[Note: this was originally posted on X on Sept. 4th 2024.]
A bit of Rings of Power Sauron crack produced in response to the Annatar reveal scene in episode 2 of season 2.
The audio of the above is taken from a rather famous (infamous?) scene in the 1965 film The Greatest Story Ever Told in which John Wayne appears in a cameo as a centurion witnessing the crucifixion of Christ.1 I was watching this RoP episode with my husband, and he quoted that line live just where I have placed it. I think he found the extraordinarily overt Annatar-Christ imagery even more over-the-top than I did.2
The Greatest Story Ever Told was neither directed by Cecil B. DeMille nor produced by MGM, but the names (and that roaring lion) are so synonymous, in my mind, with epic mid-century Hollywood films like MGM and DeMille’s King of Kings, that both names seemed appropriate. Not to mention, Tolkien notes that Sauron referred to himself as “King of Kings.”3
It’s not that there aren’t some interesting (subversive) parallels to be drawn, but season 2 in particular has chosen to image the parallels so blatantly as to practically slap you in the face with them, but both of these statements are the rightful subjects of other posts.
See Letter 131 (to Milton Waldman), also included in the portion of this letter reproduced in the foreword to the Second Edition of The Silmarillion.
Share this post