‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’: Ismael Cruz Córdova Explains Arondir’s Story

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 delivers shocking, heartbreaking twists in its first four episodes as the last pockets of resistance to Sauron’s (Charlie Vickers) domination of Middle-earth get smaller. The season premiered with four (of eight) episodes on Wednesday, November 11, on Prime Video.

In the video interview above, The Rings of Power star Ismael Cruz Córdova gives us an in-depth breakdown of Arondir’s journey in the action-packed premiere. The Verity star reveals he learned what happens to Arondir in Season 3 a few months before filming began and shares the story of how he found out, as well as his first reaction. Warning: The Rings of Power Season 3 premiere spoilers ahead.

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Córdova plays Arondir in The Rings of Power, an Elf character created for the series. He started off as a soldier patrolling the Southlands in Season 1, where he fell in love with the human Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi). After her death, Arondir took his love’s son, Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), in as his own, realizing not only that the boy needed a father figure but also that he wanted to step into that role himself.

Theo rebelled against Arondir’s attempts to connect because he grew up under the Elves’ military occupation of the Southlands, but, eventually, he welcomed Arondir into his life and understood that he wanted to help him. In Season 3, Arondir and Theo have been separated for five years, a short span of time for an Elf but not for a human. Their reunion in Episode 4 becomes Arondir’s last stand.

The soulful Elf and expert archer crosses paths with Theo on a cliffside at the Orc fortress of Gundabad, where he and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Orc ally Marnûkh (Adam Young) had unexpectedly found Celeborn (Jamie Campbell Bower), Galadriel’s long-lost husband, imprisoned. They tried to escape as Sauron grew near and were shocked to discover that the ring servant Nazgnagôl they were fighting was Theo.

He had accepted a ring of power for mortal men from Sauron to escape oppression, but he hadn’t realized the dark depths of the deal he made. Theo warned Arondir to leave, as it was just Galadriel and Celeborn that Sauron wanted, but Arondir refused to leave without the young man who had become a son to him.

Ben Rothstein / Prime Video

Sauron ordered Theo to kill Arondir. His ring-bearing hand shook like it was under a spell, and Theo followed the order, killing Arondir with his sword.

Córdova tells TV Insider that there was “an element of choice” in the death for Arondir.

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“I don’t think I would’ve left [Theo]. I think that was it,” Córdova says of his character’s heroic final stand. “The thing is, [Arondir] knew what had to be done in that moment. One person needed to stay so that the others, including Marnûkh, could go. That decision was made.”

Arondir knew that death was possible when he stood up to Theo and tried to save him. The archer could put up a noble fight, but few people can fight Sauron and win.

Córdova is grateful for the unforgettable experience that The Rings of Power gave him, but he admits that he’s going to miss playing Arondir. He also had a gut feeling that the end was coming for him this season when series creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay asked him to meet in London in the months before filming started. Córdova was in Puerto Rico at the time to be with his sick father, so he had a Zoom call with the executive producers instead.

“I was having a very clear moment of existentialism of life is short, life is fragile,” Córdova tells us above. This perspective made him grateful for the “incredible four-episode arc” he got to end Arondir’s story. He knew when he signed on for the series years ago that Arondir was on borrowed time. The Rings of Power plans to make five seasons total, and some of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s most epic stories of the Second Age of Middle-earth still have to play out. They’re building to the fall of Númenor and the War of the Last Alliance, where Elves and men will unite to defeat Sauron and cut the One Ring from his hand.

Córdova feels it makes sense that original characters made for the show might not have space to make it to the end, so he’s happy that he got one of “the best-case scenarios” when it comes to a character death. Arondir gets an epic hero’s ending surrounded by some of Tolkien’s most famous characters.

“In a pure Tolkien fan-girling moment, [in] my death there’s Nazgnagôl [an early stage of a Nazgûl/Ringwraith], there’s Sauron, there’s Galadriel, there’s Celeborn, and there’s this freaking beast of an eagle…and this incredible Orc,” Córdova says. “I have such a Tolkien ending.”

Learn all about Arondir’s ending, including the story of how Córdova found out his character was dying, in the full video interview above.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Season 3, Wednesdays, Prime Video