Rings of Power: Season 2, Episode 1 Analysis and Reaction | Rings & Realms

Corey get up we got to go [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to rings and Realms I'm Cory Olen the talking professor and I'm Maggie Park I focus on film fans and adaptations we are so excited to be back at studio lab in Dairy New Hampshire with our incredible team and it's thanks to our Kickstarter supporters that we able to do all of the amazing things that you're going to see this season our initial campaign on Kickstarter was successful thank you um but we are able to accept pledges throughout the entire season so please do consider pledging your support to rings and Realms on Kickstarter if this is your first time with us welcome this show is here to help explore and explain some of the core themes of The Lord of the Rings the rings of power and how it's connected with tolkien's Middle Earth as ever we're here to provide insight and Analysis not reactions this is a safe space to consider the adaptation choices in Prime video's rings of power so we have a lot to cover so let's get started We Begin episode one in flashback a young and frankly naive looking Sauron recapitulates his Bright New Vision for Middle Earth's future he speaks like he spoke before of healing the world bringing it order and creating a world in which he and his servants will be celebrated as Heroes notice his subtle awareness of the story that will one day be told Sauron wants to rewrite his story that in itself is echoed in the choice to start the episode in flashback we are being asked to view sauron's story again from a different angle sauron's vision is a really interesting adaptation because it fills in a gap in tolkin story tolken never explains why Sauron does what he does Sauron in the book is just the Dark Lord he plays a totally different role in the story book Sauron doesn't have a motto or a recruiting slogan he's just seeking to dominate the world at the end of season 1 we heard sauron's own narrative about his own domination that only he can bring healing in order and that he must have control in order to achieve those things season 2 begins with a reminder and restatement of this concept so we should keep in mind that sauron's vision is given as a framework for everything that follows in this season another major emphasis in the opening sequence is the Betrayal of Sauron by Adar the final scene between Adar and Sauron when he's imprisoned as hrand introduces a new element Adar reminisces about how he first became joined to Sauron he he remembers the torment that Twisted him from Elf to Uruk he speaks with something near fondness of Sauron bringing him the wine likee blood and his choice to drink it all in that moment of drinking wine on the Mountaintop that moment which is both very personal but also very ritualistic Adar remembers binding himself to saur Adar said remember in season 1 that only blood can bind but apparently blood wine does the job too by the way when you notice blood or dark viscous liquid dripping in these early episodes remember adar's line only blood combined anyway the relationship between Sauron and Adar was real a good reason why they both hate each other so very much now it isn't just one bad guy stabbing another bad guy in the back it was a deeply personal betrayal now take a step back and notice the larger pattern here and what we're learning about sauron's character Sauron had a number two auten tenant with whom he worked for thousands of years Adar betrayed him and what do we see Sauron do in season 1 try to recruit a new number two in gadriel a queen and partner who can rule at his side that didn't work either but the books suggest that he will soon have a new number two the witch King this apparently is how Sauron rolls we should remember of course that Sauron himself was morgoth's number two the pattern we see in his own planning does not just reflect his person personality this is what he knows he wants to step into morgoth's shoes he seems to need somebody to step into his old shoes but remember his description of that relationship his relationship with morgoth like an iron hand clasping his throat he felt himself to be absolutely enslaved to morgoth's Will by seeking to enslave others and dominate their Wills Sauron is perpetuating the cycle of abuse and enslavement notice something however we jump from fored all the way to the Southlands saon has been walking for a long time he's acquired clothes and a sword he's covered most of Middle Earth a completely unknown amount of time has passed and we definitely don't know what might have happened along the way in my opinion the visual connection between spaghetti monster Sauron and the black veins of corruption in the tree of Lynden establish a pretty strong link I think it's extremely likely that he had something to do with the poisoning of the tree in lynon and he certainly had time to stop by there on his way between Ford W and the Southlands regardless let's focus on the scene that we do get the meeting with the southlanders and his decision to get on the boat it's set up to look like a a a change of mind for Sauron a change of Direction he's on his way towards death towards Mordor he turns aside turns West instead is he he genuinely changing course there's book precedent for this possibility tolken says that at the beginning of the second age Sauron actually for a Time repented of his evil Deeds is that what we're getting is this the dramatization of repenting Sauron okay I want to take a minute to talk about a unique moment in sauron's Journey here um right before he enters the Southlands we have some pretty interesting visual cues leading up to this moment uh we start with this scene where it's just him at a close-up shot he's on the left looking ahead with this red filter over the entire shot everything else in that shot is dark except for his stare which is quite lit up his face then Fades as the camera Rises very slowly and there's this really soft light we can assume it's like Dawn or or late afternoon but it's really warm it's very inviting and in the scene he is walking directly at us we're watching him come closer to us that's pretty important we see the path and his forward progression we then as the camera turn around the back of him and we see the destruction that's Rising above the trees and see that he is actually walking into that destruction but he's really leisurely he's very relaxed then we hear the line that way lies death and he says that is my path perhaps the fortunate ones were the first to die we're not entirely sure what he means there like they were lucky that they are avoiding this massacre that's about to come um perhaps by his own hand right we don't know if that means good or bad and in that moment when he says the fortunate ones were the first to die he actually turns his entire body around on the word fortunate is it him being curious is it him being a bit incredulous we're not entirely sure there the light that is coming in this scene from the old man as he turns the light behind the old man is really backlighting this old man it's making him seem quite wise um a little bit holy perhaps using him as a bit of a beacon which suggests that there's another life waiting for him outside of this path you just have to turn towards it and then he actually turns towards it so there is this line you just have to turn towards that other option and he physically turns towards it his feet don't really move there there's no forward or backwards progression but there is a shifting of point and person and then he starts to ask about the heraldry so there's this line in there about oh it could be a grim reminder or hope one so we constantly have these opposites shown to us and this can kind of subconsciously affect whether we believe this moment or or not are we looking at death fear and destruction from Sauron or could we as the audience possibly consider that he is also considering change and hope and maybe choosing good um then there's this line that sometimes it can lead to someplace better someplace good there's a literal path in front of Sauron right now that is warm welcoming it's downhill uh it has a community it's safe and it's completely opposite to his original path and we start to wonder which one is he going to choose it starts to feel like he's going to join these guys and he's going to change his ways come join us if you like or walk on if you like and keep chasing death is the line from the old man and at this point the light on Sauron he's half lit but the light is coming from the old man so is he curious about this Redemption is that light actually shining on him making him turn towards that and say ooh I'm toying with this idea of being good is he curious about these lands that he's speaking about then he says the choice is yours friends and he pauses he looks at the path this is Sauron he looks at the path we think he's going to walk back right we think he's going to repent but does he no stick with that scene there is no movement from him yes he actually does go and join these folks we learn that in the next scene but there's no physical visual cue to show us that he has changed his ways there plus we also hear a few notes from the theme of Sauron in the background in the music here so it just kind of hits like ooh are are we supposed to believe that he's going to make this change and go this direction but there is no forward momentum so there's no visual cue showing us that he repents it doesn't set us up for anything other than this is part of his evil plan so do we think sauron's conversion is leg legit let's think about a few elements in that scene consider the destination of the men in the boat they say they're sailing into the West there's no hint of a specific reference to numor they don't say they're sailing to an island or anything like that instead their Journey sounds like a very light in the west kind of Journey what I mean by that is in the S marilan we know that tribes of humans are kind of migrating West over the continent because there have been stories there have been myths and rumors that there is a land in the west that the land of the Gods is out in the west and they're journeying to try to find it they don't even know in at that point that it's across the sea and it seems to be very much the same kind of Journey that these people were on they have heard rumors and myths about maybe numor maybe VOR maybe both right and they have formed from this apparently this quite vague concept of a paradise Beyond the Sea that'll bring them peace and happiness and where the streets are paved with gold right that seems to be the frame of mind of those people and Sauron is joining them right Sauron this is this is this is where saon is going now it's true that we are confronted as as Maggie was showing the the old man that Sauron meets presents a very clear choice this is his choice between life and death between hope and despair so maybe right maybe despite the visual cues that Maggie was pointing to you are think thinking that maybe he does repent or you want to believe that he does repent but you have to admit that even if he does it's very brief right we see him turn away from that CH if he does make a happy Choice he turns away from it on the boat because he chooses death for the kindly old man who tried to help him and I think actually that that points to a fundamental irony that perhaps we you might not process the first time you hear that initial conversation between him and the old man right the old man is talk they're talking about the path of death he's on the path of death headed it towards Mordor in the Southlands right the irony is that the old man is speaking of it as if H his own death as if by going down the path of death he is going down the path of self-destruction but of course Sauron is not going down the path of self-destruction or doesn't think he is right he is thinking not of his own death but of the death of others now of course you could say there's a further irony to say that the path that he is on is indeed the path down to the void the path path of Destruction that all evil people are going down right yes but again he's he's cheerfully he he accepts that path right so how do we understand this right it's hard for me to believe that if he did repent he would repent this way what does he think he's doing what does he think he's accomplishing by getting on the boat does he believe they're sailing to valanor I can't imagine he would get onto the boat with that expectation or that hope besides which even if for some reason Sauron would want to go to valanor and I'm not sure why even a repentant Sauron would be real excited to head straight back to valanor but even if he did he's got to realize this is not vingal lot he's getting into right the odds of this ship getting to valinor are zero right so why why is he doing it but here's the hard part it's also difficult to believe that he has a plan that this is all a shrewd scheme on his part some people might say that well maybe he was his plan was to get to numor in order to corrupt them right as we know he's going to do later on but the episode does not give us a hint of a reference to numor to prompt us to think along those directions we don't get any help in that direction so if you watch rings and realm season 1 I know you're wondering am I satisfied with his reason for getting on the boat it was a big question I ended season one with and I have to say not really I definitely do not buy his repentance I don't think he genuinely repented even for a minute but I also don't think that there is clear evidence that shows that he has a clever scheme in mind for getting on the boat instead I definitely definitely I will say do not believe that he's planning to meet gadriel some have tried to argue that he knows he's going to meet her swimming in the middle of the o ocean and that's why he goes out onto the boat and onto the raft I think his own words make it clear that that is not true his first words to her remember he talks about the tides of Fate he clearly sees his meeting with her as a chance meeting an unexpected meeting a stroke of destiny that looks like chance he speaks to her about her choice right her tide is going to flow in or it's going to flow out depending on whether or not she Embraces the opportunity that fate has brought to her in their meeting right but his choice of what he's going to do and what he hopes for from her is made in that instant as he Embraces his fate but unfortunately none of this really helps me to understand why Sauron would get on that boat in the first place we wanted to take a second here and talk about the journey that Galadriel and Sauron are on at this moment because it's almost identical right when you look at gladel and Sauron on their boats possibly even just a few hours apart from each other it seems like a remarkably parallel situation but all of the visual cues that we get on the screen are completely inverted they are the absolute opposites so with Sauron it's dark it is nighttime we have a square rigid boat and it is sailing into the darkness whereas with gadal it's daytime it's bright it's warm her boat is very round and fluid and it's sailing directly into the light now when gladel goes from above the water into the water and then Sauron from the water into the air we also have this opposite movement so Sauron is down in the depths um he is in this dark space it is blue dark mysterious nothing else around him the only source of light is coming from up above and we don't know what's going on in these mysterious depths and dark unn but he's not panicked he calmly swims upwards we have this kind of Christlike imagery almost of him Rising towards the surface whereas with gadel we have the opposite of that we have this ball of bright light behind her it's very warm and it's inviting and it should be what she's reaching towards but instead she leaves it and she Dives down into the depths of the water she leaves the warm bright light above her and we see her Swan diving downward and then when they come from the water onto the raft we also see this inversion so Sauron sputters up he's out of breath sure but he's still quite controlled and very powerful um in the movement from when he surfaces the water until he gets himself onto the raft he reaches himself onto the raft he grabs out with his left hand and he craws on whereas gadal she has been swimming forever so she is exhausted she's drained she needs help onto that raft and she's pulled up by her right hand so we do have these complete opposites in there resurfacing and joining the raft and don't forget that we've actually already seen an actual moment of mirroring um the vision at the end of season 1 and episode 8 of them on the raft the camera spins full circle to their reflection in the water um Sauron sees them working together he sees a vision of greatness to come of them working together whereas she is horrified by the reflection of the evil that she sees so in that same vision we have opposite reactions so just keep that in mind as we go forward because we feel this is a pretty intense visual cue that we're being shown this this opposites element of Sauron and gadriel gadriel and Sauron both end up separating from their ships and in the sea they seem like very similar situations but once again the whole circumstances mirror each other gadriel willingly dives off her perfectly sound ship she leaves them to go on to life and to her home sacrificing her own return Sauron has his ship destroyed and ripped away from him and along the way he abandons His companion to death once again these two things are parallel but opposite to each other sauron's relationship with gadriel is complicated we talked about how his desire to bring her around shows us something about him but we can see what these mirroring patterns show us about gadriel too gilgalad speaks of how saaron has already compromised gadriel elron expresses his doubts he inverts the famous whispered words of finrod from season 1 instead of moving confidently to the light because she has touched the darkness El on suggests that she has turned away from the light because she was drawn to the darkness all along but as Maggie has shown the careful parallels between Sauron and gadriel that episode one creates show Fairly clearly that elron is wrong gadriel was proud and she was deceived and by trying to exploit howand she was herself exploited but although her path is strikingly similar to sauron's as we saw they're not the same go adriel's p may have gone very crooked but her goal is indeed opposite to sauron's goal the focal point of the elf story in episode one is the danger of the Rings of power when it comes to the three rings this is a really fascinating question the book is genuinely ambivalent on this on the one hand the three are depicted as un AED were invited to think that they are purely good and opposed to the evil and Corruption of the other rings on the other hand the Elven rings are designed to preserve all things which sounds good until you realize that that's working against alvar's design for Middle Earth there is something like Rebellion intrinsic to the operation of the three rings in the book The Show picks right up on this ambiguity in the text Elon fears that the three are corrupted by Sauron and that they will provide a mechanism through which he can consolidate power gadriel asserts that Sauron never touched them and that they are untainted they're both not wrong Galadriel is right the three were not touched they were not directly corrupted but elon's impulse that Sauron plans to use the Rings to establish his power over Middle Earth is dead on Elon is also right that the three will be in sauron's intention at least the mechanism through which he hopes to gain control of the elves through the domination of the one range later on the three rings will in fact lay the elves open to sauron's domination several times in this episode we see elves struggling with Temptations to power the elements of that struggle should look very familiar to tolken fans the desire for the Rings to use them for really good reasons of course drive gadriel and gilgalad to turn against their friend Elon in his desire to keep the Rings away from others separates himself from his friends for their own good like fro does again and again in The Lord of the Rings Kieran who takes on himself the burden of the Rings just in order to convey them to a crack in the Earth where they might be disposed of ends up claiming ownership of the Rings himself and the next time we see him he is wearing one of the Rings of power on his own finger I'm not saying that the three rings have the same kind of corruptive influence that the one ring has in The Lord of the Rings I'm only saying that the Temptation and desire for the Rings create some haunted and even disturbingly familiar situations in this episode some are more ambiguous and uncertain though when Nya bounces down the stairs and lands at galadriel's feet I was reminded of course of the Ring bouncing away from Gollum and coming to Bilbo in the film but I also couldn't help but remember Bilbo after his party at the beginning of the war of the Rings justifying his own obsession with the ring by saying it is mine it came to me in the end I think the Point here isn't that the three rings are corrosive and evil it seems to me that the primary point is simply that the desire for power even power to do good is very dangerous the problem with the three rings isn't primarily their magic it's the power that they provide now we are introduced here in episode one to Kieran and I am in love with this character Ben Daniels is amazing as Kieran there are two small observations that I would make about Kieran first notice how they set up kieran's complicated relationship to valinor in this episode we know that Kieran is one of the very oldest elves alive he is the ship right for he has dedicated himself to making ships that will bear other elves on a one-way trip back to valinor while he himself patiently Waits Century after patient Century on the shores of the sea he is the one who enables others to return to Paradise but he himself has never even been there notice how they tell this story elegantly through two images in the first we see Kieran standing looking out over the sea to the west staring towards valinor the longing is palpable in the second we see a gorgeous sunset in the west and Kieran is in the foreground Darkly silhouetted against the sky there is light and Beauty in the west but he sits in the Land of Shadows his face turned away from the West waiting patiently Kieran is one of the greatest Elven Craftsmen and I couldn't help but remember Kell rimbor slogan true creation requires sacrifice second observation did you catch the naria moment at the end of the episode naria is the Red Ring The Ring of Fire and it's the ring that Kieran claims in the book Kieran says that this ring can be used to rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill it's a ring associated with the renewal of Hope and courage when we see Kieran wearing naria what is he doing striding into the convocation of despairing elves bringing light and hope and warmth here is your introduction to the ring of fire I expect we're going to see it at work again okay we need to talk about the fading of the elves in season 1 I was a bit confused by the references to the fading Of The Elves and in particular to the urgency about the elves fading away within the year now when I'm watching an adaptation I try to keep an open open mind not just about liking things but about understanding things the makers of adaptations can and do change things for reasons relating to the story that they're telling and that's fine but of course when it comes to the basic rules of how the world works I tend to start with the assumption that the world works the same as it does in the book until the show or film gives me enough reason to understand that they're definitely changing the rules the problem I had was that the description of the fading seemed about 90% identical to the expectations I brought with me from tolk's books gilgalad and kellmore and Eland were talking about how the elves were going to fade how their Spirits would consume their bodies and how they would diminish into powerless Shadows of their current selves if they did not depart from Middle Earth check check and check that's exactly the situation as tolken describes it after the years of the sun begin during that time which Sam gamji in The Fellowship of the Ring calls The Fading time the only difference between what we saw in the show and what is described in the book is the strange Panic that they were all in the idea that the fading was going to start right now and was going to finish in the next few months last season I doubted the truth of this it sounded like it fit the pattern of a classic saic deception tell someone something that is mostly true but contains one false element that will play on their fears and put them under your control I thought therefore that the accelerated fading was the lie that was being told in order to raise their fears so that Sauron as anatar could offer them a way of mastering that fear I no longer believe that from last season plus episode one of this season I now believe that the show is really asking me to believe that the rapid fading is happening I still don't fully understand the causes there I suspect there's more that we don't understand but the core story of the elf plot in episode one is that the rapid fading is almost upon them and that the power of the three rings held it off and here's the interesting thing that I noticed what happens to the elves at the beginning of the fourth age at the end of The Lord of the Rings after the war of the Ring The Time Of The Elves is ended and the Dominion of men has come all of the elves must leave the world or diminished as described in the show and what also happens at the beginning of the 4th age the bearers of the three rings leave Middle Earth and their power is removed so as soon as the three stop being wielded in Middle Earth The Fading increases the time of the elves is over and the Dominion of men begins to my surprise in some ways it actually kind of tracks not quite so urgently as is described in the show but it's similar in any case now I still have lots of questions about causality here but we can come back to that later after perhaps we learn a little bit more for now I'm going to continue to work on making peace with the accelerated fading of the elves I just want to point out a few moments of visual storytelling that we have going on at the tree in lyen when you're watching this scene just keep these things in mind um I particularly want to focus on the levels and the camera angles that we see in this scene and the shots that make up the story and what that tells us about what's going on um so first we start with Gil galled and Kyan up on the higher level in front of that crowd they're a few steps above everybody else and every time the camera's on them there's this slight up angle on G galled and then there's a slight downward angle on gadal and a straight shot on Eland so this positions them in these spaces of power we've G galled up high making him look powerful gadal down low less powerful L run straight on neutral then when the Rings are presented one of the Rings immediately is dropped and falls down these steps so there's this actual changing of levels from high to low gadal picks it up and we immediately switch no longer do we have this downward angle onto gadal we have an upward tilted camera looking up as she Rises to the same level in the camera's eye as the other two we then get a straight shot and Gil galled so then it's marking the moras equal and he puts on his ring amongst the rest of his bling um and then we get a straight shot on gadal so they are now equal on the same space once she puts on her ring we get the warmth immediately returning there's Sunshine there's Golden Tones and with the will of the elves made real through the Rings the tree heals itself we see the buds first then those golden veins erupting on the tree followed by the leaves the light the glowing uh the warmth and there's this heavenly music that's reminiscent of glad ral's theme and then we get this shot where she climbs the steps she's on the same level as them they put their hands into the center um of the shot and we get that triangle it's the same triangle we see in the beginning of Peter Jackson's Trilogy as well the the trilogy of the three of them is just this sign of strength so having that held they love this shot having that held and then spinning upward is the camera goes up we get this real feeling of decision made level absolutely established we know what's happening here these guys are on the same team and then our next shot is a forge firing up and they're going to get more so they're a little obsessed with that so just things to keep in mind as we go ahead I think it's these visual cues that help us tell the story and good for us to keep in mind as we take in the other things that they're going to show us the Rune Story begins with our friendly neighborhood blue Wizard and his spunky harfoot sidekick hopelessly lost in the barren land lands of the East the first step to finding your path it turns out is admitting that you are lost an important life lesson for us all as we watch Nori and the stranger getting lost and going around in circles we should of course be remembering Frodo and Sam who got similarly lost in terrain not far away as they set out on the first stage of their Journey on their own at the start of book four in the word of the Rings now this focus on their need to find their way makes explicit a theme we've seen played out across Ross all of the story lines in this episode actually Sauron has a plan and he thinks he sees a clear path down which he will March triumphantly to the achievement of his glorious purpose sauron's plan goes sharply sideways however and ends up taking many unexpected turns his story May at times look like a story of getting lost and finding oneself but as I explained before I don't think that's really it sauron's story is instead the story of a cunning and resourceful Improv artist who is always ready to make the most out of whatever unexpected elements he encounters on his way the elves of Linden are definitely struggling to find their path as gadriel gallops wildly in the wrong direction gilgalad pivots suddenly to stand with gadriel against elron Kyan unexpectedly turns his boat right around and elron just throws himself off a cliff in the Rune plot the theme of seeking the right path forward is at its most explicit and most literal Lal Nori and the stranger do not just need to find the route into run but they need to figure out what their Quest is what are they supposed to accomplish guidance comes in the form of puppy who realizes that her lovely and very catchy walking song from season one in fact gives Clues to the path they must take last season we heard the song while watching a montage of the Brandy foot family migration while poppy sang the trail of their wanderings literally appeared on the screen on the map M notice the irony here the walking song turns out to be not just a way to make the family's regular Journey go along more pleasantly it's actually a guide into lands unknown to Nori and Poppy now that they have gone off and left the family behind they have discovered a new purpose a new significance even to their own family traditions it turns out they are not going off Trail at all they are not breaking from but fulfilling the harfoot destiny now notice one other thing about this they are moving forward into the unknown but they are also moving back in time back to their Roots the old maps and the old song both seem to suggest that the harfoot came from run in a time now forgotten by living harfoot what will they find as they walk backwards into the past of their people now this seems very fitting for in tolking the Far East is always associated with roots and Beginnings humans had their origins in the in the east in the past and the human cultures of the Far East are the inheritors of the cultural traditions of their ancient ancestors and spoilers their ancient ancestors made some very bad decisions even the elves first awakened in the far east as they move further east we can expect the companions to discover more of the unknown past of the harf foots and of the unknown future of the stranger the other important emphasis in this episode is on the power of the stranger my favorite element here was the way in which the magic of the stranger shaking the sand and Pebbles of the desert floor recalled the patterns of the resonating sand in the introductory sequence of the show last season I explained that the vibrations of sound bringing order and shape to chaos that we see in the intro sequence recalls the music of the inor the creation of the world through music that we read about in the opening pages of the selan the similarity of the stranger magic to that visual effect seems very important to me an implication that his power operates by tapping into or resonating with that fundamental music of creation also notice that as the stranger is attempting to Rouse the tree he says the word Quia which means Awakening he appears to be trying to awaken the sleeping or dying land around him the trees are dead and they do not respond even to his appeal in tolkien's World evil power is often surrounded by desolation an area of land touched by that evil and made infertile and dead the stranger appears to be trying to work against that power to bring life back to the Desolation The Stranger fails bringing only further destruction to The Land by blasting the already dead tree the tree doesn't bring forth fruit and instead only infestation the swarm of horrible cockroaches that spill up out of the tree trunk seem at first like a mockery of the fruit that they had hope to find but Nori turns failure into Victory she sees not a horrible infestation but a bountiful Feast her friend has saved the day again it is a delightfully unexpected reversal the most intriguing question about our friend the blue wizard is his wizard staff this is a complicated question in tolkien's works and the answer really is not clear what is the nature of a Wizard's staff does it contain magic does it Grant power if a wizard loses his staff is his power reduced the stranger's desire to control his power and his vision of his wizard staff gives us a clue to how this whole staff business is going to work in the rings of power it's clear in any case that they're planning to invest in this issue a good deal more one final note on the Run spy The Observer the final sequence here has a very marked effect we see norian the stranger through the spy's eyes and the view is distorted bizarrely looking almost like the faceted sight of an insect it gives the impression of something monstrous something inhuman then we turn and see the Spy himself and he's looking through a cracked spy glass he's not inhuman at all but then he pulls down the spy glass and G we see nothing but a hideous metallic death mask with empty black sockets he's dehumanized even more once again we're given a sense of a ravaged creation it's as if we're seeing a person twisted like the dry dead lands around him whatever the other blue wizard is up to it is not good my favorite moment of episode one was the stranger speech about his memories he says he misses his home even though he doesn't remember it there's a connection that goes beyond conscious thought indistinctly touching only his dreams and his feelings he speaks of glimpses and a longing that he can't expl laain this idea touches on a very important theme in tolk's work many of his characters have a sense of home and a longing that they can't resist forever elves long for the sea faramir off in dreams of numor and Sam wonders what's going on back home this isn't just about loving something and missing it when you're gone the stranger neither loves nor remembers his home the longing is deeper than that and the Glimpse is more powerful as a result this phenomenon is derived from a deeper sense of belonging of true home elves long for the sea because Elven home lies across the sea faramir dreams of numor because it's in his blood it is the true home of his people the true home to which they can never return Sam himself senses that Hobbits in some deep way belong in the Shire this theme of longing and belonging comes up quietly in several important ways in episode one Nori and Poppy miss their family and their home but there's more than that through the walking song and their new understanding of it the harfoot get glimpses from their ancestral past glimpses that they don't yet understand at all the struggle is real for the elves who are caught in an interesting conflict they don't want to fade and go into the West it would be a responsible to fade the people of middlee Earth need them and yet gadriel remembers the light of valinor shining on her face and kyen stands gazing out over the horizon staring into the West that he has not experienced but for which he also Longs Adar has a vision very different from sauron's Young Sauron speaks of the Orcs being worshiped as Heroes but he's clearly thinking only of his own Glory Adar wanted to establish a home for his children for they've never had a place where they truly belonged interestingly Adar and the Orcs are the only people in the whole show who've discovered a newfound belonging who are trying not to recover something or to return to something but to keep that which they have found I don't know to what extent this is going to grow into a larger theme in this season but its emergence in episode one was a delightful surprise the nature and status of Orcs is one of the most complicated issues in all of tolken and the rings of power continues to embody this issue in some really complicated and interesting ways in sauron's speech at the beginning of episode 1 he calls the Orcs a corrupted and ignoble race worthy only to be hunted and slaughtered now this exactly illustrates what we actually see through most of the published Lord of the Rings remember legis and gimle bragging at the Battle of Helms Deep about how many Orcs they had hunted and slaughtered it was a game to them right tolken had his own transformation over the course of writing I believe this happened while writing the Lord of the Rings Orcs originally for tolking were the perfect antagonists they were automatons run by the dark lord they were murder Bots which by killing them you decommission there was no moral implication to killing Orcs And he starts writing the Lord of the Rings this way and we can see that attitude the original attitude towards Orcs reflected in many of the characters in The Lord of the Rings but of course as the story of The Lord of the Rings went on tolking began to kind of problematize this a little bit he began to realize that wasn't going to work he had some philosophical problems with this and began to work out what that would mean how that would work and the problem is he never came to a satisfying conclusion about what the origins of Orcs were and therefore what the current nature of Orcs are he had many many theories one of those theories was that the Orcs are corrupted elves and his son Chris Christopher tolken chose that particular story to publish in the sil marilan that's of course the origin story of the Orcs that most people are familiar with now the rings of power comes along and not only illustrates that old attitude towards Orcs we saw it in gadriel in season 1 we hear Sauron speaking of it uh and we see it to be true with most of the good guys uh during the course of the story right but of course the rings of power is also leaning into the full significance of Christopher's choice to say the official because it's official now that it's in the published Saran the official explanation of Orcs is that they're corrupted elves adar's whole backstory reflects that his attitude towards the Orcs as his children the kind of humanization of the Orcs that we do see happening in the rings of power especially over the course of episodes 1 through three this is uh these are these are complexities that are in fact the results the the interesting thing of course is that some of these implications are exactly why tolken didn't like this theory he he was not sold on the corrupt elves Theory but Christopher had to choose one to put in the published Sil marilan we still get these callbacks like in Sauron speech to these older views and the rings of power therefore is inviting us to share in token's own growing sense of these problems as we see both of these attitudes towards Orcs competing over the course of the show okay we need to talk about sauron's body I know the black goo and the spaghetti monster it's a lot right there's so much that we could discuss about the relationship between the body and the spirit among the Mayar the beings like Sauron it's really complicated it would take as Sam says in the Return of the King a week's answer or none at all I did want to say this though there is a model that I think we should keep in mind when we're thinking about what's going on on during these early stages of sauron's rebuilding of his physical form first let's think about the visual cues that we receive from the show why does Sauron look like a spaghetti monster in the first place why are we seeing these black threads of darkness and Corruption making up his form well let's ask where do we see threads that look just like these of course the answer is in the diseased Tree in lynen when we see those black threads working their way up the trunks and infecting the leaves this implies of course that Sauron is involved this connects Sauron visually with the corruption of the tree in lynon now but where do we first see black threads like that in the two trees in valinor when we get the darkening of the trees way back in the prologue section of episode one of season 1 we see the Trees of Anor being corrupted and we see those black threads of evil creeping up the trunk and darkening the trees this is is associated with morgoth whose enormous Shadow we see looming over the trees there in the sky morgoth sauron's master so you see what they've given us here we see morgoth with the big Corruption of the huge trees in the first age and Sauron Associated apparently with the Lesser Corruption of the Lesser but parallel tree in the second age by the way this kind of pattern is exactly how things work in tolking time and time again where we see a thing happen in Big Picture mythical terms in the first stage and then almost exactly the same thing happen again in a later age in a smaller scale now but let's get back to the black threads of corruption overcoming the light by Darkness this seems to be close to sauron's Essence given that we see him that way in this in this early form right we see him starting off as a squirming sickening writhing mass of corrupting threads of Darkness now here's the second thing I think that we should remember we should be thinking about another character from the sil marilan that the show doesn't talk about but who's sort of lurking in the background I think and that's the character of ungoliant ungoliant is Darkness embodied she's like the demigod of Darkness itself and she takes the form of a giant spider she is the queen and mother of all giant spiders in all of tolk's world and she is dark darkness which hungers for light and life which devours that light and strengthens herself with the power of the things that she consumes the more powerful the thing that she eats the greater she becomes in the sil marilan it is on goolan who attacks the two trees setting her mouth to their trunks and sucking the light and life out of them she's not mentioned in the show but the creeping Darkness going up the trunks of the trees and the desiccation the drawing out of their light recalls her presence now what does Sauron do as he's trying to increase in strength he consumes the life of living creatures and the larger they are the greater he grows he kills and devours the rat and the centipede and grows a little bit larger he kills and devours the woman in the wagon and that gives him the power to be able to take on human form he's clearly not possessing her human form it's not her right he's not just e feting her and from that like I don't know what learning how to make a human form um it seems that like angolan Sauron is the shadow taking form the darkness strengthening itself with the lives of others okay so at the end of episode one saaron swears a vow to Adar and we all hear him fudge it swearing the vow to the Lord of Mordor instead of to Adar by name and there is of course a moment in The Lord of the Rings that we should be remembering here when Frodo captures Gollum and Gollum swears a vow to Frodo uh to obey him he swears to serve the master of the precious rather than serving Frodo by name and that parallel is a really interesting one what makes it particularly interesting is that gollum's own vow is one of the things that leads to his own destruction he is trapped in his own vow and it ends up helping to bring about his destruction but also the good the destruction of the Ring itself is this vow that sa is taking to Adar is this going to be part is this going to entrap him is this going to be in some way instrumental or at least uh foreshadowing the bringing about of ultimate good it'll be really interesting to see if we can see any further connections there okay another thing that jumped out at me in this episode was the reference to the etonm mores gilgalad speaks of throwing gadal in Fetters and casting her to the etor now two things first we can see in this a foreshadowing of the introduction of the gigantic troll damrod the word Eton means troll or giant when Aragorn translates the phrase the word etonm mores he translates it into troll Fells so we can see the troll coming here we get an oblique reference the second thing is that the eanm mores are actually very near to where Rivendell itself is located Ron who is currently in disfavor and at risk of being cast somewhere himself will in fact go out from Gil gall's court and go to the Eton Moors and live there and what's more he's going to do this soon Rivendell is founded by Elon during the war with Sauron over the rings of power now I don't think that this means that they're going to actually turn Rivendell into elon's prison camp or something but it's just a bit of an Easter egg I think it's just kind of funny okay one other fun talking parallel that I loved from this episode this was when Elon is standing on top of the cliff and goaled and Galadriel have both turned against him and are trying to get the rings of power from him and he's trapped and desperate and he jumps off the cliff into the sea below when he did this I admit I kind of cheered why why is this significant because he's doing exactly what his mother did so in the event that is called the third kinsing at the very end of the first age El Wing had the last saril and the sons of fanor who include celebrimbor's father and uncles came and attacked the camp and started killing the elves trying to get them and in the end there is elwing trapped on the edge of the cliff uh holding the saril and the sons of f are closing in trying to take it from her and she throws herself off the cliff and when she does she becomes a seabird and flies away this is why elon's clothes all have those seabird wings and feathers on the shoulders to remember the moment when his mother jumped off the cliff and turned into a bird escaping the grasp of their enemies this by the way is a very unflattering parallel for gadriel and gilgalad they are put by this parallel into the role of the feanorian trying to take the silo it's a it's a dark moment which suggests that Elon is not wrong to try to resist them on [Music] no well that's episode one I feel like we have barely gotten started this week is rather mad there are many additional elements that we are hoping to add but our main focus is to get three full episodes of analysis to you in this first week but in future weeks you can expect some new elements that you have never seen before on rings and Realms things like interviews and discussions with special guests including cast and crew from the rings of power as well as questions that you have given to us as our Kickstarter supporters so we want to keep you involved in this process and we'll answer as best we can so thank you for joining us please consider pledging your support on Kickstarter for rings and Realms and join us next time for episode two [Music] [Music] [Music]