From Zero to Hero

The Lord of the Rings has always been touted as a tale about lionhearted men for impressionable young boys. But its new iteration, The Rings of Power, will put women front and centre.

- SADAF SHAIKH

IF YOU WERE born in the early '90s, you probably spent a good portion of your teenage years familiarising yourself with the idiosyncrasies of hobbits, wizards, elves, dwarves, rangers, orcs, trolls and the myriad mythical races that populated JRR Tolkien's cinematic universe in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). When the first episode of The Rings of Power (TROP; based on the illuminating 150 pages of postscript at the end of 2003's The Return of the King) drops on Amazon Prime Video come 2 September, it's very likely that it will dominate television screens across the world. And not just because it's the most expensive TV series to ever be made but also because Tolkien's works, like his immortal elves, have enjoyed long-lasting popularity in the disenchantingly ephemeral realm of pop-culture fandom.