“The Rings Of Power” Episode 5 – Controversial, But So Compelling

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE FIVE AHEAD!

“A complete consistency (either within the compass of The Silmarillion itself or between The Silmarillion and other published writings of my father’s) is not to be looked for, and could only be achieved, if at all, at heavy and needless cost. Moreover, my father came to conceive of The Silmarillion as a compilation, a compendious narrative, made long afterwards from sources of great diversity….To this may be ascribed the varying speed of the narrative and fullness of detail in different parts….and also some differences of tone and portrayal, some obscurities, and, here and there, some lack of cohesion.”

– The Silmarillion: Foreword by Christopher Tolkien

I would not lightly use the words of J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher, famously critical of any and all attempts to adapt his father’s work for the screen, to deflect criticism from The Rings Of Power for the liberties it takes with the lore of Middle-earth in its fifth episode, but in this case I believe the defense is justified, if you’ll hear me out. It’s true that screenwriter Justin Doble has made some bold and controversial choices (controversial among Tolkien scholars and purists, that is; I’m not sure who else will care very much about alterations to the origins of mithril), and you need not feel compelled to appreciate the bold swings he’s taking if they don’t work for you, but – if this sort of thing is hindering your enjoyment of The Rings Of Power – I would encourage you to read that quote, in which Christopher explains away the many inconsistencies in the published Silmarillion as the result of unreliable in-universe narrators each telling their own version of events from which his father and later he himself stitched together their own heavily-abridged narrative.

Rings Of Power
Tar-Míriel | gamesradar.com

Now apply that same logic, if you can, to The Rings Of Power, which is already in many regards closer akin to The Silmarillion than to The Lord Of The Rings. Think of it not as an adaptation of any particular writing, but as a “compendious narrative” told from the perspective of several different unreliable narrators who may or may not be altering or embellishing the tale, as Tolkien “admitted” to doing in the Appendices (where it’s revealed that, for instance, none of the Hobbits’ names were really their names). Or imagine, as I must while I wait for a more satisfying answer in episode six, that the apocryphal Song of the Roots of Hithaeglir, which details a duel to the death between a Balrog and an Elven warrior over a tree containing the last Silmaril, inadvertently leading to the creation of mithril, is just a song: one containing numerous “obscurities”.

Honestly, it’s not so hard to believe that the Elves would write a self-aggrandizing song accrediting one of their own with the creation of mithril – a precious metal of unparalleled strength, pliability, and beauty, which could only be found in Valinor, Númenor, and in the Misty Mountains beneath the Dwarven city of Khazad-dûm. In Middle-earth (and by the end of the Second Age in all of Arda), Khazad-dûm was the only place where mithril could be obtained, but it was treasured by all the Free Peoples and servants of Sauron alike, so I actually think there’s something to the idea that each of them would individually come up with their own outlandish origin stories for mithril to support their claims to the swiftly dwindling deposits of this rare ore (and leave it to the Elves to base their claim around a Silmaril, to which they foreswore any claim when they engaged in three separate Kinslayings over the jewels).

Nor do the contents of the Song itself offend me, because a Silmaril did end up buried in the earth along with its bearer, Maedhros, and the Elves are the type to continue telling stories about the Silmarils long after their disappearance, whether they’re true or not. Sure, the Song is overwritten (it would have been so easy to say that the Silmaril’s light permeated the earth where it was buried, creating mithril, but then I guess we’d have missed out on the animated fight with the Balrog and the moral that “true creation requires sacrifice”), but even the most convoluted exposition sounds almost natural coming from Elrond (Robert Aramayo).

No, it’s what Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) and Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) have to say about mithril and its uses that’s both controversial, deeply confusing, and oddly compelling given that nothing about this subplot ought to work, quite frankly. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very silly that mithril can apparently stave off the effects of decay and that the Elves believe (or have been led to believe) that without it, they will begin fading within a year. Even if it’s a lie started by Sauron, it all hinges on two of the wisest Elves in Middle-earth not only becoming convinced that Elvendom is dying because Gil-galad’s favorite tree is rotting (and what does that prove, anyway?), but also on them reaching the conclusion that mithril is their deliverance based on an old song of disputable accuracy. Obviously, Sauron could be in Lindon or in Eregion, fanning the flames, but it’s silly nonetheless – and sillier still that Celebrimbor’s solution is to saturate the Elves in the incomparable light of mithril (how does one go about that, exactly?).

Rings Of Power
Gil-galad and Elrond | polygon.com

But the pay-off to all this set-up is too brilliant for me to write off this storyline as a lost cause just yet. Elrond, finally putting those diplomatic skills of his to good use, persuades Durin IV (Owain Arthur) that it would be in his best interests to make void the oath binding them both to secrecy about mithril, by encouraging the Dwarf-prince to use mithril as leverage over the gullible Elves who are eager (dare I say desperate) to buy it in bulk. Though Gil-galad assumes the worst of his young herald for orchestrating a deal with the Dwarves behind his back, the truth is that – until we know for certain whether mithril actually possesses any healing properties that could possibly help the Elves – the Dwarves stand to lose the most from this deal, as Elrond is essentially nudging Durin and his people down the path that will inevitably lead them deeper into the dark heart of the mountains in search of mithril.

For the time being, Aramayo’s Elrond and Arthur’s Durin make for the most delightful scene-partners with lively comedic banter that has routinely provided fans with memeable dialogue (“give me the meat, and give it to me raw”, innocuous enough with context, is one of those lines that seems destined, if not purposefully designed, to spawn a thousand spicy fanfics featuring the two characters). They have chemistry, with Disa as well as with each other, which is more than can be said of all the chaste straight monoamorous couples that The Rings Of Power wants its viewers to ship – no offense, but Eärien (Ema Horvath) and Kemen (Leon Wadham) scrubbing floors together offscreen just doesn’t cut it when you have the Dwarves talking so freely about their passion for each other.

And Eärien and Kemen don’t have the excuse that Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) have, which is that they’ve been too preoccupied recently with matters of war to give priority to matters of the heart…although, if we’re being brutally honest, not enough happens in the Southlands this episode to excuse the absence of any intimate scenes between these two star-crossed lovers who still can’t seem to muster any emotion stronger than apathy when they look into each other’s eyes. Arondir’s scenes with Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), Bronwyn’s son, establish that the Silvan Elf has a place in their family-unit as a second father to the teen, but they all seem equally baffled as to how that happened.

Individually, or whenever they’re not asked to feign romantic attraction to each other, Córdova and Boniadi deliver far more dynamic performances. In a moving monologue towards the end of the episode, Bronwyn asks whether her and her people are destined to crawl back to the familiar embrace of darkness, mere minutes after the elderly Waldreg (Geoff Morrell) did just that, leading a contingent of the refugees from Tirharad to the enemy camp in search of their true god-king, Sauron. The experienced Morrell is another stand-out from the episode, nailing his character’s most crucial scene – when Waldreg, aggressively confronted by Adar (Joseph Mawle) over his use of the name Sauron, switches sides in an instant and even proves himself by sacrificing one of his fellow townsfolk, the boy Rowan (Ian Blackburn). There are shades of Abraham and Isaac in this story, except that Adar, whatever else he may be, does not intend to rule as a merciful god.

Rings Of Power
Adar | slashfilm.com

I think it’s safe to say, based on this episode, that Adar has ruled himself out as a potential Sauron – even apart from assaulting Waldreg for using the name, his stated intention to take apart the world and rebuild it from scratch doesn’t comfortably line up with what we know about Sauron’s motivations, as outlined in Morgoth’s Ring. There, it is said that Sauron “did not object to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he liked with it”, in stark contrast to what is said of Sauron’s former master Morgoth, whose “one ultimate object” was the destruction of everything in existence. This suggests to me that Adar was turned by Morgoth and converted to his line of thinking (more evidence for my theory that he’s Maeglin).

This episode also instilled in me confidence that Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) really is just some guy from the Southlands, though he admits to committing unspeakable crimes in a dramatic sequence intercut with Waldreg swearing fealty to Adar. Halbrand may be a servant of Adar’s or Sauron’s seeking escape from his oaths, but I do not believe he is the Dark Lord himself. The fact that he only bribed Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) into giving him a Guild-crest so he could stay in Númenor and start a new life, coupled with his reluctance to join the Númenórean armies headed for Middle-earth, says to me that he had no plans to manipulate the progress of the war once it reached the Southlands. Now, he could have been planning to make headway with the Númenóreans while the Queen-Regent was gone, but if so, why abandon that plan for the sake of Galadriel (Morfydd Clark)? Why, unless he finally realizes that she is his one shot at salvation?

That being said, I was also convinced that the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) had good intentions at the end of episode three, when he selflessly helped the Brandyfoot family out of a tight spot…but now I’m not so sure. Weyman’s acting-choices have become more purposeful as the Stranger has slowly regained awareness, and they all point towards this character being both dangerous and fierce. His fall from the sky also conveniently erased any memory he might have had of the three mysterious white-robed women (including Bridie Sisson as “The Dweller”, whom you may remember many fans mistook for Sauron) who are now pursuing him and the Harfoots across Rhovanion for unknown reasons. These women, collectively referred to as the Mystics by Amazon, wear stylized depictions of the sun, moon, and stars on their persons, and one carries a sky disk on which is inscribed the very same constellation sought by the Stranger.

Now, I’m not saying the Mystics are definitely acolytes of the two Blue Wizards, I’m just saying there are canonical accounts of “secret cults and ‘magic’ traditions” being established in the east and south of Middle-earth (where the “stars are strange”, according to Aragorn) by these mysterious beings of celestial origin who arrived in the Second Age to combat Sauron, and I have long wanted The Rings Of Power to do something with the Blue Wizards anyway, and maybe they can if Amazon obtains the rights to the specific chapter of Unfinished Tales that deals with the Five Wizards, and this is turning into a tangent now but basically my theory is that the Stranger is Rómestámo a.k.a. Pallando a.k.a. the second Blue Wizard.

Rings Of Power
The Mystics | tvinsider.com

Blue Wizard or not, the Stranger’s magical abilities seem too diverse to belong to anyone but a sorcerer. A Balrog would only be able to control fire and shadow, Old Man Willow would only hypnotize, the Man in the Moon…well, I’m not entirely sure, but something tells me he wouldn’t be the type to create shockwaves, which is the Stranger’s go-to move when he or his loved ones are in danger. There’s also the cost of the Stranger’s magic to consider – every time he’s consciously used magic with just his bare hands, he’s hurt himself or someone around him. In episode five, he is injured by his own magic while protecting his friend Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) from a pack of carnivorous eohippus, and later, while performing a healing spell on himself, hurts her too. This leads me to believe that his character arc this season will culminate in him either making or receiving a staff that will allow him to channel magic without hurting anybody.

The exact power and purpose of a Wizard’s staff is one of those questions to which there is no good answer, because Tolkien never provided one. He clearly considered them to be weapons in the hands of Wizards, as Gandalf makes use of his staff many times throughout The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, and Wormtongue specifically forbids its use in the Golden Hall of Meduseld. Furthermore, Gandalf strips Saruman of all but a fraction of his former power by breaking his staff in Isengard, and a point is made of it when Gandalf’s staff is broken on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. It is also said that all Five Wizards possessed one. But the staffs may be a relic of an early version of the story where the Wizards (with a capital W) were merely wizards (with a lowercase W), before Tolkien conceived of them as angels. It is hard to believe that any of the Maiar, the class of immortals to which Gandalf and his brethren belonged, would rely on a staff – though perhaps in their mortal bodies, such tools were required.

I have no doubt that there will be more discourse on this subject if and when the Stranger obtains his staff, so for the time being let’s shift our attention away from Middle-earth entirely to the island kingdom of Númenor, where it’s been easily four or five days since Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) pledged to escort Galadriel to the Southlands with five ships bearing five-hundred men-at-arms, yet somehow neither they nor anyone else in the kingdom has found time to change their clothes. It’s actually appalling that The Rings Of Power, with its gargantuan budget, still can’t afford more than a few costume-changes for its lead characters, particularly when so many of these characters are supposed to embody the very concept of opulence. Am I supposed to believe that the Queen-Regent of Númenor is out here wearing the exact same outfit and hairstyle from day-to-day, not even experimenting with different jewelry?

Maybe she’s a minimalist. That’s cool. But Pharazôn the Golden sure as hell isn’t a minimalist, so what excuse does he have for repeating outfits? At least the smaller-than-average wardrobe for each of these characters means that the camera gets to spend more time lovingly examining every detail of the clothes and hairstyles they do wear – from Míriel’s three gorgeous headpieces to Bronwyn’s reliable burnt-orange boots. But standing out from a sea of faux Roman and Medieval tunics in Númenor and flowy, pre-Raphaelite inspired gowns and robes in Lindon, the burnished silver plate-armor worn by Galadriel towards the end of this episode stands out to me as one of The Rings Of Power‘s most instantly iconic fits (it was, in fact, featured in some of the very first promotional images and posters). My only concern is that, if this suit of armor is as heavy and uncomfortable as it looks, it may hinder Clark’s ability to convincingly pull off the same graceful twirls she used in this episode to wipe the floor with a few Númenórean soldiers.

Rings Of Power
Galadriel | winteriscoming.net

There’s a playful side to Clark’s Galadriel that shines through in this whimsical fight sequence, harkening back to Tolkien’s description of Elves in The Hobbit as flighty, teasing creatures. Yet naturally, this had led to complaints from certain viewers that she’s too playful after weeks of them calling her “emotionless” and “bland” (some of the vaguest, most tiring criticisms leveled against actresses), because people can’t seem to settle on what their issue is with her. They’ll bemoan that she’s nothing like the character Tolkien wrote, which is arguably just a fact, not a fully-formed opinion on the character Amazon has written based on the many different, often contradictory, accounts of Galadriel’s life and demeanor that Tolkien himself wrote.

I want to bring your attention back once more to the quote from The Silmarillion that I included at the top of this article, where Tolkien’s son states outright that the stories contained therein are not intended to be taken at face-value, for they are none of them necessarily true or unbiased in their account of what “really” happened. And if a complete consistency is not to be looked for in Tolkien’s own writings, how can we possibly expect to find it in a loose adaptation of the writings in question? In our desperation to have order (or canon), I fear that some of us would go so far as to strip Tolkien’s great tales of their inconsistencies and the complexities that arise as a result of these: the subtle hints pointing at hidden biases in each narrator’s voice for the reader to suss out on their own.

I fully understand the temptation, as did Tolkien, who by all accounts was a relentless perfectionist. He was many times throughout his life tempted to retroactively revise his published works to bring them into accordance with whichever new version of the Middle-earth mythos he had just developed: yet he stopped short of fixing even major continuity errors in The Hobbit at the urging of his friends, who warned him that in his desire for consistency he was sucking all the fun out of a simple children’s bedtime story. He caved once, rewriting an entire chapter of The Hobbit post-publication, but in that case he came up with an entire in-universe excuse for how that happened, with Bilbo taking the blame for writing down a false account of what transpired that frankly ought to still be included in copies of The Hobbit, as it becomes quite important later on in The Lord Of The Rings.

Rings Of Power
The Song of the Roots of Hithaeglir | nerdist.com

Anyway, none of this is to say that you have to like the choices The Rings Of Power made regarding mithril, its origins or its properties – just that every adaptation, and all of Tolkien’s works for that matter, contain moments of discrepancy like this one where the need for compelling drama or clarity takes precedence over the desire for continuity, because they are not religious scriptures containing any kind of objective truth. Just something to keep in mind going forward, as I’m sure we’ll all be having many more discussions along these lines in the very near future.

Episode Rating: 9/10

“The Rings Of Power” Episode 3 – New Allies And Enemies Arise In Númenor

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RINGS OF POWER EPISODE THREE AHEAD!

“Then the Edain set sail upon the deep waters, following the Star [of Eärendil]….and saw afar the land that was prepared for them, Andor, the Land of Gift, shimmering in a golden haze. Then they went up out of the sea and found a country fair and fruitful, and they were glad. And they called that land Elenna, which is Starwards; but also Anadûnê, which is Westernesse, Númenórë in the High Eldarin tongue.”

– The Silmarillion: Akallabêth, p. 311

Only the first two episodes of The Rings Of Power were given to critics to review before the series’ release, and now having seen the third episode I believe that was a mistake on Amazon’s part. As was originally reported by TheOneRing.net in July of 2021, the first two episodes back-to-back form a feature-length prologue to The Rings Of Power, which like most prologues puts worldbuilding ahead of plot development – and that in turn led many professional critics to describe the series as slow and dense, which are legitimate criticisms of the first two episodes (though I personally disagree, and would even go so far as to say the first two episodes were fast-paced to a fault). However, the same cannot be said of episode three, which swiftly moves the story along and ends on an excellent cliffhanger that is sure to entice viewers back next week.

Rings Of Power
The Court of the Kings | aboutamazon.com

The difference is in the direction. Wayne Che Yip, whom I previously accredited with fixing the early mistakes of Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time in its third episode, does the same for The Rings Of Power, and I hope that at this point he can truly level up as a director, past the point where Amazon only calls him in to put a fantasy series back on the right course after squandering two episodes. Yip brings a dynamism to The Rings Of Power that was absent throughout J.A. Bayona’s episodes, marked by their placid (albeit pleasing) cinematography and minimal stunt choreography. Under Yip’s direction, the camera and the characters are always in motion – even the lengthy dialogue sequences that Bayona rendered dry and lifeless go down easier, because Yip encourages his actors to move about, interacting freely with their environments and one another.

His one fault as a director is his proclivity for slow-motion, an overused effect in action films which can still be used to convey something more meaningful than the impact of a big explosion – but there’s a random quality to the scenes Yip shoots in slow-motion that suggests to me he’s just playing around with the effect to see what it can do for him, and somehow his experimental footage ended up in the final cut. In case it’s not immediately clear what I’m referring to, those bizarre thirty seconds of Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) riding a horse along the beach in slow-motion while grinning from ear-to-pointed-ear like she’s in an equestrian apparel commercial took me all the way out of the episode. I appreciate that we got to see her happy for once, but at what cost?

Slow-motion is generally less jarring when used in the heat of an action sequence, where it can give viewers a much-needed moment to catch their breath and get their bearings – and that is certainly one of its purposes in the climactic action sequence of episode three, although Yip again overdoes it slightly. The skirmish, which pits two Silvan Elves and a handful of disposable human extras against roughly fifteen Orcs and one rabid Warg in broad daylight, isn’t even so complex that slow-motion shots are necessary to help viewers follow along – honestly, as long as you can keep track of Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and the Warg, no one and nothing else is all that important to the outcome of the fight. It’s still a cool action sequence, however, and the Elven acrobatics are closer to what you’d expect from Peter Jackson’s films if that’s your thing.

But while an action sequence every now and again is a good thing to keep the stakes high, what really stood out to me about Arondir’s subplot in this week’s episode is that it would be right at-home amongst the pages of The Silmarillion, where there are already several stories of stoic Elven heroes forced to endure terrible suffering in captivity at the hands of Orcs, but few so intimate as this one. When ordered to uproot an old tree blocking the path which the Orcs have carved into the barren surface of the Southlands (what will later become known as Mordor), Arondir and his fellow Elves put their lives on the line to save the tree by suggesting they go around it, leading to the unceremonious execution of Arondir’s comrade, Médhor (Augustus Prew). Unwilling to let any more Elves die, Arondir tearfully agrees to fell the tree, but not before first asking for its forgiveness in the Quenya tongue of old. It’s a beautiful, tragic moment based in the deep knowledge that writers Justin Doble and Jason Cahill have of the lore (Doble snuck several Lord Of The Rings references into his writing on Stranger Things).

On the subject of lore, Amazon isn’t allowed to reference anything in The Silmarillion or Tolkien’s other posthumously published works by name unless it appears in The Lord Of The Rings or its appendices, but they can still convey a great deal of information through clever dialogue and subtle visual details, and that’s a loophole Wayne Che Yip, the writers, and production designer Ramsey Avery have taken advantage of at every possible opportunity – in the mixed architectural styles of Númenor, for instance, there are clear signs that the Edain are neglecting and even building over the ruins of Elven towers and citadels as they distance themselves from their immortal kinsfolk. What they’ve preserved are monumental statues of the Maiar responsible for guarding mariners on the open sea, Ossë and Uinen, and of the great mariner Eärendil with a seabird representing his shapeshifting wife Elwing. In Númenor’s Hall of Lore, a tapestry depicts the Star of Eärendil beaming down on the island realm’s first king, Elros, and his twin brother Elrond.

Rings Of Power
Elros and Elrond | otakukart.com

I hate to call these Easter eggs, because that term seems to be used primarily in relation to the Marvel Cinematic Universe these days, but fans of any franchise are much the same: we all get ridiculously excited over the most obscure bits and pieces of lore that only we can explain to our friends and family with the help of an hour-long PowerPoint presentation. The first two episodes of The Rings Of Power, which some critics said were “dense”, didn’t have many of those Easter eggs – probably because the writers and director hoped the show would be more accessible if it weren’t crammed full of references to things beyond their ability to explain. I absolutely get that. But also…I’ve been waiting for this moment.

For more casual viewers, however, this episode may be rather overwhelming as it abandons two major plotlines we followed consistently throughout episodes one and two (both of which ended on cliffhangers last week), while simultaneously introducing the entirely new region of Númenor and not one, not two, not even three or four, but five new characters: a few of whom are predestined to have equal importance to anyone we’ve already met. Not all are treated as such in this episode – for instance, one could easily make the mistake of assuming the character of Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle), still merely a counsellor to the Queen-Regent, has little to no significance in the overarching story – but be prepared to spend much more time with all these characters, as their story is the overarching story of Middle-earth’s Second Age. They’re not going anywhere.

And what of Númenor, the fabled island kingdom never before seen onscreen? Though nearly every wide-shot of the capital city is comprised entirely of CGI, large sections of the harbor and Court of the Kings were built as practical sets, decorated, furnished, and populated by crowds of actors and extras for weeks on end, giving each space that feeling of being lived-in that made Jackson’s adaptations so revolutionary for the fantasy genre at their time (though he erred, I feel, in designing Minas Tirith as a cold, oversized gray wedding-cake dropped in the middle of nowhere). On street-corners throughout the city, there are craftspeople and merchants representing every one of Númenor’s Guilds, puppet-shows providing the citizenry all the latest dramatized gossip (including a depiction of Galadriel rescuing the Queen-Regent from…Morgoth?), and open-air restaurants serving seafood. The city – indeed, the whole island – is unmistakably alive, and home to a resplendent culture.

Rings Of Power
Númenor | nerdist.com

The Númenórean culture created from scratch for The Rings Of Power is built around sea-worship, in what I suspect is a clever example of reverse-engineering (no spoilers, but if you know you know). For aid in actualizing this concept, the production design team and VFX artists have looked first to the seafaring cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean for inspiration. Númenor’s primary architectural influences range from Byzantine to vaguely Babylonian by way of the Greek islands. Its people wear Greek or Italian-Renaissance era garments and hairstyles (well, the extras do), while the royalty make use of nautical patterns, marine gemstones, and jewelry fashioned in the shape of sea-creatures and coral. Its ships have Egyptian or Phoenician silhouettes (although their wing-like sails are very loosely based on those of Chinese junks, with a fantastical twist meant to evoke the wings of Aragorn’s crown).

This is, after all, the land of Aragorn’s distant ancestors; a tall, hardy, and extremely long-lived branch of the human race who fought alongside Elves in the First Age and were rewarded for their sacrifices with the mountainous, many-sided island on which they now isolate themselves from Middle-earth’s troubles – and those of their fellow Men, whom they regard as generally inferior to themselves in every way. Through the character of Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), a Southlander whom we see beaten up, mocked, and derisively called “Low Man” by Númenóreans out looking for a fight, The Rings Of Power tentatively begins to explore this conflict which past adaptations have shied away from, either because it’s too complicated or because it’s uncomfortable to acknowledge that the crimes of Aragorn’s ancestors went far beyond their inability to dispose of the One Ring.

If The Rings Of Power doesn’t abruptly back out of this conversation with its hands in the air, as I still fear it might, the series could provide an entry-point into more challenging discussions around race and racism in Tolkien’s writings – because honestly, these are discussions we need to be having now more than ever. Feigning shock at the very notion that Tolkien’s works contain aspects of racist ideology, as many fans and scholars have in the past few weeks, isn’t how we combat the racists who have adopted the book as some kind of white supremacist myth. At the same time, I understand that many fans (particularly fans of color) want to see fantasy-worlds free of racism and bigotry, so it’s definitely a tricky situation.

On a similar note, the Harfoots in this episode are revealed to have a shockingly grim tradition of ableism in their community. While they get ready to embark on one of their annual migrations across Wilderland, with a procession of kids dressed as wolves and birds-of-prey all chanting the phrase “Nobody goes off-trail! Nobody walks alone!”, Largo Brandyfoot (Dylan Smith) tries to reassure his wife Marigold (Sara Zwangobani) that his broken ankle won’t be a problem for them and their family even though they both know the Harfoots will in fact – without any hesitation whatsoever – leave their weakest members to walk alone at the back of the caravan, where whatever happens to them ceases to be the community’s problem.

Rings Of Power
Largo, Elanor, and Poppy | slashfilm.com

In the final, most horrific stage of this whole charade, Sadoc Burrows (Sir Lenny Henry) recites the names of all the Harfoots who died in the past year, either because they could not keep up – as I assume was the case with one Miles Brightapple, stuck in a mountain-pass…which in turn has me wondering if the Harfoots travel as far south as the Ered Lithui? – or for other terrible reasons, like the landslide that wiped out Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards)’s entire family or the wolves that got Daffodil Burrows, whom I assume had personal significance to Sadoc. The Harfoots’ response to tragedy is not to work together, but instead to prioritize the survival of a few while compartmentalizing their grief until it’s safe to mourn.

We see that attitude slowly beginning to change, however, as Elanor Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh)’s kindness towards others – which most of the Harfoots see as a weakness that will get her killed – actually results in not one but two friends coming to her rescue: first Poppy, who hangs back to help even though she could easily keep up with the others, and then the mysterious Stranger (Daniel Weyman), who understands, perhaps instinctively, that Elanor is in trouble and needs his help. This should have been the moment where the rest of the Harfoots came back to help too, but they made it abundantly clear that they don’t value friendships the way Elanor and her new found family do. Their loss.

While we’re on the subject, it’s heavily implied throughout this episode that the Stranger is not such a bad guy after all, though he still can’t coherently vocalize his own agenda in Middle-earth or explain why he occasionally murders fireflies, so the possibility remains that he’s not such a good guy, either. Maybe he’s somewhere in between. What is clear is that he’s looking for a particular constellation in the sky (or whatever it is that this constellation represents to him), one that Elanor is not familiar with, and he believes the Harfoots can lead him…somewhere he can see this constellation, possibly? That would presumably require a long journey to lands east and south of Wilderland “where the stars are strange”, according to Aragorn’s reports in the Third Age, but The Rings Of Power did promise to take us to “the furthest reaches of the map”.

If this is the case, and the Harfoots must take the Stranger east or south, it would certainly lend credence to the theory that he is one of the two Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando, who were sent to Middle-earth in the Second Age by the Valar to stir up resistance against Sauron behind the front-lines. The only problem with this theory, of course, is that the names of the two Blue Wizards and all the details of their accomplishments can only be found in Unfinished Tales, to which Amazon does not possess the rights…that, and we only saw one meteor streak across the sky in the first episode, although it’s possible the other Wizard was already in Middle-earth, or came from a different direction, or took a different mode of transportation entirely. It’s equally likely that the Stranger is just Gandalf.

Rings Of Power
The Stranger | gamesradar.com

Three episodes into The Rings Of Power, and our burning questions about the Stranger and about Sauron have yet to be answered: though we did find out that Sauron’s mysterious sigil, which he carved into Finrod’s chest and various other surfaces during the First Age, was in fact a highly-stylized map of Mordor meant to guide lost orcs into the embrace of a leader after the downfall of Morgoth. Frankly, I think that raises more questions than it answers (how did Sauron know Morgoth’s downfall was imminent? Why leave a map of his secret headquarters on a body he knew the Elves would take and analyze? Why is his plan only going into effect now, near the end of the Second Age?), but we don’t have time to address any of those questions in this episode.

We do apparently have time for an entirely unrelated mystery subplot involving Isildur (Maxim Baldry), whom we meet as a young man reluctantly training to be in the Númenórean navy, as he hears a voice calling him to the island’s western shores, the homeland of his paternal ancestors; this leads to a weird, vague conversation over dinner between Isildur and his father Elendil (Lloyd Owen) – and Isildur’s sympathetic sister Eärien (Ema Horvath), who has her own interesting journey ahead of her – in which Elendil warns Isildur that “the past is dead” and not to go down the same path as his brother Anárion…who is canonically younger than Isildur, so I’m not entirely sure what is going on here or whether we even need to care yet.

Then there’s a second new mystery subplot, currently unrelated to Sauron and at best only tangentially connected to Isildur and Elendil, one which involves Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), Queen-Regent of Númenor, and her father Tar-Palantír – who I believe are conspiring via a literal palantír to assist the Elves and their allies in Númenor. The timeline is being urgently sped up, and the divisions between Elf-friends (who still worship the Valar) and King’s Men (those who worship the divinely-appointed human rulers of Númenor) are already so prominent that Elendil is fearful to even translate his Quenya name, which just means “Lover of the Stars” but was also historically used to mean “Elf-friend”.

If you can believe it, there’s a third new mystery – but this one actually is connected to Sauron. Adar, the Sindarin Elvish word for “Father” from which this episode derives its title, is a word we first hear whispered by the orcs in a reverent tone as they punish their prisoners, and we soon learn that it’s a title by which they address their leader, whom we glimpse at the very end of the episode emerging from the shadows to interrogate Arondir, the only survivor of a failed prison-break that claimed the life of his comrade, Revion (Simon Merrells, very well-cast as an Elf but gone too soon). Adar, whose true name is probably of great lore significance, has long dark hair framing a gaunt, pale face…and if you’re not up-to-date with Rings Of Power leaks, that might be all you know of him just yet, so I’ll say no more for fear of spoiling casual viewers.

Rings Of Power
Adar | express.co.uk

That’s where we leave Arondir and the rest of our characters for the week, and that’s where I must now leave you too (unless you want me to start rambling on about my new favorite characters, Poppy and Eärien, because I can and I will if left unchecked), but not before delivering my final verdict. The Rings Of Power‘s third episode is far and away its strongest, boosted effortlessly to the top of my rankings by a balance of high-stakes drama and action, grand spectacle, deep-cut lore for the fans, and heart most crucial of all – and even a dash of romantic chemistry, if you want to interpret Galadriel and Halbrand’s interactions that way. Wayne Che Yip has done it again, but this time on an even bigger scale than with The Wheel Of Time, and I could not be more excited for the episodes ahead of us that he directed.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10