For its fourth chapter, The Rings of Powerin Prime Videopoints to a tragic future. Miriel, the regent queen of Númenor, faces what seems like an impending cataclysm. Her dreams announce it, restless and fearful, in which the sea ends up completely devastating the enclave. Also, the signs around you.
The people of the powerful island are increasingly divided, in the midst of pride and the trace of a poisonous darkness. The territory that the gods gave to men after defeating Morgoth forgot its past.
Also the fragile convictions that sustained the collective spirit are collapsing with terrifying speed. Númenor is convinced that his preponderance, power and influence are unbeatable. At the same time, he is sure of the key element that symbolizes his sea fleet, with a reach that dazzles the rest of Middle-earth.
So his old alliance with the elves and his link with the gods seem distant, unimportant. Slowly, The Rings of Power begins to show the subterfuges of a looming disasterbut whose reason is still not entirely clear.
Is this a natural disaster at hand? Of something more complex? Showing the risk to one of the central places in Tolkian mythology, the series doesn’t go into too much detail. Despite the fact that it is one of the best known accounts of the appendices and the total work that it tries to tell. Perhaps, that is one of the most notorious problems of the script of the fourth episode.
The Rings of Power and its inability to tell the story that sustains it
With an enormous interest in the future of Númenor, the big question, which the narrative does not answer, is what is the danger that lies in wait? The Rings of Power he has obvious difficulty in weaving the story’s enigmatic background with the fraught political climate it depicts.
Between the two, Galadriel’s struggle to convince the Dúnedain of the danger to the south appears pointless and baseless. At the end of the day, these are hasty deductions — or so the series shows it — based on old clues without support. How can the Elf Lady demonstrate the physical reality of an enemy who was presumed dead or, at worst, harmless? The story raises its bet on the tensionbut there are no real points to delve into.
How to narrate Galadriel’s deductions based on what seems like an abstract intuition? Enraged and isolated, the Elven Lady’s diatribe against the queen regent lacks force and solemnity. Specifically, because the script does not show the real urgency that drives the daughter of Valinor. Do you perceive Sauron as a spectral presence in Auge? “I was blind, this is not a symbol, it is the map of a large-scale plan,” explained the character in the third chapter.
But in the fourth, the perception of his wisdom —the fruit of the Ages, experience and battles— is overshadowed by the need to impose his criteria. “Before, the elves and the inhabitants of this island fought together, can’t it happen again?”he asks with youthful impatience. One that, in addition, includes an unnecessary confrontation with power. If before Galadriel’s impulsiveness was an element that defined his spiritual strength, in the new episode it seems only weakness.
The Rings of Powerdifficulty in covering all the stories it outlines
The Rings of Power it fails to properly explore the real background of the conflicts it proposes. For the first time, it is clear that the breadth and complexity of the Second Age is perhaps incomprehensible for a linear argument. A problem that the production tries to overcome with a dazzling visual section and various nods to anecdotal points in the literary saga.
The feeling becomes more apparent when the script explores the unfinished events in Khazad-dûm. The kingdom of the dwarves keeps a secret. One of such total and transcendental importance as to even risk the lives of the miners of the race. But, again, the script chooses to analyze small events, which try to create an emotional and real connection between the epic and its characters.
Durin IV and Elrond discuss the barely outlined mystery. What is it that hides the excavations, risks and efforts of the race? The way the script analyzes it suggests that an event known to readers is coming. Is it about the arrival of “Daño de Durin”, a major tragedy centuries away that the series hints at almost by accident?
However, in the end, the great revelation refers to the existence of mithril, the mythical metal that would become legend in the Ages to come. References become confusing, excessive and unnecessary. To the extent of turning the friendship between the elf and the dwarf into unintended comic relief. However, the plot of Khazad-dûm is not of major importance, nor does it provide information or support for the main conflict of the season.
Halbrand, the supposed lost king and the questions around him
In the mythology written by Tolkien, Sauron is largely responsible for the fall of Númenor. He not only managed to manipulate the king and his subjects to take on the Valar. He also instigated them for a violent attack against Valinor. Everything, after being taken prisoner on the island in the middle of its inhabitants’ confrontation against the darkness.
Halbrand, the southern man without a past and still suspiciously anonymous, seems to fit Tolkien’s descriptions of a Sauron in human form. Much more, when the character caused his imprisonment and, for now, he is trapped on the island in the midst of internal conflicts. But the series, playing with its secrets with a clumsy pulse, insists that Galadriel be the one to make the most hasty deduction. “There is no king in your country, since you are the king,” insists the Elven Lady. The assertion, without greater depth, is another of the many unexplained events in a chapter full of them.
Of course, there are plenty of indications to suspect Halbrand as the incarnation of Sauron. But they are built with such little intelligence and solidity that the argument shows them as another of the many red herrings without resolution. In Númenor, power and destiny collide in what seems to be an inevitable cataclysm. Nevertheless, Halbrand remains a dark point and without much interestwhen it should be the opposite.
In the southern lands, darkness has come
“Adar” is the Elvish word for “father.” It’s what the orcs call the tall, pale creature who, of course, seems related to Sauron. But Arondir, a survivor of the massacre that took the lives of his troops, finds that Adar is an unexplained mystery. An elf who treats the monsters around him with compassion and respect. To speak slowly and elegantly.
Still, what could be a hint at the central villain’s plans or the way evil is embodied turns out to be a weak plot twist. “The lie has been told so many times that even stones and rivers believe it,” says Adar. “I’ll let you go with a message,” he then adds as he frees Arondir, making him the bearer of a disturbing announcement. This is what the argument suggests, although, in the end, the series again reserves the revelation for a more suitable moment. Which? There are no answers for that.
It is not clear what Adar’s intentions are, its nature or provenance. Nor, the dark treasure that Theo, the son of Bronwyn, found and that marked him as an unwilling ally of Sauron. Oddly enough, it is in the sequence showing the southern peoples that the existence of the corrupted Maia is first admitted. Even more unique is that he is related to the stranger who wanders Middle-earth in the company of the hairy ones. “I have seen the signs, it has fallen from the sky, Sauron is already here”says a character in a low voice, fascinated by the sinister portent.
It is clear that the series tries to make the identity of Sauron the great mystery of the season. But he does it so clumsily that the information on the subject ends up disjointed, without logic or meaning. Much more, when the indications about his power are ambivalent, fragile and messy. An error that the script should correct in the following four chapters, crucial for the coherence of its history.
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An adventure to nowhere The Rings of Power
So far the series The Rings of Power narrated the general context in which the central story of its premise will take place. A look not only at the geography of Middle-earth, but also at its races and the conflicts that bind them together.
But for his mid-season, the production argument seems to lose strength and, in fact, offers its least interesting chapter. The reason? The insistence of the script in telling the particularities of the enormous mythology on which it is based without great importance. In an increasingly complicated story, with no real substance to the central narrative.
In the end, there is a mission to accomplish and, of course, Galadriel will lead it. On his feet, in an unlikely stroke of fate, he is about to face his bitterest enemy. That is, if he is not actually moving away from Númenor to leave behind the threat he seeks, hidden in flesh and blood.