From our very first glimpses of Rings of Power‘s second season, we’ve known that Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel was building toward one of the Second Age’s biggest conflicts: the war between the Elves and Sauron, as the Dark Lord’s plans in Eregion come to fruition. But even before we get to that devastating event, the impact of season one has already done a lot to hit the Elves of Middle-earth in places they could never have expected.
High King Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker) and lone ranger Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova) couldn’t be on further opposites of the spectrum of Elvish society for much of season one. But after its climactic events and the opening of season two—where Arondir saw the life he’d begun to make among the humans of the Southlands fall apart under Adar’s horrifying assault and the explosion of Mount Doom, and Gil-Galad began to reckon with the fading of Elf-kind’s time away from Valinor—this looming clash in season two makes both Elves face common struggles about their people, even if their storylines by and large have yet to intertwine.
“We see how they both have to deal with the situation, and I think it humbles the High Elves,” Cordova told io9 at a recent press junket for season two. “While the lower class of Elves [like Arondir] are elevated. It kind of makes them a bit more in the middle, because these people thought they had this whole thing. [Arondir’s] been grinding and struggling for seven episodes in the mud, so when [the rest of the Elves] are like ‘Oh, what’s happening!?’, [he’s] just like ‘ugh…’. It’s a beautiful complication of the whole thing, of Elven-ness as a concept—it’s really turned on its head.”
Walker, playing the leader of Middle-earth’s Elves, sees that shared reckoning as a reminder of how great and terrible Sauron’s designs are. “[The Elves] are in a state of becoming, and it’s unique that this is where our show begins, because of all the experience we know they’ve had in the books,” Walker added. “In spite of that, where we find them, they seem to be the most unsure-footed that they’ve ever been. They’re in this state of becoming, and relearning some things they may have forgotten. As powerful as they are, it’s a testament to how powerful this evil is, that it’s blossomed right under our noses.”
With every trailer we’ve had so far indicating that both Gil-Galad and Arondir will find themselves in the thick of things as war comes to Eregion, it’s about time that evil comes out from under the noses of Elf-kind, and before their very eyes. Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power returns to Amazon Prime Video August 29.
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