In its nature as a prequel, Rings of Power has to do a lot to set up the Lord of the Rings story we’re already familiar with—establishing certain landscapes and events, and setting up characters we know to be shaped into the people they’ll be by the time of the Third Age. Sometimes those connections are more subtle, sometimes they’re more direct, but its latest not-so-Easter-egg was a fun way to remind of us of the world that was… before the show begins to plummet it all into darkness.
“Halls of Stone,” the latest episode of Rings of Power season two, catches us up on where the show’s disparate storylines in Eregion and Khazad-dûm are at, and unites them together briefly in a fun little moment. Celebrating the creation of the seven rings for the Dwarven realms, Lord Celebrimbor invites Khazad-dûm’s lead miner Narvi to his Forge at the heart of Eregion for both a brief celebration of Elf-kind and Dwarf-kind establishing stronger diplomatic relations again, and to work together on a physical reflection of that relationship. We pull back in the scene as Celebrimbor and Narvi tell us that these massive stone doorways, a mix of Dwarven and Elven crafts, will form the new western entryway to Khazad-dûm: the fabled Doors of Durin.
We see those doors, of course, thousands of years later in the books and of course the movie adaptation of Fellowship of the Ring, and their magical riddle of “Speak friend, and enter” that initially puzzles Gandalf and the Fellowship. But it’s more than just a fun nod to the future here, it’s a reminder of the bright world we’re already losing in Rings of Power as darkness tightens its grip across Middle-earth, and the tragedies to come for both Eregion and Khazad-dûm in the wake of it. We know very little about Narvi and the creation of the doors in Tolkien’s original writings, other than what we essentially learn here in Rings of Power: they were the product, early into the Second Age, of Celebrimbor and Narvi’s lasting friendship over many years, a gift to mark the edges of Eregion’s kingdom and the beginning of the mountainous realm of Durin’s Folk.
The doors were enchanted with a simple spell. From the inside, they could be opened with a simple push like any other door, but to gain entrance you had to follow the instructions etched by Celebrimbor on the door’s surface in Ithildin, the specially forged form of Mithril that shone brightly in the light of the moon, and otherwise remained almost invisible: say the word “Mellon,” Sindarin for “Friend,” and they’d open up.
The story of the doors, of course, turns tragic, just as much as the tale of the Dwarves and Elves is slowly beginning to turn in Rings of Power. When Sauron’s forces sacked Ost-in-Edhil, Eregion’s capital, during the brewing War Between Elves and Sauron, the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm rallied with support of a contingent of Elves from Lindon to save Elrond’s army from total destruction at the hands of the Orcs. Although they managed to buy Elrond time to escort the survivors of Eregion’s fall and his remaining forces away to eventually go and establish the refuge that would become Rivendell, the Dwarves and their Elf allies were pushed back: the Dwarves sealed the Doors of Durin, and left them sealed for thousands of years after, even as the kingdom itself fell to the gobins and the Balrog. In time, the knowledge of how to open the doors from the exterior was lost, until Gandalf and the Fellowship uncovered them in their journey in the Third Age.
Even if we’ve only just seen the doors being built and offered as a moment of friendship—after everything Elrod and Prince Durin went through over Mithril in season one—in Rings of Power, we’re already on the precipice of the dark events that would seal them for years to come in the show. The same episode that introduced them began to tee off the escalations of Sauron’s manipulations as Annatar, as he convinced a doubtful Celebrimbor to craft nine rings of power for the leaders of humanity, and in Khazad-dûm itself, King Durin was already beginning to find himself ensorcelled by the effects of his own ring, ready to start delving deeper and deeper below the mountains and eventually uncover his kingdom’s doom. But even with that inevitability, it was nice to have a brief moment of light in the coming darkness on Rings of Power—a reminder of what is capable when Middle-earth’s denizens come together in peace and unity, rather than mistrust and violence.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
