In a Sophomore season filled with standout moments, Season 2, Episode 7 ofThe Rings of Powerdelivers the most thrilling installment ofPrime Video’sTolkien adaptation yet,giving audiences one of Middle-Earth’s most exhilarating on-screen siegessince Helm’s Deep. Betweenthe installment’s muddy battle sequencesand Celebrimbor’s (Charles Ewards) gut-wrenching realization that he’s been manipulated by Sauron (Charles Vickers) this whole time, “Doomed to Die” is an excellent yet brutal episode of television that raisesThe Rings of Power’sstakes ahead of this week’s Season 2 finale. What’s more, despite Sauron’s dramatic illusions and the arrival of the Elves' glittering army, the episode actually containsa brief name-drop that is just as important to the series as the fall of Eregion.
During his negotiation with Elrond (Robert Aramayo) towards the beginning of the episode,Sam Hazeldine’sAdar urges the Elf commander to trade the imprisoned Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) for her ring of power, Nenya, in order for him to combine its powerwith Morgoth’s Crownand kill Sauron once and for all. Towards this end,Adar compares Elrond directly to his foremother, “Melian of the Valar,” before urging him to possess even a sliver of her wisdom. The scene quickly moves on from this mention, pivoting intothat shocking Galadriel-Elrond kissin a way that makes Melian feel like just another name dropped from Tolkien’s vast legendarium, butthe figure is nonetheless crucial to understanding the full history behindThe Rings of Power.
Just Who Is Melian, and How Does She Connect to ‘The Rings of Power’ Season 2?
Despite being mentioned solely in relation to Elrond duringThe Rings of PowerSeason 2, Episode 7,Melian is actually an ancient spirit whose roots go back to the beginnings of Middle-Earthand the larger world of Arda. InThe Silmarillion, she is initially described as being ofthe race of the Valar, but she is specifically a spirit of the Maiar, the people of the Valar who possess similar attributes though less overall strength. Melian, in particular, is said to be the most beautiful Maia in Valinor’s Gardens of Lórien during her early days in the West, and she is described as serving the Valar Vána and Estë, the former called the Ever-young and the latter known for healing pain and weariness. Around this time,Melian also gains renown as Valinor’s most skilled singer, enchanting the Valar with her beautiful melodies as the lights ofValinor’s Two Treesmeet and even teaching nightingales their song.
When Middle-Earth’s first Elves awaken in the Bay of Cuiviénen, Melian leaves Valinor to fill Middle-Earth’s silence with her songs and the music of her birds, andthis flight proves incredibly consequential for the history of Tolkien’s Elves. Shortly after their awakening, three groups of Elves trek west towards Valinor at the Valar’s request, and the last of these early migrants, the Teleri, are resting in East Beleriand when their king, Elwë, becomes drawn to Melian’s nightingales in the woods of Nan Elmoth. What follows is one of Middle-Earth’s most infamous love stories, asMelian and Elwë are so enchanted by one another that years pass before they break their amorous trancewith words. Afterward, Elwë becomes known as Elu Thingol, king of the Grey-elves, or the Teleri that stay behind with him on Middle-Earth. Melian subsequently assumes the Queenship of this new kingdom, and it is from this mixed line thatThe Rings of Power’sElrondis eventually born.
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Melian’s Legendary Marriage Offers a Stark Warning to Galadriel in ‘The Rings of Power’ Season 2 Finale
Aside from experiencing a magical love story that created one of the most famous Elf lineages in the history of Middle Earth,Melian also protects her kingdom’s borders of Doriath with a magical girdle upon Morgoth’s return from his imprisonment in Valinor, and she is equally infamous for her daughter with Elu Thingol, Lúthien,who is said inThe Silmarillionto be the most beautiful being that was or ever will be born in Arda. In an early parallel to Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Arwen’s (Liv Tyler)love story inThe Lord of the Ringstrilogy,Lúthien subsequently marries the mortal man Beren Erchamion in an early example of an Elf-human relationshipin Middle-Earth’s Second Age. This union solidifies Melian’s association with cross-species couples in Tolkien lore, but this overarching association alsooffers an increasingly important precedent forThe Rings of Power’sGaladriel.
As the only Maia in the history of Middle-Earth to have married an Elf,Melian’s relationship with Elu Thingol directly parallels the unresolved tension between Galadriel and Sauronin Season 2 ofThe Rings of Power. Sauron, a member of the Maiar who served the Vala Aulë before being corrupted by Morgoth, has already attempted to introduce a dark foil to Melian and Elu Thingol’s marriage withhis proposal to Galadriel in Season 1, and the Dark Lord’s desire to set things right with his would-be queen will undoubtedly come to a head in this week’s finale. As the carrier of the nine rings of mortal men, Galadriel must keep Celebrimbor’s final creations out of Sauron’s hands in orderto prevent the creation of the Nazgûl, but as this season has repeatedly proven,the Great Deceiver’s influence is hard to banishonce he worms his way inside your head.
Given the fact that Melian’s marriage ends in tragedy with the death of her husband, whose slaying at the hands of Dwarves permanentlydamages Elf-Dwarf relations on Middle-Earth, the dark conclusion to the loving Maia’s story serves as a warning to Galadriel heading into this week’s episode. Just as Sauron is corruption incarnate, Elu Thingol’s greed over his possession of a Silmaril marks the end of Doriath’s legendary union, demonstrating thata Maia-Elf pairing can’t survive so long as one member of the couple is driven by darkness. As one of the most sensitive and beautiful of all the Maia mentioned in Middle-Earth, not even Melian is able to protect her personal life from dark influences, so her brief mention inThe Rings of Powerultimately providesa blunt reminder that Galadriel cannot allow herself to be deceived again.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Epic drama set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Poweris available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S. New Episodes air on Thursdays.
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