⚠️ This section is not complete and is undergoing significant updates.
In Rings of Power, the character arcs for Galadriel and Sauron are narrative rings that reflect each other, tracing their journeys to and from Darkness and Light, as foreshadowed by Finrod’s words: “Sometimes to find the Light, we must first touch Darkness.” As much as I love the pun within the symbolism, ring structure is nothing new: it’s found in throughout literature, especially ancient texts and mythologies, but doesn’t follow modern conventions of linear structures that build toward a climax or crisis near the conclusion. In contrast, ring composition exhibits what anthropologist and author of Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition Dame Mary Douglas calls ‘central loading’ where the crisis or climax instead occurs in the middle of two symmetrical halves. Modern audiences expecting a linear build to final crisis can be forgiven for misreading the composition of ROP as poor pacing (one of the common critiques of the first season of ROP). As Douglas explains, “Writings that … baffle and dismay unprepared readers, when read correctly, turn out to be marvelously controlled and complex compositions.”
Ring composition, or chiastic structure, uses parallel and reflective elements to create a circular narrative—a ring or chiasmus—comprising two symmetrical halves with the conclusion returning to the beginning. We see chiastic structure in many ancient and mythological texts—Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer, and Herodotous, among others—as the repetitive structure serves a mnemonic function in oral literature. Chiastic structure could be as simple as two elements, A and B, repeated and reflected as A-B-B’-A’. Ring composition refers to more complex chiastic structures (A-B-C-D-D’-C’-B’-A’) with more elements and on multiple scales, creating rings within rings and looping or interwoven rings. Tolkien was a scholar of Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and other ancient works that employed this device, and both The Hobbit and *Lord of the Rings* exhibit complex ring composition.
When I see complaints among fans about pacing or dialogue, especially as regards the first season of ROP, I’m convinced those viewers are looking for the modern, linear build-up to a final crisis typical of the action and adventure genre, missing the exquisite complexity of the lyrical structure before them. In effect, they are reading a poem expecting prose.
Among the many things that impress me about ROP, its ring composition is probably top of my list. The creators could easily have pulled linear plot lines from the lore, catering to a broader action/adventure audience. Instead they deliberately took on the much more difficult approach of crafting the series in the same chiastic structure as Tolkien himself has used. This approach demands much more of the writers, directors, actors, and artists: they must weave a compelling story within a complex, pre-determined structure of action, plot, symbol, character, and theme. They must incorporate parallel, repeating, and reflective symbols, plot points, dialogue, visuals, music, and themes, all while constructing a persuasive, character-driven story that can also be enjoyed as straightforward action and adventure cinema.
ROP chose the more difficult approach to honor the source material, and for that I offer my utmost respect. While the series can also be enjoyed for its surface-level action and adventure, its structural composition—and the additional effort required to create it—reflect a faithfulness to the source material in terms of structure as well as content. Moreover, by employing ring composition, ROP places this adaptation in the genre (if not the medium) of ancient sagas, legends, and mythologies.
We can already see the ring composition emerging in the first two seasons—through plot, character arcs, dialogue, and imagery—as well as through connections bridging ROP to the live-action LOTR and The Hobbit series. Where people criticize repeated phrases, symbols, and elements as cheap fan service, I suggest that reading the circular, poetic form as intended will reveal “a marvelously controlled and complex composition” that creates cohesion within the series and across the extant live action films. Moreover, scenes that currently feel disconnected or out of place are simply missing their reflected, symmetrical counterpart in a larger chiasmus, which will become clear in future seasons.
And something that you’ll see a lot of in the show is this chiastic structuring, within seasons, across seasons, within scenes, within episodes, where you have this rhyme or symmetry—sort of a ring structure—where something you see in the beginning is then mirrored again at the end. —J.D. Payne, on Rings Of Power
While there are many layers of ring composition to unpack in ROP, and more to come in future seasons (thankfully), I focus on the character arcs of Galadriel and Sauron in the first two seasons. One of the fantastic things about ring composition is that it provides a cipher to decode ambiguous meanings and character motivation.
In particular, Sauron’s character arc is intentionally riddled with ambiguity. On the surface, most of his lines and actions can be read as deceitful just as plausibly as repentant. However, when you examine his arc as a chiasm that reflects Galadriel’s arc, subtle clues illuminate the meaning and motive driving his character development in the show.
NEXT: Galadriel And Sauron: Reflecting Narrative Rings
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Ring Composition in The Rings of Power
Galadriel and Sauron: Reflecting Narrative Rings
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