Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Showrunners Discuss Mt. Doom Twist

gamerant.com:

As The Rings of Power nears the final two episodes of its first season, its climax has started to heat up. Now, showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have discussed how they have attempted to keep relevant plot beats true to Tolkien's philosophy.

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been making waves on Amazon with its additions to Tolkien's lore. Fans have been exposed to a side of Middle Earth they’ve never seen on screen before, and this came to a head with Rings of Power episode 6’s surprise ending, in which Mt. Doom erupts and turns the Southlands into what will come to be known as Mordor. In an instant, the show transformed one of its settings into one of the most iconic locations from Tolkien's tales.

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In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Payne and McKay expressed a desire to tie any twists in the story into Tolkien's own themed and philosophies. Tolkien, as many fans know, was a staunch environmentalist and traditionalist, and his writings reflect a world marred by industrialization due to Man’s desire to change the landscape for his own benefit. In Tolkien's Middle Earth, the world is constantly falling into a lesser state due to this tendency. Originally a nigh-on paradise, Arda (the name of Tolkien's planet) faces numerous challenges that utterly transform it with each passing Age.

“A huge theme in Tolkien is the environmentalism and the way machines and industrializations destroys the land. We wanted that to be central and core all the time. It’s a thing that comes up again and again throughout the show," McKay said. «So in the writers room, we asked: What if Mordor was beautiful? All bucolic like Switzerland. And then what could