Category: Rings of Power

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A New Beginning

Mae Govannen, mellyn nin!

I have returned, with my overview of Rings of Power episodes 1-3. My review of episode four will be available shortly.

It is nice to be back indeed, with Bear McCreary stealing the show once again with the spectacular score and really good visuals proved that the delay was worth it. I will cover the separate storylines individually, just like last time, starting with the Elves and the Three Rings.

As most know, Galadriel is my (so far), favourite character of the series and the Second / Third Ages in general, and she is certainly living up to that standard. The themes of the Elves, including immortality and the pride of it, are very obvious in her, especially with her own forced humility as she is demoted to lieutenant under Elrond. But a nice choice of the showrunners to have her appear at the ceremony where Gil-galad announced the doom of the Elves, even if she wasn’t getting her way, while Elrond stormed away once the Rings were claimed, cementing her as the older and more mature of the two. Remember, Elrond ends up marrying her daughter. Also, I’m really enjoying the work of Annatar and Celebrimbor. Annatar is doing a perfect job of manipulating Celembrimbor and Celebrimbor is doing a great job… being manipulated in front of a camera. Though I do believe that his first age bottle of wine was probably a bit too old…

The Dwarves. I don’t know what to say. We haven’t seen enough of them to judge. Disa continues to steal every scene she’s in, but I don’t know what I think of the plot. Khazad-dum suddenly crumbling because of an eruption half a world away doesn’t quite cut it in terms of a logical explanation. My only theory is that, along with the sick tree in Lindon, this is Sauron’s manipulation. Cause the problem, present the solution.

The Harfoots are still a complete mystery to me. I don’t know who the Stranger is, and I’m holding out hope against hope (really amdir at this point) that it isn’t Gandalf, but references the the Istar, his gand, and more make it highly unlikely. However, we have a new mystery wizard to talk about! He’s considerably less friendly, but I think we have a real possibility that this is a Blue Wizard gone bad. I have heard theories that he is in fact Saruman, but I have my doubts. If it was Saruman, why would Gandalf trust him in the Third Age? It doesn’t seem realistic, and I remain cautiously optimistic.

I have seen episode four, and I think the Isildur, Arondir, and Theo story, as well as Numenor, are better kept for one article. Episode Four’s recap will be released later this week, hopefully before the release of Episode Five. So far I think the season has come out with flying colours and is a dramatic improvement over Season 1. We shall see what else Amazon has in store for us.

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Gil-Galad the Elven King

Many people have Gil-galad in their headcanon as an impressive guy: a kind ruler, friendly to all of his subjects, always warm and welcoming to his allies, but a spear-wielding murderer to his foes. Of course, when Benjamin Walker portrayed him, people were stunned at how this did not live up to their expectations.

In all of the canon legendarium (what I like to call the ‘Big Three’: The Silmarillion, Lord of the Rings, and the Hobbit), the name Gil-galad is mentioned approximately 70 times, (at least in the editions that I have), index entries included. To contrast, the name of Gandalf is mentioned 1370 times in these very same books. One may argue that Gil-galad appears more in the less canonical works: In LotR, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Morgoth’s Ring, The Nature of Middle-Earth, The Children of Hurin, The Hobbit, and the Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, , Gil-galad has 169 mentions. Gandalf, to continue my previous example, scores over 5 times this in LotR alone, with 1180 mentions, and over 10 times in total, with 1712 mentions.

My point is, people like Ian Mckellen have a much easier job acting for characters like Gandalf, because he is a very fleshed out character of whom we know much more. Gil-galad is merely a character in the histories of Middle-Earth, with nothing on his personality or ruling style at all. We think we know Gil-galad, but that is all in our headcanon. Benjamin Walker’s portrayal is no less canon than our beliefs.

Now, I’m not saying I necessarily like Walker’s portrayal. Gil-galad is called a wise king, and his land was ‘the last whose realm was fair and free between the mountains and the sea.’ I don’t think that he would be so easily fooled by the sick tree, as even Annatar did not fool him. But, like most of my complaints about the show, I think that falls more to the writers than to the actor.

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Rings of Power: Where Will It Go?

Mae Govannen! As the RoP season finale was released a few weeks ago, I thought I would take some time to discuss where I hope/want/think the show will go in future seasons, following both the Second Age timeline, and what the show has given us already.

I believe I can predict the first scene of Season 2: A nod to the scene in the Jackson films when Brego finds Aragorn on the way to Helm’s Deep, but with Berek and Isildur, in the wasteland of Mordor. Though Amazon doesn’t yet have the rights to Unfinished Tales or the Silmarillion, I believe that we will see Halbrand again, in his fair form of Annatar. The name of the city Armenelos was only in the Simarillion, so they clearly can ask for specific rights… I foresee Halbrand returning, Elrond not treating with him as Galadriel commanded, but Celebrimbor succumbing and welcoming him, because he feels that need to create these items of great power. Hopefully we’ll see the forging of the other 16 rings, and at the end, the One Ring and maybe the start of the War of Elves and Sauron.

Season 3 should be interesting, as, if my predictions are correct, we’ll get the bulk of the War of Elves and Sauron, with the Sacking of Eregion and the fall of Celebrimbor somewhere in the middle. I think it will be either at the end of Season 3or the beginning of Season 4 that we get Miriel fulfilling her oath and returning to help the Elves, and defeating Sauron, taking him to Numenor.

Season 4 will be a very Numenor-filled season. Sauron, who is now in the prisons of Numenor, will slowly work his way up the ranks to the Kings chief advisor. Hopefully, we will see the Great Wave and the Fall of Numenor near the end of the season. I hope they go with the Silmarillion plot of Miriel being abused by Pharazon to get the throne, but already, that will be very difficult, as the death of Tar-Palantir has already come in Season One, so that probably won’t happen, and they’ll make something up to fill in that blank.

Finally, in Season 5, we should get the establishment of Gondor and Arnor, and the Battle of the Last Alliance. Elendil, Gil-galad, Isildur, Anarion, and Elrond will finish their character arcs right at the end, with Elendil and Gil-galad finishing their lives. The show should end right where the movie picks up; with the defeat of Sauron and Isildur taking the ring. We may even get to see his death at the Gladden Fields; the Unfinished Tales version, so that maybe people can see that Isildur was not a deserter, but sacrificed himself for his family.

This is only a guess, but I really think the show will/should go this way. If they don’t, it will be very difficult for them to stay close to the canon.

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The Istari and the Stranger

The reveal in Rings of Power that the Stranger is one of the Istari has come as a shock to many of us who know that they do not come to Middle-Earth until 1000 Third Age. Here I would like to cover the Stranger himself in more depth, as well as the history of the five Istari, and will see if I can come up with an idea as to the Stranger’s identity.

The Istari were 5 Maiar, chosen by the Valar, to go to Middle Earth and stir the Free People to fight against Sauron. They were called Curunir, Mithrandir, Hravandil, Morinehtar, and Romestamo. In Valinor they were called Curumo, Olorin, Aiwendil, Alatar, and Pallando. Finally, they were known to men as Saruman the White, Gandalf the Grey, Radagast the Brown, and the Blue Wizrds, who are unnamed.

They came to Middle-Earth in c. 1000 TA. As we know that Rings of Power is taking place in c. 1000 SA to c. 3200 SA, this is a massive discrepancy. They shouldn’t be here until Season 7 or 8, if my estimations are correct ( and I don’t believe they’re passing Season 5). So, our only options are: a) the show has derailed b) the mystics were wrong and he isn’t an Istar, c) he somehow returns to Valinor in order to return in 1000 TA, or d) the term Istar is taken in a less literal sense, maybe he isn’t necessarily one of the 5.

We can now address the fact that he came out of a meteor. As Sadoc said, I have heard of people becoming stars, but never of the stars coming down in the form of people. This reference told me he could be Eärendil, the man who did become a star, but this was a fairly weak theory with almost no supporting evidence. Plus, I don’t think the term Istar would be used unless they were deliberately trying to make us think that he was Gandalf or something, while the truth was something much wilder, and I must admit, that is very possible. I think we can safely say that he’s a Maia, but I hope that, if a Istar in truth, he does not remain in Middle-Earth. There isn’t much to go off of, so I’ll leave it there.

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Alloyed: The Grand Finale

Yesterday, the eighth and final episode of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was released. And as usual, I come to you with my humble opinion on its faithfulness to the lore.

Since episode 5, I’ve been scared that this show would 100% derail and become terrible. Episode 7 made those fears more realistic. Now, with the last episode, most of that fear is cured. I now see that the ‘Elves need mithril was merely a plot device to get to the forging of the great rings. I don’t agree with it, but it was necessary to have something do the job, and Tolkien just hadn’t really written anything. As far as I’m concerned, the Elves were never ‘sick’, it was just the tree, and Gil-galad was merely exaggerating.

Now, onto the Stranger reveal. When the mystics came and called him Sauron, I still doubted it. The Stranger has been built up to be good, and I had my own theories as to Sauron’s whereabouts. The Harfoots pull of a fantastic rescue, though Sadoc Burrows didn’t make it through. But he was accepting of death, and it almost reminded me of Morwen, from the Silmarillion, who also died calmly and acceptingly, watching the sun come up. Of course, the term Istar surprised me, as the Stranger cannot be one of the five wizards, canonically speaking, but it appears that the timeline compression has reached a whole other level. My only thought is, maybe he is Olórin, the Maia (angelic being, such as Sauron, the wizards, and many characters from the Silmarillion) of Gandalf’s origin, returned to Middle-Earth, and will return to Valinor, only to return as Gandalf in the Third Age.

Our storylines merge and split a bit again, but next comes the elven story, with Galadriel, Elrond, Celebrimbor, and Halbrand in Eregion. They have trouble figuring things out with the small amount of mithril that they have, but Elrond wins them extra time from Gil-galad. When Gil-galad said ‘I owe you nothing’, I was very much expecting Elrond to say something along the lines of, ‘You owe it to my father.’ Because his father, Eärendil, did save all of Elves, Men, and Dwarves from extinction by sailing to Valinor and summoning the host of the Valar. But moving on, we get the Halbrand reveal. I’ll admit that I wasn’t a big believer in this theory, but I was as soon as he told Celebrimbor to ‘call it a gift’. For those of you who don’t know, at this time he called himself Annatar, (but as Amazon doesn’t have the rights to this name, they couldn’t use it) which means Lord of Gifts. After that, the entirety of this storyline was great. Not only was it canon to the established lore, it even reflected some of Tolkien’s core themes. True creation requires sarcrifice.

Our Numenor story was also quite good. We see Elendil and Miriel bind themselves to the Faithful, and begin to see Pharazon’s obsession over immortality. I don’t want to spoil the show, but this will play a big part in upcoming seasons.

Overall, this episode was my personal favourite since episode 3. I give it a solid 8.75 / 10. The season as a whole was very well rounded, and I will most certainly be watching Season 2. I have my gripes and nitpicks, but I think, overall, I can give Season One a good 7/10. I will soon be releasing a page about my opinion of the whole season, unconstrained by length, and predictions for Season 2. But remember, we do not say farewell, we say Namarië.