Sinful Sunday: Adar and the Nobility of Villainy in "The Rings of Power"
The Amazon series successfully brings out the moral complexities about Orcs that have always been present in Tolkien's work and thinking.
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Amazon’s series The Rings of Power has done a great deal to expand on what is possible to see and expect in an on-screen adaptation of the broader world that Tolkien created. In addition to the expected characters–such as Elrond, Galadriel, and Sauron himself–we’ve also been treated to some finely-crafted originals. While not every single storyline has landed as effectively as some of us might have wished, I will continue to give this show credit for taking some risks with what Tolkien on-screen can look and feel like.
One of the most fascinating characters in this respect is Adar, the leader of the Orcs and the figure they regard as their father. As the first season gradually revealed, he’s a tortured and mutilated Elf who was one of the first of his kind, and his initial story arc focused primarily on establishing the realm of Mordor, giving a shelter to his numerous progeny, all of whom are vulnerable to the power of the sun. He made it clear that he was going to be a formidable opponent to both Galadriel and Sauron alike, particularly since he claims to have killed the Dark Lord himself. Despite the fact that he was once an Elf himself, he has few to no reservations about slaying his former kind, particularly if they pose a threat to the Orcs (which, given the contempt with which the Eldar view their fallen kin, is almost always the case).
A lot has happened since the first season, including a change in cast. While Adar was portrayed magnificently by Joseph Mawle in the first season, the role has now been taken over by Sam Hazeldine. The latter is great, don’t get me wrong, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the sort of sad and weary nobility that Mawle brought to the role. Hazeldine’s Adar is a bit harder, a bit flintier, than his predecessor but, given that he is now in a position of greater power and security, this makes sense. This is a being who has seen and endured a great deal during his thousands of years of life, and while he has much love and kindness for his Orcs, the same cannot be said of anyone else who falls into his control.
The first three episodes of the second season have given us more valuable insight into his backstory. Indeed, the opening shows the key moment when Adar, thoroughly disenchanted with Sauron and determined to keep him from oppressing the Orcs any further, makes to crown him with Morgoth’s crown only to use it to strike a blow, leading to an orgy of violence as his children seemingly kill their former lord. This is one of those moments that reminds us, quite forcefully, that Adar is someone who is capable of both great violence and great nobility. To me, this is one of the most Tolkien things about him, for all that he’s an original character.
Moreover, the second season also fills in just how tragic his backstory truly is and, in a particularly haunting exchange, he relates how he was taken by Morgoth and promised great power, before being taken to a lonely peak and eventually left to Sauron’s mercies. Presumably the future Dark Lord had a major role to play in his creation, and it doesn’t take too much of a leap of imagination to believe Sauron was quite capable of inflicting torture on Adar if he thought it would yield the resulted his master wanted. In addition to giving yet more insight into why he loathes Sauron–as if the latter’s torture of Orcs wasn’t enough–it also shows the extent to which his own creation was an ordeal of pain. This origin story, too, is also very much in keeping with the ethos of Tolkien’s world, in which characters are often undone by their own actions. Even when they seem justified, they often come with united consequences.
Indeed, from the beginning there has been something tragically noble about Adar. From the very moment we meet him it’s clear that he has endured a great deal and, though he is badly scarred, he still bears the beauty of the Elves in his countenance. This is in marked contrast to his progeny, who are the twisted and ruined form of life that we’re familiar with from The Lord of the Rings. One gets the sense that it’s his distinctly Elvish appearance that helps to explain in part why his fellow Orcs hold him in such high regard, since he is a living reminder of what was taken from them and what they will never regain. At the same time, it’s hard to shake the feeling that his damaged-but-beautiful countenance continues to be an indelible marker of his own difference from his progeny.
However, while he may be the enemy of the Free Peoples of Middle-earth–particularly Elves and Men–there’s no question that Adar does genuinely care about his children and will do whatever he can to protect them and to keep them safe from those who would destroy them. We’ve grown so used to seeing Orcs as either cannon-fodder or irredeemably evil (or both), that we tend to forget that Tolkien himself seemed quite ambivalent about them. Yes, they were the foremost soldiers of Sauron and played a key role in the War of the Ring, but we see again and again how much they hate their masters and would like nothing more than to pursue their own lives away from their wretched existence. As I watched the first three episodes of this new season–and watched the unfurling online discourse about the series’ choice to depict Orc families–I kept coming back to the conversation between Shagrat and Gorbag, in which the two Orc captains spoke openly of their derision for their superiors and of their desire
This isn’t to say that the Orcs, or Adar, are beyond reproach or that they are somehow “good guys.” The Rings of Power makes it quite clear that they are a threat to the other Free Peoples of Middle-earth and that their time as slaves of Morgoth have rendered them dangerous and destructive. We might understand their motivations as individuals, and we might even sympathize with them a bit, but this doesn’t make their bloodthirsty actions more justified. Slaughter is still slaughter, no matter the motives. Adar for one seems to sense this, and though he undertakes many cruel actions without any seeming compunction or apology, the weariness that he wears on his face suggest that he’s aware of the moral costs of his actions and those of his progeny, even if they are not.
For my part, I wholeheartedly approve of the way that The Rings of Power is setting up the Orcs, and Adar in particular, as yet another instantiation of the tragedy of the Second Age. Even though all they want is to find some bit of peace and stability in the newly-formed land of Mordor, we know that this isn't in the cards for them. Though it remains unclear exactly how he will go about doing so, we know that Sauron will eventually succeed in having the Orcs brought beneath his heel again. Assuming that Adar dies at some point in the future, they will become nothing more than slaves of various brutal masters, who will put them to work in grinding drudgery and butchery and, more perniciously, even go so far as to breed them, so that their worst tendencies become bound into their very bodies. If this isn’t Tolkienian tragedy, then I surely don’t know what is.
In just two short seasons Adar has emerged as one of the most compelling and richly-realized characters this show has yet produced. The weight of the past sits heavily on his shoulders, hardening him until he’s the kind of figure that can watch impassively as his Orcs brutalize humans and even ruthlessly kill those who don’t show the proper amount of obedience and obeisance. Like the best fantasy villains, there is so much more to him than just blanket evil, and it’s precisely the layers to him that make him just as compelling as Sauron. While I happen to think that it’s always dangerous (and foolhardy) to try to compare series like this one to Tolkien’s intentions, I do think that he would approve of this particular change, since Adar–and the Orcs more generally–represent some of his own mixed feelings about this particular Race.
Moreover, Adar and his children express the moral complexity that is the heart of Tolkien’s work. For all that some would like to characterize The Lord of the Rings as some sort of Manichean work in which good and evil are distinctly defined and inflexible, this is to take out precisely that which makes his work so wonderful, so rich, and so infinitely compelling. Thank goodness that The Rings of Power and its creators and writers have taken a different path, one that restores the complexity and nuance to Middle-earth and its peoples.