RoP : S2 Ep 3: The Eagle and the Sceptre

Bullet time again, this concerning The Rings of Power season 2 episode 3, “The Eagle and the Sceptre.” Let’s get to it!

Mordor

• The episode begins with an immediate Jackson callback. This one invokes Brego, the bray horse that found and revived unconscious Aragorn in The Two Towers. Except this time it’s Aragorn’s ancestor who the horse, Berek, is on the hunt for: Isildur. Personally I don’t think it does the show any favor by constantly reminding us of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films.
• Did Jackson’s films break lore and deviate from the source material, too? Yes, in many ways, but not so many times and not in such fundamental ways.
• Berek eluding the Orcs was much fun. Berek is a good boy.
• Arachnids of all sizes are afoot in the spider cave! Brave horse!
• There is book precedence for Orcs hanging in giant spiders’ caves while still alive (Ufthak!). That’s legit. Nicely done.
• But was I the only one who thought about the still-living colonist hanging on the xenomorphs’ wall that Ripley encounters in Aliens? Arguably the most terrifying moment in that movie. It’s nice to have a callback that isn’t to Peter Jackson. Heh.

• The largest of the spiders that chases Isildur out of the cave could very well be young Shelob, or at least one of her elder children. This should be quite a while before they end up in Mirkwood. I had zero problem with Shelob appearing in this show, but hoped it would fit what’s right in the book that Amazon has rights to:

How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years few tales have come. But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness.

• I had envisioned Halbrand-Sauron (Salbrand) encountering her in the mountains when he’s in his Sith lord cape, the two regarding each other but not engaging; and then him walking on. Point of contact established but without words. The impression I get from the text is that these two know of what kind the other is, but they don’t care about each other except how the other proves useful. A cool, mutually beneficial relationship it would be.

• Instead we have a batch of Shelob’s brood (and maybe younger Shelob herself) who are laired in a cave within what the Orcs call the Black Forest. (Sorry, Germany! Did they even consult you?) Is this forest within the bounds of Mordor, so that the quote above is at least true, that Shelob was there before Sauron and before he even started to build the Dark Tower?
• I wonder: Will we see Isildur mention the spiders at all? Or was it just a bit of fan service to include them at all? I have zero problem with spiders being in and around Mordor at this time, of course! But were they just a random encounter?

Númenor

• This all starts out great. Shells placed upon the tombs of the fallen.
• Eärien is still a bit of a wild card. I’ll feel better about her invention if we still get an Anárion. If I had to guess, I’d say the show will simply swap the two, and Eärien will one day co-rule Gondor with her brother, and statues of the two of them will become the Argonath. Or she’ll represent a division in the family (because TV shows like to invent conflict and filler sometimes) and she’ll stick with Pharazôn and become a casualty of Sauron’s puppet rulership of Númenor someday.
• The more I remember that Sauron has already been to Númenor in this show, the sillier it seems. But ehh, there are worse changes.
• Like the palantíri and how in Amazon’s hands they’ve become stereotypical high fantasy fortune-telling crystal balls instead of the unique communication devices Tolkien made them. The fact that in the show, this particular palantír has been forecasting Númenor’s fate (which is the books is an event so unexpected that Sauron and the Valar are both surprised by it) to absolutely anyone who touches it definitley irks me.
• The guards are slow to act when Míriel is slapped. Have they studied the nonaction of Elven guards? The actors are all doing fine; the show’s direction makes this all feel so contrived.
• But in general I love the tension of this scene, and both the humanity and humility of Míriel. This stuff works for me. I like Míriel and Elendil a lot.
• Pharazôn is being appropriately suave and slimy! I contine to wonder what direction they’re going with this. Will he forcibly marry his cousin or have him seize power simply by popular demand?
• At the restaurant, Pharazôn’s friend says, “Much of this land still believes that yours was the better claim.” Better claim? The show has devised a new system, then, for its monarchy? Míriel was the daughter of the king, and Pharazôn was the nephew. He has no claim, while she lives. But presumably there was a vote somewhere?
• I like Valandil. Pharazôn’s invented-for-this-show son (who is his mom?!) needs a mouthful of teeth.
• Pharazôn has the palantir swiped, presumably by Eärien.
• Míriel’s coronation starts off interesting, but then it goes off the rails. The palantir is revealed. Eärien is definitely backing the wrong horse! The guards are ineffective again.
• An interesting callback (to episode 1, not to Jackson this time): Someone in the crowd shouting, “Queen of lies!” is a kind of echo to an Orc shouting “Sauron lies!” Both unpopular with the crowd. I wonder if it means anything.

• An Eagle! Love it. Why not?
• Still, the way this scene ends is deeply dissatisfying. For one, when in doubt, the show makes idiots of people. One guy chanting Phar-a-zôn! Phar-a-zôn! Phar-a-zôn! and then the crowd picking that up like it’s an American sports rally feels so far outside Tolkien that I just keep wanting them to change the names and just let this be a different fantasy story.
• So the people of Númenor ultimately start to follow Pharazôn instead of their rightful Queen because
  • (a) there’s been a strong anti-Elf sentiment that Pharazôn represents (have they even used the phrase King’s Men?), and Míriel recently led a battle because an Elf asked her to;
  • (b) Pharazôn simply walked over to the Eagle instead of anyone else; and
  • (c) that one dude started up the sports chant.
• That’s all it takes to sway the mightiest realm of Men in Arda.
• Nowhere in any of the Númenor story do we see a disatisfaction in the people about their mortality. No remarks about their jealousy of the Elves’ immortality. No obsession with stopping death. Do we know if Númenóreans in this version even live longer than normal? Maybe they don’t.

Back to Mordor

• I do not mind seeing Orcs not wanting to go to war. There’s precedent for that within Tolkien’s work.
• I do not mind evidence on screen that there exist Orc-women (we saw that in the prologue already) or Orc-babies. This is canon no matter how you slice it. Arguments against it are stupid. People are making a Mt. Doom out of a mole hill.

• Where things go from there is another matter.
• People hating on the show online, with no nuance, are somwhow insisting that Tolkien’s Orcs can’t possibly have families, or even babies. People arguing with those people are saying they do have families, and there are women and baby orcs. The latter have it right, but why do the discussions end there? Orc-babies being a thing is real enough, even if they’re never written about.
• But what a familial unit is like . . . well, that’s a big can of worms that Tolkien danced around. He didn’t open that can, but the internet wants to. Just know that once you do open it up, it’s all speculation across the board and no one’s going to be “right.” No one’s opinion will be “canon.”
• Having some form of sympathy for Glûg (who seems to be Adar’s executive assistant) as an Orc-dad is . . . fair enough. Really, it’s fine. But Tolkien never delved below the surface when it came to Orc personalities beyond what we see in Uglúk, Gorbag, Grishnákh, and Shagrat. (And possibly one or two more.) Every single Orc we do meet is nasty, petty, selfish, and yeah, they only go to war because Sauron or Saruman is making them. Left to their own devices, they would lack the mojo for big-scale conflict but would still be ill-tempered raiders who fight amongst themselves and treat intruders like the Great Goblin and his minions treated Thorin and Co.
• Does this mean there couldn’t be an Orc free from moral corruption? In theory, maybe, but my assumption is they’d be killed off pretty quick in Orc society. Whatever Orc society looks like. We never know!
• In the first episode of this season, Glûg is present (leading Halbrand up to Adar in chains) while Orcs are murdering the Men who refuse to bow. We can say, “Aww, this Orc has a baby,” but don’t likewise assume he wouldn’t murder a human baby if Adar told him to (or maybe if he didn’t).
• Incidentally, I’ve explored the changing portrayal of Orcs in Tolkien’s legendarium a few times before:
  • “Tolkien’s Orcs: Bolg, Shagrat, and the Maggot-folk of Mordor” (The Hobbit | The Lord of the Rings)
  • “Tolkien’s Orcs: The Din-horde of Morgoth” (The Silmarillion)
  • “Tolkien’s Orcs: Boldog and the Host of Tumult” (The History of Middle-earth series)

Pelargir

• Isildur heads to Pelargir. On the way he meets a callback to the Dead Marshes. It’s been too many minutes since the last callback.
• He also meets a girl, Estrid, and some Adar-serving bandits. Estrid must have bowed to Adar at some point to get her special brand. I’m assuming she did this to survive, and will end up one of the good guys. But why not insert a mystery box whenever possible?

• Arondir and his Legolas-invoking acrobatics are back! Well, I do like him and find he’s one of the few Elves in this show who feels like an Elf.
• Re: Bronwyn’s passing. A shame. I liked her. It’s the Newt-from-Aliens-3 situation again. A lot of time and energy went into trying to save her toward the end of season 1. Oh well. That won’t mean so much on a rewatch now.
• Of the means of Bronwyn’s dying, Arondir says, “There is a foulness in Orc arrows not easily forgotten by human flesh.” Which seems a good reason, except that if the actress playing Browwyn had decided to stay on the show (she left on her own accord, for good reasons of her own), he wouldn’t be saying that and mortals could often survive Orc arrows, I suppose.
• That’s at least the second time the show has used the word “human.” Since they’re setting aside Tolkien’s nomenclature, why not just stop saying “Men” and embrace the term “human” all throughout?
• Theo, Theo. Where are we going with this kid? Fans like to say he’ll become the Witch-king someday. But the showrunners want to surprise people, don’t they?
• Isildur’s heart-to-heart with Estrid is pretty great. I feel for him more now. It’s a shame his mother’s death has to be forever tethered to the Númenóreans’ ridiculous mantra of “The Sea is always right.”
• Ents! Bring them on!
• Fingers crossed.