With The Rings Of Power Episode 5, the show is officially past the halfway point. “Partings,” the fifth episode of the season, accelerates the pace a little. Episode 5 visits almost every member of the large cast, advancing their storylines at a far faster rate than what we’ve seen so far after Episodes 3 and 4 concentrated on a few storylines at a time.
The fifth episode of Season 1 is full of action, with a fast-paced story of Harfoot’s wanderings, urgent Nmenórean expedition planning, and a long-anticipated siege in the Southlands. We also finally return to the political drama unfolding in Lindon, where a large dining table full of powerful individuals gathers to discuss some rather obscure details including friendship, mithril, the immortality of the Elven race, and Silmarils.
Also, there are a lot of Easter eggs and references to the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and the books itself and we’ll be going through them one by one.
Here are all the Rings Of Power Episode 5 Easter Eggs:
The Cultists
We pan up to the sky from meteor man to show the moon, which will no doubt please fans of the theory that he is the Man in the Moon from Frodo’s song in Fellowship of the Ring. The scene then shifts to The Stranger’s crash site, where we get our first look at the people I’m referring to as the cultists. I think they are likely people who are loyal to Sauron in some form or fashion and likely worship Morgoth.
The armored one seems to have an eye symbol on her neckpiece, perhaps representing the eye of Sauron – which as we know from the books is not a manifestation of any form of Sauron, but rather an emblem that stands for his unceasing vigilance and piercing gaze.
We get a close-up look at the shady-looking gal from the trailer, who is apparently called The Dweller, with the other two being The Ascetic and The Nomad. A quick google search tells me Ascetic is a person who practices severe self-discipline and abstention, which I don’t know, maybe she is abstaining from food and this is an empty tray she carried around, hard to say.
Though, on the back of whatever it is, we see the constellation that The Stranger was drawing back in an earlier episode. It seems the Dweller here is maybe doing some magic, or just got her hand dirty while checking out the footprints, and maybe it’s just the light, but it sure seems her cloak became a lot more grey than white. Either way, they’re definitely on the trail of Meteor Man.
The Creation Of Mithril
So the story goes that one of the silmarils is hidden in a tree at the top of the Misty Mountains. An elf, with a heart as pure as Manwe pours his light into the tree to protect it, while a Balrog channels his hatred into the tree to destroy it. The tree gets struck by lightning and allegedly creates Mithril – a power as Gil-galad says as pure and light as good and strong and unyielding as evil. And…I have thoughts.
No, this is not a scene from one of Tolkien’s books. As far as the silmaril being hidden in a tree, it’s very odd as we know where the three silmarils are. One is the light we see of Earendil’s star, one is thrown in the sea by Maglor, and one Maedhros takes with him into a fiery chasm at the end of the First Age. Unless a tree somehow grew out of the fiery chasm of Maedhros, the idea that a silmaril was hidden in a tree is kind of nuts.
Real quick, I think this may be another instance where we have not an adaptation of a First Age event, but some visual inspiration of one. This shot of the elf and balrog fighting on a precipice calls to mind the great elf Glorfindel who fought a balrog during the Fall of Gondolin, saving many fleeing the city including Earendil and while we don’t know for certain, possibly Celebrimbor.
Glorfindel is a character who could very well turn up in this series, for while he die in the battle, he is re-embodied by the Valar and sent back to Middle-earth around 1600 SA, around the same time the Blue Wizards arrive.
Celebrimbor From Gondolin
Next Celebrimbor says he was there the night Earendil set sail for Valinor, which actually does check out, as Celebrimbor did live in Gondolin before its fall and the survivors of Gondolin – including Earendil and his parents fled to the Havens of Sirion in the south. He calls Earendil “a mortal man, who believed he could convince the very Gods to come to war in our aid.”
While I would much prefer elves to refer to them properly as the Valar, I saw a number of people take issue with Celebrimbor calling Earendil a mortal man. However, at that time when he set sail, Earendil was indeed considered a mortal. In the Silmarillion it says “Then Eärendil, first of living Men, landed on the immortal shores…”
The Creation Of Mithril Being False
All right, so in summary, we have a silmaril, hidden in a tree, struck by lightning while being fought over by an elf and a balrog that creates mithril. The tree in Lindon is dying because…something…and that means the elves will die because….reasons.
So I’ll say I’m not the biggest fan of this setup as I’m pretty sure this is heading toward the elves needing to save their lives leading to the creation of the rings of power, rather than it being a result of Celebrimbor’s hubris in wanting a way to make glorious realms in the image of Valinor that don’t dwindle with the passing of time. In short, this whole mithril origin story to me felt like over-explaining.
Part of what I love about Tolkien is that he’s perfectly fine with some things being left a mystery, and I think I would’ve been ok if the elves just believed mithril to have magic properties that could forestall the decays of time. It’s just my opinion, but that would’ve been enough for me rather than coming up with a complicated explanation for how mithril was made and without tying the lives of the elves to the problem.
I think that this creation of the mithril story is false. Elrond even says the story is regarded by most to be an apocryphal tale – widely circulated, but untrue. Add to this an interesting quote from last week from Adar…”You have been told many lies. Some run so deep, even the rocks and roots now believe them.”
Could all of this – the decaying of the Lindon tree and mithril being some salvivic material for the elves, indeed just be a lie sewn in Celebrimbor’s mind by a certain fair visage whom we’ve not yet met, and passed to unwitting peoples of Middle-earth?
Gil-galad And Lives Of The Elf
Even that, though, would diminish the role of Gil-galad and Elrond of not trusting Annatar, though I suppose the loophole could be they haven’t met him themselves. Either way, I will say the Gil-galad we’ve gotten so far is kind of a jerk. You’d think he was the one raised by Feanoreans rather than Elrond the way he’s acting – not to mention spying all creepy like on Elrond and Durin. That being said, I’m open to the idea of a bit more jerk-ish interpretation of Gil-galad in the beginning, but by the time of the War of the Last Alliance, we’ve got to be fully rooting for his character.
There can be an arc here, but we’ve got to love this dude when the time comes. As for the lives of the elves being tied to the decay of their realms, I expect folks will be pretty divided on this. It’s very similar to how in Return of the King Elrond says Arwen is dying because of the evil of Sauron. While it provided some extra motivation for Aragorn, it’s totally made up for that purpose. For a lot of folks, the way you feel about that addition to the Return of the King film will probably be similar to this.
Numenorean Armors
Isildur gets aboard and its revealed Elendilm has assigned him the post of sweeping the stables. Galadriel arrives in the Numenorean-gifted armor and we see Halbrand in the reddish armor from the poster days along with the swords he was making. Elendil is the captain and future king we would all follow as they make for Middle-earth.
Now that they’ve been revealed in the show, I’ll say I’m personally not the biggest fan of the Numenorean armor we see here. While I like incorporating the fish scale design, it feels a bit much and kind of looks like it would be weak. Maybe paired with green chest plates it would look better. I think Miriel’s gold armor definitely looks better, but the soldiers kind of look like a sea of beige.
I know some have said they don’t like the horse tails on the helmets and the horse swords, but knowing that Numenor’s central region of Mittalmar – in which the capital is located – is famed for its horses, I think this makes sense. Also, you can look at the swords as being seahorses to get the best of both worlds. That being said, I do rather enjoy Elendil’s helm, as it calls to mind the helms of Fountain Guards in the Return of the King. Incidentally, the helms of the Guards of the Citadel in Gondor in the books are made of – you guessed it – mithril.
Marshes
We get a brief montage of the Harfoots in motion early in Episode 5. The map shows them passing locations such as Trout Bend, Thistledell, The Braids, and Weedbrook, among others. The names Undercliffs and the Grey Marshes, which are located close to each other on a prominent region of the map, stand out more than the others in these two locations.
The first is the Emyn Muil, the dangerous stretch of steep terrain that Frodo and Sam have to cross just before they encounter Gollum hundreds of years later. The swampy area close to the flat area that is later referred to as the Dead Marshes is known as the Nindalf, the Grey Marshes directly adjacent to them. That is the weird quagmire that Frodo and Sam find themselves in when they pursue Gollum to the Black Gates of Mordor. But when the Harfoots come through, the place isn’t haunted. The “Rings of Power” story addresses that later.
And lastly, who can resist a nice Peter Jackson reference? We see the Poppy, Brandyfoots, and the Stranger making their way through the marshes as the map fades. They are surrounded by flying insects, which immediately brings to mind the scene in “The Fellowship of the Ring” wherein four Hobbits accompany Strider through the Midgwater Marshes, a fly-infested bog. The only thing we want to know is what they eat if they can’t get Harfoot.
The Wolves
A wolf pack attacks the Harfoots while they are traveling early in Episode 5. The Stranger stops the attack with some surprising magic, sending the four-legged creatures running for shelter. Although the creatures have been referred to as wolves on the show, it really doesn’t take much to realize that they aren’t your typical wolf. We’re ready to assume that these animals’ enormous upper bodies, oddly formed snouts, and somewhat hoof-like paws have a purpose.
Early in the Second Age, “Men dwelt in darkness and were plagued by many horrible things that Morgoth had created in the days of his rulership: demons, and dragons, and malformed beasts, and the filthy Orcs that are imaginings of the Children of Ilvatar,” according to “The Silmarillion.” It’s kept unclear and uncertain how those deformed monsters were mentioned. Maybe these monsters aren’t just wolves, but rather a variation of the twisted and distorted beasts referenced in Tolkien’s original writing.
Aragon Reference
I really like this montage and we get some nice heart-filled moments with the hobbits and meteor man. And as we see Meteor Man look to the sky, we get the line in the song, “Not all who wonder or wander are lost”, which plays on the popular line from the poem about Aragorn. Since hearing the song, I was kind of torn on whether I liked this reference or if it was just a cheap connection, and I’ve actually grown to like it. Knowing that it was Bilbo who wrote the poem about Aragorn, it actually could make sense that he would borrow from an old adage passed down through generations of hobbits.
