So, I’m super stoked about getting back to Middle-Earth (I know Tolkien used a lower-case ‘e’, but he’s not the one living with OCD). I loved the Peter Jackson ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, and to a slightly lesser extent ‘The Hobbit” one as well. That’s my jam.
Dragons, elves, orcs, dwarves… Wizards, magic, I love that shit, and I always have. Maybe I’ll write about Dungeons & Dragons someday, but that’s not today. Today is all about ‘The Rings of Power’.
So, ‘The Rings of Power: S1E1 opens up on Galadriel and some other elf children at play. We soon find out that elf bullies are a thing, when one boy pegs the paper boat Galadriel was making with a stone. Here’s to another hundred years of bullying.
Finrod (dumbest name ever) gets it (and we get more backstory).
Like the heading says. Finrod’s bites it. Now we get some backstory about the elves actually having left Valinor to come to Middle-Earth to fight specifically to fight Morgoth, and then stuck around even longer to fight Sauron, and it’s Sauron who somewhere off-screen kills poor Finrod, and carves a strange sigil in his chest.Now we’re rollin’, but not as much as this guy.
Galadriel is all about that Vengeance!
Avenging the death of Finrod seems to be Commander Galadriel’s purpose in life. We are treated to an expedition the elves have undertaken in some frozen part of the world where Sauron might be hiding, and the steely determination with which Galadriel is hunting him is clearly put on display. She simply won’t take no for an answer the question arises as to whether what they’re doing is something that actually needs to be done.
The company dutifully presses on, and one secret room later they’re faced with the same symbol that Galadriel certainly remembers having seen carved in poor Finrod’s chest, a symbol she surmises is marking a trail to yet another place they’re going to have to venture off to to check. One battle with a snow-troll later, we have ourselves a mutiny boys and girls.
Elrond, and the City of Lindon
In Lindon we meet Elrond for the first time, and find out from him that Galadriel’s perseverance in doggedly pursuing Sauron is in defiance of the wishes of the high king. Despite this, he decides to send her and some other honored soldiers back home to the undying lands of Valinor. I assume that this has something to do with their “diminishing” that is mentioned in the Lord of the Rings, but I can’t be certain.
Anyways, we quickly find out that Galadriel intends to stay in Middle-Earth, and to pursue Sauron. It’s that vengeance, baby! She’s gotta have it. To the point of it being something that Elrond sees as being a sickness in her.
I’m assuming that Elrond convinced her to accept the honor and sail for the undying lands. After relinquishing her dagger however she begins to be reminded of the whole ships and stones conversation she had with her brother a thousand years ago, one part of which we couldn’t hear the first time around.
Child Galadriel: “How do I know which light to follow?”
Finrod: “Sometimes we cannot know, until we have touched the darkness.”
It’s kind of just half-cocked elf mumbo-jumbo to be honest, but whatever, plot point I supposed. Shocker. She gets cold feet, and jumps ship.
Southlanders
Here are your humans. They’re peasants, they dress dirty, and live in a small village somewhere South of where the Great Eye was at in The Lord of the Rings. Their lands are patrolled by elves, and it would seem that these poor soldiers deal with a good bit of “country racism”. The Southlanders are leaderless in regards a king, and seem to have taken to seeing their elven protectors as conquerors. Here we meet Bronwyn, one of the southlanders, albeit she is way better dressed, and shocker, seems to get on quite well with Arondir, one of the elves that patrols those lands around Tirharad.
Well, it turns out that after 79 years, Arondir is being sent home. The war is officially over according the the elven king. He goes to say goodbye to Bronwyn, we meet her slightly racist son, and learn that there is something going on to East, a cow has been corrupted where it was grazing. Arondir sees this as something that need to be investigated. He’s not going home, that’s for certain. One “romantic” walk later they find a village that’s been destroyed. Double down on the not going home I guess.
Meanwhile two of the neighborhood racist kids find an old broken sword hilt in a barn, granted the one kid seems to have known it was there. The blade bears the same sigil that Galadriel is so interested in.
Harfoot’s, the Ancestor’s of the Hobbits?
Well this is cute. Harfoot children getting in some manner of mischief… Oh never-mind, they’re just picking berries outside the walls of which they’re supposed to stay behind. This is a seasonal home for them, they’re nomadic, moving with the seasons, free of the burdens of the world.
They’re a tribal people, they’re simple, they wear sticks in their hair and shit. They’re full of mysticism, and the skies are “weird” according to the tribal elder
The Comet
Bronwyn, Arondir, Nori (the main hobbit character?”, and High King Gil-Galad, all at one point towards the end of the episode see a comet streak across the sky. Nori tracks down the impact location, and there in the middle of the crater is a naked old man, 60’s something like that. Given that we know that Aragorn lived an unusually life by virtue of his being a Dúnedain, and the elves live albeit forever, age doesn’t seem to be a problem in this universe. I’ll just go ahead and say it, it’s totally Gandalf, or Mithrandir if that’s how he eventually identifies himself.
Wrapping it all Up!
That’s about it really, lots of foreshadowing some sort of evil being active in the land. Several people not doing what they’re told. Cute little harfoots, a really angry elf maiden going for a really long swim, and a naked guy.
Rating: B
