Warning: spoilers ahead for The Rings of Power episode 4Amazon's The Rings of Power digs into the history of mithril, answering six unresolved mysteries from The Lord of the Rings. The coveted substance known as mithril appears in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, with Bilbo Baggins plucking a mithril shirt from Smaug's treasure horde in Erebor and passing it down to nephew Frodo for his quest to destroy the One Ring. Gandalf describes mithril as a treasure found by the Dwarves in Moria, mined almost to the point of exhaustion. The operation awoke Moria's sleeping Balrog and the entire kingdom of Khazad-dûm quickly fell, meaning mithril in Middle-earth became exceedingly rare, since it couldn't be found anywhere else.
More than 3000 years earlier, The Rings of Power explains how the landscape of The Lord of the Rings came to pass, charting the creation of the One Ring, the founding of Mordor, and the early years of ancient characters such as Elrond and Galadriel. The Rings of Power also recounts the origin of mithril, with Robert Aramayo's Elrond arriving in Moria shortly after Durin IV and co. unearth their very first nugget.
With The Lord of the Rings only touching briefly upon mithril's history, The Rings of Power gets to fill some gaps. Here's every gem Durin IV and Elrond dig out from the caverns of Middle-earth's history books.
When The Dwarves Discovered Mithril In Moria
J.R.R. Tolkien doesn't specify exactly when the Dwarves first discovered Moria's troves of mithril, and since the mountain kingdom existed even before the First Age, the history of them there mines stretches back millennia. In The Rings of Power canon, mithril was evidently discovered midway through the Second Age during the reign of Durin III, before the Rings of Power themselves were forged. Though this information is certainly illuminating, Amazon's timeline rubs awkwardly against Tolkien's. The legendary author's The Lord of the Rings appendices subtly hint that mithril was indeed unearthed during the early Second Age, but Tolkien also writes that Eregion was founded specifically because the Elves heard rumors about an exciting new discovery in Moria. With Eregion already well-established in The Rings of Power, mithril seems to have been uncovered a little later than it should've - a consequence, no doubt, of Amazon bunching centuries of Second Age lore together.
How The Dwarves First Detected Mithril In Moria
Less disruptive to The Lord of the Rings mythology is The Rings of Power's explanation for how mithril was initially discovered. J.R.R. Tolkien merely writes that Durin's folk found this valuable treasure deep within Moria's mountainous caverns and prized it above the usual gems and minerals they excavated. The Rings of Power adds a little color to that story, explaining how dwarf-singers such as Disa use their echoing voices as a rudimentary sonar system to detect which spots are worth mining. It was Disa's uncanny vocal skills that pinpointed an unusual mineral hiding beneath the rock, and the Dwarves' lucrative mithril business soon began in earnest.
Releasing The Balrog Could've Been Avoided
In The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf recounts the cautionary tale of Durin's Bane. By the beginning of the Third Age and Durin VI's reign, mithril had become so scarce Moria's miners were forced deeper and deeper to find new lodes. Their greed awoke the Balrog from Moria's depths and brought Khazad-dûm to total ruin. The Rings of Power adds another wrinkle to that story, retroactively making the Dwarves' greed look worse. Durin IV tells Elrond that mining mithril is far more dangerous than ordinary digging, and a tragic accident almost ends the lives of four dwarf workers. Durin III shuts the mithril operation down completely as a result, but the prevalence of the silver stuff in Tolkien's Third Age means digging will inevitably resume sooner or later. Had Moria's dwarves simply heeded King Durin III's caution and left mithril well enough alone, much pain and bloodshed could've been avoided.
Why Mithril Was REALLY So Important To The Dwarves
The Lord of the Rings makes no secret of the Dwarves' greed problem. Barely a chapter passes in The Hobbit without some nod to how the race's obsession with shiny gems keeps getting them killed. The Rings of Power doesn't really need to explain why the Dwarves would risk their own safety just to get their filthy hands on a slither of mithril - it's simply their nature to do so. Nevertheless, Durin IV tells Elrond that he hopes mithril will finally establish the Dwarves among the peoples of Middle-earth. He isn't just seeing the dwarvish equivalent of dollar signs or getting caught in its glowing prettiness - Durin sees mithril as a brighter future for his kingdom, allowing them to create weapons and architecture that surpasses the loftier races of Elves and Men. Durin's reasoning taps into J.R.R. Tolkien's origin story for the Dwarves - the race wasn't created by Eru Ilúvatar, so was destined to always be inferior. Mithril could've redressed the balance.
How Other Races Learned About Mithril
Ultimately, of course, the Dwarves trade their mithril pretty freely, and the Elves even develop their own version called ithildim. When The Rings of Power begins, however, mithril is Moria's deepest, darkest secret, and Durin III is paranoid Eregion's elves might even become suspicious of its existence. Though there's still much trust to be built between races, The Rings of Power takes a big first step toward bridging that diplomatic gap when Durin IV entrusts Elrond with a nugget of mithril as a token of friendship. The elf promises he'll keep the secret safe, but this one-sided trade is a first example of Moria sharing its greatest treasure with the Elves - a relationship that will last throughout the Second Age.
The Doors Of Durin's Origin
In The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and his backing troupe enter Moria through the west gate - an ornate and magical doorway that requires a spoken password to open. Crafted by Celebrimbor himself, the door is inlaid with mithril (the ithildim variety) but The Rings of Power shows what the gate looked like pre-mithril - carved only from stone and using manual labor instead of magic as a security system. Now The Rings of Power episode 4 has confirmed mithril is pouring from Moria's veins and Elrond has laid the groundwork for a friendship with Eregion, it's surely only a matter of time until construction begins on the Doors of Durin.
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Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power continues Thursday/Friday on Prime Video.