That resolves at least some of the contradictions in the lore, though that brings into question the problem of Celebrimbor himself.Ĭelebrimbor's powers: Celebrimbor is not a well-known figure in Tolkien's lore, but he is nevertheless an important one. Rather, he is on the point of dying after his throat is cut, but his spirit never leaves his body. Interestingly enough, in the game it seems as if Talion is actually not dead at all. Also, it's ambiguous whether they are wearing the Rings of Power (holding them) or they are held by Sauron to enable him to exert his domination over them.' The Nazgul are very interesting in terms of whether they have 'flesh' or not-for example, Merry is able to stab the Witch King in the heel. So in that sense he does have more in common with the Nazgul or the Barrow Wights. In a reddit AMA posted a little more than two weeks ago, director of design Mike de Plater explained it this way: 'Is Talion Dead: Yes he is. The response by the developers, for their part, was somewhat confusing. Mortality was Illuvatar's gift to men: the ability to leave the circles of the world.' Mortality is not something to be feared, or at least it wasn't before Morgoth put a shadow of fear on it.

Resurrection happened exactly once, with Beren, and that required Eru himself to approve it. This is rather crucial, since it is the gift of men to be able to die. Pieter Collier, who runs the Tolkien Library, put it to me this way, 'Alas, in Middle-earth men cannot be resurrected in Tolkien's works. As many Tolkien fans pointed out in the months leading up to launch, humans from middle-earth simply cannot come back to life. The death and return of Talion: This was one of the biggest issues most Tolkien fans had before Shadow of Mordor was officially released. Though there were some exceptions, most developers were stuck trying to compress Lord of the Rings into arcade-like action games, dull RPGs, and iffy strategy games.īy comparison, Middle-earth: Shadow of the Mordor is one of the best, if not the best, Lord of the Rings games to date, but despite the best efforts of the development team, hardcore Tolkien fans still have plenty of issues with the approach that it takes to the lore. Games similarly struggled with Tolkien's mythos. There had been a handful of animated films in the '70s, but up until 2001, filmmakers were at a loss as to how to capture the epic action setpieces, the extensive lore, and Tom Bombadil. Consider yourself warned.īefore Peter Jackson came around and showed everyone otherwise, a large contingent of filmmakers considered the Lord of the Rings books impossible to properly adapt for a feature film.

This article contains spoilers for the end of Shadow of Mordor.

Return of the shadow