. Even asked about the matter directly by Naomi Mitchison (Letter #144), the author only offered speculation about what might have happened to Middle-earth’s female ents. In his letter, Tolkien stressed, “What happened to them is not resolved in the book“, and he compared the Entwives to the ambiguity surrounding Tom Bombadil in The Lord of the RingsAlluding to how both of these two unexplained elements are by design open to interpretation.

Tolkien offered several possible explanations, posing that The Entwives were wiped out by Sauron’s scorched earth tactics During his war against the Last Alliance of Elves and Men at the end of the Second Age. However, the author also suggested that some Entwives may have fled to avoid such a disaster, or even been enslaved and taken far away from their homes. On the subject of whether the entwives would ever reunite with their enthusibands yet The Lord of the RingsTolkien concluded, “I hope so. I don’t know.”

It is, of course, impossible to fully accept Tolkien’s intentions, but not revealing what happened to the Entwives in his literary works was obviously a certain decision. To avoid providing a direct answer in his correspondence further suggests Tolkien wanted to keep the Entwives’ story vague. The rings of power Season 2, after introducing the Entwives and starting work towards the War of the Last Alliance, finds itself on the precipice of showing what has become of Middle-earth’s female ents in very literal terms, which risks removing the veil Tolkien intentionally left in place .

The problem with the rings of power answers the mystery of Entwives

Some questions in The Lord of the Rings should remain unanswered

The debate about whether The rings of power Should or Shouldn’t Reveal What Became of the Entwives is about more than just honoring Tolkien’s original intentions. When Treebeard discusses the entwives being “Lost“In The Lord of the RingsHis words conjured fascinating images of giant trees suddenly disappearing from the forest without explanation, creating a mystery unsolved for over 3000 years. Such an unlikely and wonderful event contributes to the fantasy of Middle-earth and the sheer wonder of the universe that Tolkien crafted.

Just like the identity of Tom Bombadil, the legend of the Entwives is more powerful than a factual explanation would be. The idea that something made countless trees become “Lost” turns the cogs of fantasy and speaks to the dangers of wandering through the ancient forests of Middle-earth. Tolkien’s explanation that the Entwives were probably burned alive by Sauron’s forces is perfectly logical and, therefore, quite mundane. Like any great myth that is debunked, the answer pales in comparison to the mystery.

It also remains to be seen how Tolkien’s proposed solution would work alongside Treebeard’s words The Lord of the Rings. The Ent claimed that his kind of female was lost, rather than dead, and he called out the priests for saying otherwise. More importantly, Treebeard confirmed that the Ents had no knowledge of where the Entwives went. It’s hard to fathom how Sauron could burn through most of the female Ent population and the males would never discover what happenedWhich poses an obstacle for The rings of power To get if it tries to unravel the puzzle.

Looking at the drawbacks and challenges of showing Sauron’s Entwives massacre, it becomes clear why Tolkien may have avoided concrete answers. The author was hardly a stranger to writing detailed explanations for even the most minute events in Middle-earth history, but addressing the Entwives’ fate would only open the door to further questions – most notably, why the Ents never realized their wives were Burned to death. Even worse, Tolkien would be pulling back the curtain on something that makes Middle-earth feel mystical, dangerous, and packed with historical intrigue.

The Rings of Power has many other Tolkien mysteries to solve in Season 2

More pertinent corners of Middle-earth lore remain unexplored

A large number of The rings of power Season 1 was dedicated to providing a backstory for Mordor. The formation of Sauron’s land is never addressed in Tolkien’s legend, but not because it was some great enigma wrapped in the fabric of Middle-earth. It was simply a chapter the author never covered and, as such, The rings of power Filling the gap made perfect sense. Something similar is already happening with the Shire’s beginnings The rings of power Season 2, as it appears Sadoc Burrows’ ancestor first envisioned the idyllic hobbit realm and ventured west to find it.

The identity of the nine kings who become The Lord of the Rings‘ Nazgûl is another great example of this. Their names aren’t deliberately obscured in Tolkien’s mythology—one is actually revealed as Kemul the East—but the books simply don’t fill out the rest of the black name tags. The rings of power can use this, and it is highly likely that the audience will know at least some of the Ringwraiths’ identity when the show ends.

This is when The rings of power is at its best. Rather than attempting to provide answers to questions that Tolkien intentionally left unsolved, the Amazon show is much better at adding chapters the original author simply omitted, of which there are many. in this way, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power would feel more like a complement to Tolkien’s story than a contradiction.