Amazon's Lord of the Rings Series Confirmed to Be Set in the Second Age

Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series will officially take place in the Second Age, prior to the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Confirmed by the show’s official Twitter account, a new post simply says “Welcome to the Second Age” with a link out to an updated map of Middle Earth. This map has been updated regularly, at first only showing geographical locations, but later including labels for locations. These developments led many fans to believe the show would take place in this little-explored Second Age of Middle Earth.

Welcome to the Second Age: https://t.co/Tamd0oRgTw — The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime) March 7, 2019

The show taking place in the Second Age means quite a bit. For starters, it’s an age that wasn’t explored much by J.R.R. Tolkien, meaning most of the stories won’t be his and will be thought up by the show’s writers - for better or for worse. Though many rumors pointed towards the show focusing on Aragorn, who lived in the Third Age, it’s possible flash backs, or flash forwards, could occur in the show.

Many notable events happened during The Second Age, including the forging of the Rings of Power and the infamous One Ring. The Second Age ended with the scene shown at the beginning of Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring, depicting the War of the Last Alliance where Sauron was defeated, but the One Ring was not destroyed, giving rise to the Third Age which is largely explored in The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The latest update to the map shows the island of Númenor, which was known to be the greatest civilization of men. Considered by the Third Age to be a lost civilization, Númenor experienced a schism when much of its people stopped worshiping the god Eru Ilúvatar, and rebelled against the Valar. This ultimately resulted in the destruction of the island and death of most of the population. Its inclusion on the map suggests we may finally get to see some of that story play out.

For more on Amazon Prime’s Lord of the Rings show, check out our deep dive on exactly what we think it will be about, and some of the map’s early cryptic clues.

Colin Stevens is a news writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

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