Much of the conflict in The Rings of Power so far has focused on Sauron’s machinations with his oldest foes in Middle-earth, as he schemes his way into the undoing of the Elven kingdoms. But alongside his rise and return, we’ve also had a glimpse of another major power on Arda coming to the fore: the isle of Númenor, and with it, two very intriguing figures who are ready to start facing their destiny.
We’re talking about, of course, Elendil and Isildur. Played by Lloyd Owen and Maxim Baldry in Rings of Power, the father and son we met in season one were far from the doomed Kings of Men we met in Galadriel’s haunting prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring. Elendil, a stalwart sailor and soldier with the ear of Queen-Regent Miriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), and Isildur, his rebellious son eager to prove himself and explore the world beyond his island home, both offered surprising differences to their more famous future selves—differences compounded when the season climaxed with tearing them apart in the wake of the Númenorean’s disastrous intervention in the battle for the Southlands.
But now separated, the two men can slowly begin their journey into season two toward becoming the men who will lead the Last Alliance to Mount Doom itself at the climax of the Second Age. For Elendil, this involves forging an even stronger connection to Miriel, after she was blinded in the aftermath of the Southlands battle and returned to Númenor to learn of her father’s death, placing the island in political turmoil. “Once she becomes blind, Elendil has to be her eyes,” Owen told Entertainment Weekly as part of a new cover story. “So he sees and informs, she interprets what he sees, and thus Elendil learns. This is a leader in training for where we ultimately have to get him.”
Isildur’s path to heroism is a little less high-concept, and certainly less glamorous. “I’m awoken in a cave and I have to fight my way through Shelob to get to safety, which is an obscene way to start a season,” Baldry added. “It’s a story of survival and it’s a story about ‘be careful what you wish for.’ He grows from a boy into a man and has to learn who to trust and who not to trust.”
Most Lord of the Rings fans watching Rings of Power already know how the story of Númenor, and Elendil and Isildur goes, but it’ll be interesting to see how, in the context of what they set up with these characters in season one, the series begins to slowly but surely draw them toward our more familiar understanding of them.
Rings of Power returns to Amazon August 29.
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