Rings of Power last week discussed how to forge our heroes in the midst of trauma and how to emerge stronger out of the other side. This week's ominously titled "Udn" is about telling our heroes that they can be as forged in a crucible as they are. The Rings of Power people are sorry. There are a lot of things going wrong for you in the Lord of the Rings prequel. Not all of you are named after the author. There's a big "woof." It was a rough deal.
Much of Rings of Power has been about waiting for an inevitable clash, as Galadriel desperately rallied allies in Nmenor to take the fight to the growing forces of evil. The show has done some great things so far, but this is the grand finale. It is very Lord of the Rings for the majority of the time. It is similar to the Helm's Deep of the Rings of Powers, as Adar's forces prepare to attack the remaining refugees.
Arondir rigged the watchtower to collapse, taking out Adar's armies and leaving the refugees to defend their village. This is a battle of unfamiliar soldiers defending their homeland against an overwhelming, better-equipped enemy threat and, for the most part, succeeding. The villagers, using their inn as both a hub for those unable to fight and a rallying point for the volunteer soldiers to fight, put up a heroic effort and overcame it.
Everything ends up in hell. The battle seemingly over, Arondir and the surviving villagers are horrified to discover they've not just battled orcs, but almost entirely their fellow Southlanders, and Adar and his orcs have been hiding in reserve, heralding their arrival on the scene with a devastating volley of arrows When Arondir and Theo bring the survivors into the inn, they will have to have a gruesome surgery. The scene comes slowly and tense, as Adar demands the dark blade that Arondir has hidden, threatening to kill more and more villagers until he gets it. Even when Adar has what he wants, he still demands his orcs slaughter who, despite the fact that we don't know her fate as an original character to the show.
This is a depiction of Lord of the Rings. A story of people big and small, ordinary folk and mythic legends coming together to overcome the darkness. It wouldn't feel right to end the story in a horrible slaughter. A cavalry charge comes to their aid just in time. After spending most of the episode sailing to Middle-earth, Nmenor rides to its rescue, sweeping through Adar's forces as Galadriel leads the charge. When it looks like Elendil is in trouble, we don't see a single Nmenorean die. They just went through Adar. The might of unity and goodness against divisive evil is what rings of power tells us.
If "Udn" ended there, at least some of our disparate heroes intertwined onto a single path, good triumph, then this would be a pretty solid episode of Rings of Power. Do you mean ray? Rings of Power doesn't end this week, so we stretch our hooray ominously. It would be too early in the game to expect our heroes to be tested. The end of the Second Age is far off, and there are plenty of turmoils to come on Arda for these people. The forces of Nmenor are robbed of their victory by the Rings of Power.
Miriel leads the Southlanders in hailing the arrival of their king as Galadriel brushes against the same darkness that Adar is interrogating him. Theo tried to grapple with his guilt about almost dooming them all to save his mother, but he discovered that the mysterious blade Arondir thought he was hiding was actually a hammer.
Everything ends up in hell. This is the second time. In Rings of Power, water being held up by the dams around Ostirith begins to plunge into the Southlands. You think that Waldreg's actions will drown the Nmenoreans. The water goes down through the tunnels and into the lava beneath the mountain. A mountain explodes, sending ash and lava all over the place, decimating the village. Galadriel is consumed by smoke, theo is missing, and Adar is gone.
Since we knew that the Southlands were located in the part of Middle-earth that would one day be Mordor, we have wondered how the Rings of Power could be so tragic. It turns out giving us the origin story of Mount Doom and having the end of the Massive Action Episode of Heroes Winning and Doing Cool Stuff be about the volcanic eruption is one of the most surprising ways of doing it. Rings of Power is interested in the need for unity and alliance between good people regardless of background to confront darkness. Our heroes believed that they had learned the lesson and were able to win. The biggest, baddest mountain in all the land proved to be correct.
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