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This article contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 episode 5.
The Rings of Power fandom may struggle to agree on much these days, but after episode 5 “Halls of Stone,” it seems like we can all finally agree on at least one thing: Kemen (Leon Wadham) is the absolute worst. Even before his father, Ar-Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle), swindled his way into becoming Númenor’s new king, Kemen has always kind of given off an air of entitlement. But now that his father has become the ruler of their island nation, Kemen seems to be enjoying his newfound power a little too much for our liking.
In a show where the primary villain, Sauron (Charlie Vickers), is evil incarnate, it’s hard to imagine a character worse than that, and yet Kemen seems to be coming for that crown in full force. Not only does he relish the act of stripping Númenor’s sea guard of their stations, but he also actively antagonizes them while he does it. He literally stabs Valandil (Alex Tarrant), an old friend, in the back right after Valandil lets him live.
Valandil’s death isn’t likely to go over very well with Eärien (Emma Horvath), Elendil (Lloyd Own), or Isildur (Maxim Baldry), all of whom considered Valandil as a part of their family. Even though Eärien is currently moving against the interests of her father and supporting Pharazôn and Kemen, she still shows compassion toward Valandil, even as he was stripped of his rank. In Tolkien lore, the only character named Valandil is Isildur’s son and a future king of the Third Age, thus heavily implying that Valandil’s death in The Rings of Power has such an impact on Isildur in the future that he names his son after his fallen friend.
Kemen’s ideals of isolating Númenor from the outside world are eerily reminiscent of the isolationist, “America First” values of a certain former U.S. President and his followers. And it’s not only that his political views are inherently selfish, it’s also that he goes about enacting them in as cruel a way as possible. With Sauron, we at least mostly know his goals. Create the rings, take over Middle-earth. Easy peasy. With Kemen, however, it’s hard to see where his endgame lies. What’s next for Kemen after he and his father force Númenor to bend to their will? Who will he torment once he’s bullied or murdered all dissenters into submission?
Sauron may be evil incarnate, but Kemen is a rich-boy, power-hungry, asshole – an enemy that’s all too familiar to many of us in the real-world. The odds of us facing a world-ending threat like Sauron in the real-world aren’t that high. But the odds of us knowing someone like Kemen either in our personal lives or in the world at large are a lot higher. Kemen might be a fictional character from a fictional world, but his motivations and actions are all too real and familiar.
After so much divisive discourse, it’s honestly been refreshing to see the Rings of Power fandom join together in something, even if that something is hatred over the same character. But in this discussion, it’s important to remember that as much as we may hate Kemen, we shouldn’t direct any of our ire toward the actor who plays him, Leon Wadham. We hate Kemen not because Wadham himself is also a bad person, but because he does his job so well and makes Kemen a believable antagonist.
Wadham deserves enormous amounts of praise for making Kemen so detestable, just as Kemen deserves whatever disastrous fate the Valinar see fit to befall him. Should Míriel’s (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) vision of Númenor’s watery downfall come to pass (which those familiar with Tolkien’s work know is almost a guarantee), here’s hoping that Kemen gets a comeuppance worthy of his reprehensible behavior.
The post The Rings of Power: Everybody Kates Kemen and He Deserves It appeared first on Den of Geek.
