When Frodo gives it to him, "Tom put the Ring round the end of his little finger and held it up to the candlelight.Then they gasped. In The Fellowship of the Ring, it's explained that during this time Tom asks to see the Ring. When Frodo and company stumble upon his house as they begin their trip to Rivendell, he gives them shelter for a couple of days. Bombadil is a mysteriously powerful being that lives near the Shire. The jolly old enigma is only known to fans of the books, as he was cut out of Peter Jackson's films. While he doesn't actually bear the Ring, he's second in line after Sauron when it comes to the desire to do so.Īnd then there's Tom Bombadil. And don't forget, it's his Uruk-hai that carry off Merry and Pippin as part of his attempt to recover the Ring for himself. Nevertheless, he studies Ring lore for centuries, tries to make his own rings, and at one point, even uses the Dark Lord as bait to figure out where the One Ring might be hiding. Unlike Gandalf, Saruman never actually gets his traitorous hands on Sauron's trinket. Here it is, with the bearers presented in chronological order.Īnother honorific goes to the villain Saruman. But who has it before then and in what order? To answer these questions, we dove headlong into the vault of original Middle-earth content and have managed to cobble together a complete list of every Ring-bearer. The question is, who exactly gets a chance to carry the One Ring throughout the bauble's millennia-long existence in Middle-earth? The Lord of the Rings gives us a good perspective of who carries the One Ring right before it meets its end in the fires of Mount Doom. Needless to say, the One Ring is a pretty big deal, as are those who bear it. It even drops into some of the stories contained within many of Tolkien's posthumously published works, like The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. The One Ring is the focal point throughout all three books, as well as The Hobbit that precedes them. After all, this particular piece of jewelry is the One Ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. Tolkien's monumental Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Rings of Power isn’t out yet, but when it is released, it will perfectly bookend your viewing experience as the latest addition to the Lord of the Rings world.There are few stories out there in which bearing a shiny trinket is more important than in J.R.R.
#LORD OF RINGS ORDER SERIES#
The next two films in the series will follow in natural course, and then you can launch straight into the Hobbit series - again, in classic order. If you aim to enjoy the movies this way, you can start where it all began with The Fellowship of the Ring. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which was released first, does a great job of explaining its backstory, which means that very few viewers should end up lost, even if they’ve never seen the films - or the Hobbit trilogy - before.
If you’re looking to enjoy the Lord of the Rings franchise by order of release, rather than chronologically, you can certainly do so.
So, if you’re looking to fully enjoy the franchise following Rings of Power‘s debut, you’ll want to start with the latest series, which aims to massively expand on Middle-earth’s backstory, before launching into The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings trilogies. That’s because Rings of Power takes place in the Second Age, long before the events of either Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit take place.