Changes in Tolkien's world are nothing new for The Lord of the Rings: Rings of PowerBut the changes made to the palantíri, the spherical viewing devices that had appeared in Númenor so far, are starting to be a little confusing.
While fans Peter Jackson movies certainly recognizes the specific threat the palantiri pose in the show, this is not how the books say the devices are supposed to work at this point in history. Sure, by the time of the Fellowship's quest to destroy the One Ring, the devices were primarily tools of deception used by Sauron. But during Rings of PowerThey're not supposed to be evil at all. In fact, they're basically just walkie-talkies.
The palantiri, like all the best and worst things in Middle-earth, were originally created by the Elves and then given NumenoreansSeven of them survived the destruction of the island and facilitated communication between the kingdoms of Gondor (where Boromir is from) and its sister country of Arnor. They are essentially something like Facetime walkie-talkies. They could be used to communicate over long distances, usually just two directly with each other, and they could provide visions of their surroundings during these communications. This is why, when we see them in the show and movies, characters touched the palantiri and saw visions of various places with little or no context for what they represented. In other words, there is nothing inherently evil about them or the images they show.
The problems with the spherical creatures didn’t arise until the Third Age (when the main trilogy is set), when, one by one, seven palantiri were lost, falling into rivers or disappearing when cities were sacked. The remaining palantiri were locked away (one in Orthanc, the stronghold of the great and noble Saruman, leader of the wise wizards) for the same reason you wouldn’t reveal sensitive information in a Zoom meeting where the guests were hidden. There was no way to prove that someone who wasn’t supposed to be listening (namely Sauron) was eavesdropping — and in Lord of the Ringsthat's exactly what we saw. While Gandalf says that Sauron couldn't use his palantir to completely fabricate the images that Denethor and Saruman saw in their own, he could manipulate the visions to fragment them and make sure they saw only what he wanted them to see. It's these Visions caused by Sauron's influence that nearly drive Denethor to a state of despair and denial in the main trilogy.and this scares Pippin (and reveals his location).
The problem is that it's also a pretty accurate description of how Rings of Power also refers to the palantiri. They, judging by what we have seen in the series and the complete lack of description of them, are already having a negative effect on the characters.
Like any adaptation, the change is not inherently good or bad. But it's hard not to feel like it takes away from Rings of Powereffectiveness as a prequel. It's supposed to be a story about how Middle-earth's golden age was destroyed by Sauron's subtle influence and the corruption his evil inspired. But the show has done nothing to establish that it was a golden age, and the palantiri could have played a major role in that, showing that what we recognize as an instrument of evil is used innocently and without fear.
Part of the fun of a prequel is that the audience knows things the characters don’t. So, for example, seeing good characters freely use palantiri to communicate could have been a great way for the show to show us how far Middle-earth had fallen by the time Frodo and Sam set out from the Shire. They could have been another beautiful thing, destroyed by Sauron and his minions. Instead, the only palantir we’ve seen is instantly perceived as evil by people. Numenorand as an important object of Miriel's prophecy, suggesting that they were not used for communication and have an entirely different canonical place in the series. Rings of Power The film seems so desperate to give us something familiar from the original films that it jumps straight to the fallen version of the world instead of letting us witness that collapse.
Image: Prime Video
And the palantiri aren’t the only place the show takes this same shortcut. In episode 5, Durin IV spends just a few minutes of screen time in awe of his father’s use of the Ring of Power before realizing it’s a symbol of evil. It seems easy to imagine a version of this storyline given room to play out over the course of a couple of episodes, where the rings may initially bring great good fortune to the dwarves, but only Durin can see how the ring slowly turns his father into a selfish, greedy, and cruel man. With this version, we as viewers might have a chance to see how Sauron’s rings tricked much of Middle-earth into falling under his spell. Instead, the characters catch up to our understanding almost instantly.
At their best, prequels don’t just tell us what happened before the stories we love. They tell us how the world got where it was — and in the case of The Lord of the Rings, that should mean telling us how the world fell so far. How Sauron was allowed to rise again, and why the kingdoms of Men, Elves, and Dwarves were so ill-prepared to stop him. They should show us all the glory and grandeur that Middle-earth had to offer in the Second Age, and show us how great the price was that had to be paid to allow Sauron to rise in that time. But instead of deepening our understanding of Middle-earth, Rings of Power seems much more interested in returning us to something familiar: a twisted version of the vision in the corrupted palantir.