What are the Stoors? First look from The Rings of Power season 2 – Let’s Get Nerdy!

Amazon Studios The Rings of Power is here. The Second season will debut on Amazon Prime August 29th of this year. We want all Spoilerites to have the best viewing experience possible and have the widest knowledge base about the Second Age of Middle-Earth. This is a weekly Let’s Get Nerdy article series highlighting a different piece of Tolkien I think you need to know about!

This post contains potential spoilers for The Rings of Power’s second season. At the time of writing these are based on what we’ve seen in trailers and early looks, but if you may want to avoid spoilers come back later and see if I was right!

Spoilerties, if you cast your mind all the way back to the halcyon days before The Rings of Power debuted on Amazon Prime we talked a lot about the Harfoots – “the hobbits who aren’t hobbits” – in an effort to better understand Nori and her fellow halfling characters who would be at the heart of the show’s narrative. So much so, in fact, I wrote the following article as the fourth installment in this very series:

Who are the Harfoots?

Throughout all of my examinations of Harfoot culture (from both the point of view of J.R.R. Tolkien’s book canon and the new canon being forged by The Rings of Power), I have repeatedly noted the three tribes of halflings who preceded the hobbits we have come to know and love from both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Harfoots aside, one of the other major tribes of halflings in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth are called Stoors.

We now have confirmation (exclusively from Entertainment Weekly), that not only are we going to meet the Stoors for the first time (I guess we all know what Nori and The Stranger are getting up to!), but some of the cast members who will be bringing them to life on screen for us.

Per EW:

But as season 2 (which premieres Aug. 29 on Prime Video) begins, the show’s primary harfoot characters Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) are exploring the desert region of Rhûn, in the east of Middle-earth. There, they’ll meet some distant cousins. These are the stoors, who predate the hobbit-adjacent riverfolk. Unlike the harfoots, the stoors are not nomadic.

I would like to point out this statement is confirmation of a theory I wrote about in this series months ago:

What is Rhûn Where Nori & The Stranger are Headed?

EW goes on:

“The stoors’ ancestry at some point was nomadic,” says Tanya Moodie, who plays the stoors’ community leader Gundabel. “But over the years, we as a group have settled and that has become our culture, to look after one another.” 

… and:

“There’s this beautiful carving made by Kristian [Milsted], our wonderful production designer, that’s like a mural of the history of the stoors’ and harfoots’ origins,” says Gavi Singh Chera, who plays a stoor named Merimac. “I loved looking at that while we were on set. It made me feel at home with family. It always helped me get into character as Merimac.” 

Since none of these characters appear in Tolkien’s original works it appears “Merimac” is an attempt at something close to “Merriadoc” or “Merriadoc Brandybuck” fame – Merry was played by Dominic Monaghan in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

EW goes on to add:

“The canyon that the stoors call home is such a wonderful little oasis, but it’s a harsh world,” Milsted says. “We wanted to make something that was very different from the Shire that we’ve seen on screen. So it was more like they have these abodes that are dug into the rock of this very hostile environment, which creates a very close-knit community. They have a written history, they have a library, they have a map of the stars, they have a whole history woven into this set.”

… and:

“My character’s intentions are always focused on what will protect us, what will keep us alive, and hopefully thrive,” Moodie says. “While I was doing it, I was wondering whether or not I’m related to Sméagol. But I couldn’t justify any sort of narrative like, ‘Oh, I’m his great-great-grandmother.’ That felt like a bit of a reach.” 

… concluding:

“In the books, the stoors are known for loving water,” Chera says. “I think it’s so interesting that their origins are a really arid and dry environment, a place where water is sacred. So if you then travel and you come across a river, and this is your history, it must seem like the ultimate oasis.” 

Based on this trend I’m predicting now that in The Rings of Power season 3 we’ll meet The Fallohides (the third tribe of halfling who preceded the hobbits, mentioned above).

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