We then come to another bit of text that’s a little bit more informative this time – “Before the Ring”. This is another reminder that, yes, this is a prequel, but it also tells us that the series will start before the forging of the One Ring, one of the events it is likely to show us. In fact, we now know that the planned five seasons of the show will seriously compress the thousands of years of history of Tolkien’s Second Age, and we will actually see Aragorn’s ancestor and thief of the One Ring, Isildur (Maxim Baldry). If we stuck to Tolkien’s timeline, he wouldn’t be born for several millennia! Given this time compression, it seems very likely that we will see the Rings, or at least some of them, forged towards the end of season one.
Elves, Isildur, Prince Durin IV and Celebrimbor?
After that we see lots and lots of very quick glimpses of various different characters and settings. We see a flaming arrow, then a shot of a well-dressed Elf man whom we think is Celebrimbor, played by Charles Edwards. Viewers may recognize Edwards from his stint impregnating Lady Edith and then disappearing off to Germany in Downton Abbey, but here he plays the Elf who forged the Three Elven Rings secretly and separately from the others, to keep them out of Sauron’s influence.
We see Galadriel leading a charge on horses, then a person holding a flaming torch, whom we think might be Isildur, though it’s such a dark, quick shot it’s hard to tell. Isildur in this series has been described as “a sailor” – he’s more familiar to Tolkien fans as a King of Gondor, but he was born in Númenor, so a background in sailing does make some sense.
After that there’s a brief shot of a monstrous creature of some kind, flashing by too quickly to make out much of what’s going on!
Some more text appears, telling us, “A new Legend begins this Fall”, we see some more waterfalls, and then a friendly-looking dwarf. This is Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur), presumably during the reign of his father Durin III, King of Khazad-Dûm, better known to movie fans as Moria. Neither of these are the Durin who caused the Balrog to be known as ‘Durin’s Bane’ in the books, but since the series is compressing events into a much tighter time frame, they may end up suffering an unfortunate Balrog encounter in later seasons…
Young Elrond, a Dwarven Princess and Sauron?
We get a lingering shot of a young Elrond, next to a large rock that could almost be part of a forge, but it doesn’t tell us much about what he’s up to.
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