In the first episode of “The Rings of Power,” we see Galadriel talking to her brother, Finrod Felagund. She talks about a dilemma that does not let you differentiate between good and bad. It could be said that Adar was the personification of that dilemma. He had the noble qualities of the Elvian world, embedded deep inside his twisted exterior. He was clearly not fair like the other elves, but he was wise, nonetheless. He wanted to wreak havoc on Middle Earth, but at the same time, he refrained from treating the orcs as merely unnamed slaves. He wanted to spread darkness, yet he wanted to give the orcs a permanent residence. He was known for his treacherous behavior, yet he wanted to inculcate a feeling of brotherhood among the orcs. He was the cause of all the suffering of the people of Southlands, yet he was sympathetic towards the fact that the orcs had endured oppression for quite a long time.
What Was Adar’s Mission On Middle Earth? Was He Able To Accomplish It?
Adar took a lot of pride in the fact that he was an Uruk. He didn’t like it when Galadriel referred to him as an orc. The Uruks were stronger and more intelligent as compared to normal orcs. They could also endure light, unlike their counterparts. Adar’s mission was to create circumstances in which the orcs could thrive. For doing so, he needed the Hilt, which was in the possession of Theo, Bronwyn’s son. Galadriel knew that the Hilt held a lot of significance in the whole scheme of things. She had come to know of its existence for the very first time when she saw the markings in the shape of the Hilt on the body of her deceased brother, though at that time, she didn’t know what it signified. She had been searching for the Hilt since then, though she didn’t know in what shape or form it existed or what its real purpose was.
Adar knew that the Hilt needed to be put into a slot in the tower of Ostirith. He wanted to transform Southlands into a barren piece of land devoid of any light. Though he was caught by Halbrand and Galadriel towards the end of Episode 6 of “The Rings of Power,” he was able to give the Hilt to Waldreg just in time. When Adar was held in captivity, he heard the sound of water rustling beneath the wooden flooring. He knew that the Hilt had conjured the dark forces. He knew that the orcs would be able to thrive in Southlands. He had laid the foundation of a place that would eventually be known as Mordor and would become the epicenter of all the evil on Middle Earth.
Why Did He Despise Sauron So Much?
Adar was a dark elf who had been taken by Morgoth and transformed into an emissary of darkness. Not much is known about the early life of Adar, but during the course of the 6 episodes of “The Rings of Power,” we come to know a great deal about him and the mission that he wanted to accomplish at any cost. Adar had ideological differences from Sauron. He didn’t like the way Sauron treated the orcs. Maybe that is why when Waldreg calls him Sauron, he gets agitated. Galadriel had witnessed firsthand what Sauron was doing to the orcs, though she wasn’t able to understand his motive in its entirety at that time. Sauron was the most devoted servant of Morgoth. After the great battle, when Morgoth was defeated, Sauron made it his mission to once again regain the lost glory and forge some mysterious thing that yielded great power. He knew that the secret weapon would help him to conquer Middle Earth, but the problem was, he didn’t know how to go about it. So, he went to the realm of Morgoth, which was situated at the ice-cold northern end of Middle Earth.
Sauron started conducting experiments on the orcs. He wanted to meddle with the powers of the Unseen World, but no matter how much he tried, he wasn’t able to do that. The orcs were subjected to great brutality by Sauron. He didn’t consider them as living beings. For him, they were merely a means to accomplish his goals. This secret object that Sauron wanted to forge was actually “The One Ring,” through which he would be able to rule the mortals, the elves, and everybody else residing on Middle Earth. Now Adar also wanted to spread darkness, but he didn’t want to do it at the expense of the lives of the orcs. He had named each and every orc and wanted them to live their lives with some dignity. The irony of the situation was that if left alone, the orcs didn’t mind killing each other for fun. They had little or no respect for their own species. They possessed little or no ability to understand feelings and lacked the emotional intelligence to empathize with each other. That is why powerful sorcerers like Sauron bred them and treated them as fodder. The orcs didn’t even realize that their kind was being oppressed and treated as slaves.
But Adar, on the other hand, was quite idealistic when it came to this matter. He was trying to teach the orcs to take a stand for each other. He wanted to develop a sense of community among them. He wanted them to be able to perceive emotions. He wanted them to wreak havoc, not because he or anybody else had ordered them to, but because they felt the need to do so on their own accord. Though the end goal of Sauron and Adar might have seemed quite similar, their approach was very different from each other. Sauron wanted to become the undisputed emperor of Middle Earth, whereas Adar wanted to provide a home for the orcs, where they could stay forever. At one point in time, Adar had given many orcs to Sauron so that he could conduct his experiments on them. He then witnessed the cruelty he had subjected the orcs to. Maybe that became a point of conflict between the two. Adar was quite sympathetic towards the orcs. He was ready to sacrifice himself, too, if it meant that the orcs would get a permanent home. Such selflessness was a rare entity among the evil propagators of darkness. Adar tells Galadriel that he has killed Sauron. The golden-haired Elf didn’t believe for even a second that an Uruk was capable of killing Sauron. Maybe Adar would have defeated one form of Sauron, and it would have led him to believe that the dark lord was gone forever. But the shrewd Maia was a shapeshifter and was not somebody who could be easily killed.
Adar is a non-canonical character created just for the series, but by far the most intriguing one. There was a concoction of good and evil inside Adar that made him even more complicated and difficult to understand. His sensibilities stemmed from a place of purity, but ultimately, his goal and the things he did to achieve that goal were quite evil and dark. He was a virtuous man in his own twisted manner. Adar was like the archangel Lucifer, who was an angel but still one of the most evil and deceitful beings. The word “fallen angel” in itself is quite self-contradictory. It blurs the line between what one perceives to be good and what one thinks is evil. Adar had assumed the role of the patriarch of his family of orcs. He provided for them like a father would do. Adar always said that the world had been told a lot of lies since its inception. The people had lived those lies for so long that they had started to believe that they were the eternal truth. Adar wanted to change that. He wanted to start afresh. He wanted to make his children thrive on Middle Earth, and for the furtherance of the same, he was ready to go to any extent.
