That New Lord of the Rings Series From Amazon Is Set In The Second Age

Welcome to the Second Age.


The Lord of the Rings series coming to Amazon (someday) is painting a very different picture of what fans previously thought it can look like. As of Thursday (March 7), Amazon confirmed that the show could be taking place in the series's "Second Age."


Taking to the official @LOTRonPrime Twitter account, Amazon debuted what seems to be a near-complete map of Middle Earth that reveals plenty of tidbits of statistics that hardcore fans will have the ability to disseminate ahead of the show's official release.


Previously, the same profile had released an enormous, blank interactive map of Middle Earth to let fans explore and potentially suss out theories on the series's setting. It's since derived a hefty update, which seems to reveal a most crucial detail about the show: It won't be following a young Aragorn as we previously surmised.


The tweets posted Thursday morning added the island of Númenor to the map, the very same civilization we can eventually thank for ranger and popular character Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen in the original film series). It was eventually destroyed before the Lord of the Rings trilogy took place.


Before, Amazon had filled out the map with a few new regions, including Mordor, Eriador, and most interestingly, Minas Anor. Minas Anor is the old name for the recognizable city of Minas Tirith, which you'll likely recognize from The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. The map also featured Minas Ithil, the old name of the enormous fortress Minas Morgul, which we watched Frodo, Sam, and Gollum sneak past any time working to enter Mordor back in the Lord of the Rings film series.


Why does this matter? This all led fans to believe that the series could be set throughout the timeline of The Lord of the Rings' Third Age, any time Minas Ithil ended up falling to the Nazgul and was renamed as Minas Morgul. That would take place nearly a thousand years before Aragorn would ever be place on Earth. As a substitute, we right now know that it's taking place throughout the Second Age, something several fans could never have guessed in their wildest dreams.


The Second Age is a time that's almost never been touched on in the Lord of the Rings movies, and saw some very crucial milestones in the story happening throughout that time, like the founding of the elven city Rivendell. The Rings of Power were also forged throughout that time – naturally an enormous milestone.


As far as anything else about the Lord of the Rings series — we have no idea what's going on. The show is supposedly targeting a 2021 release, yet all we've got up until then are some meticulously-planned tweets and our own wealth of LOTR knowledge.


Time to begin sleuthing.