Exactly how old is High King Gil-galad on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power?

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the likes of Frodo and Bilbo and Aragorn were born. But there are still characters from the original Lord of the Rings story around during this time. That's because a lot of the characters are elves, who are immortal.

In fact, the elven characters are already pretty old by the time of The Rings of Power. Galadriel, who's our main elven point of contact, is 2,425 years old at this time. The elven diplomat Elrond is a comparatively spry 1,755 years old.

But what about the High King Gil-galad, to whom both of these characters answer? After doing some math, we've figured out that he's around 1,832 years old at the time of The Rings of Power.

• Gil-galad, whose original name is Ereinion, is born in the year 455 during the First Age of Middle-earth, back when the elves were fighting against Sauron's boss Morgoth, the original Dark Lord.

• Morgoth falls in the year 590, which brings an end to the First Age. By this point, Gil-galad is already acting as the High King of the Noldor elves following the death of Turgon, the last High King. Gil-Galad is 135 years old at the end of the First Age, whereupon the calendar resets back to zero for the Second Age.

• The Second Age lasts for over 3,000 years and Gil-Galad is High King for pretty much all of them, serving in the position for far longer than any of his predecessors. Although it's hard to pinpoint exactly where in the timeline The Rings of Power is — the show collapses many events from J.R.R. Tolkien's lore — the series is about to adapt the siege of Eregion, which happens in the year 1697 of the Second Age. That makes him around 1,832 years old where the show is right now.

New episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power drop Thursdays on Prime Video.

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