Rings of Power S2E3: should the eagles talk at the coronation?

The Eagle and the Sceptre, the third episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 (Prime Video, 2024), is packed with Tolkien lore, from Shelob's lair to the Orcs of Mordor. The show gets plenty right, but I'm frustrated that it won't let its eagles talk. That choice weakens the episode's big coronation scene.

There are plenty of gripes to be had with this show, from its pacing to its logic issues to goofy dialogue. When it comes to getting Tolkien right, though, I think it knows what it's doing, aside from the eagles.

Berek, Isildur's horse, escapes Shelob's lair

The episode opens like a horse short film. It follows Berek, Isildur's horse, who stays behind while Elendil, Valandil and the Númenóreans head back to Númenor. This world lives and dies on where horses gallop and how fast. Berek kicks an orc into a tree branch, which shows this horse also understands the power of trees on the show.

Berek finds Isildur in what looks like a cave. It is no cave. It's Shelob's lair, the same Shelob from Return of the King. Shelob is the last child of Ungoliant, the spider creature that helped Morgoth kill the Two Trees. She is noticeably smaller here than when she stings Frodo, because we're still a whole age away from that.

This scene gives the most graphic death of the season so far. The spider leaps onto an orc's head, crushes it and rips it apart. Then she raises her legs in a flexing posture, like a WWE wrestler saying you're next, brother. They're able to get away, thank goodness. I hate spider scenes.

Eärien challenges Elendil at Tar-Palantir's tomb

Back in Númenor, Elendil places a seashell on the tomb of the late King Tar-Palantir, and his daughter Eärien calls him out. Eärien is a creation of the show, and the series seems to have raised the character's status this season. Her voice is set to become a significant anti-Elf faction at court.

Her line reminds me of Gandalf in Return of the King, who lamented a descent into a society focused on building tombs and heraldry from the past rather than on its living descendants. She is telling her father that he isn't properly mourning his son, and isn't properly focusing on his daughter either. He's probably thinking, you weren't even in the books.

The statue in the background of the funeral chamber looks like a weeping woman. It could be Nienna, the queen of the Valar who is acquainted with grief and sorrow, but also pity and courage.

Míriel, Pharazôn and the politics of the funeral

Míriel, left blind by the events of season 1, asks Elendil to be her eyes as the political drama unfolds. We meet a lord from the north shaking hands with Pharazôn. It seems the show is going for what we often saw in The Sopranos, where funerals are common places for power brokers to conspire and forge new alliances.

The mother of a dead Númenórean soldier slaps Míriel, similar to the grieving Mrs. Kintner slapping Chief Brody in Jaws. Pharazôn then offers Míriel a choice of a crimson dress or a white one for the coronation. Míriel can only remember that her father wore white, signaling his focus on the Númenóreans' Elven past, and that an eagle appeared.

Pharazôn tells her: "It is rare for an eagle to grace a coronation. Should one make an appearance at yours, it would be seen as an auspicious omen." Míriel chooses the humbler white gown, which Pharazôn takes note of. He wears red at the coronation later. He knows what he's doing.

Why the Rings of Power eagles should talk

It's not known in Tolkien's writings for eagles to give this kind of magical or symbolic sign off on transitions of power. They're not Articuno. Peter Jackson chose not to have animals like eagles and wargs talk, even though eagles absolutely talk in Tolkien's text. The fact that this show sticks with that is a bummer, because I want to hear what these eagles have to say.

Jackson's choice is part of why so many people ask why they didn't just take the eagles to Mordor to destroy the Ring. If you learn that these eagles can talk and have a reason not to get involved, because of past wars in the First Age, you know the answer. Flying the Ring over would have meant being spotted by the fell beasts and the eye of Sauron and taken down. They had to be sneaky and hand walk it into Mordor with two unassuming hobbits who can turn themselves into rocks at a moment's notice.

Glüg, Adar and the debate over orc families

In Mordor, Adar speaks with Glüg, and I love this name. Glüg is an orc who has a wife and child. You've probably seen some of the consternation over this online. Peter Jackson's films showed the Uruk-hai hatching out of mud pods, and Orcs have mostly been depicted as an evil, spiteful race. But there are several examples in Tolkien's writings in which Orcs were understood to have their own society and to reproduce sexually.

In Return of the King, Frodo told Sam that the Shadow did not give life to the Orcs, it only ruined and twisted them, and if they are to live at all they have to live like other living creatures. Elsewhere Tolkien wrote that the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar, since Melkor could make nothing with life of its own after his rebellion. In a 1963 letter, Tolkien wrote that there must have been orc women, while admitting his story focused on Orcs' service as soldiers to evil lords.

Some people who don't like this show will use this as an example of how it's changing The Lord of the Rings. The reality is that many fans' understanding of Tolkien begins and ends with Jackson's films, and I think the showrunners are bigger Tolkien nerds than most people complaining about the show online.

Damrod the hill troll and Adar's scar

Adar welcomes Damrod, hill troll of the Ered Mithrin, killer of stone giants, eater of dragon bones. He's voiced by Benjamin Walker, who plays Gil-galad. I also like that when Adar pats Glüg's chest, you can see Adar still has the scar on his hand from when Halbrand stabbed him at the end of last season.

Annatar misjudges Durin in Eregion

Celebrimbor welcomes Durin and Disa to Eregion and shows them a new forge expansion with seven slots for the Seven Dwarf Rings they plan to cast. I love how Annatar stays in the shadows on the upper level, letting Celebrimbor do the talking for him. Note the seven lights above Annatar's head, like the Seven Stars of Durin in the Khazad-dûm sigil.

Annatar initially misjudges Durin, suggesting that bringing his father a means of saving his kingdom might earn back his respect and even his inheritance. Neither his inheritance nor his father's respect fully drives Durin. It's his friendship with Elrond. When Durin calls on Annatar for knowing Elrond, Annatar gets petty: "Elrond said that you were the wisest of all the dwarves. Did he speak true, or is there someone else we should be treating with?"

I also appreciate the camera tricks that set the dwarves in an Elf realm where everything would be bigger to them. The show uses forced perspective angles and larger doubles of the forge set built up to their chests. In the courtyard, VFX blend the characters into the background so Disa walks past two taller Elves. It's so smooth that it's hard to notice all the work that went into it.

Isildur, the Dead Marshes and a stab wound done right

Isildur finds a dead soldier in a puddle and takes his boots. The location recalls the Dead Marshes from The Two Towers, but those dead faces wouldn't be in the water yet. They were soldiers from the Battle of Dagorlad in the Last Alliance, years from now. Isildur will reach his own watery fate someday not far from this area, after he takes the One Ring from Sauron.

He is stabbed in the thigh by Estrid and snaps at her for taking out the knife. I was happy to see that, because TV shows always yank out the weapon after someone gets stabbed, and medically that is the worst thing to do. Leave it in until you get to the doctor.

Arondir, Theo and Bronwyn's offscreen death in Pelargir

In Pelargir, an old Númenórean settlement, Arondir saves Isildur and Estrid from Wildmen while gathering firewood for Bronwyn's funeral pyre. At the time, I expected we'd see much more of Pelargir, maybe even into the next season. Nazanin Boniadi chose not to return for the second season and is taking a break from acting, so her character was killed offscreen, supposedly from a foul tipped arrow.

Arondir tries to be a father figure to Theo, and I like the use of his woodland Elf strength: he carries eight buckets at a time while Theo carries one. Arondir says he was born in Beleriand, which now lies under the wave. That is another example of the show describing water as a wave, as though all water here is a form of Tolkien's Great Wave.

Theo tells Arondir he never knew his father, and he knows it wasn't Arondir. Theo this season reminds me of Jack from Into the Woods, who in act two becomes a bitter orphan bent on revenge and has to understand that we're all part of a story. My money is on Theo becoming one of the ring bearing kings who become the Nazgûl. He's a crank.

Isildur's confession to Estrid and the hint of the Ents

Isildur confesses that his mother drowned saving him when he was 10, after he swam too far out into a rip tide, and he never told anyone it was his fault. He says he has felt bound ever since to do something special to earn what she did. Bound, as in "in the darkness bind them." Estrid replies that she doesn't know if you can earn a thing like that, and that you have to accept it as a gift, as Boromir described the One Ring at the Council of Elrond.

Theo cries while listening, which makes me wonder if he might feel responsible for Bronwyn's death in a similar way, and whether both men will grow older seeking rings of power to redeem their dead mothers. Estrid covers the brand from Adar with new burn scar tissue. It's clear she did something she's not proud of in Adar's service.

Isildur and Theo team up in a silly yet somewhat successful plan to get Berek back from the Wildmen. Theo gets held, and the group is ambushed by what we're pretty sure are Ents, based on the way Theo gets lifted. Their first move is throwing an axe back at the lumberjacks. We've seen Ents throw giant chunks of stone while sacking Isengard, but flinging an axe with that accuracy is impressive.

The coronation in Númenor and the silent eagle

The episode ends at the coronation. Míriel wears white and Pharazôn wears red. It seems it's the northern lord who starts a shout from the background, just to get the crowd going. Eärien produces the palantír to accuse Míriel of using Elvish sorcery to guide her decisions. Pharazôn gives Míriel an out and orders the seeing stone destroyed, because from their earlier meeting he knows she is a crystal girl.

Míriel takes the bait: "No, the palantír is mine." It reminds me of Frodo declaring the Ring his when he was so close to dropping it into the fires of Mount Doom. Then an eagle arrives, presumably as a good omen to bless Míriel's coronation, but Pharazôn seizes the moment with sunlight brightening his red clothes, and the northern lord gets his goofiest slow clap chant going.

This is why I'm mad about the eagles not talking. If the eagle could talk, he could clear it all up and say he's here for her, not this guy. Or he could knock Pharazôn out of the way with a wing and bob his head toward Míriel. The whole moment is weird. Apparently, according to editors who worked on the season, many key Númenor scenes had to be removed, which left the Númenor subplot feeling rushed and confusing. This is what happens when you insist on shooting a show during a writers' strike, with no writers on set to do the late rewrites that fix this kind of thing.