Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3.
Truth be told, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been pretty hit-or-miss over the past few years. Distinct departures from character and lore, poorly written dialogue, and odd pacing were struggles during the first season and carried over into the second as well. Fortunately, Season 3 has stuck more closely to J.R.R. Tolkien‘s works than ever, and part of that has to do with the consolidation and even eradication of certain storylines and characters. With four episodes premiering this week to kick off the third season, one thing has become abundantly clear: cutting out the Harfoots was absolutely the right move for the show.
We all love spending time in the Shire in The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbitwould not exist without Bilbo Baggins, but, without a doubt, the worst storyline in The Rings of Power‘s first two seasons was the traveling Harfoots. Nori (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy (Megan Richards) were likable enough, but the whole thing felt like a discount Frodo and Sam story. While Hobbits are essential to the end of the Third Age of Middle-earth, their ancestors, the Harfoots, are nothing more than a blip in Tolkien’s writings, and certainly not of grave importance in the Second Age. This is, in effect, why Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, and the others are so notable in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. For centuries, halflings were overlooked and undervalued, but Gandalf (played by Daniel Weyman here) sees something in them that Sauron (Charlie Vickers) would never expect.
On The Rings of Power, the Harfoots always felt like an afterthought, like a good idea meant to echo what folks loved about The Lord of the Rings but without the traits that made them so endearing. In many respects, they felt out of place considering the events occurring around them, and unlike Tolkien’s two seminal works where halflings were the main characters, the show had far too many threads to follow in order to do them justice. Any time they were on-screen, the entire tone of the program was altered — and not always in a fun, Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear) kind of way. Without them, The Rings of Power not only flows more smoothly, but also has the chance to finally expand on plotlines that were largely ignored or underdeveloped in previous seasons.
The Lord of the Rings’ Best Halfling Stories Take Place in the Third Age
The truth is that The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit will always be the best Hobbit stories. Part of that is because Tolkien invented Hobbits in the first place and knows them unlike any other, and part of that is that their most heroic stories were always meant to be about Frodo and Bilbo. Beyond that, Hobbit culture as we know it is more refined and cozy by the Third Age, which means that The Rings of Power never really had the chance to nostalgically take fans to the very place that most associate with the Hobbits. As a result, the Harfoots always felt shoehorned in rather than a natural part of the larger story the Prime Video series has been telling. It’s one thing for The Rings of Power to create new characters to supplement the adventures of Second Age staples like Galadriel, Elendil (Lloyd Owen), and Durin IV (Owain Arthur), but it’s another entirely to insert Gandalf and then pair him with halflings like a page out of The Fellowship of the Ring.
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Personality Quiz
Collider/ Movies/ The Lord of the Rings/ Which Character Are You
Ten Questions · One Fate Which Lord of the Rings Character Are You? The Road Goes Ever On
From the green hills of the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, every soul in Middle-earth carries a destiny. Ten questions stand between you and the truth of who you are. Answer honestly, because the Ring has a way of revealing what we most want to hide.
The Eight Fates
💍Frodo
🌿Samwise
👑Aragorn
🔥Gandalf
🏹Legolas
🪓Gimli
👁Sauron
🪨Gollum
Stage 1 of 10Burden
You are handed a responsibility that could destroy you. What do you do? The weight of the world falls on unlikely shoulders.
Press 1 to 4 to choose
Stage 2 of 10Loyalty
Your closest companion is heading into terrible danger. You: True loyalty is revealed not in comfort, but in crisis.
Press 1 to 4 to choose
Stage 3 of 10Power
Enormous power is within your reach. Your instinct is: Power corrupts, but only those who reach for it.
Press 1 to 4 to choose
Stage 4 of 10Home
What does home mean to you? Where we long to return reveals who we truly are.
Press 1 to 4 to choose
Stage 5 of 10Combat
When a battle is upon you, your approach is: War reveals what we are made of, whether we like it or not.
Press 1 to 4 to choose
Stage 6 of 10Wisdom
Someone comes to you for advice in their darkest hour. You: Wisdom is not knowing all the answers. It is knowing which questions to ask.
Press 1 to 4 to choose
Stage 7 of 10Identity
How do you see yourself, honestly? Self-knowledge is the most dangerous kind.
Press 1 to 4 to choose
Stage 8 of 10Nature
Which of these best describes your relationship with the natural world? Middle-earth speaks to those who know how to listen.
Press 1 to 4 to choose
Stage 9 of 10Mercy
You meet a wretched, pitiable creature who has done terrible things. You: How we treat the fallen reveals the height of our character.
Press 1 to 4 to choose
Stage 10 of 10Legacy
When the quest is over and the songs are sung, what do you hope they say about you? In the end, we are all just stories.
Press 1 to 4 to choose
The Fellowship Has Spoken Your Place in Middle-earth
💍 Frodo Baggins The Ring-bearer You carry it alone, even when you do not have to.
You carry something heavy, and you carry it alone even when you do not have to. You were not born for greatness, and that is precisely why greatness chose you. Your courage is not the roaring, sword-swinging kind. It is quiet, stubborn and terrifying in its refusal to quit. The Ring weighs on you more than anyone can see, and still you walk toward the fire. That is not weakness. That is the rarest kind of strength there is.
QuietStubbornBurdenedUnbreakable
🌿 Samwise Gamgee The Gardener Not the most powerful. Easily the most essential.
You are, without question, the best of them. Not the most powerful, not the most celebrated, but the most essential. Your loyalty is not a trait, it is a force of nature. You would carry the person you love up the slopes of Mount Doom if it came to that, and we both know you would do it without being asked. The world needs more people like you, and the world is lucky it has even one.
LoyalSteadyWarmDevoted
👑 Aragorn The King in Waiting The crown was always yours. The worthiness you had to earn.
You were born to lead, and you have spent years running from it. The crown is yours by right, but you know better than anyone that right means nothing without the will and the worthiness to back it up. You are tempered by loss, shaped by long roads, and defined by a code of honour you hold to even when nobody is watching. When you finally step forward, the world shifts, because it was always waiting for you.
NobleReluctantHonourableTested
🔥 Gandalf The Grey Pilgrim You do not fight the battle. You light the people who will.
You have seen more than you let on, and you say less than you know, which is exactly as it should be. You are a catalyst. You do not fight the battles yourself, you ignite the people who can. Your wisdom comes not from books but from an age of watching what happens when it is ignored. You arrive precisely when you mean to, and your presence alone changes what is possible.
WisePatientGuidingFormidable
🏹 Legolas The Elf of Mirkwood You see it coming long before anybody else looks up.
Graceful, perceptive and almost preternaturally calm under pressure, you see things others miss and act before others react. You do not need to make a scene to be remarkable, your presence speaks for itself. You are loyal to those you choose to stand beside, and that choice is not made lightly. You have lived long enough to know that the most beautiful things in this world are also the most fragile, and that is why you fight to protect them.
PreciseWatchfulGracefulUnhurried
🪓 Gimli Son of Gloin You arrived suspicious of everyone and left ready to die for an elf.
You are loud, proud and absolutely formidable, and beneath all of that is one of the most fiercely loyal hearts in Middle-earth. You do not do anything by half measures. Your friendships are forged like iron, your grudges run as deep as mines, and your courage in battle is the kind that makes legends. You came into this fellowship suspicious of everyone and ended it willing to die for an elf. That is not a small thing. That is everything.
FierceProudBluntDevoted
👁 Sauron The Dark Lord You think in centuries and act in absolutes.
You think in centuries and act in absolutes. Order, dominion, control, not because you are cruel by nature but because you have decided that the world left to itself always falls apart, and you are the only one with the vision and the will to hold it together. You were not always this. Something was lost, or taken, or betrayed, and the version of you that stands now is the answer to that wound. The tragedy is that you are not entirely wrong, just entirely too far gone to course-correct.
AbsolutePatientRelentlessConsumed
🪨 Gollum What Is Left of Smeagol Two voices, and the better one does not win often enough.
You are a study in contradiction, pitiable and dangerous, cunning and broken, capable of both cruelty and something that once resembled love. You are defined by loss: of innocence, of self, of the one thing that gave your existence meaning. Two voices war inside you constantly, and the tragedy is that the better one sometimes wins, just not often enough and never at the right moment. You are a warning, yes, but also a mirror.
DividedCunningHauntedPitiable
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Quest recorded by COLLIDER Collider.com · Middle-earth
If you want more Hobbits, Harfoots, or other halflings (and don’t forget the Stoors, too), the best thing you can do is read Tolkien’s “Concerning Hobbits” chapter of The Lord of the Rings. The next best thing is to revisit the rest of the books or even the Peter Jackson films themselves. As for The Rings of Power, Season 3 has finally hit its stride with a more focused plot, more well-rounded characters, and every storyline building toward something meaningful as Sauron threatens to rule over Middle-earth.
New episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 are available for streaming Wednesdays on Prime Video.
