‘I’ll defend all her poor actions’: Ema Horvath on Eärien’s villainous turn on ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings Of Power’
Typically when it comes to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power fans, it’s strictly those who enjoy Galadriel’s brushes with darkness who support women’s wrongs. But there’s another female character making questionable choices on the Amazon series.
Ema Horvath, who plays Eärien, spoke to The Mary Sue’s Rachel Leishman about her character’s frustrating but understandable choices in The Rings of Power season 2.
The conflict on the island nation between the Faithful, who are loyal to the elves in Middle-earth, and the rising Númenórean exceptionalism movement (that’s what I’m calling it, at least) is a major turning point in the history of men in The Lord of the Rings lore. At the center of that conflict in The Rings of Power is an original character, Elendil’s daughter Eärien. She kind of breaks bad in season 2. Playing a flawed character and a member of a flawed group is all part of the fun.
“Maybe I’m a masochist but I like [playing a human],” Horvath tells The Mary Sue. “Everyone’s always mad at them, right? Charles Edwards [as Celebrimbor] has that great exchange with Charlie [Vickers as Sauron] this season where he is like, ‘oh God, please don’t give [rings] to the men. Like, whatever you do, not these people.”
Elves, dwarves, and wizards often ally with the kingdoms of men in Middle-earth and Númenor. However, those presumably higher beings perceive men as weaker and more susceptible to temptation. (That’s a bit rich considering what happens to Celebrimbor in season 2, but let’s not kick the greatest of elven smiths when he’s down.) In the Númenor storyline, The Rings of Power expands on why an otherwise tolerant elf might come to that conclusion. In case you forgot what happens in Fellowship’s flashbacks, I won’t spoil Elrond’s one Big Reason.
“It makes them more interesting,” Horvath says. “And I’m sure people are screaming at their TVs at some of the choices [Eärien makes] but it’s so much more fun to perform that.”
At the beginning of her arc this season, Eärien presents the Palantir she found in Queen Regent Míriel’s chambers to the court. They gleefully accuse their ruler of witchcraft and deem her unfit to rule in favor of her cousin Pharazôn. While she does make an effort to keep her father and friend safe in the aftermath, it’s too late. “I’ll defend all her poor actions,” Horvath adds.
Eärien is rebelling against her religious family
In her defense, it’s not like the heel turn came out of nowhere. All of Elendil’s children have a strained relationship with him at the beginning of the series. “The seeds were kind of already being sewn,” Horvath notes, “There are little moments where she gets ignored in season 1, or told to stop talking.” Eärien gets left out and falls in with Pharazôn’s son Kemen as a result. Isildur doesn’t want to follow in his father’s maritime footsteps. In a season 1 moment I loved, Eärien remarks that Isildur’s desire to leave the Sea Guard doesn’t surprise her. She, unlike their father, listens to him. It was hard not to be on her side back then. The little family had tense but playful banter in season 1 before everything went horribly wrong.
And we haven’t even seen Elendil’s third child on the show. Anárion left home before the events of season 1 to live on the western shore of Númenor with the Faithful. Readers know that Elendil will ultimately lead the Faithful to Middle-earth. But, in season 1, only Anárion openly identifies as one. Elendil is under the radar, Isildur is Faithful-curious, and Eärien falls in with the opposition. Even when she pleads with Elendil in season 2 to recognize Pharazôn as king, she misinterprets his motivations as pride. She’s wrong, but it’s not hard to see why she’d think that.
“I’ve had the job for five years now,” says Horvath, “and I kind of knew where [Eärien] was headed. This season was actually very cathartic, I think, in some sense to sort of get to the place where a lot of that stuff that was bubbling underneath the surface in season 1 is really exploited and front and center.”
She has this big secret about the queen using a Palantir for guidance. She blames her for, as far as she knows, Isildur’s death. Then, at the end of season 1, Elendil returns from Middle-earth without Isildur. He also has a renewed devotion as a Faithful. He’s choosing devotion to the elves and Míriel over her, over family, in her eyes. “If I can’t have Daddy’s love,” Horvath says, “I’ll have power.”
This corner of the story might hit closer to home
For Lord of the Rings fans, myself included, who’ve spent too long thinking about Faramir and Boromir’s complicated relationship, or Eowyn’s desire to prove herself, these dynamics stand out in the prequel series. “It’s so fun,” Horvath says of exploring family trauma in fantasy. “Particularly [with] an actor like Lloyd Owen. He loves talking about stuff. You don’t always get that, someone who’s happy to retread old ground.” The actor, who plays Elendil, is always open to relating the high fantasy world to his own life experiences. “It’s my favorite part of it,” she continues. “Obviously, it’s a different world, but to have the human dynamics be the same is very comforting, at least for me as a performer.”
Eärien hasn’t gone full mustache twirl. There definitely is room for redemption there. Will she regret siding with Kemen and Pharazôn and join the Faithful with her father and brothers? Or will she fall even deeper down that antagonist path? Sauron will soon be looking for men to give rings to, despite Celebrimbor’s pleas. Since she’s not a canon character, we honestly don’t know! She could turn out to be a hero. She could be a martyr. For all we know, she could even become a Nazghûl.
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