How Rings Of Power’s Ema Horvath Reacts To Fans’ Impressive Tolkien Expertise

During a Vanity Fair interview with her costars Maxim Baldry, who plays Isildur, and Owain Arthur, who plays Durin, all three tackled the difficult question of how they handle it when fans know more about the “Lord of the Rings” lore and their characters than they do. While the guys admit that they try to avoid the topic in order to avoid feeling insecure about their performances, Ema Horvath is the opposite. She even takes a moment during the interview to describe a moment when she got the number of palantíri wrong (and refers to them as “palantirs” in the interview, which is probably driving some diehard Tolkien fans nuts to this day).

It’s understandable why Horvath would be a little insecure about her role, seeing as how she’s one of the characters which showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay invented for the show (via Entertainment Weekly). There will undoubtedly be gatekeeping fans who disapprove of the addition, but the showrunners are doing their due diligence. In the EW article, they quote Tolkien’s own personal letters where he talked about wanting others to continue writing stories in the universe he created, and the showrunners even brought on his grandson as a consultant.

And he isn’t just any grandson: Simon Tolkien is a novelist in his own right, who was a supporter of the original film trilogy even though other members of the Tolkien family were not. But he’s proud of the work he’s done with Amazon, and Horvath’s debut episode “Adar” is currently enjoying a 7.4 out of 10 rating on IMDb, so it appears as though they’re doing something right.