Amazon Prime recently announced the main cast for their upcoming Lord Of The Rings prequel adaptation (a multi-talented fellowship of fifteen, all of whom seem like admirable and interesting people), but now, with their production start-date inching closer, it’s time for them to start casting the smaller roles: recurring characters, guest stars, that sort of thing. Simon Merrells is the first such actor to be cast, according to new reporting.
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Merrells, best known for his work on the TV series Spartacus (and for his brief but hilarious role on another Amazon Prime series, Good Omens), will supposedly be joining the cast of the epic fantasy in a recurring role: unsurprisingly, we don’t have a character name to attach to his face just yet, nor do we know how many episodes he will appear in. But that’s never stopped me before, and it’s not enough to stop me now from taking a wild shot in the dark and throwing out a guess for who I think Merrells could portray in the first season of Amazon’s Lord Of The Rings.
The character who came to mind immediately, after taking a long, hard look at Merrells’ long, hard face, was Círdan the Shipwright. Círdan is by no means a pivotal figure in the histories of the Second Age of Middle-earth, when this series takes place, but he is still just important enough to warrant popping up from time to time: he was one of the three Elven Ringbearers, and throughout the Second Age he wore on his hand Narya, the Ring of Fire – a responsibility he doesn’t seem to have ever exploited, as there’s no record of him ever using the Ring (and as soon as the Third Age rolled around, he took the first chance he got and passed it off to Gandalf). In this Age, he mostly stayed put in the peaceful country of Lindon, where he was probably a close confidante of the Elven king Gil-galad. He also started construction on the Grey Havens, which would later serve as the Elven peoples’ last escape-route from Middle-earth in times of war and hardship. There, at the Havens, he was probably the guardian of one of the palantíri seeing stones (which technically was housed a couple miles away at Elostirion, but close enough to still conceivably be within his sphere of influence). He stood by Isildur and Elrond on the slopes of Mount Doom after the first defeat of Sauron, and presumably backed Elrond up when the latter tried to convince Isildur not to take the One Ring. He’s a character who stands on the margins of this world’s history, watching events unfold with a patient, foreseeing eye, but rarely getting involved in the action. In other words, he’s not going to be around often in the series, but when he does show up, it’ll probably be for big, dramatic moments.
And of course, Merrells matches his physical description well enough: Círdan is written to be an old Elf, still noble and majestic, but weathered and worn-down a little from the weight of his burdens and the pain he has seen. Merrells, with his gaunt features and deep-set eyes, looks almost exactly like the character – I say “almost”, because Círdan is supposed to have a long grizzled beard, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem for Merrells, who has grown a decent-sized beard before for multiple roles.
So that’s who I think Simon Merrells could play in the Amazon Prime series. Who do you think he’s playing, and what do you think of the casting? Share your thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!
Actress Ema Horvath has joined the slowly assembling cast of Amazon Prime’s adaptation of the novels and unpublished writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, becoming only the fifth actor to do so – at the rate this is going, we should have a full cast sometime by the end of next year: but filming apparently begins in February, so the series’ casting directors might want to speed things up and stop searching relentlessly for hairy bikers and “wonderful noses”. All the wonderful noses in the world aren’t going to help a show that can’t pull together a main cast.
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Still, Horvath’s casting is at least a welcome sign of life from the project, which seems to randomly tumble into our newsfeeds every month or two with a sudden, startling announcement that makes us all sit up for twenty minutes before settling back into the long dark of Moria. Perhaps, if Amazon Prime could release some plot details, character names, or even a few pieces of concept art, we might have cause to get really excited: but these little unofficial news-stories are becoming increasingly infuriating as we’re forced to wait in silence for weeks in between, contenting ourselves with reading frustrating articles about all the things that the show could do wrong or “has” to get right (naming no names, of course).
Horvath herself is not likely to heighten our excitement or give outsiders a reason to get hyped: she’s a relatively obscure actress, with a small resume. I’m not certain which character she could be portraying onscreen, but I hope we might get an indication soon, as the show moves into production. I’d love it if Amazon could surprise us all and suddenly put out a big, detailed press release or something that all of us theorists could obsess over for a couple of weeks. That would be nice.
What do you think of the casting? Share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!
For what is rumored to be the biggest, most expensive streaming series ever made, Amazon Prime Video’s The Lord Of The Rings prequel, based largely on the posthumously published works of author J.R.R. Tolkien, is barely even on the radar for most people. The series’ official social media accounts post cryptic messages and then go silent for weeks, even months. No cast members have been officially confirmed, even with filming set to begin in February of next year. We, the hardcore Tolkien fans, have to satisfy ourselves with theorizing and speculating about the smallest of details while we wait for any big announcements to break. But in the past couple of days, we’ve gotten plenty of small details, and now, at last, we have another big one.
Just a few days ago, a bunch of character code names for the series were released, with a couple of accompanying character traits that were largely vague and unhelpful. But last night Redanian Intelligence, a site better known for its coverage of The Witcher on Netflix, published transcripts of several audition tapes for some of these new characters, giving us a clearer insight into some of the series’ ensemble cast – specifically, the ones that seem most likely to be wholly invented, original characters designed by the showrunners themselves. And yes, that means it’s time to go through each audition tape one by one, breaking down all the new details and hints.
Obviously, be aware that any and all dialogue in an audition tape may not be indicative of the series’ actual script, and some of the scenarios within may not even be real: though a couple of them are detailed enough that they seem likely to be slightly altered versions of actual scenes from the show’s first season.
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The first two videos focus on the character of Brac. I had previously speculated that Brac, described as “irascible and cantankerous”, might be the Elven King Oropher, lord of the Wood Elves of Greenwood and best/only known for leading his troops in a reckless charge against the forces of Sauron and dying in the process. Turns out, I was far off the mark in this case: based on the clues provided in these two videos, it appears that Brac is a human man. In Tolkien’s mythos, there are many different kinds of humans inhabiting the earth during the Second Age when this series takes place – but for the purposes of this post, I’m only going to be focusing on two, in particular: the Men of the West, who lived on the island of Númenór, and the Drúedain, or “Wild Men”, who lived in Middle-earth but were permitted to travel whither they wished. And Brac is almost definitely one of the latter.
The first video revolves around Brac’s interactions with an unnamed second person who appears to have come from the royal court of Númenór to consult with him about some urgent, mysterious matter. It is clear from context that Brac is living or staying in Númenór, as a guest of the royalty: specifically, Brac references “your queen”, indicating that his storyline takes place during the reign of one of the three ruling queens of Númenór – most likely Tar-Ancalimë. In Tolkien’s writings, one of the most major events involving the Drúedain takes place during her reign: it was at that time that the Drúedain who lived in Númenór became afraid and began to return across the sea to Middle-earth, realizing in their hearts that doom was coming for the mighty island kingdom, and any who stayed there would be swallowed up in the bloodbath to come.
Brac appears to be a high-ranking member of Drúedain nobility, who is pondering whether to stay on the island or return home. He questions the queen’s messenger, demanding to know the real reason why a Númenórean queen, whose people colonized and “befouled” Brac’s homeland, would suddenly pretend to care about her subjects’ suffering. The messenger gives no clear answer. The scene ends with Brac reluctantly allowing the messenger to spend the night at his house.
In the next scene, it is made obvious that the setting is Númenór, as Brac comments angrily about how much he despises the night sky made bright as noon-day by the lights of the island’s cities. “The night should be a blanket,” he announces, before prophetically adding “I can’t ever quite escape the feeling that it’s all about to fall over.” He announces his intention to leave the island and return to his homeland the very next day, but the second person, here given the name Radagar, pleads with him to stay, even revealing the queen’s bidding: “our people will make amends for each yield of crop you lost during our wars”. Brac appears to contemplate his words, but the scene ends shortly thereafter with no conclusion reached. Until we actually see the episode in which this conversation may or may not happen, we can only speculate about what Brac eventually chooses to do – will he leave the island or stay to negotiate with the queen? We know from Tolkien’s writings that there were no Drúedain still living in Númenór by the time of the island’s eventual downfall and destruction, so Brac will presumably escape death by godly wrath.
The next two scenes give us our first look at Kari, the “village healer with a secret”. I had hoped that her character might be Erendis, the Númenórean queen who raised her daughter, the aforementioned Tar-Ancalimë, in the countryside far from royal interference and male meddling – but unfortunately, it appears I was wrong. Kari seems to be a human, one of the proto-Dunlendings who lived in the regions colonized by Númenór in the Second Age and later reclaimed by nature. She is like Brac in that she is keenly aware of the divide between the peoples of Middle-earth, but unlike Brac, she doesn’t seem to have any intention of leaving her homeland.
In her first scene, Kari speaks to her lover, a soldier named Everad. There’s clearly a divide between these two tormented souls: Everad fears and distrusts Kari’s “disloyal” people, who rose in rebellion in “ages past”. Kari argues on behalf of her kinsfolk, and asks him whether there is “[any] room in your peoples hearts for forgiveness”. It doesn’t seem implausible that the steely Everad is a Númenórean warrior: if that is the case, then both characters are possibly committing a crime against their cultures by being together – and who doesn’t love some forbidden love? Considering that there aren’t any elf/human pairings in the Second Age, this seems like a good fit for the story.
The second scene with Kari is more tense and powerful: she wakes in the early morning and finds Everad already preparing to leave her home, while soldiers search for him in the village outside. There are a whole bunch of weirdly vague hints in this scene: Kari speaks of a “rumor”, and says that “few could” sleep during the night. As Everad prepares to leave her, Kari stops him: “If what you say is true, and this is the last time we are to see each other, please say what you want to say.” The scene ends with Kari telling Everad to wait for her: whether that’s meant literally or not is unclear.
Next, we have Loda: I predicted that Loda would be a boring character, and I’m beginning to think I’m right in that assumption. He’s a father who loves his daughter but doesn’t get along well with his son, who, in Loda’s words, is wasting “the most important years of his life on aimless schemes”. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like it could refer to the character of Aric, whom we met in a previous audition tape: roguish, charming, devious, remember him? Loda, on the other hand, is much more conventional and traditional: the scene opens with him prepping his daughter for her “first day as an apprentice”, and ends with him revealing that he’s…taken in a stowaway? That’s the most interesting part about his character so far, and yet we don’t have any clues to go on about who his stowaway is, or why she’s stowing away. Until we have more to go on, I’m guessing that Loda, like the others in this new batch of audition tapes, is a human – probably proto-Dunlending like Kari, though it’s not out of the question that his character is Drúedain.
Finally, we come to Hamsom. He only has one scene, but it reveals a great deal about his character: initially described as a “loving family man with health issues”, Hamsom is here seen working on his farm, trying to work past those very health issues: his wife tends to him, but wonders aloud whether Hamsom will survive the bitter winter. Her husband promises her that he’ll be there for her, reminding her of the strength of his love for her. He’s already one of the most charming characters in Amazon Prime’s ensemble cast, and I can’t wait to see more of him, though I have no idea how he’ll fit into a story about the creation of the Rings of Power, the downfall of Númenór, and the wars of the Last Alliance. I also don’t know if he’ll even live through the first season, in the condition he’s in. One thing we can surmise is that he is also human. I can’t determine yet which geographical region of Middle-earth he might be from, but his demeanor, and his hobbity name, almost suggest he might be a Halfling – Halflings, at this point in Middle-earth’s history, could only have dwelt in Wilderland, between the Misty Mountains and Greenwood the Great. But since that’s a bit of a stretch, I’m assuming he and his family are of the Race of Man, probably living somewhere in the north of Middle-earth, where the winter season would be particularly harsh.
It’s notable that Amazon Prime might be diving deep into Tolkien’s incredible genealogies for the human species, since Peter Jackson’s films only briefly touched on the idea that there are different groups of Men in Middle-earth – here, Amazon Prime has the opportunity to explore these different groups and subgroups of people, each with their own distinct cultures, customs and characters, from the Easterlings to the Woses (and hopefully, someday, the elusive Lossoth). It could lead to some very interesting – and probably heated – discussions about what it means to be human in Middle-earth, and what responsibilities and burdens go along with that distinction.
So there you go: four more characters, six more audition tapes, infinite questions and few answers. What do you think of this group of characters, and do you think any of them might be from Tolkien’s books, or are all of them newly invented by the team over at Amazon Prime? Share your thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!
We’ve all been waiting hungrily for something, anything, to give us a deeper insight into Amazon Prime’s upcoming prequel to The Lord Of The Rings. So, when a bit of news drops that’s actually surprisingly revealing and at the very least full of stuff to talk about, the fact that it gets barely any coverage is…well, disappointing. But don’t fear – I am here, to tell you everything you need to know about the new characters we now know will populate Amazon Prime’s Middle-earth.
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We’ve understood for a rather long while that there are four major characters in the series who are going by the codenames Tyra, Eldien, Beldor and Aric. They’re generic fantasy names, and there’s no precedent for any of them in Tolkien’s own writings, so it’s possible (even likely) that they are just codenames, nothing more than that. But for a while, that was all we knew about any of these four leads: basic names that could have come out of any Fantasy Name Generator online. We were able to attach a gender to the name of Tyra, because Australian actress Markella Kavenagh was supposedly in talks to play that character. But now, we have new information about all four, due to some newly uncovered audition tapes for the series.
Before we break them down, remember that these scenes, like the Mirror of Galadriel, could be very unreliable guides. The dialogue being used in these actors’ auditions is complex enough that it could in fact be edited together from an actual version of the show’s script, but don’t count on it: while it might be an indication of the sort of material to expect from the series, it’s highly probable that we never see any of these scenes (or anything even remotely resembling these scenes) in the show – this sort of scene and dialogue is usually expressly written to give the auditioning actor a sense of the character they might be portraying, from personality to manner of speech. For instance, you’ll note that the character of Eldien and Beldor both have the same scene, but with very different dialogue. With all that said, you will join me, with bated breath, as we begin our first deep dive into Amazon Prime’s Middle-earth. The time is sometime in the Second Age, thousands of years before the events of either of Peter Jackson’s trilogies. The setting…well, we’ll discuss that as we go along.
All four audition tapes have been deleted, presumably by Amazon Prime’s bidding, but the wonderful folks over at Redanian Intelligence who uncovered the videos were able to transcribe them before their disappearance (and I was able to watch two of them as well).
The first two videos focused on the character of Tyra: the dialogue indicates that Tyra is an elf, with a compassionate nature, who also seems to be deeply insightful and/or gifted with some powers of foresight. She and another woman are riding in a wagon when they hit a man, who would appear to have been knocked unconscious by the blow: Tyra demands that they stop and help him, while her companion argues that, if they take him back to their home, “anything bad that happens as a result of it will be our fault”. Tyra, however, appears to have won the argument by the time the scene ends. There is one possible clue about the setting of this scene: references to wild bears and snow, which would presumably suggest that Tyra and her friend live somewhere in the forested north of Middle-earth, most likely in the kingdom of Lindon, where Gil-galad ruled the largest contingency of Elven-folk. And that raises an interesting point – who is this man that Tyra and her friend encounter, and what would happen if they brought him back to their home, or village? We know from Tolkien’s own writings that the Dark Lord Sauron entered Lindon in disguise sometime early in the Second Age: could he be this strange man? It seems unusual that he wouldn’t take the form of an Elf, however, when trying to infiltrate an Elven kingdom.
What we gather from this scene is that Tyra and her people are very rural Elves – they drive wagons, they live in a wild, dangerous part of Middle-earth, and, aside from Tyra herself, they appear to be wary and distrustful of strangers.
The second audition tape, also deleted, features Tyra in a different scene: here, she and a girl who is most likely her younger sister, find themselves lost in a dangerous place after an attempt to forage for berries in the woods leads to the girl losing her doll and straying away from Tyra’s care. It’s a sweet little scene, and it shows Tyra taking the lead in a difficult situation.
Again, the scene suggests a rural, woodsy setting. If I had to guess, I’d say Tyra is almost certainly a Silvan Elf, more akin to the Wood Elves of Mirkwood than the High Elves of the West. None of the characters in these two scenes use very archaic dialogue, as opposed to the third scene, which focuses on the character of Eldien.
Eldien is possibly the most interesting and complex of the four, based on the little we know of her personality. I was fortunate enough to see the video of Chloe Bremner’s audition for the role prior to its being taken down, and I thought Bremner did an okay job with the material. Eldien is in every way the opposite of Tyra: she is most likely a High Elf, and her vocabulary and philosophies are far more extensive than those of her rural co-star. In the scene, Eldien is approached by her longtime friend Beldor, perhaps at a banquet or after some kind of memorial ceremony for the Elves who died in the wars of the First Age. Eldien herself is a veteran of those wars, and bears with her an everlasting pain, much like Frodo’s at the end of The Lord Of The Rings. But while Frodo was granted the opportunity to pass into the West and find healing, Eldien is an Elf who rejected the West and is now being forced to pay the price, living out her life in the utter loneliness of Middle-earth. Beldor offers her a potent drink, but Eldien rejects it, saying that no wine can cure her sorrows. She speaks about “the nameless dark” (i.e. Morgoth, the great enemy of the First Age), and mentions having killed dragons in her time – note the plural: Eldien didn’t just get lucky and happen to kill a dragon once, she’s literally one of the greatest warriors in all of Middle-earth. But despite being so aware of evil, Eldien seems like she could be the perfect target for Sauron when he inevitably rises to power: in her desire to find healing and joy in Middle-earth, Eldien might be easily tricked into joining Sauron when he promises to rebuild the world, greater and more beautiful even than the Western lands of the gods. Like Sauron, she has ambition and seems driven by purpose. Unlike Sauron, though, she is a mother, something that is revealed at the end of the scene when Beldor tells her to go home: “if not for yourself…do it for your son”. Eldien grows angry and threatens to end their friendship if ever he uses her family against her again. Clearly, there’s tension between them, though it doesn’t seem to be romantic, which is a relief. Beldor, in fact, appears to be much younger than Eldien. He doesn’t recall the great wars against Morgoth, and Eldien tells him that he is blessed because, for him, evil is merely “pictures set in a glass of the cathedral windows” -an interesting comment, considering that cathedrals aren’t typically seen in Middle-earth: again, remember that all of this dialogue is probably fabricated – it’s just there to give a sense of the character.
And the sense that I get from the character of Eldien is that she’s a great, even legendary heroine, possibly on the level of Galadriel: or is it possible that she is, in fact, Galadriel? I know, I know, she references a son, and we all know Galadriel never had one: or did she? Tolkien himself revised and rewrote Galadriel’s backstory multiple times toward the end of his life, and in one version Galadriel was in fact the mother of Amroth, the prince of Lórien who would one day be immortalized in Legolas’ tragic ballad of Amroth and Nimrodel. I’m not saying this is the case here, but it is something worth noting.
Beldor’s version of the scene, acted rather less convincingly by Conor Fogarty, is confusing: Beldor approaches Eldien and tries to convince her to go into the West, as in the previous scene, but here his intentions seem sinister – he mentions that it is the will of “our chieftain” that Eldien must depart, and the pronouns he uses reveal that the chieftain is a woman, which is interesting. But neither he nor the chieftain have Eldien’s best interests at heart, it seems, since Beldor appears to be trying to get Eldien drunk – he tells her that he carelessly poured “fire ale” into her goblet, and as the scene ends Eldien asks him what he put into the drink: to which Beldor replies “Is it working?”. Suspicious! Is this a kidnapping that we’re witnessing in this scene? At first I suspected that Beldor could be the codename for Elrond, who fits the bill of being a High Elf warrior young enough not to have fought in the wars of the First Age but old enough to have a place of some importance in the early Second Age: but somehow I can’t imagine someone as wise as Elrond ever intentionally doing this to someone he considered a friend. The reference to a female chieftain is interesting, since it would appear to be Galadriel at first glance, meaning Eldien might not be a codename for the Lady of Lórien after all. Or is this chieftain a new, wholly original character created for the show?
Finally, we have Aric: a roguish, selfish trickster who is perfectly prepared to sacrifice anybody, even his own friends, to get himself out of a predicament. In his first sample scene, performed by Nick Hardcastle, Aric takes refuge with an unnamed woman who seems to have interacted with him before: the two are not on good terms, but could develop a friendship as time goes on, depending on how callous Aric really is – he certainly has no problems with deserting his own people to the whims of an unidentified but clearly unfriendly power. The woman tells him that he’s “monstrous”, and Aric simply replies that “there’s no room for mercy if one wants to survive”. He then turns the tables on her, asking her what her own choice will be: if she will cast him out or protect his secret in exchange for his own help. We don’t hear her answer, but it’s clear from the setting of the next scene that she agrees to help him.
We’ve gathered a lot of information about Aric already: he is the only one in the group of four who might be a human, and his storyline appears to take place during a time of warfare in Middle-earth: the people whom he betrays are refugees, “injured…a thousand miles from safety”. He speaks of soldiers, and hounds trained to hunt men. His demeanor suggests an antihero or ruffian: and everybody loves one of those.
Let’s take a look at the final scene. In this one, Aric and the same woman are traveling, and have just escaped a run-in with soldiers – but when Aric asks where the soldiers came from, his companion responds oddly: “There are many places in this world stranger than you can imagine, older than you ever visited”. Does this suggest that Aric and the woman might have run into non-human foes: orcs, perhaps, returning from the mountains to wreak havoc on Middle-earth? And how does his companion even know about them – unless she herself is not a human, but an Elf? Honestly, I can’t shake the feeling that her speech pattern strongly resembles that of Eldien, whom we already know might be forced to leave the safety of her Elven homelands: Aric himself is clearly wary of the woman, and asks her why she was “voluntarily separated from her squadron”. He also references the strength of her will and her pride, two things we can already establish that Eldien has in plenty; and he reprimands her for speaking in flowery language and not saying what she means – something that Elves are always being accused of in Tolkien’s works. Regardless of who she is, Aric’s own identity comes to light, at least a little, in this scene. He and the woman get to talking about “farlanders”, a strange term that might possibly refer to the Men of Númenor on their far-distant island in the Western Sea. These farlanders might not be great people, Aric seems to concede, but they aren’t the ones responsible for throwing him out of his home, leaving him with nothing. But he is resigned to his fate as an outcast, and he notes, as the scene ends, that he can’t do much about it without an army, anyway.
From this scene, we gain one or two details: firstly, Aric and his companion are on their way to a castle, though no reason for that destination is given. Aric notes that, even if they do reach the castle, his safety is not guaranteed, suggesting that he has a reputation as a troublemaker throughout Middle-earth. Who could he be? Is he, perhaps, Sauron in one of his many disguises, and is his companion then bringing him to one of the Elven refuges where Sauron fears he may be found out? Why, then, wouldn’t he simply try to kill this woman or turn her away from her determined course? If he is Sauron, then his tragic backstory is in fact a lie, though one with a grain of truth: he was thrown out of his home and left with nothing, by the decree of the gods. And it would be ironic if this were him paying no heed to the “farlanders” on their distant island, when Sauron would one day be responsible for bringing about the destruction of the island of Númenor and almost all its people.
In conclusion, we have four very interesting and unique characters here: Tyra, a lovable Silvan Elf who wants nothing more than to save lives and help people; Eldien, a High Elven warrior with poison in her heart, looking for peace in her time; Beldor, a loyal servant of his chieftain obliviously following orders, even if it means hurting a friend; and Aric, a rogue of unclear origins, moving through Middle-earth and leaving a trail of destruction wherever he walks.
I’m very interested to hear all your own theories about these four characters, and what you think of the dialogue and scenes. Share your thoughts in the comments below and keep your fingers crossed that Amazon Prime release some official news soon!
