The Rings Of Power spells out Mordor for the audience
There was a great deal wrong with Episode 7 of The Rings Of Power, but the final moment of the episode takes the cake.
After all is said and done, we come back to the dark elf, Adar, and his orc troops, along with his new lackey, Waldreg.
They’re mucking about in the ruins of the village, surrounded by ash and fire, having a jolly old time finally rid of the sun.
“Hail, Adar! Lord of the Southlands!” Waldreg says, eager to impress his vicious new boss. The orcs pick up the chant, but Adar cuts them off, telling them that it is no longer the Southlands.
“What should we call it then?” Waldreg asks.
Adar doesn’t answer. He gets a little grin on his face and the camera pans away to show the burning landscape, Mount Doom smoking and gurgling lava in the distance. As the camera pans out the words THE SOUTHLANDS appear onscreen.
These words fade and MORDOR appears in their place.
This may be the single silliest thing this show has done so far. There’s no reason for the word to appear superimposed on the screen rather than Adar just speaking it, for one thing. He could have just said that one word, or he could have replied in elvish and said something like “We will call it the Shadow Realm” and we’d have seen the translation in the subtitles. Mordor essentially means shadow realm, so this would work.
Or, alternatively, the show could have simply left the name Mordor unspoken. It’s very obvious at this point that this is Mordor. It’s been obvious since Episode 3 when Galadriel realizes she has the map of the Realm Of Evil.
The show’s creators at Amazon are spoon-feeding this to audiences when there’s really no need. It’s set up like some big, shocking twist, as though the producers and writers came up with all of this expecting audiences to be surprised by the reveal, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Sure, maybe some people totally unfamiliar with Tolkien and Middle-earth, who have neither read The Lord Of The Rings nor seen the trilogy, haven’t put two and two together. But if you’re that ignorant of the story, then a Mordor reveal won’t be a big deal anyways.
I have to ask—once again—who exactly is this show for? Who is the audience supposed to be? Nobody who knows The Lord Of The Rings will be impressed or surprised by this reveal and anyone who doesn’t surely won’t care or understand why it matters.
It’s just another moment of baffling cringe in a show that started out with some potential but has since gone well off the rails, jumping shark after shark in the process.
What did you think of Episode 7? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook or in the comments of my YouTube review. Thanks for reading!
