Fans Got it All Wrong About Female Dwarfs in The Rings of Power
The Rings of Power, the long-awaited prequel to the legendary fantasy-fiction trilogy Lord of the Rings was released on Amazon last month. The billion-dollar production's first episode aired on September 2nd, and stakes were high in the revival of the legacy of Lord of the Rings, which won 17 Oscars in its time.
Although technology and CGI have improved tremendously over time, there are still factors that make filming such a large-scale production very difficult. One of the biggest challenges for producers has not been handling 1,300 cast and crew, or budget, or trying to bring to life Middle-Earth as the author of the books, J.R.R Tolkien, envisioned.
The series' characters may have to fight off Orcs and Wargs, but producers have had to face their own modern-day monsters, internet trolls, who are not shy about going online and sharing their grievances and making themselves heard. When it comes to The Rings of Power there have been substantial "review bombings" by viewers, bringing its rating down to 39% as well as critics calling the series a cash grab.
One of the grievances viewers had with The Rings of Power is with the female dwarves, which has sparked a global argument online about whether or not they should have beards. The beard-or-no-beard debate started when viewers pointed out that in the book the Dwarf women are described as having beards and criticized the series producers for leaving out this important detail from the original. Surely the producers wouldn't have changed or missed something like that?
This critique was swiftly answered by the showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne, who were happy to let viewers know that the female dwarves who appear in the series actually have beards. They're just not as thick as viewers may have expected. In a recent interview with THR, it was revealed that there was much debate when deciding how much facial hair the female dwarves would have, and after careful consideration, the crew settled on the mutton chops style of beards (think Wolverine from the X-men).
Showrunners also added that J.R.R Tolkien himself had addressed this very debate before. According to Patrick McKay:
"Tolkien himself — if you study his entire body of work — has answered this particular question both ways."
Although viewers seemed to feel quite strongly about the Dwarf women and their beards, the author himself probably accepted both options, and the crew deserves to be commended for their attention to fine detail since they gave the female dwarves such subtle features that many viewers did not notice them at first glance.