After Attacking Fans, Amazon Studios First The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Trailer Gets Roasted On YouTube With Quote Attributed To J.R.R. Tolkien

John F. Trent |

Feb 14, 2022

Source: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Prime Video and Amazon Studios released their first trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power during the Super Bowl, and it was quickly roasted with a quote attributed to The Lord of the Rings creator J.R.R. Tolkien.

Polish, English, Russian, and The Lord of the Rings fans across the world repeated the phrase, “Evil cannot create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what was invented or created by the forces of good,” attributing it to The Lord of the Rings creator Tolkien.

The quote appears to be a paraphrase from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, where Frodo tells Sam, “The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not
real new things of its own. I don’t think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them; and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures.”

Here’s just a sampling of the numerous users using the phrase to roast The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power trailer. You can see Polish and Russian speakers using the phrase.

“Зло не может создать ничего нового, оно может только испортить и разрушить то, что изобрели или создали добрые силы,” is the phrase in Russian.

In Polish the phrase reads, “Zło nie jest w stanie stworzyć niczego nowego, może jedynie zniekształcać i niszczyć to, co zostało wymyślone lub stworzone przez siły dobra.”

It’s not just Russians and Polish, Portuguese speakers also got in on it.

The phrase in Portuguese states, “O mal não pode criar nada de novo, só pode corromper e destruir o que as forças do bem inventaram ou criaram.”

There were plenty of English speakers participating expressing their dislike for the trailer and the perversion being committed by Prime Video on Tolkien’s work as well.

Turkish-speaking fans got in on the act too. In Turkish it reads, “Kötülük yeni bir şey yaratmaya muktedir değildir, sadece iyi güçler tarafından icat edilmiş veya yapılmış olanı çarpıtabilir ve yok edebilir.”

This was global outrage as you can see, French speakers, Japanese speakers, and Hebrew speakers also used the phrase.

In French it reads, “Le mal ne peut rien créer de nouveau, il ne peut seulement gâcher ou détruire ce que les bonnes forces ont inventée ou créé.”

“悪は新しいものを作り出すことはできず、善の勢力が発明または創造したものを破壊し破壊することしかできません。」,” is Japanese.

And in Hebrew it reads, “הרוע לא יכול ליצור שום דבר חדש, הוא יכול רק להשחית ולהרוס את מה שכוחות טובים המציאו או יצרו.”

Not only are fans expressing their disgust with Prime Video and Amazon Studios’ trailer and their promise for the show, but the trailer only has 58,000 total likes despite being viewed over 6.6 million times.

This repetition of the phrase attributed to Tolkien comes after Prime Video and Amazon Studios used Vanity Fair to deride fans critical of the show in a puff piece that revealed the show’s first images as well as significant plot and character details such as the fact that Galadriel is now a commander of the Northern Armies and Elrond is “a politically ambitious young leader.”

Vanity Fair writers Anthony Breznican and Joanna Robinson called critics of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power “trolls” in their piece.

Specifically, they wrote, “When Amazon released photos of its multicultural cast, even without character names or plot details, the studio endured a reflexive attack from trolls—the anonymous online kind.”

They went on to cite a feminist activist Mariana Rios Maldonado that they described as a Tolkien scholar to try and paint critics as racists and bigots. Maldonado told Vanity Fair, “Obviously there was going to be push and backlash, but the question is from whom? Who are these people that feel so threatened or disgusted by the idea that an elf is Black or Latino or Asian?”

Clearly, given the comments coming from different places from around the world that narrative from Maldonado, Vanity Fair, and Prime Video just blew up.