(This post contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power Season 2. If you’re not really into the show and just want to read this, then by all means, go ahead – enjoy.)
Celebrimbor stuck out to me as a character I heavily empathised with during the second season of Rings of Power, which surprised me because I was annoyed by him and his hubris during the first season. To those who don’t know how he’s situated in the whole Middle-earth story, he is none other than the Elf who forged the Three Rings for the Elves, Seven Rings for the Dwarves, and Nine Rings for the Men (who became the Nine Ringwraiths who hunted Frodo down in Lord of the Rings) — the Rings of Power that Sauron’s One Ring controls. Also, – book spoiler – Sauron kills him.
And a small note: the title of this blog post is meant to be a double entendre: it is my commentary on Celebrimbor as a fallen artist himself, and my reflection on him from my own position as a fallen artist as well.
But before I get into his character, here’s a little side story on how I got into the show…
The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power’s second season ended last week, and, man, I hadn’t waited for a show like this in a long time (especially the hype around each episode coming out once a week). I remember waiting for seasons of BBC Sherlock to come out, but they only released a handful (and by handful, I mean three) episodes at a time. My family would also watch k-dramas together and wait for new episodes to come out to sate our suspense-driven cravings, but I was never into the genre like I am into fantasy.
There was something special about having a Lord of the Rings (LOTR) show coming out every week, and it was something I loved cosying up to after a long college week – catching up on the drama on my bias Elrond and the love stories and friendships being woven throughout Middle-earth. Of course, many fans panned it for not following the chronology and lore (since Amazon doesn’t have rights to The Silmarillion), and personally, I didn’t like how some characters illogically broke promises or banishment rules (ahem, Elrond – but that’s on the writers), and the Harfoot (Hobbit) storyline was boring and cringey at times.
Still, I loved the show because it helped me revisit Middle-earth, which I’ve loved since I was 12 when I read ‘The Hobbit’ for the first time. Disclaimer: I haven’t read the Silmarillion completely yet, which is probably a factor of why I’m more accepting of the show. (And if you find me making lore mistakes in this post, please feel free to correct me haha.) I was also completely bowled over by the world – the set design, costumes and cinematography, and most of the characters were endearing.
However, one ‘good’/lead character in particular, Celebrimbor, was someone I didn’t care much about and was pretty annoyed with, and he is the focus of this post. I rooted for the main characters (except for him) even when the writing wasn’t good, which made me anticipate the next season (waiting for two years T_T) and see if the writing would improve or not.
It did! Well, for the most part (since the Harfoot plotline is still draggy, albeit less so – plus, they got Tom Bombadil!) They raised the stakes in Season 2 and added more drama is all I can say right now – I worded this explanation better to a film producer friend who initially didn’t want to watch it lol, she said she would give it another chance after I tried to convince her and I hope she pulls through with it. Anyways…
I think one of the things they did right for me was to excavate Celebrimbor’s character and put him in situations that exposed deeper levels of his flaws first to the viewer, and then to himself, which is satisfying. As my script-writing techniques prof says, a story works when the character changes by the end. Celebrimbor starts out being blinded by his hubris and admits it in the end, and takes full responsibility before Sauron and even Galadriel, whom he confesses his sins to.
And, on a personal level, I finally could relate to him as an artist even more than I had back in S1, which was released when I was a fourth-year college student. Watching S2, I come from a vantage point of having graduated college, reflected a lot on my life during the gap year that followed, and also made some artistic exploits that I was proud of – along with some projects I have been trying to work on but I have been wrestling with my motivations.
But, before I get into that, let me talk about what I thought of Celebrimbor first.
Initially, I was annoyed at him in S1 because A.) they chose an old actor for him 😂 (sorry Charles Edwards), and therefore breaking the book lore that Elves are supposed to look ageless, B.) he was motivated by a sense of pride to create something legendary, something of power – just so he could be as good as his grandfather, Feanor (who created the Silmarils), or even better, (btw Feanor wasn’t a pretty good guy), and C.) I knew he would craft most of the Rings, which would lead to the downfall of many in Middle-earth.
As S2 begins, initially, he doesn’t let Halbrand into his city Eregion (where he is the lord), but when he does, he gets taken in. Halbrand (who is Sauron) transforms into Annatar, a blond elf with supernatural powers (who my mom thought was Legolas lol), deceiving the elven-smith by making him believe he’s a spirit who’s there to guide him. Celebrimbor then starts gathering his elf-smith team to create seven Rings for the dwarves. Sauron then blinds him with flowery words of his future glory, even calling him the Lord of the Rings (bruh he was already Lord Celebrimbor of Eregion to begin with).
I don’t remember the exact conversations that follow, but watching Sauron tempt and goad Celebrimbor in his pride made me see myself in Celebrimbor as an artist. I’ve often thought about my own motivations as an artist – as a poet, a painter, a writer, a musician – whether I want to please and impress people, or to offer my art humbly to God and use it as a way to communicate with Him.
There is a desire in every artist’s heart to be recognised and adored for the works they do. I’ve had the dream to do something that would merit me a place in history books – I guess that’s why I identified with Celebrimbor’s desire to be as great as his grandfather Feanor eventually.
And Sauron started to delude Celebrimbor, who was slowly going mad – irritable against his smiths, eventually forgetting their names (RIP Mirdania); obsessive about his art and craft (totally can relate to this haha) – which made me pity him.
I saw the ruse that Sauron was building up over and all around him – like reading The Screwtape Letters – and I wanted Celebrimbor to know the truth and open his eyes to it. Which makes his confession to Galadriel even sadder: he said, “I suspected it from the beginning, I felt it even then, but I just kept on going. And now I’m here.” From reacting to his “What have you done to me?!!” horror scene in the trailer with “bro, dasurv mo yan” – watching his journey there in S2 slowly made me root for him and want him to be saved.
Backing up a bit, seeing his temptation by Sauron made me pray for God to expose my own temptations as an artist. A few months ago I wanted to submit my poetry to a Christian magazine I loved reading, but I felt my style wasn’t close to theirs yet (and besides, I was trying to submit an Easter poem and I only got the idea to submit a few weeks before Easter – which wouldn’t make it likely to get accepted) – so I ended up not submitting. Later on, a friend of mine (who introduced the magazine to me) got published there, and honestly, I felt jealous at first (and repented later). Wrestling with this, I talked with another artist friend who helped me realise that perhaps God is winnowing me; my character, so when (or if) he puts me on a platform of fame or influence, I would not fall. Meditations like this made Celebrimbor’s journey more potent for me.
So, when he is so close to realising Annatar/Sauron’s deceptions – and also finding out that in the books, he obviously dies and Sauron (sorry for this ugly book spoiler) violently uses his body as a banner in battle (though a lot of people conjectured that the showrunners wouldn’t depict this since they didn’t have the rights to the book where it is mentioned), I was won over to his side, the side of wanting him to live.
He cleverly finds out he’s in a time-loop illusion (the outside city is being besieged by Adar’s orc army) through a mouse coming by every hour next to his workbench (it’s so cute when he calls it “Mr. Mouse” 🥹) and by marking a candle with some charcoal (at first I didn’t get what he was doing – I thought he was going crazy; turns out he marked it to see how much time would pass, and when he shows it to Annatar, the candle hasn’t melted at all – SUPER CREEPY).
But Sauron finally revealing the war to him made me draw on my own experience… The scene is that he goes out on his balcony, (previously he was there sipping tea and seeing a green city in the golden sunlight, while in reality it was cloudy with the orc cannonballs of fire and the buildings being ruined), I think he throws Feanor’s hammer to break the window (great symbolism) and suddenly he sees the ravages of war and that he himself is wounded and dirtied with smoke and coal-dust.
I had to struggle with myself while reacting to these scenes because I experienced war myself here in Armenia – although I had not seen destruction myself, being in the capital with the war being on the eastern and southern borders (I did lose a classmate who fought as a soldier) – I have talked to many people who have (even those who fled from Syria; they showed me the photos of ruined places they used to visit), and the shot of Celebrimbor finally seeing and weeping at the ruins of his beautiful workshop reminded me of those things… I tried not to remember because I didn’t want to give myself a false burden or to romanticise war. But I also tap into it sometimes while watching or reading things like this in order to empathise with the characters more (I felt the same thing with Elrond looking at Eregion’s cultural genocide in the last episode).
Anyways, *deep sigh*, I was glad I could celebrate Celebrimbor and his team’s being artists, it felt nice to be represented there in the show (plus there was at least one Asian Elf :P). That’s another reason why I started rooting for him, seeing them work as a team more, because in S1 all I saw was his vanity (and even if the smiths worked together, the focus was on the suspense on the plot for that season, unlike here; we’re focused on the crafting of the rings that Sauron will directly corrupt). It’d be hypocritical if I don’t admit I can be vain as an artist. But I’m really grateful that Celebrimbor’s character made me examine my heart and pray about this to God more.
I also loved his last encounter with Galadriel where they confess to each other (yes I deliberately worded it that way bc in one of the many versions of Tolkien’s character histories, Celebrimbor falls in love with her MUAHAHAHA), but yeah, they ask for each other’s forgiveness for being taken in by Sauron. I loved this because it showed how important community is, how we were made by God to encourage each other in our weaknesses.
And I think it was also healing for Galadriel to find someone else who fell because of Sauron in a similar way that she did, someone else who was tormented in the same way. It was painful when Celebrimbor said, “I’m sorry I let myself be taken in,” because at first we think that he was the aggrieved one, and Galadriel reacts as we do. But, I think, because he admits that he knew about the deception from the beginning and yet he kept going, he also had a responsibility to resist it, and he failed.
I think that talks a lot about our sinful nature – especially when Celebrimbor says, “armies, strength cannot defeat the darkness – only Light.” Here’s the exact quote:
I was also recently meditating on “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit” – so that quote was on theme! Someone else on Reddit also shared John 1:5, “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” He was referring to Sauron not understanding light as a deceiver and abuser, but the Reddit commenter also shared the other translation, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
I don’t know what other people interpret Light as, but as a Christian like Tolkien, I know and have experienced it to be Christ’s light. He is the light of the world, and He has taken me out of my own darkness.
That light is my saving grace – He is the one who saves me from my tendency to make art to please only myself and to selfishly gain attention from other people. He redeems the work of my hands to create art that points to Life, a Life that He gives to the full; art that points to the “secret threads” (to use C.S. Lewis’ term) of a world that is beyond this life, one that Tolkien’s stories point us to, one so beautiful and golden that our hearts would be satisfied forever and ever.
I’m grateful He’s given me more time to realise my fallen nature than Celebrimbor was allowed in the show. But I want to be as brave and strong as him when he stood up to Sauron as he was dying. I want to live assured that I have a heaven to go to, better than Celebrimbor’s Halls of Mandos, and that I can experience it now, through Christ and His beautiful sacrifice. I want to always keep before me the reason why I create: to honour God and enjoy Him forever.
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I end this abruptly with this note because I have classes tomorrow. Still, watch this space for at least a couple other posts on the character of Adar and an article dedicated to the Christian themes in Rings of Power.
I hope this post provoked your thoughts, and let me know what you felt or surmised about the character of Celebrimbor in the comments!