Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for the finale of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2.
Well,Eregion has fallen, the Stranger’s (Daniel Weyman) identity has been revealed, and Sauron (Charlie Vickers) is one step closer to enslaving Middle-earth now thatThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of PowerSeason 2 is finished. But there’s one plotline that we’re glad is finally over, and that’s the Harfoot/Stoor story headlined byMarkella Kavenagh’s Nori Brandyfoot andMegan Richards' Poppy Proudfellow. After a season of not much happening in the world of the halflings, and now that the Stranger is on his merry way all by his lonesome, it’s finally time forTheRings of Powerto bid farewell to the little folk, at least for now.
The Harfoots Have Overstayed their Welcome on ‘The Rings of Power’
The idea of exploringproto-Hobbit halflings such as Harfootsis an interesting one, and the first season ofTheRings of Powershowed us that these folks have a long way to go before they’re the people we recognize from the Shire. But although there are other peoples and happenings occurring in Middle-earth, that doesn’t mean that we need to spend time following them around for another season, especially after Season 2. Though Season 2 was an improvement overTheRings of Power’s freshman outing,it suffered in trying to juggle too many plotlines, many of which were not exactly essential to the show’s overall plot. The biggest offender here was the Harfoot story.
The moment Nori and Poppy were separated from their Wandering Wizard friend, their story devolved, to the point whereit felt like either nothing was happening or we were just hitting the same beat over and again. It didn’t help that Nori all of a sudden did a 180-turn, deciding to leave the Stranger behind in favor of another migration. Now that the Stoors are on their way to re-discovering the Shire, with Nori and Poppy leading the charge, there’s no further need to follow their story. We’ve seen halflings migrate before, and whileTheRings of Powerwill likely bring this group back again in Season 3, the show should probably just move on.
If the series wants to be taken seriously as a high-fantasy epic, thenit needs to trim down some of its storylinesand focus only on those that contribute to the whole.Now that Nori and Gandalf have separated for good, there’s no real need to continue to follow the halfling’s story. They won’t be helping the Men, Elves, and Dwarves in the battle against Sauron, and it’s not until Frodo’s time that the Hobbits will unexpectedly contribute to their world.
The Biggest Changes ‘The Rings of Power’ Made to ‘The Lord of the Rings’
Let’s talk about that mithril storyline…
Further Hobbit Heroics Should Be Saved for the Third Age
Part of what makesThe Lord of the Ringsspecial, and indeed Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin’s parts in it, is thatnobody suspects anything from the halflings.Only Gandalf knows their fullest potential, and we see that in his friendship with Nori and Poppy inThe Rings of Power. But to have them further contribute to the narrative, which does not need them to thrive (indeed, it actually needs them to get out of the way so that itcanthrive), would go against one of Tolkien’s most pivotal ideas in his original stories. First, Bilbo and then later Frodo prove that Hobbits can be just as useful, clever, and heroic as anyone else. This isn’t something that anyone understands in the Second Age, nor should they. Harfoots shouldn’t even be a blip on Sauron’s radar at this point.
This isn’t to say that the Harfoots haven’t been important up until now, of course. Nori and Poppy were vital to Gandalf’s journey in the first season. But the second season felt more like an odd transition for the pair, andwith the introduction of the Stoors, it feels like the right time to say goodbye. Hey, if Gandalf and Nori can do it after all this time, then so can we. This isn’t to say that we can’t catch up with them again one day, or maybe see Gandalf reunited with his friends at the end of the series, but right now,the Harfoots are more of a distraction and a hindrance than a helpin the war against Sauron, andTheRings of Powerought to fix that going forward.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Poweris available for streaming on Prime Video.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Epic drama set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.
Watch on Prime Video
