I believe that is correct. The rights that Middle-earth Enterprises currently hold date back to 1968, when Tolkien himself sold the film, stage, and merchandising rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists.
That was nine years before the posthumous publication of The Silmarillion, and, so, it appears that that book wasn’t included in the rights, nor were the other books which Tolkien’s son Christopher pulled together based on his father’s notes and drafts (e.g., Unfinished Tales, the History of Middle-Earth series, etc.)
Well, there are Smeagol and Deagol, who found the Ring, a couple thousand years after the end of the Second age. They had to come from somewhere. In fact Tolkien said they lived around the Anduin river back in the day. So yeah, no actual records, but still, they were around.
What that means is that Tolkien didn’t provide a backstory for Hobbits prior to the Third Age. They could have been around as long as Haradrim and Easterlings, who are also offshoots of the human race. There is no reason to suppose that they emerged suddenly at the beginning of the Third Age.
Or maybe Sauron was trying to make his own personal version of orcs by corrupting men, like Morgoth had done, just near the end of the 2nd age. He had gotten as far as making them smaller (for reasons of economy) and giving them big feet (because they were going to be foot soldiers) but he was (sort of) destroyed before he could make them evil. So they ended up with their size stunted but their essential human nature intact, and took advantage of their sudden freedom to go forth and multiply, and a couple thousand years later we have The Shire. That’s one way they could have existed only after the 2nd Age was over. Not very scientific, but this is magic and wizardry and stuff like that we are talking about.
Just to clarify: I didn’t mean to imply that hobbits didn’t exist in the Second Age — only that there are no canonical hobbit stories from then. So what we’re about to see if strictly fan fiction.
Because this story and these characters (the new hobbit-beings) are not canonical, does that make them fan fiction? I hope it’s professionally-written fiction with coherent stories and well-developed characters. Calling anything not provided for by the original product fan fiction seems to broaden that term beyond useful meaning.
here a few:
It’s Set Nearly 5,000 Years Before The Lord Of The Rings, And 15,000 Years Before Forrest Gump
One Of The Characters Has A Ton Of Unopened Amazon Boxes Outside Their House The Rings Of Power will take place against such lush backdrops as Auckland, New Zealand; the Coromandel Peninsula; and downtown Indianapolis.
I saw a trailer last night, available only to Fire stick users apparently – showing Elrond entering Khazad-Dûm for a meeting with Durin IV. The set design of K-D at its heyday was pretty darn impressive.
The Elves Are A Magical Race Of White Übermensch From The West Who Are Genetically Superior To Those Dirty, Evil, Lazy, Dark Southern And Eastern Men In Every Way
There is no subtext to this. Please stop overthinking it.