The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerfollows several threads from the time period in Tolkien’s saga focused on Sauron’s crafting of the titular rings, with one important thread being the that of the elves who chose to remain in Middle-earth. In every depiction ofThe Lord of the Rings, elves are understandably quite different from humans, with their characteristics forming the basis of tropes that continue to dominate fantasy writing.
Game Rant sat down withThe Rings of PoweractorsBenjamin Walker and Ismael Cruz Cordova, who portray the elven high king Gil-Galad and the silvan elf Arondir, respectively, to discuss their roles ahead of season two. They spoke about the challenges involved in portraying extremely long-lived elves, and they also shed some light on their characters' motivations, perspectives, and growth through the show’s first two seasons.
Elves Risk Their Immortal Lives To Remain In Middle-earth
Tolkienian elves are effectively immortal, only really dying if killed in battle. In turn, most elves are ancient by human standards and have borne witness to countless cycles of life and death around them, as well as the inevitability of evil. Benjamin Walker notes that this grappling with immortality is key to understanding the perspective of elves and particularly that ofa leader like Gil-Galad.
Well, one of the big hurdles to understanding this Tolkienian world is the amount of time they’ve experienced. It begs the question: When you’ve lived long enough to see everything and everyone you know and love die, and then over and over and over again, how do you muster the strength to continue to love?…These are the elves that chose to stay, so they have that yearning in spades. I really admire the characters in that they have the stamina to stay in Middle-earth, to understand the inevitability of evil’s resurrection, and in spite of that, fortify themselves as a group and protect a bunch of creatures on a big muddy rock. I think there’s something noble about them.
The elves shown inThe Rings of Powerare also notably theelves who chose not to head westto the Undying Lands of Valinor, instead opting to live in the far more dangerous continent of Middle-earth among the mortal races. Walker feels that there’s something noble about the idea of these people choosing to remain, risking their immortal lives to defend the land and its relatively short-lived inhabitants in a perpetual battle against evil.
Arondir Actor Ismael Cruz Cordova Was Inspired by Indigenous Cultures
As far as elves go,The Rings of Power’s Arondiris a bit of an outlier. Arondir has spent most of his time among humans, even falling in love with the human woman Bronwyn. However, Arondir is still an elf who has been around for well over a thousand years at this point. Ismael Cruz Cordova says that one way he prepared himself for this role was by considering indigenous cultures around the world which carry a strong sense of tradition, spirituality, and connectedness with nature.
When I was working and preparing to be an elf, it’s very hard for you to philosophically tap into that abstraction, but for me, what was very useful is that we do have those among us who can identify with some elven qualities: Indigenous cultures. These indigenous cultures carry this kind of spirit of what they’ve seen, what they carry through generations, and how they relate to the earth. It’s like this 1000-mile stare and their understanding of space, time, life, spirit… look no further than that. I think that that example helps you understand elvenness.
Cordova also noted that he feels Arondir has the potential over time to lose his “elvenness” and become more human than elf. If that’s the case,Arondir is a character worth keeping an eyeon as season two rolls out.
