Charlie Vickers Archives - Page 4 Of 4

October 12, 2022

“The Rings Of Power” Slows Nearly To A Standstill In Episode 7

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE SEVEN AHEAD!**

“‘I shan’t call it the end, till we’ve cleared up the mess,’ said Sam gloomily. ‘And that’ll take a lot of time and work.'”

– The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King, The Scouring Of The Shire, p. 1020

A very good episode in and of itself, but poorly-suited for its crucial spot towards the end of season one, “The Eye” will, I think, be remembered unfavorably by fans for failing to deliver on the promise Amazon made with that arresting title and their marketing, that this would be the episode where the Dark Lord Sauron’s identity would be revealed outright, to the audience if not to the characters. Whether you feel that’s entirely on fans for allowing themselves to be so easily deceived, there’s no denying that episode seven is surprisingly slow and uneventful for the penultimate episode of a season that has been widely criticized for taking too long to get wherever it’s going (and until now I’ve been on the opposing side, saying the season has moved much too quickly for its own good, but this episode is almost as slow as an Entish good-morning).

Rings Of Power — The Mystics | amazon.co.uk

This episode brought to mind something that I’ve heard said about Peter Jackson’s The Return Of The King frequently over the years, namely that the film has too many false endings where it feels like the story has been satisfyingly wrapped up but after a fade-to-black it’s revealed that that’s not the case and instead it just keeps going, and going, and going – it’s a critique I hear a lot from casual fans, who don’t realize that Jackson was heavily abbreviating the last few chapters of the book: which follows the Fellowship on their homeward journey north from Minas Tirith after the War of the Ring, with stops every couple of paragraphs at Edoras, Helm’s Deep, Isengard, Rivendell, Weathertop and Bree, all before the four Hobbits make it back to the Shire, where they discover Saruman has installed himself as “Chief” in Bag-end and has hired mercenaries to oppress the Hobbits.

None of that makes it into the Extended Edition of Jackson’s Return Of The King, much less the Theatrical Version with which most casual fans are probably familiar, and yet even the swift transition from Frodo reuniting with his friends in Minas Tirith directly to the coronation of Aragorn and thence to the Shire is enough to bore some viewers to tears – and while I can’t say I ever felt bored watching The Rings Of Power‘s seventh episode (unlike the Elves, I have not yet grown weary of Middle-earth and likely never will in my lifetime), I think I finally understand where those critiques are come from, at least to an extent…though I still don’t agree that The Scouring Of The Shire “needed” to be cut entirely, and The Eye works for me precisely because it explores several of the same themes as that chapter. Slow pacing and a few too many false endings aside, it actually does so rather well.

The first few minutes of the episode, packed with high-stakes action as the survivors of Orodruin’s eruption stagger blindly through the burning wreckage of Tirharad, dragging their wounded friends and loved ones with them, give no indication that the episode will soon grind to a halt as subplots collide, characters reel and take time to recover, and a lot of subtle internal development occurs as a result, especially to Galadriel (Morfydd Clark). The Noldorin Elf, born in Valinor before the first sunrise, is paired up with Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), a fourteen-year old mortal boy stunned into silence by the sheer scale of the devastation unfolding around him, devastation he unwittingly helped to bring about and at the time believed worth it for his mother. These two, companions by chance, learn valuable lessons from each other that will shape them both moving forward.

In Theo, Galadriel sees another version of herself rising from the ashes of Tirharad – another dangerously naïve child with fire in their heart and behind their eyes, whose instinctive response to trauma is to exact vengeance on those they’ve determined to be responsible. Galadriel, though not a child in years when her older brother Finrod was killed by Sauron and his mission became hers, was still childish and impulsive, like most of her family (sadly, in The Rings Of Power, Galadriel’s family consists strictly of her brother Finrod and father Finarfin because Amazon can’t legally mention anybody else). She hoped, as a child might, that when Sauron was gone, her heart would be healed, and instead she spent over a thousand years pursuing him across Middle-earth without success, while alienating everyone she cared about (possibly including her husband, Celeborn).

Following Finrod’s death, Galadriel had no one to advise her against making the worst decision of her life…at least in The Rings Of Power‘s abridged version of events, where no mention is made of her mentor in sorcery, Melian the Maia, and where Galadriel’s husband Celeborn is said to have never returned home from the wars against Morgoth, which to her implies that he perished although I have a feeling only she and very casual fans of the franchise will be shocked when he inevitably returns in a future season. Anyway, this time around, someone is there for Theo, someone to help guide that frightened child back from the brink of bitterness, anger, and despair, instilling in him the self-control she was never taught when she was young – and that person is Galadriel, of course.

As they meander slowly (too slowly) through the burned and blackened remains of the Southlands, Theo is driven almost to his breaking-point by his grief and guilt – but Galadriel keeps him from falling apart with gentle words of encouragement, urging him not to justify evil deeds to himself as she did. The sense I get from all their interactions is that, much like how in The Lord Of The Rings Frodo clung to the notion that if he could save Gollum there might still be hope for him in the long run, Galadriel needs to know that Theo can be saved for her to feel she too can be. But if Theo is the person Galadriel was meant to cross paths with all along, as I now suspect, where does that leave Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), who has only ever sated Galadriel’s appetite for blood by feeding her the information she wants to hear?

With Halbrand, newly crowned King of the Southlands, vanishing after the eruption of Orodruin only to wind up so badly injured that Galadriel takes it upon herself to urgently shuttle him out of the Southlands – and away from all his new responsibilities – to Lindon for the kind of healing only Elves can provide), the case for him being Sauron in disguise has never been stronger. I mean, assuming all goes according to plan, he’ll literally be delivered to Gil-galad and Celebrimbor as if on a silver platter. But the truth of the matter is a well-kept secret over at Amazon Prime Studios, at least for a day longer (meanwhile, House Of The Dragon‘s plot is available to read in its entirety on Reddit and full episodes leak in advance of their release every week).

I myself have oscillated between suspecting Halbrand and wanting only the best for him. Frankly, I don’t see how all his actions throughout the first season will retroactively add up if he turns out to be Sauron. He was downright insistent about staying in Númenor from the moment he set foot there, but then he was insistent about staying in the Southlands with his subjects – and since on both occasions it was Galadriel who ultimately coerced him into following her, the only way I can rationalize this is if Sauron is legitimately trying to do good everywhere Galadriel brings him, thinking she is his salvation the way she was for Theo, yet by a cruel twist of fate Galadriel is preventing that from happening by leading him closer and closer to his long-suppressed ultimate goal, the kingdoms of the Elves.

The emphasis placed on Halbrand’s skill as a smith leads me to believe that, whether he is Sauron or not, he will play a key role in the creation of the Rings of Power – perhaps, if he is just some guy from the Southlands trying to do good, he will contend with the real Sauron for influence over the project only to be corrupted and then later gifted one of the Nine Rings for mortal Men as a reward for his assistance. But if he is Sauron, I only pray that he poses as an Elf while dealing with Celebrimbor – Elven arrogance is one of the main ingredients in the Rings of Power, and I can’t easily envision Celebrimbor taking advice on this subject from a Man he deems inferior to himself in every way. It was hard enough getting him to work with Dwarves.

Regardless of whether Galadriel is literally accompanying the chief enemy of her people back to Lindon, the volatile situation she’ll find when she returns is practically ready and waiting to be manipulated by the Dark Lord, much like how Orodruin was waiting for a single catalyst to cause a chain-reaction of catastrophic events leading directly to the volcano’s eruption. Riled up by rumors and scant evidence that the light of the immortal Elves is fast fading and only mithril can prevent their decay (which to them is the closest equivalent to death), King Gil-galad and Celebrimbor are plotting to take decisive action, which sounds to me like someone is about to forge a prototype Ring of Power.

As much as I strongly dislike The Rings Of Power‘s take on Gil-galad as a patronizing middle-aged guy, I appreciate that the writers are implicating him in the creation of the Rings – because it always bothered me when reading The Silmarillion‘s account of the Second Age that Gil-galad saw straight through Sauron’s disguise, knew he was trouble, and even forbade him entry into Lindon, yet allowed him to stay in Eregion for centuries, all while Galadriel was going around telling anybody who would listen that Sauron was most definitely back. In The Rings Of Power, I would not be surprised if Gil-galad refuses to act because he wants Celebrimbor and Sauron to finish the Rings first, and it doesn’t matter to him if Celebrimbor gets hurt or killed because he was a Fëanorian and Gil-galad can always have the historical record edited to show that he warned Celebrimbor about Sauron.

Elrond (Robert Aramayo), Gil-galad’s young herald, is also said to have advised the High King against permitting Sauron into Lindon, but in The Rings Of Power thus far he’s only returned to Lindon once since leaving with Celebrimbor in episode one, and has spent most of his screentime haranguing the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm in the hopes that they’ll share their mithril with the Elves. He really is becoming a politician, as Galadriel once observed with some scorn in her voice that I now think was not unwarranted: apart from missing several important events in his friend Durin IV (Owain Arthur)’s life, including his wedding and the births of his children, Elrond has lied to Durin and the Dwarves on numerous occasions, or bent the truth where it behooves him to do so.

In this very episode, Elrond even admits as much to his friend, telling Durin that he intentionally threw the rock-breaking contest in episode two so that he could speak to the Dwarf (which kinda makes sense; if he had won, Durin would have been publicly humiliated and never would have heard him out). Durin laughs it off, but he doesn’t seem to realize that Elrond is manipulating him – and to be fair to Elrond, I don’t think he fully realizes it either. He just wants to make his mark on Middle-earth independent from Gil-galad, and he thought defying the High King’s will would be enough, but he’s still using the tools of Gil-galad’s trade to get what he wants. Only by discarding those tools and employing the unbiased empathy unique to him will Elrond finally evolve into the character we know from The Lord Of The Rings.

Unfortunately, it’s much too late for him to repair Durin IV’s relationship with his father, Durin III (Peter Mullan), which was already strained before Elrond entered the picture but broke at last under additional pressure from the Elf. Durin III is absolutely at fault for stifling his son’s ambitions and refusing to so much as entertain any of his suggestions, but he’s also weirdly not wrong for distrusting Elrond, believing the Elves should accept mortality as all others in the world must, not wanting to challenge the will of Eru Ilúvatar on that subject in particular (see: Akallabêth), and above all else not wishing to endanger Khazad-dûm and its people by digging for mithril beneath the city. At the same time, Durin IV isn’t wrong for wanting to help his friend or for feeling immense guilt and shame when his father intervenes on his behalf, but the Dwarves wouldn’t advise against digging too deeply if they didn’t have reason to believe there was something down there, something bad.

As we discover near the end of the episode, there is something bad down there, a Balrog of Morgoth to be precise, and if all it takes is a single falling leaf for this thing to wake enraged from its slumber and roar, imagine for a moment what the ceaseless sound of picks and hammers just above its head will do to it. Unless there’s a whole colony of Balrogs hiding out beneath the Misty Mountains, I’m inclined to say this is the very same Balrog that will in a future Age arise from the darkness to slaughter the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm; the same Balrog that made a brief but memorable appearance in The Fellowship Of The Ring, where it killed Gandalf the Grey and was killed by him; and the same Balrog described in the non-canonical Song Of The Roots Of Hithaeglir, though no mention was made of it falling into the Misty Mountains.

But these are events in the far-off future and past, respectively, and right here and now this Balrog serves no real purpose except as foreshadowing and fan-service. In the season finale I might have excused it, if it were one of many little teases to get people hyped for season two, but in the penultimate episode of the first season it’s totally misplaced. It’s definitely not getting brought up again before the season’s end, I can assure you of that, and frankly I’m not even sure we’ll see the Dwarves again, unless it’s part of some closing montage wrapping up all the subplots. But what is there to wrap up? Durin III is old and obstinate, and I don’t see him changing his mind for the sake of any Elf in Middle-earth, so all that’s left for him is to die or be defied. I’ll confess to being somewhat morbidly curious at the thought of a Dynasty-style, cutthroat Dwarven family soap opera, but even Durin IV’s ambitious wife, Disa (Sophia Nomvete), advises her husband to simply wait for his father to pass on before making his next move.

Another major character I’m not sure we’ll see again in what little remains of this first season is Theo, who parts ways with Galadriel after reuniting with his mother Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) and her Elven boyfriend Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova). The last we see of this lovely trio, they’re leading the Southlanders even further south-west to Pelargir near the mouth of the River Anduin (prediction: Arondir gets nostalgic for Beleriand and its great river, and begins to experience Sea-longing, a sign that the Elves are indeed fading). The city of Pelargir was canonically established after the forging of the Rings by Númenórean colonizers, but in The Rings Of Power it’s described as one of their ancient outposts, which implies that Númenor had an empire once, before they became a nation of isolationists, which indirectly (and probably unintentionally) implies that it’s only once they stopped colonizing Middle-earth that they fell out of favor with the gods…am I interpreting that correctly?

A number of controversial yet potentially very interesting choices were made with the Númenórean characters in this episode – Isildur (Maxim Baldry), separated from his friends in the chaos following Orodruin’s eruption, is set up to have a solo arc in Middle-earth next season, perhaps allowing him to lay the groundwork for the kingdom of Gondor (and interact with Theo, who I believe is destined to become King of the Dead); his father Elendil (Lloyd Owen)’s faith in the Elves is shaken by the apparent death of his son, which will make the future alliance between him and Gil-galad all the more emotionally impactful; and most notably, Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), the Queen-Regent of Númenor, is blinded by flying sparks.

The consequences of this choice are not immediately clear to me, and though I’ve seen speculation that Míriel’s disability will provide her chancellor Pharazôn with the only excuse he needs to take on more responsibilities in the governance of Númenor, if this is to be the case I hope it’s handled very carefully by the writers – there are a dozen routes Míriel’s storyline could take that would veer into ableist territory, and I worry that, given her ultimate fate, it’s rather callous to make her of all characters Middle-earth’s first and (off the top of my head) only blind character. But if, Eru forbid, Míriel is ever reduced to a Victim archetype, I trust that will not be the fault of Addai-Robinson; she seems to understand the importance of finding an authentic balance between vulnerability and strength, and the fact that these were the very first scenes she filmed, before she even knew the character, is pretty remarkable.

But with all the chaos and drama unfolding in the Southlands on this week’s episode, I’m sure I was not alone in feeling tonal whiplash when director Charlotte Brändström cut away from Isildur being buried under a burning house and Tar-Míriel screaming while clutching at her eyes to Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) singing about snails. The Harfoot subplot initially comes across as deliberately interruptive, as if it was meant to give viewers a quick breather before plunging back into the smog blanketing the Southlands – and seeing as The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) and Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) basically just retread the same ground we covered in episode five (with Stranger once again performing magic that goes awry and scares the Harfoots), that may well be the case. It’s not until the Stranger leaves to be on his own, and the Mystics come looking for him, that things get really interesting.

The Mystics, a harmonious trio of tall, gaunt, eerily-silent, wispy women who go by the titles Dweller (Bridie Sisson), Nomad (Edith Poor), and Ascetic (Kali Kopae), made only a small impression on me when they were introduced in episode five, but this week we saw them in action – and sure, maybe it’s just from the perspective of the diminutive Harfoots that they’re absolutely terrifying, but they can practice dark magic, which to my mind already implies that they’re on roughly the same power-level as the Stranger in his current state. Additionally, Middle-earth’s magic-system relies heavily on staffs or staves, and you’ll notice that at all times one of the Mystics is carrying a black scepter crowned with the symbol of the Lidless Eye – a bit like how, in Greek mythology, the three Grey Sisters share a single eye. I believe that’s why their magic works, and the Stranger’s doesn’t…yet.

But before the end of the season, I predict that the Stranger will wrest that black scepter away from the Dweller (who most often appears to be in charge of carrying it around) and using it for the first time will cause him to radically transform, for better or worse, into a completely different person. At the very least, I hope then we’ll be able to confirm what class of being he belongs to, and if Amazon is feeling especially generous they’ll share his name with all of us. On that note, keep in mind that even if he turns out to be Gandalf, he’s unlikely to refer to himself by that “Mannish” name – instead, the Quenya Elvish name he would presumably be using upon his arrival in Middle-earth is Olórin. Likewise, if he’s a Blue Wizard, keep your ears pricked for the names Alatar, Pallando, Morinehtar, or Rómestámo.

Some fans still think the Stranger’s identity won’t be revealed this season, and I think that’s absurd now that we know he and the Harfoots will return in the finale (what do they have left to do this season, if not get to the bottom of this lingering mystery from episode one?), but given how many subplots seemed to just end this week I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if neither he nor the Harfoots reappeared. I think that’s why this episode feels so slow, because it’s wrapping up most of the really engaging subplots a little earlier than anticipated while apparently shifting focus over to the one that never picked up steam, and to characters like Gil-galad and Celebrimbor who only got a few minutes of screentime in total. The finale needs to sell us on that subplot, or going into season two many casual fans will be more hyped to see the return of original characters than the forging of the Rings of Power, and that would be a shame.

I won’t lie, going into the season finale with no clear idea of how, when, where, or even if Sauron will be revealed is kinda nerve-wracking for this fan who’s been waiting to see him in his full glory for a very long time now – but I have no doubt that, each week, regardless of whether my expectations are always matched or surpassed, The Rings Of Power will continue to take me on a thrilling journey with every new episode. I only wish it didn’t have to end so soon. It feels like just yesterday I was sitting in a movie-theater, staring up in awe (and I mean straight up: me and my sister were seated in the literal front row) at locations and characters from these books I adore that I’ve never before had a chance to see onscreen, with Bear McCreary’s score echoing in the room all around me, surrounded by people presumably just as eager to see what J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay had to offer in the first two episodes screened for fans. Maybe that’s the upside to false endings: they allow us to spend a few more precious moments in this world we love before finishing the story.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

October 4, 2022

Adar Strikes First In “The Rings Of Power” Episode 6

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE SIX AHEAD!**

“”The Eagles!” cried Bilbo once more, but at that moment a stone hurtling from above smote heavily on his helm, and he fell with a crash and knew no more.”

– The Hobbit, The Clouds Burst, p. 260

“‘The Eagles are coming! The Eagles are coming!’ For one moment more Pippin’s thought hovered. ‘Bilbo!’ it said. ‘But no! That came in his tale, long long ago. This is my tale, and it is ended now. Good-bye!’ And his thought fled far away and his eyes saw no more.”

– The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King, The Black Gate Opens, p. 893

For as much as J.R.R. Tolkien’s great tales, The Silmarillion and The Lord Of The Rings in particular, are stories set in times of war that deal with related themes, they are not about the act of warfare itself. Wherever he possibly can, Tolkien simply avoids having to write about battles entirely by knocking his viewpoint characters unconscious in the first five minutes of combat and having them wake up hours later after the fighting has concluded – see, for example, the two passages quoted above. Where he cannot fall back on this trick, he nonetheless still pulls back from the heat and intensity of the action to give readers a concise play-by-play of the battle from the distant perspective of a narrator. I suspect that as a veteran of the First World War he had difficulty writing about bloodshed in great detail.

Going into The Rings Of Power‘s sixth episode, therefore, my worst fear was that it would be, from beginning to end, an interminable action sequence devoid of the microcosmic, quiet and emotionally-charged moments between characters that Tolkien generally preferred to settle on between more vague descriptions of military movements – to name just a few examples, Aragorn leaning wearily on his sword to chat with Éomer at Helm’s Deep and again on the Pelennor Fields; Éowyn trading blows with the Witch-king while protecting the body of her fallen king; Merry and Pippin stumbling through the streets of Minas Tirith to the Houses of Healing. The opposite extreme would have been a battle robbed of even a pretense at weight and consequence by characters stopping every five seconds to make some witty remark in Marvel-movie fashion.

Happily, my fears did not come to fruition. Under the direction of Charlotte Brändström (only the second female director on this franchise, at least to my knowledge, after Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson’s wife and co-director on The Lord Of The Rings), The Rings Of Power‘s largest and longest action sequence to date strikes a balance between being entertaining and engaging for its audience and absolutely exhausting for its characters. Indeed, the violence is more brutal than anything in the first five episodes – and at times, more than anything in either of Peter Jackson’s two trilogies, which generally refrained from showing human characters die gruesome deaths. Brändström seems to have no such qualms, pushing the limits of the TV-14 rating about as far as I think is possible.

But the most intense moments in this episode occur amidst lulls in the fighting, such as when the village healer and de facto leader of the Southlanders, Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), is wounded in battle by an arrow and has to try and remain still while her lover Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) pulls the shaft from her shoulder, all while she’s losing lots of blood and watching wide-eyed as her fellow Southlanders are dying in droves without her assistance. I’m squeamish about gory injuries, so the fact that I had to turn my face away from the screen both times I watched the episode may say nothing about how brutal it actually is, but it’s not just the bloodiness of the scene or the sound-effects of the arrow sliding through flesh that made me physically shudder – Boniadi and Córdova’s tortured expressions and frantic performances help to ensure the scene is difficult to watch, in the best way.

But in an episode that also features the very first kiss between their two characters, it’s a bit of a shame that Boniadi and Córdova’s portrayal of mingled pain resonated with me, while their halfhearted attempts to convey romantic interest in the other fell flat. I simply don’t understand, six episodes into the first season, why they’re in love beyond the fact that they share an interest in nurturing and healing – plants in Arondir’s case, people and animals in Bronwyn’s. I appreciated that they finally confessed their love for each other at the same spot where they rendezvoused in episode one, hands clasped over the living woods of a tree growing in the middle of Tirharad, thereby connecting them to Middle-earth and to the Vala whom Arondir claims “watches over growing things and those who tend them”, Yavanna Kementári (her name, sadly, cannot legally be used by Amazon, as it never appears in The Lord Of The Rings or its Appendices), but the heavy emphasis on this one surface-level aspect of their attraction doesn’t make up for an absence of anything else deeper to it.

Their most touching moment comes when they plant the alfirin seeds Bronwyn gave Arondir back in episode one, to ensure the survival of one new life before the imminent death of hundreds, if not thousands. It’s a beautiful ritual, one we also see the enemy leader Adar (Joseph Mawle) partake in at the beginning of the episode, subtly indicating to the audience that, while he no longer identifies exclusively as an Elf, he has retained many of the memories and customs he learned before he was turned to the darkness. The question of what Adar is and whether he and his Orcs have any claim to the respect they say they’re owed is one that looms heavily over this entire episode, which sees Adar leading his armies into battle with the intention of taking the Southlands – not for political purposes, but to establish a homeland for the Orcs, his “children”. He sees them as living beings whose creation, though apparently unnatural, was nonetheless permitted by the One (i.e. God or Eru Ilúvatar as He is called in Middle-earth) for a reason, in the same way Dwarves and Ents were created by other Valar and then integrated into Eru’s plan.

Adar’s nuanced opinions on this controversial subject stand in stark contrast to how Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) describes her enemies bluntly as “a mistake”, made in mockery of Elves without the blessing of the One, rendering them devoid of even the semblance of sentience and free will. Adar insists that his Orcs are masterless, following him out of genuine love, not fear or domination of the spirit. Galadriel retorts that they are still bound to Sauron, their true master, whom Adar believes he killed long ago. The argument between these two characters is one which J.R.R. Tolkien had with himself many times throughout his later life, as he grew increasingly uncomfortable with the theological implications of an evil race and began to explore alternative origin stories for the Orcs – though ultimately he was never able to settle on one he liked, and instead fell back on the excuse that the original Elven authors of the great tales were biased and unreliable, so their account of events, which was nonetheless published in The Silmarillion, might well have been a fabrication.

Where The Rings Of Power has leaned most heavily into the unreliable narrator trope, I have a suspicion it’s for many of the same reasons: the showrunners and writers either haven’t settled on the answers to this and other confounding questions, or simply don’t want to make irreversible choices that could be divisive within the fandom. Leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions once too many times can easily lead to frustration, although at least in this case there’s plenty of evidence in the writing and in Mawle’s charismatic performance that Adar is exactly what he says he is: a living person driven by the beatings of his own heart, deserving of love, respect, and a home.

Love and respect he has earned from his children many times over through countless personal sacrifices, but a home can only be earned by winning the respect of Middle-earth’s other Free Peoples, either through diplomacy or conflict – and seeing as Galadriel speaks for most Elves and Elf-friends when she says Orcs should be eradicated without mercy, Adar recognizes that diplomacy is useless and prolonged conflict will force his children to make unnecessary sacrifices. He is left with just one option: to cause a volcanic eruption that, apart from turning the tide of the battle in his favor, also leads to the sun being blocked out by a cloud of volcanic dust and ash…which, for the Orcs, means they can at last walk freely across the surface of Middle-earth in the daytime without fear of burning alive. Unfortunately, it also means those seeds Adar planted right before the battle will probably never sprout, but that’s a small price to pay in his mind. He loves his children deeply.

Paternal affection is a thematic undercurrent throughout this episode, which sees the Númenórean ship-captain Elendil (Lloyd Owen) paired up with his wayward son, Isildur (Maxim Baldry), throughout the battle. The two narrowly avoid death by Orc, death by geyser, and death by volcanic rock fragments (properly known as tephra), to come out the other side with a much stronger appreciation for each other – Isildur finally sees his father in action, casting off the disguise of the world-weary widower that he’s worn for so long in a well-intentioned effort to keep his family safe back in Númenor, now fighting fiercely to protect his loved ones. And at the same time, Elendil realizes that his attempts to stifle his son’s interests for the boy’s own sake will never succeed, for Isildur is most reckless when he feels caged-in or cornered.

Now, on that note, we have to talk about Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), who watches dispassionately from the sidelines as soldiers under her command give their lives for the cause she loudly endorsed from the comfort of her palace. Either she’s self-important or a coward, and in a world where kings lead by example, it is definitely a Choice by the showrunners and writers to make the first ruling woman of color (and one of the few ruling women, period) in Middle-earth’s history a mere bystander to her first battle. If the writers want to deconstruct antiquated monarchist tropes (that’s me playing devil’s advocate, but it’s plausible given The Rings Of Power‘s other writing choices), then they need to be less subtle about it.

In-universe, I think Míriel made a terrible choice: if my predictions for the finale come true, she’ll already be returning home to find that Pharazôn has accumulated more power in her absence and is now vying for the throne with the support of the citizenry; last thing she needs is for her own troops to weigh in by revealing she did nothing in the battle. She’ll be blamed for what is quickly shaping up to be an unprecedented military disaster, and Pharazôn will effortlessly seize power before either forcing her into a politically-motivated marriage (the canonical sequence of events) or banishing her to the tower in Armenelos where her dying father is confined. Ah well, at least she looked cool in her gilded scale-mail armor and impractical radiate crown.

Despite my fear that Galadriel would be slowed down by her own heavy suit of armor, that proved not to be the case – in fact, a short clip of Galadriel swinging gracefully off the side of her horse to mow down orcs before righting herself in the saddle has been making the rounds on Twitter for the past few days after one viewer complained that it was “unlikeable” and rightfully got piled on in the the quote-tweets and comments for not only ignoring or excusing all of Legolas’ gravity-defying stunts in The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit (not to mention descriptions of Galadriel outperforming all the athletes of the Noldor in her youth), but for completely missing the point that The Rings Of Power has been trying to hammer home for a while now, which is that Galadriel is unlikeable.

Her arrogance is explicitly shown, more times than I can count on two hands, to be her greatest character flaw and a hindrance at every turn, yet annoying dudebros online act like it’s a “gotcha!” moment when they point it out – no, FirstNameBunchOfNumbers, it just means you have no concept of how positive character arcs work because the idea of bettering yourself is fundamentally abhorrent to you. And Galadriel is working on being more humble: it’s not easy for her, because she always saw arrogance and ambition as a strength (almost like she grew up surrounded by Fëanorians), but she’s slowly learning from Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) that there’s value in treating other people as equals and negotiating with them instead of always using her titles to get what she wants. She relapses when confronted by Adar, who sees right through the new persona she’s been trying to build with Halbrand’s help, but the learning process continues.

And as it does, Galadriel and Halbrand continue to grow closer…and closer…and closer, until they’re sitting mere inches apart from each other in the middle of the forest, trading shy glances and stumbling over their words. Halbrand coyly suggests that fighting alongside Galadriel, basking in her light, he felt for the first time that he could be free of guilt for all his past misdeeds, and Galadriel responds that she felt it too – which is a big deal coming from an Elf, to whom mortal Men are typically insignificant. Compare her intimate conversation with Halbrand to the chat she has with Isildur at the beginning of the episode: with Isildur, she was aloof and distant, as an adult is to a child, but with Halbrand she is present, so near they could believably kiss in that moment. And unless Halbrand is not a mortal, I don’t know how he could get Galadriel feeling butterflies (I mean, he’s good-looking, don’t get me wrong, but Elves don’t just fall for humans or crush on them, either).

Halbrand and Galadriel don’t actually kiss, hold hands, or even embrace in that moment, and I doubt they ever will, though the tension between them is palpable, and everyone – from the actors to the audience – can feel it. If The Rings Of Power had come out in the mid-2010s, these two would have been extremely popular on Tumblr and there’d be no shortage of fan-art and fan-fic dedicated to this ship (“Galbrand”, “Haladriel”, or “Halatáriel”, the latter an amalgamation of Halbrand and Alatáriel, a Telerin name ironically given to Galadriel by her canonical husband, Celeborn). But the fact that they’re still pretty popular even without the boost that Tumblr in its heyday would have provided is a testament to the writing, the chemistry that Clark and Vickers have…and the fact that they’re both very attractive, which is all it takes for us mere mortals to become obsessed, admittedly. I feel for the actor cast as Celeborn who will have to try and one-up Vickers.

In the meantime, the question next week’s episode will have to answer is whether any bond of love born in fields of battle can survive when nourished not by the fear of imminent death, which has a way of loosening tongues that would otherwise remain silent. There’s no hope for Galadriel and Halbrand in the long run, not unless Celeborn is open to a polyamorous relationship (I would not be opposed, Tolkien might be but who can say for sure?), and there’s plenty of time for death to come between Arondir and Bronwyn – not that I believe Bronwyn will die anytime soon, but I’ve always wondered if she might grow resentful towards her immortal lover, and now her near-death experience in battle has allowed that seed of fear and doubt to germinate in her heart.

And keep in mind, all of this was derived from an episode that’s largely comprised of people hacking each other to death with swords and spears. That’s the sign of a good script, a good director, and showrunners who understand that Tolkien uses violence not for shock value and never to gratify, but to say that which cannot be said by any other means. That is exactly the purpose this episode serves, and the fact that it just so happens to be one of the most action-packed hours of fantasy television I’ve ever seen is a happy coincidence, if you ask me.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

September 19, 2022

“The Rings Of Power” Episode 4 – Higher Highs And Lower Lows

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE FOUR AHEAD!**

“At the feet of the mountain were built the tombs of the Kings, and hard by upon a hill was Armenelos, fairest of cities, and there stood the tower and the citadel that was raised by Elros son of Eärendil, whom the Valar appointed to be the first King of the Dúnedain.”

– The Silmarillion: Akallabêth, p. 312

The text I have quoted above, which comprises part of a brief description of the island kingdom of Númenor in The Silmarillion, contains the very first instance of the name Armenelos in J.R.R. Tolkien’s posthumously published writings on Middle-earth (when Tolkien passed in 1973, he left The Silmarillion unfinished, and the task of piecing together a cohesive narrative from his scattered notes fell upon his youngest son, Christopher). Since The Silmarillion‘s publication in 1977, the name Armenelos has popped up again in Unfinished Tales and a few other places, but it never appeared in The Lord Of The Rings or its appendices, and was never added retroactively by either of the Tolkiens.

This may seem a small thing, but if you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you probably know where this is going. Yes, I was surprised – stunned, even – when the name Armenelos was casually used in conversation in the fourth episode of Amazon’s The Rings Of Power: which has until now drawn on The Lord Of The Rings and its appendices exclusively for information regarding Númenor and the events of the Second Age. Discounting all the place-names from Unfinished Tales that appeared on Amazon’s first official Rings Of Power tie-in map, which have deliberately been left off the map used throughout the series during scene-transitions, this usage of the name Armenelos marks the first time that something supposedly off-limits to the showrunners and writers has worked its way into The Rings Of Power.

So how did this happen? As far as we know, Amazon does not own the rights to The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, and there is no evidence to suggest that has changed. In this very episode, two characters reminisce about the land of Beleriand that sank beneath the sea at the end of the First Age, but they refer to locations there like the Mouths of Sirion only in vague terms, as though the writers were legally unable to use names from The Quenta Silmarillion (the third, and longest part of The Silmarillion, which deals with the wars in Beleriand) and instead had to resort to implication. My fool’s hope is that the Tolkien Estate is providing Amazon access to materials in both The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales on a case-by-case basis.

Until we learn more, however, I will lower my expectations slightly and assume that the terms of this agreement with the Tolkien Estate apply only to the specific chapter of The Silmarillion where the name Armenelos originated, Akallabêth – an appendix of sorts that deals with the history of Númenor and its people. And make no mistake, Akallabêth may only be thirty pages long but it’s a goldmine: of all Tolkien’s writings on the Second Age, it’s the only one that covers the decline and eventual downfall of Númenor in great detail. It is here, and here alone, that Tolkien transcribes the dialogues on death between the mortal Men of Númenor and the immortal Elven ambassadors out of Valinor; here, and here alone, that he reports on Sauron’s seduction of the Númenóreans; here, and here alone, that he records the warnings of the Valar, which went unheeded by all but a few. With minimal expansions and additions, the materials in this appendix alone could easily fill out three or four seasons of The Rings Of Power.

Still, if the writers are theoretically allowed to use anything in Akallabêth that the Tolkien Estate is willing to sell (and Amazon is willing to pay for), one has to wonder why they settled on the name Armenelos, and how they convinced the higher-ups at Amazon to spend what I can only assume was a hefty sum of money for this obscure place-name, which they’ve used exactly once – not on the map of Númenor, where it would arguably help viewers get geographically situated, but as part of an improvised speech by the Númenórean politician Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) outside the Guild-Hall, where guild-members are gathering to complain about the possibility of tireless, immortal Elves stealing their jobs (more of that one-note fantasy racism that the writers must have thought was clever enough to include at the expense of character-building moments). Gravelle’s Pharazôn, a charismatic dictator in-the-making, reminds them that they alone are responsible for all of Númenor’s great accomplishments throughout history, from the vastly overstated military victories of Elros Tar-Minyatur, the first King, to the building of Armenelos, and vows that Elves will never take that away from them.

But while Pharazôn gains favor with the citizenry of Númenor, Queen-Regent Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) alone amongst her people can see that Númenor is falling out of favor with the Valar, Middle-earth’s gods, as her people turn away from Middle-earth in its hour of need, forsaking their old bonds of fellowship with the Elves. The falling petals of the White Tree growing in the Court of the Kings are a clear sign that the Valar weep for Númenor, one that even Pharazôn recognizes, but Tar-Míriel has seen in her dreams something far worse – a vision of the sea rising high over Númenor’s green hills before crashing down upon the land, carrying away the towers and palaces of fair Armenelos, pulling Míriel and all her people to a watery grave.

J.R.R. Tolkien was haunted by a similar dream throughout his life, and it was a trait he passed on to both his son Michael and to the character of Faramir in The Lord Of The Rings. From this vivid dream sprang fully-formed the story of Númenor, an ancient island kingdom comparable to Atlantis, sucked into the abyss by a “great dark wave”. Though the tale evolved over time, the significance of the Great Wave never diminished. Quite the opposite. In-universe and to some extent in real life, Tolkien postulated that dreams of the Great Wave were attributable to some cultural memory of Númenor left to linger in the minds of Men by the descendants of that traumatic event’s survivors – who naturally began referring to Númenor as Atalantë (the Downfallen), which then became Atlantis, by which name we know it today.

As one of the first recipients of this unsettling dream, chronologically at least, The Rings Of Power‘s Tar-Míriel has no way of knowing whether the “great dark wave” is a literal or metaphorical manifestation of the gods’ discontent, but it doesn’t really matter to her – either way, she’s just witnessed the imminent destruction of all that she holds dear in Númenor, and that can’t be a good thing. Searching frantically for a solution, Míriel first has to reverse-engineer her own problem. She comes to the bewildering conclusion that Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is the problem, so she has the Elf imprisoned…then has her released and sent back to Middle-earth to try and appease the Valar…then realizes at the last minute that the Valar brought Galadriel to Númenor for a reason, so she calls her back.

Structurally, this storyline is by far the weakest of the four we’re currently following because there are so many other characters in Númenor besides Galadriel and Míriel that The Rings Of Power is simultaneously trying to establish, which frequently requires jumping away from the characters that matter most to spend time with characters like Pharazôn’s unexciting and extraneous non-canonical son Kemen (Leon Wadham), who I gave the benefit of the doubt going in because other non-canonical characters like Eärien (Ema Horvath) had impressed me, only for him to disappoint greatly as a character in terms of both personality and design. As a result of all this needlessly urgent subplot-hopping that leaves little space for organic character and plot development in the main storyline, our protagonist’s motivations change from scene to scene with barely any build-up.

With all that said, when Galadriel and Tar-Míriel actually do interact, their scenes are invariably among the episode’s highlights – boasting some of the most eloquent dialogue in the series, and two phenomenal performances from actresses of equal regality whose characters balance each other out: the one confident, reckless to a fault, and slightly incompetent (I love Galadriel, but we all know it to be true), the other self-doubting and subsequently slow to action, but a capable leader when nudged in the right direction. They are also alike in many ways. Galadriel tells Míriel that she knows what it is to be the only one aware that something is terribly wrong, and the only one whose opinion is never asked for, or dismissed when proffered, because speaking the harsh truth makes her unpopular with those who would sugarcoat it.

However, as Galadriel’s suspiciously politically-savvy traveling companion Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) advises her while the two spend time together in a Númenórean jail-cell, there is a time and place for sugarcoating the truth when it will benefit you. It’s an underhanded tactic, one which Galadriel has never had the patience for, as she prefers to rush head-on at all her problems with the mindset of a warrior: even when attempting to follow Halbrand’s advice, she still resorts to beating up Pharazôn and a few Númenórean guards and breaking into the chambers of the old king, Tar-Palantir (Ken Blackburn), without any consideration for the consequences of her actions. Thankfully for her, Pharazôn either has a very short memory or was offered something by Halbrand after the camera cut away from them that convinced him to hold his tongue.

While this could conceivably count as a plot-hole, until and unless additional context for Pharazôn’s inaction comes to light, it doesn’t quite beggar belief like the idea that a single Elf could persuade Númenor to go to war in the Southlands based on one man’s unreliable testimony, without the backing of her own High King and without even fully comprehending the situation or the strength of her opposition. I understand that Galadriel is reckless, but Tar-Míriel is evidently not, and yet she demands no further information from Galadriel than the two scraps of paper she stole from the Hall of Lore that “prove” Sauron is regaining strength in the Southlands and that Halbrand is the long-lost king who can unite the Southlanders against him. Funny, isn’t it, that Halbrand is behind all of this?

What Galadriel doesn’t know is that the enemy in the Southlands whom she has been led to believe is Sauron (again, by Halbrand) is in fact an Elf – one played with cold majesty by Game Of Thrones‘ Joseph Mawle – who goes by the title “Adar“, the Sindarin Elvish word for father. Theories abound as to who this character is, or could have been in the distant past: popular suggestions include Maglor, the only surviving son of Fëanor who was scarred, physically and mentally, by the burden of the unbreakable Oath he and his father swore and which they could never fulfil; Maeglin, a Dark Elf who betrayed the location of Gondolin to Morgoth in the First Age and was thrown from the city’s parapets as a result (although in the chaos, no one ever recovered his body from the flames below); and the nameless Elf captured by Morgoth long before the First Age began, who was corrupted “by slow arts of cruelty” in the dungeons of Utumno until they became the first Orc or half-Orc.

There are clues pointing in every direction. Adar’s dark hair would suit either Maglor or Maeglin. The metal gauntlet he wears on his left hand supports the theory that he’s Maglor, whose hand was burned by the Silmaril he carried for a time…but Adar also has burn marks along the sides of his face, which could have come from centuries of torture in Utumno, or from being tossed into the fires that raged around Gondolin. It is he who mentions growing up in Beleriand and traveling down “the river” (likely referring to the River Sirion), and his breastplate depicts a winding river as well. Maglor would have gone down the River Sirion on his way to the Third Kinslaying. But what could have happened to Maglor that would soften a Fëanorian’s heart towards Orcs, the greatest enemies of his people? That’s more of a Maeglin thing, and Maeglin could have traveled down the Sirion with the refugees from Gondolin as well.

The problem with most of these theories is that most of the characters Adar could be, like Maglor and Maeglin, are mentioned only in The Quenta Silmarillion – and as we’ve established, Amazon probably doesn’t have those rights. If they do, it’s not something they’ve indicated yet, and the time to introduce Maglor and/or Maeglin was long ago, in the prologue to The Rings Of Power‘s very first episode. To retroactively explain who these characters are, and what their relevance is to the current story, would require extensive flashbacks at this point, which seems wasteful seeing as neither Maglor nor Maeglin is relevant, quite frankly, to the story of the Second Age. Both the Silmaril that Maglor carried and the city of Gondolin that Maeglin betrayed are lost forever beneath the waves of the Sundering Sea.

Well…there is one other connection between these characters and the current story that could be exploited for dramatic effect in The Rings Of Power, but only if Amazon has the rights to do so. Both Maglor and Maeglin are linked to the character of Elrond (Robert Aramayo). It was Elrond’s grandfather who pushed Maeglin off the walls of Gondolin after Maeglin tried to abduct his wife and son, Elrond’s father Eärendil. And during the Third Kinslaying, when Eärendil and Elrond’s mother Elwing fled across the sea to Valinor, it was Maglor (with his brother Maedhros) who rescued their twin sons and hid them in a cave, raising them as if they were his own children. None of this has been mentioned in The Rings Of Power yet, but Elrond has been talking a lot about his father recently.

What we learn about Eärendil in this episode is virtually everything that The Rings Of Power can legally say about him – that he was a great mariner, who led the host that defeated Morgoth at the end of the First Age and was afterwards appointed by the gods to safeguard one of the three Silmarils, which he took into the heavens with him. Once again, I have to applaud the writers for taking all of this arcane information, which to the average viewer means absolutely nothing on its own, and making it relevant in the context of the show. When Elrond observes his friend Durin IV (Owain Arthur) struggling under the weight of his father’s impossible expectations for him, he shares the story of his own father’s legendary exploits and awkwardly tries to make a point about family in a sincere attempt at outreach that comes across as self-centering and slightly condescending.

This has been a problem for Elrond, however, since the very first episode – when he told Galadriel that if she stopped fighting for once, she could focus on being his friend…as if Galadriel, who is several-thousand years older than Elrond, doesn’t have slightly more important things to do with her life than help an aspiring politician impress any one of his many morally ambiguous father figures. In this episode, it’s revealed that Durin IV and his wife Disa (Sophia Nomvete) don’t even trust Elrond completely, not so much because they think ill of him personally but because they can sense he’s being manipulated. Durin tells his father that he intends to go to Lindon and figure out what High King Gil-galad is using Elrond for, but he really ought to be keeping his eye on Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), who is even more blatantly weaponizing Elrond’s innocence for his own gain.

Durin gets the upper hand by forcing Elrond into a tricky situation from which the Elf can only extricate himself by swearing an oath to protect the greatest secrets of the Dwarves – an oath nearly as dangerous as that which Fëanor and his sons swore, with the potential to curse all of Elrond’s kin to sorrow if broken. This whole plot-point was created for The Rings Of Power, but I suppose it could explain why, canonically, Elrond’s family was so singularly unlucky. No spoilers, but the poor guy is abandoned by pretty much everyone he loves. If you’re familiar with Peter Jackson’s film trilogy, you probably already know about the fateful choices of Arwen Undómiel, Elrond’s daughter, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. His grief has multiple layers.

All that Elrond gains from swearing this terrible oath is advance-knowledge of mithril, the new ore discovered by the Dwarves in the mines beneath Khazad-dûm…and it’s not like Elrond can do anything with that information yet anyway, although he does walk away with a small chunk of mithril, a gift from Durin IV – from which I am certain either he or Celebrimbor will forge a Ring of Power in the near future: specifically Nenya, one of the Three Rings made exclusively by and for the Elves without interference from Sauron, which was given to Galadriel. Seeing as Amazon is compressing the timeline of Middle-earth’s history to the point where Khazad-dûm will likely be destroyed before the end of the Second Age (was that a Balrog’s roar we heard as the mine-shaft collapsed around Durin and Elrond?), mithril will soon become a scarce and prized commodity in the show, and even a little will go a long way.

Now that we have reached the midpoint of the first season, which has been quietly laying the groundwork for the forging of the Rings, it’s safe to assume that Elrond and his supporting cast of characters will gradually come to the forefront in the remaining four episodes until the season finale presumably reveals that their subplot has been, all along, the main event. I am still fairly confident – despite all the mounting evidence that Halbrand is a baddie – that Sauron is already deeply entrenched in Eregion, where he’s manipulating Celebrimbor. Halbrand I believe to be a servant of Sauron’s, likely the future Witch-King, assigned with keeping Galadriel distracted in the Southlands until Celebrimbor’s great forge is ready to take its first commission.

And Sauron being the type to try and kill two birds with one stone, I believe that Galadriel will accidentally remove the last obstacle standing between Sauron and his plans to conquer the Southlands – Adar, who is clearly revered by the Orcs that used to follow Sauron. With Adar gone (because there’s no way Galadriel doesn’t personally take him off the board before season’s end), Sauron will be able to swoop in and effortlessly regain control of his old armies, but first he’ll give the Orcs plenty of time to inflict heavy casualties on the Southlanders and Númenóreans, thereby ensuring that there will be little resistance to his eventual takeover when he gets around to it.

There’s one wildcard that Sauron probably hasn’t taken into account, and that’s Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), a young boy who is now in possession of a magical sword bearing the mark of Sauron, which seems to have powers and detrimental side-effects like those of the Morgul-blades wielded by the Nazgûl in The Lord Of The Rings – except that Theo isn’t affected by these side-effects which appear to be leaving a toll on his friend Rowan (Ian Blackburn), and nor is the old barkeep Waldreg (Geoff Morell), in whose barn Theo discovered the sword. Waldreg even rolls up his sleeve to reveal that he repeatedly used the sword in the same way Theo has, by stabbing its hilt into his forearm to activate the blade with his blood. My guess is that they both come from a long lineage of Sauron-worshippers, but that doesn’t explain why Adar is so desperate to get his hands on this sword.

In a harrowing long-shot sequence that once again demonstrates why Middle-earth is a veritable playground for horror auteurs interested in experimenting with fantasy elements on a grand scale, Theo is hunted by Orcs through the burning ruins of his hometown, smoked out of various hiding-places, and eventually lured into the arms of Vrath (Jed Brophy), possibly the most genuinely terrifying Orc to date in any adaptation of Tolkien’s works – so naturally he, Vrath that is, is killed off immediately. The Rings Of Power has many more well-designed and almost entirely practical Orcs where he came from, but none played by Brophy, who gave Vrath a little more personality than your run-of-the-mill Orc.

The Orcs’ canonical aversion to sunlight is also being played up, which means that action scenes involving Orcs end abruptly as soon as the sun rises and begin again after nightfall, except indoors and underground – assuming The Rings Of Power remains consistent with regards to this, and the Orcs don’t suddenly develop an immunity to sunlight when it’s time for a battle, we could be in for some really compelling “keep them fighting until the dawn” type scenarios where the characters are worn down and exhausted, but still need to hold out for an hour more: a bit like how Gandalf defeated the Trolls in The Hobbit, but sans the ventriloquist act.

Something else I had written down in my notes – while Wayne Che Yip’s direction and cinematography remain superior to J.A. Bayona’s in my opinion, he needs to chill out with all the slow-motion, because after a certain point it starts to get really obnoxious. The use of slow-motion also particularly de-emphasizes the innate speed and agility of the Elves, which could be intentional if the idea here is still that the Elves are just ordinary people with an aloof attitude they haven’t earned, but given that this episode finds Elrond eavesdropping on Durin and Disa from at least a mile away with the help of his enhanced eyesight and hearing, I kinda wish The Rings Of Power would choose a direction and commit to it fully. Are the Elves “magical” or not? Do they have special abilities as a reward for being Eru’s favorite children, or is all that pro-Elf propaganda we’ve been fed in The Silmarillion merely lies, to paraphrase Adar?

Personally, I would admire The Rings Of Power greatly if it deconstructed some of Tolkien’s favorite problematic tropes (namely, as you can probably guess, the whole Race Of Inherently Beautiful People Predisposed Towards Good trope that has proved so popular with white supremacists over the years), and I feel like if ever there was an opportunity to do just that, it would be in a story that encompasses all the greatest failures of Men and Elves in the Second Age. Now that we’re halfway through the first season and I’ve seen what the series’ best writers are capable of, I’ve come to expect more from The Rings Of Power in this regard than the occasional threadbare metaphor for racism (we haven’t reached Shadow And Bone-level lows, thank goodness, but we’re too close for comfort). While the fast pacing doesn’t often allow for much nuance and depth, that’s a problem the writers and director need to sort out if they ever plan to tackle Akallabêth.

Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay (who co-wrote this episode along with Paper Girls‘ Stephany Folsom) have guaranteed that The Rings Of Power, with its bright color palette and heroic protagonists, welcomes no comparisons to House Of The Dragon – but that doesn’t mean it must shy away from being complex, even subversive, in the way Tolkien’s own writing increasingly grew to be as he revised it later in his life. Otherwise, it runs the risk of appearing merely trite, and no amount of lore sprinkled into the dialogue will be able to redeem it then.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

September 6, 2022

“The Rings Of Power” Episode 2 Reminds Us What Tolkien’s Writing Is All About

**MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE TWO AHEAD!**

“There is a seed of courage hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid hobbit, waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow….[Frodo] thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey.”

– The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, Fog On The Barrow-Downs, p. 140

There is a hint of irony in the title of The Rings Of Power‘s second episode, Adrift – for while we find our main characters cast off-course both literally and figuratively in episode two, this is also where the The Rings Of Power finds itself, and begins to deliver on its initial promise of unprecedentedly epic storytelling grounded in relatable human dynamics. As our characters drift further from familiar shores into dark and dangerous waters populated by the foulest of beasts, each of them transforms before our eyes into capable heroes, moved to decisive action by the sudden germination of that “seed of courage” within their hearts – a seed which in some cases, is buried deep in darkness, as Tolkien wrote. But as Elrond (Robert Aramayo) says of a mallorn sapling growing in the underground kingdom of Khazad-dûm, “where there is love it is never truly dark”.

And it is love – in all its varied forms – that drives the characters throughout the second episode, leading them to do both great and foolish things in its name. For love of Middle-earth, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) abandons the ship that would have taken her safely back to Valinor and swims the entire breadth of the Sundering Seas. For love of Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), and to a lesser extent for her kinsfolk, Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) investigates a network of tunnels built by orcs underneath the village of Tirharad, while Bronwyn, for love of her son, Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), takes on an orc that got into her home. For love of a complete stranger, Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) hides a secret from her family – one which could put all the Harfoots at risk.

Coming on the heels of a pilot episode that struggled to eloquently and concisely convey what The Rings Of Power was actually about, or how it stands apart from House Of The Dragon, The Witcher, and The Wheel Of Time, among other fantasy series’ currently on television, this episode’s clear focus on love as a catalyst for acts of courage ensures that there will be no doubt in viewers’ minds as to what kind of story this is – a decidedly earnest fantasy that seeks to uplift its audiences. That’s not to say The Rings Of Power doesn’t have dark and occasionally disturbing moments throughout, or that it won’t gradually become darker in future seasons when we get to the bits with human sacrifice and genocide in them, but there’s a fine line to be walked between exploring the darkness and actually reveling in it – one which Tolkien arguably never crossed, and which I don’t expect Rings Of Power to cross any time soon, either.

Besides, when so many of these characters are as endearing as they are because they love deeply and unapologetically, there’s no rush to put them in situations just yet where their love and unwavering faith in something greater than themselves isn’t enough to save the day. There’ll be plenty of time for that in later seasons. Right now, it’s crucial that our protagonists understand what it is to triumph, even if those triumphs are small and short-lived, so that every setback on the path ahead will hurt them – and us – twice as hard as it would otherwise. To use an example from The Lord Of The Rings, it would be a lot harder to empathize with Frodo’s suffering under the oppressive weight of the One Ring if we hadn’t already seen him at his strongest, spiritually, when that seed of courage awoke within him beneath the Barrow-downs.

The brief, triumphant moments we share with our characters in this episode hit me in the feels, though to varying degrees depending on which storylines I felt were generally well-executed and which needed a couple more refinements. Elanor Brandyfoot’s clumsy efforts at communication with the mysterious Stranger (Daniel Weyman) who fell out of the sky in episode one, culminating in her earning his trust enough that he no longer wails in fear every time she spooks him, belong squarely in the former category, because while not the most action-packed subplot by any means, there’s real emotional heft to every interaction between the two.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Galadriel’s victory over the perils of the Sundering Sea didn’t resonate with me as strongly, because the perils in question turn out to be weightless in comparison to everything she’s already confronted and conquered in her life (even her hotly-anticipated underwater encounter with a sea monster lasts all of ten seconds before she escapes by simply…swimming in the opposite direction), and because the only thing gained from this subplot is Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), a shipwrecked Southlander who shares with Galadriel the first hard evidence that Sauron has returned. Given that Halbrand’s character is fairly unimpressive, and that Vickers’ performance gets only a “let’s wait and see” out of me, I’m not sure that we gained more than we potentially lost in the ten to fifteen minutes this subplot eats up.

And I’m still salty that the sea monster fight never materialized! As someone who’s equal parts fascinated by the sea and terrified of what lurks beneath its surface, I was really looking forward to an action-sequence like nothing we’d ever seen before in the legendarium or its adaptations – but either the budget couldn’t support such an action-sequence (I find that hard to believe), or it got cut for time (which I can believe, because television executives are always making stupid decisions like that). At least the monster took out all of Halbrand’s equally irritating crewmates before vanishing back into the ocean depths.

While we’re on the subject of action, I must admit that The Rings Of Power is severely lacking in this department – and it can’t exclusively be due to budgetary concerns, because even action-sequences requiring relatively little CGI fizzle out before they get started. My best guess is that, in an effort to conceal instances of poor fight choreography and protect the dignity of actors still mostly new to wielding swords and axes, these sequences were edited to the point where they now hardly exist. The exception to the rule is the second episode’s fast-paced, close-quarters brawl involving Bronwyn, her son Theo, and a single orc that claws through the floorboards of Bronwyn’s home. A single orc might not sound so bad when we’ve seen swarms of them onscreen before, but through the lens of The Orphanage director J.A. Bayona, this orc has all the presence of a slasher-movie villain; its movements slow and purposeful, its design genuinely grotesque (those practical effects are just…*chef’s kiss*), and its fate appropriately gruesome.

But the sequence is still too short, and the orc doesn’t rack up any kills the way a slasher-movie villain should. I mention this only because I think The Rings Of Power‘s stakes are still somewhat unclear after two episodes (a little Sauron does not go a long way, as I wrote in my review of episode one), and a minor character’s death at the hands of an orc would have made a big difference. I suppose there’s still time for that, but the stakes diminish slightly whenever characters walk unscathed from a fight, and so far that’s all they’ve done (well, with the exception of Galadriel’s brother Finrod, but we hardly knew him and he died offscreen). Arondir gets captured by orcs, but I’m fairly certain he’ll escape by the end of episode three and return to Tirharad to help Bronwyn muster the Southlanders to her cause.

Theoretically, however, the stakes are ridiculously high right from the get-go – we’re talking end of the world, end of life as we know it, all that good stuff. That’s what Galadriel claims will happen if Sauron’s imminent return is unchallenged, and although we have yet to see much (or, come to think of it, any) proof of her claims, I’ve read The Lord Of The Rings and its appendices, so I know she’s right, and I know there will be many opportunities in the near future for us to see Sauron in action, so we never have to end up in a Game Of Thrones type situation where they keep telling us a bad thing is gonna happen, but then when it happens, it’s actually not that bad.

In this case, the bad thing really is gonna happen and it’s gonna be worse than Galadriel could have possibly predicted (the source material being written already makes that a guarantee). But that’s several seasons down the line, and The Rings Of Power needs to start laying the groundwork now for the bad thing to happen then, so that viewers who haven’t read the books and don’t remember the movies know what this is all building towards. So far, the prologue’s attention-grabbing aerial battle between Morgoth’s fell beasts and a giant eagle of Manwë is still more visually impressive than anything Sauron has done (onscreen, to be clear), even during the First Age of Middle-earth.

On the margins of the main story, where the stakes are still high but not quite so unfathomable, it’s easier to convey the consequences a minor slip-up could have, and this ties into my earlier point regarding the joyful and triumphant moments we need to share with the characters – because while you can kinda get away with being vague about what the end of the world really means (the fantasy genre’s been doing that forever, and the appeal hasn’t worn off), when the stakes are small they need to be clear. And The Rings Of Power mostly succeeds on this front, especially where the Harfoots are concerned: from the moment they’re both introduced, we’re first shown and then frequently reminded that the Harfoots are a nomadic people who survive by moving out of harm’s way in a twinkling. So when Elanor’s father, Largo Brandyfoot (Dylan Smith), breaks his ankle, we understand immediately that the consequences this could have on Elanor’s family and the entire community are devastating.

Likewise, I’m invested in Elrond’s storyline not because I particularly care whether he’s successful in brokering a deal with the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm on behalf of Lord Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), but because it turns out that there’s a lot more at stake here for Elrond than he let on – his friendship with the Dwarven prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur) is riding on this, and Durin already feels betrayed by Elrond for missing his wedding, the birth of his children, and a whole bunch of other milestones in Durin’s relatively short life that Elrond, as an immortal Elf, forgot were important. Whether or not you can relate to that exact experience, most of us have been in roughly analogous situations.

And if you’ve ever had to mediate between two estranged friends (or frankly, even if you haven’t), I think you’ll be drawn to the character of Disa (Sophia Nomvete), Durin’s wife and Elrond’s only other close acquaintance amongst the Dwarves, to whom both turn for help in getting through to the other over an awkward dinner. Mediation is Disa’s primary role throughout this episode, where she indeed appears only briefly, but we learn so many interesting details about her, and Nomvete’s performance is instantly so warm and heartfelt, that I feel as though we’re only scratching the surface of what could be done with her character – a “Resonator” responsible for singing to Khazad-dûm, not its people but its stones.

Resonators like Disa are a welcome new addition to the lore, which has surprisingly little to say regarding Dwarven culture and customs even in the Third Age, much less the Second. If The Rings Of Power freely invents original material here and in other corners of Middle-earth, it’s because there’s plenty of space in this sandbox to flesh out all the characters that to Tolkien were just names on a family-tree, and reconstruct from imagination all the great cities that the Fellowship of the Ring never got to see when they hurried across Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age. It’s not lore-breaking to let “other minds and hands” add to the great tales Tolkien left behind.

In one particularly beautiful example of this, The Rings Of Power‘s unconventional (but decidedly charming) version of Celebrimbor regales Elrond with a story of the First Age that comes to us not from The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, but from the writers’ own imagination – and the potent simplicity of the story they’ve created, one in which the Great Foe Morgoth gazes so long upon the beauty of the Silmarils that he weeps a single tear in which his terrible visage is reflected, finally breaking the spell Fëanor’s work had cast over him, is so evocative of Tolkien’s own writing that I had to double-check to make sure this detail wasn’t mentioned in any of the published works. The deliberate caveat that this story is merely a legend amongst the Elves means that you can integrate it into your readings of The Silmarillion or disregard it entirely, if for whatever reason it doesn’t work for you.

So, as sacrilegious as it may be to say this, maybe original content can be good sometimes, actually? Maybe there’s beauty to be found in these stories that don’t have a basis in the canon but still encapsulate the integral themes of Tolkien’s Second Age writings, besides being – for the most part – really well-written, well-acted, and visually spectacular in their own right?

I don’t know about you, but I’ll not soon forget the experience of seeing Khazad-dûm revealed in all its ancient glory on the biggest screen possible (I was lucky enough to attend a theatrical screening of the first two episodes). As Bayona’s camera swooped through an underground wonderland awash with blazing sunlight, capturing and crystallizing every last detail at which the author’s pen can only hope to indicate, all the while accompanied by Bear McCreary’s bellowing Dwarven theme (which has been stuck in my head for the past several days), I realized that whatever other sensations The Rings Of Power evokes in me, first and foremost among those will always be love for Middle-earth – of that, I’m already confident.

I love being back in this world where love is a power innate to all people that can awaken in them the capacity for earth-shaking heroism, and the fact that The Rings Of Power conveys all that in just the first two episodes is why my eyes are brimming with tears just writing these words, because even if all the new fans introduced to Middle-earth by way of this series never continue on to the books (though many will, I’m sure), in the end I believe The Rings Of Power is worthy to stand alongside a handful of other great adaptations of Tolkien’s works that get it. This is a story about love. I sincerely doubt that Jeff-I-Want-My-Game–Of–Thrones-Bezos knew when he commissioned this project that what he’d get would be the literal antithesis to the harsh cynicism of Thrones and its successors, but based on The Rings Of Power‘s global viewership numbers, it looks like love wins.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10