Not to get political, however should you ask me about which of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy humanoids is finest, dwarves or elves, I’d go along with dwarves each time. You are free to suppose what you want — once more, this nation is so divided, heaven forbid we draw extra traces right here — but when you end up on Team Elf, please do your self a favor. Check out the second episode of Amazon’s The Rings of Power, and rethink.

While Tolkien’s wealthy lore has left loads of nice tales to inform concerning the elves — seeing a extra full historical past of Galadriel will possible be among the finest issues about The Rings of Power — elves are among the many most stodgy of Tolkien’s creations. While there’s a world of tragedy and custom in the immortal society he constructed, it’s all terribly self-serious in the best way a number of lesser excessive fantasy impressed by Tolkien comes throughout. You wouldn’t name considered one of Tolkien’s elves that will help you throw a celebration.

Tolkien’s dwarves, nevertheless? Those people know the best way to get down. This has by no means actually been in query. Even if all you’ve seen are the films, a part of the horror of Moria is that Gimli guarantees everybody a subterranean bender and as an alternative learns that they would be the hors d’oeuvres for a sea of goblins as an alternative. Hell, The Hobbit kicks off with a complete squad of dwarves inviting themselves over to Bilbo’s pad for a rager on his dime.

Photo: Ben Rothstein/Prime Video

In its second episode, The Rings of Power doesn’t simply get this, it delights on this. It even has Elrond (Robert Aramayo) on a quest to show he’s Not Like Most Other Elves and splitting rocks to realize the favor of the dwarves, hostile to him for causes he can’t determine.

But the very best factor about Rings of Power’s second episode is that it additionally takes them critically on a dramatic stage. In hashing out his beef with Elrond, Prince Durin (Owain Arthur) is a window to the dwarven perspective on Middle-earth. Where earlier variations of Tolkien’s work have centered on the dwarves on a superficial stage, largely discussing their craftsmanship and social hierarchy within the races of Middle-earth, the second episode of The Rings of Power introduces us to a dwarf, Prince Durin, and makes use of him to do what fantasy epics hardly ever take the time for: inform a narrative about an individual, and the difficult issues they’re feeling throughout a second of solely minor (for now) consequence.

While there’s a number of different issues occurring on this episode, a giant chunk of it (rock pun!) hinges on why the dwarven prince Durin is completely pissed at Elrond when the Elf — who got here to the dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dûm to ask for a fairly large favor — thinks they’re nonetheless nice mates.

[Ed. note: Mild spoilers for the resolution follow.]

The reply is superbly easy: Durin simply missed his buddy. Elrond, an immortal elf who will stay for a few years, spent 20 years with out visiting Khazad-dûm, lacking his wedding ceremony, the delivery of two children, the entire milestones you’ll have a good time with a buddy. In Middle-earth, dwarves stay longer than people (about 300 years to humankind’s roughly 100, when issues go properly) but it surely’s nonetheless, as Durin tells Elrond, a lifetime, a big piece of his finite time alive on Middle-earth.

In this small story, dwarves and their place in Tolkien’s broad tapestry snap into focus: They are a tradition of individuals simply as various as another, however formed by their distinctive connection to the planet. In delving deep, they be taught the secrets and techniques of the world, eternally laboring to carve into it one thing that may final for much longer than they are going to. Perhaps that is the form of factor that makes an individual actually know the best way to social gathering. Maybe that’s the type of factor that may make you upset when your buddy misses one.