Rings of Power Before Season 3 v3 1080p

The Fellowship of the Ring opens at the end of a war, the last alliance of elves and men, Isildur cutting the One Ring from Sauron's hand. The Rings of Power is the road that leads there, thousands of years of it, in the Second Age. Here, the rings are made. Season 1, the 3 for the elves. Season 2, the 7 for the dwarves, and the 9 for men. Season 3 heads for the One. Every one of them has the same hand behind it, Sauron's. And he arrives as Halbrand, a ragged survivor on a raft, nobody's idea of a threat. You would make me a tyrant. I would make you a queen. By the end of Season 2, he has killed Celebrimbor and taken the Nine. So how does the man on the raft get from there to here? And how did everyone let him? Let's start at the beginning. Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, has fallen. His servant, Sauron, has vanished. The war is over, everyone says. Galadriel, the elf Cate Blanchett played in the films, will not let it go. She has already lost her brother Finrod to this hunt. In Forodwaith, she finds an abandoned fortress with Sauron's mark on it. Proof he is still out there. Gil-galad, the elven High King, does not want proof. He declares the war over and sends her to Valinor, the paradise across the sea. The hunt is By order. Within sight of Valinor, she leaps from the ship into the Sundering Seas. She would rather drown than stop. In the Southlands, the elf Arondir is growing close to Bronwyn, a village healer. The village of Hordern is found destroyed. Bronwyn's son Theo goes into the barn of a villager named Waldreg and finds a broken sword hilt. It carries Sauron's mark. The same mark Galadriel found in the north, in a different land. Whatever Sauron was doing, he was not finished. Far away, a Harfoot named Nori Brandyfoot, one of the small folk who will become hobbits, finds a man in a meteor crater. He fell from the sky. Nobody knows who he is. We will call him the Stranger. Three storylines, one mark. A world that has just been told the danger is over. Galadriel swims back and finds a raft of shipwreck survivors. Something rises out of the water. A sea monster. It kills every one of them but a single man. Halbrand, from the Southlands. The monster took everyone else. It left him. Nori and her friend Poppy Proudfellow hide the stranger and feed him. He uses fireflies to trace a constellation he is searching for. Arondir is captured in tunnels under Hordern. In Tirharad, an orc attacks Bronwyn and Theo. They kill it, and the town flees to the Tower of Ostarith. Gil-Galad sends Elrond, a young half-elf diplomat Hugo Weaving played him in the films. to help Celebrimbor build a great forge in Eregion. Then, Elrond visits Khazad-dûm, the dwarf kingdom the films call Moria. Prince Durin IV is furious that Elrond has not come in twenty years. Twenty years may be the blink of an eye to an elf, but I've lived an entire life in that time. It is Disa, his wife, who persuades him to listen. Elendil, a ship's captain, carries Galadriel and Halbrand to Numenor, an island kingdom of men ruled by the descendants of Elros, Elrond's brother. Elendil is the father of Isildur, a young Numenorean. In the films, Isildur is the man who cuts the ring from Sauron's hand. Miriel, the queen regent, rules in the place of King Tar-Palantir. She refuses Galadriel a ship. Pharazon, another Numenorean, is a name to keep. In the library, Galadriel learns that Sauron's Mark is a map of the Southlands. Then she learns that the man she pulled from the sea is heir to the Southlands throne. Galadriel takes it for luck. In the Southlands, Arondir is in an orc digging camp. His fellow elves rise up, and the revolt fails. Then he is brought before Adar, the leader of the orcs. The name means father. The Harfoots migrate, and the stranger pushes Nori's wagon. Their elder, Sadoc Burrows, keeps the Harfoot's Book of Lore and reads the stars for them. Miriel imprisons Galadriel. In the Southlands, Adar frees Arondir with an ultimatum for the Southlanders. Swear fealty or die. Orcs hunt Theo for the hilt, and Arondir saves him. Waldreg, who kept it in his barn, says the sword is Sauron's gift to men. In Eregion, the forge begins. Elrond learns that Durin IV is mining Mithril, a rare metal. He promises Durin he will tell no one. The elves need the forge, the dwarves need their secret kept. Then Miriel looks into a palantir, a seeing stone. She sees Numenor drowned beneath a great wave, and she believes Galadriel is bringing it. That is why she locked her away. She does not fear a war, she fears the sea closing over her people. That wave has not arrived yet. The white tree's petals fall. The faithful say the petals fall when the Valar weep, a sign the gods are turning away from Numenor. Miriel takes it as a warning. Miriel decides to sail with Galadriel to the Southlands. The stranger saves the Harfoots from wolves with magic, then nearly hurts Nori while healing himself. She is afraid of him now. The same power that saved them could just as easily hurt them. Waldreg leads half the Southlands refugees to join the orcs. Arondir works out that the hilt is a key, meant to enslave the people of the Southlands. What Waldreg called a gift is a leash. In Lindon, Gil-galad tells Elrond that Mithril could stop the elves from fading. Halbrand does not want to go back. He accuses Galadriel of using him. She finally opens up, and he agrees to go. Numenor's ships depart for the Southlands, with Miriel aboard. At the Tower of Ostarith, there is a trap. The orcs come, And Arondir brings the whole tower down on them. Then the battle at Tirharad, the town the refugees fled. Bronwyn is badly wounded. Theo has kept the hilt from the orcs through all of this. To save his mother, he gives it up. Then the Numenoreans charge in on horseback and the battle turns. Galadriel and Halbrand take Adar alive. You seemed intent on finding Sauron. One might even say, consumed by it. And the Southlanders hail Halbrand as their King. Nobody forced the crown on him. Nobody had to. It was held out and he took it. A man who climbed off a raft now holds a kingdom. Waldreg, the villager who led half the refugees to the orcs, has the hilt. He has called the hilt a gift from Sauron. Now he finds what it opens. A dam. Water pours through the tunnels the orcs have dug and into the dark below. Every Southlander, elf and orc, is standing on that ground. It reaches a lava chamber under Orodruin, the mountain the films call Mount Doom. The mountain wakes, and then it erupts. Ash and fire bury the Southlands. The kingdom Halbrand was just given is buried. A whole country under ash. The sky turns black. Ash falls over what is left of the Southlands. Miriel is blinded. Isildur is presumed dead. Halbrand is gravely injured. Galadriel takes him to the elves for medicine. She brings him in through their own doors. The stranger tries to bring a dead orchard back to life and nearly hurts Nori and her sister. The Harfoots send him away. By morning, the orchard has regrown. Then three mysterious women, the Mystics, who are hunting him, destroy the Harfoot caravans. Beneath Khazad-dûm, Elrond and Durin IV are caught mining mithril. Elrond is banished from the Dwarf Kingdom. He leaves with a piece of the metal. Durin IV loses his royal status. Durin III, the dwarf king seals the mine. The dwarves think they have shut away a secret. Something lives far below. A Balrog, the same kind of horror the films put in Moria. The southlands are renamed Mordor. The mystics, the three women who wrecked the Harfoot caravans, find the stranger. They tell him that he is Sauron. They have the wrong man. He banishes them. He says he is a wizard and that he must go east to Rhûn. Nori, whose people have just lost everything, goes with him. In Eregion, Halbrand makes a suggestion to Celebrimbor. Small objects, made of mithril. The metal Gil-galad believes could stop the elves from fading. Halbrand knows exactly what the elves fear most. Celebrimbor listens. Miriel and Elendil return to Numenor. King Tar-Palantir has died. Numenor has no king. For the first time, Galadriel checks the records of the Southlands kings. She has trusted him through a sea, a war, and a volcano. The records say otherwise. The story falls apart. Halbrand is not who he said he was. She goes to him. He does not argue. He stops pretending. He is Sauron. He does not threaten her. He offers her a throne beside his. She refuses. He flees to Mordor, the burned land he had been crowned king of. He never broke into the elves' world. She brought him in herself. The raft, the monster, the map, the crown, the medicine. Every door opened from the inside, and she tells no one. She urges Celebrimbor to make three rings instead, and he listens to her too. Elrond finds the same records and works it out. Too late. The three rings of power are forged. Sauron walks into Mordor. In Eregion, three new rings of power are cooling, born from his idea, made by elves who thought they were saving themselves. He never had to take them. Season 2 opens at the dawn of the Second Age. Sauron tries to take command of the orcs. Adar, their leader, turns them against him and they kill his body. But a body is only a body. His spirit survives, and slowly, patiently, it builds a new one. That one becomes Halbrand. Among the elves, the three bring a quarrel. They began as an idea Sauron planted, and now Gil-galad, the High King, wants to use them against Sauron. Elrond will not hear of it, and carries the rings to Círdan, an ancient elf lord. Círdan, Galadriel, and Gil-galad each put one on. The elves' power is restored. Far to the east, the Stranger and Nori are lost on the road to Rhûn. Poppy follows them, alone. In Mordor, Halbrand finds Adar, the one who destroyed his last body, and tells him Sauron has returned. Adar will raise an army to destroy Sauron. Halbrand will go to Eregion. An army outside the walls, and a friendly face inside. Nobody in Eregion knows he is coming. First storyline. Eregion. Celebrimbor wants to make something that outlives him. One day, a visitor waits at his gates. Celebrimbor knows the face. It is Halbrand, the man who once suggested making small things from Mithril. He promised Galadriel he would never speak with Halbrand again. He speaks with him. And the name is new. Anatar. Lord of Gifts. Emissary of the Valar. I can unlock your grandest abilities. You know what stands at that gate. Celebrimbor does not. Annatar speaks of the Valar, of craft, of things that last, and Celebrimbor hears his own dream spoken back to him. Celebrimbor believes him. Annatar offers rings, for the dwarves and for men, and everything he offers is something the smith already wanted. Durin III, the dwarf king, sends the mithril, though his son distrusts the stranger. Then Celebrimbor hesitates over the rings for men, and Annatar presses, gently at first, then harder, until he gives way. Every favor shuts another door behind him. The guest becomes the host. Annatar takes over the running of Eregion, inside Celebrimbor's own walls. He was never forced in, he was invited and then thanked. One of Celebrimbor's smiths, Mirdania, warms to Annatar at once. She slips on one of the new rings and sees a monstrous shape in the unseen world. Annatar tells her the shape was Celebrimbor. She believes him. Then he hands the smith a container and calls what is inside Mithril. Celebrimbor accepts it. Second storyline. Khazad-dûm, the dwarf kingdom under the mountain. The eruption at Mount Doom shakes its halls to their foundations. Durin III and his son Durin IV are still estranged. Then Durin III puts on his ring, and the light returns to Khazad-dûm. It restores his kingdom. It also feeds his greed. Disa, the prince's wife, warns him of an evil below. With the ring on his hand, he will not listen. Third storyline. Galadriel. She has a vision of Celebrimbor's death. She knows who first put the idea of rings in his head. She sets out for Eregion with Elrond leading the way, by a dangerous route. They fight through Barrow-wights and walk into Adar's army. Galadriel gives Elrond her ring, Nenya, and sends him to warn Gil-galad. She stays behind, and Adar captures her. Adar tells her Morgoth's crown destroyed Sauron's old form, And that the crown, with the elven rings, might destroy him again. Then she understands. Sauron lured Adar's army to Eregion. The army outside and the man inside belong to the same plan. The siege begins. Fourth storyline. Numenor. Eirian, Elendil's daughter, exposes Miriel's secret use of the palantir, the same stone that showed her Numenor drowned by a great wave. Miriel, the blinded queen, is crowned. At the coronation, a great eagle appears. Nobody agrees what it means. A courtier, Belzagar, claims it signals Farazôn. Soon, he is king, Ar-Farazôn. Ar-Farazôn's son, Kemen, kills Valandil, a friend of Isildur's. Isildur's father, Elendil, takes the blame and is arrested. His sentence is trial by the abyss, and the abyss holds the sea worm. We are to walk the path of the faithful. It must be me who takes the first step. Miriel takes his place. It spares her. The faithful, her followers, call her Queen of the Sea. Fifth storyline, The Stranger. A dark wizard's riders hunt him across the east. He summons a sandstorm with his staff, loses control of it, and Nori and Poppy are swept away. He meets Tom Bombadil, a strange figure out of Tolkien's books. Nori and Poppy find the Stoors in a desert Desert Canyon, the people the Harfoots once came from. The Stoors want nothing to do with them, until Nori names her old elder Sadoc Burrows. They know that name. Long ago, a Stoor called Rorimus Burrows left the canyon to find a greenland of cold streams and never came back. Their leader, Gundabel, hopes these two can finish his search. Tom sends the stranger into a forest of dead trees to find a staff of his own, and the stranger sees a vision of the dark wizard threatening Nori and Poppy. Last storyline. Isildur. He is alive. Giant spiders had him, until his horse Beric saves him. He meets Estrid, a woman who secretly carries Adar's brand, and hides it. Arondir, grieving Bronwyn, who died between the seasons, rescues them. Her son Theo joins them. The Ents, who guard the trees, capture Theo and the wild men over tree felling, and let them go when Arondir promises to protect the forest. Five episodes on, the army stands at the walls of Eregion. And the man inside is still welcome. The siege tightens. Orc trebuchets bring down a rock slide that blocks the river. Eregion is cut off. The orcs reach the walls. Elrond begs Durin IV for help. Durin IV refuses, and Elrond must leave without him. Inside, Celebrimbor is forging the Nine, the rings for men. He works, and something is wrong. The longer he works, the less the room feels real. He senses an illusion. He turns on Annatar. No emissary of the Valar would do this. Annatar tells him the truth. The container never held Mithril. Nine rings for men, and every one of them was made with Sauron's blood. The smith who forged the three has forged nine for Sauron. Celebrimbor stands in his own forge, with Sauron. The walls are surrounded, the dwarves have not come, and the one who planned it all is at his shoulder. On the wall, Myrdania begs Celebrimbor to come inside. With Sauron in his head, he throws her over the edge. Outside, Elrond returns with Gil-Galad and the army of Lindon, and they attack. In the chaos, Galadriel, still Adar's prisoner, escapes with Arendir's help and sneaks into Eregion. Celebrimbor knows exactly what Annatar is now. He gives Galadriel the Nine and stays behind to delay Sauron. One smith against the Dark Lord. At sunrise, Adar leads a new wave. The dwarves do not come. Adar stabs Arendir and takes Nenya from Elrond, the ring Galadriel trusted him with. The finale runs four storylines. First, the east. The dark wizard offers the stranger Sauron's old place. The stranger rejects it. The Stewards migrate, with Nori and Poppy among them. And the stranger finds his staff. Holding it, he comes to believe what he will be called. Gandalf. That's what they're going to call me, isn't it? Now, Numenor. Ar-Pharazon learns through a palantir that Halbrand was Sauron. He accuses Miriel, and the faithful are arrested. Elendil escapes west with Narsil, the sword that, broken, will one day cut the ring from Sauron's hand. Kemen claims the city of Pelargir, and Isildur leaves Estrid with Hagen, the man she was promised to. Now, Under the Mountain. Deep beneath the Mithril Mine, the Balrog attacks Durin III. He names Durin the Fourth King, and fights on as the cavern collapses. Finally, Eregion. Celebrimbor holds on. One smith, delaying the Dark Lord for as long as he can. It is not long enough. Sauron kills Celebrimbor, and Adar returns Nenya to Galadriel. Then, the orcs he led, disillusioned, turn on him and kill him. The orcs drag Galadriel to Sauron. He wants her at his side, and she refuses. They fight. He stabs her with a point of Morgoth's Iron Crown and takes the Nine. Rather than lose Nenya too, she leaps from the cliff into the river below. Elrond finds her, and Nenya draws the darkness out of the wound. Durin IV, a king now, finally sends his army. Gil-galad, Elrond, Arendir, Galadriel and the survivors escape to a northern valley and resolve to oppose Sauron. So, this is where Season 3 begins. Sauron holds the Nine. Galadriel, Elrond, Gil-galad and Elendil are sworn to fight him. Durin IV is king, with a Balrog below. In Numenor, Ar-Pharazon rules. Miriel stands accused, And Elendil is on the run with Narsil. And a wizard carries a staff, and a name. Celebrimbor is dead, and Sauron holds the nine. So how does the man on the raft get from there to here? And how did everyone let him? They invited him. Sauron never broke down a door. He gave Galadriel a kingdom to lead, Celebrimbor a legacy, the dwarves their light, and the elves their power. Each took what they wanted most, and opened the door themselves. It jumps several years ahead, To the height of the war between the elves and Sauron as he seeks to forge the One Ring. Who's most to blame for Sauron's comeback? Galadriel, Celebrimbor, or Gil-galad?