The Lord Of The Rings: Second Age Explained

what happened during tolkien's second age of middle-earth that has led the creative minds at amazon to explore this era during their lord of the rings series let's dive into this little disgust saga a second age implies that there was a first age that came before it and tolkien's first age is the primary subject of his book the silmarillion the book focuses on the adventures and tragedies of the elves in their epic wars with the dark lord morgoth after centuries of bloodshed morgoth is finally defeated in the earth-shattering war of wrath the event is action-packed with tons of dragons eagles orcs elves men and even a bunch of balrogs and other supernatural creatures to boot when all is said and done the survivors on both sides flee most of the elves head west to the same heavenly land that frodo and bilbo sailed toward at the end of the return of the king however a few of the elves along with the men dwarves and any surviving baddies head further into middle earth which is where the second age picks up while amazon won't be exploring the first age there's no doubt that it will be an important backdrop as the show unfolds the second age begins with a bunch of refugees looking for new homes and while there are too many stories of settling here in kingdom building there to explain them all in detail a few of these new settlements are worth noting first is meathland a port settled by elves in the first year of the second age the harbor is located on the northwestern shores of the continent and it becomes middle earth's primary connection to the forgotten west fans of the films will recognize meathland by its more commonly known title of the grey havens the same spot where frodo and bilbo eventually head out to sea in ring bearing retirement i think i'm quite ready for another adventure almost 1700 years after the grey havens is built the elvish stronghold rivendell is founded by everyone's favorite counselor elrond this time the settling takes place by necessity after elrond has a nasty run-in with sauron also known as imladris and the last homely house east of the sea rivendale will stand as one of the chief bastions of protection for the free people of middle-earth throughout the rest of the second and third ages and it will go on to feature prominently in the lord of the rings and hobbit stories one of the first casting leaks for amazon series was morphed clark who was slated to play a younger version of the elven lady galadriel this brings up the intriguing question of what galadriel was up to several thousand years before she shows frodo her mirror and spazzes out when he offers her the one ring [Music] she may look young but galadriel is one of the oldest beings in all of middle earth by the time of the second age she's already thousands of years old and married to her husband keleborn the lord and lady bounce around living with various elvish communities throughout the entire second age while the specifics of their story can get a bit confusing eventually they cross the misty mountains and relocate to lothlorien but not as its rulers the elvish power couple continues to have a heavy influence on the affairs of the age and galadriel is eventually given her own elven ring which she uses to keep her new home safe and prosperous at some point she also gives birth to their daughter calebrion who becomes the wife of elrond and the mother of arwen while galadriel and kelleborne's time to truly shine won't come until the third age there's no doubt there's some of the primary movers and shakers of the second age as well so far we've talked a lot about elvish events but the second age is actually mostly focused on the affairs of men while men have been around for quite a while by this point there's one kingdom in particular that really defines the second age the island nation of numenor after the destructive war of wrath the valar the guardian spirits of middle earth raise a giant star-shaped island out of the ocean as a gift to the men who fought against morgoth the island and the nation that eventually settles on it come to define the second age the first men to settle on the island are led by their king elros the brother of elrond due to some very convoluted family history the two brothers and their children are given the choice to live out their lives as either immortal elves or mortal men while elrond becomes an immortal elvish lord elros becomes the first very mortal king of numenor where he rules for a little over 400 years throughout the second age the island nation remains a force to be reckoned with and a central part of tolkien's narrative at the end of the first age the dark lord morgoth is permanently banished from middle earth however many of his servants survive including the balrog that fights gandalf in moria and sauron the evil spirit that would eventually become the lord of the rings was the second in command under the dark lord during the first age and after morgoth is banished sauron himself becomes the dark lord stepping into the power vacuum left by his master sauron becomes the main enemy of the entire second and third ages roughly a thousand years into the second age he establishes mordor as his chief base of operations and begins making plans one does not simply walk into mordor but we're not talking about sauron the flaming eyeball here nor about the towering dude in black armor at this point in history sauron still looks pretty good rather than attacking his elvish enemies the dark lord capitalizes on his still attractive physical form calls himself anatar the lord of gifts and begins pretending to offer his friendship to any elves that would listen to him this side of the misty mountains sauron as anatar spends the next few centuries worming his way into the affections of the elves of middle earth while a few of the elvish lords like elrond and galadriel don't trust him most of the rest of the elves do one group of elves the same one that lives near the dwarves and kaza doom becomes particularly enchanted by the dark lord in disguise they're led by a fellow named keller brimbore and they're famous for being incredible craftsmen with anatar's help they begin to learn how to forge rings of power it's at this point that sauron secretly forges the one ring he pours a ton of his power into the ring in order to use it to control the other rings when he puts the one ring on though the elves instantly realize that they've been duped and take their rings off in order to avoid his domination angry at the fact that his ring gave him away before he was ready sauron prepares to subdue the elves the old-fashioned way with a war once sauron's real intentions are revealed he demands the other rings of power claiming that the elves never would have been able to make them without his help which is technically true with the exception of the three elven rings of course feeling betrayed the elves refused to hand over any of their powerful jewelry with his pretext for war in hand sauron attacks the free people of middle earth in a bloody war that lasts for several years and nearly leads to the villain's total domination of the bulk of the continent initially kelebrimbor and his people are destroyed the dwarves retreat to moria and elrond flees north to found rivendell the dark lord also captures the seven rings that eventually would go to the dwarves and the nine rings that would eventually be given to the black riders critically the three elven rings remain hidden just as sauron is preparing to do a victory lap through middle-earth the new minorians suddenly arrive sending the dark lord scampering back to mordor with little more than a bodyguard this saves the elves men and dwarves from total destruction over the next several centuries the numenoreans and sauron continued to build up their strength and jockey for power and middle-earth sauron spends the next millennia rebuilding his strength he completes his tower of bahra doer the one where he resides later as a flaming eye distributes the rings of power and sets up the black riders as his terrifying new servants he continues to dominate practically everything in sight with the crucial exception of the elven kingdoms he failed to conquer and a few strong but scattered settlements of the new minorians along the coast of middle earth eventually sauron declares that he is the king of men a move that is insulting to the very manly certainly unconquered numenoreans the new minorian king ar farzan the golden invades middle earth with such a resplendent army that sauron's minions abandoned him without a fight at this point sauron who still looks like the attractive anatar willingly surrenders to the new minorians and becomes their hostage this may come across as a cowardly move on the surface but it ultimately spells doom for the new menorians they bring the dark lord back to their island nation and it doesn't take long before the prisoner begins working his bewitchments on the king himself once in a position of power sauron begins convincing the king's subjects to worship morgoth complete with human sacrifices sauron ultimately convinces the king of numenor to attack the valar in their land far to the west in a delusional attempt to gain immortality this is clearly an issue and it becomes one of the rare cases in middle earth history when the supreme god eru eluvitar himself comes down to intervene eru destroys the rebellious king's armada of ships and sinks the insurgent island in an atlantis-like catastrophe interestingly it's at this point in tolkien's mythology that the earth is literally reshaped from a flat plain to a round sphere sauron himself is caught in the chaos and while his spirit survives and heads back to middle earth his body is destroyed the second age narrative tends to revolve mostly around elves men and their ongoing wars with sauron however it's also one of the most prosperous eras in all of dwarven history the primary dwarven city in middle earth at this time is kaza doom at this point though there isn't a balrog haunting the mines yet and the subterranean city is alive with dwarven life and activity in addition the city becomes even more rich and famous after many talented dwarves from the eastern dwarven mansions flee west at the end of the first age during the second age the dwarves strike up a particularly friendly relationship with a neighboring group of elves that live right next to their western gates speak trend and enter these are the same elves that end up making the great rings of power that the one ring is designed to control and the two highly skilled races get along swimmingly for a long time eventually when this kingdom of elves is attacked by sauron the dwarves will try to help their friends unfortunately they come too little and too late and end up retreating and locking themselves up in kaza doom where they stay out of most of the rest of the major events of the age the last two and a half centuries of the second age focus on the founding of two important kingdoms one of which any lord of the rings fans should recognize we're talking about arnor and gondor the two kingdoms founded by a group of faithful numenoreans who rejected sauron's silver-tongued lies and survived the destruction of their home by sailing away before the catastrophic chaos erupted when they arrive in middle-earth they join forces with the elves and settle down to a new life these are the same people that build among many other things saruman's tower of orthanc the city of minas tirith and the tower at weathertop they also bring with them the white tree that can be seen in the return of the king as well as the palantiri the shiny seeing stones that saruman uses to chat with sauron everything looks hunky-dory for the two new kingdoms until sauron shows up in middle-earth again when they realize that sauron has returned to mordor the exiled numenoreans named the fiery mountain in his land mount doom yes that mount doom not long after this sauron begins attacking his enemies yet again and the elves men dwarves and all other free peoples in middle earth join together to form the last alliance the initial sequence in the fellowship of the ring centers on this last alliance showing the war in which sauron is destroyed the ring is cut from his finger and essildor tragically refuses to destroy it in the fires of mount doom destroy it no you see dude these moments at the beginning of the monumental jackson trilogy mark the end of the second age not only does the era dovetail neatly with the existing cinematic source material but it leaves a massive helping of epic stories for the folks at amazon to dig into check out one of our newest videos right here plus even more looper videos about your favorite stuff are coming soon subscribe to our youtube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one

Channel: Looper

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Id: edfuqwDL8dc

Length: 14min 10sec (850 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020