The Lack of Stakes is Ensuring Rings of Power Won't Ever Be Good Enough
By now we can say with some confidence, that The Rings of Power fell far short of the expectations, and not only because the expectations were so enormous.
Despite all the backing from Amazon and all the budget, too much of the show just wasn't good. Bad or, at least, questionable aspects of The Rings of Power are numerous, including casting, dialogue, compressing both time and space of Middle-earth for plot convenience, slowness of said plot (despite cramming events canonically separated by thousands of years into the same timeframe!) and lack of clear narrative direction.
But one problem that is worth a special mention is the lack of stakes. Now, sure, given the prequel nature of the series a good number of characters are guaranteed to survive. But not only said characters seemed to actively abuse their plot insurance, there is a noticeable lack of danger surrounding even characters, who aren't destined to play a role later on.
Halbrand surviving a horseback ride across nearly the entire Middle-earth after being stabbed and having contracted sepsis is dumb but at least explainable, because he is actually Sauron. Galadriel surviving thanks to plot contriva… ahem, random chance, after leaping off the Elven ship and getting stuck right in the middle of ocean is dumber. Bronwyn being just fine after getting pierced by an orc arrow?
No deaths, save for extras and an obvious fake-out during the climactic eruption of Mount Doom? Just makes one stop caring. One character of any significance died in the entire season, and conveniently just when he was going to be written out of the plot anyway.
Placing undeserved focus on deaths of effectively extras does not help to trick the audience into believing that the conflicts have weight. Slow motion and emotional musical crescendos aren't going to make anyone care about characters dying, if said characters did not have enough lines and time for the audience to remember their names – without taking a look into the credits or making a search on the web.
While some may argue that Season 1 is little more than a prologue, a setup for the real plot to unfold in later seasons that is just an evasive way of admitting that eight hours were spent on events that did not deserve as much screen time.
After all, House of Dragon Season 1, which aired in parallel with The Rings of Power, and which actually was a whole season of extended setup for the main story, involved plenty of real stakes, with characters dying, being born, growing up, developing, forming and changing their allegiances. The Rings of Power, and all of its lengthy subplots, need real stakes as well, if the show is ever to live up to the expectations placed on it.