While The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 episode 6 showed Sauron’s emotional manipulation and gaslighting, it’s in episode 7 “Doomed to Die” that we see his true cruelty. Some of this cruelty has been in big and obvious displays. You have the hallucinations that forced Celebrimbor into kind of a fugue state as he was creating the final nine rings for the humans. And you also have the destruction of Eregion. But personally, his true cruelty that shocked me was the death of Mirdania.
This young elf from Eregion and blacksmith, she could have easily fallen prey to cookie cutter writing that befalls women pulled into the circle of powerful beings, who are often men shaped. She could have sided with Sauron as a means of gaining a better position in Eregion. She also could have fallen prey into some sort of love and lust for Sauron. But she didn’t. She remained true to herself and how she wanted the best for her people no matter what. That’s why she put her trust in Sauron. And she paid dearly for it.
At one point, I truly thought that Sauron, if he couldn’t get Galadriel, he was going to take Mirdania, twist her about with his cruelty, and have his own queen. Or if a facsimile of the queen he wanted. And if he didn’t have to do something drastic in this moment with Celebrimbor, I think he would have kept her around. But the fact that he was able to so easily dispose of her so he could keep gaslighting was shocking. Logically, I know that Sauron is evil. I have learned that through the movies that I grew up with and The Rings of Power itself. But the simplicity of this cruelty when it came to Mirdania, it really shows that everyone is a pawn in his game.
Even what happened to Celebrimbor, that was cruelty. Sauron might respect Celebrimbor to a certain extent because this great blacksmith is creating the rings that Sauron needs to control everything. But he put Celebrimbor in a small little box and didn’t expect him to get out. Celebrimbor did. And him getting out even surprised me because I thought he was letting his vanity and religious experience with Annatar, be the guiding light. But Celebrimbor was stronger than Sauron expected him to be. And it’s a very small but delightful reminder to longtime fans that Sauron might be all-powerful, but he underestimates the power of free will and the strength of love, whether it be for friends or your community. Maybe even the entirety of Middle Earth.
“Doomed to Die” was very pointed in the power of free will and the strength of love when it came to the reunion between Elrond and Durin. That is the kind of strength that lasts decades and doesn’t dull with time. That’s what’s going to take Sauron down. Do I think that The Rings of Power could have done better by reuniting them sooner? Absolutely. One of the things that I think is missing from The Rings of Power in general is that they don’t lean into friendship as much as they should. That was the strength of the OG movies and The Hobbit and it should be the strength of The Rings of Power outside of the friendship between The Stranger and the two little halflings.
Then there’s Adar. While Sauron is manipulating minds and throwing young elves over city walls, he’s dealing with an all out war with the elves and the imprisonment of Galadriel as collateral. And he’s walking into his own death if I’ve ever seen one. Adar is so focused on protecting his family that he doesn’t realize he is on the cusp of losing them. Pushing them so hard, it’s going to be his destruction and it saddens me. Not only because he’s a father trying to save the orcs from a worse fate at the hands of Sauron.. His upcoming death also saddens me because The Rings of Power have managed to humanize the orcs and show that they’re more than just frenzied killers. They fear death like any other creature in Middle Earth. They have communities and families. They love. And they love Adar, with this war with the elves at Eregion being a test of that love.
Sauron is going to destroy the orcs and make them slaves. He’s going to give them no home besides the one he makes. And he hopes to do that to the rest of Middle Earth as a means of protecting them. What he doesn’t tell them is that he’s protecting them from himself like fantasy mafia boss. And if they annoy him, they’ll end up just like Mirdania, flung over a city wall, because she was a simple chess piece on Sauron’s journey to prove to himself and the world that he is stronger than Morgoth. Problem is, he never was and he never will be. And him trying to prove himself in this manner is going to be the death of him, which ends up being the best part of The Rings of Power as a whole.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power drops new episodes every Thursday on Prime Video.
