After years of speculation, Amazon finally dropped a teaser trailer for its Lord of the Rings prequel show The Rings of Power over the weekend. This series is set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, long before the Fellowship of the Ring was even a glimmer in Gandalf’s eye. That means we’re getting a very different story than the one we know, although younger versions of immortal characters like Galadriel and Elrond will still be around.
But of course, one does not simply watch a trailer…one breaks it down! We’re going to go through this puppy shot by shot and parse out every bit of information we can. In case you need the refresher (or heck, just want to watch it again), here it is below:
Breaking down The Rings of Power teaser
We start with a sweeping shot of a ship sailing beneath a bridge and into a great port city. The camera trails up, giving us a quick glimpse of a bridge with a huge sunburst pattern on it before we get a shot of the city proper. There’s a huge statue of a guy with a sword standing among its white buildings.
Most likely this is a port on Númenor, an island country ruled by a long-lived raced of humans from whom Aragorn is descended. The starburst pattern of the bridge matches that on the weapons and armor we’ve seen on Númenorean characters in posters for the show. The mountain in the background may well be Meneltarma, the Holy Mountain in the center of the island. Finally, the statue resembles the Argonath, those huge statues that mark the border of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings. The Argonath statutes were built by descendants of the Númenoreans, so think of the statue above as a dry run.
That said, it’s possible that this is a port in Lindon, a region of Middle-earth populated by elves and known for its ports. The general opulence makes us think of Númenor, though.
Next: another sweeping shot, this one of a mountain range that opens up to give us a view of two druid-y looking guys. All we really have for these guys comes from the Vanity Fair first-look article that was released last week, which labels them as “nomadic hunters wandering the fields of Middle-earth.” They appear to have horns from some giant elk or moose on their backs.
Nori the Harfoot
"There’s wonders in this world beyond our wanderin’. I can feel it."
From there, it’s on to our first look at a character up close. The lucky folks at Vanity Fair have already gotten to watch the first few episodes of the show and confirmed that this character is named Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (played by Markella Kavenagh). She’s the one narrating the trailer’s opening moments.
Nori is a harfoot, the Second Age ancestors of hobbits. And boy does the particular accent and speech pattern she’s using here remind us of Samwise Gamgee.
Galadriel goes mountain climbing
Next up is another vista revealing a massive waterfall. Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is climbing it, using a dagger to pick her way up the icy cliffside. To our knowledge Tolkien never wrote about this particular adventure of Galadriel’s, but she was known to go her own way.
Note the sunburst designs on her shoulders. It’s slightly different than the one on the bridge in the teaser’s opening shot, but similar enough to have us intrigued.
Halbrand makes his escape
We cut to a stormy sea, and a guy on a raft struggling to stay afloat as his little craft is tossed about by the ocean. From the Vanity Fair piece, we know that this is Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), a new “mortal” character made up for the show. We’re taking the mortal to mean human, which we’ll touch on again when he reappears later in the teaser.
Arondir the Silvan elf
Next up we have a couple of slow motion shots of an elf catching an arrow in mid-air and then restringing it onto his own bow. It’s been confirmed that this character is Arondir, played by Ismael Cruz Córdova. He’s a Silvan elf (aka a wood elf) who will have a relationship with a human village healer named Bronwyn.
Gil-galad, High King of the Ñoldor
From there, we see what appears to be a meteor flash across the sky, with a rather concerned-looking elf watching from the ground. Vanity Fair confirms this is Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker). He is High King of the Ñoldor, a clan of elves who left the blessed realm of Aman even before the beginning of the First Age. Gil-galad is a pretty central figure to the Second Age, and eventually leads the elves in fighting Sauron at the end; that’s the battle we see at the beginning of Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring movie.
As for that meteor, we’ll circle back to that in a minute.
A wizard is never late…and Galadriel doesn’t want to be either
Our next shot is pretty self-explanatory: Galadriel races across a grassy field on horseback with mountains in the background. Judging by the fact that the other horses are wearing similar armor to her own, we’re betting she’s leading this group somewhere and not being chased.
Someone delved too deep
These next two images are a pair, so we’ll discuss them together. We can’t say for sure whether this character is human or elven — though the chainmail coif draped over their head looks pretty similar in design to the one Galadriel is wearing earlier in the trailer. Regardless of race or allegiance, this warrior appears to be in a bit of trouble as a monster looms up out of the darkness to chase them down a subterranean tunnel.
We’ve got no set name for this creature yet — Tolkien’s works have a pretty extensive bestiary, so it could be one of many. But it looks like it could be an ancient type of troll. We also must note that it has a beard and what appear to be shaggy shoulders embedded with gemstones. Whatever it is, we want to know more.
Next up we’ve got a quick shot of a majestic tree overlooking a waterfall with nothing but sky beyond. Several white-robed figures stand around the tree on what appears to be a platform. They look like elves to us, but this shot happens so fast it’s hard to parse out much detail beyond that.
One detail we can discern, however, is that there appears to be one figure wearing a golden cloak standing in front of what looks like a ceremonial plate near the edge of the waterfall.
Durin IV
The beautiful woodland vista fades into a shot of a dwarf looking teary-eyed. We don’t know what’s got his beard in a bunch, but we do know that this is Durin IV, played by Owain Arthur. Durin is the King of the Dwarven city of Khazad-dûm, aka Moria, and a central player in the Second Age. We expect to see quite a bit of this guy over the course of the show.
Elrond
Speaking of Khazad-dûm, our next shot is of Elrond, an Elven diplomat who is being dispatched to gain the friendship of the Dwarves at the beginning of the show. Elrond was played by Hugo Weaving in Peter Jackson’s films, but for The Rings of Power Amazon has tapped Robert Aramayo, who played young Ned Stark in Game of Thrones. It’s not clear what’s going on here, but it looks like he’s holding a hammer and feeling pretty exhausted. Maybe the Dwarves are putting him through some kind of test?
The Dwarven Princess
The shots grow quicker as we reach the climax of the trailer, but before we move on from Khazad-dûm we’re given a glimpse of one more character: Princess Disa (Sophia Nomvete), King Durin’s wife. We’re not sure what she’s up to in this shot, but the gold dust on her hands lets us match her to the appropriate promo poster. To hear Vanity Fair tell it, she’ll be much more receptive to Elrond’s offer of friendship than her husband. It sounds like Khazad-dûm may give us our first big dose of politicking this season.
Galadriel and Halbrand adrift
Next we’re back to Galadriel. This time she’s on the raft with Halbrand, who pulls back her hair to discover that she’s an Elf. Vanity Fair talked a little bit about the journey these two take together at the beginning of the show, hinting that “Galadriel is fighting for the future; Halbrand is running from the past.” They’re stranded together in the Sundering Seas by Episode 2.
A harfoot and a harbinger
We then get a brief glimpse of a bearded and seemingly naked man being helped out of a flaming crater by a small person. From Vanity Fair, we can say with certainty that the man is actor Daniel Weyman, and that the girl is the harfoot Nori. Remember that fiery comet we saw a few shots back? Apparently, that was Weyman’s character crashing down to Middle-earth. We don’t know anything about this character, aside from that it seems he’ll be forming a friendship with the young harfoot. Leave it to hobbitses to bring out the friendship feels in any Lord of the Rings property.
Although this does raise questions. What character could possibly crash down to Middle-earth inside a comet? Are we bringing extraterrestrials into this?
Maybe, although there is some precedent for characters occupying the heavens of Middle-earth. After Eärendil the mariner successfully sailed to Aman towards the end of the First Age, his fate was to eternally sail the sky with the Silmaril that Beren and Lúthien had taken from Morgoth. And beyond the skies of Middle-earth there live Ainur — basically gods — who never descended to this plane. Perhaps one makes a crash landing?
Durin, king of rock chopping
The next quick shot is of Durin IV chopping a big ol’ rock into bits with a single swing of his hammer. What’s with that rock? Why’s he chopping it? Just one of the many mysteries this trailer leaves us with.
Arondir takes flight
The fall of Durin’s hammer leads straight into a leaping strike from Arondir’s axe. Though this is a quick shot, we we can tell it’s Arondir because the wristbands he’s sporting here match those he’s wearing earlier in the teaser.
The bigger question is: what’s he doing? Take note of the fact that he has a chain trailing from one of his ankles as he leaps, swinging this axe not at a foe, but seemingly at a log. Has he been captured and is trying to escape?
The War of Wrath?
The last action shot is of a battle scene, with elves in golden armor facing off against orcs in black. Some eagle-eyed Reddit user has pointed out that this appears very similar stylistically to artist Alan Lee’s depiction of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. This was a major defeat for the elves and their allies which then led into the final battle that ended the War of Wrath, the great conflict between the dark lord Morgoth (who was Sauron’s mentor and boss) and the forces of goodness that marked the end of the the First Age.
The Redditor’s theory is that The Rings of Power may begin with a depiction of the War of Wrath much in the way that The Fellowship of the Ring began with a montage of the battle that defeated Sauron, and we’re inclined to agree. We note the very teary look in the main elf’s eyes in this shot. When you have a major conflict that’s specifically named after the tears shed over it, that has to be intentional, right?
More hands
And of course, the final image of the trailer is…hands! If there is one major marketing tool this show is using, it’s the many elaborate ways to convey emotion with hands. This shot is confirmed by Vanity Fair to be Daniel Weyman’s character and Nori the harfoot.
And there you have it! What do you think? Do you have any theories about what we’re seeing in any of these images, or about how the show might interpret the events of the Second Age? Let us know in the comments.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres September 2 on Prime Video.
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