Even those who loved The Rings of Power‘s recent first season had to adjust to the change in scope of the stories from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The story of The Rings of Power takes place many millennia before the War of the Ring, so the characters are almost mythological in stature.

Elrond and Galadriel are much more powerful characters than Frodo and even Aragorn, but they’re still relatable enough. Any stories from Middle-earth would do well to avoid characters any more powerful, though. J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythology contains people and creatures closer to gods than men, and despite being awesome in their power levels, they’d be wholly uninteresting to see on-screen. They would be nearly unstoppable and unwilling to grow seeing as there would be nowhere to go but down.

Ancalagon

The dragons of Morgoth are mentioned only briefly in The Rings of Power, during the opening battle which depicts a version of the War of Wrath. In this battle, Morgoth releases the winged-dragons, creatures he had been creating in secret, the largest of them was Ancalagon the Black.

Ancalagon was their leader and so massive that when he was finally killed, his body toppled the volcano which he was fighting over. Smaug was the most powerful dragon alive at one point, and even he could be killed by normal means but Ancalagon was many times larger and would be so unstoppable a force, the character can only meaningfully interact with characters of similar power.

Tom Bombadil

One of the first cases of fan outrage at the Peter Jackson films was the removal of Tom Bombadil from the Fellowship of the Ring. Tom is a significant character in the book that is an important formative moment for Frodo. But it’s a good thing he was removed.

The character is so powerful, Tolkien himself is unable or unwilling to explain exactly who he is. Tom can control the ents, heals wounds, scare away the dead and, incredibly, use the One Ring with no ill effects and see Frodo when he has it on. The events of Middle-earth have no effect on Tom and while he is fascinating, he would not make for an interesting main character if he can simply overpower everything.

Melkor

Before Sauron, there was Morgoth, or Melkor as he was once known. Morgoth is the original evil villain of the Lord of the Rings universe and a Lucifer analogue to Christian theology. Unlike Sauron who desires power to conquer and control, Morgoth only wants to destroy.

Morgoth is only defeated when the rest of the high-gods of Tolkien’s mythology gang up on him. Any story about the devil would be inherently boring, he has one goal, to destroy, and his reasoning is essentially because he wants to. No other interesting character would stand a chance against him.

Eärendil

Eärendil is a character who is much more interesting because of how many important details of the Lord of the Rings he is related to, rather than the character himself. He is the father of Elrond and Frodo is given an important vial that contains “the light of Earendil, their most beloved star”.

The half-elf, half-man is powerful enough to set foot in the land of Valinor. He’s then given a flying ship and uses it to defeat the greatest dragon in history, Ancalagon. Eärendil is an incredibly powerful character but the fact that he constantly wins in every way possible makes him fairly uninteresting.

Gwaihir The Windlord

One character is so powerful that some fans think he could have ended the quest to destroy the ring in an instant. Gwaihir the Windlord is the king of the Great Eagles and the same eagle that appears numerous times throughout the films to fly Gandalf, Frodo, and others to safety.

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Many wonder why Gwaihir could not have just flown the ring to Mount Doom and cast it in himself. There are a number of reasons why that couldn’t happen, but it’s a great example of a character too powerful for its own good. Gwaihir is a “get out of jail free” card, and it wouldn’t be interesting if that card kept getting played.

King Of The Dead

The Men of the Mountains who lived in the Dwimorberg were cursed to never die after they broke their oath to Isildur, and their king remained a living revenant as the King of the Dead forever afterwards. As an undead ghost, the King under the Mountain is forced to never be able to rest.

But they are still able to wield weapons and kill which makes the King and the army he controls the most formidable ever seen in Middle Earth. All that power leads them to being an important plot point but ultimately uninteresting. This is proven when the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, in the films at least, is ended in one clean stroke upon their arrival.

Ungoliant

Ungoliant is a primordial monster of Arda, Tolkien’s earth. Not even the minor gods of Tolkien’s mythology who created the world know where Ungoliant comes from. But it is known that she takes the form of a giant spider and is so powerful, she kills the two trees of light seen in the first scene of The Rings of Power.

The giant spider monster has no other goals than to feed as she’s constantly hungry, like her offspring Shelob. She can consume the light of the world and at one point grows so big that Morgoth grows afraid. But she really is no more interesting than that, in fact, her death comes at her own greedy hands as she grows so hungry she consumes herself.

Fingolfin

The son of Finwe, the first King of the Noldor, a race of elves, Fingolfin was said to be the strongest and bravest son of the legendary elf king as well as intelligent as any character seen in The Rings of Power and Lord of the Rings. Unlike his vastly more interesting brother, Faenor, Fingolfin has little to no character flaws and always seems to behave with others in mind.

He is such a powerful fighter that he even challenges Morgoth himself to single combat, and while the demigod easily defeats him, Fingolfin gives him a wound in his foot that causes Morgoth to limp from there on out. Fingolfin is a legendary hero and warrior, but there’s not much more to be said about him that he hasn’t already proven himself with his actions.

Huan

Huan is a horse-sized hound that was given to the elves as a gift from the gods. He is extremely powerful and intelligent as any human, but he can only speak three times before he dies, and he can only be killed by the greatest wolf ever known.

So while Huan is a great and loyal hound to his masters that’s really all he does, protect his friends and guide others to sought after treasures. It may be worth seeing Huan fight the greatest wolf, Carcharoth, but everything that will happen to the dog is laid out in prophecy from the very beginning.

Eru Ilúvatar

Eru is J.R. Tolkien’s supreme deity of the mythology he created for The Lord of the Rings. He would be more akin to the judeo-christian version of God rather than Zeus or Odin or another leader of the gods. Eru created everything from nothing and stays away from his creation ever afterwards, even when his creations threaten to destroy each other.

Nothing can ever or could ever touch Eru and while he may have the ability to sympathize and empathize with his creations, he only rarely intervenes and only at critical moments in history. An omniscient, omnipotent character could very well be one of the least interesting things from Tolkien’s legendarium, but he is still an important aspect of Lord of the Rings mythology.