Frodo Baggins and The Pick of Destiny
Yes, i think that was intentional on Tolkien’s part.
I get more of a Tim the Enchanter hit.
Tolkien apparently changed his mind about the orcs quite a few times over the course of his life - at one point Melkor created them out of stone, at another point they’re corrupted elves, at another they’re soulless beasts that parrot speech like the dwarves would have been if Iluvatar hadn’t granted them souls, at another they’re the descendents of corrupted Maiar, and later in his life he decided they were corrupted Men who had awakened before the elves rather than after them. He apparently had some qualms about implying that the orcs had divine souls of the same nature as those of the elves, but never really reconciled it to his own satisfaction.
Finrod is somewhat correct. Whether you are moving up or down depends on your point of view, as Ender Wiggin discovered.
I don’t think that’s quite what he meant, though.
Before they fought, when they were talking after picking up Frodo. One made reference to the “Great Siege” - possibly the seven-year siege of Barad-dûr in the Last Alliance 3000+ years earlier, possibly the 2-year siege of Minas Ithil that led to its fall around 1000 years before (somehow more likely given Gorbag comes from there.), possibly some other, earlier siege.
But it’s not phrased as though they were there:
there’s someone loose hereabouts as is more dangerous than any other damned rebel that ever walked since the bad old times, since the Great Siege
… so I think those who fixate on that are wrong about it indicating immortality/longevity. I think it’s just folklore they’re relating. I especially think anyone who thinks they’re reminiscing about a siege of Angband in the First Age that they were both at really needs to lay off that Hobbits’ weed.
Also precluding this is that both Shagrat and Gorbag seem to be Black Uruks, and those are only recorded from late in the Third Age (T.A 2475, to be precise). If they’d been around earlier, their appearance at the fall of Ithilien wouldn’t have been noteworthy.
Dragon Age is an RPG series in a high fantasy setting that is, like most high fantasy settings, heavily Tolkien-inspired. It’s my belief, based on a number of things I’ve seen in the series so far, that the writers are familiar with the Dragon Age games and have drawn some concepts from it, which I think is an interesting example of a work inspired by an older work subsequently informing later adaptations of that older work. For example, in the first episode, one of the villagers in Tirharad calls Arondir “knife-ears”, a term which originates from Dragon Age as a racial slur for elves (who are in that setting were once as majestic and dominant as Tolkien’s elves but are now a scattered and persecuted minority akin to Roma or Ashkenazic Jews), and the depiction of Khazad-Dum seems to draw a lot from the similar subterranean metropolis of Orzammar in Dragon Age, with the massive open atriums, mechanical elevators, and the dwarves talking about the Stone in reverential terms (Dragon Age dwarves venerate the earth as a godlike being, and do not dream and are not subject to demonic possession because the Stone insulates them from forces beyond the material world).
In Dragon Age, the orc stand-ins are called “darkspawn” and are the descendants of human archmages who attempted to invade Heaven and steal the divine source for themselves, and were twisted and corrupted because of their hubris. Corypheus is one of the first generation of darkspawn - like Adar, his form is only partially corrupted from its original state, and he is capable of intelligent thought and speech while his descendants are mute savages that live only for violence. Corypheus is also somewhat of a tragic figure - it is believed by most people in the Dragon Age universe that “the Golden City”, the place in the spiritual realm where the Maker’s throne once sat, was tainted and became black when Corypheus and his brethren invaded it, afterwards becoming “the Black City” that is visible in the distance whenever one dreams, but as Corypheus recalls it it was already black and empty when he got there and the power he sought to claim for himself was nowhere to be found.
Adar strikes me as very similar - the first of a race that is entirely unlike him, robbed of what he believes to be his birthright, probably loathing the master that he serves loyally while feeling helpless to do anything about his lot.
Oh, interesting. I want familiar with that, and it does sound really plausible as source material for what we’ve seen.
Also probably worth noting - in Dragon Age, the darkspawn do not serve Corypheus or his brethren, but rather “the archdemons” - a group of seven ancient dragons which are imprisoned sleeping deep beneath the Earth’s surface, having been banished there at some unknown point in the ancient past. When the archdemons are sleeping, the darkspawn are leaderless and scattered, but congregate in “the Deep Roads”, the ancient tunnels that once linked the various dwarven cities but have been abandoned since the darkspawn first appeared, and dig deep into the earth looking for one. When they find one, it awakens and leads the darkspawn in a “blight” wherein they launch a coordinated attack against whatever civilized races they can get at, seeking only to destroy and kill, until the archdemon is slain (how it’s possible to kill an archdemon gets pretty complicated and probably isn’t germane to Tolkien’s work, so I’ll leave it at that).
The archdemons are clearly inspired by the balrogs with a bit of Sauron mixed in. Between the orcs digging trenches across the Southlands looking for things deep and buried, and the sudden collapse in Khazad-Dum’s mithril mines, it seems likely that we’ll see a balrog or balrogs at some point, and there’ll probably be some archdemon flavor to it.
It’s a pretty entertaining series if you’ve got dozens of hours to spare to play through them. There’s lots of Big Important Moral Decisions for your character to make, the gameplay is solid, and there are a vast number of male-female, male-male, and female-female romance options depending on what you want to pursue. (The third game even includes a transmale supporting character, which is very interesting to find in this kind of setting.) All three games are available on Steam, and they employ the Mass Effect model where you can import your save from one game into the next and have your character choices carry over.
I’ve started DA: Inquisition, but I often immediately want to know the other side of choices I’ve made 
.
So as for Adar-I wonder if he’s unique or we’ll run into a whole sort of officer class of corrupt elves. And if his offer to let them go is genuine or just trolling and playing on Arondir seeing him as another elf.
I see what you did there. 
That makes sense. Having a whole race that is by nature evil and corrupt is, well, racist. And despite being a man of his age, Tolkien recognized that and it bothered him.
This is super cool. Thanks!
Well, do we know if pointed ears is a dominant or recessive trait in elf-human offspring?
We don’t; as believe it or not pointed ears is not actually canon but just assumed. We have only 1 ambiguous statement about Elf ears from a letter describing Hobbit ears.
I picture a fairly human figure, not a kind of ‘fairy’ rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and ‘elvish’; hair short and curling (brown).
I should add, this is a long standing debate, but thankfully nothing compared to the flame wars on BBSs and the early day of Internet about Balrog Wings.
Speaking of which, I’m looking forward to the balrog. That will be tragic, of course, but it should also be dramatic. I wonder if Durin’s babe makes it into this season. I’m guessing it does.
Though Durin’s Bane (Moria’s Balrog) was actually disturbed in TA 1980 and not the second age at all.
And there’s a lot of mithril in the world. They need some time to mine it.
But I’m expecting the balrog. Maybe I’m wrong, though.
On one of the previews, they showed a Balrog, so I think they plan to ignore canon and show one.