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This Lord of the Rings article contains spoilers for The Rings of Power.
The world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth is vast and sprawling. From elves and dwarves to orcs and wizards, with multiple flavors of men and all sorts of fantastical creatures thrown in for good measure, it’s a story of such scope that no television or film adaptation could ever hope to bring every aspect to life. But for fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, it’s always been a bit weird that one of his most influential characters has never actually made it onscreen in any meaningful way: Cirdan the Shipwright, played by Ben Daniels. One of the original Elven ringbearers, Cirdan is a tremendously important figure in the long history of Middle-earth, but it’s fairly likely many viewers didn’t even know he existed before The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 introduced his character. This is very unfortunate because Cirdan is honestly awesome.
While he may be an incidental figure in both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, Cirdan and his legacy cast a long shadow throughout the ages of Middle-earth. The Master of the Grey Havens, Cirdan is in charge of the Lindon harbor that transports elves from Middle-earth back to the Undying Lands of Valinor. As his name implies—”Cirdan” means “shipwright” in the Elvish language of Sindarin—he’s a master shipbuilder who helps design and craft the beautiful white boats that carry his people home throughout the ages. His most famous creation, the great vessel Vingilot, was used by Elrond’s father Eärendil to sail to Valinor and request aid in the fight against the original dark lord Morgoth at the end of the First Age.
Canonically speaking, Cirdan is the oldest of all elves still in Middle-earth, clocking in at over 10,000 years old by the time of the War of the Ring, and he remains until the last ship has sailed for Valinor. There’s some debate about whether this means Cirdan departed with the vessel that carried his fellow ring-bearers like Gandalf and Frodo or stayed behind for some indeterminate amount of time afterward shepherding Elvish stragglers, but you get the idea. (He needs to drop his skincare routine, is the point.) He is so old he can actually grow a beard if he so chooses, which is a big deal in Elf culture and quite uncommon.
He is also said to have been the wisest and most foresighted of all the elves, a skill bestowed upon him by the Valar as a reward for giving up his own dream of Valinor to help and guide those of his people who had not yet returned to the West. His gift of foresight not only plays into his decision to establish the Grey Havens at the beginning of the Second Age, but to foster a young Gil-galad and Eärendil, and eventually to pass his ring of power to Gandalf. In Tolkien’s accounts, it is also Cirdan who serves as Gil-galad’s lieutenant during their face-off with Sauron in the War of the Last Alliance, and who stands alongside Elrond to urge Isildur to destroy the One Ring. As film fans know, his role in these events was largely just given to Elrond outright, likely to avoid having to explain the Cirdan’s long history and subsequent absence from the events of The Lord of the Rings.
Technically, prior to The Rings of Power, Cirdan has only appeared onscreen twice: in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot during the prologue to Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring and a similarly brief moment during the concluding moments of The Return of the King as Gandalf and Frodo prepare to depart for Valinor. In both, he’s a blurry, largely background figure who isn’t even given a name, a move that implies the third original Elven ringbearer isn’t all that important. It’s a mistake that The Rings of Power clearly hopes to correct.
Here, Cirdan is presented as the de facto leader of the elves, the literal oldest and wisest of all, whose skill and counsel are valued above any others. Pretty much everyone seems to be in a state of near-constant awe of him, even Gil-galad, and his general rock star energy attracts the sort of universal acclaim and fawning that you just know Celebrimbor would do anything to duplicate for himself. When Elrond doesn’t know what to do about Galadriel and the three Elven rings, he heads straight for the Grey Havens and Cirdan. When a final voice is needed to determine whether to use the rings or accept the fading of the Elves, Cirdan ultimately tips the scales in their favor, despite having almost destroyed them himself. He is the first to put on a ring and will most likely be the first to pass one on to another, considering that we know that his ring, Narya, becomes Gandalf’s at some point in the not-too-distant future.
Where this character goes from here is anyone’s guess. In Tolkien’s works, Cirdan is a fairly underrated and underused figure, a being with more backstory than actual characterization. And while he greatly impacts the events of both the Second and Third Age, he largely does so from a distance, crafting ships to aid those Elves who wish to sail to the West, building bonds with the men of Numenor, and indirectly helping Gandalf’s quest.
The Rings of Power has already established a mentor-ish relationship between Cirdan and Elrond and placed him at the center of the elves’ larger discussion of the trustworthiness of their rings and the threat of Sauron’s return. If the mysterious Stranger (Daniel Weyman) really is Gandalf, the way we’re all assuming he must be, might he find his way to the Grey Havens sometime sooner rather than later? We can only hope.
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