The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power episode 3 is finally harem as the series really starts to take shape. Did we just get our first glimpse of Sauron? Is everyone on this series Sauron? Is the real Sauron the friends we made along the way? We have theories. The Numenoreans have finally joined the chat, and wouldn’t you know it? That star-shaped island is chock full of both nuts and drama.

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Written by Brian Silliman
Hosted by Ryan Arey (  / ryanarey  )
Edited by Harriet Lengel-Enright, Randolf Nombrado, Srinidhi Rao, and Ethan Lavinsky

#RingsOfPower #EasterEggs #LordOfTheRings

Do you stay in the past, or do you press forward? This is the general theme of the episode, and it finds its way into the stories of Galadriel, Halbrand, Arondir, the Harfoots, and Elendil. If pushing forward means leaving friends behind, do you do it anyway?

Shocker! Arondir was captured by orcs at the end of Episode 2. They take him to a covered outpost where all of the vanished men and women from the Southland villages are being kept. The orcs have used tunnels and coverings in order to avoid the sun, the light of which is very dangerous for them. They are creatures of darkness and they cannot abide the light.

This is why Sauron will eventually cover the entire land of Mordor in shadow, and also why he sends shadows to blunt the light of the sun when sending his orc armies into battle. [ROTK- Gandalf: Cloud being sent before Minas Tirith].

None of these imprisoned folk are here for the orcs, they are all here for someone that an orc calls “Adar.” . We’ll hear that name again before the episode’s end.

Arondir is put to work immediately, reuniting with his friend Thondir and his former Watch Warden, Revion. Apparently, none of the elves that were charged to watch the Southlands escaped.

They’re all in chains, and they are all forced to excavate. This makes sense, as this area is close to Mordor, if not Mordor itself. The flyover map has shown the distinct image of Lake Nurnen, which Tolkien describes as being located in the south of Mordor. Frodo and Sam do not get close to it in the book of The Return of the King, but Tolkien does make references to the “slave-worked fields away south in this wide realm.” Sauron plundered those fields to supply his armies, and we could be seeing the beginnings of that right here. We’ll get a far more obvious connection to Mordor later on in the episode.

Doug: Mordor, where the shadows lie!

Galadriel wakes up on the ship that rescued her and Halbrand in Episode 2. It is indeed a ship of Numenor, captained by Elendil, a major figure in Tolkien’s works. [FOTR- Elendil at the Battle of the Last Alliance]. He refers to Galadriel as one of the “Eldar,” a name given to all elves who answered the initial summons to Valinor in their earliest days. Galadriel is of the Noldor, and all of them answered the call. We see that Elendil has taken Galadriel’s dagger, so there may not be as much trust here as we thought there would be.

They sail into Numenor at long last, an island kingdom located between Middle-Earth and Valinor. This is the main bastion of the World of Men in this era. The “Edain” were the men who fought alongside the elves against Morgoth, and their losses were so great in the War of Wrath that the elves gifted them this land. The island was raised from the sea, and the Edain were led to it by the star of Earandil. [FOTR- Galadriel’s gift to Frodo: “The light of Earandil, our most beloved star”]

Numenoreans were sometimes called “Dunedain” in this period, and were blessed with long life. Their descendants were also referred to as Dunedain when they came to Middle-Earth, with both Elendil and Isildur being among them. Aragorn is their descendant, and is likely the most famous of all the Dunedain. [TTT: Aragorn/Eowyn: You cannot be 80, 87, you are one of the Dunedain].

The descendants of Numenor founded the kingdom of Gondor, so naturally the design of Numenor itself borrows heavily from architecture and design that we see in the Lord of the Rings movies, Minas Tirith especially. [ROTK: Minas Tirith]. The large statues that dominate the central city evoke the Argonath, a great monument of Gondor that we see in Fellowship. [FOTR: Argonath, Aragorn: “Long have I wished to look upon the kings of old, my kin…”] Elendil himself is one of the figures in the movies, alongside his son Isildur. In Tolkien’s writing, the Argonath features Isildur and his brother Anarion.