Elrond's Full Backstory In Lord of the Rings
With the first season of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power now officially in the books, there has been quite a lot to digest in terms of plot developments and character drama. The ensemble cast of Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, Benjamin Walker as Gil-galad, Owain Arthur as Durin IV, and Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor, there was quite enough drama to deal with when it came to the canonical characters alone, even before considering the new ones.
Though many of the characters were new creations for the storyline of the series itself, or are familiar only to avid readers who had plumbed the appendices of Tolkien’s books, there were still a handful of characters recognizable to those who were most familiar with the movies. While the series is set thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, the benefit of having basically immortal characters is that thousands of years are hardly a significant barrier to their inclusion in the story.
One of those more familiar characters the series reintroduced to its audience was, of course, Robert Aramayo as a younger Elrond. With a life spanning three ages of Middle-earth, there was a great deal of history he took part in even before the events of the Second Age, and certainly before those of The Lord of the Rings. But how did he get to Rivendell? What was his history before the events of the first season, and what part could he be playing in the events of Season 2 and beyond? Here are nine things you should know about Elrond while we all wait the thousand years until Season 2 arrives.
His family line was unique
One of the rarest things to happen in the entire history of Middle-earth was a marriage between an elf and a mortal, as was highlighted by the relationship between Bronwyn (Naznin Boniadi) and Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova) in the first season. This was on full display in the drama around the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen in The Lord of the Rings, but that was one of only a handful of such relationships to have happened in Middle-earth. The fascinating thing about the family of Elrond is that, even beyond his daughter, Elrond was also related to two other pairings of elves and men that had happened in the First Age. His great-grandparents on his mother’s side were the mortal Beren and the elf Luthien, while his grandparents on his father’s side were Tuor and Idril, another example of a mortal man married to an elf princess.
He had a twin brother
Elrond’s family was consequently in a unique position, and it was shown forth in the varied fates of his family members. For one thing, he had a twin brother who became the first king of Numenor, as was briefly mentioned in the series. Partially this was due to the unique situation of their ancestry: because of the complications of being descendants of marriages between mortals and immortals, Elrond and his brother Elros were given the choice of their own fates, to be mortal with humanity or immortal with the elves. Elrond chose immortality, but his brother chose to be counted among humanity instead. This does present future seasons of the show with an opportunity to show flashbacks of what must have been a very tragic story: a twin who sees his brother die of old age while he himself never changes has some extremely dramatic potential..
He was a prisoner of war as a child
The ending of the First Age featured the most climactic battles in all of Middle-earth history, and while Elrond seems not to have played much of a role in them, there is one interesting note regarding his significance to the clashes of the era: as children, he and his brother were taken as prisoners of war during the Third Kinslaying (one of the major battles between two factions of elves). They were kept in a cave behind a waterfall by the sons of Feanor, but were actually rescued by one of those same sons: an elf named Maglor, who pitied them and became a sort of foster-father to them.
This could be an interesting note to follow for the TV series, as Elrond will likely be in the same area as Celebrimbor, the ringmaker, for some time, who is the son of one of the men of the family that imprisoned Elrond and his brother. Sparks could fly from more than Celebrimbor’s forge if the two characters meet.
This was an angle that the first season interestingly decided not to bring up, but it is a curious part of the personal history of both Elrond and Celebrimbor. There is an interesting irony in Elrond working so closely with an elf whose uncles separated him from his parents and imprisoned him as a child.
He founded Rivendell as a last stand in the midst of a war
The kingdom of Eregion in Middle-earth was at one point almost completely overrun by the forces of Sauron in the Second Age, an event that is a prime candidate for a Season 2 battlefield climax. It was Elrond himself who, defending against Sauron, founded the place later known as Rivendell; but its later status as a peaceful oasis makes it easy to forget that it was once a defensive position under siege and one of the last holdouts in a conquered kingdom. Elrond’s superior Gil-galad, the High King of the Noldor, finally relieved the distress of Elrond with the help of the king of Numenor, but the valley of Imladris was not always so peaceful as you might believe from the movies.
He was an adoptive father to the heirs of Isildur
A significant part of Aragorn’s story has to do with Elrond raising him in Rivendell after the death of his father. This decision on Elrond’s part, however, had a long-standing tradition: he had done the same for a number of the heirs of Isildur, starting with Isildur’s son, Valandil, who had been left at Rivendell at the end of the Second Age in the buildup to the War of the Last Alliance. As part of this protective regency in Rivendell, he also held a number of significant heirlooms: not only the shards of the sword of Elendil, but also the Ring of Barahir, which he gave to Aragorn, and the Scepter of Annuminas, which was a relic of Numenor and the symbol of authority over the kingdom of Arnor.
He faced off against the Witch-king of Angmar
One of the major events of the Third Age was the rise and fall of Angmar, founded by the leader of the Ringwraiths, Sauron’s deadliest servant. In many ways, the Witch-king accomplished in the Third Age what Sauron had in the Second: he overran the surrounding kingdoms and laid siege to Rivendell. Yet again, however, Elrond came out victorious and outlasted his shadowy opponent, aided by the protective power of Vilya, which audiences were finally allowed to glimpse at the end of Episode 8. It was largely with the power of this ring that Elrond was able to preserve Rivendell throughout the ages, but there is also an intriguing possibility that the elf and the Witch-king could even have met in battle at one point. Given the likely focus on the distribution of the other Rings in Season 2, as well, a clash between the two would make for an interesting conflict.
He witnessed (and perhaps took part in) the climactic duel with Sauron
The War of the Last Alliance in Tolkien’s books plays out in a distinct way to the version given at the beginning of Peter Jackson’s films. For one thing, the text suggests that Sauron was defeated in a climactic showdown between Sauron and the duo of Elendil and Gil-galad, in which all three characters were destroyed. However, Elrond gives a firsthand account of the events in The Fellowship of the Ring book, suggesting that as the lieutenant of Gil-galad, he was there in person when it happened, and perhaps even took part as a supporter in the climactic duel itself.
He could have been High King of the Noldor
In the aftermath of the fall of Sauron, Elrond had a potential claim to the title of High King of the Noldor, which was a seat left empty at the death of Gil-galad. He was one of the most significant elves left in Middle-earth and had been the right-hand assistant of the former king, and was unlikely to be opposed in his claim. However, he never decided to pursue that path, instead opting to protect Rivendell and see to the preservation of the Last Homely House East of the Sea.
His father became a star. Literally.
Elrond’s father was Earendil the Mariner, whose significance is too complicated to explain here, but he has been a significant presence in the background of the series so far. Earendil sailed across the Sundering Seas to the Undying Lands and convinced the powers of the world to send a relieving force to defeat the Dark Lord Morgoth at the end of the First Age. The great drama of the age, as explained in the Episode 1 prologue, was the theft of the Silmarils, which Morgoth stole and Feanor with his sons swore to restore.
The only Silmaril ultimately saved was one given to Earendil, who was set in a flying ship with the starry jewel in the night sky, and became the evening star that we still see to this day. Elrond’s name supposedly even means “vault of stars,” which may be a reference to the starry cave of his imprisonment in his youth, but also works nicely as a reference to the starry fate of his father.
ncG1vNJzZmibn6G5qrDEq2Wcp51kubC%2Bw2amn2WknbJuvsinnqxllaG%2FsLrDZpmam5uowbC%2B2GaroqWVobavsYyer6mkkZ67prCO