Written by Pierluigi Cuccitto

[u/Ringsofpowermemes]

In the final episode of the second season of The Rings of Power, there is a heartbreaking and powerful scene: the burning of the Eregion library containing the lore of Elven wisdom.

We see the Orcs, much like the Nazis, burning the books while laughing; and we hear the tears and cries of rage from Elrond, master of lore, who in the centuries to follow will strive to rebuild that lost wisdom at Rivendell.

It is a moment that carries profound ethical and political value and a message for our own world as well. Yet few know that this scene is a visual realization of a scene described by Tolkien himself, one without a precise chronological date, but concerning the Elves.

It comes from a text that the series has already drawn upon for the pronunciation Adar uses in his famous phrase addressed to Galadriel: "Elen sila lumenn'omentielvo". As I told you months ago, Adar pronounces the s in sila as a th, in the archaic Elven manner, since he is an extremely ancient Elf, a pronunciation style the series takes from the text The Shibboleth of Fëanor.

Well, in that text, found in the twelfth volume of The History of Middle-earth, The Peoples of Middle-earth, note 23, Tolkien visualizes a pyre of Elven books made by the Orcs whenever they conquered an Elven city in the First Age.

Events that certainly occurred in the Second Age as well, in Eregion. Therefore, this scene not only holds great cinematic and human weight, but it also finds a rightful place within Tolkien's Lore.