The last episode of season 2 of Rings of Power on Amazon Prime moved quickly to a crucial moment in history. ATTENTION SPOILERS !!
No doubt the expectations were too high for these Power Rings. But with the promises of showrunners Patrick McKay and JD Payne to offer a season 2 of Rings of Power worthy ofOppenheimerand to present a Sauron more evil than ever, compared to a new Walter White from Breaking Bad, well we expected a lot. Maybe too much.
After a disastrous start to season 2 for The Rings of Powerthe episodes followed one another and were very similar, losing themselves in the debaucheries of sterile fan-service, then dragging on until finally arriving at the great battle of Eregion which was to be the climax of this season.
Except that season 2 of Rings of Power has just ended, with a half-hearted “grand finale” episode, which scrapped the few good ideas the series had (the desire to nuance the character of the Orcs a little, for example). And among the bad ideas, we will cite the fact of having completely skipped this scene, which was nevertheless crucial for the rest of the events of the Lord of the Rings.
The Rings of Power: or the lore version UPS
Having survived the ordeal of judgment for which she had taken the place of Elendil (Lloyd Owen), the former queen regent Tar-Miriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) is once again more or less in the odor of sanctity in Numenor , much to the dismay of Ar-Pharazon (Trystan Gravelle). Taking advantage of a moment of respite, while everyone knows that the tide is turning and that the war against Evil will soon knock on their door, Tar-Miriel and Elendil speak in the greatest secrecy.
The former queen then offers a sword to Elendil: a weapon called Narsil. We feel Elendil embarrassed like when we receive a birthday present on the wrong date, but he ends up accepting Tar-Miriel’s present. A scene from episode 8 of season 2 quickly evacuated to return to the fight taking place in Eregion. Except that this scene constitutes a crucial element of the entire mythology of the Lord of the Rings.
Narsil of temptation
The origins of the sword Narsil (meaning “Red and White Flame” in the ancient Elvish language) are quite confusing. It is commonly believed that it was forged by Telchar, the greatest Dwarven Master Blacksmith of the First Age, a little over a thousand years before the events of the Rings of Power. Narsil was given as a gift to Curufin, one of the sons of Feanor, the creator of the Silmarils. During a great battle in the region of Doriath, Curufin was killed, and Elwing, Earendil’s future wife, fled with Narsil.
From his union with Earendil, Elwing had two children: Elrond and Elros. Elrond, everyone knows his great career as a half-elf warrior and negotiator. As for Elros, he eventually renounced his immortality, and became the first king of Numenor, and he inherited the sword Narsil. Thereafter, the sword remained within the lineage of Elros, in a straight line to Tar-Miriel. The fact that Miriel entrusts Narsil to Elendil therefore makes him a potential heir to the throne of Numenor symbolically.
In fact, or rather as Tolkien presented things in his works, Elendil is also one of the descendants of Elros, so this transmission is entirely justified. In the future, Elendil is supposed to use Narsil to fight Sauron. Using this sacred sword, he will manage to stand up to the Lord of Mordor, but Elendil will end up being killed by the latter, and Narsil will be broken in the duel. Isildur will then recover a piece of the broken sword, manage to cut off Sauron’s finger on which he wore his unique ring, and thus destroy Sauron.
Narsil is therefore much more than a simple symbolic object or an artifact demonstrating that a character belongs to a royal lineage, it is the weapon that is destined to free Middle-earth from the yoke of Sauron. She ended up being in the line of Kings of Arnor, all the way back to Aragorn. Once reforged by the Elves of Rivendell, it was renamed “Andúril, The Flame of the West”and we see Aragorn having a blast with Anduril in his hand in Peter Jackson’s films.
Far from being a purely ornamental letter opener, Narsil is therefore a particularly important object in the mythology of Lord of the Rings. We would therefore have liked a little more solemnity during the transmission of this blade to Elendil by Tar-Miriel. Still, from now on it is in the hands of the one who should be one of the agents of Sauron’s destruction, it remains to be seen what the series will do with it.
The series The Rings of Power is expected to consist of five seasons in total. There are therefore three seasons to come to make Elendil the most feared duelist in Mordor, and Isildur the savior of the world. Season 3 of Rings of Power is reportedly in pre-production. We haven’t finished having Lord of the Rings on the screens however, because the animated film War of the Rohirrim will be released on December 11, 2024 in cinemas, and in 2026 we will be entitled to The Hunt for Gollumdirected by Andy Serkis.
