The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power reveals the origins of Mordor

The penultimate episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s first season packs an all-too-familiar reveal for followers of the Lord of the Rings, utilizing its remaining scene to convey an outdated favourite into the world of the present. We knew it was coming with the pressured eruption of Mount Doom final week, however “The Eye” makes it clear with none character really saying the phrase.

Because none of them can say the phrase but.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power episode 7, “The Eye.”]

Photo: Ben Rothstein/Prime Video

“The Eye” is all about the fallout from the eruption, as the Ostirith villagers, Númenórean troops, and our elven characters decide themselves up and confront their new actuality. But at the shut of the present, we come again to the architect of all this destruction, Adar, who encourages his orc kids to take off the cloaks and helmets that used to guard them from the solar. With the ash and smoke continuously spewing from Mount Doom, they received’t want them anymore. This is their new house, a land made for them.

Waldreg, the Sauron-loving villager, begins up a cheer of “Hail Adar, lord of the Southlands,” however Adar tells them that the Southlands not exist. When requested what they need to name it, Adar doesn’t reply, however simply gazes off fortunately at Mount Doom, as the textual content “The Southlands” seems on the display screen and burns away to disclose “Mordor.”

It’s a pleasant dramatic second, however it’s additionally type of humorous when you think about Adar in all probability wouldn’t name it Mordor anyway.

Wait, isn’t it Mordor?

Image: New Line Cinema

Yes, it’s positively Mordor. Sauron settled in Mordor in the Second Age, amassing energy and constructing the foundations of Barad-dûr, aka the massive eye tower in The Lord of the Rings. Sometime after that he ventured out in disguise to govern Celebrimbor into instructing him the way to make rings of energy, and he wasn’t found till he went again to Mordor to forge the One Ring in Mount Doom and put it on for the first time. Which is all to say: Adar’s little anti-Sauron orc neighborhood might not be lengthy for this world.

But the crux right here comes from the most basic — and nerdiest — origin of The Lord of the Rings: J.R.R. Tolkien was a professor of linguistics. And so most of the issues in Middle-earth don’t simply have names, however names in the setting’s a number of invented languages. The title “Mordor” itself didn’t come from orcs or any of Sauron’s forces. Dwarves known as it “Nargûn,” and Middle-earth’s elves coined the phrase “Mordor,” which implies “dark land,” that was subsequently adopted by people as effectively.

Adar, a man who defiantly refers to himself by the orc phrase for orc — uruk — somewhat than an elven label, doesn’t look like the kind to call his new land one thing elvish, a lot much less to call it one thing damaging. It additionally wouldn’t make a lot sense if he got here up with the title that elves would later use for Mordor on the spot. As an unique character, Adar’s additional arc is essentially unknown, however it appears secure to say that he’s not going to have an enormous impact on elven language evolution.

In this fashion, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s “The Eye” might have been the first time in cinema historical past the place rigorously abiding by the linguistic guidelines of a setting made a scene extra dramatic.