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This Lord of the Rings article contains spoilers for The Rings of Power.
Things get nasty in this episode of The Rings of Power, and we like it!
Taking the storylines in this episode from least to most evil, we’ll start with the Dwarves. Everything about Prince Durin (Owain Arthur) and Disa’s (Sophia Nomvete) storyline continues to be a delight, as it has been from the beginning. The tragedy of Durin Senior’s (Peter Mullan) slow decline is offset by wonderful moments like the look Disa and another female Dwarf give each other when the mine is opened up to the sunlight. The Dwarves’ storyline also provided some lovely bits of Tolkien lore to enjoy in this episode as well—as a longtime Tolkien fan, seeing the Doors of Durin unveiled was just fun.
The writers have continued to incorporate Tolkien’s dialogue wherever they can as well, which can be a tiny bit distracting when in clashes with the more modern dialogue spoken the rest of the time, but it’s always nice to hear Tolkien’s words. Here, a Númenorean priest laying to rest the dead says, “until we meet again in the far green country under a swift sunrise,” making the phrase part of a prayer, so it fits in better. In the book, this phrase actually refers to the Undying Lands where the Elves go; Frodo dreams of this place while staying with Tom Bombadil, and then this is what he sees on his journey out of Middle-earth. Tolkien famously kept the afterlives of Elves and Men completely separate, driving home the tragedy of characters like Arwen who are forced to choose between the two, but this phrase was used in Peter Jackson’s film versions to refer to the afterlife in general as it is how Gandalf describes death to Pippin in The Return of the King, so the series is echoing the film adaptations as well, here.
Tensions are starting to boil over in Númenor, and we are finally seeing Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) in all his wicked glory. Pharazôn’s manipulation of his son Kemen (Leon Wadham) is just so utterly nasty, using the memory of his late mother and the worst kind of negging to drive the young man further down a violent and vicious path. Things get even nastier when Kemen inevitably betrays Elendil (Lloyd Owen), murders Valandil (Alex Tarrant), and has Elendil thrown in prison. There’s a horrible inevitability to the scene as it plays out, and it develops the politicking and power plays in Númenor more effectively than any other episode to date. Tolkien had very clear views on the inherent sinfulness of Men (i.e. humans), believing that they would become bored with anything good that lasted, and the decline of Númenor reflects that rather well.
Most evil of all, of course, is Sauron’s (Charlie Vickers) manipulation of Celebrimbor. Charles Edwards’ performance as Celebrimbor is a brilliant depiction of a man (or Elf) slowly crumbling under the pressure of a master manipulator and bully. At the beginning of the episode, he is fairly cheerful, but that is almost immediately undercut by Sauron/Annatar, and we see him slowly give in, not so much to temptation as to pressure from above—anyone who has had to work under a toxic manager will certainly sympathize!
One of the aspects of this story that makes it work well is that Celebrimbor is certainly not stupid. Tolkien’s Sauron is not called “the Deceiver” for nothing, and he is not just simple evil, but very, very clever evil—and that makes him so much more dangerous. He has already got Celebrimbor on his side by pretending to be sent by the Valar (the spirits that shaped the world), but Celebrimbor is wise enough to be suspicious, despite the light show Sauron put on when he changed his form earlier in the season.
Celebrimbor has Sauron bang to rights when he observes that Annatar plays games with others, sowing seeds in others’ minds and pretending it was their own idea afterwards. He believes Durin when he describes the damage the Seven Rings are doing, he sees the danger in Annatar’s plan to forge Nine Rings for Men, but still he cannot quite pull himself away. That is partly because he still believes Annatar is a messenger from the Valar, and partly sheer pride in the work of his craftspeople. He gives in to the intellectual challenge of forging these new rings. That is the one time he falls to temptation, helping to forge the Nine Rings largely because Annatar is going to do it anyway and he cannot watch everyone else do it in a less effective way. We can see at every step how Celebrimbor senses danger and tries to pull back, but Sauron is clever enough to make sure that he cannot quite do it, and it is fascinating to watch.
Sauron/Annatar is in a thoroughly bad mood this week, and has quite drastically changed his persona with Celebrimbor. Gone is Halbrand’s cheerful, warm, friendly appearance. Annatar is almost completely cold, and Charlie Vickers is playing him as almost an entirely different character. Both have Sauron’s iciness, imperiousness, and total lack of feeling, but Halbrand mostly hid those qualities, whereas Annatar wears them proudly. His manipulation of Celebrimbor is not based on winning his trust, so much as simply gaslighting him and bringing him down emotionally whenever possible, down to small things like criticizing his speech-making and claiming, “You do not always listen once you have an idea set in your head.”
The only part of Halbrand that seems to be left in Sauron is that he still seems to have a bit of a thing for Galadriel (Morfydd Clark). Vickers cleverly shifts his performance ever so slightly when talking about Galadriel; when talking to Mirdania (Amelia Kenworthy), he seems to be smooth-talking and manipulating her in the same way as everyone else. But when talking about Galadriel, an edge of sincerity creeps into his voice, though it is a change Mirdania is completely oblivious to.
We also start to see here some of the reasoning behind the changes to the Ring-lore the show has made, starting at the end of season 1. We have talked before about how the series has altered the order in which the Rings are forged, and to a lesser extent, altered the nature of the Three Elven Rings themselves. Briefly: in Tolkien’s lore the Rings are forged in the order Seven & Nine; Three; One, with the Seven and the Nine forged by Annatar and Celebrimbor together, the Three by Celebrimbor and the Elves alone (never touched by Sauron), and the One by Sauron alone. In the show, the Three have been forged first, and while Sauron was not overly involved, it was his advice that got them finished.
The series seems to be using their altered timeline to explain some of the differences in the effect the Rings have, and to tell a story in which the Rings get progressively more evil and corrupting as time goes on and Sauron is more and more involved in their making. For Tolkien, the difference in the effect the Rings had was a combination of how they were made, and who was wielding them. The Elven Rings were never touched by Sauron and are worn by Elves, and so they are the least corrupting. The Nine Rings were made by Sauron and Celebrimbor together and worn by Men, and because Men are inherently corruptible, they had the worst and most drastic effect, turning their bearers into Ringwraiths. The Seven are similar to the Nine, but worn by Dwarves, who are less corruptible than Men (though still vulnerable to corruption, especially playing on their greed for gold and treasure), so they have a less serious effect than the Nine. And the One is the most corrupting of all because it was made solely by Sauron and he put his spirit into it, so only Hobbits can stand to carry it for any length of time.
In the series, the dire impact we know the Nine will eventually have (because we have met them as the Black Riders in The Lord of the Rings) is explained less by the idea that Men are more corruptible than Dwarves, and more by the way the Rings were forged, the order in which they were forged, and the way Sauron has had more and more input into their forging with each set. It’s rather effective seeing Celebrimbor realize the impact the Seven are having, and watching Sauron put even more of himself into the Nine, knowing that will make the Nine even more dangerous.
This is a rather grim episode in some ways, but effectively so. It feels like the wheels of the story are really starting to turn now, and we’re getting into the meat of the matter. It’s compelling stuff, and it even benefits from focusing on the grimmer storylines, keeping the tone serious and taking the story into the dark places it needs to go. Though we will welcome a bit more whimsy if Tom Bombadil comes back next week!
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