There have been a lot of mixed reactions to the Amazon Rings of Power series, many of which have been negative. This is, in part, because the show took a very slow-paced unfolding of its narrative from the offset, choosing to keep much of its action until the later episodes. When compared to many other popular TV series happening simultaneously, such as House of the Dragon, which is much faster paced in true Game of Thrones style, many viewers felt that the slow-burn of season 1 of Rings of Power just didn’t live up to the hype.
However, this timely and whimsical revelation of the key plot is true to that of the Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit films, which both start with gentle stories in the Shire before ramping up to the danger of Bilbo’s and Frodo’s quests. Therefore, there are lots of reasons why this slow-burn actually works in the show's favor.
One of the most important narrative devices of the series is to place the audience in the protagonist's shoes, so that their actions become more relatable and understandable. This is just what the first series does with Galadriel, by starting off in Valinor, and giving viewers a glimpse of the beautiful world that the elves lived in, before it was destroyed by the evil of Morgoth.
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Galadriel’s subsequent mission to avenge the death of her brother, protect others from the suffering that she endured, and finally, rid the world of Sauron’s malice naturally becomes admirable to the audience having seen it develop slowly over the first few episodes, in a way that wouldn’t have been as effective if the show had sped through this first part of the story. Even in Galadriel’s questionable moments, such as the potential genocide of the orcs that Adar is trying to protect, the audience stays with Galadriel because they know that her reactions come from a place of pain.
Bearing in mind that Tolkien’s works aren’t short novellas, they are huge tomes, that span across hundreds and hundreds of pages, the Rings of Power speed is arguably actually in line with the slowly immersive world that Tolkien took an entire lifetime to delicately build. The Lords of the Rings itself is 3 whole books, plus several Appendices, and the Rings of Power series also incorporates elements of the Silmarillion and the wider lore of the world too.
So including all of this information, it could even be argued that the series is packing an awful lot of the 3 thousand-year long ages of Middle Earth into the space of 8 episodes. A part of the compressed timeline of the show was to combat this problem, that there are vast years in between major events in Tolkien’s story, as life doesn’t happen in n instant, things do take time, and this is apparent both in his books and in the show so far.
However, the slow pace of the series doesn’t only benefit Galadriel’s character and her motives, it also benefits several of the other storylines that run concurrently. When trying to weave together lots of different narratives, including that of the Southlanders, that of the alliance between the elves and the dwarves and their need for Mithril, that of Celebrimbor and the creation of the rings, the Stranger from the meteor and his journey with the Harfoots, the three disciples of Sauron who are chasing him, and the mystery behind Halbrand’s identity, the writers chose to approach every story gradually, and drip-feed snippets about each eventuality across the eight episodes.
If they had chosen to make series one of the show more of a fast-paced, action based thrill, these stories would undoubtedly have become a tangled web of confusion. And in the writer's/directors' minds, this only serves to make the big impactful moment feel all the more exciting and meaningful when they do happen, like episode six which left many viewers reeling from the suddenness of the appearance of Mordor after so long of building up to it.
Unlike in other current series, the writers and directors really wanted the series to be an evolution of well-known and well-loved characters from the films, so that audiences really took the time to understand who they are vs who they become, and see the journey that takes place between then and now. And with the creation of Mordor, and the expected revelation of Sauron in season 2, writers have promised that the next series of the show will be bigger and better, and fall more in line with the more wise and worldly versions of the characters from Bilbo and Frodo’s stories. There’s still one final episode before season 2 though, and who knows what the 8th installment has in store?