That is exactly what they are telling us.
Good thing he had better luck with the Mordor ignition than Bronwyn did with her flint.
Yeah. What I’m wondering is who was able to set all this up ahead of time, and why were they waiting for someone to turn a blood sacrifice evil magic sword key in a rocklock before it was set off?
Was Morgoth a (60s TV show) Batman villain?
(Cue the spinning Silmaril between scenes.)
uh, his name is Sauron …
Galadrial’s speech to Adar is basically Morgoth’s speech to Hurin - I will keep you alive and curse your people, and you will watch them suffer and it will be your doing.
Called it.
Well, it wasn’t all set up ahead of time. Adar had to have the orcs dig the trenches and tunnels across the Southlands to channel the water from the Ostirith floodgate into the bowels of Orodruin.
Good call. 
It does seem pretty Sauron-ish to have a backup plan, even if somewhat over complicated. Are we not doing spoilers here?
Hmmm. I guess that maybe sort of kind of makes sense. It still feels weirdly complex. And how’d they lose the key. And why does holding it impart a feeling of power.
Spoiler policy: please use spoiler tags if your post contains spoilers and you post it within 24 hours of the episode being released.
So no spoilers from a few hours ago until the next episode drops.
Yeah, that seemed like the speech of an evil person. Adar was much more sympathetic in that scene. I wonder if Galadrial will have any character development or will remain a bitch who drives her soldiers to despair and expects the world to be handed to her.
It’s the Shadow. It’s seductive, like the Dark Side in Star Wars. Artifacts associated with Morgoth or Sauron are like that. See the One Ring, which corrupted everyone it came in contact with over time (as well as the non-elven Rings of Power).
The Shadow is having its effect on Galadriel also, I believe. Her need for vengeance is transforming her. I expect to see that struggle being a story arc for this show. You also saw a similar situation when Frodo offered the One Ring to her in the Lord of the Rings, and she managed to overcome its lure with great difficulty.
I’d like to modify my previous Dragon Age comparison of Adar. He’s not Corypheus. He’s the Architect.
It’s Theo who said the key made him feel powerful. I didn’t hear that as a magical effect, but a teenager-with-something-special effect. If it had a magical feeling, Arondir and Galadriel would have felt that the key wasn’t in the wrappings.
Good point.
Were they trying to imply romantic feelings betwixt Galadriel and Halabrand? I hope not. More likely comrades in arms. And was “the king that was promised to us” an actual lore-thing? Or did they mean Sauron?
Who built that key hole and mechanism? Why was it built? How did they come to the decision to make it? Is it magic or something?
Seems more mechanical than magical.
That’s kind of Tolkieny. He was not a fan of the industrial revolution.
I enjoyed the episode. The showrunners are clearly aware of the “Always-evil races are dumb” argument and lent into it.
Maybe you have to give it blood to get that feeling?
It’s a sword that comes into existence from thin air when fed blood. I’d say it’s definitely magic.
Thereafter it’s pure physics: water+magma=steam=pressure=Doom.
We’ll leave aside the existence of that magic magma chamber with all that free headroom as a “me,a geologist” problem. Rule of Cool and all that.
Sauron was a fire Maiar, wasn’t he? Like Gandalf? I’m probably mixed up.