Mordor Archives - The Wide Screen

August 30, 2024

“The Rings Of Power” Season 2 Reintroduces Its Villain

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER SEASON TWO, EPISODE ONE AHEAD!

Just as the first season of Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power opened with Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel narrating over a montage of scenes that followed her progression from a child of Valinorean peace and tranquility to a woman hardened by the ceaseless wars she and her kind brought to Middle-earth’s shores, season two tries to do the same for the character of Sauron and goes to show that Amazon hasn’t “bought” the Tolkien Estate (as some of the series’ detractors claim), seeing as they were evidently denied access to the descriptions of Sauron’s First Age activities found only in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, resulting in a prologue and premiere episode that knows it would be so much stronger if it were free, either to adapt the source material or, barring that, outright contradict what it can’t adapt.

Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad, standing in the foreground, while Morfydd Clark as Galadriel stands behind him, out-of-focus. Gil-galad has long dark brown hair, and wears a circlet of golden laurel leaves and a golden-brown cape over the left shoulder of his gold robe. Galadriel has long blonde hair, and wears a floor-length blue-green gown. — Gil-galad and Galadriel | youtube.com

Until that time comes, The Rings Of Power will continue to dance on tip-toes – whether with the gracefulness of a fleet-footed Elf or a lumbering cave troll is entirely dependent on the individual writer for each episode – to avoid touching anything it legally cannot, including the most detailed account of Sauron’s origins (The Ainulindalë), his motivations (The Letters Of J.R.R. Tolkien and Morgoth’s Ring), and his deeds (The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales), which significantly restricts The Rings Of Power‘s Sauron-centric prologue: from starting at a point in time even remotely equivalent to when Galadriel’s began; from using any of the names for Sauron that he canonically preferred to the one in common use among his enemies; from explaining that he belonged to a class of angelic beings called Maiar, specifically one tasked with maintaining order and coordination; from laying bare his vision, ultimately unobtainable save through the domination of all living things, of the world under his control; and from referring to how the Valar, the pantheon of godlike beings ranked above the Maiar in power and seniority, offered him a second chance after Morgoth’s defeat, which Sauron considered and rejected, being unwilling to part with the power he had obtained in Middle-earth.

Most of what was omitted can be inferred to exist still, offscreen. Sauron is not not a Maia in The Rings Of Power, the word just isn’t used. There are subtle hints in his dialogue that point to his true ideology and aims, maybe a bit too subtle, but they’re there. And for all we know, he could conceivably have had his moment of repentance shortly prior to when The Rings Of Power picks up his story as he gathers the Orcs at his fortress in cold Forodwaith, intending to be accepted as Morgoth’s successor. Jack Lowden’s Sauron is rather more pitiable than intimidating (and I can’t say that would be an entirely unfounded read of the villain), but his face befits the name Mairon, nowhere used in this sequence but plausibly still the name he wore as a Maia. The very best version of The Rings Of Power often isn’t the one onscreen, but the one hiding between-the-lines.

Jack Lowden as Sauron in The Rings Of Power. He has long blond hair, slicked-back, and wears black armor over a red-and-gold robe. — Sauron | slashfilm.com

With that said, this episode is extremely entertaining in its own right, and again, we need only turn to the prologue – a very effective microcosm of the entire season so far – to understand why. It may be sacrilegious to suggest, but The Rings Of Power feels most at ease when it’s having fun playing in the vast sandbox that is Middle-earth, using the building-blocks at its disposal, but arranging them in ways that J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn’t have, like when it implied that Sauron and Galadriel had romantic feelings for each other, or when it invented an extremely compelling half-Elf, half-Orc character named Adar (Sam Hazeldine), whom Sauron inherited at the end of the First Age along with everything else that once belonged to Morgoth. Perhaps The Rings Of Power‘s single most valuable contribution to the Middle-earth legendarium is Adar, who not only straddles the line separating good and evil, but forces Middle-earth’s heroes and its villains alike to grapple with the disturbing implication that all Orcs straddle that line as much as any people – something that Tolkien himself was coming to acknowledge near the end of his life, but was never able to reconcile with his earlier depictions of the Orcs.

Adar’s decision, solidified in secret while Sauron addresses the Orcs and makes it increasingly clear that he not only doesn’t see them as his people but assumes it is in their nature to serve a Dark Lord (the same prejudice he accuses Elves and Men of holding), to kill Sauron then and there with his own crown, transforms a coronation into an execution, and all the Orcs get in a stab, until the bloodied heap that remains of Sauron erupts, sending shockwaves across Forodwaith. But while Adar and the Orcs depart in search of a new home, the camera tracks Sauron’s pooled blood as it runs in rivulets through cracks in the stone, coagulating deep underground into something utterly repulsive and somehow mesmerizing to watch, a mass of tiny feelers groping back towards the surface, absorbing small animals and insects; a sort of reverse-Gollum that gradually becomes more humanoid as it slithers purposefully out of the mountains, eventually getting stuck to the wheel of a merchant’s cart, consuming her, and thereafter wearing the body of Charlie Vickers’ Halbrand.

Charlie Vickers as Halbrand, standing at the back of a covered wagon, looking around. He has shoulder-length, shaggy brown hair, and wears brown rags. — Halbrand | youtube.com

At this point (and through no fault of a consistently exceptional Vickers, I must add), the prologue gets bogged down contriving a string of unremarkable scenes intended to signal to the audience that Sauron’s pursuit of redemption under a new name throughout season one was not entirely a deception, as well as retroactively justifying how he came across the heraldry that allowed him to pass himself off as a lost king of the Southlands, and why we and Galadriel first encountered him on a raft in the middle of the Great Sea. The answers to these outstanding mysteries are linked, but neither is particularly interesting. It’s when Sauron returns to the Southlands in the body of the episode that Vickers gets to show off his strengths as an actor, an opportunity that season one deprived him of until its final few minutes. In his scenes opposite Adar (now the Lord of Mordor), Sauron, still disguised as Halbrand, manipulates masterfully – exposing the feigned weakness he wants Adar to believe he can wield as leverage over him, his concern for his people, and using that very same weakness on Adar’s part to begin amassing an army. There is such salt-of-the-earth sincerity in Sauron’s ruggedly handsome face and in his folksy accent that the absence of it in the half-smiles which crook the corners of his lips and never quite reach his steely eyes escapes notice initially.

If Vickers’ performance embodies the idea put forward in The Lord Of The Rings that the agents of evil “seem fair, and feel foul”, Hazeldine’s is the inverse: the grim set of his mouth and the slow, seemingly methodical way in which he moves do not betray emotion, but it roils under the surface and shimmers faintly far behind his eyes. Hazeldine is a less lanky man than Joseph Mawle, who played Adar in the first season, and his version of the character is physically imposing where Mawle’s was frail, without a trace of trembling rasp in his voice. But Adar’s love for the Orcs, the enveloping and unconditional love of a parent for their children, is as genuine coming from Hazeldine as it was from Mawle in season one, and both actors deliver the best performances of their respective seasons.

In comparison, the evolution of Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel and Robert Aramayo’s Elrond from one season to the next may not seem significant, but there is a newfound surety in their performances, with which comes the ability to turn over their characters and explore their different facets. Galadriel is still impulse-driven by nature, but she let those impulses drive her straight into a ditch in season one, forcing her to consult other emotions besides her shattered sense of self-righteousness as she tries to back out of her current predicament without accidentally entrenching herself any deeper. Elrond, by contrast, has never been more certain in his definition of “right” and “wrong”, and is aghast when High King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) doesn’t see it the same way, putting the idealistic young politician in an uncomfortable and isolating position where people he’s regarded his whole life as fundamentally good appear to be shedding their morals all around him.

A cliffside in Lindon, upon the edge of which grows a tall mallorn tree with golden leaves. Within its shade sits a dais, encircled by a stream falling off the edge of the cliff, and upon that dais stands a basin filled with water. Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad is approaching the basin. He has long dark hair and wears a golden robe. Nearby stands Robert Aramayo as Elrond. He has short brown hair and wears a blue robe. In the background stand two Elven soldiers in gold cloaks, wielding spears, and Morfydd Clark as Galadriel. She has long blond hair and wears a green mantle. — Lindon | youtube.com

Having Elrond grab the Three Rings and leap off a waterfall into the Gulf of Lhûn to prevent the Elves from using the devices of Sauron isn’t exactly subtle storytelling, but I respect The Rings Of Power for unapologetically foregoing subtlety in favor of spectacle every now and then. It’s the rare fantasy show in the post-Game Of Thrones television landscape that gets a kick out of testing its audiences’ suspension of disbelief. If we accept that Elves exist and can walk over snow without sinking and tell a person’s height and hair color from over fifteen miles away, why can’t they also survive a fall of many hundreds of feet into the ocean? What’s important is that Elrond isn’t just jumping off a waterfall for the sake of having something cool happen in an episode light on action, but because The Rings Of Power has exponentially raised the stakes by having Sauron involved in the forging of the Three Rings (a controversial deviation from the canonical account, where the Three are created behind Sauron’s back, after the Seven and the Nine) and deliberately obfuscating the extent of his involvement. It is a choice that the show proudly owns, taking advantage of the opportunity that’s emerged to closely and critically examine the Three Rings and the potential consequences of wearing them.

Enter the character of Círdan (Ben Daniels), the oldest and wisest Elf in all of Middle-earth, who harbors Elrond when he washes up in the Grey Havens and offers to discard the Three by dropping them into a submarine trench…only to have a change of heart and do the exact opposite of what he promised Elrond, putting on one of the Three himself and delivering the other two to Gil-galad and Galadriel. The Elves are able to slow their inevitable fading and continue the fight against Sauron in Middle-earth, but at the cost of becoming bound to the fate of the Three Rings (and therefore also Sauron, which, to be honest, does make a lot more sense if he had a hand in their creation). It may have been their best choice, but was it the right choice? The Rings Of Power leaves the audience with that question. Although, as a fan of Círdan, who has never had a speaking role in an adaptation of Tolkien’s works before, I’m also left wondering why the writers chose to utilize him in this way. Daniels is perfectly cast in the part, make no mistake, but the narrative does him no favors by having Círdan betray Elrond’s trust the way a parent might an errant child and then fall victim to the temptation of the Rings, all before most viewers will even have picked up his name.

Ben Daniels as Cirdan in close-up. He has long gray hair, slightly curly, and a gray beard. He wears a gray robe with golden waves embroidered around the collar. — Círdan | nerdist.com

I have no idea how to elegantly segue into talking about The Stranger (Daniel Weyman), still following the stars eastward into the land of Rhûn, where he believes he will learn, or relearn, his true name and purpose. Unfortunately, he’s no closer to finding any of those things after the first three episodes of season two, and spends almost the entirety of the premiere lost and going in circles, his genuinely charming banter with his stalwart Harfoot companion Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) the only highlight of this subplot. I’m not sure how much longer The Rings Of Power can even keep up the pretense that the Stranger’s identity is a mystery, when the magic staff that he keeps seeing in his dreams is referred to on several occasions not as a staff, or a stave, or even a wand, but a gand, derived from the Old Norse word gandr, one half of the name Gandálfr or, you guessed it, Gandalf (“wand elf”). There is no reason, none whatsoever, to use this particular word if the Stranger is not Gandalf. And if it’s a misdirect, I’ll be furious.

While the Stranger and Nori can certainly keep a conversation going, the return of Nori’s friend Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) is a welcome relief at a particularly slow moment in this storyline, giving them both another person to bounce off. I’m inclined to believe, however, that her inclusion was the result of rewrites, because of how little effort is put into explaining why she decided to follow Nori after turning down the chance to travel with her and the Stranger last season or how she even caught up with them, and once added to the party, she does nothing that Nori could not also have accomplished. But I always wanted the three of them together anyway, so I can’t object to her reappearance, only to the fact that it doesn’t save this subplot, which continues to waste time in a season too short and too crowded already to spare even a second.

Close-up image of a person of indeterminate age and gender, wearing a brown hood over an ornate bronze mask shaped into a leering skull with gaping eyesockets. — Easterling | youtube.com

That’s the other big problem lingering over The Rings Of Power season two: the story it’s telling, spanning seven kingdoms and all the lands between, is simply too large to be condensed into a season of just eight episodes. Of course, it would help if every subplot was equally engaging, but regardless, there’s not enough time for them all to be fully fleshed-out. And the first episode is only juggling three, mind you, divided between Lindon, Mordor, and Rhûn – in the episodes that follow, The Rings Of Power makes its way around Middle-earth, revisiting Eregion, Khazad-dûm, Númenor, and the Southlands. Every location is its own enormous, fully-realized world, but the time we’ve spent in each is just barely enough to get reacquainted with the characters we already met last season. I’m not demanding twenty episodes, each an hour long, per season (though I wouldn’t object), but surely the most expensive show on television can afford ten?

Thankfully, The Rings Of Power is in no other aspect stingy. The first episode of season two boasts CGI more convincing than most blockbuster movies, breathtaking locations ranging from New Zealand to the Canary Islands, extensive practical sets, a panoply of props including the titular Rings, and gorgeous costumes (for more on that subject, see my interview with the series’ costume designer, Luca Mosca), of which my favorite is, perhaps surprisingly given its relative simplicity, the gray robe embroidered with golden waves that Círdan wears in his introductory scene: an unpretentious but beautiful garment well-fitted to its owner’s personality. Through the lens of director Charlotte Brändström (who directed the sixth and seventh episodes of season one) and cinematographer Alex Disenhof, Middle-earth bursts to life.

Wide shot of a round stone dais in the shade of a tall tree with golden leaves. Ben Daniels as Cirdan and Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad stand upon the dais, while Morfydd Clark as Galadriel ascends the dais by a flight of short steps from the left. Cirdan has long gray hair and wears a gray robe. Gil-galad has long dark hair, a crown of golden laurel leaves, and wears a golden robe. Galadriel has long blonde hair and wears a green gown. Veiled attendants and soldiers wearing gold cloaks and winged helmets, wielding spears, stand nearby. — (left to right) Galadriel, Círdan, and Gil-galad | youtube.com

The flaws that have always held The Rings Of Power just a hair’s-breadth back from greatness continue to do so, but the series strains against its bonds and makes a valiant push forward in this episode, a reintroduction to the world and its characters that doesn’t seek anyone’s forgiveness for sizable changes to the source material, whether smart or baffling, but asks only for patience. If not all fans will be inclined to give it even that much, there are many still who will be intrigued by what the series is doing to grapple with the broader themes of Tolkien’s work, and I see enormous potential yet in this unconventional adaptation.

Episode Rating: 8/10

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

January 30, 2021

Middle-earth Explained: Eregion And The Rings Of Power

The recent reveal of an official synopsis for Amazon Prime’s The Lord Of The Rings adaptation has left us all excited to jump back into Middle-earth and revel in the many joys it has to offer us. But to get fully prepared for Amazon’s upcoming series requires more than just a movie marathon or even a reread of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings – Amazon is pulling from Tolkien’s extensive deep lore for their series, and diving into regions of Middle-earth previously unexplored by either the films or main books.

Eregion, however, has a rare distinction in that, although it’s glimpsed in both the books (the Fellowship of the Ring passes through its ruins on their journey south from Rivendell), and the movies (in fact, it’s the very first location you see in Jackson’s trilogy, while Cate Blanchett is narrating the history of the One Ring), its most prominent exposure to date is in the deeply flawed Middle-earth video games, Shadow Of Mordor and Shadow Of War. These games break Tolkien lore in ways that are frankly appalling (Shelob is a shape-shifting sorceress, Isildur is a Nazgûl, and Celebrimbor’s ghost becomes one half of Sauron’s fiery eye). But they did at least give players a basic rundown of the history of Celebrimbor, Eregion, and the forging of the Rings of Power in the Second Age – events that will be pivotal to Amazon’s series, set in the same time-frame. That being said, the non-canonical and hyperbolic nature of the games makes them a faulty source for accurate information…which is my long-winded way of saying “trust me instead”.

I recounted some of the ancient history of the Elves in Middle-earth while discussing Lindon and the Grey Havens, so what immediately follows may be familiar to some of my readers. But while the paths of Lindon and Eregion diverged early in the Second Age, they have a common root in the First Age, during a mythical, peaceful era before the creation of the sun and moon and thus beyond the margins of recorded history. During this time-before-time, Middle-earth was only one half of a flat, disc-shaped world – its other half being the paradisiacal continent known as Valinor, where a pantheon of benevolent gods named Valar presided over a flourishing community of Elves well-versed in all the arts and sciences available to them: and even some beyond our modern capabilities. In the absence of a sun, Valinor’s primary light source was a duo of glowing trees, which is a random important detail.

The most creative-minded Elves in Valinor were the Noldor Elves, and the greatest among them was Fëanor, an inventor who had foresight as well as unparalleled skill and an indomitable ego. He’s a bit of a divisive figure in-universe: everyone had mad respect for his accomplishments, and he did create a trinity of magical gems called Silmarils to house the light of the Two Trees of Valinor, because he accurately predicted that the evil Morgoth would kill the Trees and plunge Valinor into darkness…he just didn’t foresee the bit where Morgoth also stole the Silmarils. Fëanor’s backup plan for his backup plan involved leading most of the Noldor on a wild-goose chase to Middle-earth to try and find Morgoth, killing any Elves who stood in their way: all of this, mind you, against the orders of the Valar, who forbade any of them to return to Valinor after what they had done. And then Fëanor got himself killed roughly ten minutes into the expedition (yes, minutes: while the Noldor were freaking out, the Valar had gone and fixed the whole light-source problem by creating the sun, adding insult to injury), leaving his followers leaderless and stranded in Middle-earth with Morgoth, and saddling his descendants with an unbreakable oath to recover the Silmarils or die trying.

Only Tolkien could take this comedic gold and write it as an epic tragedy.

Needless to say, the Noldor were really angry and really confused about their life-choices by the time the First Age ended and the Valar finally arrived to set things straight, casting Morgoth into the void. The Valar offered them all a choice to return to Valinor and repent for their crimes, but most of the Noldor refused out of pride, bitterness, or a desire to prove they could be self-sufficient. For some, it was all three – plus an almost subliminal urge to build Middle-earth into a mirror image of Valinor and rival the glory of the gods. Never a good idea, especially when the gods are real and prone to violence. But the main proponent of this philosophy was Fëanor’s grandson, Celebrimbor, so…yeah, not surprising at all.

Celebrimbor lived in Lindon under King Gil-galad during the early years of the Second Age, but eventually grew bored and struck off on his own. Charismatic like his grandfather, he attracted a large following – and was soon able to build his own kingdom in the foothills of the Misty Mountains, which he called Eregion. Celebrimbor was actually a decent leader. He was on good terms with the neighboring Dwarves of Khazad-dûm, with whom he traded knowledge and precious mithril steel (also, him and Narvi the Dwarf were totally doing the whole “forbidden love” thing centuries before Tauriel and Kili, or Legolas and Gimli). He promoted the arts, set up a guild of crafts-people, and began work on his agenda to make heaven a place on Middle-earth. Eregion even attracted guests like Galadriel and Celeborn, who lived there for a time.

But Celebrimbor’s frantic urge to outdo the Valar made him the perfect target for Sauron, a fallen angel who had served Morgoth, and who now rose to fill the power-vacuum left in his wake. A tyrannical perfectionist, Sauron’s ultimate goal was similar to Celebrimbor’s – he too wanted to elevate Middle-earth above and beyond its mortal limitations, but he was uniquely hindered by his inability to create real beauty. Nonetheless, wearing the beautiful disguise of an Elven emissary from Valinor named Annatar, he was able to infiltrate Eregion and seduce the Noldor with his repeated assurances that the Valar wished for them to redesign Middle-earth in the image of paradise. Thus, Sauron was able to harness the skill of the Elves for his own purposes.

Together, each learning from the other, Celebrimbor and Annatar forged sixteen Rings of Power. These were not distributed immediately to Men and Dwarves, as the movies indicate (Tolkien toyed with the notion that Celebrimbor only gave away one in his lifetime: to Durin III, King of Khazad-dûm, as a token of friendship). Celebrimbor had designed these Rings to be worn by Elves, to help and heal Middle-earth; and it was Sauron’s secret hope that he could control the Elves through their Rings, into which he had poured dark magic of his own. In Second Age 1600, having sufficiently mastered the art of Ring-making and confident that the Noldor would wear the Rings he had helped make for them, Sauron left Eregion and returned to his own land, in foul Mordor. But he underestimated the perfectionism he had instilled in his followers: the Noldor he had left behind continued work on three more Rings of their own, far greater than the sixteen.

In Mordor, Sauron secretly forged One Ring – a Master Ring with the power to ensnare all others and their wearers. But as soon as he put it on, Celebrimbor became aware of his treachery, and demanded that the newly-finished Three Rings be distributed swiftly to the greatest leaders of the Elven people, Gil-galad, Galadriel, and Círdan, and hidden from Sauron forever. They were not made by Sauron, so he could not control them from afar, but they were made with knowledge learned from him; and were thus tied to his fate, and that of the One Ring.

Sauron nonetheless perceived that Eregion was his greatest threat, and threw all his force against the Elven kingdom. With the help of orc-armies, he ransacked and destroyed the forges of the Noldor, and captured Celebrimbor. The king was ruthlessly tortured until he revealed the locations of the sixteen Rings (or fifteen, assuming Durin III already had one), which Sauron quickly recovered. But he would say nothing of the Three Rings, and Sauron eventually had him killed, thus ending the line of Fëanor. His brutally-mangled body was hung on a pole and used by Sauron’s armies as a banner in their war against the Elves.

With Eregion destroyed, no new Rings would ever be forged, nor would Celebrimbor’s purpose for them be achieved. Middle-earth sank further into darkness and despair as Sauron begrudgingly distributed his stolen Rings among Dwarves and Men, since his plan to control the Elves had backfired. Men were easily corruptible, but the Dwarves proved resistant, and their rings became the foundations of great treasure-hoards under the earth. The Three Rings were not used during the Second Age.

The survivors from Eregion dispersed across Middle-earth, mainly to Lindon and the refuge of Rivendell, but many became disheartened, sailing back to the Undying Lands in Valinor. By the end of the Third Age, Eregion was a tumbled heap of ruins, and even the stones on which its foundations had been built had long since forgotten the Elves, their Rings of Power, and all their dreams of paradise. Now that’s tragic.

October 24, 2020

10 Things Amazon’s “Lord Of The Rings” Should Include That Will Shock The Fandom

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about my favorite topic, The Lord Of The Rings and all things Tolkien (it really hasn’t, since I somehow manage to bring it up in most completely unrelated posts, but that’s beside the point), or since I’ve written a “top ten” list like the ones I did sometime back in March, where I discussed things I wanted to see in Amazon Prime’s upcoming adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings on the Second Age of Middle-earth, as well as things I didn’t want to see, and characters I hope the series will handle with the utmost care. In the meantime, the Tolkien fandom has found other things to argue about – most recently the topic of sexuality in the Professor’s works, something I will address later in this post, and which was in fact the inspiration for this post. After seeing how shocked and outraged a portion of the Tolkien fandom was in response to the news that nudity and sexuality might be present in the Amazon Prime series, I asked myself: what other things might similarly shock them, if it’s mature content they’re opposed to? Things straight from the Tolkien canon, things that the Professor himself sketched out in detail or tantalizingly hinted at, and which will now have the opportunity to be realized onscreen?

Of course, this list will only be dealing with shocking events and themes of the Second Age of Middle-earth, which is when the Amazon Prime series will be set (no, it’s not really The Lord Of The Rings, and I still don’t understand why they haven’t given us some indication of what the actual title will be). The Second Age just so happens to be the second darkest era in Middle-earth’s history (the First being, both figuratively and, until the creation of the sun and moon quite literally, the darkest), which means there’s a great deal of strange, terrifying, controversial or just uncomfortable things for Amazon to draw from for their adaptation. And now, without further ado, let’s get into it.

10: Different Magic. Let’s ease into this and start out fairly tame, with something that Amazon doesn’t necessarily have to include, but definitely should if they can find a way to do so naturally without alienating a massive part of the Tolkien fandom. In Tolkien’s assorted early writings on the Blue Wizards of Middle-earth, he briefly mentioned something that has always fascinated me and has always intrigued me because of how it seemingly challenges the loose rules of his soft magic system. “I fear that they failed…,” he wrote of the two Wizards, “and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and ‘magic’ traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.” Tolkien would later rewrite the story and have the Blue Wizards play an active, heroic role in bringing about Sauron’s downfall secretly from the east, but the idea of the duo spreading the knowledge or understanding of magic throughout Middle-earth is almost too irresistible to pass up on – even if Tolkien put magic in quotes, and clearly didn’t intend for it to mean real magical power like that possessed by Gandalf or the Elves. We’ve never seen magic used quite to this extent before in Middle-earth, certainly not with regards to cults or occult practices. And considering how Tolkien’s magic system is often used as the gold standard for soft magic systems in fantasy, it could be risky to explore this in too much detail – though it could be rewarding because it would give the show a chance to explore uncharted territory.

9: The Valar. As with occult magic, this has the potential to be both a good idea and a bad idea, depending on who you ask. Most hardcore fans know and love the Valar, but more casual fans might be weirded out by the reveal that Tolkien’s world comes with an entire pantheon of gods, goddesses and other minor deities – like the sun, and the moon…and Gandalf. In the semi-biblical narrative of The Silmarillion, the presence of the Valar feels very natural and I would argue it’s no different with the Second Age – but I’m just one person, and I have previously seen some quiet backlash to the idea of the Valar ever physically appearing. Some simply feel like it’s too radical a departure from the Middle-earth that most people know from The Lord Of The Rings, while others specifically don’t like The Silmarillion because of the gods and goddesses and other somewhat religious elements of the story. Amazon will have to include the Valar either way, because they’re critical to the story, but I’m interested to see what the reaction will be from the fandom. Personally I’d be thrilled.

8: The Burning Of The Entwife Gardens. Let’s get a little more specific now. In the cinematic Middle-earth franchise thus far, the most explicit act of desolation we’ve seen has been a single vision of a ruined Shire in the Mirror of Galadriel, and the wreck of Dale by dragon-fire in The Hobbit. But we’ve never seen anything on the scale of the torching of the Entwife gardens near the end of the Second Age. The Entwives cultivated a tranquil land east of the River Anduin, which unfortunately fell directly on Sauron’s warpath as his armies returned from defeat in Eriador to Mordor. In an attempt to deplete the approaching Last Alliance’s resources, he torched the Entwife gardens, and the Entwives themselves disappeared from recorded history. Were they burned? Enslaved and put to work in Mordor (in which case, that will be even more disturbing content to watch out for)? Or did they escape to happier lands? Whatever their fate may have been, watching their gardens be uprooted and scorched will be shockingly brutal enough. Not unpredictable, but definitely the stuff that season finale cliffhangers are made of.

7: Celebrimbor, Gil-galad And Anarion’s Deaths. The Second Age is filled with a lot of very violent deaths. Nobody knows this better than Celebrimbor of Eregion, the Elven smith who forged most of the Rings of Power and was later betrayed by his partner and confidante, Annatar – who turned out to have been Sauron in disguise all along. Sauron and his orc armies attacked Eregion with the hope of locating the Three Rings that Celebrimbor had made for the Elves: they pillaged the city without any luck, and eventually Sauron captured Celebrimbor and tortured him mercilessly for information. Celebrimbor refused to relent, and so, of course, he was killed. But Sauron wasn’t content with just murdering one of the last of the Fëanorian bloodline. No, he also horribly mutilated the Elf, shot him full of arrows, and had his body hung from a flagpole and carried into battle like a banner by his orc army. That’s straight out of Game Of Thrones right there, and is almost certain to land the show a TV-MA rating no matter what. As for Gil-galad, last High King of the Noldor, he was apparently burned alive by the fiery heat of Sauron’s hand during their duel on the slopes of Mount Doom. And Anarion…well, he got his whole head bashed in by a rock thrown from the parapets of Barad-dûr, killing him and crushing the crown of Gondor. I don’t know which of these three fates was the worst, but all will certainly be graphic and stomach-churning onscreen.

6: Death And Mortality. Speaking of death, it’s actually one of the major recurring themes throughout the Second Age – and when the series begins to tackle the subject of Númenor and their relationship with death and mortality, that’s when it’s going to abruptly steer away from the realm of fantasy and into disturbing, cynical, psychological horror. For many fans of The Lord Of The Rings, it might come as a shock to realize that Tolkien’s world isn’t always escapist entertainment, but can be horrifyingly realistic when it needs to be. It’s in Númenor where this will surely be most apparent, as the island kingdom’s long-lived people slowly begin to lose their famous longevity and wither away: in desperation, they cling to life but fall into madness, chaos and a frantic search for a cure to death, or an antidote to their fear – which some of them find in Sauron’s evil, or in the nihilistic worship of the dead. They turn away from the wisdom of the Valar and the Elves, and descend into an abyss of their own making (and ultimately into the very real abyss beneath their island. Too soon?). It’s really grim.

5: Commentary On Imperialism. Tolkien was no fan of the British Empire’s global expansion, and his works reflect that: much of the trouble in Númenor first begins to emerge after the island kingdom starts occupying lands in Middle-earth across the sea, starting wars with the native peoples there and bringing back riches to fuel and fund ever more conquests. For our own sake, I hope that any violence against the native peoples of Middle-earth will be shown as it is – an unjust brutality – and not glorified or normalized. Some will complain that it’s politicizing Tolkien’s work or “pushing an agenda”, but they will be purposefully ignoring the fact that Tolkien’s work is already very political and itself pushes a very anti-imperialist agenda. The Númenóreans are also responsible for deforesting almost the entirety of Middle-earth’s western shore from the Elven kingdom in Lindon all the way to Harad at least, but probably even further. Remember in The Lord Of The Rings, when Treebeard the Ent laments the vast forests that once covered the earth? Yeah, Númenóreans tore them all down and used the wood to build ships. If you’re not shocked by that, you probably should be.

4: Human Sacrifice. Just a little bit more graphic violence, don’t worry. When the Dark Lord Sauron arrived in Númenor and began playing on the growing fears and prejudices of the Númenórean people to increase his own power, he also had a plan to try and make Middle-earth great again – a plan which involved sacrificing political prisoners to the memory of his former master and mentor, the fallen angel Morgoth. So he built a truly massive domed temple in Númenor and used it to perform these sacrifices: we don’t know exactly how, but we know the bodies were disposed of with fire, because smoke rose from the temple so often that the dome was stained black by soot. The first victim to the flames was the original White Tree, which had stood in the King’s Court for years and was a symbol of the friendship between Elves and Men. Sadly, many Númenóreans fell for Sauron’s lies and gladly gave up their friends and families to the Dark Lord’s altar.

3: Ar-Pharazôn. If you’re wondering who allowed all this to happen, well, you should probably blame Ar-Pharazôn, the last King of Númenor and the guy who decided it was a good idea to bring Sauron into the very heart of his empire. He makes this list not only because he was a corrupt leader who allowed Sauron to slaughter his own people, declared war on the Valar, and doomed his entire nation to a watery fate, but because of what he did in his personal life. You know, the whole bit where he usurped his kingdom’s throne by forcing his first cousin, Míriel, to marry him against her will – thus stealing the rule of Númenor from her, the rightful heir. It’s probably one of the greatest tragedies in Middle-earth’s history: that a capable woman could have been so close to averting all the horrors that would befall her kingdom, but because of an unqualified man was forced to the sidelines, where she could only watch and wait for the inevitable. Her last act was to try and plead with the Valar to show mercy on her people, but she died in the cataclysm like all the rest. You might be noticing a pattern at this point, and yes, the Second Age really is this hopeless and horrible.

2: Commentary On Gender. Since we’re now on the topic, I feel like we have to talk about this (though I’m well aware that a certain subsection of the Tolkien fandom would rather not). Truth is, you can’t read the tale of The Mariner’s Wife, the most complete extant writing by Tolkien on the Second Age, and not see how it’s a story about gender. I mean, it’s not even subtext. Erendis, the story’s protagonist, literally has an extended, passionate monologue about male privilege and how men will do anything in their power to undermine women, even the great women of history – whose heroic deeds they diminish and leave out of their legends. No matter how much it may cause some people to squirm and start muttering under their breath about “social justice warriors”, I want this entire speech recited onscreen. It’s among the most important and exceptional things Tolkien ever wrote, and it’s true, both in-universe and in real-life. But Amazon shouldn’t stop there: considering what we’ve just discussed about how Númenor’s downfall might have been averted by a woman, I think they could find further opportunities to comment on the empire’s oppressive, patriarchal system.

1: Sexuality. At last we come to it: the great battle of our time. Is sex and sexuality wholly foreign to Tolkien, or is it instead woven subtly and cleverly throughout his work, a thematic goldmine waiting to be properly explored? Both answers are nearly right, in my opinion, but the latter more so. Tolkien’s depictions of sexuality aren’t gratuitous, something I feel the series should reflect, but they’re there: prominently, in the First and Second Ages. For examples, read The Mariner’s Wife (no, but like, seriously, read The Mariner’s Wife: it’s amazing), and you will find that the whole story is bristling with sexual energy. Erendis and her husband have an epic back-and-forth about how he leaves her bed cold, to which he replies that he thought she preferred it that way. Tar-Ancalimë accidentally interrupts a mass wedding and then has to stay the night, listening in embarrassment to the sounds of “merrymaking” all around her as the bridal-chambers are occupied one-by-one. Amazon is going to have to expand on all of this because they’re creating something in a visual medium, but it’s also just common sense to be more explicit rather than less so because it helps to make the existing commentary on gender and sexuality more explicit as well, lending thematic depth to the entire story of Númenor. And for those worried about “the children”…well, I’m honestly not sure you can make a series about the Second Age child-friendly without actually rewriting the entire thing anyway.

So there you have it. Ten examples of things that are either going to shock the Tolkien fandom, or already have (though, to be quite blunt, it seems to be mostly the thought of nudity that has people all riled up: because apparently graphic violence and human sacrifice is fine, but some bare skin is where our fandom draws the line?) It should go without saying that I love the Tolkien fandom, and this isn’t meant as an attack on anyone in particular. So what did you think of my list? Feel free to share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below – and if you have any more shocking things to add to the list, say so!