by Rings Of Power spell Mordor for the audience
There was so much wrong with episode 7 of it The Rings Of Power, but the last moment of the episode takes the cake.
After all is said and done, we return to the dark elf, Adar, and his orc troops, along with his new lackey, Waldreg.
They wander around the ruins of the village, surrounded by ash and fire, having a jolly old time finally free from 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 it’s not the Southlands anymore.
“What shall we call it then?” asks Waldreg.
Adar doesn’t answer. A small smile forms on his face and the camera pans away to show the burning landscape, Mount Doom smoking and lava gurgling in the background. As the camera opens, the words THE SOUTHLANDS appear on the screen.
These words fade and MORDOR appears in their place.
This might be the dumbest thing this show has done yet. There’s no reason to have the word superimposed on the screen instead of Adar just saying it, for one thing. He could have just said that word, or he could have answered with elves and said something like “We’ll call it the shadow kingdom” and we would have seen the translation in the subtitles. Mordor it basically means shadow realm, so that would work.
Or, alternatively, the show could have simply left the name Mordor unsaid. It’s pretty obvious at this point that this is Mordor. It is evident from Episode 3 when Galadriel realizes that she has the map to the Realm Of Evil.
The creators of the series on Amazon are spoon-feeding it to the public when there really is no need. It’s set up as a big, shocking twist, as if the producers and writers thought this all up expecting the audience to be surprised by the revelation, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Sure, maybe some people who aren’t familiar with Tolkien and Middle Earth, who haven’t read The Lord of the Rings I haven’t seen the trilogy either, I haven’t put two and two together. But if you’re so oblivious to the story, then a Mordor reveal won’t be a big deal anyway.
I have to ask—once again—who exactly is this show for? Who is the intended audience? No one to know The Lord of the Rings will be impressed or surprised by this revelation and anyone who isn’t interested certainly won’t care or understand why it matters.
It’s just another moment of muddled creepiness in a show that started out with some potential but has since gone off the rails, jumping shark after shark in the process.
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