Filming on Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series is either still happening or recently concluded — the huge dearth of news makes it hard to know. At any rate, the first season has been fully scripted, and the writers are working on the second season. My dearest hope for this series, dearer even than the hope that Annatar and Celebrimbor’s relationship is not purely that of master craftsmen who respect each other, is that the writers have made the story of Aldarion and Erendis the core of the first season.

For those unfamiliar with this story, it’s perhaps the only real narrative we have that takes place in Númenor, or the Second Age. Most of our other information about this time period comes in the form of notes or info-dumps in places like the Appendices. But “Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner’s Wife,” though unfinished, is a genuine narrative about two people who simply should never have gotten married. Though the prose is still in Tolkien’s high-fantasy style, the story itself is far more intimate and emotionally grounded than any other in the legendarium — and that makes it perfect as the backbone of Amazon’s series.

Aldarion is the sixth King of Númenor, the son of Tar-Meneldur, though he doesn’t come into that kingship for quite a while; he isn’t even named the official King’s Heir until he’s around 100 years old. Aldarion is born in the year 700 of the Second Age, and by the time he’s 25 he’s already sailing to Middle-earth. His father, a keen astronomer, doesn’t love this, but Aldarion is seldom told “no,” and is one of those people who will do the exact opposite of what he’s advised to do simply out of spite.