The Rings of Powerhas a surprising connection to bothBreaking BadandBetter Call Saul.Writer Gennifer Hutchinson, who was recently interviewed by GameRant, has worked on all three shows. In her interview, Hutchinson discussed how writing forThe Rings of Powercompared toBetter Call SaulandBreaking Bad.
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Poweris helmed by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. The two,who are co-showrunners ofRings of Power,won the rights to the show over channels such as HBO when they pitched a show that would pay homage to and remain loyal to author JRR Tolkien’s source material. Joining them in the writers' room is Gennifer Hutchinson, Helen Shang, Jason Cahill, Justin Doble, Bryan Cogman, and Stephany Folsom, with Glenise Mullins acting as a consulting writer.
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Hutchinson discussed her time onBetter Call SaulandBreaking Badand compared it to her time onThe Rings of Powerin her interview withGameRant. “You know, it’s interesting. It does, but there’s a lot of stuff that’s foundationally the same. One of the things that’s nice about doing a TV show in this world is that you can spend a lot more time with your characters and do a deep dive on them and their psychology and where they’re coming from, which is really kind of the wheelhouse ofthe Vince Gilligan camp. So much about deep character study,” Hutchinson said when asked if the writers' rooms differ. “But, also, this is a giant sweeping big fantasy show, so there was also this attention being paid to the scope and telling this huge story and balancing five different worlds and so many different characters. So there was that need to kind of really be mindful of so many different moving parts at the same time, as opposed to an intimate character study that you get on something likeBreaking BadorBetter Call Saul. Here it was like you were doing smaller intimate character studies but having to make sure that you’re juggling all of them and honoring all of them throughout.”
It seems that writing a large-scale fantasy show likeRings of Powerwas a bit different in terms of worldbuilding. Both of Vince Gilligan’s hit shows take place in what is essentially the real world, and the focus is solely on the characters and their interactions with one another. A fantasy series likeThe Rings of Powerhas to spend time establishing the rules of its world, and introducing audiences to new concepts and even new species. It’s full of new,fantastical locations such as Khazad-Dum, which is ruled by Dwarven peoples. Hutchinson essentially comments that, while character building and relationships are just as important inThe Rings of Poweras they’d be inBreaking Bad, they are only one consideration out of many.
The beauty of a fantasy series likeRings of Powerlies in a mixture of its world-building and characters. Even in new worlds, the human condition continues to prevail and characters likeGaladriel must face moral struggles of their own. All the while, they must face new and interesting situations that a human in the real world can never truly face. This allows writers to ask how a person might realistically respond in a completely alien situation.
At the same time, there’s also the fascinating lore that the audience gets to learn about.The Rings of Powerfeatures rich histories of fantasy peoples, with Dwarven cities dotting the land, or ancient, magical kingdoms of Men that are corrupted by ancient evils. There’s an extra layer of discovery when an audience is given a new world to learn about.
