Elrond (Robert Aramayo) is one of the most famous characters in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”, in addition his brother Elros Tar-Minyatur and his father Eärendil have also been mentioned. Behind this is a complicated family tree.
In “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” episode 4, Elrond’s father is mentioned in two places: Eärendil, one of the most legendary heroic figures in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. We learn from Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) that Eärendil possessed the gift of foresight, and Elrond (Robert Aramayo) himself tells how his father convinced the Valar (the gods of Tolkien’s world) to intervene in the war against Morgoth and henceforth roamed the skies with one of the Silmaril as the Evening Star.
ELROND’S PARENTS
Eärendil is also the descendant of the so-called half-elves Elrond and Elros (the latter has also been mentioned several times in “The Rings of Power”). But it’s not quite that simple, after all, Eärendil himself was actually a half-elf – get ready, we need to draw up a family tree here for a moment:
Elrond’s father Eärendil is descended from the human Tuor (also a great hero) and the elf Idril, so he is indeed half human and half elf. It gets more complicated, however, with his wife Elwing, i.e. the mother of Elrond and Elros:
Elrond’s mother Elwing is the daughter of the Elf Nimloth and of Dior, who in turn is the offspring of a relationship between the human Beren and the Elf Lúthien, whose mother in turn was the Maia (also a kind of god-being) Melian. Elwing is thus strictly speaking only five-eighths elvish.
ELROND THE HALF-ELF? NOT QUITE!
Elrond and Elros are therefore not half-elves in the literal sense of the word, but actually 9/16-elves, if we have calculated this correctly – which we do not guarantee, after all, here at FILMSTARTS we write about films and series, not about (fantasy) genetics.
Like their parents Eärendil and Elwing before them, however, Elrond and Elros were given the choice of following their elvish or their human heritage and thus choosing an immortal or a mortal life. Elrond chose to live as an Elf, but Elros chose to live as a human.
Blessed with a longer than average lifespan, but still mortal, he became the founder of the royal house of Númenor as Elros Tar-Minyatur – and interestingly, the family branches of Elrond and Elros are then reunited many, many years later.
ARAGORN & ARWEN ARE THE DESCENDANTS OF ELROS & ELROND
Aragorn (played by Viggo Mortensen in The Lord of the Rings films) is in fact a distant descendant of Elros, while Arwen (Liv Tyler) is famously the daughter of Elrond. Strictly speaking, two distant relatives get married here, which almost sounds a bit like “Game Of Thrones”.
And speaking of “Game Of Thrones”: Some “The Rings Of Power” fans wondered, due to the intimate friendship of Elrond and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) in the series, whether the two ever had a relationship or will in the future.
This is not the case, though this has nothing to do with the fact that the two are also related to each other through several corners. Rather, Elrond eventually marries Celebrían, the daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn, and Galadriel thus becomes Elrond’s mother-in-law.
If your head is now spinning with all these family relationships, just look forward to the next episode of “The Rings of Power”, in which none of this plays a big role yet. Episode 5 comes out on Amazon Prime Video on 23 September 2022.
STREAMGESTRUBER PODCAST ON “RINGS OF POWER “
And if you want to delve a little deeper into episodes 3 and 4 of “The Rings of Power”, then take a listen to the stream poking podcast from our colleagues at Moviepilot. In the current episode, you’ll find a recap as well as many theories and explanations about the fantasy hit on Amazon Prime Video.
