The prequelization of pop culture has become so commonplace that it’s almost a parody of itself. Do we really need to know how Han got the last name Solo? Why Poirot grew a moustache? That Cruella de Vil’s mother was murdered by Dalmatians?
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t soft spots in the stories we know that are worth exploring, and there are about a million of them in Middle-earth. And with this week’s San Diego Comic-Con trailer for Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerwe just saw a new one.
(Editorial note: Now’s the time to watch the trailer before we talk about what was in it.)
Photo: Ben Rothstein/Prime Video
I’ve often said, “Hey, Rings of Powershow me an Entwife! You could do it! You’re in the right time!”
And see, Rings of Power replied: Here you have it.
Image: Amazon Studios
The show specifically responded with this beautiful, blossom-covered lady with her gnarled eyes, her lipless, slit-like tree mouth, and an unmistakably feminine voice as she slowly, slowly sings, “Forgiveness lasts forever.”
An entwife! We will be right back.
Susana, what is an Entwife?
I mean, it’s really what it says on the tin. They’re the other half of the Ent species, a whole race of tree women to compliment the tree men. They’re only briefly touched upon in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towersbut in Tolkien’s books they are a constant presence—in mentions, at least—when characters talk to an Ent.
From the moment Merry and Pippin meet him, Treebeard takes a great interest in the Shire and its countryside, as it sounds like a place where Entwives might have settled. He mentions that the Ents have not been able to produce young Entings for years (which, as Ents count time, is actually an aeon), due to the loss of the Entwives.
“How terribly sad!” Pepijn answers politely. The two towersHe asks, “How is it possible that they all died?”
“They did not die!” answers Treebeard. “I never said died. We’ve lost them, I said. We’ve lost them and we can’t find them.”
Over the course of three pages and a recited song, Treebeard explains that Ents and Entwives once lived together, until their interests began to diverge; their “hearts grew no longer in the same way.” Where Ents roamed the great forests and attached themselves to the tall-growing wild trees such as oak, elm, and birch, Entwives preferred to create orderly gardens in which to live, and grew fond of apple and cherry trees, of cornfields and herb gardens. The Entwives befriended humans and taught them farming, while Ents remained a mere legend to them.
Both the Ents and the Entwives believed that their way of life was the best, and refused to live together for so long that by the time an Ent had the idea of visiting an Entwoman, the Entwives had all departed to parts unknown, their original lands having been destroyed by Sauron in his battles with Númenor.
“For many years we went out now and then to find the Entwives,” Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin, “and we walked far and wide and called them by their pretty names. But as time went on we went less far and wandered less far. And now the Entwives are only a memory to us, and our beards are long and grey.” Then he sings a whole page of a song about an Ent calling an Entwoman to come to his wild land that he loves, and she keeps insisting that she would rather stay where she is in her pretty garden.
The Ents are gently melancholic about the loss of the Entwives, but not in a particularly proactive way. If they had had the motivation to leave their beloved forests and actually go find the Entwives, they probably wouldn’t have lost them in the first place. Still, his last words, each time Treebeard bids the hobbits farewell, include a reminder to send him a message if they ever hear of any Entwives in the ordered farmland of the Shire.
Yes, the Lord of the Rings has no debt tree divorce
Image: New Line Cinema
This might be a good time to point out that it’s easy to find humor in Lord of the Rings adaptations as a deviation from the source material, but Tolkien definitely had jokes in his epic, and the Ents and Entwives are definitely one of them.
Tolkien created grand romances and adventurous women – Eowyn, who desired a noble death above all else; Lúthien, who traveled far and wide to save her sworn love from the dark lord Morgoth; Galadriel, whose ambitions were too great for the heavens – but he also had time for self-parody. Like a whole class of long-winded men who were so obsessed with their interests that they didn’t spend enough time with their wives and simply… lost sight of them.
Of Rings of Power The story takes place before Sauron and Numenor are at open war, and we are now in the period when the Entwives were still tending their gardens in the lands southeast of Moria and northwest of Mordor. I’m just glad to see them.